Dad and I have been following that Houston escaped tiger story pretty closely on the news. We both seriously feared that it wouldn’t end well. We had feared that story would end with the tiger getting hurt/killed, hoomans getting hurt/killed, or both.
How happy we are to be wrong about that. The tiger has been captured safely, and has been taken to the Cleveland Amory Black Beauty Ranch animal sanctuary, founded by author and animal welfare activist Cleveland Amory. The name Black Beauty Ranch is from the book Black Beauty by Anna Sewell, which Cleveland Amory loved as a child.
Cleveland Amory. Wow, what a blast from the past for yours truly. He was a reporter, author, and tireless animal activist. He had a lightly humorous newspaper column for years which was one of my favorites. I read that column in the Minneapolis papers and the Chicago papers. He remains, along with Mike Royko and Carl Hiaasen, one of my favorite newspaper columnists ever.
In the 1990s, I read his marvelous trilogy, Cleveland Amory’s Compleat Cat: Cat Who Came for Christmas, Cat and the Curmudgeon, and Best Cat Ever. It was the story of his cat Polar Bear, a stray whom he rescued from the street of New York City.
He was a tireless and sometimes controversial activist for animal rights/animal welfare. He actually got kicked off the Today Show, where he was a commentator, in 1963 for going a bit off the rails on the subject. He made a, shall we say, somewhat Swiftian proposal with regards to hunting. (I am not going to tell the details of that here. There’s a pretty good reason he got kicked off the air.)
His Ranch is a marvel. It has 1400 acres and is home to around 800 critters, all rescued from awful situations. India the tiger will have a wonderful home there.
Dad and I were discussing the difficulties of having such a large pootie as a pet and Dad said “imagine if Marvin weighed 175 pounds”.
Yikes. With Marvin’s love of rumbling and squabbling, that could hurt. 😂
Happy Monday all! Give all your own little panthers/tigers/lions/leopards a cuddle from Marvin and Buzzy. Stay safe everyone.
PWB Peeps is a group that posts a daily diary and nightly open thread for animal lovers. We share photos, seek & give advice about pet health and behavior issues, support each other in times of sadness and stress, celebrate together when times are good, and on most days have an inordinate amount of fun.
You are welcome to join us!
Here are few not-too-onerous PWB rules
- Do not “Troll” the Pootie Peeps Diaries. If you don’t like animal diaries, there’s no need to tell us about it. Just go find some other diary more to your liking.
- Whatever happens in the outer blog STAYS in the outer blog. This is a place to relax and play; please treat it accordingly.
- If you would like a pic from the comment threads, please ask the poster. He/she may have a copyright to those pics. Many thanks!
- There are some pics we never post: snakes, creepy crawlies, any and all photos that depict or encourage human cruelty toward animals. These are considered “out of bounds” and will not be tolerated.
- If you’re not sure about an issue...please ask. Someone is always glad to help.