Look closely – can you tell which of the above pets is alive? If not, then that's the whole point! Enter Perpetual Pet, a company that freeze-dries your pet after she passes. Without going into too many morbid details, you can choose to preserve your pet's entire body in a natural state, not just the outer hide (like taxidermy). To get started, your pet is put in a sealed vacuum chamber at a very low temp and, over time, the accumulating frozen moisture is converted into a gaseous state then extracted – taking over six months for larger dogs. Unsurprisingly, the price for this process is not cheap; the service starts at $395 for pets weighing zero to three pounds up to $595 for 10 pounds (with $50 extra for each additional pound). Just when I truly thought I had heard of everything, up popped this company. Oh, and about that question I started with – both Trigger and Tiny are now perpetual pets.
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Do You Want a Perpetual Pet?
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1That is creeeeeeeppppppppppppppppyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!
Death is a part of life and as much as I love my pets seeing them preserved would scare me plus that cannot be too good for you mental state to hold onto to something like that.
Ive heard of people cremating their pets and taking the ashes to make diamonds so that they will always have their pets near them (they do it with people too)
2JessNess, I second that first part..
3There comes a time where you just have to learn to let go... Donating that money to a pet charity would be such a better way to preserve your pet's memory!!! GGGRRRR
4yuck! who would even want to do that??
5I love my dogs to death (no pun intended) but EWWWW! Not to mention, how much would that freak my kid out? We already have stuffed animal (as in the toy kind) incarnations of both dogs for the kiddo to sleep with at night, as the real dogs sleep with Mommy LOL
6That is so gross. I love my babies but when they pass, they pass that is it.
7yeah creepy. they recently just completed the dna of a dog, so they now have the ability to clone your dog, as well. not that i would do it, even if i could afford to, but its an interesting thought. though im not sure a clone of Max would be just like my Max..
8That's disturbing!
9i would not no no no... maybe keep the ashes or something but not freeze my pet
10WAY TOO WEIRD FOR ME!
11I just get my pets ashes and a pawprint
That's kind of morbid. I would not want my dead pet staring at me.
12No way. I'm having mine made into diamonds.
I don't think of death as an ending, but
a new beginning, so I never refer to the end of my cat's lives as "death" but simple a new form. Example: "When my cats aren't in cat form anymore, I'm not going to get another pet." Keeping
their vessels (bodies) around is just negative energy.
13It would just make me cry all the time to see my dead dog stuffed and staring at me with lifeless eyes....However, as weird as it seems, I like the idea of turning the ashes into diamonds. It seems less morbid.
14Creepy. Spend the money on giving home to a new pet
15Creepy, weird, and gross. I love my Cuba "Noodle Love" but I will have him cremated and diamonds made from his ashes and of course get me a new little love.
16these things creep me out
17these things creep me out
18It costs around 6 Grand to make a Pets ashes into a diamond. Just FYI
Two weeks ago I had to put my 12 year old Cat to sleep, his name was mazzy and he was the love of my life. My lap was never ever cold, he always had a purr for me, laid next to me all night with his head on the pillow, and watched me take bubble baths. There will never be another like him. When it came time for the Vet to give the shot, I held him in my arms and told him over and over again that I loved him, it’s the most heartwrenching thing I have ever gone through. I literally felt him leave me, and I hugged him one last time and felt his fur against my cheek. I COULDN’T IMAGINE then turning to the vet and saying “so I would like him freeze dried and make him look alive” Its disgusting and quite frankly morbid and insulting to your pet. The people that do this have serious mental health issues and don’t understand the meaning of love and loss and memories.
19I can just close my eyes and see my mazzy-face.
"Yay and God said unto Abraham..." (Family Guy, anyone?) I did a report on body disposal three and a half years ago and included a section on LifeGems, among other companies. There is also a nifty company called Eternal Reef that turns cremains into a reef base that develops into a home for sea life. Their website is great! For even more eco-conscious urns, earthurns.com has these gorgeous bio-degradable shell urns.
20Foudini, i actually went to Eternal Reefs and saw thier set up, its actually quite nice, and they have these really nice necklaces that tell the latitude and longitude where they put the reefs with the cremains.
21I'm sorry...this is SO WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ICK!!!! Talk about a loss of dignity for your beloved pet
22Gross. As. Hell. Give the money to the local shelter instead!
23Creepy! I had a friend who wanted to do this to her cat...
24this is so NOT about how much you love your pet. I love my dog more than life itself. literally, i am obsessive, would throw myself in front of a car for her, etc.
25losing a pet is losing a family member (for obsessive dog lovers like me) i wouldn't want to freeze dry a family member, why the hell would i want to do that to my dog??
THAT'S HORRIBLE! Ethics, morals, just shot out the window right there....
26gross!!!!!!!!!!
27ick!! I'm a total pet lover, particularly cats, and I would NEVER do this. The last 2 cats that I had to have put to sleep, one because she was 22 and was literally getting lost in corners and couldn't use the litter box any more, and another that had kidney cancer that finally won after several thousand dollars worth of chemo (which did make him better for almost a year so it was worth it in my mind) I talked to the vet and found out that I could donate their bodies to colleges that had vet schools, so that's what I did.
28Might sound a little bit cold hearted, but just knowing that maybe they might find something that would help other cats or even just helping new vets get trained well, really helped.
Omg lol I accidentally voted maybe, then I saw how off the poll was an realized this was about stuffing not cloning!
