pip the beach cat podcast drawing by annie grossman

Episode 48 | Surfer, author, rapper, adventurer, humanitarian: Meet Pip the Beach Cat

Last fall, Emily Meadows and her husband took in a stray orange tabby kitten who they called Pip. Pip repaid the kindness by terrorizing their other cats and destroying their Ocean City, Maryland home. To help him extend energy in a more appropriate way, Emily began to take him on walks on the beach. She quickly discovered he loved digging in sand, swimming, and even riding surf boards. Six months later, Pip The Beach cat has become a local celebrity with worldwide fans, and Emily is a full-time cat "momager," who is currently orchestrating Pip's book launch, promoting his rap album, and bringing him nearly daily to do therapy cat work at local nursing homes. Annie talks to her about how finding a creative way to deal with her cat's behavior issues has led to a life neither she nor Pip could ever have predicted.

Transcript:

 

Emily: 

You know, we didn't realize how big it had gotten until we started going out just in our everyday lives with Pip, like, “Oh, let's go for a bike on the boardwalk, and people started screaming his name.” He's getting recognized and that has just been like the craziest experience of my life.

 

Annie:

Hey everyone. So today I am talking to someone who six months ago had a problem in the form of a tiny kitten who was driving her and her husband crazy. That problem is now a world-renowned phenomenon known as Pip, the beach cat. Now I wanted to do an episode on Pip, not only because I think it's kind of interesting, this idea of a cat as a social media sensation, but also because I think it's a pretty incredible story of owners who have used smart management and good training to create an excellent world and an excellent life for a cat who you might say had special needs. I'll let his human explain.

 

Emily: 

Hello, my name is Emily Meadows and I'm the owner of Pip, the beach cat. Essentially Pip is, you know, a multifaceted feline. He warms people's souls through his social media posts and engagement, but he actually does a lot of, like, in the community work on a daily basis as well. He's a children's book author, his preorders for that just opened up this Saturday and he is doing a bunch of fundraising projects right now. We're working on a stuffed animal version of him. Um, he's got tee shirts and stickers and all that kind of fun stuff coming out hopefully in the summer. But,essentially he's an ambassador for our town, which is Ocean City, Maryland, it's a resort town. Lot of people from New York, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania really in general, um, New Jersey come down here for their summers and so we kind of live here year round. It's very quiet this time of year. 

 

Annie:

You basically are the mom manager of a famous cat.

 

Emily:

Exactly. I'm very much along a mom-ager. Yes.

 

Annie:

So tell me where Pip came from and how all of this started? When did you first, well, when did Pip first find you? 

 

Emily:

Yeah, so it is a very long story and I won't tell it here because I think it's, it could be a little bit boring. I have it actually written out on his website somewhere, but Pip was… there was a woman staying at a house and there's an award that gets given out every year, t's called America's coolest small town. Um, and so the town right outside of Ocean City where actually my family, like my mom, my grandparents grew up, it's called Berlin, Maryland. They won it a few years ago. So in and of itself, like it, it's a very strange little town, it's used a lot of time for movies. So it was featured in like Runaway Bride and Tuck Everlasting and things like that.

 

Annie:

What is it called?

 

Emily:

Um, Berlin, Maryland, 

 

Annie:

Berlin, Maryland. Okay. 

 

Emily:

Yeah, it's really cool. And like I said, it won America's coolest of all town. It's been in these movies, but that's just a little background on sort of where Pip first showed up. And so what happened was my sister, who is 17, was away for the weekend with her friends at Hershey park and her friend’s grandmother was at the friend's house in Berlin and it was a little bit of like a thunderstorm and Pip just showed up on the doorstep. And so this woman who didn't live in the house, she was just there temporarily, invited Pip in and was sort of taking care of him for the weekend while the family was away. 

And then they came home, and from what I can understand, they were like, well, you know, we already have a cat with some serious health problems, we can't take on this other kitten. We need to find it at home. Well, my sister was with that family that weekend. And so she said, “Oh, I'll take it.” And it became sort of this never ending cycle of there's this kitten, it needs a home, but nobody wants it. 

Um, he was very dirty. His eyes were very swollen. We thought that he was deaf. It was, it was clear from the get go that he may have health problems. Um, and so nobody really knew what to do. Uh, and I said, well, the least I can do is take the cat and watch it. 

The two cats that we already had… we've had for five years. Um, and we actually brought them over from Poland because my husband is Polish and I had been living in Poland with him while he finished his master's degree. And so when I moved over to Poland, got these, uh, two little cats. And so when we moved back to the States, we brought them with us. 

And so that was our main concern was, you know, we couldn't keep Pip because he wasn't getting along with our other cats. Our one really small, tiny little black cat sort of lived on top of this bookshelf for like the first two weeks that Pip was in the house and, like, would not come down despite the fact that Pip was half her size. It was just creating this very funny dynamic. And so we were trying to get him to the nursing home….or not the nursing home, the humane society. We were trying to get my dad to take him, but he was a very rambunctious little cat.

He needed a lot of care, you know, he needed to be cleaned ‘cause like I said, his eyes were sort of like, for lack of a better term, I guess, oozing, you could say. So, you know, you had to clean them a lot. And so long story short, the humane society was full. He couldn't go to my dad's house because my dad lives with my grandfather and he would have probably tripped him. And so here we were with this cat and, kind of like, well, I guess we're going to have to keep him for now. And he started destroying our house, climbing our windows screens, knocking things over. I mean, I tend to bond…

 

Annie:

He was a cat hole. 

