Enrichment

Captive felines have many needs to consider when
providing for their health and well being. Appropriate
nutrition, enclosures, socializing, and veterinary care,
from someone with exotic feline experience, are not
the only considerations to be given when caring for
exotics. Emotional and psychological needs must be
considered as well. There are different schools of
thought and beliefs about what an exotic feline
needs to be emotionally and psychologically healthy
while living in captivity.

Generally differences of opinion are most commonly
found in beliefs about how much hands on interaction
should happen between captive felines and their
keepers. Some keepers, some sanctuary caregivers,
believe that contact should be minimal. I know
another sanctuary owner that feels that depriving
captive exotic felines of loving relationships with
humans is similar to keeping these cats in a
concentration camp. All schools of thought do
agree that captive felines need mental and
emotional stimulation to be happy and healthy.
This is called enrichment.

Enrichment comes in many forms. Many private
owners and some keepers in zoos and sanctuaries
include human interaction and contact between
captive felines and their keepers as enrichment.
Other forms of enrichment are toys, food, scents
(like spices), puzzles, and other unfamiliar objects
put within the feline’s enclosure or living area.
Certain species may favor different enrichment
approaches. An Asian leopard cat may love to fish
in a plastic kiddy pool for live goldfish. A tiger may
enjoy fresh fish frozen in blocks of ice. Cougars
and other great cats may find huge fun playing with
fresh pumpkins and watermelons. Swimming areas
are very popular with tigers. I know a lioness that
loves to toss around those giant wooden cable
spools like they’re nothing. Cooking spices strewn
about a play yard can be very tantalizing and
exciting to a captive cat. They will sniff and
explore with great energy. Felines kept together
can give each other companionship and play.

I personally know of a privately owned and
much spoiled African serval whom will not eat
his dinner without his mop. Yes, you read
correctly, he has a “security mop”! He carries
it with him to his dinner bowl and gains
comfort even as he eats. His human mom
has to replace it from time to time because
he isn’t the neatest of eaters. A couple of other
friends with an African serval and a lynx have
to devote time each evening for “family hour”.
This is when they hang out exclusively with
them, serval and house lynx. I think that they
pile into bed and watch videos. When the cats
miss out on “family hour” you can hear the lynx
screaming her displeasure. The African serval
sits with his paws neatly tucked under his chest
giving you, the cause of the disturbance of “family
hour”, stern looks of reproach.

I know another funny story about a great-hearted
lioness and her enrichment preferences. This feline
lady had a much beloved female keeper that used
to take care of her. For some reason that I didn’t
get the details on her keeper moved elsewhere.
A year later the woman returned to visit the lioness.
When the woman entered the lioness’s enclosure, the
lioness tackled her and removed her shoes. The
woman was not injured. The lioness wanted to
communicate to her former keeper that she wanted
her to stay! She never wanted her keeper friend to
leave her again.

The importance of enrichment for the overall health
and well being of captive felines cannot be stressed
enough. Great and small, all felines (including
domestics) need emotional and psychological
stimulation. Felines raised with out much contact
or socialization with humans might better be given
forms of enrichment that suite their needs for less
human contact. I know of one leopard, even though
bottle raised by humans, does not like people. Once
he became an adult and had a female companion,
he showed that he didn’t want to be bothered by
human/feline relationships. His preferences are
respected.

Felines raised and socialized with humans and
enjoy their relationships truly do need these
relationships, bonds, play, and love with their
human companions to remain emotionally healthy.
Contact is part of the list of enrichment needs to be
fulfilled. There are many stories about felines raised
and bonded with a human that because of
circumstances, ban laws being passed, death of the
keeper, illness, or other changes, the cat can no
longer live with the person that they are bonded with.
Sometimes they are unable to form a relationship
with another human or they are put into some
facility where they are not allowed contact. This
is a great tragedy because many times the animal
has an unhappy emotional life as a result.

