We love animals at the Story Inn and encourage guests to bring their well-behaved canine companions with them to the following cottages at a charge of $10.00 per pet:
Wheeler Front
Wheeler Back
Doc Story
Schultz Haus Front
Schultz Haus Back
Wilkerson Front
Wilkerson Back
Old Mill Loft
Garrison Gunflint
Garrison Treehouse
Garrison Durango
Garrison Tack Room
For a special outing with your pup try one of the hiking trail in the State Park and then take your four legged friend to Bone Appetit in downtown Nashville for a treat!
If you are unable to bring your own four-legged friend to the Inn you might enjoy the company of some very special Story residents.
DOGS:
Meet "Gish":
I am an aggressively friendly two year-old Blue Heeler, and have lived at Story ever since I was separated from my litter mates. I have lived with humans so long that sometimes I think am one of them. My favorite human is Little Rich, the son of the owner. He takes me everywhere in his car, and lets me sleep with him in his bed. He feeds me scraps from the kitchen. I'll eat anything.
Blue Heelers are a high-energy breed intended to herd sheep. If I don't have a job to do (you know what they say about "idle paws"), I sometimes take apart the owner's leather dress shoes (I find wing tips to be especially tasty). Sometimes that herding instinct kick in, and I have an impulse to round-up the chickens here. I would never harm them.
I did have a best friend as a dog once, a Great Dane known as Riva a/k/a "Little Girl". She outweighed me by over 130 pounds. Nevertheless, I was able to boss her around, due to my superior intellect. Little Girl moved away in January. I miss her.
CHICKENS:
Story is home to fourteen chicks, one hen, and one big, strutting rooster. All of them are Wyandots (grey and white in color, with beautiful patterned feathers). We don't know how the hen and rooster got here. They just showed up one day. But you will see them wandering the property, scratching and pecking away.
It is a matter of consternation to us that our fourteen chicks, all females, have reached puberty. We do not have names for the individual chicks, but we do have an obvious name for the rooster: "Happy".
FELINES:
Clyde, Front Door Feline Greeter.
I am a big, wise orange cat who's been around the block. I came to Story from the Brown County Humane Society down the road. I learned a thing or two during my period of incarceration.
My owner died a few months ago, and given my advanced age, no one wanted to adopt me until Story's owner's son, Little Rich, took me home one day. (It's hard to compete with cute young kitties. But beauty is skin-deep, I say!) Anyway, I am now gainfully employed as Story's front house greeter, replacing Tina (see below). You'll see the hominid version of me next time you visit Wal Mart.
I love my job, which entails sleeping where people want to walk, forcing them to step around me. I get many friendly scratches that way, and an occasional hand-out. My favorite sleeping spot is right at the front door to the restaurant. That's where people are most likely to bring me a scallop.
Some of the ladies think I'm just a dirty old man, and want to look up their dresses. But I assure you, I'm all over that stuff. My owner made sure that my distinguished mix of bloodlines would end with me.
Though my energy level is not what it used to be, I sometimes do my job with real enthusiasm! I have been known to follow guests back to their cars, or rooms. I fear no human, because they have always been nice to me.
Petunia, Feline Greeter in Training.
Petunia is a ferel kitty dumped here in 2012. She has a lovely disposition, but she is a bit shy (we believe that she was abused). Thus, she declined to write an essay about herself.
Once we did her the service of spaying her and cleansing her of intestinal parasites, she gained weight fast. At the present time, she hangs out primarily at the back door, where she can enjoy Ahi tuna, U-10 scallops and other such delicacies without too much human contact.
Goodbye, Tina, Chief Greeter:
We regret to report that our beloved kitty “Tina” passed away quietly in the evening of January 18, 2010. The immediate cause of her death was lethal injection, at the veterinarian’s office. We made the decision to euthanize Tina upon the vet’s diagnosis of an incurable cardio-pulmonary condition. She was somewhere between nine and sixteen years old.
Persons unknown dumped Tina and her fresh litter of kittens here in August of 2002. Tina and her precocious offspring soon became darlings of the Story Inn. After spaying and neutering the bunch, we found good homes for her entire clan, keeping Tina and her calico daughter, Summer. Tina and Summer were employed as the official Story Inn greeters ever since; they were often found sleeping on the front porch, forcing restaurant guests to step over them.
In 2007, Tina was struck by an automobile, breaking her tail. She endured the indignity of a surgical procedure which shortened her tail, and the bestowal of the unflattering nickname “Stubs”, with remarkable equanimity.
Tina was known to follow guests around the property with a slavish attention to humans more characteristic of canines. She was also known to sleep around indiscriminately with humans of either gender. Her favorite foods were salmon, scallops, and halibut.
Tina will best be remembered for her appearance as “Miss January” in the Story Inn’s 2008 and 2009 calendars, the photo having been snapped by the legendary Bloomington photographer Steve Raymer. More recently, we had numerous overnight guests describe their experiences sleeping with Tina, in a column we named "Pethouse Forum". She was, indeed, a creature of comfort.
Donations in memory of Tina's rich life can be made to the Brown County Humane Society, 128 SR 135, Nashville, IN 47448, (812) 988-7362.
