Pets At Work

Back to the office? You're not alone.

In addition to the many humans who have resumed putting on pants and driving to work, a number of local cats, dogs, feathered friends, and other critters are clocking an honest day’s work at businesses around town. Except they don’t have to wear pants. To mark the return of the in-person lifestyle, we’re highlighting a variety of animals you might have a chance to meet IRL. (“In-person” doesn’t apply here.) From Memphis’ most storied ducks and their penthouse accommodations at The Peabody, to a cat named Peabody who lives with a pair of ducks at Urban Earth, we’re keen to shake paws with these entre-pet-neurial friends.

The Cats and Ducks Are Not for Sale

If you’ve ever visited Urban Earth, the nursery and landscaping store on Flicker Street, you might have discovered a small and fluffy gray tabby cat curled up in the base of the terra-cotta pot you had your eye on. This is Peabody, who — name notwithstanding — is not a duck, although he shares his home with two of the feathered friends. Peabody, or Mr. Peebs, roams the friendly plant emporium, sidling up to visitors or nestling among seed packets. Peabody shares feline duties with Bunny, who is neither duck nor bunny, though she does “scoot like a bunny” and, being without a tail, somewhat resembles a rabbit. The two cats are free to roam the shop and surroundings during the day, but they come indoors at night, and nest in the shop’s upstairs office, which is set up with cat beds and supplies. The former strays came to Urban Earth from a Forest City vet who knows the store’s owners.

Around back, in a partially covered pen, or sometimes strolling through the greenhouses, you’ll find a pair of Welsh Harlequin ducks. Daisy arrived first, having been given to the store by its former owner. Last summer, the grandmother of a garden intern happened to visit, and met Daisy. She raises ducks in Arkansas, and asked if Daisy would like to have a friend: Enter Daphne. Welsh Harlequins are domesticated flightless ducks, typically raised for their meat (cover your ears, girls) and their eggs. Until Daphne came to keep her company, Daisy was very friendly with human visitors, but now she reserves most of her affection for her fellow Harlequin.

A garden store is something of a buffet for ducks: When worms are discovered, they’re hand-fed to Daisy and Daphne, who can also find all the bug-snacks they could possibly desire, thanks to all the plants. The two will even follow the garden crew when plants are being moved, as this process typically yields fallen bugs. Mmm.

The ducks’ pen backs up to the train tracks, and as a train hurtles past, the two stand shoulder-to-shoulder, watchful, curious. Despite the din, they don’t seem concerned — more like an old couple, side by side, watching their favorite show. — Anna Traverse Fogle

Duck, Duck, … Duck

Plenty of cities are home to more glitz and glamour than Memphis — this isn’t the land of red carpets and paparazzi.

But those cities don’t have celebrities quite like The Peabody Ducks. Every day like clockwork, these seasoned performers march down from their penthouse accommodations on the landmark hotel’s rooftop and get to work entertaining guests in the lobby. The feathery showstoppers have received top billing at The Peabody since the 1930s, and play a big part in keeping Memphis on the tourism map.

“This tradition is really about the creation of joy,” says Duckmaster (yes, his actual title) Kenon Walker, who manages, trains, and oversees the hotel’s feathery friends on a daily basis. “As soon as the ducks march out of the elevator, you see the smiles appear on people’s faces — kids and adults. This has been going on for a long time, and it’s a really important part of The Peabody.”

The Peabody’s famed duck march takes place twice a day — at 11 a.m. when they arrive in the lobby, and again at 5 p.m. when they return to their rooftop lair. This event has provided the perfect platform for many an aspiring quacktor. New ducks arrive for a three-month residency program when they’re about a year old to meet Walker and the other ducks. After arrival, they quickly settle into a training regimen, built around learning the path down to the lobby, fueled by a hearty diet of romaine lettuce.

“I’d say it takes about a month for the rookies to get fully acclimated,” says Walker. “They’re understandably nervous in new surroundings and around me, but they’ll see the veteran group of ducks interacting and coming up to me. So they’ve got some time to have their little conversations back and forth, and be like, ‘Hey, this guy is OK.’”

