WESTMINSTER – This time of year has a way of testing Donna Calvert's patience.

JIM MAHONEY/DMN

Today, it's styrofoam, but in the hands of taxidermist Donna Calvert, this white-tailed deer bust will one day look like it's ready to breathe and blink.

It's when triumphant hunters bring in a steady flow of deer heads, bobcats, ducks and other critters to Ms. Calvert's one-woman taxidermy shop.

It takes hours of meticulous precision to transform each fallen quarry into an authentic reproduction. But that isn't the half of it.

"I have to listen to everyone's stories, too," said Ms. Calvert, 49. "It's like an hour each."

The quick-witted, chain-smoking taxidermist has held her own in a male-dominated industry for almost 16 years. She also maintains her own kingdom of living animals, including two horses, four goats, a dog and a wild pig.

Taxidermy, of course, is no calling for the squeamish – Ms. Calvert's regular duties range from cutting off antlers to tanning and pickling hides. But she sees her work as a service that provides a dignified tribute to animals' lives.

"You just have to have a love for animals and try to re-create them in the most lifelike manner," she said. "You don't want to have them looking like they're fixing to be hit by a truck."

The only daughter of an Air Force senior master sergeant, Ms. Calvert hunted and fished all over the country during childhood trips with her father and three brothers.

"I've always been one of the boys, really, my whole life," she said. "I never really hung out with a bunch of girls."

Later, as a single mother of three children, she hurt her shoulder while working as a dog groomer. She was out of work for a spell.

Then Ms. Calvert, who is part American Indian, began selling Indian art, which incorporates animal hides. She crossed paths with a taxidermist on Lake Fork near Sulphur Springs, and the pair went into business together, sharing a shop for four years.

She then set out on her own, starting her own shop in Red River County and later moving to Allen. Two years ago, she relocated to the old fire station in downtown Westminster.

Ms. Calvert says she keeps a relentless focus on capturing the fine points of an animal's likeness – the cowlick under a deer's antler, the wrinkles on its neck, the perfectly tucked nostrils and lips.

JIM MAHONEY/DMN

Taxidermy is no calling for the squeamish - Donna Calvert's regular duties range from cutting off antlers to tanning and pickling hides.

"They look like they're going to breathe and blink, and that's the way they should look," she said.

Although women are a minority in the taxidermy business, their close attention to detail often helps them stand out, said Cindy Crain, membership manager of the National Taxidermists Association in Slidell, La.

"Taxidermists consider themselves artists," Ms. Crain said. "We are artists, and women tend to have an eye for detail."

The best taxidermy projects "tell a story, and women tend to lean toward that in their work," Ms. Crain said.

Dr. Dan McBride, a Burnet veterinarian and president of the Texas Taxidermy Association, said many women in the industry are part of a husband-and-wife team. He said solo operators like Ms. Calvert – who also does her own tanning – are rare.

"I don't know how many of them may be around the state or the nation, but there ain't no stadium full of them," Dr. McBride said. "They're a select little group."

Ms. Calvert often breaks for lunch at the Circle V restaurant, where owner Mary Valverde said she was startled when her regular customer once showed her a longhorn bust in the back of her truck.

"Mostly you think of a man stuffing animals or fixing up deer heads and stuff like this," Ms. Valverde said. "This was a lady. I was very impressed.

"You can't be dainty or scared to touch dead animals if you're going to be doing this kind of work."

Now in the thick of hunting season, Ms. Calvert gets phone calls around the clock from hunters looking to drop off their prized kills. She works seven days a week, often past midnight.

Her shop has nine freezers full of carcasses waiting to be thawed, prepared and mounted, and she expects to add two more freezers by the end of hunting season.

With that hefty backlog, it often takes her eight months to a year to return completed trophies to her customers. But Ms. Calvert makes no apologies for the lengthy turnaround times, which she says are a byproduct of her fastidious habits.

"She makes sure she gets it done right," said Mike Van Norman, a friend who works across the street at Big Slick's Bar & Grill. "She actually makes it look like the real animal."

Her finished projects often depict animals in natural scenes – a raccoon hanging off of a tree stump, a coyote trotting with a pintail duck and cattails in its mouth.

Then there was the nutria – a giant, nasty rodent.

"That wasn't fun at all," she said.

At her shop, the radio is always tuned to rock 'n' roll, revealing musical tastes reflected in the names of her four goats – Ozzy Osbourne, Janis Joplin, Sting and Molly Hatchet.

Although she says she has no time to hunt or fish anymore, she spends her spare time feeding her horses in Whitewright and entertaining her four grandsons. The eldest, 8-year-old Hunter, just landed his first doe.

When she first entered the taxidermy business, Ms. Calvert said, she expected that the occasional macho hunter might doubt her abilities. But she said she hasn't encountered much flak.

"I don't feel like I'm out of my zone," she said. "I feel like I'm doing exactly what I'm supposed to do. This is what I was put here for, and I love it."