Road Trips with a Cat

I may not be a fan of the Seattle Mariners, but I do like it when people help animals in need, so Seattle closer Andrés Muñoz is an MVP in my book.

Muñoz made news recently when he revealed that he'd adopted a cat that now accompanies him when the team is on road trips. The cat had been abandoned by a previous owner in Mexico. After hearing about its situation, Muñoz stepped up to give it a home. He and his wife then made the decision to bring the cat on team road trips because they didn't want to add stress to its life by leaving it in the care of someone else.

Such concern for the cat demonstrates a high degree of empathy. Also, it shows how strong the bond between humans and animals can become.

Muñoz is a pitcher, but he hit a home run by helping this cat.

Cat's Cradle

The cat has my tongue, but it also has a safe place to live.

Eight years ago, my family adopted a rescue cat. It had gone through some traumatic experiences, so it didn't really like people. We tried everything to help it feel safe and allow it to adjust. Nothing worked. In fact, the more we tried to help, the more negatively the cat responded, and introducing anything new was an instant and total disaster.

Meanwhile, I had been talking with my parents about building a catio, which is an enclosed, outside area (often connected to the house) for cats. We'd had some issues with coyotes, and the cats were killing birds, lizards, snakes, and other wild animals. The rescue cat was one of the main concerns about having a catio though. He hated being inside, and about the only thing he seemed to enjoy was roaming around. Finally, my mom decided to build a catio (it wasn't actually connected to the house, so it was more like a kennel for cats).

When the catio reached completion, we all cringed to think about the rescue cat's reaction. We figured it would be a daily fight to keep him there, but he stunned us all. He loves it and feels safe there. For the first time, he doesn't run for cover when people are around. He's so comfortable there that even when the door of the catio is left open, he doesn't think about leaving. It's his special place.

The catio provides everything our cats need. It is sheltered, they get food and water, and it has wire runs for them to explore and use for exercise. Above all, they are safe, and having them there keeps the wildlife safe as well. We have seen so many more animals around the house, and it has been nice just to appreciate the beautiful birds instead of worrying about the cats killing them.

I can't say enough about the benefits of the catio, but when it comes to how it has helped our rescue cat, I am almost speechless.

Still ARFing

Two of the things I remember from my childhood are loving animals and rooting for the Oakland Athletics baseball team. The two might not appear related, but they are.

At the time, the manager of the A's was Tony La Russa, an animal advocate I previously blogged about when he retired from managing in 2011. Two weeks ago, La Russa and his Animal Rescue Foundation (ARF) celebrated the 25th anniversary of the event that sparked this baseball man to action on behalf of animals.

During a game on May 7, 1990, a stray cat found its way onto the field at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. La Russa helped secure it, and after the game, he worked to find it a home. In searching out a home for the cat, which was named Evie, he discovered the lack of no-kill shelters in the Oakland area. As a result, he and his wife went to work starting ARF.

La Russa left Oakland to manage the St. Louis Cardinals following the 1995 season, but his organization and his work for animals continue today. Since 1991, ARF has found homes for more than 30,000 dogs and cats. For more information about ARF, click here.

La Russa managed a lot of successful teams, but rooting for them was even more fun because I knew he loved animals.

Love in the Time of Treatment Plants

We've long known that the struggle between fear and love is about relationships: Fear fights for isolation, and love fights for connection. 

The stakes may remain the same, but the venues of this battle have changed. Today's sites of contention can have a uniquely ugly and foul character, and they make the struggle that much more important. Most recently, that struggle played out at a water treatment plant in California. The following video shows how:

Seeing the dog at the treatment plant, I couldn't miss the presence of the neglect, suffering, and marginalization that accompany fear. Those factors enable each other, making connection rare and fragile. In such a situation, it is easy to discount love.

By contrast, the second part of the video provides a reminder of just how powerful and effective love can be. The people at Hope for Paws, the organization that rescued the dog, cleaned him up, and helped make him available for adoption, prove the fight for love is worth it. Sometimes, it takes just a little offering, and other times, it requires extra effort, but when a connection is made, the bond can overcome even the most apparently hopeless situations.

This is no time for the faint of heart, but it is most definitely a time for the heart.

Art of the Heart

In art, some dogs play poker, but Mark Barone wants to raise awareness about the many dogs playing Russian roulette. 

