The Bodega Cats of NYC

In this engaging conversation, Dr. Cliff Redford interviews Dan Rimada, the founder of Bodega Cats of New York, discussing the significance of bodega cats in New York City, the challenges they face, and the initiatives being taken to ensure their welfare. The conversation covers the cultural importance of these cats, the introduction of a certification program for bodega owners, and the launch of fundraising efforts to support veterinary care for these beloved animals. Additionally, Dan shares insights about the unique Cats About Town Tours, which highlight the historical connection between cats and the city.

https://www.bodegacatsofnewyork.com/

@bodegacatsofnewyork

https://www.catsabouttowntours.com/

@catsabouttowntours

Be sure to follow me on Instagram @drcliffworldwidevet.com
Listener questions, episode suggestions, or if you have a good idea for a guest, email me at dr.redford@vet905.com
Additional information can be found at drcliff.ca

Transcript

Dan Rimada (00:00)

But Jerry Foxx was like a famous cat there. Everybody knew the cat and...

He was starting to lose his vision. So they made him this little tiny pair of cat glasses, which, yeah, yeah. If you look up Jerry Fox on Google, you actually see him with his little glasses. So the staff there loved him. I mean, he was a legend in Burrow Hall and he was a hero. It turns out, you know, he saved a bunch of people.

Dr. Cliff Redford (00:09)

on.

Dr. Cliff Redford (00:24)

So that was a little snippet from the upcoming interview I had with Dan from the Bodega Cats of New York. It's this great organization where they're helping the shop owners make sure their cats are healthy. They also have this amazing historical walking tour. I believe it's in Brooklyn of the various cats in New York's history. So if you like cats or you like New York City or you like bodegas.

check out this podcast.

Dr. Cliff Redford (01:03)

All right, everyone, welcome back to VetLife. I have with me, Dan, think you're the guardian angel of bodega cats in New York. Say hi to everyone, tell us who you are, what you do. I'm so excited for this.

Dan Rimada (01:12)

Ha

Likewise. Yeah, thanks so much for having me, Clifford. Really appreciate it. I'm a fan of the pod and yeah, this is great. Thanks so much for the invite. Yeah, so I'm Dan. I'm the founder of Bodega Cats of New York on Instagram. And yeah, I like the nickname. I'll totally take it. There's been a couple of initiatives that we launched to really help Bodega Cats and I'm excited to chat about them today.

Dr. Cliff Redford (01:42)

Yeah, so I mean, a bodega for us non-New Yorkers, that's like a tiny deli or an independently owned sort of market or grocery store. Like what exactly is a bodega?

Dan Rimada (01:55)

Yeah, it's funny because bodega, you know, it's a Spanish term and it was coined in like the 50s, 60s here in New York by like Puerto Rican families and then later on Dominican families. it's the direct translation is tiny cellar or like a small warehouse. So I guess one could make the connection, right? It's a tiny place where there's a lot of stuff inside. Yeah, kind of like warehouse.

But yeah, a bodega is a small convenience store, typically independently owned, where you can get knickknacks, you can get essentials, everything from like toilet paper to eye drops to cat food to a bag of chips, a chopped cheese, a bagel. So it's kind of like a catch all for like a convenience store. And they're typically in New York City.

Dr. Cliff Redford (02:50)

Gotcha, and

they often serve food and that's part of the issue of these cats that hang out there.

Dan Rimada (02:58)

That's right. Yeah. So there's, you know, food prep areas where they prepare salads and chopped cheeses and, you know, a bacon, egg and cheese, whatever you need. But the issue is for health code, you are not allowed to have a live animal in and around food prep area. And then even more broadly, you're really not supposed to have a like non-service animal inside of a inside of a private establishment.

Dr. Cliff Redford (03:28)

And that's where your organization Bodega Cats in New York came in. There was like a petition. That's why I found out about you. And tell us about that, because we got to take care of these little guys.

Dan Rimada (03:38)

Yeah.

Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, it's a certification program and it's a voluntary program. And like at its core, the idea here is if you are a bodega owner and you are sick and tired of getting fines for having the cat and you have no plans to get rid of your cat, then certify the cat and you will avoid fines going forward.

