by Amy Newmark
Since 1877 the historic American Humane Association has been at the forefront of every major advancement in protecting children, pets and farm animals from abuse and neglect. AHA also leads the way in understanding human-animal interaction and its role in society. As the nation’s voice for the protection of children and animals, American Humane Association reaches millions of people every day through groundbreaking research, education, training and services that span a wide network of organizations, agencies and businesses.
Under Dr. Ganzert’s leadership, American Humane Association has been named a “Top-Rated Charity” by CharityWatch and achieved the prestigious “Gold Level” charity designation from GuideStar.
A familiar face to millions of Americans from her frequent TV appearances and the highly-watched Hallmark Channel’s American Humane Association Hero Dog Awards, she also hosts her own radio show, Be Humane™ with Dr. Robin Ganzert, which mixes practical expert pet advice with guest appearances by some of America’s best known pet lovers from the movies, music and sports.
She is the author of Animal Stars: Behind the Scenes with Your Favorite Animal Actors. She authored the foreword of Animals and the Kids Who Love Them: Extraordinary True Stories of Hope, Healing and Compassion.
Meanwhile, the Association’s best known program, the “No Animals Were Harmed®” animals in entertainment certification, which appears during the end credits of films and TV shows, today monitors more than 1,000 productions yearly with over 3,400 production days with an outstanding safety record. American Humane Association’s farm animal welfare program ensures the humane treatment of over a billion farm animals, the largest animal welfare program of its kind.
Most recently, Dr. Ganzert spearheaded a groundbreaking clinical trial that hopes to provide scientific substantiation for animal-assisted therapy (AAT) in the treatment of children with cancer and their families. The trial is now underway at five pediatric cancer hospitals across the nation.
A graduate of Wake Forest University with undergraduate degrees in business and accounting and a Masters in Business Administration, she served as Assistant Dean for Finance and Administration at the university’s Babcock School of Business while pursuing her doctorate in higher education finance.
Robin has appeared on NBC’s Today, ABC World News Tonight, Fox & Friends, On The Record with Greta Van Susteren as well as other local and national television programs. She has been a guest on The Diane Rehm Show, Sean Hannity’s radio show and many other radio programs. Robin has written for or been quoted in The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Foxnews.com, USA Today, Fast Company, The Boston Globe, The Tennessean and other news outlets.
Robin and her husband Bart reside in North Carolina and are the proud parents of three human children. Fur children include dogs Gatsby, Daisy and Chas, as well as feline family members Rosebud, Poochie and Cedes. Robin is photographed above with decorated war hero Sgt. Matt Eversmann’s family feline, Genghis Khan, of West Palm Beach, Florida. Genghis has his own special story. He and his siblings were found alongside the road with their mother, who had been killed by a car. Rescued and provided a fur-ever loving home by the Eversmann family, he inspires us all to give second chances by visiting a shelter or rescue group to meet our new best friends.
Thank You
We owe huge thanks to all of our contributors and fans, and to their fascinating felines. We loved your stories about your cats and how they enrich your lives. We could only publish a small percentage of the stories that were submitted, but we read every single one and even the ones that do not appear in the book had an influence on what went into the final manuscript.
We owe special thanks to Susan M. Heim, who read the thousands of stories submitted for this book, selected the finalists, and organized them into chapters. Susan also came up with the fabulous idea of including fun facts about cats at the beginning of each story instead of our normal quotations. She did an amazing job finding the facts and pairing them with the stories.
Chicken Soup for the Soul’s VP and Assistant Publisher D’ette Corona worked with the contributors on any edits to their stories, and the whole publishing team deserves a hand, including editors Barbara LoMonaco and Kristiana Pastir, who proofread the final layout, our Director of Production, Victor Cataldo, and our graphic designer, Daniel Zaccari, who turned our manuscript into this beautiful book.
Sharing Happiness, Inspiration, and Wellness
Real people sharing real stories, every day, all over the world. In 2007, USA Today named Chicken Soup for the Soul one of the five most memorable books in the last quarter-century. With over 100 million books sold to date in the U.S. and Canada alone, more than 200 titles in print, and translations into more than forty languages, “chicken soup for the soul” is one of the world’s best-known phrases.
Today, twenty-three years after we first began sharing happiness, inspiration and wellness through our books, we continue to delight our readers with new titles, but have also evolved beyond the bookstore, with super premium pet food, a line of high quality soups, and a variety of licensed products and digital offerings, all inspired by stories. Chicken Soup for the Soul has recently expanded into visual storytelling through movies and television. Chicken Soup for the Soul is “changing the world one story at a time®.” Thanks for reading!
Share with Us
We all have had Chicken Soup for the Soul moments in our lives. If you would like to share your story or poem with millions of people around the world, go to chickensoup.com and click on “Submit Your Story.” You may be able to help another reader and become a published author at the same time. Some of our past contributors have launched writing and speaking careers from the publication of their stories in our books!
We only accept story submissions via our website. They are no longer accepted via mail or fax.
To contact us regarding other matters, please send us an e-mail through [email protected], or fax or write us at:
Chicken Soup for the Soul
P.O. Box 700
Cos Cob, CT 06807-0700
Fax: 203-861-7194
One more note from your friends at Chicken Soup for the Soul: Occasionally, we receive an unsolicited book manuscript from one of our readers, and we would like to respectfully inform you that we do not accept unsolicited manuscripts and we must discard the ones that appear.
Chicken Soup for the Soul: My Very Good, Very Bad Cat
101 Heartwarming Stories about Our Happy, Heroic & Hilarious Pets
Amy Newmark. Foreword by Robin Ganzert.
Published by Chicken Soup for the Soul Publishing, LLC www.chickensoup.com
Copyright ©2016 by Chicken Soup for the Soul Publishing, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.
CSS, Chicken Soup for the Soul, and its Logo and Marks are trademarks of Chicken Soup for the Soul Publishing, LLC.
The publisher gratefully acknowledges the many publishers and individuals who granted Chicken Soup for the Soul permission to reprint the cited material.
Front cover artwork courtesy of iStockphoto.com/ WebSubstance (©WebSubstance)
Back cover photo of cat with rope courtesy of iStockphoto.com/Astakhova (©Astakhova)
Back cover photo of striped cat courtesy of iStockphoto.com/Azallya (©Azallaya)
Interior cat illustrations courtesy of iStockphoto.com/andale (©andale)
Interior photos of cats courtesy of Chicken Soup for the Soul employees
Photo of Amy Newmark courtesy of Susan Morrow at SwickPix
Photo of Robin Ganzert courtesy of Michael Price
Cover and Interior by Daniel Zaccari
Distributed to the booktrade by Simon & Schuster. SAN: 200-2442
Publisher’s Cataloging-In-Publication Data
&nb
sp; (Prepared by The Donohue Group, Inc.)
Chicken soup for the soul : my very good, very bad cat : 101 heartwarming stories about our happy, heroic & hilarious pets / [compiled by] Amy Newmark ; foreword by Robin Ganzert.
pages : illustrations ; cm
ISBN: 978-1-61159-955-8
ISBN-13: 978-1-6115-9255-9 (eBook)
1. Cats--Behavior--Literary collections. 2. Cats--Behavior--Anecdotes. 3. Cat owners--Literary collections. 4. Cat owners--Anecdotes. 5. Human-animal relationships--Literary collections. 6. Human-animal relationships--Anecdotes. 7. Anecdotes. I. Newmark, Amy. II. Ganzert, Robin. III. Title: My very good, very bad cat : 101 heartwarming stories about our happy, heroic & hilarious pets
SF445.5 .C45 2016
636.8/02
2015956063
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
on acid∞free paper