MillenniaLibrarian: National Pet Day

This program started out as a small idea, and morphed into a pretty big deal by the time it was planned and ready to go. I follow several "daily holiday" web pages that list all the local and national silly holidays, because this sometimes gives me program ideas. It's how I thought of Make a Grandparents Day Card, for example. A few months ago I noticed that National Pet Day was coming up in April. We had done dog toy making as a teen activity last summer and it went over pretty well, so I thought about combining that with a few other stations and having a National Pet Day celebration at the library.

Because the library is a city entity, I contacted the City of Mesa Animal Control Department to see if they had any advice, resources, or even a representative they could send out on the day of the program. They got really excited about the program, and said they would send one human representative from their department and at least one furry friend. Of course, the exciting idea of a dog or cat in the library got the community buzzing.

My mom also happens to be a professional dog toy maker. She knows the exact right size and type of fleece strips to make the perfect long-lasting tug toy. Luckily she was available to help, so she set up at a table and guided kids in braiding their colorful creations. At the end of the night, we had over 30 tug toys to donate to homeless dogs at Animal Control.

The best part was, the Animal Control department totally came through with their furry friends! Their rep brought three seven-week-old gray kittens! I'm a dog person, but the kittens were the best thing that has happened to me this year. Adorable.

In the end, we had an attendance count of 94 people! In my previous experience this is almost unheard of for a weekday evening program. The Vice Mayor of Mesa even stopped by and featured us on his Twitter, and Nearby News was back to photograph for another feature.

Also, enjoy these pictures I took during the event (with parent permission, of course). I especially love the action shot of the two kittens wrestling.