\n<\/p>\n
In 2010, Katie Teixeira adopted a kitten found all alone in an abandoned house. The kitten \u2013 so tiny she fit in the palm of Teixeira\u2019s hand \u2013 needed to be bottle-fed every few hours. For weeks, Teixeira set her alarm for middle-of-the-night feedings and drove home on her lunch break to care for the kitten she named Milo. As the cat grew, so did the connection between them.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just bonded,\u201d Teixeira says. \u201cLike mother and daughter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eventually, Teixeira and her husband adopted four more cats, but Milo, a tabby with white toes, maintained a special place in Teixeira\u2019s heart. \u201cPeople talk about soul animals,\u201d she says. \u201cMilo was my soul cat.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Milo died in 2021, Teixeira was bereft. She wanted a way to commemorate her. While Teixeira, who was working as a procurement analyst for CVS Health at the time, had seen pet memorial jewelry online, keepsakes that sometimes included the animal\u2019s ashes or fur, \u201cit just didn\u2019t speak to me\u201d, she says. \u201cI\u2019ve always been artistic and very crafty. So I was like, let me try doing something myself.\u201d<\/p>\n
It took a few years for inspiration to strike, but in 2023, Teixeira made a ring using a few of the whiskers Milo had shed while she was alive, crisscrossing them over a shimmering silver resin.<\/p>\n
What happened next, she says, \u201chappened very fast\u201d.<\/p>\n
When Teixeira wore the ring to her next volunteer shift at PawsWatch, the cat shelter near her home outside Providence, Rhode Island, she was inundated with requests from people who wanted their own. Soon, Teixeira was making dozens of pieces, which she began posting on her social media accounts. When one of her Instagram reels<\/a> went viral, her inbox swelled with questions and requests. So Teixeira took two days off from work and built a website. Just three months after she made her first ring, Fallen Whiskers<\/a> was born.<\/p>\n For a while, the business was Teixeira\u2019s side hustle, a passion project that filled her nights and weekends and allowed her to support the shelter, where she donates a portion of her proceeds. But then, in 2024, she was laid off from her job of 20 years.<\/p>\n Friends and family encouraged her to make her side hustle a full-time gig.<\/p>\n \u201cI remember saying to her, and I know it\u2019s cliche, that when one door closes, another opens up,\u201d says Donna Lilla, the operations manager at PawsWatch. \u201cIt just felt meant to be.\u201d<\/p>\n But Teixeira wasn\u2019t so sure.<\/p>\n \u201cI was terrified,\u201d she remembers. Her husband\u2019s work as a heavy equipment operator could sustain the family only for so long. But her startup costs would be minimal; all she needed was a small stockpile of ring and necklace settings, the mica powder she used to create the resin backgrounds \u2013 and the whiskers, teeth and claws of pet owners who put their trust in her. She decided to test the business out, only for a few months.<\/p>\n Two years later, Teixeira fills about 15 orders a week for pieces that sell for $125 to $150. She has more than 100,000 Instagram followers. Her customers speak about her in adoring terms.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s doing God\u2019s work,\u201d says Rebecca Snyder, a non-profit professional from Westchester county, New York, who remembers the day she lost her cat Emma as \u201cliterally the worst day of my life\u201d. The pain was so overwhelming, the 40-year-old sought grief counseling.<\/p>\n Snyder says the matching teardrop ring and pendant necklace that Teixeira designed, with whiskers laid over a pearlescent green resin that matched the Maine Coon\u2019s eyes, provided tremendous comfort: \u201cI felt like I had done Emma justice by honoring her in such a beautiful way.\u201d<\/p>\n Teixeira has incorporated whiskers, ashes, fur, teeth, claw sheaths, reptile skins, horse mane, hedgehog quills, bones and bits of favorite toys and blankets into cufflinks, bracelets, earrings and necklaces. (All materials must be shed naturally or collected after death, she said.) She has made a pendant of lion whiskers for a zookeeper mourning the big cat and another pendant of tiger whiskers for the sanctuary worker who cared for the rescued animal.<\/p>\n Fallen Whiskers is a part of a broader shift in how Americans view their pets. According to the Pew Research Center<\/a>, 97% of owners consider their animals to be part of the family; more than half say their pet is as much a part of their family as a human member. Also on the rise: the amount of money pet owners are willing to spend on their animals, during their lives and afterwards, including on things like cremation, burial, memorial services and the kinds of bespoke consumer goods Teixeira produces.<\/p>\n Americans spent $157bn<\/a> on their pets in 2025, up from $90bn in 2018, according to the American Pet Products Association.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m still kind of wrapping my head around the fact that I am where I am right now,\u201d Teixeira says of being able to earn a living from her passion project. \u201cI guess I\u2019ve made it.\u201d<\/p>\n But \u201cmaking it\u201d, she\u2019s learned, is very much a job that never ends.<\/p>\n When she started out, Teixeira tried to do her own accounting using QuickBooks but soon became overwhelmed. She decided to hire a part-time bookkeeper, the only individual on her payroll besides herself. \u201cIt\u2019s just one thing I don\u2019t have to worry about, and I can focus more on my customers and my orders,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Balancing her books has gotten much trickier in the last year. In April 2025, the Trump administration announced a 10% minimum tariff on almost all jewelry-related imports<\/a> (with some countries and products facing much higher rates), a policy that affects Teixeira, who imports materials she can\u2019t source in the US. A shaky market, meanwhile, has pushed investors into assets like precious metals, a trend that has essentially tripled what she pays for silver and gold.<\/p>\n \u201cI have to extend that cost on to the customers,\u201d she says. \u201cIt sucks \u2013 period.\u201d<\/p>\n