Friday, Sept 22, 2017 (Oregon)
Cape Blanco State Park to North Bend (The Mill Casino)
Before hitting the road today, we called the West Coast Game Park Safari
adventure to find out if we would be able to pet a baby tiger today and they
said YES. Woohoo! We had an opportunity many years
ago to pet an adult tiger (Kirby, may he rest in peace) at the Shambala Preserve
in Antelope Valley, but we’ve always wanted to get up close and personal with a
tiger cub. What we really wanted was one that was small enough to cuddle, but
petting 3-month-old Katara was still fun. As with the
adult tiger, the petting occurs while the trainer is feeding them. When we had
our encounter with Kirby many years prior, he had been on a heavy chain leash,
and the trainer was feeding him a large steak in
between every petting/photo-op customer, whereas Katara
was on a more typical leash and the trainer was feeding her from a bottle.
We also got to sit with and pet a young Bobcat. ‘Ruckus,’
was 18 mos. old, fully grown, and weighed about 25 pounds. He was quite a ham!
On a long soft leash, the trainer would encourage him to play while the next
customer came in for their turn, and almost every
time, without her assistance, he would jump up on the bench and step onto the
person’s lap with his front legs, look at the person holding the camera, and
paws ;-) for a picture. Absolutely adorable!