All felines need a variety of enrichment considerations.
Novelty, toys, time to be outdoors in a safe enclosure,
new food, new smells, puzzles to figure out, things to
climb on, places to swim if breed appropriate, places to
hide or crawl into, and other types of enrichment all
work together to keep captive felines stimulated and
healthy. If you are an owner or keeper it is important
to have some understanding and knowledge of the
emotional and psychological tendencies of the breed/s
that you keep. This will help you develop the appropriate
enrichments for your cats and avoid inappropriate forms.
Of course, safety must always be taken into consideration.
Cats like babies or toddlers, you don’t want to give your
feline charge anything that they might ingest that could
cause harm. You want to avoid toxic plants or materials
within your enclosures. You want to be sure that toys
can withstand the force and size of the feline you are
seeking to entertain. You want logs, branches and
ledges to be safe for the size and weight of your cat.
With these things in mind you will be better able to
provide the best emotional and psychological habitats
for your beloved felines.

The Feline Mystique

The man is lying in bed and reading a book
when Velvet jumps up and starts to make sweet rolls.
She kneads the coverlet with her paws alternating left
then right. Her eyes are half closed and she looks serene.
Soon she climbs up on her favorite person, wraps her
paws around his neck, nibbles his chin and drools.
She purrs as he rubs her cheeks and chin.

Her favorite person is a man who was never raised with
pets or companion animals. His parents’ lifestyle, active
in social causes, just didn’t have the time or energy for
pets. As an adult he didn’t believe in sharing his life with
companion animals either. Life as a musician came with
late hours and times when making ends meet for one
person was difficult. It’s not that he didn’t like animals,
he just thought that they were more for other people.
He had even dated a woman that had a cat, but that
relationship has ended years before he ever had a feline
of his own.

The scenario of the cat with her paws wrapped
around this fellow’s neck raises the question, “How
did this man’s heart get captured by this little black
cat with green eyes?” It is a mystery. Actually this
gentleman lives with more than one feline. He has
several and other animal companions, too. If asked
how this has come to be, he might answer that it has
something to do with the woman he is married to.
She doesn’t really back up his story 100 percent
because she doesn’t think that his way with animals
has anything to do with her. It has to be something
innate within his internal being. She will confess to
bringing companion creatures into his life even
when he had grave doubts. This is her way, the
contrary. He married her even thought he swore
he’d always be a bachelor. He raised 2 boys even
though he was not going to have children.

The man likes to tease his wife and say that she’s a
feral. He always says she’s like a great cat, perhaps
a jaguar or a cougar. Even though she can be
personable, she’s rather solitary and strange in her
ways. He can imagine her shape shifting in the night
and prowling the neighborhood looking for the true
wild home of her origin. She tried to deny his claims
and say that she likes all animals. She tried to make
her point be giving the example of her companions.
She usually has canines, felines, birds, reptiles, and
fish. He agreed that she “liked” all the animals, but
in reality she was most like a feline, and not a tame
feline at that.

The man’s wife’s deep interests lie in the fate of
felines the world over. She has always had an interest
in conservation and the preservation of all animals,
especially felines. She really wants to have a lifestyle
that would allow her to live with the wild felines. She
fantasizes about volunteering in the jungle, doing
research and helping the wild cats. The man doesn’t
laugh but reminds her of her age and physical
limitations. Sometimes she threatens to run away
to the circus to help train the big cats. He raises
an eyebrow at this knowing that big cats are being
banned from circuses in many places.

He’d get her a companion exotic cat but this is
illegal in the state they live in. Sadly ban laws
are being passed in many places. This means
that private people cannot have the felines that
they most want in their lives. It also means that
responsible private people cannot help preserve
the diverse gene pools of endangered cats. This
is tragic because wild feline homelands are being
encroached on and destroyed by humans. This is
the biggest threat that animals everywhere face.

The man does encourage his wife to do what
she can. He also helps her have felines close to
what she desires, hybrid felines with some wild
heritage. These felines are legal in their state of
residence. He encourages her to visit her friends
that live in other states with their exotic companions.
He isn’t really interested in getting up close and
personal with a cougar, but he will be her companion
when she visits friends that have one. She asks him
if he minds the strong feline musk that inhabits a
home with great house cats. It is quite a pungent
odor, especially when trying to sleep, but he is
willing.