Walker usually expects a new group to need two weeks before they are transformed into the perfect showmen (showducks?), ready to march down the lobby’s red carpet and seize the spotlight with him as he regales audiences with tales of the ducks and the hotel’s history.

As with performing troupes of all stripes, ducks have divas, too. On rare occasions, one overzealous mallard may break ranks and flit about the lobby as it pleases, or wander into the gift shop. “It’s really entertaining for our guests. Not quite as much for us,” laughs Walker, “but it never causes too much of a problem.”

For the most part, though, Walker keeps all his ducks in a row. And after three months of working with a crew, the ducks give way to a new, younger group, ready to take flight in their own fledgling show business careers. The veterans head back to the farm they were raised on before returning to the wild, ready to enjoy an early retirement. — Samuel X. Cicci

Meet M & M

When the English bulldogs Sir Meatball and Milkshake enter the coffee shop at ARRIVE Memphis hotel for their interview, all eyes go to them, dressed in their Grizzlies jerseys and matching harnesses. The Vice & Virtue Coffee team welcome them as regulars and even ask if they can make an appearance for an event at the hotel in a few weeks benefiting the Streetdog Foundation. Meatball chooses to sit at the end of the sofa closest to the door where people filter in and out.

“Meatball likes to be out there so people can pet him,” his mom, Mary Lauren Bobango Stewart, explains. “And if we’re sitting on a patio, he’ll be out in the walkway so people will have to acknowledge him when they walk by. He knows he’s famous.”

Stewart started the @Sir.Meatball Instagram account a few months after she got him in 2018, but she didn’t expect the 26,000 followers. “[My husband, Michael, and I] were like, we’re not going to be those Instagram dog people, which is funny to look back on now,” she says.

When Meatball came into their lives, Stewart was still attending law school at the University of Memphis, so she could train and spend time with him when not in class. “He kind of just did everything with me,” she recalls. “He would literally lie across my lap when I would study. … We call him a tiny angel.” His sweet and docile personality, Stewart would soon learn, was not only perfectly suited to going all over Memphis but also to dressing up in costume.

“I have a little bit of a creative side that doesn’t really get utilized as an attorney,” Stewart says. “So dressing up Meatball became a stress-reliever, like a creative outlet. When Game of Thrones’ new season premiered [in 2019], I dressed him up as Jon Snow with a fur coat and wig. And I kept pushing the boundaries to see what I could dress him up as. The Instagram kinda took off from there with the costumes.”

But while at work, Meatball’s parents noticed through their doggy cam that the pup would just sit and wait at the door for when they came home. “We thought maybe Meatball needed a companion.” So, in February 2020, Meatball became a big brother to Milkshake, now his best friend.

“Their personalities are totally opposite,” Stewart says. “I would say they’re both Velcro-dogs, but Meatball is the type of Velcro-dog that doesn’t want to deal with a more intense Velcro-dog.”

Regardless, both dogs bask in the attention they get when going out in Memphis, their outings often documented in Instagram stories and posts. “Part of taking my dogs everywhere is figuring out where they can go,” Stewart adds. “I like helping people find places that are dog-friendly … and I want to promote Memphis.”

Stewart also hopes to expand the dogs’ charitable efforts by making appearances at fundraisers and adoption events and even auctioning meet-and-greets and classroom visits for schools. “Eventually, after all the Covid restrictions and regulations calm down,” Stewart says, “I would love for them to become palliative care dogs and go to nursing homes and hospitals.”

For now, though, Meatball and Milkshake will continue spreading joy on the streets and on Instagram, where a picture of them can put a smile on anyone’s face even on the worst days. — Abigail Morici

Close Encounters of the Bird Kind

Fields Falcone, aptly named programs manager for the Overton Park Conservancy, doesn’t need to buy jazz records anymore, thanks to her very special pet, Wonder. We’ll let her tell the story:

“I’m a bird biologist, so I get a lot of calls about baby birds every spring. Somebody called about one that had fallen out of a nest, with no feathers. I calculated it to be about five days old. And it was not a native bird; it was a European Starling, which you can’t take to a rescue center. They need to spend their time on native birds. European Starlings outcompete native species for nests in the cavities of trees. They are not ecologically sound.

