Some of the greatest joys of being a chimpanzee caregiver are all the little moments spent with the chimps each day… games of chase, tickles, grooming, kisses (safely, to the backs of our hands), breathy-panting, and getting to be downright silly with our chimpanzee friends every day. And we get paid to do it! In today’s blog video, join me for a surprise (to me) play session with Mave!
Mave is someone who does not often seek attention from me, and that’s okay! It is completely up to her who she wants to interact with and when, and oftentimes she prefers the company of her chimpanzee friends to the humans. So imagine my surprise when I arrived at the sanctuary one morning and there she was, breathy panting and head bobbing…at me! I looked around briefly to see if it was directed at someone else, before realizing my time had come. I dropped everything I was doing and accepted that we’d be running a little bit behind schedule that morning, because that’s what you do when Mave wants to play!