Feeding the Animals
Sarah and I were talking this morning about feeding animals, while we were feeding the dogs their breakfast. I told her that to me it seems odd that someone would not give Rusty enough to eat because most people really like to see animals eat. When we go to the zoo, we like to go at a time when the zoo attendants will be feeding the animals because it's more fun to watch them eating than sleeping in a corner in their cage.
It reminded me of the time we went to the Washington, D. C. zoo. One of the attendants had dropped a stalk of bamboo when they were feeding the animals. I am always interested in plants like that and I picked up the bamboo and carried it with me. Everywhere we went, the animals came to the front of their pens and were happy to see us. It was fun to get such a good look at them but we didn't know what made them so friendly until somehow we put it together that they weren't actually happy to see us, --it was the bamboo stalk. They associated it with the zoo attendants having it with them at feeding time and they expected us to be feeding them.
We humans miss so much of what is around us that we don't realize how much animals notice any little thing that is different, as well as what is routine. If you have access to a stalk of bamboo, you might try to carry it with you the next time you visit the zoo. It worked for us!
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