 

Emily:

Yeah. I mean he was just like… exactly. I mean, just absolutely crazy. And he was so small, but he was creating so much destruction but that's essentially, his behavior is why we took him to the beach for the first time and we realized that, Oh my gosh, the perfect thing for this cat is to be able to go outside each day in a controlled environment, you know, not out on his own. 

Because he was, you know, one of those cats that if you let him out on his own, he'd get into a fight with a fox and probably not win. And so we said, okay, we're going to take them to the beach. And the first time we took them, you know, he dug a little hole. He, like, spun a few circles, I mean he was just all over the place and then he took a nap. And then the next time we took him he got, you know, near the water and then the next time, he hopped on a boogie board. And the next thing we knew he was like swimming in little tide pools. 

 

Annie:

Now,  you take him outside on a leash, is that right? 

 

Emily:

Yes, he has, like, a normal cat harness. And then he has a couple of different leashes that we attachto that. Most of the time we use a retractable dog leash and hook him on that so he has like 26 feet of line that he can sort of run around on the beach with. You know, obviously that's not ideal for, you know, when the beach is crowded or if we're in a place with a lot of people, and so we have other leashes that are more geared towards cats that we hook him on, in that case. And then we have a special little leash that one end hooks to his harness and then the other end  hooks into the seatbelt of the car and so you can actually buckle him in. 

 

Annie:

Do you drive him to the beach every day or do you walk him to the beach? 

 

Emily:

Um, usually we drive everywhere. I mean, we're not going to the beach every day right now because it's too cold and windy. I mean, we're, you know, like four hours south of New York, so we're about the same weather as you guys. It hasn't been nice yet at all. Um, and so yeah, we live like way back from the beach -we're not walking distance at all. So we do ride him in the bicycle sometimes, up there, but most of the time it's just, you know, plugging, you know, pop him into the car, buckle him in, and we'll ride up. This time a year it's really easy to find parking and then we can have all of this stuff with us. You know, I mean, I've said it's like having a small toddler or even a newborn, you just have so much stuff to bring with you. 

 

Annie:

Like what kind of stuff do you have to bring? 

 

Emily:

So we've got his leashes, we've got, you know, his bowls for food and water. We have his toys, we have his treats, we have his training tools. Um, we have these like playpens, everything we do primarily has been made for puppies. Um, so we have his little like puppy play pens that we can set up if we need to. 

 

Because he's got this book coming out. He has a lot of marketing things, you know, we have to bring our cameras with us, stuff like that. So there's just a whole slew of things. I've started wearing a lot of Fanny packs to organize it all a little bit better. Um, and then he has his carrier, which I don't know if you've seen, but Lollimeow is the company that just started making them and so there used to be these backpacks that you can put your cat in that had just the teeny tiny little bubble for them to look out of. But now they have made these backpacks that are completely see-through on the front. And so some people call it a spaceship. I call it a bubble. It is an airline approved cat carrier, you know, officially. 

 

Annie:

How has this affected his indoor life? 

 

Emily:

Um, I guess you could say that if, for example, the weather isn't very good for several days in a row and he doesn't get to go out on his adventures, he just starts treating the indoors, like the outdoors and he'll just run up and down our apartment. He'll, you know, climb the curtains. I mean, it just becomes the whole problems that we had with him as a kitten start resurfacing. So we try to make sure that we get them out as much as possible. You know, let them run, let them smell new stuff, explore anything like that.

 

Annie:

It's really wonderful that you've figured out how to give him the life he needs without letting him become totally feral.

 

Emily:

Yeah, absolutely. It's kind of, you know, controlled chaos in a way. 

 

Annie:

So what's his book about?

 

Emily:

Yeah, so his book is…it's an illustrated of adventure. It's called Pips Guide to Ocean City: Volume One. And it is, like I think, 12 spreads of sort of what Pip does in Ocean City, sort of from, you know, kind of looking at Ocean City from the viewpoint of a child, but instead of a child, it's a cat. And so it kind of, you go along his day where the sun is rising over the ocean and you know, you're seeing him play in the sand, he's getting buried, he's building a sand castle with his little seagull friend and then he goes about his day and does a bunch of different stuff. It's, sort of, a lot of illustrated versions of what he actually has already done. Uh, and then what's great about it is we didn't really water down the language. Like it very much is written so that, you know, if an adult read it, they would be like, Oh yeah, like this is totally what I did as, as a kid at the beach. Or if they're reading it to their own child, they're not , like, so bored because it's like just the most basic language, you know. It assumes that kids can comprehend things and that, you know, how adults have Lonely Planet and Rick Steves and you know, they have all these search engines and travel blogs and all.  Adults have everything at their fingertips to sort of research a place that they might be visiting for a trip and kids don't really have that. And so this first book is sort of just the start of what hopefully will become more of like a children's guide guidebook series. 

 

Annie:

And did you write it and illustrate it?

 

Emily:

I wrote it. I did not illustrate it. We have an awesome illustrator. Her name is Ana-Gabriela Strow. And we chose her for several different reasons. A:we loved her style, like the way that she drew, it just captures Pip's emotions and the best way possible. Um, she also just was willing to put in so much time in research actually, um, learning about the town of Ocean City and making sure that the illustrations matched what was physically here. 

 

Annie:

Yeah. So tell me about his swimming.

