Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

comfort & joy

The Key to Enrichment

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Continuing on with our Comfort & Joy online auction thanking, today I would like to thank Melody W. for her winning bid for keys for the chimpanzees.

We are so glad that Enrichment Coordinator Ellen found these keys. We have mentioned before that it is a challenge to find enrichment that is safe and suitable for the chimpanzee group from Wildlife Waystation because certain members of the group (cough, cough, Gordo, cough Dora) will chew on (and, we fear, swallow) plastic, rubber, stuffing from stuffed animals, and some fabrics. That limits the variety of items that we can give them, perhaps more than you would think.

We have an ongoing quest to find material that withstand their impressive canines, and these keys so far have passed the test.

Of course, the main element that you want in enrichment is popularity. It’s not enriching if no one pays any attention to it. This is really where individualized care shines. We know that Foxie is happier when she has her dolls, Cy has his magazines, and Jamie has her boots and books.

Everyone is different and has their favorite things, but certain items have more universal appeal.

We’ve seen these keys in the hands of almost everyone in Cy’s group, and several members of Jamie’s group too!

Thank you again, Melody, for providing such a well-loved item for the chimpanzees.

Burrito and the Burrito Scarf

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This is one of my favorite traditions now – sharing the items that supporters won in the Comfort & Joy online auction to give the chimpanzees!

I chose one that I thought would be an instant hit, and Burrito did not disappoint.

Thank you Diana K. for your participation on the auction, Thyra for your talents and for letting us use your design for the scarf, and Monica for coming up with the idea for the Comfort & Joy online auction and for sponsoring it for three years running!

You all have definitely brought joy to Burrito, and he, exponentially, brings joy to us.

Finding Comfort & Joy

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Where does one find Comfort & Joy?

For me, it’s a hot drink, a fuzzy blanket, and a good book on a cold day with nothing important to do.  Caregiver Ellen finds Comfort & Joy in the great outdoors with her pups, or a good meal!  Caregiver Anna finds Comfort & Joy in her ginormous beanbag chair, trash TV and a cup of tea or a relaxing massage.  Caregiver Jenna finds Comfort & Joy spending the holidays at her parents home, thunderstorms, freshly washed sheets and mashed potatoes!  Caregiver Chad, when I asked “Where do you find Comfort & Joy?” answered with “I follow the link.”   I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Chad finds Comfort & Joy snuggling his precious kitty CC (Cat Chad) in his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pajamas (Chad says I nailed it!).

Where do the chimps find Comfort & Joy?

I think it’s safe to say that Missy and Annie find great Comfort & Joy in their dear friendship.  Jamie finds Comfort & Joy in a well crafted nest with a boot and a good book tucked into her pelvic pocket.  Foxie loves her baby dolls and a delicious smoothie.  Burrito finds so much Joy frolicking with his many human friends!  Negra is happiest tucked into a cozy nest with just her face peeking out, watching a caregiver dance, and munching lettuce.  Of course, you’ll never find Cy without a magazine in his possession, ideally a good gossip rag!  Honey B, Dora and Mave, collectively known as Mora B, like to spend quality time together thwarting the shifting plans of the caregivers.  Willy B finds Joy watching chimp videos on caregiver’s phones. What brings Gordo Comfort & Joy?  A box, of course!  Rayne also loves a good box, positive reinforcement training, and when her caregivers serve her meal in the correct order.  Lucky loves Jenna, I mean, she REALLY loves Jenna!  And last but certainly not least, our dear Teeny Tiny Terry finds Comfort blowing raspberries, and Joy grooming caregiver boots and licking the backs of our hands!

Where do YOU find Comfort & Joy?  We can help with that!

Our annual Comfort & Joy Quid Pro Throw online auction is in full swing! Register to bid on items for the chimps, that we will give to them on your behalf, and also bid on unique items for yourself or for a loved one! We will be adding new items regularly, so you’ll want to check back in throughout the auction, which ends November 20th.  Our CSNW calendars just dropped at a special pre order price!  I’m pretty sure you need one for every room in your house!  Also, WE HAVE CHIMPANZEE TRADING CARDS!!  What!?  Yep, you heard it here first!  Chimp trading cards!  How fun is that?  I wonder if they include a rock hard stick of gum?  I digress.  Do what Chad says, and follow the link!  The holidays are just around the corner!  It’s a great time to pick something up for the chimps, for yourself and for your most favorite person!  (And, if I happen to be your most favorite person, I’d like the Wearable Hoodie Snuggle Blanket with Chimpanzee Photos for You, please and thank you!)

 

 

 

A gift a day

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These lucky chimpanzees have been receiving a new gift every day from the Comfort & Joy auction and Today they got TWO!

Kathleen C. won the bid for a giant sheet featuring photographs of Rayne and Honey B taken by sanctuary staff. Melody W. bid on a very cute, very soft smiling tomato blanket for Missy, who is famous for loving tomatoes.

