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Posts Tagged ‘adopt’

Bookshop Plus Cats

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on June 10, 2025| 5 Comments »

Photos: The Literary Cat Co.
Since Literary Cat Co. opened in Kansas about a year and a half ago, 32 of the store’s foster cats have been adopted by bookstore customers.

Today’s story is about a business in Kansas that meets two very different goals at the same time — and makes a lot of people in the community happy.

Sydney Page reports at the Washington Post, “At a bookstore in this Kansas town, three cats are on the full-time staff. Hank, a domestic longhaired cat, is the ‘regional manager.’ His job duties involve keeping track of the computer cursor and ‘sleeping in adorable positions 22 hours a day,’ according to the bookstore website.

“ ‘He’s the boss of this place,’ said Jennifer Mowdy, owner of the Literary Cat Co. in Pittsburg, Kansas — a bookstore that doubles as a cat lounge and feline foster home.

“Scarlett Toe’Hara, a black short-haired cat, who is polydactyl — meaning she has extra toes — is the ‘assistant (to the) regional manager.’ She is the front door guard, plant inspector and treat tester.

“Mike Meowski — a domestic longhaired cat with one eye, named after Mike Wazowski in Monster’s Inc. — is ‘assistant (to the assistant to the) regional manager.’ His role involves cuddling guests and quality control for boxes. …

“Mowdy opened the store in 2023 after 17 years as an educator. While teaching, Mowdy volunteered with animal rescues and fostered cats. She also loved bookstores. …

” ‘I decided I could do it; I could create something,’ Mowdy said.

“There are typically about seven cats — in addition to Hank, Scarlett and Mike — who live in the bookstore as foster cats. They’re ‘temporary staff,’ and Mowdy’s goal is for her customers to adopt them.

“ ‘We partner with a rescue, and when they get a cat that they think has a personality that would fit, or they haven’t been successful in adopting a cat through other means,’ she said. ‘If we have the room, we take them in.’ … The cats come from SEK Animal Advocates, a local rescue network. …

“Lori Seiwert and her husband adopted a brother-sister duo from the Literary Cat Co. shortly after it opened. The cats are named Frog and Toad after the picture book. …

“Frog, who is male, and Toad, who is female, turned 2 in February. Seiwert said she and her husband often stop by the store to visit Mowdy and play with the other cats.

“ ‘It’s a nice thing for such a small community,’ she said. ‘It’s very homey.’

“Most cats are adopted within six months of arriving at the bookstore, though some find homes much faster; others have stayed for up to a year. …

“Mowdy looks after the cats with Caitlin Fanning, a bookseller. They also have a volunteer who visits the store on Sundays and Mondays when it is closed to feed the cats and care for them.

“The bookstore is near Pittsburg State University, so college students often bring their own books to study there and snuggle some cats.

“ ‘We’ve got lots of cozy chairs and reading nooks,’ Mowdy said. ‘Lots of people don’t buy anything, they just come and play with the cats. That’s perfectly okay. We need to get the cats socialized, too.’ …

“The bookstore has become an environment for shy or unsocialized cats to get comfortable around people. …

“Before leaving work for the day, ‘we just make sure everybody is fed and watered, and anybody that needs meds gets them,’ Mowdy said. ‘We tell them goodnight and don’t cause any trouble, and we see them in the morning.’ …

“As far as books go, the Literary Cat Co. carries a wide range of authors and genres.”

This bookstore sounds like a place that “shy or unsocialized” humans could make friends, too, but I can’t help wondering how long a bookshop can last if it doesn’t matter that “lots of people don’t buy anything”!

More at the Post, here. Lots of pictures.

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Adopting a Stray Pigeon

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on June 9, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Photo: John and Suzanne’s Mom.
Pigeon art at a Boston construction site, 2014.

Pigeons get no respect. They certainly make a mess when they congregate in places where people also congregate. More often than not, human interaction is confined to efforts to get rid of pigeons, or Rock Doves, even though they are actually very pretty. Sometimes I wonder if they would be less hated if we ever saw their babies. They seem to be born fullgrown!

Cathy Free wrote recently about one pigeon at the Washington Post.

“Brooke Ciardi was in the yard of an animal shelter taking photos of dogs to help them get adopted when she suddenly felt something on her head. It was a pigeon that had swooped in and landed in her hair. Ciardi was moderately alarmed to have the bird on her head, but the pigeon seemed perfectly content.

“ ‘I was surprised because this pigeon had no fear of the dogs and no fear of people,’ said Ciardi, who works as an outreach coordinator for the Montgomery County Animal Services & Adoption Center in Derwood, Md. …

“Ciardi soon learned that the pigeon had recently become a regular at the shelter, hitching rides from the parking lot to the building on employees’ heads, shoulders or fanny packs, and refusing to hop down unless forced to. ‘She’d ridden on people to come inside the building at least five times, and they kept having to put her outside,’ Ciardi said. ‘I said, “This isn’t right — she seems to be a pet.” ‘

“Ciardi said her supervisor … decided that Valley — the name staffers chose for the rock pigeon — would make a good pet for the right person. So on April 2, about a week after the bird first landed on an employee’s shoulder, she was put up for adoption. …

“The pigeon’s friendly nature indicated that she had probably been domesticated as a fledgling, Ciardi said. ‘She’s a young pigeon, and pigeons can have a long life span of about 15 years,’ Ciardi said. …

“During World War I and World War II, carrier pigeons were used to transport secret messages from combat zones to their home coops. ‘They have such an interesting history, and they’re really smart,’ Ciardi said. ‘It used to be that they were bred and domesticated to work alongside us in the same way that dogs do. … I think it’s in their DNA to want to be among us.’

