Category Archives: animal rescue

Charlaine Harris Tells Her Side of the Story

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charlaineMy name is Charlaine Harris, and I’m stuck in a room in a bookstore. It all started a few weeks ago, when my human dad came over crying, picked me up, said he’d always love me, and then drove me in his arms to this place. And left me here.

The people in the bookstore took me into a back room, showed me some food and water, a litter box, and a little basket of toys. (I selected a catnip mouse.) And then they went off and left me in there! I found a chair in the sun and took a long nap. It was kind of a hard day.

The next day, my sister from Dad’s place came. She wasn’t feeling well so they set her up in a little tent by herself. We could see and talk to each other, but she had her food and litterbox, and I had mine. And she pretty much slept for four days. (She’s feeling better now, thanks, but they say she’s got some special needs so she might not get adopted with me, unless a family is willing to have us both.)

That’s what the couple here say will happen next, that I’m gonna get adopted. They said just the right person is gonna come along, and I’m gonna go live with him or her. I said, what happened to Dad? And they looked kinda sad and said he had to move into a different place to live because of some difficult circumstances. What’s that mean, difficult circumstances? Like the time I got stuck behind the toilet and they had to take the lid off to get me out? Yeah, that was kinda hard. My foot hurt for days….

Anyway, I have to stay in this room now because the couple who took me in opened the door once, and GEEZ O PETE there were like FOUR cats out there. And they all came to the door and looked at me, and well, you hafta remember I used to live just with one guy and a sister cat, so they seemed kinda intimidating to me. One of them stepped forward, so I did what I thought was best. Attacked her.

Well geez you’d a thought I’d thrown lit dynamite into a pond full of fish. (Not that I wouldn’t if I got the chance. I LOVE fish!) Turns out that scrawny little kitten I attacked is like the golden girl of the place, some chick named Hadley who has a few screws loose. She couldn’t even defend herself, and geez o pete, all I did was bap her around a couple times. Honest. But the couple got all soberfaced and said I’d have to be “supervised” with the other cats, and I guess I kinda understand they want me to like ’em, or at least ignore ’em, but geez o pete, I’m eight years old and I’ve spent my whole life keeping other cats outta my yard, so it’s really hard to remember not to get my retaliation in first, y’know? I’m not violent or anything; I’m just set in my ways.

The lady from the couple came in and had a talk with me and she said she understood, but she thought it best that I stay in my own room until they could either find someone who wanted a (and she said this with a straight face) SENIOR cat – Thank you very much lady! – or until they could get me a private room at PetSense. Apparently that’s like a little apartment complex for cats where people come and look at them and see if they want to take them home.

So I’m biding my time, and I’m trying to not mind too much being in this back room. People come in and see me a lot and they all scratch me behind the ears and the couple are very regular with meals and checking my water and giving me friendly back rubs and such. So it’s not terrible, but geez, I’m a little bit bored, y’know? Doesn’t anybody out there want a cat who talks a lot and doesn’t want to live with other cats? (Dogs are fine. I don’t mind them.) Maybe you could come tell this nice couple that you’ll take me? I’m no bother – just feed me, give me someplace to lie in the sun, and hold a conversation with me once in a while. Not much to ask, is it? C’mon, come visit me and let’s see how we get on together. This bookstore ain’t my scene, y’know?

Ye Fairly Get Ma Goat Jack!

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Murder 2015 006Jack’s weekly guest blog tackles the Goat-Scape Scandal….. Alert readers will know that we have been finding new homes for orphaned kittens and abandoned cats for a couple of years or more, about 120 at the last count–kittens/cats, not years. Because we have a cafe upstairs we are very careful to make sure there is no contact between them, with elaborate security arrangements including secret passwords, handshakes and iris cameras. But, mainly, a very strongly sprung (and high) gate.

Despite this there have been Chinese whispers at certain lower echelons around our small town suggesting that we were really a ‘cat cafe’ – something viewed with approval in many developed Western Democracies, including parts of the US of A, but not Virginia. (Google the term if you want to read some fascinating strangeness.) Now you hear it straight from the goatkeeper’s mouth: No bodily fluids, far less cats or kittens, are exchanged between the bookstore and the cafe.

Having established that beyond doubt, I return to the fact that the bookstore rescues cats. So it’s not uncommon for me to see someone struggling up our front steps with a pulsating cardboard box and a hopeful expression. I refer to these people as “fur blackmailers” and tend to give them a swift and short answer. But it’s never been our friend Elizabeth before. Last Saturday morning, here she came. I opened the door for her and looked into the box – four baby goats!

“Didn’t Wendy tell you?” she said.

Back story – Wendy and Elizabeth jointly own goats that are accommodated at Elizabeth’s farm outside town and two of them (the goats, not Elizabeth and Wendy) had just had babies but weren’t letting them nurse. Elizabeth would be out of town over the weekend and Wendy had said that we would bottle feed them until she got back.

When Wendy posted a picture of the babies on FaceBook one of the small towners rubbed her/his hands with glee! On Monday morning our long-suffering Health Inspector arrived and said to me, in a world-weary voice, “Goats?” His boss had received the picture along with a diatribe about “why such things are allowed to go on”.

Poor Mr. Health Inspector’s expression mixed defeat with relief when I took him through to the back of the bookstore where the goats had been–nowhere near the cafe, which hadn’t been open when they were hereMurder 2015 003. He offered the observation that “this was a new one” and said someone in Northern Virginia was trying to start a cat cafe, so tensions about animals and eateries were at an all-time high in his world. We shook hands and he left. Laughing.

The publicity from Goat-Scape went six times ’round the Internet that day and the next, which I suspect was not what the Small Towner who sent the picture had in mind. Getting someone’s goat is now a catch phrase around here. And Elizabeth and Wendy’s goats have had four more babies between them – they are now grandmothers of eight.

Life goes on.