“So as a biologist, I was faced with a choice: either euthanize or raise him intentionally as a pet. And funnily enough, I had just finished this book, Arnie the Darling Starling. I looked at this little lump of bubblegum that looked just like Gollum and was immediately in love. So I didn’t want to euthanize. Instead, I went nutso and raised him to be highly, highly imprinted on me, so he would have a flock. That’s the heart’s truth. His is a very social species. You see them in those giant flocks at Shelby Farms, maybe in the hundreds of thousands in the fall and winter.

“I named him Wonder. When he was young and impressionable, I repeated phrases and whistles over and over again, including several bird songs, like the Northern Cardinal and the White Throated Sparrow. And I taught him ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow,’ but he’s kind of bastardized it. Every day, we go to school. Later when he’s alone in the room, I hear him in there practicing.

“Now he’s doing jazz! He does his ‘run’ every day, starting with his favorite whistle: ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind.’ Then he’ll do Northern Cardinal. And he’ll say, ‘What you doing?’, ‘Who’s a good bird?’, and ‘Kisses! Mwah mwah mwah.’ Then he does this crazy vamping, stringing together whistled phrases I never taught him. It sounds like Mozart. And then he adds a coda that’s all starling, which must be genetic. He’s never heard a starling in his life.”

Hear Wonder sing on his own Instagram account: @the_wonder_chronicles — Alex Greene

A Mountain Dog Welcomes Customers to T Clifton Gallery & Framing

When people learn that a dog serves as the “greeter” at a gallery in the Broad Avenue Arts District that specializes in beautiful and very fragile art glass, they probably imagine a Pekinese or Chihuahua — something small. And then Mylo bounds around the corner, excited and playful, with gallery co-owner Tom Clifton trying to hold him back as he strains at his thick nylon leash.

The expression “bull in a china shop” comes to mind when customers first meet Mylo, a Bernese Mountain Dog — a breed so massive and strong that years ago villagers in northern Europe, chiefly Switzerland, used them to pull carts and wagons. Despite his size — his head, the size of a football, comes up to a visitor’s waist — these dogs are known to be affectionate and friendly.

“He’s only one year old,” says Clifton, “and he already weighs 130 pounds. In fact, we just celebrated his birthday with the other dogs from the same litter last Sunday [in April] at Sea Isle Dog Park.”

Dogs have always been a part of T Clifton Gallery & Framing, ever since Tom and co-owner Pat Brown first opened their shop in East Memphis, moving it to a former dry-goods store on Broad Avenue 13 years ago as the first retail establishment in the newly established arts district. Their first canine employee was Rocket, “just a little mixed-breed, as sweet as the day is long,” says Clifton. His successor was a retriever named Atlas, and later came Argus, a gentle giant of a St. Bernard who watched over the gallery for 11 years.

Argus passed away in 2020, and Daily Memphian columnist Geoff Calkins, a regular visitor to the shop, soon offered Clifton and Brown the “pick of the litter” from eight puppies born to a Bernese owned by his mother. They selected the beautiful black and brown dog, with flashes of thick white fur, and named him Mylo, which means “dear one.”

Clifton laughs at the name. “Argus means ‘warrior’ but he was very calm and passive. Meanwhile, the ‘dear one’ here is quite a handful.”

The gallery owner quickly learned to move the expensive glassware from the lower shelves — not only as a precaution against the dog’s heavy, swishing tail, but because Mylo has a penchant for eating paper, including the price tags and labels on the art glass. After all, this is a dog whose “chew toys” include the firewood stacked in Clifton’s yard.

“I certainly don’t want him to grow out of his playful, puppy enthusiasm,” says Clifton, who then pauses. “But, well — sometimes I do.” Even so, in April Mylo enjoyed his “First Fridays on Broad,” a monthly event that brings crowds into the gallery, and he proved a good host.

“He didn’t get too excited, and he didn’t knock anybody down,” says Clifton. Many visitors to the arts district have fond memories of Argus, the gentle St. Bernard, but it seems Mylo has found his own home on Broad Avenue. — Michael Finger

And finally:

Meet Lucky Boots, the ghost writer of our entire May 2022 magazine. Or so he claims.