Welcome to Thailand

I love cats.

I have loved (LOVED) them since I was a little girl. I don't know how young I was when I declared I would be getting a cat. According to mom, dad was dead set against this as he didn't like cats. That didn't work out too well for him!

I grew up just north of a barn. Cats were plentiful down there and by three I could catch the slow ones. I had this cute black cat one morning that DID NOT want to be held. He got away and zipped up a tree. So I made dad get a ladder, go up the tree, and catch him. Dad dutifully helped his daughter. Not more than 10 seconds in my hands and that cat got away and went back up the tree. Dad drew the line. It makes it obvious to me why I would want my own cat so I wouldn't have to go and catch them.

Needless to say, our first stop in Thailand was the tigers.

One

Two

Three

12 Month Old Sleepy Tiger (They're nocturnal)

This guy is also 12 months old

8 Months Old

How cute is this?

We got super close to this HUGE tiger. That would come back to bite mom...

Brothers and sisters are kept in the same cages. They were all very playful, well... at least the tigers who were awake. In this case, the male tiger is in the pool and his sister is "hiding" in the back right corner behind a tree.

He crouched down and got ready to pounce on his sister.

She chased him back and they bounded into the water with a huge splash of water. Mom got SOAKED and I got wet because we were only a couple feet away (so I missed the shot). In the video, he tries to pin her down and bite her ear (brothers are so mean to sisters!). They'd been pouncing on each other for several minutes while we were in the other cages, so she may have been putting on a bit of an indignation act. Check out the size difference in the two animals.

Afterwards he seemed dejected. What a sad tiger face!

I think he wanted to play

Then he came over for a photo op

He's about four years old. They also had two brothers in the cage asleep. One had huge claw marks on his rump. Apparently, play can turn a little frisky at times.

WHAT is this big cat doing here???????

Four months old

He was really soft

This one is much bigger than Mackie but so much better behaved.

He was hungry

So we fed him

Teeny two month old