The only thing is you have to provide veterinary records, have to provide spaying and neutering records, have to be able to prove that you are taking care of the cat and you are treating it as if it was a working animal that has some rights to access to healthcare. So the idea here is as long as you can prove that you're taking care of the cat, you will no longer face fines. If you do not want to voluntarily join the certification program, that's fine, you don't have to, but you will continue to face fines. You're not gonna get additional fines, they won't be...

any more hefty than they are now. It's about two to $300 per violation for having just the cat. So it's not meant to punish anyone. It's just meant to alleviate the burden of getting these fines by proving you have a healthy cat working in your establishment. That's the kind of broad idea. And if you'll allow me to ramble on a bit more, I'll tell you, yeah, I'll tell you kind of the process and what we've experienced so far. we announced it.

a month and a half ago, and we've gotten a lot of really good feedback. And some of the feedback we got was the first people that reached out were the rescue works across New York City. the general consensus was, hey, your heart's in the right place. This seems like a good idea on paper, but it's kind of far-fetched. There's a lot of red tape you're going to have to go through. And also, we already do this work. So

A lot of rescue orgs in New York City, and I really didn't know this, and I wonder if people knew this, a lot of rescue orgs in New York City, they already go to bodegas and they try to convince the owners to let them get their cat neutered or just for checkup. And unfortunately, what's happening is a lot of these rescue orgs, some of them are just independent folks that will take money out of their own pocket to go visit a bodega to try to convince the owner to let them take their cat.

from the day, bring it to the vet, get it checked up. And, you know, a lot of times at no cost to the owner. But, you know, these rescuers are paying out of pocket as in there was one story that is super memorable to me that kind of sticks out. this one woman, she took an Uber to go to a bodega to, she already had a pre-arranged agreement with the owner. So she took an Uber to the bodega. She got the cab, took another Uber to the vet's office.

and then took another Uber back to the bodega to drop off the cat. This was all out of her own pocket. So we heard that and then, you know, a kind of light bulb moment went off and I'll save that for one second. But the initial feedback was for from rescue organization saying, Hey, this is great. But just so you know, like there's already folks out there that do this kind of stuff. We already care for bodega cats in New York City. And a lot of times bodega owners are not reluctant to let their cat go to the vet.

They just don't have a lot of time to do it on their own and get, as you probably know, getting a vet appointment in New York City with the shortage that's going on around veterinary care is pretty difficult to do. So it's, you know, it's really a burden for Bode owners and it shouldn't be, right? Like if you want to take care of your cat, of course, we should make that super easy. The other kind of pushback we got was we had a conversation with the mayor's office. We spoke to the mayor's office of animal welfare.

And they told us, look, it's not just the city council that has to sign off on this. There's quite a lot of players involved, right? There's the New York City Department of Health. There is the city council. There's the New York State Agriculture and Markets. So there's quite a few people that would have to like change health code. They would have to change laws, local laws to allow paths to exist in these bodegas. So, you know, it...

It was kind of eye opening to us, right? Like I think, like I said before, our hurt was in the right place. We didn't realize how much red tape was there. So recently we decided, hey, why don't we, why don't we pivot this a little bit? Why don't we say, or why don't we ask like, what do these rescues need today? How can we support them? Right? If they're already doing the work, how can we support them? So the idea here is now we're going to launch a fund, a fundraiser.

And the fundraiser is going to raise $30,000 for veterinary care for Bodega cats. And we're going to give it all to one rescue organization that has a history of doing work for Bodega cats. It's not exclusively for Bodega cat care. We're happy to have the money go towards feral cats, any kind of cat that needs help. But we chose an organization and nothing is in writing just yet. So I don't want to mention the name, but we chose an organization that has a long history of treating Bodega cats. So.

The fundraiser is coming out sometime in April and it's going to be led by the big four Bodega Cat accounts, right? So that's Bodega Cat's Instagram, our account, Bodega Cat's New York, the Shop Cats show and Bodega Cat Whiskey. So for Instagram accounts that feature Bodega Cat's, we're all getting involved here to do like a collaborative post and encourage our followers to donate to the fund. And we're hoping to raise it in about...

