OnePhatMan

This entry isn’t like my normal ones, but I had an experience yesterday so magical I simply had to share. I hope you enjoy it.

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“Do you trust me?” Robyn asked, turning from her computer to look at me. It was Monday afternoon, and I’d just returned from a long hike.

“I guess,” I said, immediately suspicious. “Why?”

“There’s some place I want us to go on Saturday, and I guarantee you’ll love it. It’s outside, and it’ll take us a couple of hours to get there.”

“Will there be a lot of people?”

Priorities, you know. I still don’t like crowds.

“I doubt it.”

“If I agree to do it, will you tell me what it is?”

She considered, then pulled a section of newspaper out of her desk and handed it to me.

“I saw this at the shelter this morning when I was taking care of the cats. I want us to go to this place,” she said.

The top half of the page was a big picture of a man holding two tiger cubs. I scanned the article, which was about an exotic animal rescue group about 90 minutes from here called “Tigers for Tomorrow”, quickly. They saved big cats, and kept them safe and well-treated for the rest of their lives. Not-for-profit, completely devoted to their animals, and not a tawdry carnival sideshow. Matter of fact, they only open their doors to the public once a week. I looked up at Robyn.

“You know what sucks about this?” I asked.

“What?”

“That we have to wait until Saturday!”

Saturday eventually arrived, and we drove over to the southern part of Dekalb County to see if, in fact, here be tygers.

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We arrive at the facility

 

Tigers for Tomorrow rescues all kinds of animals, including wolves.

 

They have probably between 15 and 20 tigers, all of which are simply beautiful.

 

 

 

 

The tigers love to play in water, and got VERY excited when our
guide (more on that in a bit) got out the hose.

 

 

 

Look at that beautiful lady. Want to see her better?
Check out the big version.
I had no idea that tigers loved water so much.

 

 

 

They had plenty of big cats besides tigers.
Above is a cougar who came over to check us out just as I was taking her picture.

 

Mr. Lion (really, that’s his name) watches us from the shade of his domicile.

 

Looks like a good ole boy, doesn’t he?

 

Miz Cougar (not her real name) stretches out for us, and shows her belly.

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The animals at Tigers for Tomorrow are the happiest and healthiest I’ve ever seen anywhere. It’s painfully obvious that everyone there dotes on them. The enclosures are large, and the animals are moved weekly so they don’t get bored. The volunteers are currently building stone-lined pools in each enclosure, and as fortune had it, they’d just finished one, so we got to see what happened when the tiger was released back into the enclosure.

He padded to the water.

He sniffed it.

He touched it with a paw, and then…

A cheer erupted from the crowd of volunteers as the pool was decreed a success.

 

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Alas, there’s something I haven’t been telling you. Robyn and I didn’t have the normal tour. We had the special tour. As things so often seem to happen in our lives, we had a little bit of serendipity yesterday morning at Tigers for Tomorrow.

We both had to pee like nobody’s business when we got there, me because I’d stopped for Mickey D’s coffee (large!) no less than three times on the way, and Robyn because she’d been sipping water since she got up. While Robyn was in the port-a-potty, one of the volunteers (who runs the on-site petting farm of zebras, camels, ostriches, goats, horses, tortoises, and llamas) came over and introduced herself. We had a short conversation about the organization, the site, and animals in general.

Then, on a whim, I said, “I’ll bet that no matter how much I beg there’s no way you guys would let us actually touch a tiger, is there? Liability, and all that.”

And poof, magic.

“Actually, there is,” she said. “For a donation of $200, you can get a private tour with your own guide, and at the end—only because we happen to have them right now—you get to spend 30 minutes in the pen with our tiger cubs. If you sign a waiver.”

Thirty minutes. In a pen. With baby tigers.

For two hundred dollars and a signature.

As if there even needed to be any discussion about whether or not we’d be willing to pay $200 to play with baby tigers. And everyone knows the best things in life require a waiver.

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“If you don’t have any more questions we can go up to the house and see the cubs,” the guide finally said, when we’d seen all the adult animals. I say “finally” because the private tour was almost two hours long. It was a phenomenal tour, and I enjoyed every minute of it, but when you know you’re going to fulfull a lifelong dream at the end two hours becomes an eternity.

