The 5 Craziest Things People Are Doing With Dead Animals

Using a homemade "trade secret" salt-based solution, Cagliastro is able to mummify your pet for anywhere from $800 to $4,000. She's done many animals, including a macaw, a millipede, a peacock, a guinea pig, and an armadillo.

Getty
Technically, the millipede wasn't a mummification so much as a margarita-based accident at a dive bar where Cagliastro had been moonlighting.

She's also done a stillborn puppy. Unfortunately, the Disney Channel axed the Puppy Mummy pilot to make room for Dog With a Blog.

Take sculptor Kate Clark, who combines natural animal remains, sculpting materials, and direct messages from Satan to create these works:

Kate Clark

Kate Clark
Pictured above: Two reasons you never piss off a wizard.

And now with Etsy providing a forum, artists like Kelly Zepha Owen who might not have gallery exhibits can explore the growing field of taxidermy art.

Morbid Curiosities Taxidermy
"Our next trick? Getting you to stop screaming someday."

And even artists who can't rise to the challenge of the provocative can still endeavor to do truly misguided and terrible things to dead animals. Just take Orville the Helicopter Cat!

LA Times
They call death the great equalizer, but somehow it seems that Orville lost a lot more than most people here.

Whereas most pet owners would grieve over their loss, Dutch artist Bart Jansen saw beauty. Of course, not possessing any of the artistic skill necessary to achieve that beauty, he strapped some propellers on a corpse, and voila!

Perhaps that's what the owner of Buck -- once the Guinness World Record holder for largest Saint Bernard -- was thinking when his dog passed away. With a heavy heart, Buck's owner sawed off his head and preserved it like any other hunting trophy. Indeed, Buck's head was so freakishly large, the taxidermist had to use a grizzly bear mold to mount it. But when you care enough about a dead dog to display part of its body in a Utah bar like an award, you're willing to go that extra mile.

The next thing you know, she's inviting you over for her anniversary party, to be held inside Vincent Price's mausoleum. Great. BUT WHAT WILL YOU WEAR?!

This is something that's happened to all of us, but now, with the growing field of dead stuff jewelry and clothing, you'll always look your best when partying with the Burtons.

Why not a tasteful jacket from Alexander McQueen? Something that says, "Let's go out dancing, then out to a fine restaurant, and then home, where I will murder you."

Alexander McQueen

Some pieces make more subtle use of animal remains, but subtlety won't get you on top of Lady Gaga's head, like this crafty rat headdress with bedazzled tail crafted from glitter-dusted childhood trauma:

re/encore
Only two rats, because more would be distasteful.

Anyway, McKinney sent some of Booger's cells and $50,000 off to South Korean scientists, who produced the first commercially cloned offspring in 2009. You might think that's a little disturbing, but that's probably because you haven't heard McKinney explain her thought process:

"I believe that Booger was an angel that God rented out to me for a short period of time ... And he knew I would be lost without him, so he sent me some more. He sent me five more mini-Boogers."

Let's break that down. God wanted McKinney to have Booger for a short time. I'm guessing that's why he smote Booger with cancer -- because he had a plan that McKinney only deserved a temporary angel. Furthermore, God knew McKinney would be lost without an angel, which I guess is further support for the smiting. Next, God sent McKinney more Boogers. Except he didn't. Even if there is a God creating canine angels in his kingdom, these cloned dogs clearly had nothing to do with that. These weren't divine acts of creation, but expensive imported products. Lastly, "mini-Boogers" is a really gross phrase. Stop it.

But hey. To each his own. McKinney converted one cancer-ridden dead dog into five new puppies with the exact same genetic material, so I'm guessing that's like five soon-to-be-cancer-ridden dead dogs.

Watch the new HATE BY NUMBERS, where Will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas recruits Britney Spears to make even worse music. And come see Gladstone do stand-up at the Gotham Comedy Club in New York City at 9:30 p.m. on Wednesday, February 20, 2013.

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