Leo has been happy for months in our little one bedroom apartment in the east village, and I'm happy to say we've saved his life. ... He's now house trained and healthy with a lovely coat of fur — unlike when we found him when he was malnourished and covered in engine grease from where he'd been hiding.
So why are we looking for a new home for Leo? Well, unfortunately, we recently had our cat from the UK (we're a British couple living here) shipped over to New York to join us. He's a docile and relaxed fluff ball called Willow, and although lovable to everyone that meets him, Leo doesn't like him one bit.
In fact, Leo hates on him. It has now been 3 months and the two of them can't get on. Leo is a wonderful cat but we've come to the realization that Leo is only happy alone. He's very territorial and becomes aggressive around new cats. We are now separating the two and Leo is crying the house down and desperate to be let out of the kitchen (his favorite room with his bed), which we can't do with Willow in the room. They have now had no less than 6 fights, each more severe than the last and it's heartbreaking. I want to keep Leo and I want him and Willow to get on but they won’t.
We have been to every pet store, advice network, and generally good cat person we know and we have tried everything people have recommend. Nothing worked. We’re now completely out of options, other than to find Leo a new loving home.
Some facts about Leo:
• Leo's estimated age is 2 years old, but we suspect he’s only just there because he’s a young boy.
• He may have been mistreated (how else did he end up on a barge) or he may have been feral. I'm not sure it's the latter because he instantly knew how to use the litter, eat from his bowl, and generally make his way around the home.
• He is house trained.
• He can become agitated but generally he’s a lovely cat with a good demeanor.
• He has been trained to only scratch his scratching post
The Neighborhood School’s beloved Holiday Fair is back! On Sunday from 11 am to 5 pm, come on out to support a public school and have a blast. There’ll be carnival games, arts & crafts, face-painting, print-making, henna and temporary tattooing, a huge kid-built maze (made of deconstructed cardboard boxes — the urban equivalent of a corn maze), a raffle, our famous silent auction and great food from your favorite neighborhood vendors.
Auction items up for bids this year include an autographed, limited-edition Handsome Dick Manitoba bobblehead, classes in trapeze, parkour and trampoline at STREB; gift certificates to fabulous East Village and Lower East Side shops like The Bean, Exit 9, Alphabet City Acupuncture, Sugar Sweet Sunshine, East Yoga, Saxelby Cheesemongers, Grace Heaven Organic Salon, il laboratorio del gelato and more; fabulous Trina Turk jewelry; memberships at MOMA and the Lower East Side Tenement Museum and many more. Bid online until Friday at 5 pm; live auction at the school on Sunday at 2:30 pm.
Admission to the fair is free and open to the public. Wondering what a progressive public school in the East Village is like? Come check us out! It’s a great (and cheap) way to have fun indoors with your kids on a cold winter’s day; you get to shop and nosh and your kids get to run around with their friends.
Proceeds from the fair support the Neighborhood School PTA, a 501(c)(3) non-profit charitable organization.
"A worker at the site, located at 11 Second Ave. at the corner of East First Street, suffered a leg injury in the incident about 2 p.m. and was transported to Bellevue Hospital, the FDNY said."
