Hey you! I’m back again! =) Yesterday was a busy day, in the evening I just didn’t make it anymore to write something. That’s because Elke had her birthday yesterday and we had some cake and coffee after work, followed by a really nice birthday party including vegetarian Lasagne, enrichment, wine, whiskey and sniffing pepper spray.
But also the day was really interesting.
In the morning, I could join Elke, as she was doing training with Tarzan, a male lion that is very insecure and whose self-confidence is very small. He gets nervous quite fast but he learns rapidly. Some weeks ago, he was very scared whenever a car or quad arrived and he would hide in a corner. So it was very hard to get him into the house inside his enclosure, since he did not trust people. In case of fire or other emergencies it’s essential to be able to get the animals into the houses. So Elke trains them with a small whistle, a target gadget and some meat. The cats learn through connecting and conditioning good experiences. It was amazing how Tarzan reacted to Elke. First of all, he did not run away or hide when we arrived. He followed us immediately and came into the small house. I observed the training and despite being a very nervous lion, he could calm down really quickly. It was an unique experience watching the training…I cannot describe it properly..You would just need to see it.. =)
After the training, I was sent to Fiona, a lioness which had been ill before. I checked if she ate her food. Since she stays together with another lioness, it’s important to check if it’s really her that eats her piece of meat. It was good to see that both lionesses ate their beef. After one hour of observing and getting sunburnt (as everyday), I went on my usual tour. Everybody was active and either eating or waiting for the food truck to come. Even the tigers were up, which is quite nice because they really are the laziest creatures I’ve ever met (besides my own cats, maybe).
After a late lunch, Marina, the vet, was coming to Lionsrock. She did some medical checks on two of the lions. It was soooooooo interesting to see what she was doing! I’m gonna be so bored watching the work of my cat’s vet after I’ve seen her working with the big cats 😉
After the vet-afternoon, Natasha and I put the presents we had bought for Elke into paper boxes, filled with hay and some toilet paper rolls. We brought the enrichment to her birthday party and I’m sure she felt like a real lioness, opening her enrichment 🙂
So that was pretty much my day…a really busy and very interesting one!
Today was far calmer. In the morning I did my usual round, just that after feeding day everybody was sooo lazy and hanging around and not caring about anything. In the afternoon we went to Bethlehem to do our weekly shopping. And now we just want to have a lazy evening.
Tomorrow I’m gonna tell you a bit more about the cats and the problems there are…Because today I was quite thoughtful when I visited Seeta. I sat beside her and felt very happy doing this job. But then I asked myself: „Why do I actually do this job? Why is it so important that people work for animal welfare organisations?“ It is because humans are able to do the most brutal and bestial things to animals. As paying thousands of Euros in order to get a guaranteed trophy. Yes. Those sick people really exist. So luckily there are also organisations like Four Paws which care about that issue.
Protect their beauty, their pride and their grace, don’t shoot them!
