Sleeping with Felines....

I am not really a cat person but they do seem to like me.  Normal moggies seem to find my lap attractive, as do the not so normal ones - I have woken up to find a cheetah lying across my legs.  Admittedly it was used to taking advantage of people, being cared for at a cheetah sanctuary, but I had lost the feeling in my legs.  The very same cheetah had licked me on the face the previous night, which was quite painful as their have sandpaper for a tongue.  But my most memorable experience was having a fully grown male caracal curl up and fall asleep in my lap.  Caracals are cats with very pointy ears with black ear tufts, there are 20 different muscles in their ears allowing them to detect prey from all around.

So why  was this rare cat snuggling on my lap without a care in the world?  This particular one had been brought in to be cared for due to an injury it had sustained on the reserve I was working on, and it was going to be released back into the wild when fully healed. I was truly enjoying the novelty factor of zizzing with an African lynx. Caracals are quite large cats to have sitting on your lap, they are commonly known as the Persian Lynx or African Lynx, despite the fact that they not a lynxes at all.  And I came to appreciate the size of it, the longer it sat on my lap. These cats are tenacious hunters and they have been known to bring down an ostrich, the fact that they can keep up with an ostrich is a surprising fact in itself. The caracal mainly hunts rodents, birds (which it can catch in flight by leaping into the air), antelopes, gazelles and rabbits.  But this one was living the life of Riley by being hand fed cubes of impala.

A few days later my new furry friend was put into a large holding cage to allow him to get used to his natural surroundings, rather than a sofa, blanket and prepared steak.  Incredibly after two weeks he had no memory of his past luxurious life and his friend - he hissed threateningly at me from the back of the cage, ears back , tail up and teeth showing.  A week later he was released back into the wild fully recovered, having completely forgotten about impala steaks, a secure bed and about little ol' me.

He might have forgotten me but I certainly won't forget him.