Cat rescuer at Austin Pets Alive was known as kind, snarky
Lundy would have made a good reality show star.
First, there was the name: Lundy. Just Lundy. Like Prince or Sting. His one-word moniker was his legal name, as evidenced by his driver’s license.
There was the attitude: part sass, part snark, part kindness, part compassion.
And then, of course, there were the cats, the thousands of them he loved and helped save over his nine years with Austin Pets Alive! (APA).
Lundy died on Sunday after a fight with melanoma. He was 49.
Lundy isn’t someone most Austinites would ever know. But in the animal rescue world, he was renowned for his tireless work finding homes for unwanted cats, his friends say.
“He always went above and beyond,” said Ellen Jefferson, executive director of APA, a no-kill animal rescue organization. “A lot of people really cared about Lundy.”
Lundy was born in Borger (near Amarillo) on April 2, 1968. He attended Borger High School, and graduated in 1986. He moved to Austin in 1996 and worked over the years at places including Burger King, Quicksand Deli, Trend Technologies and Dell.
“Lundy” was a family name and so — in a tribute to Cher, Madonna and other musicians sans surnames — he legally changed his name in 2005. When he needed a last name for his paychecks or other purposes, he went by Lundy L. Lundy.
Lundy was a huge music fan who saw the Rolling Stones, Kiss and Def Leppard in his teens and spent the rest of his life traveling the country for shows. If he wasn’t wearing his APA shirt, Jefferson said, he was wearing concert T-shirts emblazoned with Blondie or ABBA or one of his other favorite groups.
In 2009, he found his passion when he was hired at APA as an adoption counselor and cat caregiver. In 2012, he was named the agency’s off-site cat adoption manager, working with pet stores and organizing adoption events across the area. He could often be seen loading his car with cat carriers, carting the felines to and from events. He regularly posted selfies of himself with cats and posted them on his social media accounts.
He also owned a pet sitting business, Smitten Kitten Pet Sittin’.
But while Lundy was charitable, he wasn’t always charitable. The outgoing animal lover, often seen in his leather jacket and ascot cap, was an expert at insulting people while somehow making them laugh, said his cousin Carol Richardson.
“He had a gift like that that I have never ever seen anybody else have,” she said. “Most people would be mad, but Lundy would have everybody laughing.”
But while he could be ornery, he was also kind and compassionate, she said.
Jeanne Pendergrass, supervisor of the Lockhart Animal Shelter, said Lundy went to the shelter to pick up cats being transferred to APA. He loved all the cats — even the grumpy ones — and made his mark with his joyous, outgoing personality, Pendergrass said.
“He had a personality that hit before he was even in the room,” she said. “I don’t even know how to describe it.”
That big personality — dramatic, fun, expressive — was what made friends joke he would be a brilliant reality show star, Jefferson said.
APA will name its downtown shelter cattery in honor of him. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in memory of Lundy to the APA cat program at www.austinpetsalive.org/tribute-donation.
“He was such a character,” Richardson said. “Everybody loved Lundy.”