Custom Pet Library
Are you here to peep some critters?
Click below to learn about “Critter of The Month.”
What is a pet library?
I know what you’re thinking: “but, pets can’t read!” True? perhaps. Boring? Absolutely! I invite you to expand your imagination to visualize a world in which pets + libraries add up to something pretty rad. Afterall, there’s nothing in the rule book that states a library for pets shall not exist.
Along that line of thinking, let’s indulge ourselves in an Air Bud mentality for a sec. Remember Air Bud? There was nothing in the rule book that stated a dog couldn’t play basketball, so he did. And he won! At least, I assume he did. I haven’t actually ever watched the movie. I have just now learned from Wikipedia that Air Bud was such a mind-blowing success that it spawned a bunch of sequels: Air Bud: Golden Receiver, Air Bud: World Pup, Air Bud: Seventh Inning Fetch, Air Bud: Spikes Back and Air Bud Returns. What an athlete!
There is also a spin-off franchise called Air Buddies – what’s better than one Golden Retriever? Many, duh! A series of sequels appears to have sort of spilled out behind the original Air Buddies movie. The franchise seems to have tumbled out much like garbage does from a bag hanging half-in, half-out of a truck on trash day. It’s a really tattered bag, too. One that had been shredded open by a family of raccoons enjoying a midnight buffet: Snow Buddies, Space Buddies, Santa Buddies, Spooky Buddies, Treasure Buddies and Super Buddies.
After the success of Santa Buddies, the powers that be had a brilliant idea to make even more sweet cash: a Christmas-themed collection! Thus was born The Search for Santa Paws and – of course – Santa Paws 2: The Santa Pups. Wow, I can’t wait to see what those silly Goldens will get up to next! And by “see,” I mean which inventive titles I’ll read about on Wikipedia in the years to come. I won’t watch a single one of these productions. And that’s not because I’m a movie snob. Admittedly, I have a rich understanding of the tapestry that is the Hallmark Extended Universe, which takes up the space in my brain where SOHCAHTOA knowledge once resided. I’m in no way above watching cinematic dog shit. I’m simply too emotionally weak when it comes to the potential for witnessing a dog getting injured or even just disappointed. Watching a Golden lose a tennis match, bury his head in his front paws and receive no treats? I couldn’t deal with that.
Where were we? I’m thinking where we left off could fall under the concept of a “social construct.” Any boundary we, as a society, have placed between pets and libraries is a social construct. Stay with me. Remember: Air Bud. A social construct is simply something a society has collectively agreed upon, without any connection to an objective reality. Think: gender, money, marriage, government, happiness, the legitimacy of sports-playing dogs, etc. etc. etc., the list is endless. A social construct sounds like a rule created where no rules actually exist in reality. A limitation on imagination, IMHO.
What is the objective reality regarding pets and libraries? They both exist. Thus, it is possible they can be mashed together somehow into something beautiful. Whoa, I just had an idea: Air Buddies: A Library Mystery. See, there’s a wizened Golden detective and he’s doing some on-the-job-training with a litter of puppy recruits and they’re solving some sort of mystery in a library. Maybe a really old first edition goes missing and the pack has to sniff out who took it. One puppy follows his nose to a bakery and gorges himself silly. One ends up napping on an opened OED, as he’s the lazy one and his actor’s choice is yawning cartoonishly. One overzealous puppy annoys the ghost-faced elder by emulating his mannerisms, as he attempts to grow into the perfect detective. Oh, and there’s an action sequence when a couple puppies are led away by a manipulative baddie of a kitty cat. The puppies get into trouble when they can’t make the same jumps the agile kitty is easily capable of: a library rooftop scene involving some amount of dangling, I’m imagining. Yikes, I can’t really think about how scary that would be right now, but there’s something there. I’ll work that out at another time when I develop some emotional fortitude…
Back to the subject at hand: a pet library. Let’s say we have opened our minds and now accept that a pet library can be a thing that exists. It’s a physical, interactive object in a front yard, next to a sidewalk. It is much like any of the other neighborhood libraries, but pet-themed.
Got it.
What’s in it? Well, treats, for sure. Toys and other such supplies? Yes. These are things directly for the pets, but we could probably expand the idea to include pet-adjacent items for the human passers-by, too. Maybe there are animal or nature-related books inside. Perhaps there are handmade items: paintings, magnets and other such results of your most recent hobby that you want to share or simply get out of your damned house. Possibly the items take the shape of an animal or plant or some other being, but maybe not. Then you leave the rest up to the passers-by’s interpretation and contributions. See what shows up in your library: cat grass, kitten formula, animal figurines, leashes, collars, bandanas, bowls, a dog treat baking machine, a ladle (“hm? Well, someone took it after a couple days, so that’s cool”), a loaf of white bread (again, “hmm? But some passerby did take it after a few days”), a pouch of Premier Pantry Cheesy Tuna Pasta (“Ok, c’mon! This one took nearly a week to find a taker, because who eats cheesy fish concoctions?”).
Our current pet library is our first pet library and is a beta test, but we enjoy the results so far. Contact us if you would like to discuss us creating one for your yard.
Notable
Features:
- Custom box and door designed and manufactured in our home studio, utilizing our CNC machine.
- Custom signage designed in house and cut using our CO2 laser.
A Curious thing happened after we installed our library...
We enjoyed a great variety of visitors, some with fur and some with just a lot of hair. We wanted – needed – to learn more about our local critters. Thus was born: “Critter of The Month,” a simple way to honor a wide array of critters in our area.