60 days would be our goal and then we're going to give it all to a rescue organization. So it seems like these rescue organizations need funding quickly, right? They need money and we're happy to do that while I still figure out how are we going to get all of these players to sign off on allowing the data cats to get some kind of a certification, right? Some kind of a legal status, right? Let's help them unionize. That's the idea. Yeah.

Dr. Cliff Redford (09:45)

Beautiful. Yeah. Let's get them, let's get them healthcare and, and workers rights. They, and they do a job. Like these cats aren't just there. I mean, they're gorgeous and, they probably bring smiles upon people's faces and, greet you when you come in and the little, little thing dings when you, when the door opens. But, I've heard there's a rat problem in New York city.

and I, I, got to imagine that, public health would rather a single well cared for cat hang out in this, food prep, zone in the region. Then, then there'd be issues with rats and mice and other vermin.

Dan Rimada (10:27)

Yeah, and...

Yeah, I second the rat problem in New York City. Many rats have crossed my path when I'm just going down the block. So yeah, I think all in all bodega cats have really like cemented themselves as like cultural staples in New York City. And we love that and we wanna preserve that. And it's funny because it's not just from locals, but tourists, they were really...

you know, on their vacation, they'll go out of their way to go visit a bodega cat, right? And we get messages from tourists all the time asking us, Hey, where are the cats? I'm in Hell's Kitchen. Where should I go? Or, you know, I'm in the Lower East Side. I'm in Brooklyn. Where should I go to visit a bodega cat? they, you know, their, cultural status in New York City can't be ignored, right? They're, they're amazing little animals. I call them, um, little like, uh, the encounters with bodega cats. call them little Zen moments because especially for locals, right? Like the, the,

The moment you walk into a bodega and you have this hectic lifestyle and you're always in a rush as a New Yorker, you can't stop at Pet the Cat, right? Like there's a brief interruption in your day and you're kind of forced to just stop for one second and slow down for a little while and just pet the cat and just appreciate it being there. And yes, so they serve a purpose. They are there for pest control and they do a fantastic job.

Cats providing pest control is not a new thing. It goes all the way back to the Egyptians protecting their harvests, protecting their grains. But they do a great job. mean, even just the smell of a cat in a store is a good enough deterrent to a rodent. But there's this catch-22. So do you, as a bodega owner, do you just take the fine for having rodents or do you take the fine for having a cat?

It's just one of those New York City things where, you know, like we know it's a silly law, but it is a law and we have to deal with it. the. Yeah. I was going to say the police, please.

Dr. Cliff Redford (12:34)

How often, sorry, how often would you find that?

Yeah. How often would you find if a, if a bodega owner is not registered or it sounds like that's not, hasn't gone through yet anyways, but like if I was a bodega owner and I had a cat, what's the average number of fines a year you said is a couple hundred dollars. do they hit you once a year or is it just dependent upon the bylaw officer?

Dan Rimada (13:02)

Yeah, there's no like schedule. They're, they're random inspections. And you know, they're really there about like the letter grade that gets stuck to the window in New York. So they're the ones who provide the letter grade. So you could fail an inspection. And then, you know, it's not a great look for the bodega. There's a handful of cases a year. It's not like every week or anything, but there's a handful of cases. And it really just depends on the inspector. A lot of times they'll look the other way. A lot of times they won't.

So it just depends on the inspector that day. And it's not that he was the same person.

Dr. Cliff Redford (13:36)

Yeah.

Yeah. And as you said though, it would be, I would imagine it would be easier to get the inspector to look the other way, or it would be just better to have a cat there than to take a fine for having signs of vermin, rat droppings and things of that nature.

Dan Rimada (13:55)

Exactly. It's better than having pesticides and rat poison all over the bodega. It's more effective solution.

Dr. Cliff Redford (13:59)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And they're infinitely,

they're infinitely cuter. And as you said, they have a character and a, a heritage. got a heritage place there in New York city. so you have, you have set up a tour. You can do a walking tour, right?

Dan Rimada (14:14)

All right. That's right.

Yeah, yeah. this is, it's outside of the scope of Bodega Cats. But yeah, it's called Cats About Town Tours. And it's a walking tour for people who love cats and history. So it's essentially the history of cats in New York City from the 18 and 1900s. It's about a mile and a half, an hour and a half. It takes place in Brooklyn Heights, the Lower East Side and the Financial District.

