Ellen Brady-McGaughey

I take at least one photo every day I am at the Chimp House. Often, this is in an attempt to capture all those special moments we get to witness and be a part of each day to share with you all, but other times it is just to capture a moment for myself.

This is one of those moments. I couldn’t capture it very well without taking a picture through the window, resulting in a lower quality photo, but I also couldn’t resist capturing this picture of Cy in complete peace, relaxing, feet propped up and big toes crossed, with his head resting on his arm. The definition of relaxed.

It is understandable if you have questions after this one! We tried out this dog toy “croc” for Jamie’s group, and after carrying it around with her for awhile, Jamie threw it back to us. She was asking for something, and in my quest to try to determine what she needed, I thought maybe she wanted me to put on the tiny croc like she does with her boots! This was not the answer, but she did want me to dance around a little bit for her with the tiny croc. What she had really wanted was Foxie’s evening juice cup, which was sitting behind me.

Did you know it is really hard to take a selfie with a cow?! Betsy was being super sweet the other day, licking me and allowing lots of pets and some hugs, so I attempted to take some pictures. But man, her face is so long, it was hard to capture it all!

Today was a day of many pictures around the sanctuary, with the chimps receiving lilacs and overall just enjoying a peaceful, sometimes rainy, day. Here is the day, in photos. I hope you all enjoy.

The day started off with a juice pool with pumpkin and sunflower seeds floating in it. Negra and Annie especially enjoyed these! Negra is pictured above, placing a seed into her mouth.

Annie with her seed remnants.

Later in the morning, the chimps received their lilacs. Negra was first to spot them and first to claim several!

Missy took hers upstairs to enjoy. I loved this series of Missy eating her lilac. It made me laugh how quickly she polished it off!

Two bites later and all the petals were gone!

Jamie was kind enough to stay in the portrait studio and let me take some photos while she ate her lilacs.

Cy’s group was not immediately interested in their lilacs, as they also had a lunch forage to eat! I checked back in later in the day, and the lilacs were disappearing…

Others may have enjoyed the lilacs as well, but Rayne was caught in the act! She really savored the lilac, stopping to smell it as she ate it.

As I was walking around to see who was enjoying the lilacs, I had a really sweet moment with Lucky at one of the windows. I showed her my hand which has a few scratches on it from a project I was working on over my weekend. She inspected it as closely as she could, then gave me a brief kiss. She then allowed me to take a few photos of her.

Now everyone is settling in for the evening after having had dinner, waiting for their last food puzzle of the day. I hope you enjoyed this photo journey!

 

Foxie asked me to babysit her doll for her today, and I quickly tucked her baby in for safekeeping until Foxie was ready to have her back. I came back a little while later to see if Foxie wanted her baby back yet, and that interaction turned into a lovely play session for us both (eventually resulting in Foxie taking her doll back, only to quickly change her mind and return her to me). Foxie is such a fun chimpanzee friend to have. She is spunky and fun and oh so silly! I often admire her and her wonderful personality from a distance, watching her play with Burrito or Katelyn or her dolls. She is a busy chimpanzee woman! It makes it all the more special when she invites me to spend time with her one-on-one, and I will drop just about anything to do just that!

Here is a picture of Foxie resting this morning, preparing herself for her busy day!

The group of 9 also had an exciting day today as they tried out some new toys Diana found for them! Honey B was the first to check out the toy hammer, but Rayne seemed to enjoy it the most. She spent most of her afternoon carrying it around with her, examining it, and manipulating it with her mouth. Rayne seems to be really enjoying all of the new items they have received recently!

Enjoy some photos below of Rayne and her hammer:

And here are some bonus photos from the day!

Cy looking at his orange peel

Cy with an orange peel in his mouth as he enjoys today’s lunch forage!

Dora loves avocados!

Lucky is such a beautiful chimpanzee

Honey B is a wonder all to herself. She is an expert at using tools, and a genius at thinking up new ways to entertain herself using said tools around the sanctuary. She has come up with her own enrichment many times (see a few examples here, here, and here), keeping things interesting for herself, her group, and those that care for her.

Here is Honey B enjoying the new nylabone keys!

Earlier this week, we needed to collect a fecal sample from Honey B’s group for Dr. Erin. Unfortunately for the humans, the desired sample was just out of reach, even with the longest of bamboo sticks at our disposal, and we did not want to disturb the chimpanzees by asking them to shift out of their enclosure again. So Anna had an idea…”Let’s ask Honey B!”

We collected our supplies (a laser pointer, a clicker, a small cup of raisins, a spoon, and a sample collection container), and found Honey B. It was a multi-step request, as we were asking her to use the spoon we gave her to collect feces from a specific location, then return the spoon to us with the feces on it. We used the laser pointer to identify the target feces, and asked Honey B to “trade” while pointing at the spoon, then the feces. She figured out what we were asking of her very quickly, and collected the sample we needed! It was so impressive to watch her think through our request, then have what appeared to be a “light bulb” moment where she put it all together and did just what we were asking of her. We were able to move the sample into the sample container and save it to be looked at by Dr. Erin.

Thank you, Honey B!