Mossey Library has a new mascot: an old orange and white cat named Mossey. 

About a month ago, Mossey was sitting outside the library and didn’t move for 24 hours.

“The cat was outside, just a foot from the wall of the outside of the library. He was pretty emaciated-looking — very friendly, but very weak,” said Colleen Ladd, library circulation technician.

Ladd went into the library, grabbed her coat, wrapped the cat up, and took him home during her lunch hour. 

“I have a converted chicken coop that is my cat house, so I put him inside there with some food,” Ladd said.

When Ladd called to make an appointment with a veterinarian, they asked for the cat’s name, but she hadn’t thought of a name.

“I thought, ‘OK, I found him by the library; I’ll call him Mossey,’” Ladd said. 

The veterinarian said Mossey was at least 10 years old, but Ladd said she thinks he’s at least 15. Ladd said she thinks Mossey is deaf and probably has arthritis, but the vet gave him a clean bill of health. Now Mossey is eating well and happy in his new home, Ladd said.

Ladd doesn’t know where Mossey came from, but he was fixed when they found him, so she suspects he had a good life at some point. 

“I can’t imagine him hurting the hair on anybody’s head,” she said. “He’s just so kind — and very loving apparently.”

Ladd said Mossey occasionally disappears and is very hard to find even though he’s mostly white. But he always returns and meows for attention.

“This is the most animated he’s been,” Ladd says, as Mossey leans into the petting. “It’s only been two weeks. I think it takes cats a little while to get adjusted.” 

Ladd said the library staff are happy to have Mossey for their mascot. 

“She came over and told me that she was going to go outside and check out the cat the students had found,” said Library Technician Lori Kirby, “Periodically throughout the weeks that she’s had him, she’s been giving us updates on how he’s doing.”

Kirby said she is a cat lover and has seven of her own. 

“We’re all animal lovers around here,” Kirby said. 

Library Director Maurine McCourry said the library likes having Mossey for a mascot even though he’s not actually allowed inside the building. 

“I think it’s great,” she said. “There’s kind of a long tradition of library cats.” 

McCourry said in the past some libraries have adopted cats, although most have stopped due to allergies and local regulations.  

“There’s a book about a cat named Dewey — you know, for the Dewey decimal system,” McCourry said. 

The book, “Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World,” by Vicki Myron and Bret Witter, tells the story of a rescued cat named Dewey who brightened the lives of people in a small town after being abandoned at a library. 

“I just think it’s kind of neat,” Ladd said. “I’ve never got to just find one like that — that really needs a lot of help, and to be able to take him home and to help get him back on his feet again. So I’m just glad that I was the one that was approached so that he could be taken care of and loved.”