Pombe’s Big Adventure
Posted at 12:20 pm March 9, 2007 by Kelly CasavantAs mentioned earlier, Pombe is one of the cheetah cubs that has taken very well to training (see Kelly’s previous blog, Cheetah Girls). With her mellow and accepting nature, crate training has gone very well. Due to this, we put her on the fast track of transporting.
First we got her used to being in the crate, then to moving the crate around her pen, then putting crate and chcetah on the back of our truck, then driving around. Always, one of her keeper friends was by her side for assurance. Her first trip was just around the cheetah area, where she saw the adults: very interesting for her! Then we went to the keeper parking lot, where she saw Highway 78 and lots of cars. What was all that? She took it all in stride. Of particular interest was when we
parked about 30 feet away from a holding pen with a zebra in it. Enrichment for all!
We were building up to her trip to the Paul Harter Veterinary Medical Center. This involves a ten-minute drive over the inside road. She saw many new things. First, we stayed in the parking lot a few times. Eventually, we ventured inside and let her out of the crate and into one of the Center’s carnivore holding areas. She did well. The ceiling was strange to her; she didn’t know what to make of that. Other than when she is in her crate or the den in her pen, she always has the sky as her ” ceiling.” It was a very successful trip. It was fun for the vet staff, who said how nice it was to have a healthy animal come visit and hear her purr!
Kelly Casavant is a keeper at the San Diego Zoo’s center for Conservation and Research for Endangered Species (CRES).
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March 9th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
Thanks, Kelly. It sounds like Pombe is a very special, very intelligent and interested female Cheetah. When will she be going to the Veterinary Center for a ” real” visit?
Now that she has mastered riding in the truck, maybe she would like a ride around the SDZ to see all the other animals and get more enrichment like she did with the Zebra. Or, perhaps she will develop a taste for a ride into the foot hills or the sea and hear the ocean. After all, she is a cat, and they love to explore.
Can’t you just picture a globetrotting cheetah? Searching the continents for more enrichment and exciting adventure. I am not downplaying the importance of your training. I am just letting my imagination run wild. It is great that you have such a willing and cooperative pupil to train. That is not always the case, and I am sure it is very challenging to take a more timid and less enthusiastic patient to the hospital.