Dr. Cliff Redford (14:27)

Uh-huh.

Dan Rimada (14:46)

And all of our tours were curated by my co-founder who runs Cats About Town tours with me. Her name is Peggy Gavin and she is a cat historian in New York City, published author, licensed tour guide. And she takes folks around the Brooklyn Heights tour. And yeah, she explains the history of cats in that area. There's a couple of like really fun stories. There's Ned of the Bridge, which is a really fun Google search if you want to check that out.

So Ned of the bridge was the first living animal to cross the Brooklyn Bridge. They actually put Ned right in the middle of the bridge and he ended up crossing from Brooklyn to the Manhattan side. So he was, I think it was the first living being to fully cross the Brooklyn Bridge. So that was like christened by a cat. A lot of people don't know that. Yeah, there's another cat called Jerry Fox. He alerted the staff of Burrow Hall.

Dr. Cliff Redford (15:35)

Beauty.

Dan Rimada (15:45)

off of Court Street in Brooklyn Heights. He alerted the staff there to a fire. So he smelled smoke and somehow he got the attention of the staff. The staff walked over to where the fire was starting and they were able to call the fire department and then the fire department put out the fire. And we have another petition to get a plaque in place in Burrow Hall, just commemorating that event. But Jerry Foxx was like a famous cat there. Everybody knew the cat and...

He was starting to lose his vision. So they made him this little tiny pair of cat glasses, which, yeah, yeah. If you look up Jerry Fox on Google, you actually see him with his little glasses. So the staff there loved him. I mean, he was a legend in Burrow Hall and he was a hero. It turns out, you know, he saved a bunch of people. But, know, it's funny because like there's different, there's a whole other dimension, right? Burrow Hall by itself is a historical place. Brooklyn Hall, the Brooklyn Bridge, of course, is historically significant.

Dr. Cliff Redford (16:18)

on.

Wow.

Dan Rimada (16:41)

But there's a whole nother layer, right? There's like cat history associated to it too that a lot of people don't realize. So yeah, it starts the middle of April and it goes all the way to December. So when we end the tour, it's just because it gets too cold. Nobody wants to walk around in the cold. yeah, yeah, bookings are available right now, but it's a really fun tour. And the Brooklyn Heights one, it ends at the Brooklyn Cat Cafe. So that way people can...

Dr. Cliff Redford (16:56)

Yeah, yeah.

Dan Rimada (17:08)

get their fix of cute cats, they get to play with cats and have coffee at the Brooklyn Cat Cafe, which is also a nonprofit.

Dr. Cliff Redford (17:14)

That's so exciting. like whenever I go and travel to certain cities, at least if it's in North America, I'll often try and do the ghost tours. Recognizing that the ghost stories are fascinating, but it's just a unique way of learning about the history. It's like the B story or the B roll or it's the hook to get us in.

Dan Rimada (17:24)

That's right.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

Dr. Cliff Redford (17:40)

I'd never even thought about things like a cat tour, a history of cat tour. Are there other cities that you're aware of that do this sort of thing?

Dan Rimada (17:52)

So, the direct answer is no. There's no one doing cat history tours. And we were surprised about that too. We were surprised actually about the lack of animal related tours. There's tons of animal history in, you know, like really historically significant cities like in Boston, in Philadelphia. There's a ton of like hidden cat history that I think people don't know about. But just the fact that there was very little tours in general about animals and that the historical significance of animals was

Socking to us. So, you know, we we jumped right in as soon as we you know had the idea for the tour we kind of jumped in with both feet and it's Really successful. We sold out the first four weeks We launched last August we sold out we had a 300 person waiting list and Yeah, we only launched Two weeks ago and the first couple of dates for our tour this year are completely sold out So the word has gotten out and we're really grateful and yeah

Dr. Cliff Redford (18:49)

Yeah. And

like, what a great, what a great family friendly talk too. If I, if I go to New York and you know, I've got 10 year old boys, let's say I have twin boys, they're, they're adults now well into their adult life. But, uh, it'd be pretty hard to get a 10 year old kid excited about a historical tour of, of Brooklyn Heights. But if you tell them it's a historical tour about

Dan Rimada (18:56)

Totally, totally.

