writing assignment #4 – animals

Here’s the latest piece I did for my writing group.

Some of you might recognize it as being part of this. I’m sure I have some of the facts wrong, but this is how I remember it.

**********

There is something odd about sitting on someone’s back porch playing poker and suddenly hearing the roar of a lion or the howl of wolves. Especially if said back porch is just outside of Barrie, Ontario. But it seemed fitting, as the reason we were on this back porch playing poker was the Feed the Monkey Poker Tournament to raise some money for the Bear Creek Exotic Animal Sanctuary which is right across the road from his house.

The poker game went as poker usually does for me and I busted out somewhere in the middle of the pack. The game broke for dinner right about then, and a surprise that the host had set up – a visit to Bear Creek.

We walked across the road, and there was the owner waiting for us on a side lawn with three white Bengal Tiger cubs that she was fostering. I think she said they were about six weeks old. To be honest, I don’t really remember much of what she said as there was a loud chorus in my head repeating the same thing over and over:

Oh. My. God. I’m playing with BABY TIGERS!

Their eyes were open but they were still mostly blind and could see only basic shapes and shadows. They wandered around the field, sometimes chasing someone with that lurching run that kittens and puppies have, where the back legs seem to run faster than the front. It’s not a gait that can be maintained and eventually it would trip over itself and roll for a bit before getting back to its feet, calling for siblings, mother, help.

I remember their fur being rougher than I expected when I sat down to pet and play with one for a bit. I ignored everyone around me and focused on these cubs, trying to burn every second of this once-in-a-lifetime experience into my memory.

After about a half hour of this, the cubs were getting visibly tired and so the owner took them inside. I brushed myself off, thinking that we would be getting back to the game when the owner returned to give us a tour of the rest of the Sanctuary.

As my grandma used to say, keep your fork. There’s pie.

We went through a locked gate in a tall wood fence to get to her back yard. What a back yard! There were enclosures everywhere I looked, and she started the tour by the monkeys, to introduce us to Malia, the Vervet monkey that we were raising money to “adopt”.

“Don’t stand too close to her cage. She likes to pull hair.” we were warned. Just in the nick of time too, as one of the poker players moved away just as small fingers snaked through the wire of her enclosure.

She told us the names of the animals, and some of the stories. She introduced us to Dayzee, the biggest raccoon I have ever seen, who was kept as a house pet and became so sedentary that she developed bed sores. There were animals who would no longer respond to their trainers command for one reason or another, and so became unemployed, no longer able to work in tv and commercials. Other animals had health concerns that meant they either go to the Sanctuary or be put down, like the tiger who was fed only raw meat when it was young and developed such a severe calcium deficiency that it would require a special diet for the rest of it’s life.

She led us further to a larger pen. Watching the three arctic wolves inside was like watching liquid energy, their fluid grace apparent even as climbed over each other in their curiousity to see the visitors. “No, not curiousity,” the owner corrected us. “It’s close to their dinner time and they’re wondering which one of you has food.”

I turned to see what was in the enclosure across the path from the wolves and had one of those moments, the kind where everything else stops. I could only whisper, “oh.” I went forward, getting as close to the wire as I could. There, not six feet away, was an adult male tiger. I’d only ever seen one live at the zoo, and I certainly hadn’t been this close. I was fascinated by his gaze, struck speechless by his terrible beauty, his size. He looked at me then away, as if I bored him. I wasn’t food and wasn’t bringing food, so therefore not worthy of notice. I’m not sure how long I could have stayed there, mesmerized, but a hand on my arm pulled me away with the rest of the group.

We wandered over to another spot in her back yard near a pond, chatting about the animals. As the owner told more stories,  I looked over at a thick wood and iron gate with ivy and morning glories twining around it. I took a picture of it as it was very lovely in a Secret Garden kind of way. I looked away to say something to one of my poker buddies, and was very startled when I looked back a moment later to see a curious adult male lion looking out at us through the iron bars. I took another photograph, and as the lion heard the shutter noise he made a loud whuff noise and turned, disappearing again behind the greenery.

When the visit was over, we all walked back to the poker game. Everyone was chatty, and most were eager to get back to playing. I lagged behind, still blown away by the experience and wishing I could have stayed longer.