Foxie and Jamie really love to play “troll keep away”, and they seem to get more and more creative with it all the time:
Love
There’s nothing like a good friend to cheer you up:
Enrichment for who?
Because of her extreme intelligence, Jamie is a hard chimp to enrich. But I am certainly up for the challenge.
As I know we’ve mentioned before, enrichment comes in many different shapes and sizes. It’s not just the toys, blankets, and clothing we put out each day. It could be the way they are put out, or what they decide to do with them that is the enriching part. It’s all about creativity, both the caregivers’, and the chimps’ themselves.
We put out new enrichment for the chimps each day, and we have an enrichment calendar to help keep things different and fresh. I try to update this regularly and to keep coming up with new ideas, either from volunteers, things I’ve seen at other sanctuaries, or more importantly, from what I’ve seen these chimps do, themselves. That, to me, is the most important part of being a good caregiver– knowing the individuals in your care. It’s truly a symbiotic relationship. And these guys inspire me each and every day.
The enrichment calendar can sometimes look like a joke to those preparing for the next day– “things that rhyme, aka Dr. Seuss Day”, “enrichment hanging from scarves”, “square things”, “troll heads in buckets”, “everything red”… A lot of it sounds crazy. But the point is not that the chimps particularly love “square things”, but to force us to “think outside of the box”, so to speak, and to shuffle around the enrichment that we have so that the chimps are always getting something new and different (we have A LOT of enrichment!).
Lately, I’ve discovered that if you leave the toys in a big pile (rather than scatter them), the chimps have a tendency to go through each and every thing- picking things up, smelling them, biting them, wearing them, etc… and that’s exactly what happened today.
Jamie made herself comfy and spent about an hour and a half going through the enrichment pile.
She carefully picked up each thing
and of course there were boots in there!
At some point, she decided to wear the apron that friends Margaret and Karen recently gave her, and has been wearing it all morning. While wearing it, I even caught her briefly sweeping up some nut shells with her hand!
Even a sheet became interesting:
I have to say it is very rewarding when you come up with an idea that actually entertains and even inspires the chimps to do something interesting with it. Today, I felt like I got a big pat on the back from Jamie.
and that’s a very special thing.
Troll Hockey
I played a little troll hockey with Foxie this morning. It’s hard to say because it was a close game, but I’m pretty sure she won. 🙂
Looking at me, looking at you
Jody seems to enjoy occasionally using a mirror to check out the folks behind her:
but while she’s at it, she might as well get a close up look at herself:
The best 3 minutes of your day
The following is a longer video I got this morning. We try to keep our videos short (not everyone is as obsessed with the chimps as we are!), but this one was just too good to cut much out. So, prepare yourself for the best 3 minutes of your (and my) day:
Happy Anniversary to Dan and Peggy Smith!
Today’s sponsor-a-day is from Dan and Peggy Smith. Dan and Peggy stopped by the sanctuary Sunday to drop off TONS of produce and super soft blankets for the chimps. Peggy sent me a little note that I wanted to share with you:
“The Cle Elum Seven became a part of our lives since we were “introduced” to them at the Veg-fest in Seattle in 2009. We chose to sponsor Jody after finding out she was the least selected of the group. It is interesting to see each one’s personality develop within the group and become a family unit, and to see Jody slowly start to join in with some of the fun. They have had difficult times and I am so happy to see them laugh and play games, or to just make a bed and rest peacefully. The work being done by the people involved at the sanctuary has made such a big difference in these seven lives. We really appreciate the good work you are doing. That is why the best gift we could think of for our wedding anniversary was to give a gift of food and blankets to our favorite group. We had so much fun shopping for the food, thinking of each chimp and how they would enjoy it. Being able to share with them will make this a very memorable anniversary for us.
Love to all,
Dan & Peggy”
Happy, happy anniversary, Dan and Peggy, and thanks for all you do for Jody and all the Cle Elum Seven! Jody is a very lucky gal to have such great Pals!