Three years ago, Barone set out to draw attention to the fact that an average of 5,500 dogs are euthanized in animal shelters each day in the United States. With that number in mind, Barone created An Act of Dog, an art project featuring 5,500 dogs that have been euthanized. Check out a trailer for the documentary PBS is doing on the project:

An Act of Dog takes a sad and challenging issue and turns it into a powerful message and a labor of love. The number of pets in animal shelters strains the resources of those people trying to find homes for them, and we often overlook adoption as an option for getting a pet. All this amounts to some very difficult circumstances. Barone's project expresses the pain of the situation and calls for something better. For more information about his work, click here.

Considering the size of the problem, it's probably a good time to construct a better system for handling pets that need homes. It will take all of us and a new perspective about pets, but it promises to give Barone a more positive picture to paint.

Adopting a pet is simple, so we tend to forget the power it carries, but An Act of Dog finds a way to communicate just how meaningful it is.

Putting Fur in its Place

It's time to trade in the fur trade.

Wearing fur is no longer cool, and it hasn't been necessary for years. With plenty of synthetic options to keep us warm and a social stigma hanging over fur clothing, now's the perfect time to say goodbye to fur forever.

Moving away from fur raises one very important question though: What do we do with the fur clothing that already exists? An effort called Cuddle Coats provides the answer. Cuddle Coats accepts donated fur clothing and passes it on to animal sanctuaries and rehabilitation centers, which use them to help care for animals. For more information on Cuddle Coats, click here.

Of all the places for an animal's fur to be (other than on the animal), Cuddle Coats is probably the best option I have heard. We can both end our use of fur and return it to help animals that actually need fur.

That's a pretty good trade.

A Pet is Worth a Thousand Pictures

Image is everything for pets waiting to be adopted.

Mother Nature Network reports on this story about an organization of artists who are helping animal shelters. HeARTs Speak connects animal organizations with artists who want to donate their talents like photography, design, and illustration.

One of the coolest results of the collaborations that take place through HeARTs Speak is that good photographs help animals' chances of being adopted. Of course, animal shelters rarely have the resources to pay for such great shots, so the pro bono pics are doubly meaningful. For more information about HeARTs Speak, click here.

Pictures have an inherent power, but the HeARTs Speak images carry the force of a good cause.

Friend to Animals Retires from Baseball

Tony La Russa, who managed the St. Louis Cardinals for 16 years, including this year's amazing World Series run, has retired. In 33 years of managing, he also led the Oakland Athletics and the Chicago White Sox.

La Russa leaves with the third most wins of any manager in Major League Baseball history. I have been a fan of his teams for about 20 years, but my respect for his work in the game would not be as strong if it were not for his efforts on behalf of animals.

He co-founded the Animal Rescue Foundation (ARF), which is a no-kill shelter for dogs and cats. Recently, La Russa also supported a campaign to shut down puppy mills in Missouri.

Thank you, Mr. La Russa, for all the sports memories and especially for the work you do to protect animals.

Faulty Connections

A documentary, The Elephant in the Living Room, is exploring the ramifications of allowing people to keep exotic pets. Check out the trailer below.



The issue of exotic pets certainly has plenty of angles to make it interesting: human safety, environmental destruction, animal welfare. Along with these aspects, I have always been interested in what the phenomenon says about our connection to the environment.

To me, the popularity of such pets indicates that people seek to maintain or reestablish a connection with the natural world. In other words, having these animals as pets fills a void left by a general disconnection from nature. However, attempting to domesticate the wild represents a distorted connection, one that puts animals in circumstances that shackle their spirits and places people in danger.

The best indication of the problems in this connection is that most people end up having to give up their exotics because they can no longer control them. In the best case scenario, the animal finds a home behind the fence at some facility that houses and cares for it at a considerable expense. Many times, however, the animals are released into the wild or destroyed.

Some part of us feels a need to affirm our links to the environment, so we should definitely explore healthy ways of doings so. We must remember though that we don't have to lock up nature to experience it, and there is power in even little connections such as going to a park.

Helping Wildlife

We're a day past the vernal equinox, and with spring, comes more wildlife encounters.

Often, it's best just to leave the animal alone. This is especially true of young animals because while they may appear abandoned, the mother is quite frequently close by.

However, if you happen to come across an animal that is in obvious distress (perhaps as the result of an injury), try to contact a local animal rescue group. One way to find out if such a group exists in your area is to use The Wildlife Rehabilitation Directory.

The directory asks for your zip code and provides you with a list of animal rescue organizations within a given distance.