Thirteen-year-old Phillipa's name is Greek for "horse lover", but she's not! Instead, Phillipa is a lover of birds who was selected from many cats for the paw-fessional job of protecting bird's food from mice. She was hired on as a shelter rescue ten years ago. She had big paws to fill. Her purr-evious
feline purr-edessesor, Sox, had "gifted" the Wild Birds Unlimited shop with 29 micey-gifts over her working career.
But like humans, Phillipa has her own style. She considers "the gifts" to be her midnight snacks, so her trophy record remains purr-ivate. Oh, and she has catitude and purr-furs to be re-furr-ed to by her nick name Pippa.
Morag, who has worked at the shop as long as Pippa, recalls, "We ran a contest to name our new
redheaded employee.
Customer suggestions were fun like Mouser and Emilia Mouseheart, and her honey-coloured coat inspired Honey, Ginger and Ginny. Then one day a four year old girl came into the shop with her grandmother. The girl took one look at the new mouser and confidently declared, "I have a nice name. It is Pippa", and she won!
Most customers, once seeing Pippa sleeping in one of her favorite locations, exclaim, ‘My
goodness! A cat in a bird store! Does it eat birds?'.
But seriously hadn't they noticed that there are NO birds in our store? Paws-ibly a mouse or two, but the birds are 100% safe.
Pippa now has quite a following. As soon as customers enter "her" store they inquire, "Where is the pussycat?" before they look for their purr-chases. Some have dropped in for a word with Pippa, bring her a treat, and make sure she has enough attention
for the day.
I must admit I always ask "Where is Pippa?" upon entering the shop for more bird seed. We have three cats and our bird feeders MUST be stocked to keep their entertaining KBiRD TV channel on 24 hours a day.
In the afternoon, Pippa catches the sun's rays in the window display, but most of the time she naps beside the cash register for maximum customer petting exposure.
Pippa is purr-fectly happy
with her full time job of snoopervising staff, scaring mice away and saying "Meow" to customers. "I love my fan club," said Pippa, "especially the ones who bring me treats and catnip toys."