Be Kind to Animals Week is Coming!

That's right! May 3-10 is National Be Kind To Animals Week in America, and we're celebrating with our own little event right here in Bucks County, Pennsylvania!

The birth of humane education as a national effort dates back to 1915. In that year, “Be Kind to Animals Week” was inspired Dr. William O’Stillman, leader of the American Humane Association. AHA’s primary goals were visiting local schools to promote the development of humane education and publicizing the good works of the nation’s humane societies. Today, the annual event is used to bring to the fore the needs of animals as sentient beings, and it piggybacks with National Adopt A Pet Month in the USA.

O hai. U can haz party!

Miss Idgie here is all party animal, dressed up and ready to celebrate at Lackland Self Storage and Office Park at 8133 Easton Road in Ottsville. From 7:30-9:00 pm on Friday, May 8, she may decide to join us for a little neighborhood get-together, celebrating one of our country's best annual observances.

We'll be showing a brief slide show about disabled pets, presented by...me! That will be followed by a short reading from Almost Perfect: Disabled Pets and the People Who Love Them, and another by Pipersville author Betty Kerr Orlemann. She'll be reading a brief passage from Mission: Murder, first in her new Hattie Farwell mystery series. Hattie is an 80-year-old amateur sleuth who solves cases with the aid of her faithful sidekick, Wolf, a giant dog.

Betty and I will then sell and sign copies of our books to anyone who's interested. We'll be joined by Dr. Ellen Prieto, the Wonder Vet who saved Idgie's life, and who's in my essay from the anthology. Also we'll be joined by Denise Jeffries, Senior Veterinary Technician at
Tabby's Place, a cat sanctuary across the river in New Jersey. There will be representatives of several other pet-related organizations, along with some free light refreshments.

The venue is being generously donated by Lackland Self Storage as a community gesture, for which we are sincerely appreciative.

It'll be a family-friendly event, so join us, won't you, for a little animal kindness? Be there and feel the love!

Lemon's on Tour!

Photo by Tim Jean, staff photographer, Andover Townsman

I've posted here about Lemon the duck before, but thought you might enjoy an update on her ramblings.

Last week, Lemon visited the Professional Center for Child Development in Andover, Mass. He was accompanied by author Laura Backman, who wrote a children's book about him and read to the children there. PCCD teaches children of all abilities through a variety of programs, and wanted to show them how Lemon navigates his disability by getting around in a modified walker.

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