Last May, Meredith Jeffers of Rochester, N.Y., went with her cousin into downtown Syracuse to get herself a memorial of a first pet. She got a tattoo of her childhood cat that died shortly after she graduated high school.

“He was there for pretty much my entire childhood,” said Jeffers, a sophomore English and textual studies and writing dual major.

Jeffers’ cousin had gotten a dog roughly around the same time she had gotten her cat, Oreo, who passed away that May. The cousins decided to honor their pets at Scarab Body Art Studio in Armory Square.

“I had gotten two cartilage piercings and my Mom told me ‘no more,’ but after about five piercings, I kind of wore her down, so after I got the tattoo, she was kind of used to it,” Jeffers said.

— Compiled by Hannah Tibbetts, contributing writer, hrtibbet@syr.edu