Schools call us all the time asking us to bring cubs for the kids to pet.  We don’t breed lion or tiger cubs so we will sometimes set up a temporary cage at the school in their gymnasium, and bring some of our bigger cats who are easy going.  Shere Khan and China Doll are always a big hit and while the cats are caged we are free to talk about the issues to the kids.

 

On this day we had decided the cage building and tearing down process would go faster if we used a lighter gauge hog ring.  The way you build the cage is to set up the panels, snap them with double sided horse snaps (like you would clip to a bridal), hog ring the panels together and remove the awkward looking snaps.  We’d done this a number of times and were pretty quick about it. 

 

The cats would be in their travel crates, wearing collars, so we could leash them up, walk them into the new temp cage, and then take off the leashes so they didn’t step on them or eat them. 

 

For some reason China Doll was feeling particularly frisky after being turned into the temporary cage.  She got so excited she was bounding against the walls with such force the hog rings were popping off and we were running around snapping the clips as fast as we could to keep her from destroying the entire cage. We had to call the event short and risk being tossed around like a rag doll to go in with her and re attach the leash. 

 

I waited until the gym was empty to try and remove her and Shere Khan from the cage and take them back to their crates in the van.