Up Close and Personal...

We were in Baton Rouge at LSU to attend granddaughter Amanda Grace's "White Coat" ceremony at the LSU Veterinarian School of Science. The white coat symbolizes the completion of formal classroom studies and now moves the candidate on to hands on clinic activity. There they will put their learning together with actual patients under the supervision of Doctors of Veterinarian Medicine. I gather it is much like an medical doctors internship.

Every two years on the even year two white coat students are selected to be Mike the Tiger's trainers. his care takers. They do receive pay for the job but it is quite a long term challenge. Trainer is not the proper word, for they take care of Mike 24/7. There are two of them so there is time for them to do their studies. So over those two years they rarely get to leave the campus usually not more than a few hours at a time for they are on duty all the time, at least one of them is nearby at all times.

Amanda, as are all the Vet students, are well aware of those two individuals. So Amanda asked her friend, one of the trainers, if we could have an up close and personal visit with Mike.

Well we did just that. We met the trainer at Mike's Habitat and were led back into the rear area through a locked gate with very high chain link fence around it. Then we were conducted into yet another locked door into the rear of Mike's habitat. This was his night time living area, where he is fed, weighted, attended to and kept at night. His area consists of two areas, one about 10 by 10 feet, automatic water bowl and a door of steel, about four by four feet into another area that had 10 or so inches of wood shavings on the floor. This area had a door to his outside habitat at one end and door that led to his travelling cage on the other end.

Mike activily roam from room to room very restive. He was being "fasted" in that he had not been fed his daily ration of food. This was done so that the next day, a lure of food was placed in his trailer and the door opened to allow him into his trailer. This it was said, worked nine times out to ten to get Mike out of his habitat into the trailer. He really does not like to leave his habitat.

Mike is never ever proded, poked or coersed into getting into his trailer and out of his habitat. He must be lured and he must make that move on his own.

Mike currently weighs in at 455 pounds. He has weighed as much as 500 pounds but they watch his diet closely and work to maintain his weight close to the 450 range.

He is fed once a day, gets 25 pounds of horse meat with vitamin suppliments. He is constantly treated for Ticks and Fleas and is a very clean animal. He is also fed a frozen ox tail every night. The idea is that the ox tail will help keep his teeth clean. But Mike takes the tail and dunks in his water bowls and sort of defrosts it and then eats and plays with it through the night.

We we warned that Mike is not a pet and thus do not stick ones fingers through the chain link fence that separated us from him. He was quite aware of the visitors and his keeper, his friend. He was of course, miffed at not getting his supper but treated us well. Laid up against the fence and there were a lot of photos taken.

On our way out, the trainer said Mike seemed to like us. He usually pee'd on all his visitors but did not do that to us. There was no roaring or nastiness. The trainer said Mike was sort of in transition from a teenager to an adult. He was five years old. He is expected to live 19 or 20 years. Were he in the wild his life span would probably around 10 years or so.

It was said there is probably no Tiger in capitivity that got treated as well as Mike does. None has such a fine habitat with swimming pools and an adoring population to admire him. He gets first class treatment. And he belongs to the Athletic Department and his fans.

Mike does not always make all the home football games. He never stays for the game, just the pregame activities. Mike is always placed very close the the visiting teams door so that they have to pass by him on to the field for the game. His trainer said he never missed a big game, an SEC game but often did not attend the out of conference home games. He seems to sense the difference and the importance of attending the game.

As we left the area we saw him watching us closely as we were near his food supply. He was hoping we would get him dinner. But he did not fuss, just watched us very carefully.

It was great visit with a great and noble animal.

Geaux Tigers!