As Sabrina said yesterday, sanctuary is often all about enjoying the small things.
For Jamie, having a LOT of small things gives her even more enjoyment 🙂
books
Library Day
It’s no secret that Jamie Chimpanzee loves books, and after being on the nice list and getting lots of gifts at Christmas, she had amassed quite the book collection. Today we decided to give her lots of her books to look through all at once and called it Library Day. It was a blast! Sabrina and I had fun decorating for the occasion – setting up all of her books on their own shelves, and then providing cabbage, radicchio, and juice as refreshments for the event. It turned into a library party when the stars aligned and their enrichment for the day was peanut butter puzzles, so they got a lot of things they enjoy all at once!
Above: Jamie looking through her books.
Above: Jamie drinking juice from a tea cup.
Everyone except for Negra took turns drinking from the large juice pool by the library setup. Negra made her way upstairs quickly to the peanut butter puzzles and blankets and soon was cozy in her newly built nest.
Here is a photo of Negra that I took recently, being her wonderful, regal self.
I hope you all enjoy the video from today, and have had a wonderful holiday season. The celebrations continue at the sanctuary with Burrito’s birthday which is quickly approaching! If you would like to send gifts to help him celebrate, please check out our wish list here.
Stuff
As many of you know (especially if you watched the recent Christmas videos), the CSNW chimps have a lot of stuff. Most of the chimps are not attached to these things – they use them and enjoy them and then go on about their business. But some chimps are quite materialistic and borderline obsessive about it, too.
This morning, Sofia and I were cleaning the playroom when I heard Jamie emit a “low moan” from the front rooms. This is a vocalization that often indicates satisfaction. I imagined that she had saved her primate chow from breakfast, as she often does, and was digging into it in private while the others chimps groomed in the greenhouse. But when I peeked around the corner I found that she didn’t have any chow and was simply making a nest. With her, however, was her favorite book, I’m Lucy.
An attachment to things wouldn’t work very well for a species that ranges across a vast territory and rarely sleeps in the same place twice. While Jamie was not fortunate enough to know the life of her wild counterparts, there’s some comfort in knowing that she gets to experience the same pleasure we do when settling down with a good book on a snowy winter morning.
On a separate note, I just wanted to express our thanks to the rest of the staff (and their spouses) who dealt with some challenging conditions while Diana and I were gone on a longer than expected trip. Kelsi mentioned that the well froze up, but she may not have mentioned that the cattle water also froze up just as we left, the radiant heat in the original chimp building stopped working the next morning (we have backup heaters on standby), and the tractor refused to run, requiring them to find someone to come plow the sanctuary’s long and steep driveway on short notice and make multiple trips to the well house with a heat gun using snowshoes. All of this on top of having to take turns staying overnight at the sanctuary through the holidays. Some might say that Diana and I were the real heroes last week, as we valiantly struggled to enjoy all the cookies, cocktails, and Christmas presents with my family while burdened with the knowledge that the rest of the staff were facing one catastrophe after another. But I’d say our coworkers did a pretty good job, too.
An Xtratuf Book
Jamie loves books. She enjoys flipping through anything from larger bodied apes, to architecture, to a national geographic about mummies, a classic cowboy boot book, and her new favorite Xtratuf boot book. It has all of her favorite boots in one book! The book idea came about when Jamie’s love for Xtratuf boots happened. As many of you know, the chimps can’t have our cleaning boots because they are made of rubber, which they will sometimes eat. At night we always offer Jamie a pair, or two, or three of her favorite boots or a book before we lock up and leave for the night. Every night instead she would need to groom her favorite Xtratuf boots before bed. These grooming sessions could last anywhere from 25-40 minutes or forever in Jamie’s mind :). Some nights grooming was never enough. As a caregiver, you never want to leave until all the chimps are content. It can be very distressing to see someone like Jamie knowing she wants something she can’t have and then having to say sorry but know she is unhappy when you leave, even if you leave her with another favorite pair of boots she can have. I decided maybe if we made a book off something like, Shutterfly with everyone wearing their Xtratuf boots, maybe that would help her at night!
Well, what I didn’t know was how much she would love it. I knew she would like it, but if you read Katelyn’s blog on Monday, it was very apparent she approved of the book. And that the book evolved into her being able to communicate which boots she wanted right in that moment! On Saturday when I gave Jamie the book, I barely got to page two before she was pilo and running over gesturing for the book! Jamie took the book into the Playroom with a low groan of approval and quietly started flipped through the book. It felt like Jamie was saying, finally!
I only purchased one book because I had no idea how she would respond to it. Sometimes we humans get so excited to give the chimps something. We think “oh Jamie is going to love this” or “Jody is definitely going to use this” and then it’s a flop. Chimps are funny that way. While Anna and I were cleaning the other day we were thinking of different ideas like making a blanket with the boot pictures, or a pillow, or a new book with current and old volunteers shoes that she loved! Now, of course these could all be flops too, but you have to try to find out! If anyone would like to find out, I have put a Shutterfly gift card on the wish list so we can get another 2 or 4 copies of this book for Jamie. Or so we can make a new book for her!
Jamie nesting with the book.
Today I found her book with some pages bookmarked. This could be by chance. But, if we know Jamie she was probably folding those piece over to come back too.
This photo was taken pre-Xtratuf boot book! The other night Diana and I could not figure out what boots Jamie wanted to look at. So we brought her collection out. It turned out later she wanted completely different boots, but she had fun looking.
This book is now always an arms reach away from her.
Jamie up close grooming.
Don’t forget about The Queen’s Brunch. The online auction is going on now! I have been bidding on the Negra painting and keep getting out bid and I am currently in a bidding war for a beautiful Jody colored pencil drawing. Look out for me 😉 Please join us live on Facebook, June 13th for the brunch, it’s going to be so much fun. We hope to see you there!
Jamie’s New Ritual
Yesterday, Diana and I returned to the sanctuary after a week away. I came up a little early for our afternoon positive reinforcement training session to say hello and was treated to some wonderful greetings by Annie and Negra, who were resting in the playroom. Annie’s was a grand submissive gesture – a series of pant-grunts delivered while bobbing up and down excitedly. Negra’s was gentle and sweet – a long kiss on the back of my hand accompanied by soft breathy pants.
Then Jamie approached. She walked up, slid a book under the caging, and walked away. If it were any other chimpanzee I might been a bit disappointed by her reaction, but I knew exactly what she was saying: No time to talk, let’s walk.
There really is no one else like her.