 

Emily:

He has this strange obsession with water, so, and I think a lot of cats do. Um, I think that it's one of those things where you find a lot of cats that either love water or they hate water and there's not a lot of in between. But he, you know, if the faucet is running or the showers on or someone's doing dishes, like he's watching the water the whole time. And if you splash him with the water or you touch him the water, like, he isn't afraid of it at all. Now does he go and like jump in the ocean and go for a swim? No, not yet, at least, Imean, it's been too cold. But he will go, especially when it's warmer, and he'll go near the water. He'll sort of play with the waves so he'll see what he thinks. We have put him into a swimming pool before and, you know, to see how he would react. And he just does a little doggy paddle and he's just like, you know, whatever. Okay. And then he gets, he gets out and he's like, all right, that was, that was fun. 

Um, and so one time I like, I don't…this is a couple of months ago it was, the water was still really warm, the air was starting to cool down because our water here, both the bay and the ocean, you know, September and October is when the water is its warmest ‘cause it's had all summer to warm up. But I took him out on a paddle board for the first time and it was like a really flat day over on the bay. And I get them on the board and he's like so curious. He's like on the edge of the board. He's like dipping his paws in the water. He's like smelling everything. He's like looking around and then all of a sudden he just decides he doesn't want to paddle board anymore. And we're like maybe three feet from the dock, I mean, we are so close to the dock that, I mean, we're not far out and he just doesn't want to paddleboard anymore. So he hops off the paddleboard and swims to the dock and just hops up on the dock and he's like, I'm done. 

If a cat wants to do something, you have to work with it to figure out what it's comfortable with and every cat is different. I think that what did change is that Pip took adventure to a whole new level for me. Like I've always gone on walks with my cats or, you know, not limited them to this indoor life of just looking at windows. Um, but when Pip started doing things like hopping on boogie boards and stuff, I started, like, looking online at like, “Oh, are there other cats that do this?” And it turns out there's this huge community of adventure cats and there are so many cats out there that are like all over the world going on hikes, going surfing, you know, just all this kinds of crazy stuff.

This isn't something that's like, that crazy. There are tons of cats doing this. I bet there's tons of cats that would want to do this. I need to, you know, get Pip out there and see what he wants so that other cats can be inspired and live their best life too. 

 

Annie:

Adventure cat… is that a term? I've never heard that. 

 

Emily:

It is. Yeah. And so I actually…so the town, like I said, where Pip was found, Berlin, Maryland, it's known for all of these like really tiny little stores and like they're all like locally-owned and everybody knows everybody and like they know you by name and you know them by name. You know, that's just like the environment of Berlin. And so this new independent bookstore opened and it was around the time that we had just started Pip sort of social media stuff. And so one of the things that we do with Pip is we always try to take him to like art openings or if it's like a local store is opening and it's like a small business owner will always bring him to like the grand opening to try to spread the word of, you know, “hey, there's this small business and it's opening and come check it out.” And so this independent bookstore …

 

Annie:

And also he just likes art openings.

 

Emily:

Yes of course.

 

So we took him to this independent bookstore, their opening. And I had him in his little bubble and everybody was, like, interacting with him and stuff. But what was so cool was this bookstore, it's called Greyhound Bookstore and the owners rescue Greyhound dogs. And so they've named their store after it and one of the owners is actually an author and they have an entire section of their store dedicated to pets. And what I thought was so cool is they had so many books about cats. And so I found this book and it was called Adventure Cats and I bought it. And that's the book that I read through it and it's just, like,an anthology of all of these cats all over the world that go on these crazy adventures. 

 

Annie:

Have you encountered people who've had anything other than positive things to say about having a cat that explores and that goes outside?

 

Emily:

I mean, definitely, absolutely. 

 

Annie:

Are there cat haters? Are there further trolls out there? 

 

Emily: 

There's a few levels of negativity that we've seen. Um, one of the interesting things, and I wouldn't necessarily say that this is negative, it just reflects the market, I guess in some ways, is that a lot of  stores that you know, open and have products for dogs don't also have products for cats. So we've found that like, there's this very strange sort of situation where we'll go into these boutique, you know, pet stores, but they're really just for dogs. And so there is this strange sort of, and we had a whole conversation, we had a post go viral on Reddit. Um, when we showed a picture of Pip on like his first or second nursing home visit with his little name tag that the nursing home had made for him. And there was this whole conversation about it. But there's this huge market for dog stuff. And like a lot of times you go into stores and it's like the dog's sections are rows and rows and rows of stuff. And then it's like this little teeny cat section. 

And it's strange because when you look at the actual numbers, there's more, you know, most people that have one cat, they probably have multiple cats. And so when you look at the actual data, it's like there's more cats in American households than dogs just in numbers because, you know, it's so much easier to have five cats rather than five dogs. But when you look at the actual market of like retail there isn't as much stuff geared towards cats. And I've been in a lot of stores and been like, “Oh, Hey, like I see that you guys have a lot of dog stuff. Like, do you have anything for a cat? Like any cat treats” and they're like, “Oh no, we don't carry cat products. Um, we only carry dog products.”  And that's been really funny. And like we've met a lot of small businesses that have both. And I always say to them like, “Hey, thank you for caring cat stuff.” Um, because we encounter so many times that there isn't cat stuff. And they're like, “you don't know how many people say that to us.” 

