Day 39 - Cheetah Day!

Day 39.

Went into the office today, ready to start. We all walked out, including Desiree who is a Cheetah intern. I thought, "oh, she's helping us today! cool!", but then Valerie saw me and asked what I was doing! I was supposed to be a Cheetah intern today! WELL! I had never heard about this! What a surprise! My supervisors forgot to mention it, but that was okay- very exciting opportunity!

I went back in to meet up with Phil the Cheetah keeper. We met up with Arielle (another Cheetah keeper) and Amanda (Cheetah intern) and went to check on the Cheetahs. We drove on a rode that divides two pen areas. Hulets, a male, was going nuts pacing back and forth and doing what they call a chirp-bark. This is supposed to be a Cheetah breeding call. They've been trying to set him up with Liz, an older female (last year to breed her), and he was very attracted to her at the moment! They decided to put Liz into the pen with him to see if she'd accept him. To get her there, she had to go into the corridor/road that we were in! We all held rakes for protection, and in she came! Amanda & I stood to make a barrier so she'd go into the proper pen. She didn't take long, but it was the pen next to Hulets' pen, and she decided to sniff around there for a while before cooperating in crossing through a door into HIS pen. :) Well, he was very excited to see her, but she kind of smacked him. He kept following her for a bit, but eventually they both just laid down. Oh well...

Next, Phil told me boots were no good for working with Cheetahs (too much hiking around their hilly pens), so he sent me to run to my house to change. While he was driving me out to my car we saw a fox in the park! Uh oh! I hoped they wouldn't have to shoot him, and I heard later that he'd disappeared. They wouldn't have been able to shoot anyway cuz of the loud noise around the other animals in the area. WHEW!

When I got back from changing my shoes, I was picked up and we all went to QB where I had to take a dead bunny out of the back and put it in the cooler (later Cheetah dinners!) I held it gently and laid it on the shelf with the others, giving it a pat. I did tear up a little, but Phil can be a little harsh with joking with people, so I didn't let it show. He asked if I was okay or if I would now have nightmares! I said I was fine and nothing more cuz I was choking up a little. Luckily I was in the back of the truck alone (they were all in the cab), so noone saw and the wind helped freshen my face and my spirits. SNIFFLE! I know animals eat each other, but although one must be nourishment for the other, it's still sad to see a life lost. :( Especially a bunny, since I have one! (ownership which is claimed by the whole family now, Quart! haha!)

It was late morning then, and time for Sanurra to go into her pen in the Village, so people can see her up close. We put her in a crate, drove to the Village, and let her in. I lifted the kennel with Arielle, and it was heavy! Sanurra was a good girl going in perfectly. We then drove back up to the Cheetah area and entered Taini's pen. She used to be an Ambassador animal, so we didn't use rakes to go in. The public could see us too, since the pen is next to the drive-thru! So we went in and watched Arielle do a training session with her. This was pretty cool for me, since I'm not usually close to the Cheetahs, especially with no fence in between! :)

Amanda & I had to pick up some people for a Tiger Encounter. We drove them up to the Tiger area and I watched and took pics while Amanda did everything. Saigon is the only one who will do it, as Leah is not food motivated and doesn't really like people. She also hates cameras and hisses when she sees one! haha! While Amanda was training Saigon, he kept moaning, wanting more treats. It sounded funny! He also took meat from her stick very gently, the way Dexter would take food from my hand. :) When we finished training him he went over to Leah who was under a shade structure, and nuzzled her and chuffed at her. Cute! She's not very affectionate with him though... since she ignored him, he went to his favorite spot in the grass to lie down for a nap! He plopped on his side and laid with his chin up in the air.

NEXT, they always have Sanurra do a painting in the mornings, so they decided to do MINE! I had bought 3 little canvasses (they said they were a bit small, but it worked out). We went into the Village pen with her and set up her painting stuff. I had picked blue (Alex), green (Nick), and red (for a splash of color). They squirted each one, one at a time, onto a rubber mat, had her step on it, then pointed at the canvases to step on. She did this circled quite a few times to get enough paw prints on them. It was really cool! The public was watching too, and Phil showed them one of my finished products. :)

After that fun time it was time for............. a popsicle break! LOL! I told them how relaxing it was to be helping Cheetahs- lol! And our next job? Pick up a vet intern and take her to do a picture with Taini! We walked into her pen again and had the vet intern pose next to her while petting her head! I asked if I could get a pic too while we were standing there. With the picture I also got to pet her head and scratch behind her ears. :) She was purring all the while. COOOOL!

