Family Zoo

The Messer family welcomed eight puppies to their clan when Honey, the family dog, gave birth last Sunday. It has been fun watching them grow so quickly! But there is clearly a runt, and she's been demanding lots of attention. She is so very tiny I'm almost amazed she lasted this long. But we're not the only ones with puppies. The cousins up the road have 6 puppies and a whole menagerie of animals. Mostly dogs right now. But they've been known to have monkeys, deer, cats, mongooses (I double checked that one! The plural of mongoose really is mongoos-es!), and right now they have a civet cat. That's what Ruth, (Becky's niece), is holding in the picture. Zoya has a racoon-ish looking face, and she's spotted and stripped and rather large! The local people catch these critters and then come knocking on foreigners gates to sell whatever they've captured.
Cookie, the chimp who lives with the Kings, was captured when he was a tiny baby chimp. He has a scar on his foot where a stake was driven through him to keep him in place so he wouldn't run off. Apparently these people have never heard of a leash, or rope for that matter!! But maybe a leash would not have held him in place when they killed his mother right in front of him. He's starting to come out of his shell, though signs from his early trama are still apparent. Being here makes me want to watch all those old Katherine Hepburn movies again- Bringing up Baby and African Queen. Although I'm glad that no one has dared adopt a leopard. I'm sure they're cute, but I think we have our hands full with the zoo already acquired!