And it's so funny to me. And so there's been this sort of level where I never noticed until I had a famous cat and was taking him out places that there's so many things that, that say, you know, for example, all the signs for the beach here for Ocean City, they don't say no animals on the beach after May 1st they say no dogs. But if you actually look at the law, it's no animals. So we took Pip to the beach because the sign said no dogs and the next thing you know, we're getting in trouble. So the law is actually no animals, but they just, you know, people think and I get it, I mean, it makes sense, like you don't, you know, the mainstream media is dogs going with people, places, not cats. 

You know, cats are meant to either be outdoor on their own or indoor with their family. And that just isn't necessarily the actual reality of what's going on. And so, you know, there's been some, I guess you could say negativity in that people find it, you know, it's very unexpected when they see a cat somewhere. And we have  a lot of people say like, “Oh, well why would you let your cat leave the house? Like a cat is meant to be indoors.” And so we get some hate because we're letting him explore. Um, we get a lot of people who, you know, aren't seeing Pip actually out and about but are just seeing like the pictures of it. And they're like, you know, that's wrong. You shouldn't do that with a cat. And by far this is the minority of people. And, you know, we really try not to think about the hate, but you know, it is social media and that's sort of what you get. And so yeah, there's definitely been some people that are, like, very against this concept of adventure cats. And we have to explain to them like, Hey, like we didn't know about it either, but if you go to this resource, I mean you can see there are cats all over the world exploring.

And, like, we know when Pip doesn't want to be somewhere, we know when he's tired, we know when he's scared and a lot of people like today or not today, Sunday we had them out on the boardwalk cause it was finally nice and we were sitting and we were talking to a business owner and next thing I knew Pip just hopped off the little bench he was sitting on and he ran and everyone's like, “Oh my God, he's so scared.” And no, he wasn't scared. He knew the store that we were near and he loves to explore there. So he hopped off the bench and started running cause he wanted to explore. He was like this, “this conversation is boring, I want to get in there where I know they have treats for me.” And it's like if a dog had done that, people would have been like, “Oh my gosh, I bet the owners of that store have treats for him.” But it's like, because it's a cat, people are like, “Oh my God, he's scared.” And so people are very, very quick to judge what's going on and we have to constantly reassure them, like, we know Pip, we're with him all day, we know the sort of body language that he gives off if he's uncomfortable. Um, we know his needs and we know…okay, if this is how he starts acting, we leave. We say, you know, we take them home, we take him to like his safe space, which is like the car or his bubble. Like, I mean, he loves the car, which is also kind of abnormal for a cat, I think. 

Um, but yeah, and we've gotten people…I think the funniest thing as we get people recently that are saying we're working him too hard, right? Because they're like, Oh, you're going to four nursing homes a week and like, that's, that's not fair. And like he needs a break. And it's like, you know, Pip is physically in the nursing home doing, if you want to call it work for an hour, maybe two. And if you call it work then that's calling him playing, work, you know. It’'s like the actual person who is tired is me, I have to drive him. I have to organize it all. 

 

Annie:

How did you start getting involved with bringing him to nursing homes? 

 

Emily:

Yeah, so, well as soon as I, as soon as we had him on the beach and we saw how well he did on a leash and we saw that he pretty much had no fear, I said, and you know, and he would go on a car, that was like the number one thing. I reached out to some other cats that I'd seen on Instagram, so one of them is Summer’s travels and I just direct messaged them and I said, “Hey, I see that every once in a while you post that Summer goes to children's hospitals and things. How did you do that?” And so she told me the program that they used and stuff and I did a bunch of research and it's really hard to get a cat certified to do therapy work. But we got put in an interesting situation where we had to take out special insurance because Pip was going to be doing so many public appearances for his book release. And so that insurance covered us so much that it was like nursing homes were like, “Oh, you can totally come here.” And the other thing too was I thought in my mind like, Oh, these nursing homes are going to require that we go to them through Love on a Leash or through, you know, Pets on Wheels or something like that. 

But when I started reaching out and I, full disclosure, the first one I reached out to is one that my mother works for. She's the head of human resources, although I will say she was not on board with the idea because she is a worrywart and was like, Oh my God, what happens if this happens? What happens if that happens? And like she was very nervous and she was like, I'll give you the number to our activities director, but you know, this is on you. And I was like, okay, I got it. No problem. And so when I called the activities director, I said, look, I can't get him certified right now because he's not old enough. I said, second of all, it's a lot of paperwork and it's a lot of this and that. Um, he's completely vaccinated. He has no fear. I would like to start bringing him and just see how it goes. And then you can kind of go from there what, what you think you want to do. And she was like, “awesome. Absolutely. Like, like, let's do it. Let's see how he acts.” 

And so a traditional therapy cat and, anyone that's listening to this, if you have an older cat that is very cuddly and very lovable, they would be perfect for therapy because the traditional certified therapy cat goes to somewhere like a children's hospital or a nursing home. They are carried or in a carrier and they are placed, you know, on someone's lap and they sit and the resident gets to pet them and maybe they visit one resident for an hour and it's just very much like a calming experience and that is it. And Pip is not there yet. You know, he's too young, he's too adventurous. But what Pip can do is he can do tricks and he performs this little show and he goes into the rooms and we give the nursing home patients or residents toys and they play with him. And so it's like, he just is so fearless that he'll go into any new room and be like, “Oh, okay, cool. I'm here. And Oh, that lady has a laser pointer. I'm going to chase it around on the floor for an hour.And the nursing home patients are going to laugh and laugh and laugh.” And so that's sort of why it's happened. 