He’s also willing to get drooled on by the little
black great-at-heart cat that calls him her favorite.
He’s been run over in the middle of the night by
playing cats. He’s taken cats to the vet. He cried
when his wife’s best friend who happened to be
a cat had to be put down because of health
problems. He was the one responsible for
getting more felines when she swore not to have
another cat because her heart was broken.
He understands when she still cries over the
deceased cat years later. He spends lots of
money on the best food, toys, cat furniture,
jaunts to visit friends’ great cats, and vet bills.
Married to a feral woman, surrounded by cats,
hearing about animals, especially felines, day
and night, vacationing in homes filled with the
sounds and aromas of great cats, he realizes
that his life will never be considered boring.
Can it truly be such a mystery that this little black,
green-eyed cat has his devotion? She nibbles his
chin then drools on his chest. He lives immersed
in the feline mystique.

Cougar Time

We were heading home from the annual
Phoenix Exotic Wildlife Association meeting,
via Reno and a stop over to visit a friend, when
we turned into Tonopah for refueling. We were
running quite a bit behind schedule and it was
looking like we were not going to get to make a
visit that we had been planning on our way into
Reno. The people that we were planning to meet
had an early-to-bed evening, schedule because
of the large amount of work that they do in their
daily routine. I was feeling quite disappointed
at the thought of the missed meeting because
I had heard a lot about these folks and it sounded
like we had a lot of spiritual and philosophical
qualities in common. One never enjoys missing
out in sharing time with kindred spirits.

On our drive I had been thinking about a cougar
that I had heard about. She lived with the people
that we had hoped to meet. This cougar’s sister
was quite the ambassador and had died about a
year ago of kidney failure. These gals were aging
and the beginning of their lives were not of the
best quality. They were true rescues and came
to live with the people that shared some of our
world-views. The cougar I was thinking about
had become an indoor cat as a consequence of
some health problems. For some reason I kept
getting an image in my mind of myself sitting with
her and giving her Reiki. Reiki, for those of you
who are unfamiliar, is a healing method that draws
on techniques that facilitate calling on the Universal
Life Force.

During the drive that proceeded our arrival in
Tonopah we had passed a motor home with an
illustration of a cougar on the side. This was
during some of my Reiki fantasies. I pointed this
out to my husband and mentioned what kept coming
to my mind.

The winds were cold and furious as we pumped gas
into our little Honda Prelude. Our friend called his
friends to let them know how far behind schedule
we were and he expected to be told that there really
was no time for a visit.

As I sat, disappointed, in the Honda, what should
pull in to the gas station? It was the very same motor
home with the cougar painted on the side. My husband
was off talking with our friend. I thought to myself, “
Dang! I think I’m feeling a visitation from a cougar!”
I thought about the unlikely reality of the images I had
in my mind of sharing Reiki with the aging cougar girl.
Somehow, seeing this and feeling the cougar visitation,
I couldn’t quite think that the whole thing meant nothing.
When my husband returned he told me that, surprise,
the people we were hoping to meet were going to stay
up. They wanted to meet us, too!

Wow! It is so hard to have faith in what most of
society thinks of as crazy. I pointed out to my husband
the motor home with the cougar and told him that I
thought that I was having a “visitation”. He’s lived with
me long enough not to really think I’m nuts. He’s seen
some pretty amazing things and even lived to tell about
them. I have to interject here that my husband loves
animals but he was not raised with them. He also is not
the kind of person to seek a close up and personal
relationship with a big cat. He did fall in love with an
ocelot on this trip, though!

When we arrived at our destination we had the honor
of meeting two extraordinary individuals. They truly
felt like kindred spirits that have accomplished many
amazing and wonderful things and continue to do so.
Wow! Loving felines like I do has really brought some
fabulous and courageous people into my life.
Responsible private ownership of exotic felines,
especially big cats, is not politically correct and comes
under attack from extreme animal rights terrorists.
These AR individuals even resort to distortion and lies
to advance their agenda. What is their agenda?
Their bottom line agenda is to end the relationships
between humans and animals. Even if it means the
ultimate extinction of these animals.

My first feline greeting came from an enthusiastic
female cougar. She really wanted my attention! My
friend well versed in feline language, and her
keepers told me that she really liked me and wanted
me to pay attention to her. This was my very first
meeting with big cats. I know that technically
cougars aren’t exactly classified as big cats but she
looked pretty big to me. I wanted to cuddle with her,
but know the limits of my experience and honor the
reality of these limits. This was the very cat that I had
thought about sharing Reiki with.