I think cloning is less creepy because honestly I think about it more like a twin brother or sister, a sibling, and there is one pet I would consider doing it with.
Luckily, there are plenty of good animals in the shelter though, so until we solve the overpopulation problem I will never have to worry about "replacing" a pet.
29no way, meow.
30This is absolutely the worst thing you could do for your pet. Imagine Grandma sitting in the corner, stuffed and staring!!! Ew!! Once it's their timeto go, you just have to let go. I've cried {A LOT} more over pets' deaths than relatives, but I couldn't bare for any of them to be stuffed, that's just not right.
31CaterpillarGirl, I'm so sorry and you actually made me cry just thinking about what you were going through. I've never been there and I pray that I never have to make such a difficult decision.
32When I was little, my friend's mom had this done to their cat and put it at her bedside. I was always so creeped out by it, but my friend didn't seem to mind!
33YUCK!YUCK!YUCK!
HOW CAN SOMEBODY DO THAT?!
34Wrong on so many levels.
35CaterpillarGirl's comment also made me tear a bit... my dog, Ellie, is the reason I didn't go to college far away and I've spent so much of my money on gas and parking to come home and see her every weekend (and sometimes more because I can't stand it). She follows me everywhere, sleeps with me every night, doesn't eat when I'm gone and I'm so scared that when she dies I'm never talk to anyone again lol I was thinking of maybe getting another dog so that when she passes it won't be as bad going from 1 dog to no dog, rather than 2 dogs to 1 dog... I'm not sure though, I'm always worried she'll feel like I don't love her as much or something... I sound pretty crazy right about now. haha
36That is so creepy. I wouldn't stuff a human member of my family after their passing - why do it to a pet? Let them rest in peace.
37I'm going to have to pass on the Perpetual Pet. While I definitely do miss having my Tensil around, it's beyond the physical body, it's the interactions that we had together and the little movements or twitches that he had that I missed...and a freeze-dried or taxidermied dog just doesn't fill that spot. I'm actually happy with having Tensil's ashes in our little alcove with his picture. I pass it everyday, and it always brings me fond and happy memories
38Okay. Wait a minute. Think about that for a minute: when the pet is dead, hopefully it's old. It's not the same as when it was young and actually cute. It's not the same pet that was in it's prime.
(Sorry in advance if that offended...I have animals and I love them all, and when they get old and not-so-cute I will still love them and do the best for them. But when they start losing teeth and hair, cataracts, etc... I don't want to remember them THAT way.)
39Um, some people just really need a hug.
Why Why WHY?
40How very close minded many of you are. As it happens, I am getting this done w/ my 19 year old cat by this same lady. I go to pick him up this weekend. What we are really dealing with is Taboos. If any of you care to enlighten yourselves you will see that many cultures have what most of you would term disgusting and wrong traditions. The truth is, there are those that think your way is disgusting or disrespectful, such as the practice of embalming, most of the world does not do this so it is a matter of perspective. There is a tribe in Africa where a women wears the dried foot of her late husband around her neck or in the Philippines families live in the crowded cemeteries among the dead & even eat off coffins. Nobody should be making the kind of judgments I see in the comments. It is fine to say, " It's not for me, this is how I feel about for myself" but I do not feel the way you feel about death and I do not see the process from your eyes, therefore it is not creepy, gross, disrespectful, or really ANY of the things people have said.
I view death similar to Native Americans, I have a deep respect for the spirit as well as the spirit's container. I'm also highly empathic, when I hold remains it is a very spiritual & calming experience for me. Ever since I was little & would play in the woods behind my parent's house I would find animal remains, usually turtles or small bones and I felt compelled to collect them. I would think, "some poor animal has died & no one will ever know what this individual life was like, who will remember their sacrifice". I have also experienced deaths at least 100 times throughout my life b/c I have always had a lot of of animals (used to have in/outdoor cats that caught a lot of small animals) and being an animal lover I have had many jobs working w/ them. Naturally this lead to a major in Fisheries & Wildlife in college and I will tell you, there is a lot that remains can say about an animal!
I like the freeze dry process b/c it DOES preserve much of the tissue & bones (they remove most of the internal organs but not the brain), to me, that is paying the highest respect to the individual spirit. I like that Pepper is also preserved for posterity, for science, & for education. I feel confident that I could have the ability to clone him still and I'm absolutely fascinated w/ the idea of having 1st hand experience of nurture vs. nature. How would knowing that he was prone to develop kidney stones/GI problems change things? So many possibilities. Further, clearly many of you don't know about the American human funeral process and it may not matter if your cremated & still have a viewing. Not to mention that autopsy are often preformed on people too b4 temporary preservation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embalming I have so much more to say but this is already too long. One last thing, when I die, I WOULD be honored if my husband would have my tattoos (and the skin underneath) preserved, framed & hung on the wall, but he wants no part of it, lol. To each, his own!
41I think that no one should judge how other people grieve for their deceased companion animals. There is nothing inherently wrong or bizarre in needing to preserve your animal. I just suffered the sudden loss of my cat who was like a daughter to me. And I am cosidering having her preserved for several reasons. Npne of which has to do with not being able to deal with death. I chose not to cremate this cat. One could argue that cremation is just as disturbing as preserving an animal. I do not live in a place where I can bury my cat. So I needed a way to retain her for several years. I see that there is a great deal of prejudice against those who choose not to cremate.
42I would do this, I just don't know where I would put them afterwards.
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