And so we started with our first nursing home, again, it's in Berlin where Pip was actually found, we started there and we said, okay, we're going to come on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We're going to see how it goes. We've got this insurance. We're covered. Like let's see what we can do. And it went so well. Um, that, you know, all of a sudden we had every nursing home in the area calling and asking Pip to come visit. Because something that's really interesting, um, that we've learned is, you know, dogs and even small horses ‘cause, you know, many horses are used a lot of times for therapy and sometimes bunnies, um, but especially dogs are brought through programs like Love on a Leash and through Pets on Wheels all the time. Dogs visit nursing homes all the time. But a lot of the residents in nursing homes didn't have dogs. They had cats. And some of them that we've worked with, you know, they've been in a nursing home for 15 years and haven't seen a cat since they got there. And a lot of them have had to give up their cats when they moved into the nursing home.

And so it's just been this incredible experience where Pip has built relationships with these residents and they expect him every week, you know, and, like, they're upset if we have to cancel for some reason. And so we try to stay on a very strict schedule, you know, four or five minutes late, they notice. Um, and so we just have had so much fun. And, um, now, you know, obviously Pip can't do visits all day long, you know, he does get tired. He does want to do his own thing. 

And so we have a select few that we do one-on-one visits with, and then all the new nursing homes that we're working with and all the new residents that want to visit, what we actually do is these presentations. So all the nursing homes have televisions and all the televisions are smart TVs. And so you can hook up a computer or you can get online. And so, you know, we have all of these videos of Pip and like Pip on the news and all this cool stuff. And so most of the residents, you know, they don't have Facebooks, they're in their nineties to one that we were with today is 104. And they don't see the stuff that Pip does, they have no idea that he's famous. They just are excited that there's a cat there. And so we started on doing these presentations using his videos and they're like, “Oh my gosh. Like that cat that comes to see me was on the news.” And that's been a whole thing. Um, so we're working on expanding that program. Uh, and then lastly, the last thing I'll say about the nursing homes, and this is really the most important thing and like I said, anybody that can get their cat certified in a way and, and we'd be happy to talk to people about it or direct them, you know, Love on a Leash, like I said, is something that a cat, another cat, a therapy cat directed us towards and it wasn't going to work for us and we kind of found our own way. But, what's been most beneficial and most, sort of, I guess you could say life changing for residents is the ones in the dementia wing. My grandmother had dementia and, you know, a lot of times when someone gets dementia, it happens very quickly and all of a sudden, you know, you'll have someone who was running, you know, marathons and was just very active, just steadily decline over a year into someone that, that doesn't even speak.

And so the coolest thing, and like the best story that we love to tell is one of our residents that we visit once or twice a week, she is a nonverbal dementia patient. She doesn't really speak at all, she'll make noises here and there. But when we come in with Pip, she talks to him and has had conversations with him and it's like very strange and I didn't expect it to happen. And in our first visit with her, you know, the first few times we went, we were being supervised by the activities director to make sure that everything was going how it should go. And the activities director started crying and I didn't realize what was happening until after the fact, but it was like this woman hadn't spoken in, you know, since she had really been there. And now all of a sudden she sees Pip and every week it's like she's seeing Pip for the first time. And as soon as she sees him come around the corner, it is like she is won The Price is Right. I mean she just, a whole smile comes over her face, she starts making noises and then you get her one-on-one into, like,a private room and she plays with him and then eventually starts talking to him and she'll tell him stuff. I mean it has just been, that's really been the most incredible thing. And so I had never volunteered in nursing homes before, but now that I've started, I mean it's the highlight of my week is going and spending an hour with this woman and watching her go from the beginning of the hour, just sort of, it's very much…I'm not, I don't want to like, you know, I'm not mocking, but my impression would be her, her noises are very much like, um, she'll say things like “my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my” 

And then by the end of the visit she'll say like, “I love you Pip, or I love him.” And it's like she's putting together full sentences. I mean, it's just incredible. It's the craziest thing I've ever seen in my life. It is so cool. The power of animals. 

 

Annie:

Wow. Now you've traveled with him too, is that right?

 

Emily:

Yeah, we've been… I guess our furthest journey was Savannah, Georgia because my family, my aunt and uncle lived down there and so we went for Christmas and so he went down and we did the same thing like we did in New York City. We took him out in his little bubble and we wear the bubble on our front so that we can, you know, make sure nobody's like poking them and things. 

 

Annie:

Did you drive him down? 

 

Emily:

Yeah, we drove him down. We always have a litter box in the car. Um, it's incredible. He rarely uses it. It was a 12 hour drive down and I think he went once on the way to Savannah and then twice on the way home. Um, but yeah, he started like he'll just go in the litter box in the car, no problem. And then when we're out and about, like when we were in New York City and when we were in Savannah, we just find like little parks where people walk their dogs and we just walk him like a dog. And he, you know, he's a little particular so sometimes you have to find a little dirt patch and you have to start digging a little bit and then once the hole has started being dug and he's like, “Oh, okay, I'll go there.” So it's pretty funny actually.

 

Annie:

And I know you came to New York and uh, and actually that's how we first connected because you emailed me about places to go with him in New York.What was that like?

