Yesterday was another adventure at Little Zoo. It was awesome!

When I was raking the enclosures, the little wallaby, Roo, kept looking in my dustbin. He was like, "What are you doing with my poo?!" Crazy wallaby!

Rufio (the lemur) was no help at all. He kept grabbing the handle while I raked! Then I'd try to pet him and he just licked my fingers. He is cute.

And when I went in with the birds, they were really good. Except one macaw, who was too scary to even attempt going in with! (Mallory raked her enclosure instead. Because she is brave. And knows the birds better than I do!)

One sweet cockatoo was so funny. She kept looking like she wanted to rub her head on me. But I was just cleaning, and wanted to get that done before any cuddle time took place. As I raked, she suddenly LANDED on my back! She had just leapt from a perch onto me! It really startled me; it was so funny! I just stood there laughing for a bit, and then it was a struggle to get her off me. I just chased her from one shoulder to the other for a bit. Then I finally got my hand in a good enough position so that she could "step up" as I'd been asking her to. I pet her and loved on her for a bit before putting her back down. Of course, she wasn't going willingly, so I had to carry her out for a minute, get my dustpan and rake out, too, then put her back and quickly shut the door before she attempted to jump on me again or playfully attack my shoes or something (she has done this in the past!). What a cute bird!

We had an evening show that night, which was awesome. I love being an animal handler in shows! I got to walk around with our slow loris (for the very first time! he is so neat!), fennec fox, hedgehog and great horned owl. And Mallory handled our little skunk and good ol' Ty Coon, the raccoon. I got to let everyone pet the hedgehog, which they got a total kick out of. He was a big hit! And peoples' eyes just lit up as they saw the rest of the animals. It was especially cute to see this one man in the back totally into the animals - his whole face was filled with wonder and awe as his eyes widened every time I passed. It's so cute when adults are so visibly happy because of the animals! There were some very sweet and gentle kids there, too. Lots of them had really good questions, too. One little boy afterwards asked if the animals that are awake at night eat the animals that are awake during the day. I told him they probably don't cross paths too often, but if a nocturnal animal finds them sleeping, sure he might eat them. We got lots of compliments, and it was a really fun program. I was so glad about how well the animals did. None of them seemed stressed, and Socrates (the owl) did SO well on my glove. He only baited* once and that was at the end, as I was putting him away. It didn't take long for him to right himself, and go back just fine into the crate. What a cool bird. Mia (the fox) decided to talk a lot at the end of her segment of the program. It was so funny. They make these crazy sounds to communicate, so she was just talking. But it sounded like someone was stepping on her toes. "MEE, MEEeeeEEp!" They are such funny animals!

[*baiting is when a bird tries to take off flying when they're still wearing jesses and end up hanging upside down; some birds, like Socs, are really good at pulling themselves back upright with their feet]

In fact, when we got back late at night and put everyone away, Mia was so excited to see Rommel (the other Fennec) and he was so excited to see her that they had a very loud conversation about it. "Meeee! EEEEEEE! MRAahahheeee!" They crack me up! And suddenly, one of the parrot's noises made a lot of sense. Conrad can impersonate the Fennecs exactly. It's pretty crazy!

All in all, we had a great show and a great time. We even got something productive done, and were able to wash the van in one of those quarter operated places, because we arrived so early to the program. It was fun dodging soap and water spray as we made the van all nice and pretty again. I'm sure with the rain and dust at the zoo that it won't stay clean for long, but it was nice while it lasted!

So yeah, fun times at the zoo. Next time I go (in 2 weeks), we'll be doing two shows in one day. I can't wait!

Disclaimer: I am trained and authorized to handle wild animals. Most of the animals described in these posts are NOT PETS and are ILLEGAL to own as pets. All content reflects the opinions of the author and is not necessarily the opinion of Little Zoo or its affiliates.