Posted on 05/09/2020 12:08:21 AM PDT by nickcarraway
With people staying in their homes more these days, they’ve been realizing just how close ‘home’ actually is to wildlife and the outdoors. Take this video of a bobcat chasing a squirrel in a tree for example; This kind of encounter is something you would expect to see in a wildlife documentary shot with ultra high-definition cameras, not someone’s backyard filmed on a cell phone.
We’ve watched bobcats make some pretty incredible catches before, but this one was pretty impressive. Especially since the cat outsmarted the squirrel on his own turf!
Yet what happens when you tire of playing with Messi before he tires of playing with you? I would prefer not to be the object of a ninety pound housecat with large teeth and claws who gets insistent about anything.
Apparently he mostly doesn’t do anything but pawing and gentle mouthing and if you still don’t want to play, he either goes off and takes a nap or goes upstairs, takes one of his toys off the shelf and plays with it by himself.
Oh, he’s definitely exceptional, one shouldn’t expect other puma to be nearly as docile and friendly. He even goes to dog training courses and doesn’t eat the other students. :P
Messi is clearly smarter than most Democrats. :P
On the other hand, Messi’s people are also taking care of Caesar the leopard, who lives in the same area and has a story of his own Caesar’s human was severely injured in a car accident recently and will be months recovering. Caesar is a bit more typical - he’s not at all tamed or terribly housecat-like, but he is human-friendly and wants to live with people. While he isn’t aggressive towards people, he tends to want to do more ‘wild’ things than Messi.
Caesar’s story:
http://www.storytrender.com/107564/mans-best-friend-zoo-keeper-adopts-homesick-leopard-and-moves-him-in-to-his-house/
Kind of hard to blame the leopard, I wouldn’t want to live in a Russian zoo either. He is reportedly very friendly, but also not a housecat.
One day the formerly stand-offish horse came over to me along the pasture fence to get her muzzle stroked. As I did so, like a shot, the German Shepard ran over and started bumping against my leg for attention, and a moment later, one of the cats jumped onto the top of a fence post and was brushing against my face. It suddenly hit me: not only did they all want attention, but they were absurdly jealous of each other.
There does seem to be some mechanism for a few members of larger cat species to decide they want to move in with humans. Obviously that’s how we got their smaller cousins who now camp out in our homes and rule the internet. It’s worked out really well for them and us.
Here’s a couple more that like people - jaguars this time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7-rH4IBKLE
This one enlisted in the Brazilian military:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZndkR_mHwt8
Obviously, real life is not a Disney film and wild animals are usually not going to be friendly at all. But sometimes there’s an exception - just don’t go looking for it or the regular ones might eat you. :P
Being raised with humans sometimes seems to adapt the emotions and intelligence of a wild animal toward companionship with humans. Experiments have shown that such animals even seem to identify themselves as human.
Messi is pretty exceptional: https://youtu.be/v7UA0RNMym8
He gets regular baths. He’s perfectly fine (if not happy) with it.
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