 

Emily:

Yeah, it was awesome. Well, I mean the planning for it was very frustrating because all the dog friendly places said that we couldn't bring a cat and, like, looking back in hindsight, we just say if somewhere is pet friendly, we usually just take them, but because we don't live in New York, and you know, we were staying kind of near Times Square, but wanted to go mostly to Brooklyn, we weren't about to go all the way down there and then them be like, “Hey, he's not allowed.” And so, you know, we always have to kind of check if somewhere says that it's pet friendly, I always check to make sure that it is pet friendly in the winter too because a lot of times it's only pet friendly, you know, when the patios are open. And so that's the only reason I really reached out. 

 

Um, but I made the mistake of saying that he was a cat. And so we had several businesses say like, “well he can't come and you know, it's dogs only.” And at first I was a little bit annoyed and then, you know, I realized, well they don't know Pip, you know, they don't know that he goes to all these bars around Ocean City with dogs and that he has this bubble and, you know, and I wasn't about to argue with these business owners because that's not my …. 

 

Annie:

And then you couldn’t just stealthily just show up.

 

Emily:

Yeah I couldn’t just sneak in now, they are going to know I'm the lady that emailed them about the cat.

 

So yeah. So we came to New York because we had a Monday morning meeting with an animal agency. 

 

Annie:

And so did they contact you then about, about possibly representing Pip?

 

Emily:

We, so…

 

Annie:

Or did you reach out to them? 

 

Emily: 

Think about that for a second. I believe we reached out to them. So I found this cat whose name is Chichi and he cat was on Saturday Night Live and was in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and was in, like, some Rachel Ray commercials. And I found out about this cat because I was researching like, how to, you know, have your cat be an actor because I thought that it might be something that Pip would really enjoy because he likes to learn and I was like, well, this could be a really cool learning experience for him. And so I found the owner of the cat's name in this like Huffington Post article from like 10 years ago, emailed her, ended up booking her for an hour long sort of consultation about like how she got her cat into acting and she gave me an entire list of agents and said, “contact all of them and see what they say.”

And so we contacted all of them and this was one that was like, you know… some of them are like, “Oh, you're on our list, good to go. If we have work, we'll call you.” And then this one said, you know, can you come up to New York? We want to meet Pip in person. And I was like, “yeah, absolutely. Like that sounds like so much fun.” And so that's why we went up. We wanted to meet with this agent, you know, she wanted to see Pip in person, so check them out, see what his demeanor was like. So we said, we'll make a whole weekend out of it.

The Algonquin Hotel invited us to stay with them. And they have a cat Hamlet the Eighth. They always had a cat. They've had Matildas and they've had Hamlets and they've had it since the hotel opened. I mean, I think it's over a hundred years ago now. So this tradition of a cat has been going on forever. And so it was the perfect place for Pip to stay and Pip and Hamlet actually got to have breakfast together one morning and they interacted a little bit. Hamlet was very concerned that Pip was there to replace him so we had to, you know, tell him like, we're just here to visit, like don't worry. And so, you know, we didn't spend too much time with Hamlet because we didn't want him to think that Pip was there to replace him whatsoever. Um, yeah, we left every morning sort of with a loose plan of like, okay, this is the neighborhood we're going to check out. And, when Pip says it's time to go, it's time to go.

And I'm not joking when I say this cat, Oh my God, he wanted to explore New York more than I did. I mean he just loved it. He was hanging out of his little bubble that we carry him and it has a little side pocket and he was just hanging out of it the whole time. He was smelling everything. He ordered a hot dog. He went to Central Park, like he rode the Staten Island ferry and saw the Statue of Liberty. He rode the subway, I thought, I said, okay, he's going to have to be afraid of the subway but we're going to try it because I don't want to, I don't want to limit what I think Pip can handle. Put him on the subway, we're like, we'll do one stop. He fell asleep. That's how unfazed by the subway. And I'm like, what the heck? This is crazy. 

And so we just knew like, I mean this is Pip and like he's not, he's not afraid of anything. And so we took him to Central Park and we walked him across the Brooklyn Bridge and we went to these pet-friendly establishments and he always, you know, it's funny cause people are like, Whoa. Like, what do you mean you take a cat to a bar? And I'm like, this cat loves to people watch and he loves to watch like the drinks being poured and all the like neon lights and like, I mean it's just it's so cool to him and you can just sit them on a bar stool and he'll just sit there and he'll look around and you feed him is his dinner while you're eating your dinner. And he just has the greatest time and he’ll purr and he’ll let people pet him. And like, you know, that's how we kind of know that he's enjoying himself as he's purring, he's sleeping. They say, you know, cat is comfortable if it closes its eyes because the cat won't close its eyes if it doesn't feel comfortable because, you know, it's on alert, it's kind of on edge. And I mean, every bar we take them to as soon as he's done watching what's going on-asleep just absolutely. 

 

Annie:

Have you done training with him?

 

Emily:

Yes. So we… a lot of people, always ask us like, “Did you train them to go on the leash? Did you train them to use the harness?” And my answer for that is “No.” You know, he just took to the harness very naturally and, I think, realized that very early on that the only way he was going to be able to go outside was if he was attached to this thing. And so he's done wonderful with it. What we have been able to train him to do is to give his paw, he can get high fives, he can get handshakes and we have certain training tools. We have like a little stick and, I am sure they use these for dogs too, but it's like a little stick with a little red foam rubber ball on the end. And so we've trained him to follow that little red ball. And like if we're doing, say, like, a little photo shoot or something fun just for his Instagram or something, we sort of have him trained to sit and then look at wherever the little ball is so we can have the ball sort of behind the camera and  have him look up or to the right and, you know, get that perfect little cute face where he, where he smiles.