“Okay,” I said, and tried not to dance in place.

We walked up the hill in the glaring sunlight, kicking up puffs of dirt. At the house, which is surrounded by a fence, we had to wait for the owner to come lock the guard dogs up. Another eternity. Finally she showed up and took care of the canines.

Our guide vanished into the house for several minutes. Robyn and I stood in the shade and I tried not to piddle on the ground like an overexcited puppy. When the guide returned, she carried a bottle of hand sanitizer and a clipboard with the waivers.

We filled out the papers, signing here, initialing there. Pump pump, rub rub, and our hands were clean.

“Okay, I’ll be right back,” the guide said. She held the gate open and led us into the fenced area. I tried to calm myself, unsuccessfully. My whole life I’ve dreamed of playing with one of the big boys, and I was moments from realizing that dream. The guide vanished into the house with the owner.

“I think I’m going to wet my pants, I’m so excited,” I said to Robyn.

“Me too.”

And then the front door opened, and two tiger cubs scampered out.

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Right away, the guide handed me a bottle.

 

We both fed one of the cubs.

 

Because it was so hot, the cubs kept trying to go under the porch where—as the guide said more than once—the spiders are. At the guide’s suggestion, we picked up the cubs and carried them to a small pen.

 

A cub checks out my flappy neck skin, and apparently is displeased…

 

…because he immediately bit me on the arm.
Okay, maybe the fact that they’re teething had something to do with it. They’re 8 weeks old.

 

For the record, it’s very cool to be able to technically say, “I’ve been bitten by a tiger.”

It didn’t break the skin, if you’re interested to know, but it did make a blood blister and bruise under the surface. I can’t imagine what he could do if he was (a) serious, or (b) bigger.

 

Look at that face!
Trying to refrain from squeezing the guts out of these guys was tough.

 

Robyn gets a little lovin’.

 

 

 

Now those are claws!

 

Wrestling with a stuffed toy.
Watching their instincts take over when you made the toy move like prey
was an inspiring sight. They’re like housecats, and yet completely unlike them.

 

 

Posing for a picture

 

 

More wrestling. We had a blast with the toys.

 

 

Tigger killed Eeyore, but don’t tell your kids

 

He looks goofy, I look far too serious

 

The cubs could hear the owner (”mama”) talking, but couldn’t see her,
and kept trying to find her.

 

Robyn got the loving side, I seemed to get the predator side

 

Is anything this cute?
There’s a big version here, if you want to see more detail.

 

More of Robyn getting the love side of her cub…

 

…while I get the hunter-killer side of mine
(this picture, and the one above, are actually from the same big picture)

 

Something gets his attention mid-tussle

 

No, I wasn’t choking him, though it looks like I was.
There’s a big version here, if you want to see more detail.

 

More beauty from nature.
Note that “mama” is finally in sight on the porch

 

She was whining for mama in this picture, not panting or meowing

 

 

Kitty toes!

 

And claws!

 

Mama, please come over here and see us

 

I offer up a mama substitute

 

Another nice closeup of a cub face.
There’s a big version here, if you want to see more detail.

 

Fighting with me for the stuffed bone

 

There were four cubs total, and the other two came out near the end.
And one needed to pee, which interested the female in with us.

 

Giving a cat a bone

 

The last picture I took ended up being one of the best

 

And finally, some video
You can hear the other cub meowing for mama, whom she could hear talking on the
other side of the porch

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Yesterday provided what is easily one of the top ten experiences of my life, and all because of a little magic. If Robyn hadn’t seen the article about Tigers for Tomorrow in the newspaper at the shelter, when she was about to put in on the floor of a cat cage; if I hadn’t jokingly asked if there was any way we could touch a tiger; if there hadn’t been cubs on the premise (a real rarity, according to the guide)…none of this would have happened.

The cubs will only be available for encounters for a few more weeks. Soon they’ll be too big, and dangerous.

I won’t be surprised if another Saturday finds us back there.