Wildlife: Heidi: Just Hanging Out, Kids In Nursery, 1 by DreamOfSpring

DreamOfSpring wrote:
Lastly, because this was even more incredible and I could never explain it correctly without a picture...

I had put the last of my food on the ground in the area where Fraidy usually comes to eat; however, as Fraidy had not yet shown up, Panda sneaked around to eat there. When Panda had eaten about 1/2 of the food, Fraidy showed up. Seeing the large crowd and seeing Panda in her spot, Fraidy came to me in the location shown on the attached diagram with a potted plant or 2 seperating her from Panda.

Since I didn't have anymore food with me and knowing that Panda had already eaten food from Station 2 and about 1/2 of the food beside me, I decided to see if I could pull off something similiar to what I had done earlier with Heidi and HRH. The difficulty, however, would be that unlike Heidi, Fraidy (and everybody else for that matter) might also leave if I stood up and started walking about. It seemed all but impossible that I would be able to get Panda to leave the food without also scaring Fraidy away. I mean, if the big, scarey human has just essentially pushed one raccoon away, you would think the other raccoon would be afraid to approach. Still as I wanted Fraidy to get a little food, I decided to give it a try.

I didn't do anything mean or overtly scarey to Panda. I just took the box I carry the dog/cat food in (it's a dog biscuit box) and moved it very gently toward Panda. It never touched her, but she naturally moved away from it which caused her to back out from the spot she was in - the gap between the pots where Fraidy usually enters to approach me and to eat. I still had no idea how I would convey to Fraidy the plan, the fact that I was doing this to allow her to enter, that she was now to walk around the potted plants and take Panda's spot; but immediately after Panda backed out and even before I could fully withdraw the box, Fraidy did exactly what I wanted her to do. (Does anybody know? Do they read minds by any chance?)

For a second it looked like that had also worked perfectly, but Panda was not willing to give up her spot that easily. She moved in behind Fraidy and a spat ensued ending with everybody back where they had been before I started. For a moment, especially during the brawl, it looked like this time I'd caused more harm than good. Still, I REALLY wanted Fraidy to get some food so even though I had little reason for hope that we could pull the whole thing off again or that it would end any better on the 2nd try, I repeated the manuver again. Again, Panda moved back. Again Fraidy moved in and took the food. This time Panda gave up and went over to join some of the others who were picking up kibble from the lawn. Fraidy ate the rest of the food. It wasn't a lot, but by the time she finished Heidi had left so I reached forward, grabbed her dish with the handful of food she had left and gave that to Fraidy as well.

Everybody got a share. Nobody was too upset with me, and I was amazed to have conspired with and communicated with both Heidi and Fraidy to pull off joint goals with each of them in one evening.

Edited to fix a typo or two and to add that now as I think about it it's not so clear whether I REALLY communicated my plans to them or whether it was they who communicated their plan's to me. ;-)

This message was edited Jun 23, 2007 3:19 PM