🔒The Right Stuffing: Taxidermist preserves pets, big catches and memories

If you can hunt it, catch it or kill it, Gregg P. Snedeker can stuff it.

Snedeker is the proprietor of Snedd’s Taxidermy, where for the past 16 years he’s been preserving people’s prized, big-game catches and beloved pets for all eternity.

With his studio based out of the basement of his home at 4 Slater Lane in Wallingford, Snedeker is an expert in creating everlasting wildlife trophies and mounts.

Since he was a teenager, Snedeker enjoyed reading articles about taxidermy and was mesmerized by the deer heads and other mounts he saw in hunting magazines. But he never really pursued his passion until he received a gift certificate from his sister-in-law years later for taxidermy lessons.

“From the moment I started classes, I was hooked,” Snedeker says.

Snedekder had been working full-time as a taxidermist since 2004, but for the past two years, since taking a full-time job outside the home, now pursues the unique craft part-time.

“For me, this is not a job, it’s a passion,” says Snedeker, father of two grown children and five grandchildren.

Most of Snedeker’s clients are hunters and fishermen. Many of the animals they’ve either hunted or caught — from black bears to bass and raccoons to rabbits — can be preserved and displayed indefinitely with pride, thanks to Snedeker’s skills.

"People entrust me with their beloved pets and prized catches because I always treat them as if they were my own," Snedeker says. "I take great pride in my work. I love the look on my customers' faces when they come pick up their mount.

“I had a young woman cry when she picked up her Chihuahua because it looked just like her pet,” he recalls. “I take the time needed to make them look like before they passed."

Taxidermy is a unique art form. Snedeker tans and dries the animal hide, then mounts it onto a form where he works for hours on end, applying painstaking details to ensure the end product looks as natural and, well, lifelike as possible. It often takes up to six to eight months for a customer to receive the finished piece.

While many requests come from hunters and fishermen who want to memorialize their prize as a memento of a successful expedition, Snedeker also gets requests from pet owners, who aren’t ready to physically say goodbye to their beloved fur babies.

“I do get a lot of requests from pet owners,” Snedeker says. “I would guess they just can't really let them go, and want to keep their pets close to them.”

One of the most unusual requests Snedeker ever received was to preserve a client’s dog’s front paws. The most common requests for Snedeker to memorialize are deer heads and fish.

Personally, Snedeker has a deer head hanging in his own home which he hunted, along with a red fox and a rattlesnake he preserved for his wife of 34 years. He also mounted a small black bear for his granddaughter.

Snedeker also has quite the sense of humor (one hesitates to call it “deadpan”), and sometimes has preserved such otherwise unremarkable creatures as squirrels and mounted them in humorous displays.

“They say laughter is the best medicine,” he says. “There isn’t a home out there that wouldn’t look better with a squirrel playing golf or even shooting some hoops. I saw the forms for these in a taxidermy catalogue and thought it would be fun.”

And fun it is. (For the squirrel? Not so much.) To learn more, phone Sned’s at 203-671-8198, or visit online at snedstaxidermy.com.