#Fumy pet store los angeles Patch#

When two stern-faced security officers appeared on the nearby steps, McWilliams muttered, “Uh oh, here come the spoilers.” She glided around the fountain, not seeming to mind that it was only a little bigger than a kiddie pool. Bank Tower, one of the tallest buildings in the city, Cardi D dunked her head and tossed water up and over her body to cool down. The pair walked another block to a small fountain at the base of the Bunker Hill Steps, across from the Central Library, and McWilliams gently dropped her duck onto the water. (Although she wasn’t wearing one that day, Cardi D has cloth diapers, including a pink one printed with strawberries and flowers.) “The ground’s too hot, I don’t want you walking on the ground,” McWilliams said, scooping the bird up in her arms and putting her back into the stroller. Lindemann and her 9-year-old son beamed as they stroked Cardi D’s feathers- and Cardi D didn’t bat a grayish-blue eye.Īs McWilliams walked in search of a smoke shop, the duck jumped from her throne and waddled along the concrete sidewalk, warmed by the 80-degree weather, trying to keep pace. can you see something like this,” the 52-year-old, visiting from Sweden, said with a laugh. On a hot day last month, as McWilliams pushed her duck in the stroller, Angelica Lindemann stopped in a crosswalk to stare. But last year, the duck ingested an unknown substance and died. McWilliams paid to register her as an emotional support animal, receiving two identification cards, stickers and a red-and-black vest, with the expectation that she could take Cardi B into stores and on public transportation. She christened her fourth duck Cardi B, after the rapper. The second one came to them with a broken foot that never healed properly, and she died. But while they were living on skid row, someone snapped the duck’s neck in front of her.

They named their first duck Charlie after Eddie Murphy’s brother, who had recently died. He called McWilliams and asked: “What would you do if I brought a duck home?” Jack had found their first duck in 2017, crammed into a tiny cage outside of a pet shop.

But, he added, ducks can “definitely imprint on people.” “Ducks aren’t quite as social, evolutionarily, as chickens are,” Blatchford said. By then, McWilliams and Jack were experienced duck parents. The fuzzy yellow duckling fit in the palm of her hand. “I’ve never known anyone with a duck for a pet,” said McWilliams’ friend, Brooke, who asked that her last name not be used due to privacy concerns.Īn April Fools’ Day baby, Cardi D was 3 weeks old when McWilliams brought her home from a pet shop downtown. Cardi D was a fixture in every group, a pampered city duck, her claws occasionally adorned with nail polish. The couple sold $1 sodas out of an ice chest and, throughout the day, sat around a small table with friends who still lived at the Grand. (Cardi D had pooped on all of it.) They stored extra clothing and suitcases in a second tent nearby.

#Fumy pet store los angeles Patch#

To make their temporary home cozier, McWilliams and Jack had placed blue-and-yellow carpet, faux wood panels and a patch of artificial turf on the concrete outside their tent. “It’s really important to keep the families whole.” “When we’re serving somebody on the streets, we’re serving the whole need, which includes their companions,” Murphy said. The buyer intended to have Odie for dinner. But a friend stole the goat and sold it to get money for drugs. At one point, she had a pygmy goat named Odie. Some of her happiest childhood memories, she said, involved trips to Atascadero Lake, where she first fell in love with ducks. She wound up in the hospital.Īll along, animals were a big part of her life. When she was 15, she stopped taking the medication and cut her wrists with a razor blade. In her mind, she said, “that’s when my dad started becoming cool.”Īround the same time, McWilliams was prescribed Ritalin for hyperactivity and Ativan for anxiety. McWilliams went to live with her father when she was 13 and started to smoke pot and drink with him soon after. “I saw everyone else with their mom and dad and I didn’t have mine,” she said. Sometimes, when she visited her dad, they slept in the back of his truck along a riverbed. When he became homeless, McWilliams lived with her aunt in Paso Robles. She spent her first seven years with her father, Martin, who struggled with alcoholism. Her mom, she said, abandoned her at the hospital so she could get high. McWilliams was born in the city of Atascadero, a little more than 200 miles north of Los Angeles.