We sat and chatted, chatted and chatted with our
gracious host and hostess. Other house cats were a
tiger, two bobcats, an African serval, and a lynx.
The serval and lynx were displeased because we had
interrupted their normal schedules. Do you know how
I know this? The lynx screamed her displeasure and the
serval gracefully sat on a kitchen chair, folding his
forelegs under his chest, and gave stern looks of
disapproval!

After a while, during the time when my husband was
chatting with our host and our friend, I became bold
and decided to sit by the cougar and send her Reiki.
I went and sat by her enclosure and quietly asked my
Reiki Guides for permission and guidance. They accepted
my humble request and I began to follow their lead.
This beautiful girl flopped down in front of me and began
the biggest belly-rumbling purr that you could never
imagine in your wildest dreams. Unless you’ve had a
cougar as a friend, that is!

Wow! I think that AR activists are somehow missing
the spiritual boat! If they had ever truly experienced
a spiritual connection to any living being besides the
destitution of modern culture, how could they ever
attempt to form laws that mean the extinction of
some of the most spiritual creatures on the face of
the planet! I can’t express to you the awe and wonder
that my husband shared with me when he saw the ocelot
I mentioned earlier. I’m pretty positive that he’d be
willing to share urine in every corner of the house to
keep this species alive on the face of the planet.

My experiences document only part of a magical
adventure. There were more initiations into the
world that I like to call the “Feline Mystique” and
I wait to share with you all, eager readers, at a future
date. I’ll leave you with a teaser followed by a
conclusion. First I have to say that the reason that I
do not name my friends, furred and otherwise, is
because I do not know, during these dangerous
days, whether it is good to do so. I seek to promote
the survival of exotic felines! The teaser is that I
had even more adventures! I know, this is a kind
of lame teaser. I guess I’ll amend it with these
prospective titles, “Bobcat Songs”, “Chuff”, “The
Proper Serval: Etiquette For Fools”, “A Lioness
Makes a Friend!” I haven’t written these yet, but
perhaps someday I will.

In conclusion, I was recently asked why I was
endangering myself from potential AR attention
to give a care about the cats. My answer: I have
grandchildren! I do not want my progeny to be
denied their relationships with other animals. I
have had the pleasure of circuses, zoos, farms,
private ownership of pets, spiritual connection
to animals in captivity and in the wild. How could
I ever deny that to my decendents? I raised caring
adult humans in an environment rich with other
species. We all stayed healthy and amazingly well
adjusted to the world. This occurred despite
society’s overwhelming drive for power, control,
and money. I also have a deep and abiding passion
for all animals, especially felines. I feel that if
felines and other animals vanish out of our lives
and the world, I really don’t want to live here. I’m
going to amend my last statement, as per my
husband’s request, the world will be a desolate
place with out the other species that share it with
us, human animals. He felt that the way I
expressed my thoughts seemed suicidal. Scary,
don’t you think?

What I have learned about Journeys and Quests

Quests and journeys take many forms during the
course of a life. There are quests for knowledge,
journeys of discovery, roads to recovery, and
exploring the path less traveled. Many of these
adventures appear to be an event with a beginning,
middle and an end. I think that the perception of
a beginning, middle, and end aids in processing
experience because actually all quests and
journeys are part of the path of life.

Age seems to bring a certain depth of developmental
understanding. Precocious and experienced young
people often mistake their experience and knowledge
for wisdom. When they actually exist for a time on
earth and begin adding decades beyond the age of
20 they sometimes get an “aha”. They experience a
“Wow, this is a different perspective that only time can
lend to my knowledge.” This is the dawning of wisdom.

Quests for youthful persons often embrace some
cause or seeking of treasure or a romantic love
relationship. Perhaps they seek to correct something
they perceive as a social injustice. Maybe they want
to gain a gift that they perceive to be outside of
themselves. They are often looking to partner.
Young people can be very enthusiastic and tend to
see things in black and white. They can really put
their energy into a cause or seeking of a gift because
they often do not see the complexities that exist in
many situations.

Many teachers caution their students, “Be careful
what you ask for”. This is the teacher’s attempt to
pass on the awareness of complexity. Life is a web
of interconnectedness. Sometimes when we pull a
thread, we may not know to what all it is attached.
Sometimes we get our wish only to find out that it
wasn’t what we thought it was or that it doesn’t
bring the happiness that we thought it might.