Dr. Cliff Redford (19:17)

cats that save people's lives and then you get to end it with some hot chocolate and croissants at a cat cafe, kids are gonna jump all over it. mean, it would be amazing.

Dan Rimada (19:31)

Yeah, yeah, that's what we were seeing. Yeah, a lot of families, a lot of kids come on the tour. We just had a booking for four people from Mexico. They're coming to New York City and like, this is one of the stops that they wanted to make. I don't know how they found out about us, but I'm grateful. But yeah, it's a lot of fun. We just launched two new locations. So the Lower East Side and the Financial District are brand new. So we have two other tour guides, Ray Carter.

She is another published author. And then we also have Janie Pearson, who's actually the founder of the Cat Museum of New York City, which is soon to be a cat museum. It's in the works right now. It's a nonprofit as of today. she and her co-founder are getting the status needed to actually come up with the Cat Cafe. I'm sorry, the Cat Museum of New York City. Yeah, she's another one of our guides.

Dr. Cliff Redford (20:21)

This is,

New York is one of my favorite places to visit. I've been there. I'm going to say in the last 10 years, probably six times, sometimes for film festivals, sometimes just, just on vacation. And I love Broadway and I love off Broadway and you know, all the typical stuff, but, this is going to be on my list like this. I remember once doing, I did a walking tour, and it was actually like, you do it on your own. Like you just.

Dan Rimada (20:25)

Ha ha!

Please.

Dr. Cliff Redford (20:50)

It's on, it's on Google and it kind of says turn at this street and, you know, walk a couple hundred meters and on your left is another graffiti. So it was all graffiti art. And I ended up being fascinated by, there was a gentleman who was doing sculptures, cat sculptures with like bent wire. And you just find these, these sculptures of cats, you know, up on somebody's fire escape or.

Dan Rimada (21:10)

well.

Dr. Cliff Redford (21:20)

You know, on top of the archway to the doorway of the firehouse. And, you know, you do a little bit of research. find out who it is and yeah, it's just a cat lover like you. And this is something that he does. And, and of course you can buy his artwork, but he just likes to kind of add some character to, New York city. So, this is definitely, this is definitely out my alley. mean, it's, what a, right a.

Dan Rimada (21:42)

No, yeah

You're invited.

Please.

Dr. Cliff Redford (21:49)

Yeah, a hundred percent. mean, we're hoping,

we're hoping to get there maybe May or June. We always seem to go in the winter time. We've got to for once go where it's a little bit warmer.

Dan Rimada (22:00)

Yeah, it's

beautiful in the winter. There's another side of New York, you know, just bring a jacket.

Dr. Cliff Redford (22:02)

It's nice. It's nice. And the Christmas,

the Christmas market is gorgeous and, and all that stuff. We always do crappy, hilarious standup comedy. Like we try and go to some basement standup comedy where two thirds of the people bomb. But that's where you, that's where you find the diamonds, the diamonds in the rough. But no, this is, this is definitely going to be on our, my wife's not a big cat fan.

Dan Rimada (22:08)

that's great.

Ha

Yep, that's right.

Yeah, absolutely.

Dr. Cliff Redford (22:30)

but she's a huge history fan and she likes storytelling. So she's gonna, she's gonna love this. How did you get into this? Are you a native to New York City?

Dan Rimada (22:34)

Nice. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I was born in New York City, raised here. I spent a lot of time in Fort Greene in Brooklyn, right off Myrtle Avenue. Some of your guests probably know where that is. my resident bodega cat was Oreo. And he still is Oreo is going strong. But yeah, I'm from New York born and raised here. I know my accent doesn't really give that away. But yeah, born and raised here.

Dr. Cliff Redford (23:05)

Yeah.

Beautiful. And how did you get into, just, you just loved Oreo and decided to start, start taking care of the other ones as well.

Dan Rimada (23:13)

Yeah, you know what's funny? So it all actually started with a cat named Luna and she was also a tuxedo cat just like Oreo and so she was like my Bodega cat when I was a kid and she had passed away and I did like a little drawing of Luna and I gave it to the owner and it was behind the counter for a super, super long time. And that was like my first like real connection to Bodega cats. So was the first time I really liked.

