Curbed Cup winner Inman Park is cultivating quite the reputation as a sanctuary for wayward animals. Those living in the area may have already heard the story of the beloved neighborhood goose, Lucy, who was terrorized by migrating Canadian Geese. Concerned residents staged a "Gator-Aid" party to install a fake alligator with beady red eyes in Lucy's native Springvale Park pond to scare the so-called "War Birds" off. When that didn't work, the aptly named Mother Goose, with the help of a nearby apartment-dweller, took matters into their own hands, first building a pen for Lucy and then acquiring a phalanx of bodyguards (i.e. a gander of geese from 'burbs). Lucy and Ricky (get it?) are now living happily ever after in their pond and celebrated their nuptials with a “Just Married” car in the Inman Park Festival parade.
That issue solved, the neighborhood list-serv needed another lost cause to champion, and they found it in Butterfly, a stray German Shepherd with a limp named for Inman Park's symbol. After a novel's worth of back-and-forth email commentary, the regal animal was captured (humanely, we must add) and over $700 has been raised for her care at the Inman Park Animal Hospital.
Butterfly will eventually transition to a doggy daycare with hopes of finding a great forever home. Perhaps once she is healthy and free, Butterfly can grab a drink from the convenient dog water bowls outside Barcelona Wine Bar. The bowls are a slight hazard to pedestrians, but even visitors seem to know the score. Upon knocking one of the bowls over, a pedestrian was overheard to exclaim, "Oh, right. I forgot I was in this eclectic neighborhood." Indeed.
-Laura Lindeman