Um, but a lot of it, like I can't make this stuff up. Like I can't script it and I can't make it happen. Like he just shows a wider range of emotions, Like somebody said that, you know, we snuck them into one of the oldest bars in New York City, McSorley's I think it's called, right? 

 

Annie:

Yeah.

 

Emily:

And he wasn't allowed to be there, but we're like, okay, we're going to sneak them in. We're going to keep them in the bubble the whole time. Like, you know, I'm not trying to do anything against like New York health code or anything. Um, but in the end…and really we were there just for us cause we'd never been to this bar and we wanted to go. And so we got in, we're having a beer and he's in his bubble and he's totally chilled out. He's like sleeping under the bar in his bubble and we could see him the whole time. And at the end, the bartenders had found out that he was in there and they made a joke like, “Oh my God, we have the worst doormen in the world.” And I said, “we're on our way out, but do you mind if I just take one picture of him?” And they were like one picture and I was like, okay. So I unzipped his bubble and he stuck his little head out and we kind of have him, like, he's in the foreground and in the background is the whole bar and he just has this smirk on his face. Like, he knows that he's not supposed to be there, but, like, look at him, he broke into this bar and like all that kind of stuff. So he does, he does. I mean the emotions that he shows are just so funny and you can get them to look like, I mean sometimes he'll look very sad like that he needs a treat, you know, it's like those puppy dog eyes that people talk about, he is completely capable of making them.

 

Annie: 

Have you ever done any clicker training with him?

 

Emily:

So yeah all of his paw, high five and handshake, he does now without the need of the clicker enforcement. But it is the clicker is what got it all started. And so, you know, we did, as he would start to lift his hand up, click treat, as his hand would get closer to our hand, click treat. And, um, within a day,  he was doing the full give paw trick. We would click every single time and then by the next day we didn't need the clicker anymore. And he just knew, you know, wherever our hand was, that's where his paw needed to be. So we just transitioned that to high fives and handshakes. And now it's something we just do every morning and every night. And so he's just got it down.

And we're working on some other funny tricks, just because he really does like to learn the tricks. I mean, what's really cool is like when you get the tools out for training, cause he recognizes them, he sees the clicker, he sees the special treats that he gets when he trains and he starts to purr and he'll come over and you'll say, “Sit” and you'll, you know, make a little fist and he'll sit and he's just like ready to go. He's like, “okay, tell me what I need to do.” And then he gets very curious if we try to teach him something new, like, “wait, why didn't I get a treat for that?”And so he gets a little crazy. Like, “Oh no, what do I have to do? What do I have to do?” And so he just is purring and purring the whole time. It's just been really, really cool to see him grow that way. 

 

Annie:

What do you do when you're not managing your account? I have been a waitress for 15 years. I have just had to cut down to one day a week right now, because we,you know, part of Pip's business plan or mission or whatever you want to call it, is as much charity work as possible. You know. And I've always said,”what's the point in having a famous cat if it's not doing something good for the community?” And  don't like the idea of I'm going to sell a bunch of products and then just write a check and be like, here's money, you know, keep doing what you're doing. It's like I want to be actively involved in all of that. And so I sort of took this leap of faith and was like, okay, I'm done, like I quit. And I quit all my jobs cause I also substitute teach sometimes and so I said, you know what? I'm done. I'm not substituting, I'm waitressing only when they absolutely need me. And I've just devoted sort of every day to creating content for Pip’s brand, but then also spending, you know, almost I would say four out of five days if not more at nursing homes or schools or tomorrow we have story time at the library. Uh, just donating my time to sort of spread Pip's message out there. And to, you know, obviously it helps us because we get publicity and we get, you know, more people know who Pip is the more places we go and stuff like that. 

But at the end of the day, I mean, if nothing more comes out of this, then people understanding that cats can do more than a lot of people give them credit for and if we can use Pip's reach to sort of bring awareness to like what nursing home residents need. You know, they need people to come visit them, it doesn't have to be a cat. I mean, that'd be great. They love animals. Animal therapy is around for a reason, but they just want people to talk to. I mean, there are nursing home residents that haven't had visitors the entire time they've been in there. I mean, that's years that they've been there and haven't had visitors come to specifically see them and you don't really know that that's going on until you're in it. 

We also have, sort of, I guess you could call it my passion project. I am a huge fan of hip hop music. I love Kendrick Lamar and J Cole and, you know, the older stuff like Nelly and 50 Cent, you know, that was out when I was a kid. And so I said, I want Pip to have an alter ego that is…  that raps. And I kind of sent it out to the universe, I'm a huge believer in like, you know, if you tell the university you want something, it's gonna come to you. You know, just trust that it will come and you might have to wait, but somehow it's going to happen. And so I kept saying to all my friends and  my family and  even my students, cause at this point I was still substituting, I want Pip to have this alter ego where he raps. I just have to find someone that will be his voice because I'm sure as heck not gonna rap. 

