Sat Apr 06, 2013 12:04 am
Allow me to clarify. She might be a loving mother, she may fill all the cat's other needs to a 'T', & this might be 'just a game' she plays. Notice I didn't say a 'game' they play.
There's a big difference between a wild animal, an undomesticated animal & a domestic animal. To her, this 'game' (I'm trying real hard to give her the benefit of the doubt, although it doesn't make the situation any better) is likely similar to teasing your lab with a piece of cheese. But how those three divisions of animals take 'teasing' is worlds apart. Basically what I'm talking about here is stress.
For example there was this kid who decided to get a hyena for whatever reason. The stresses of this kid trying to make the hyena adapt to him instead of the other way around led to the hyena running full bore, head on in to a wall. Over. And over. And over. Luckily the kid got rid of the animal, unfortunately the animal will likely never recover from the mental trauma. I don't recall exactly what happened with him, but if the sanctuary who took him was the typical broke organization run by good people, he probably didn't have the resources available to him to fully adapt into the new situation. Whether he survived or not, the kid got to walk away from the smouldering ashes with clean hands.
Cat's tend to be more prone to stress like this. Add on top of that, the lynx family is one of the most high-strung of all large cats. Not a good combination & teasing 'games' like this are only poking the sleeping bear with a stick. I'm not saying that the cat would ever do anything, but it could. More likely it's overall health & well-being are going to be affected, significantly shortening both the quality & length of his life. Judging by the video, I would guess that cat to be 2-3 years old, perhaps a touch older (I could be off on that, since that's a completely different subspecies than what I'm versed in), but that's a lot of years potentially left.
I've also heard about others realizing that a large cat wasn't for them... after about 3-4 years of trying & realizing they just couldn't handle them. Big cats in general, the lynx family especially, bond with one person. Occasionally they'll bond with a couple, but almost always in those situations there is an obvious preference. Once they bond with you, that's it. You can't take them to the pound like a dog & hope they get a new loving home. They won't adjust. Most of those transplanted cats respond by becoming extremely aggressive, stand-offish, reclusive & overly territorial, to the point where the folks in the new home will have a hard time even getting near the enclosure. I've heard of numerous cases where the cat just stopped eating until the extremely sad, inevitable happens. All because the original folks didn't do enough research before diving in... this isn't a pool you can just climb out of without repercussions.
I completely see why there's an outrage in this country about privately owned exotic animals. There's more homes with them than there are qualified persons to care for them responsibly. The big problem is the responsible folks end up taking the backlash from it while all you hear about on TV & the news are the idiots giving the rest of us a bad rep. That training I spoke of earlier, what I didn't mention is only about 20% of that training is for the cat. The other 80% is training you. For example, cat's need consistency, a heavily scheduled routine. Something that most have a tough time adapting to. There's plenty of other things that the human will need training in, mostly boiling down to learning how to adapt yourself & your home to him, not the other way around. It's a big deal & quite frankly I wish there were more hurdles on the path before purchase to cut down the numbers going to inadequate places, instead of people learning the hard way, like in that first terrifying year.
Anyhow that's my rant for the morning. Coffee's ready & I'm being harassed that our morning cuddle time is running late. Jesus he's demanding when he wants something.
Lee
"Show me on this doll where the internet hurt you."
"Every zoo is a petting zoo if you man the fuck up."
BN Army // 13th Mountain Division