Volunteer Lizz helping to display the giant Honey B/Rayne sheet

 

Honey B the chimpanzee juxtaposed with Honey B the sheet

 

This tomato blanket looks just right in the greenhouse, no?

 

Big thanks again to Kathleen C. and Melody W.! We know the chimpanzees are going to get good snuggly use out these gifts.

 

And just for fun, please enjoy the goofball video above of Burrito with a giant kong!

Snow Snackin Video and Mora Blanket Thanks!

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Carrying through from my post last week about the chimpanzees enjoying snow, which Chad also posted about a few days ago, I bring you a delightful video of Cy and Terry (mostly Terry).

As you can see, that group really likes to eat snow too!

We are continuing our thanks to donors for bidding on items for the chimpanzees in the Comfort and Joy auction last month. Even if you didn’t technically “win” the item for the chimps, if you bid on it, you contributed to the final donation amount, and we are so grateful to you! Huge thanks again to Monica for donating so many items for the auction!

Our very own Chad was the “winner” who gets final credit for gifting this fabulous and large Mora (Mave + Dora) blanket that was hung so well in the Marmot Mountain Playroom. Hopefully we can catch some chimps nesting with it soon!

Enrichment Fund on Comfort & Joy

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The Comfort & Joy online auction is well underway! It started last week and will go until November 18th. I’ve been adding items as we go, and will continue to add more fun stuff before it ends!

Enrichment Coordinator Chad gave me a list of items that he had his eye on. Some are included in the auction as individual items, and yesterday I decided to create an enrichment fund under Help Fund Big Items so we can get all of those small items on Chad’s list.

One of the things we’d like to get is an Amazon Fire TV Stick, which, as I’m typing this, I’m realizing is not exactly an enrichment puzzle. It is, however, enrichment! We should be able to use the Fire TV Stick with our existing TV so that we can stream movies and television shows on Amazon Prime for Cy and friends (right now, we have a large collection of DVDs, but we don’t have the ability to stream).

There are several chimpanzees in Cy’s group who are very into their screen time.

This afternoon, I had YouTube playing for Willy B on my tiny phone screen:

I left my phone there for a while because Rayne had also taken an interest with Dora, Mave, and Lucky sidling up once in a while to watch a little.

So, there’s the start of my pitch for the Big Items funds. You’ll see two appliances on there too. HUGE thanks to those who have already donated towards a frost-free freezer and new dryer!

In addition to donating towards those three funds, there are SO MANY fun comfort & joy items for you to bid on – some for the chimpanzees and some for you to win for yourself! Check them all out now, and keep checking back for new fun stuff!

Here are a couple of bonus close-up photos from today.

Lucky:

and Terry:

❤️❤️❤️❤️

A non-primate loss and an addition

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This little announcement is a long-time coming. I have thought about it many times, and have started to write a sponsor-a-day blog post in my head on several occasions, but somehow just never got it out.

You can skip to the end for actual chimpanzee content!

For those who have been following the blog for a while, you might remember a very important non-primate sanctuary resident – office cat LouLou.

Not surprisingly, after a long and good 23 years of life, she passed away early this Spring.

The office is simply not the same without her. She is buried not far away in the little catio that J.B. built for the cats (we used to have three total) outside of the caregiver house at the sanctuary. I planted a small and haphazard garden over her grave this summer that produced a few tomatoes and lovely sunflowers in her memory.

 

Shortly before LouLou passed away, J.B. and I took in a foster dog named Nala from a local rescue called Josie’s Misfit Ranch.

To absolutely no one’s surprise, we adopted Nala shortly after she came to live with us. Now, the caregiver house where J.B. and I reside is full of dog energy (don’t let these calm photos delude you into thinking calm is the norm). If you are interested, the dogs have their own Instagram page here.

There is still some cat energy at the sanctuary, however. Barn Kitty (BK), though he comes and goes as he pleases, still frequents the barn and its surroundings.

As you well know, we have many talented artists in our midst who have donated art for various auctions and fundraisers. When LouLou passed away, I reached out to one of them, Sue Cartwright, about doing a portrait of LouLou and one of a previous office cat, Peanut. Sue did an amazing job! Now all three of our cats our represented to purrfection. In the below photo, that’s a painting of Cuba in the middle by a Seattle artist named Vicki Nelson.

So, this is what is called burying the lead. I’m glad you are still with me!

Sue Cartwright has also painted a stunning and large portrait of Cy for our upcoming Comfort & Joy online auction! Are you ready??!!

For an idea of size, the painting is leaning up against a tall dog crate:

There are more original art pieces and some other fun items that will be part of Comfort & Joy. It that doesn’t cause you to immediately register for the online auction, well, I just don’t know what will.