Transforming Plushies into Kinetic Critter Creations

The KinetiCritters Adoption Agency & Rehabilitation Center was opened in August 2025 by Phil McCauley after the first Eap Rat was made for Charm City Karaoke’s Hot Rat Summer event

Headquartered in Baltimore, MD, we specialize in taking in plushies that are unable to move. We perform various handcraft surgeries on them to transform & make them kinetic so they can be brought to life with your help

We source our starting materials in various ways including thrifting, purchasing from retailers, partnering with other creators, gifts, etc. In the case of our Oyster Shell Lapel Pins (launching on our website in the near-ish future), we obtain local-caught oysters and process them ourselves. We upcycle other found materials as well, and every individual KinetiCritter is unique & specially handcrafted

Our Kinetic Critters aren’t like other wearable shoulder puppets, ours have eye-catching life-like movements that you control with hand-operated mechanisms. Using a small wheel in your hand to make your shoulder rat wag its tail will have people doing double-takes and asking you if that’s a real rat. It’s almost like magic!

Phil is a creator and performer, usually combining crafting and music like with Charm City Karaoke’s competitive karaoke league. Phil has also performed at open mic nights, singing & playing musical mashups with his guitar. He also jams out to commercial jingles (and other songs) on the keyboard with the help of his KinetiCritters (Usually the ChoiBird (a choir of birds), and the FelinEnsemble (an ensemble of cats)).

As we grow, we will be offering more of our creations for adoption on our website as well as at our in-person craft market vendor appearances. We also want to hold in-person workshops so people can create their own KinetiCritters either from our starting plushies, or out of their own!