Shelter Pets Day
We at WMG Publishing are animal lovers and we love animal lovers.
But there is no question that those who adopt their pets from shelters in particular have a special place in my heart. I have been the lucky companion of eight cats in my life, all of whom came from shelters, with one exception. Little Gemme was a stray, likely dumped by the railroad tracks near a B&B I was staying at over New Year’s in 2005. She was very hungry, about six months old, and pregnant. I took her home with me.
At the time, I already had two cats from two different shelters: Ollie Bapussnikov and Grayson. Those boys were best pals, and because Ollie was a kind of magical guy who loved other cats, the two boys took Gemme into their pod, as it were, with very little fuss.
Eventually all three of them wrote their memoirs: Ollie, who was a tuxedo cat and a dancer, wrote By Leaps and Bounds: My Journey from the Gutters of St. Petersburgh to the Ballet Stages of Europe; Grayson, a Russian blue mix who topped out at twenty-two pounds, and had an epically powerful purr, wrote Being the Dark Force: Expanding the Universe in Your Spare Time. Gemme, who was a medium hair gray and white tabby with fetching markings, wrote Get Your Own Knee Patch: Fashion Accessorizing the Natural Way.
Both my current companions, Arthur Pendragon and Malcolm, came from shelters during the Covid lockdown. Let’s just say I am the luckiest person on the planet as a result of their consenting to come and be part of my family. Not only are they super loving and cuddly, as well as a pair of comedians, but every day they dutifully go on Bug Patrol and keep our house (relatively) bug free from the top of the kitchen cupboards to the wilderness behind the sofa. (We will draw a veil over that time they tried to kill me by knocking me into the bathtub. Forgiven and forgotten.)
To even briefly tell you about all the cats that WMG folks have been lucky enough to have in our lives would fill a book. Let’s just say, that Shelter Pets Day is dear to all our hearts.