“Ciardi and her co-workers agreed it was important to find a good home for Valley. On April 2, Ciardi posted a notice on Facebook that the pigeon was up for adoption. …

“Ciardi then wrote about the bird descending on her in the rain and remaining calm when curious dogs approached.

“ ‘It was finally decided that with her love for human company and lack of survival skills, Valley would really like to be put up for adoption,’ Ciardi posted. ‘Well, she came to the right place!’

“About 850 followers liked the post, and several people mentioned that they wished they could adopt Valley. CBS affiliate WUSA9 covered the quest to find the pigeon a permanent home. …

“Two days after the Facebook post, a woman in New Jersey decided Valley would be a perfect pet for her two young boys. Keryn Rosenberger drove three hours to Montgomery County from South Amboy, N.J., to adopt Valley. …

“Rosenberger is a single mom, and she said her parents kept birds as pets when she was young. She thought Valley would be a good fit for her family. … Rosenberger said she bought some cloth pigeon diapers online for Valley, along with a harness and leash for public outings.”

More at the Post, here.

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Suddenly a Father

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on June 16, 2023| 10 Comments »

Photo: Erika Page.
Julio Franchi and Ian Cháves in Buenos Aries, Argentina. The two met in a square four years ago and are now father and son.

Who can resist a story like this at this time of year? I had just finished reading Nothing to See Here, a fanciful novel about parenting someone else’s children, when I read today’s entry by Julio Franchi, written up by Christian Science Monitor staff writer Erika Page.

Fiction and reality are closer than you think.

“At the time,” Franchi reports, “my only thought was to help. I just followed my instinct. Only now am I realizing what it means to be a father. 

“It was 2019. I would meet up with a group of neighbors and our dogs at the square around 10 o’clock at night. We were always the same people. One night a little boy appeared. 

“He was just there, playing with a stick, and you could tell he was alone. He looked abandoned. It was 11 o’clock, 12 o’clock at night. That was late for a 7-year-old. I asked him what his name was, what he was doing there. We got along right away. The next day he came back. 

“From then on he was always there, with his broken sneakers and clothes that weren’t his size. 

“We asked, and he wasn’t going to school. The first thing that occurred to us was to buy him some sneakers. We pooled money between the 10 of us neighbors. 

“I kept trying to connect the dots. I asked where he lived, and he said, ‘that way.’ The next day I walked him to the corner. There were a few squatter houses left in the neighborhood – his was one of them. I went with him one day with the excuse of the new shoes. I didn’t want his mom to think I was meddling. When she came out I realized because of her state that she was dealing with an addiction. But she was receptive to help.

“We found him a local school. That was already a lot. He could eat there and not spend so much time on the street. He would come to my apartment for an afternoon snack, or he’d go to one of the neighbors’ homes. This continued into 2020. We saw each other several times a week. …

“Then the pandemic hit, and the pandemic was really strict here. You couldn’t go anywhere. Six months passed, and I didn’t hear anything from him. When the quarantine began to relax … his mom called to say she was going to be hospitalized. She couldn’t take care of Ian. 

“She wanted to know if I could. I obviously said yes. She never called to ask for Ian back. 

“She clearly loves her son. In her right mind, she’s great. Very fun, very cheerful. But the addiction leads her to lie endlessly. She can sleep for days. Later I learned that Ian had to get her out of places where he was forced to see really ugly situations. Within her chaos, though, she is always looking for the best for him. …

“I’m always thinking about myself, always caught up in my own world. I never thought I would be ready to be a father. When I realized she was handing him over to me, I didn’t think about my life. It’s never crossed my mind even a little bit to wonder what I’ve gotten myself into. I live alone in Buenos Aires; he is my family.

Ian came to pull me out of myself, out of my ego. 

“People who know me can’t believe I get up at 6 a.m. and take him to school. I used to go to bed at 7 in the morning or later. I’ve discovered the morning. I’ve discovered what it means to miss someone. The most important things in my life happen without me expecting them. 

“My relationship with my own father marked me. There are things that have been difficult for me to forgive, moments of violence from another generation. But he never threw in the towel. He always wanted to change. Now I see what it means to be a model for Ian. I can’t hit the brakes and say, ‘I’m not going to raise you for a while. I’m going to spend my time screwing everything up and doing things wrong, so don’t watch me.’ He’s going to watch anyway. 

“Fatherhood is like a giant mirror in which I see all my flaws. The virtues, too, although they aren’t as numerous. It forces me to try to be better, even if I don’t succeed all the time. When I get angry, and I realize five minutes later I’ve made a mistake, I apologize right then. No matter how much I feel like screaming like a madman, I say, ‘Look, what I just said was wrong. I’m sorry.’ …

“When I told Ian the whole truth about what was happening to his mom – what it’s like to be an addict – everything became clearer to him. He began to understand that his mom had a problem. It wasn’t that she didn’t love him. It was essential for him to understand that. …

“When I met him, knowing where he came from, the first thing I imagined was that I was going to bring him things, offer him experiences, buy him stuff. Not that I have any money. I’m a musician. I was better off than him, but just by a bit. But later I realized that in reality what I was going to give him were limits. That’s what he needed. That’s really being a parent. 

“At first we explained things to people about our relationship. Then at one point we said, ‘OK, that’s it, we’re father and son.’ I told him, ‘Just watch, now that we say it, we’re going to start hearing that we look alike.’ Two days later, a woman stopped us and said, ‘You’re identical!’ Ian just started to laugh.”

More at the Monitor, here. No firewall.

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