A Little Girl Asked For A Pet Unicorn License And The Response From Animal Control Was Perfect
She sent a handwritten letter to County of Los Angeles Department of Animal Care and Control.
As most pet owners know, when you adopt or buy a new pet, you need to get your pet registered with your county. They are typically required to have a license. In the same way, if you want to have a chicken coop or some other type of less common animal living on your property, you might need to get a special approval from the county. So when a little girl from California was determined to get a unicorn and keep it in her backyard, she was sure to take all of the proper steps.
The child, named Madeline, sent a handwritten letter to County of Los Angeles Department of Animal Care and Control asking for approval to keep her pet unicorn in her backyard, if she could get her hands on one.
The county officials loved the letter so much that they posted the adorable message to their social media and wrote Madeline back.
“Dear LA County,” the initial letter reads. “I would like your approval if I can have a unicorn in my backyard if I can find one. Please send me a letter in response.”
Not only did they write her back, but they sent her a pre-approved unicorn license. Also knowing that it might be tough for the young girl to find an actual unicorn to keep in her yard, they also gave her a unicorn stuffed animal, with a heart-shaped pink license attached to its collar like a cat or dog would have.
“This brought us so much JOY so we thought we should share with everyone,” the County of Los Angeles Department of Animal Care and Control wrote on their official Facebook page. “Madeline wrote us a letter requesting permission to have a unicorn in her backyard if she could find one. It is always rewarding to hear from young people who thoughtfully consider the requirements of providing a loving home to animals.”
They went on to say how proud they were of Madeline for being so responsible and proactive about her desires to be a pet owner.
“We commend Madeline’s sense of responsible pet ownership to seek permission in advance to keep a unicorn in Los Angeles County. As a result, we issued her a pre-approved unicorn license. Also, in the meantime, because they are indeed very rare to find, we will be providing her the unicorn pictured below as she continues her search,” they continued.
The letter back to Madeline, written by Director Marcia Mayeda, also came with a list of 5 rules that she would need to abide by in order to maintain her license for her pet unicorn including giving the unicorn “regular access to sunlight, moonbeams, and rainbows.”
The department also said the unicorn's horn must be polished regularly to maintain good health, and any glitter used “must be nontoxic and biodegradable to ensure the unicorn's good health.”
Ms. Mayeda told The New York Times that Madeline’s mother told her that she did not want to discourage her daughter’s ambitions to get her own unicorn and instead tried to delay her wantings by suggesting that she might need permission first from her local government.
“Madeline said, ‘OK,’ and she marched off and an hour later she came back and said, ‘Will you help me mail this?’” Ms. Mayeda said.
When the letter arrived, Ms. Mayeda said, it provided such a jolt of happiness for the office. The people who work in L.A. animal control often see bad cases of animal abuse or of people harmed by animals and this was a bright spot in their day.
“It just made everybody’s day at our offices when we got that,” she said of Madeline’s note. “It was just the cutest thing.”
