SUSAN LOESCH
CATS IN THE STACKS

Yeah, it is Friday! The kids and teachers are glad because testing is over, and the library cats are glad because next week the elementary students will be back in the library. They have been missed, but there have been extra secondary kids hanging out here and we’ve enjoyed that.

Both Tank and Barney have gotten lots of attention.

“Ms. Loesch, come HERE!” called Mary. She and Tank were in my office and she had a handful of treats. “Tank won’t eat treats. He can’t be a library cat unless he eats treats.” Not to worry. He does like treats; he just wants to pick them up himself rather than having them offered in a hand.

Barney is less of a treat-eater than Tank; he has to work on that. Our speech teacher brings her youngest students in armed with treats and they expect them to be eaten by a library cat!

Of course there are my fourth graders who recently sampled the treats themselves … but that just wouldn’t be the same.

Both Tank and Barney have modeled the Harley-Davidson cap. Their vote seems to be unanimous; it gets a big paws down.

The cap has gotten the kids talking about next Halloween. With the Harley cap and bandana, all we need to do is find a leather jacket and we will have a biker-cat costume.

Trinity, my junior, who has been my student since kindergarten, was petting Tank. “It is just not the same, is it, Ms. Loesch? When Big Footsie died we already had Alex. He was already a library cat, and we loved him. This time we don’t have anybody.”

She is right. And from now on we won’t go without at least one assistant library cat as well as our “head” cat. It seems that for now Barney will have the “head” job with Tank as his assistant. Barney has gotten the hang of the job a little quicker.

He will roam the library looking for people to hang out with, and he stays on the front desk most of the time … except when he is following someone around. Mary says that he likes to play “follow the leader.” He has also mastered the “sleeping on the desk between the keyboard and monitor” job.

This week he gotten to spend a lot of time with Zee, our Turkish exchange student. We took pictures of them for Zee to have when she goes home.

As she stood with her hand on Barney’s side, her interest in becoming a doctor kicked in.

“He is breathing so fast. Do cats breathe faster than people? What is his normal temperature? How do you know if he is sick? If I ever get a cat, now I will know more about how to take care of it.”

These words make me smile, coming from my student who earlier in the year had never petted a cat and was afraid of them. Alex made her love him, and now Barney and Tank are picking up where he left off.

We still have a couple of candidates for library cat who will be auditioning, but it looks like both Team Barney and Team Tank will be happy; both the guys are on the library cat staff for sure!

SUSAN LOESCH

CATS IN THE STACKS

The trees and decorations are down, the kitty gifts and stockings are packed to go home to be opened at Christmas. Alex has started his vacation and is probably sound asleep right now!

SnuggleBunny, on the other hand, has been working hard all morning. She helped take the ornaments off the tree, and she visited with friends all over the campus, spreading Christmas cheer! He gave happy head-butts to one of our preschoolers who could barely reach over the counter.

Alex left one very important job for her to do. She delivered a thank-you card to our Nutrition Dept.; they did such a great job providing refreshments for our Library Cat Christmas Party. SnuggleBunny and I took the card to Ms. Debbie, the department secretary. I handed her the card and SnuggleBunny personalized the thank-you by crawling into her arms and cuddling and purring. She told me later that that really made her day.

Some of my older kids came in the library. Among them was Ray, who is now a 9^th grader. He has been my student since kindergarten and has always enjoyed our library cats, even from the time he could barely hold on to them. He called “Come here, SnuggleBunny.  Come on.”

And then he stopped talking all of a sudden and looked at me and said, “That’s something I never would have thought I’d ever hear myself say!”  That got a good laugh from everybody. My kids are growing up!

As Alex, Piper, SnuggleBunny and I begin our vacation we want to wish everyone a Very Meowy Holiday Season and a Purrrrfect New Year!

BY SUSAN LOESCH

CATS IN THE STACKS

Here we are again – Registration Day at Arkansas School for the Blind.  For the 35^th time I am going to be greeting students…and for the first time in many years I do not have our wonderful Library Cat, Big Footsie, here with me on Registration Day. We lost our big fella over the summer to heart disease and renal failure. I am not alone here today; with me is Alex, Big Footsie’s  main Assistant Library Cat, but everything feels different.

Big Footsie has been coming to school for 8 years, so we have students entering the 9^th grade who don’t remember a time without him.  He has been their friend, confidant and cheerleader, loving them unconditionally and letting them know it! They have adored him in return.

Many will be hearing for the first time that he has died. We will have some sadness and some tears, and lots of hugs and lots of talking about our Foots. We will create a memory book for him and perhaps have a memorial service, and then I think we will be able to get down to the business of celebrating his life. And what a life! To be rescued from Death Row at a kill shelter and live as the cherished – and yes, spoiled – friend of a whole school is pretty darn good.

We will also head off on a great adventure this year…the picking of a successor to Footsie as Head Library Cat. Not a replacement, because no cat could possibly replace him!

With the title of Head Library Cat come duties and responsibilities…being photographed when school pictures are taken and appearing in the faculty section of the yearbook,  riding in the Library Cat float for our homecoming parade and being the Accelerated Reader Program “Reading Motivator” for our elementary students. Heavy stuff, so it takes a special cat!

Footsie’s assistant, Alex, will be our Acting Library Cat for now. He first came to school almost six years ago as a 3-week old bottle baby. He was named by one of our students, after herself, Alexandra. He grew up working side-by-side with Big Footsie, his mentor. Being a bottle baby, though, he is quite the mama’s boy. He is content to sit in my lap all day or on my desk and has not been one to run to the front desk to greet visitors the way Footsie did. Given the chance to come every day, though, he might decide to do that!

Alex may decide that he wants the “Head” job, and if he does, it is his. If not, we will “interview” kitties who are in the FuRR (Feline Rescue and Rehome) foster program until we come up with just the right match!

Alex has already decided that Registration Day has quite a lot of appeal…the cafeteria staff always invites the faculty to have lunch. It is always yummy and it ALWAYS has something to appeal to library cats!   Alex thoroughly enjoyed the turkey and is now snoozing on my desk.  He woke up to greet a new faculty member and an old friend, our speech teacher, who brought a wonderful book to us to put in the library in memory of Footsie. Soon it will be time to welcome the students.

I think Alex and I are ready to face the school year and the kids and to head off on this great adventure. Join us and come along!