And one day I'm talking to these students in a seventh grade classroom and one of the kids who was in the back of the room and hadn't said anything, all class goes, “my brother can rap for you.” And I kind of, I didn't think anything of it and he's like, “I'm not joking. Ms Meadows, he can really rap. Like I want to hook you guys up. Like I think I think he can rap for you.”  And I was like, “Okay. Alright. Like how old is he? Like you know, like what's this story?” And he's like, “his name's Rashan, he's 15 years old. He's in 10th grade. He goes to the high school next door,” which is actually the high school I graduated from. And it was like the funniest conversation I've ever had because here it is like me, this like almost 30 year old woman who's essentially carrying around a cat everywhere acting like it's famous because at this point it wasn't. And this 15 year old kid that's an aspiring rapper who is writing, like, very explicit rap songs, but they're amazing. Like he is so talented. And so I say to, “look, I will help you with whatever you need because I believe in your art and I believe in what you're doing. And I think that when I listened to your music, I see where you're inspired.” 

 And we sat down and we had this meeting. I said, this is what I want. I want to have rap songs that Pip’s alter ego, Lil’ P aka Little Pip, raps, but it's going to be your voice. I said, you can write them, I can write them whatever, however that needs to work. We'll make music videos. I said, it's going to get your voice out there and perhaps even into, you know, the mainstream where somebody's going to hear it and be like, that kid's good and want to help you with your career. I said, but putting all the Pip stuff aside, I want to know what you need. And he's like, well, I don't have equipment to shoot a music video. Do you think you can help me with that? And I was like, well duh, because I'm literally making cat videos all day long. I would love to make a rap video.

So I said, before we do anything with Pip, I want to make sure that you know that I'm serious about this partnership and that this isn't just about using your voice to help me and what I want from my cat. This is about helping you. And so we made his rap video first. It's the first rap video I ever made. It was so much fun. It was just so funny. I mean like..

 

Annie:

Is this a rap video with Pip in it? 

 

Emily:

Pip is not in this first video because it has explicit language and Pip is writing a children's book and so, you know. There was a little bit of like, okay, we're not going to put Pip… Pip can't endorse this music in that way yet. But people do know I filmed it and directed it and edited it and Rashan and his rap name is a young Bo.

He totally, you know, gave me sort of the storyboard of what he wanted for his first song and then, I sort of, made it come to life and we worked on the whole editing stage together. And it's just so funny how, like, on one end of the spectrum, some of my best friends right now are a hundred years old because that's why I visit the nursing homes.

 

Annie:

Literally. 

 

Emily:

Yeah. And then on the other end of the spectrum, it's like, I spend a lot of time with this 15 year old aspiring rapper and like, we bounce ideas off of each other and we collaborate on this music. And so we did his music video and then we went to the studio and we laid down five original tracks that are all kid-friendly that all have meaningful messages about animals.

I rewrote Jay Z's Empire State of Mind, to be about Pip and Ocean City and that one's really funny. We like, there's that one line where it's, like you know, Jay's talking about like being on the corner selling rock. And so we changed it to on the corner selling rock candy since we sell rock candy on the boardwalk. It really is this alter ego and it's supposed to be promoting these really good messages while also, you know, taking someone out of our minority community here that's only 15 years old and showing the world how talented he is, because at the end of the day, like Pip, being famous is awesome. I mean, it brings me so much joy. The work that we're doing with the nursing homes, you know, just the creative work that I'm able to do is incredible for me. But if we could help Rashan launch like an actual like bonafide rap career. I mean that would mean more to me in this world anything that’s what Pip the Beach Cat is. He is here to inspire people and to work with groups of people that are often overlooked. 

 

**music**

 

Annie:

If you'd like to learn more about the Pip the cat, you can sign up for his weekly newsletter at  pipthebeachcat.com. He's also on Instagram at, I'mfeelingPipsy and he's on Facebook, facebook.com/I'mfeelingPipsy. He has over 13,000 followers. Definitely make sure to check the show notes. I will put his amazing rap video there and also on our Facebook page school forthedogs.com/facebook

Fun Dog Fact of the day is actually going to be fun to cat fact: Most orange cats, Pip is an orange cat or ginger cat as they're sometimes called. Most of them are male, only about a of them are female. And the reason is that the gene that codes for orange fur is on the X chromosome and since females have two Xes and males are X, Y, this means that a girl cats have to inherit two genes that code for the orange color, where as boy cats only need one, which they get from their mamas.

And a bonus fact about orange cats. If you were a child of the eighties like me, you might remember the Morris the Cat commercials for Nine Lives cat kibble. I actually think he was a star of commercials from as early as the late sixties through maybe like the early nineties. Anyway, the guy who voiced Morris the cat was also the voice of He-Man, who knew,

And our Woof Shout out today, of course, has to be a Meow shout out. It goes to Sir Charles who is a tuxedo cat, I think he's about 13 years old. He belongs to my business partner, Kate Senisi and her husband Jared, and he is a difficult cat. He bossed around her dog who was also black and white, the late and wonderful,  pit bull Disco. He lost him around for many years. And now that Disco isn't around to beat up upon he gets his ya-yas out by bossing around Kate and Jared. And only I'd say only an animal trainer could really handle this. This cat, who is not easy to live with. And actually Kate coined the term, which I mentioned to Emily,”cat hole,” which is how she refers to Sir Charles. So Sir Charles, you are difficult to love and you sure are lucky to have such a wonderful, wonderful family to put up with your shenagians.

 

Links:

Pip’s Book

Pip Merchandise

Pip’s Story

Lollimeow

Greyhound Bookstore

Adventure Cats

Summer’s Travels Instagram

Love on a Leash

Pets on Wheels

The Algonquin Cat

Pip the Beach Cat

Morris the Cat

Annie Grossman
annie@schoolforthedogs.com