The Works for Tiger
As you’ve seen, many patients come to the hospital for cleaning and get a spa. Some come to the hospital with balding, and there are usually three options: transplants just for bald spots, full recover, or, if their human wants to keep the well loved look, lining to reinforce from the inside.
In the case of this small tiger, her person opted for the works: spa, full lining, and transplants for bald spots. Here is her diagnosis photo… you can see why skin strength was a concern:
This is what one of her relatives looked like, much younger:
But the plan was not to make Tiger look brand new. She’d earned her wear, and her person loved her that way. The plan, was to keep her herself, but sturdier so she could still be slept with every night.
She started her treatment with a bubble bath (she would need to get restuffed for the spa anyway, so the added bubbles were just a bonus – plus it meant new fur would be matched to her clean fur):
Next she was fully lined (except her ears) in a soft flannel. Stronger than her skin, but not so thick as to change her feel too much. Here is a very rare image of a fully lined patient from the inside. Most people don’t want to see that for their own animals… and if it makes you a bit squeamish, please just scroll down. Heart photos are next. 🙂
That pouch on her back is her bean bag, which she kept.
Next, she was turned right side out and restuffed, including a heart of original stuffing. Here’s her heart being made and installed:
Next it was time to choose new fur. Transplant fabric would be a solid, and then new stripes would be drawn on by hand afterwards. Here were the fur options for striped areas:
Note all the length options too.
Her person chose the shorter length, browner fur. Her’s tiger with her transplants, but without stripes. This is where we figured out if she was the right chubbiness:
We were also figuring out whether to reembroider her mouth, and if we wanted to treat the balding on pale areas. The pale balding wasn’t structural, so her person opted to leave those as is, but we did give her a new embroidered mouth.
And here’s Tiger restriped, all better and ready to fly home:
Her person wrote:
She looks so wonderful!!!! Thank you so much! Thank you so much for repairing and restoring her, she looks fantastic, and like she isn’t going to fall apart anymore, this means so very much to me.
