Venus lounging
around.Here are some of the pictures that I took whilst in Florida visting my father. These are not all the photos, but a small sampling. The cats featured in these pictures are also the ones that I got to know a bit better.
The following are thumbnails of the said photographs. To see the larger picutre, click on the thumbnail. The actual photographs are approximately 125 dpi, 5" wide. So, you are herebye warned.
This small bundle of joy is a four-month-old cub who knocked me down several times during our rough-housing. She's small, but she's definitely a terror, and will grow into her paws one of these days.
Venus lounging
around.
Venus sticking her
nose into my camera.
Me and Venus (yes,
a rare picutre of me)
There were several Florida Panthers in captivity, and they are absolutely gorgeous with their beautiful masks. I realized that they are much like cougars, except on a much larger scale. They also "coo" like cougars, and have a rumbling purr.
This is Katso.
One of the five Florida Panthers.
Kalli and Alli are cougars from the same litter. At 8 months old, they are still juveniles, but they have the mentality of human teenagers; they were testing me all the time. Not to mention that they were almost full-grown. At about 70 pounds, these two cats are ALL muscle. I had to fight back down fear and panic at times in order to deal with these two. Luckily, these two are big versions of my own cats back home. I only had to look into their eyes and at their body postures to see what they were thinking. However, a cat this size slinking into a pouncing crouch is still very intimidating.
My dad and Kalli
(the meaner of the two sisters.)
Kalli and
Alli looking rather content after the two of them decided to gang-up on
me.
Kia
Out of all the cats, Kia scared me the most. At 70 pounds, this African Spotted Leopard is ALL muscle, and ALL action. She is capable of dragging her prey (up to 3 times her weight) up a tree using her power jaw muscles. She also has peripheal vision of about 270 degrees. And there is no telling with her what she is thinking, unlike Kalli and Alli. There is no thought or decision in her actions. She IS pure action. There was one point where I was watching her from her perch from across her cage. One minute she is lounging, the next, she is staring at me mere inches from my face. I NEVER SAW HER MOVE. Luckily, the cage was between me and her. There was absolutely NO WAY I was getting into her environment with her, unlike the other cats. My own dad had a heck of time controlling her, and she LIKES him.
My dad took Kia
out for a walk. Her tail is about the size of her body length. I tried to
stay about 5 paces behind them during their walk--just out of range.
At one point,
she decided she wanted to be up on this horse.
When I took this
photo, she had just finished giving her other handler a hell of a time.
She had nearly ripped the leash from her handler's hand and climbed a tree.
I was playing with Venus at the time this happened. Luckily, I had my telephoto
lens.