My cat arrived in pieces
My cat Niko was my everything. I am writing this review to warn people about OddArticulations and hopefully prevent anyone else from having the same traumatic experience I had. Niko was my life partner of 16 years and when he passed unexpectedly, I was beside myself with grief. I came upon OddArticulations and was impressed by their work, as well as the emphasis on their website of the care they take with each pet and keeping the owners informed throughout the process. Initially, while trying to earn my business, Dalton, the owner, was communicative about the process, shipping instructions, etc. However, during the 9 months that Dalton had my boy's body, I had to elicit updates from Dalton. When work was completed, Niko was shipped to me in a very large but very light box filled with shipping peanuts. Before I even opened the box, I noticed there was no "FRAGILE" label on the outside, which immediately concerned me. By not putting a fragile label on a box with a skeleton, Dalton did not take the necessary precautions to ship my cat's skeleton to me safely. Upon opening the box, as I lifted him out, I immediately noticed his head was not in the correct position and his jaw was missing. During shipment, his neck had snapped forward due to inadequate protection and stabilization, and it had snapped his jaw off. His cheek bone was also broken. I was completely shocked and devastated and immediately emailed Dalton to alert him. Dalton responded that it should be a "quick fix" with some super glue. With part of his face missing and my lack of expertise in fixing skeletons, I replied that it did not in fact seem like a quick fix and that I was devastated. Dalton proceeded to grasp for straws, claiming that there was extensive deterioration of his skull. In the 9 months that Dalton was working on my boy, he never once advised me that there was damage to or "deterioration" of his skull. It was only once he arrived to me damaged that he brought this up. I asked him why he hadn't said anything about deterioration within the 9 months he possessed my cat, to which he responded that he had assumed I had noticed. I am not a skeleton expert and it is completely unreasonable that they would have assumed I would notice on my own any kind of deterioration without explicitly explaining it to me. I asked him that if there was supposed deterioration of his skull, which was never communicated to me, why extra precaution wasn't taken when shipping him, such as the bare minimum of a fragile label? How would UPS have even known to take special care with such a light, large box if there isn't any indication of fragile contents? This man said "It is well known that postal workers target boxes labeled with fragile stickers and treat them far worse than unmarked boxes." The box was so light that UPS could have easily tossed it around without damaging the exterior of the box, but certainly doing damage to the fragile skeleton inside. And in fact, there was no damage to the outside of the box, and no indication of fragile contents, so I don't even have the option of filing a claim with UPS. I am left with the conclusion that Dalton did not adequately stabilize my cat's skeleton for shipping and was negligent in indicating the fragile contents of the package, so that the large, light box was tossed around, damaging my cat's body. After this whole ordeal of receiving Niko's body in pieces, Dalton suggesting I fix it myself, and blaming me for not noticing "deterioration" in pictures, I requested a small refund of $400 (I paid over $1,500 for the entire process) so that I could hand-deliver Niko's skeleton to another specialist to have him fixed. Dalton immediately denied my request , and suggested I file a claim with UPS, which is not even a viable option because there was no damage to the exterior of the box! After I told him (again) that this was not an option for me because the box was undamaged, he ghosted me. I am traumatized from working with this business. Their actions of inadequately packing and protecting my cat's body, as well as Dalton's patronizing attitude towards the damage, demonstrate to me that they did not care about my pet or the integrity of their work. In addition to the pictures attached here, I have our email correspondence for anyone interested in the receipts. I can't undo the damage to my beloved cat's body, or the overwhelming grief this has caused me, but hopefully this will prevent someone else from having the same heartbreaking experience I did with OddArticulations.
By ET