We started some real work after that, cleaning poo out of a few pens. We walked in with rakes with the Cheetahs still in there. One pen had two of them, Kira & Willow (both girls). I went into a ravine where I saw a turd and Kira was staring me down the whole time since it was near them! Phil was watching out for me though, to make sure it was safe. One of the pens we went into contained Frankie & Andiamo (Andi) who we wanted to move into another pen. Amanda & I hiked the hilly pen to look for them, then used our rakes to herd them out into the next pen. I thought that was so cool! Frankie was a bit scared and kept hissing and stamping his feet, but Andi walked obediently ahead of us.

It was lunchtime then- which felt like it came quickly! The morning was full, but so laid back and relaxing! After lunch we were required to attend a meeting put on by Benji the vet, about "Zoonotic Illnesses" (things that can be passed from zoo animals to humans). He wanted to stress to be careful handling animals and blood and things. Most of us always wear gloves, but some people skip this sometimes! eek! The meeting was 45 min. Interesting, relaxing, but made me sleepy and ready for a nap. Alas, I couldn't take one! We passed by Sanurra's Village pen and saw her sitting still as a statue, watching something. Cheetah eyesight is VERY good, so there's no telling what she saw, but eventually she got up and paced around very agitated! It was time to do a Cheetah Talk with her, so we went in the pen and Amanda did a presentation, but Sanurra was too distracted so there was no training with her. We wanted to crate her and take her up to her own pen so she could calm down, but she wouldn't go in the kennel. She was left there while I was assigned to go walk Ellie, her Cheetah dog! ^_^ ^_^ ^_^ (I actually asked if I could do this task since I miss my own dogs!)

Ellie & I walked along a trail through some trees, then down the road, into the RV park, and to the river. I let her walk in the water a bit. She got chest deep. She enjoys that, and I walked beside her on the shore. She tries to pull on leash, but I used my dog walking skills and on our way back to the park she was already walking better with me! I told her that there's no need to pull or get ahead because she can't go any faster than I'm going! No point in pulling me! We enjoyed ourselves and each other, and I put her back into her pen and bid her farewell. Phil was coming down the Cheetah hill from showing a guest on a private encounter, so I walked back to the offices with them. Then we took ANOTHER popsicle break! They tried to tell me that this was not a normal Cheetah day- they usually don't relax this much! I still think Carnivores run around more than they do though! ha! We also didn't have a lot more to do yet, so we went up to Ellie & Sanurra (she was put away by now) to visit. Arielle opened the little door between their pens so they could be together. We went in and pet Ellie a bit and watched Sanurra laying down and being cute. Ellie loved the attention. :)

It was time to get dinners together, so we went to QB and prepared some bloodsicles and some hide burritos (ew). Arielle & Amanda's shift was over, so Phil & I went on our own to go feed all the Cheetahs. I helped him get one of the Cheetah's attention so he would see when we threw his dinner to him. Cheetahs have to see it thrown, otherwise they have a hard time finding it! Very poor sense of smell. We fed about half of the Cheetahs, then Phil had to go help Valerie put the Lions in their hut. So he had Desiree (the Cheetah intern whom I'd switched with) come with me to feed the remaining Cheetahs. She prepared medications and we threw dinners out. Phil finished in time to help us feed the Tigers. Before we could put them in, the last car was driving through and stopped to ask Phil all about them. He showed them "Big Tiger" trick from Saigon and chatted for a while. I took the chance to snap some pics of the Tigers as they swam and sat in their pond. Leah also came and rubbed along the fence at us. She's usually anti-social, but she's in estrus so is very affectionate right now. She also hisses less at Saigon. :) Poor Saigon. When the guests were done chatting, we went into the Tiger hut to feed them and let them in. I really just watched, but it was cool. :) And it was time to go "home".

Bye for now...