Crisis quests have a different flow and impetus
than the youthful quests for treasure, social cause,
or partnering. These events and experiences are
common in the shamanic experience and the “call”
to be a “wounded healer”. Generally when one gets
one of these “calls” one has survived or is trying to
survive a near death experience, a potentially fatal
disease, or a life crisis so shattering that one is left
with a devastation that only a seeking of Spirit can
relieve.

The quest then becomes one of connection to Spirit
and healing, or at least a seeking to put back the
pieces of the shattering. The quest of the wounded
healer is one that sometimes feels like following a
trail of breadcrumbs through the forest. One is
looking for signs and synchronicities while scouting
the alien and strange topography. One may be
literally lead to begin a pilgrimage, a physical
journey to some holy place or situation that may
hold the keys to putting one’s life back together.

These quests are literally a matter of life or death.
If one can survive navigating the journey, one may
be reborn to a new life. With this life come the
experiences of the quest and rich gifts that are
brought back to help others. There’s often a
significant deepening of wisdom.

In my experience, “the call” is one of spiritual
transformation. One seeks Spirit, generally in
a form that one is not familiar with. These “calls”
are quite different from the social causes of our
youth. We don’t have control. The “calls” are
often unpleasant (understated), and we have
no idea where we are going. Youth quests have
more of a controlled feeling about them. We
approach them knowing what we want to change
or what we seek. We may have some unrealistic
ideas about how our interaction is going to effect
the outcome. We count on certain ideas of a “fair”
and “just” world. We think that we know.

“The call” usually doesn’t feel very fair! It
certainly doesn’t feel just. It often turns our world
on its nose then adds some kind of “insult to injury”.
Individuals on the path of the “wounded healer”
often feel outrage at the unfairness of it all.
Accommodation to the grieving process is often
resisted. Sometimes this resistance to change and
grief are so profound that the person fights and fights.
They might actually fight to the literal death. We can
list our worthiness and how we have been “done
wrong” by the crisis situation. “It’s not fair!”

Eventually those of us who survive learn the secret
of surrender. We learn that we are not in control
and that we must be ever vigilant scouting the trail.
We learn that what we thought was “fairness” is our
own society’s false constructs. We begin to see the
web and complexities including the gray areas within.
In surrender we drop our resistance. We also discover
the advantages of not knowing.

Is this wisdom? Well, my answer is that wisdom is
more complex than that! What is beyond the wisdom
of surrender? I’d have to say the wisdom of forgiveness.
For Give Ness! Do you know that when you forgive that
you unlock the ball and chain around your own ankle?
This is an oft-neglected concept.

Forgiveness is an art form probably perfected in
actively engaging ancestral work. It really works best
when you give up getting some kind of
acknowledgement or apology. When you truly let
things go; a huge weight is removed. You no longer
have to spend your life force caring about past events
that you cannot change.

The key is Spirit. You are not in control and Spirit is
a vital active force. One of the keys to helping yourself
is learning to have a dialogue with Spirit. How? Great
question! There are no sure cure formulas but lots of
suggestions and ways. Some can be found and sought
from the wise elders of this community. A positive
quality to nurture is the art of listening.

Practices that encourage stillness help allow the space
for dialogues with Spirit. Some people meditate.
Many individuals take time outs in nature. Journey
work and trance states are other tools to use to
establish communication with Spirit. If you have
never worked with establishing a communication
path, you may find yourself needing to practice
the suspensions of your belief systems.

Many people raised in Western culture are taught
that a communication with Deity is an illusory
practice if not down right delusional. Sometimes
dialogue with the Creator feels like you are simply
making it up in your imagination. Encouraging
yourself to suspend disbelief allows you to take
the steps to open up channels of communication.

Quests of youth and “calls”, while being in the
path of life, are different animals. It would seem
that Spirit initiates a “call”. This does not exclude t
he fact that some youthful quests could be “calls”.
Diversity in the world is the natural order. This is
why that knowledge of complexity is part of the
natural foundation of wisdom.

Wisdom has many components. Some of these we
learn from our youthful quests and others only
come with the passage of time and experience.
Not everyone gets the call to practice as a wounded
healer or shaman. Those of us who do also learn
to nurture a deep appreciation for the mystery and
complexities in life and the Spirit/s that are here as
our helpers and allies.