Freeze dried man’s best friend forever
CALL it macabre but some pet owners who can’t bear to bury or cremate their muchloved furry companions are turning to another option – freeze-drying.
It’s expensive, up to $5000 for a big dog, but Markus Michalowitz, from Kandanga, near Gympie, offers the chance to keep your pooch or
moggy with you forever.
Mr Michalowitz, 52, is the only person in Australia set up to freeze-dry pets and at least one dog or cat – or guinea pig, ferret, rabbit or bird – arrives at his Pet Preservation workshop every week to undergo the process.
“It’s better than a picture,” Mr Michalowitz said. “You can touch it, feel it. They turn out very, very good. They’re
that real that you do a double take and have to look at them a while before you go, hang on ...”
It’s an elaborate process that culminates in the frozen animal being placed inside a vacuum chamber which slowly evaporates all moisture.
After up to three months in the chamber for a small cat or dog, and five months for a larger animal, the pets are
then airbrushed and varnished around the eyelids and nose and ready to return home.
Mr Michalowitz said that if the pet is kept out of high humidity and the sun and not placed near heaters or fireplaces, it will last forever.
He has freeze-dried, Rosie, the beloved red cattle dog of celebrity builder, Scott Cam, and the Pomeranian that starred in the crime series, Underbelly: Razor.
Amanda Such, 44, did not think she was the type of person who would have her cats freeze-dried until two of her cats, Rosie and Milton, died within two months of each other. After burying Rosie, she couldn’t bear to do the same with three-year-old Milton, so she had him freezedried curled up, as if asleep.