VILLAGE PET PAGES

A Cast of Characters

By Mila Boujnah

Our animal family is very much a cast of characters. I have two cats, Bird and Gus. Bird is my baby girl ─ she just turned three on June 16. Gus, formally Augustus ─ but only when he’s in trouble ─ turns two on August 18, which also happens to be my late grandmother’s birthday. My mom, Cristina, has Luna, our six-year-old English cream golden retriever.

We recently lost Oso, our longtime family dog, also an English cream golden, who was 13 when he passed. Oso was my childhood dog, my mom’s shadow, and one of the gentlest souls I’ve ever known. I was 12 when we adopted him, and he was my soul dog. Oso means “bear” in Spanish, and one look at him told you why. He was built like a little polar bear with the gentleness of an old soul.

Oso and Luna were just as bonded. Luna made Oso braver, Oso made Luna more patient. Now Luna is learning how to be a city dog, and if we’re lucky, a proper Yoya shop dog like her late brother.

I consider Bird one of my first, and best, adult decisions because she came into my life during a deeply transitional stretch. I had just moved back to New York after five years in Paris, was newly single, and was still figuring out what it looked like to be an adult in a city I’d been away from for so long. I’d never really been a cat person but the second I saw Bird’s photo online, I knew she was mine. I knew in my heart it was the right choice. A year later I’d gone full cat lady. I adopted Gus, mostly because I hated the idea of Bird being alone all day while I worked. He became her little brother and my second completely correct, slightly impulsve decision.

Luna came into my mom’s life as a puppy, a birthday gift to herself. She is hyper, needy, confident, and fully convinced the world exists to greet her.

The West Village has always been a sacred place to our family. It has a way of turning an ordinary walk into a map of tiny rituals, and ours starts most mornings at Bonsignour. My go-to is an Arnold Palmer and an empanada — not the typical morning order, but everyone I’ve recommended it to now starts their mornings the same way. Then we continue down Hudson toward Yoya, the family boutique store we own at 338 West 4th Street. A few doors down is Aux Merveilleux de Fred, which makes, in my opinion, the best croissant in the city. We’re equally weak for a pain au chocolat, especially when it’s right out of the oven.

Zoomies on Hudson is a favorite for all of us too. Sometimes I also take Bird and Gus down to the West Side Highway in a stroller for fresh air. So if you’ve ever seen a woman pushing two cats down to the highway in a stroller, that was probably me.

We’ll round out the walk with Cursive for anything small and covetable, Café Panino for a BLT, and Plantshed, where you can get a bunch of tulips and a coffee in the same five minutes. The West Village truly is that kind of neighborhood, where the florist doubles as a café, the bakery knows your dog’s order, and somewhere around the third stop you’ve usually run into someone you know. It’s a small, walkable, loyal community, the kind where people actually notice if your dog isn’t with you that day.

It’s been such a blessing setting up shop in a community like this. Since returning, we’ve said hello to old friends who shopped at Yoya the first time around, and moms will come in with their now grown children (who have grown out of our clothing) and get a little weepy saying, “I used to put you in these clothes!”

Since reopening the new store in September, my mom and I have been slowly finding our way into a new rhythm. She and Luna are moving back to the city to be closer to Yoya, which means Luna, Bird, and Gus are all going to have to figure out how to coexist.

Luna is slowly, unevenly, picking up the shop-dog torch. She’s done a few trial runs at the store but is still learning the rhythm of people coming and going, mostly by wanting to greet every single one of them with her entire body, so we’re working on manners.

It’s a lot of chaos for one small storefront, but it’s the same chaos Oso started years ago. Luna is learning the ropes now, Bird and Gus have their own Village rituals, and my mom and I are learning a new version of our old routine. But Oso was really the start of our family’s whole pet story in the Village. To know him was to love him, and although he is no longer walking the streets beside us, he is still part of all of it.