Noticed a bodega cat and just thought to myself like this this seems out of place like this is this is something here I'm not sure what it is But like this doesn't feel like you know like a natural thing like a cat living in a store so that was my my first like real exposure was like just falling in love with this cat named Luna and Doing this little you know roaring when I was a kid. It was probably terrible But you know the the owner loved it so much that he put it behind the counter there And I started the Instagram account

back in like 2021, 2022. And, you know, the idea there was like, was not to have it blow up and to be like what it is today, but it was just, I was going to take photos of bodega cats in my neighborhood and post them to this Instagram. So we did my own personal photos and I had a library full of photos, had plenty of content. And then little by little folks started sending me photos of their neighborhood bodega cats, and then it just snowballed and it got more and more and more. So I,

I was resistant at first. was like, well, these people don't understand what I'm trying to do here. Like I'm trying to do my own thing, but it just got so overwhelming that I realized like there's so much pride in like resident, you know, in, your own bodega cat. So people wanted their cats featured on the page. So, I finally gave in and I'm glad that I did, you know, and the, Instagram account is doing pretty well. And, now I feature photos of all bodega cats all across New York city and.

You know, there's a few like staple bodega cats that I get all the time, like Poncha in Hell's Kitchen. I get Oreo all the time. There's a cat named Zorro. He's on Avenue A in Manhattan. And if you'll let me go off on a tangent, I have a really hilarious story about Zorro for Okay On Time. So Zorro is a tortoiseshell cat.

Dr. Cliff Redford (25:29)

Please. Yeah, yeah.

Dan Rimada (25:36)

and he lives in Zaragoza Mexican Grocery, which is off of Avenue A, if you want to go say hi to Zora. But the owner there, Ruben, he was telling me a funny story, and I thought it was so hilarious, and I try to tell the stories as often as I can, but going back to health inspectors and bodegas. So Ruben was by himself, kind of a late shift, health inspector walks in, Ruben, just like every other bodega owner, gets a little nervous, right?

hoping they get a good letter grade. The shop is super clean. He had nothing to worry about, but still, your stomach goes up a little bit when they walk in. So he was telling me this story that the health inspector walked in, he did the inspection. He noticed the cat right away. There's a little station for the cat on top of the radiator, which is right by the front door. So when you walk in, it's on your right side. And then when you're walking out, it's on your left side. So the health inspector walks in, does the inspection, gets the A letter grade, of course.

And he notices the cat doesn't say anything. He's one of the kind of health inspectors that just doesn't really care. It looks the other way. As long as there's no rodent droppings or there's nothing too alarming. really don't pay too much attention to the cat. And this one especially didn't really care. So he starts to walk out. The health inspector gives the letter grade and he starts to walk out. And Zorro on his way out, he takes a swipe at the health inspector, scratches his arm, something like a two or three inch scratch right across the guy's arm.

And the health inspector stops in his place, he turns around, he looks at Ruben and he goes, really man, really? And Ruben's like, look, I'm sorry, nothing I can do. And he just walks out. So I think Ruben was like pretty nervous at that point, you know, maybe that A letter grade is not gonna stick around. But the health inspector was cool, he walked out with a scratch on his arm. But that's, you know, the unpredictable nature of our bodega cats. I've had a few like cats scratch me too, but that's a playful scratch. But I love that story.

Dr. Cliff Redford (27:27)

Yeah.

I think Zorro was trying to do a Z mark and say, this is my bylaw officer. Just so all the other cats know. Yikes. That's rolling the dice for sure. Poor Reuben. Next time he'll put Zorro in the back, think, just to be safe. mean, the reality is I recognize why they have the rules of no animals in a place where you're.

Dan Rimada (27:29)

Exactly, didn't get it done, yeah.

That's right. That's right. Use Mark and I'm yeah, for sure.

Yeah.

for sure.

