Every Tiger Has Something To Teach. Thanks, April.

“April is kind of a bad cat.”

That’s what I was told early on by someone who had worked around April for years. And it was true. April was not a nice tiger. Though boy howdy, was she a pretty cat, and she knew it. Of all the cats I’ve worked with here, April is the one I least wanted to find out they’d learned to teleport through their enclosure wall and meet face to face with nothing between us. Fortunately, she never figured out a way. She did, however, watch the edge of her enclosure like a hawk, and prowled it like, well, a tiger. Just waiting for someone to stumble in the winter muck and fall against the chain link where she could hook them with her claws, or to get fingers in range, or drape the hose where she could grab it and kill it like the evil water-filled snake it was.

The thing is, it wasn’t April’s job to be nice. It was her job to be a tiger. She was the cat that reminded us continually, just in case we weren’t already sure of it, that we are here for them, not the other way around. Seeing her smug expression while she sat up on her box was enough proof of that; she loved watching us mow or do other landscaping work in her open area while she lounged.

April was our cranky old schoolteacher, the grouchy neighbor who almost never had anything nice to say. But like either of those, when she did give a positive reaction, it meant something. A chuff from April meant a lot. Her sister Star is a sweet tiger, but isn’t really interested in being social for more than a few moments. On the other hand, once I knew her, and she knew me, April would patiently sit down next to me while I read a book, or watched a video, or just enjoyed the evening breeze. I know there was always a part of her that hoped I’d lean against the fence or put something where she could reach it, but there was also a part of her that grudgingly wanted to be social. And forging that sort of bond with a cranky old apex predator is really something special. It has been a privilege to take care of her during her sunset years.

So thank you, April. I’m sorry I never fed you any of those fingers you wanted so badly, but I still need them to take care of your sister and the rest of your neighbors. I promise when we meet again, I’ll hold the hose for you so you can bite the water stream the way you like to.

Goodbye, April.

—Ren

On fluffy things and creatures of habit

It was about 3am, and I was still awake due to my propensity to be a nightowl.

I should roll back a moment and explain: We briefly experimented with an arrangement allowing a local farmer to graze his sheep and goats on the property. Critters eat, we don't have to mow the lawn, everyone wins. In practice, we did not win. The sheep, other than ostracizing their shorn friends at shearing time, were pretty well behaved. The goats on the other hand broke out of their pens every day, climbed on everything, and left droppings on everything they climbed, and everything they did not climb. Goats are celebrated poopers.

Back to the story. Hearing random bleating was not abnormal; in fact, watching the bittygoats frolic around and bleat was pretty cute, it's one of the things I miss about not having the critters around. This particular night, there was a lot of bleat. After about ten straight minutes of hearing one animal, I put on my outdoor duds and headlamp and went outside.

If you've never looked out into a field of herd animals in country dark and quiet, it's quite a sight to see a couple dozen sets of shining eyes looking back at you. As I approached, most bolted, but one set stayed fixed on me. Figuring this might be the culprit, I made my way through the tall grass over to the spot.

Turns out one of the bittysheeps had gotten his little head caught in an old bit of plastic fencing. Moving ever forward, he couldn't fit the rest of himself through the square, and was stuck, though fortunately wasn't having any breathing issue, and didn't cut or otherwise hurt himself.

So I get over there, and think, "The hell am I going to do about this?" I spent about fifteen seconds utterly flummoxed, looking for various tools I could use, or trying to think of crazy ways to get the sheep unstuck, and then it occurred to me: This is a sheep.

I spend time working with tigers. If you put an appendage in unprotected proximity to them, there is a chance that they will take that as an offering and relieve you of it. It isn't necessarily a huge chance, but it's far enough from zero that I don't go sticking my fingers or arms into tiger enclosures as a general rule. I had developed inertia from working with the tigers to the point that it actually took time before I realized that this was a sheep. It was a warm lurching ham wrapped in a fluffy sweater. Once I sorted that out, I simply took hold of the little guy, pulled the fence back over his head, and let him bound his way back to mama.

Tigers change you, man.