Before I say anything about this story, I would like to go on the record and say that I am an animal lover and do not condone any mistreatment of them whatsoever.  I have had many pets throughout my life and have loved and cared for each one as a member of the family.  I currently have three Great Danes in the family.

That said, I tend to have mixed feelings about how Bart Jensen has chosen to honor his late cat Orville. Most people just bury their dead pets, others choose cremation, but not Jensen, a visual artist from Holland.  After Orville was hit by a car and killed, Jensen decided that the best way to honor his deceased cat was to turn him into a radio controlled helicopter that he calls the ‘Orvillecopter.’

Now the animal lover side of me instinctively says, that sick freak did what? Turning your late cat into a flying contraption is not honoring him in any way, shape or form. It’s disrespectful and pretty damn creepy too. And if the cat’s name was anything but Orville, I would leave it at that.

But because Jensen says that Orville was named after the famous aviator Orville Wright of the Wright Brothers, and his favorite activity was chasing after flying birds, I will entertain the argument that he is in fact honoring his feline friend, albeit in a weird way. We’ll never know if being turned into a full-body chopper was Orville’s last dying wish – I’m guessing he never scratched out a will – but one can’t help but think that flying high with the birds is exactly where he would want to be. Jensen says that flying with the birds is “the greatest goal a cat could ever reach!”

I can’t help but think that Prince wrote a song specifically for this story. Perhaps Jensen and Prince have been planning this for years.

Admittedly, Jensen’s ‘artistic’ way of dealing with the death of his cat is much more of an honor to his memory than stuffing him in an old shoe box and burying him in an unmarked shallow grave somewhere – which I’m willing to bet is what a large portion of people do with their beloved pets when they die.

Do you think Jensen’s ‘Orvillecopter’ is an acceptable way to honor a family pet?

Watch the video of Jensen flying his dead cat helicopter:

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