Filipino toy maker David Tan wanted to memorialize his pet Golden Retriever after it passed away in 2019. So he did so in the way he knew how – by making a plushie of it.

Since then, the 48-year-old has helped thousands of other animal lovers cope with the grief of losing their pets by offering a service to create realistic replicas of them.

“Even though your pet isn’t here anymore, just by being able to see it there in the position that it used to like – say on the couch – it really brings back memories,” said Tan, the owner of Pampanga Teddy Bear Factory.

Tan, with his team of 20 employees, receives local and international commissions for the pet plushies. The range of animals they have made includes various breeds of dogs and cats, and also smaller animals like hamsters and rabbits.

Customers send details and measurements of the animal along with pictures and videos for Tan’s team to use as a reference.

The animal’s silhouette is first drawn on a piece of cardboard which is later sewn onto fabric to create a shell, later filled with stuffing. The plushie’s synthetic fur is intricately airbrushed to recreate the colors and markings of the deceased pet.

Tan said that the materials for making the pet replicas are the same as the ones used for teddy bears.

“We’re not (doing) taxidermy. So it removes that ‘ick’ factor. This is actually one hundred percent, genuinely a stuffed toy,” he said.

Each plushie takes about two days to produce, but due to the volume of orders they receive – sometimes hundreds in a month – Tan says it can go up to weeks before a customer receives their plushie.

Depending on the size and the amount of detail involved, each pet replica costs about 3,500 pesos (USD 65), which for many clients, is a small price to pay for the comfort they receive in return.

“It has lessened the feeling of longing because now we can see that he is just here. Although his ashes are here, and his memories are here, it’s so much better to see something that really resembles him,” said 38-year-old customer and dog lover Jaja Lazarte.