Dr. Cliff Redford (27:56)

preparing food. But the zoonotic risk of a cat that's up to date on vaccines and as long as its stool sample is checked regularly, the zoonotic risk is essentially zero. know, people talk about toxoplasmosis as a parasite that can cause abortions in pregnant women. I imagine New York is the same as Toronto. Certainly the weather is the same. So in Toronto, they did a

Dan Rimada (28:15)

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Cliff Redford (28:26)

this organization called Mother Risk, a human sort of NGO taking care of pregnant women, did this study years ago and basically tested every single veterinarian and technician that they think they could get their hands on. And they did a thousand tests where we provided a blood sample to see if we had antibodies against toxoplasmosis.

And they were pleasantly surprised, maybe not surprised that none of us had antibodies, which means there's no toxoplasmosis in Toronto. it is primarily a, like Texas, like Southwest, part of, part of the U S. so, so, you know, they're, they're so

Dan Rimada (29:03)

Wow.

Dr. Cliff Redford (29:16)

They're human friendly, you know, as long as they're not like Zorro and they're scratching us and even a scratch is just a scratch. The bites can get infected, but I imagine the Bodata cats are well-behaved. This is really exciting. is, yeah, this is exactly why I do this podcast. Like you have introduced me to yet again, another link between sort of the human animal bond and what a special...

role that animals and in this case, cats, we, talk so much about dogs, but in, in what a special role that these cats have in people's lives and not only the bodega owners, but the, the patrons that go there regularly and in, and in some cases, the, the, inspecting officer as well. so I'm really, really glad that you brought this, brought this to everyone's attention and keep doing the things that you're doing.

Dan Rimada (30:03)

Thanks

Yeah.

Thanks very much for that, Cleber. Yeah. Okay. I just want to drop one more thing and just say that the fundraiser that we're about to announce, think it's connected to the fundraiser, but I think it's also important to note that like not all Bodega cats are as well treated as the ones we like to feature across all of our four Instagram accounts.

Dr. Cliff Redford (30:13)

Please.

Dan Rimada (30:31)

So some of them, spend a lot of their life in the back room or in the basement. again, they're to serve a purpose. These are working cats, they're not pets. So these are working cats and they're not all treated fantastic. like there's a dark reality too that, you know, there's cats that could be way better treated. And that was the original intention behind the petition. And now it's, you know, the intention with this new fundraiser. So I should mention that like there's probably,

you know, a good amount of cats that could live better lives. that's become like our, you know, our new, one of our new focuses is like just the better treatment of bodega cats. So like, they're not all, you know, as adorned and, know, we, our mission has really become to like, let's make sure that all bodega cats are fairly treated and that they're healthy and that they're happy. They have clean living spaces, they have clean water and they have good food. There's

one misconception that I always wanted to clear up. So the misconception is that like bodega cats are starved so that they only eat mice. It's unrealistic. It's kind of like a, it's a dated kind of a cliche and it's a dated idea that they're all starved. There wouldn't be enough food, right? Like there's not that many rats and mice that go into these bodegas. it's, they do have food. They do typically have places to sleep. But

Again, there's definitely room for improvement. And I think that as New Yorkers, we have to look out for our neighborhood bodega cats.

Dr. Cliff Redford (32:08)

Yeah. Yeah. As I said at the beginning, you're, you've become the guardian angel. You're the, the King lion, the King lion of the bodegas. here, here, Dan roar. That's, that's, that's exciting. so as we wrap up, let's just remind everyone where they can find you on Instagram and whatnot and, how they can help with your cause.

Dan Rimada (32:13)

Thank you, Thank you. Thank you, Clifford. Thank you.

Yeah, thank you for that. So if you want to check out our Instagram account, it's bodegacatsofnyork. And the website for the walking tours is catsabouttowntours.com. Our tours are running from April to December. And if you want to get involved with the petition, we do have a signable petition on change.org. We're still looking for signatures, we really want to build a strong coalition. And, you know, while we work through all the details.

And then the fundraiser should be announced the middle of April. It'll be on our Instagram. It's also going to be on our partners' Instagrams as well. Bodega Cats of Instagram, Shop Cats, and Bodega Cat Whiskey. So you'll see the announcement there. If you guys want to get involved, please consider donating to it and sign the petition. And we hope to see you on a tour sometime.

Dr. Cliff Redford (33:18)

Absolutely, I'll be there for sure. I appreciate it.

Dan Rimada (33:22)

My pleasure. Thank you, Clifford.