Betti Meets the President!

On Monday night I went to a book signing by Wayne Pacelle, President of the Humane Society of the US and a hero of mine, hosted by the Marin Humane Society for his new book, The Bond.

And I didn't go alone. I took Betti (pronounced Bitta), one of my MickaCoo foster pigeons!

I was going to take my pet king pigeon Rocky because I really like to focus attention on the kings but she did not want to go. Betti, a tame and yet very high-spirited roller, expressed interest in the adventure and so she came with me.

There weren't any other animals there and the lady at the door said, your bird didn't RSVP! but they let us in. Betti hung around on my shoulder for a short while but then she got bored and flew over to the shoulder of the lady sitting next to me. She was very nice (completely new to birds) and Betti hung out with her for awhile but then she got bored again and flew a short hop to another lady. I got her back (thank goodness pigeon pants have a leash feature) but not before the noise of her wings interrupted Wayne's presentation. He said, "And who do we have here?" and I said, "This is Betti, a rescued pigeon here to meet you!" People laughed and he went on and Betti behaved but she was antsy and bored and had me on the edge of my seat! After the presentation, we got to go up and meet Wayne and Betti of course charmed him even more and now she's got two pictures on HIS Facebook page!

That's the story of how Betti met the President (of the HSUS) and how I came to give him a MickaCoo T-shirt, flyer and Mickaboo brochure.

And I highly recommend his book The Bond. It is very powerful and, though I'm only halfway through it, I am already a better animal rescuer and advocate than I was.