Maia in the Back of Yard 5

For those of you wondering how Maia is doing, she’s really good. She has been hanging out in a stunning area that her and Guida used to spend a lot of time in. In the video she is hunting for mangoes that had been thrown about the area earlier. She is right by the second branch of the stream and the foot and body prints at the crossing show she had a little mud party of her own earlier today. Maia has been extra smiley and light and content with being at the backside of the property. She has the ability to come back towards the barn, but she hasn’t.

Speaking of the barn, sorry for not doing any live feeds today, we spent pretty much all morning taking care of and working with the girls. We are working with Lady on some training, starting with the basics. Many of you have seen our sessions with the girls and how we hold their trunk during. Lady has crazy nose, as videos from the zoo have shown, so it’s something we definitely need to work on. She has actually been very gentle with presenting her nose and letting us hold it in our hand. Although that part isn’t 100% yet, today we introduced extending the duration she allows us to hold it. We are using positive reinforcement training with terminal bridging- meaning that we blow our whistle at the end of the desired behavior and then give her a food reward. It’s different for her and she would rather just get food and not have to work for it, but since we need to be able to do some extensive work on her feet in order to help her, she will need to learn all of these steps.

Lady is doing well with all of it and catching on pretty fast. She can be a little pushy with her nose when she doesn’t get things right, but that has diminished over the past few days. She is very watchful of the person who is doing the treatments and clearly has trust issues in general, but she’s improving. Her face abscess is drying up and there is already a noticeable reduction in swelling of her right front foot (we will try to do a comparison shot). It will be a long while before her feet are in ‘good’ condition, but it’s nice to see the improvement from being able to explore, using her feet to dig, and the treatments we are able to do at this point.

This morning we also spent a bit of time with Ramba. She is eating and drinking well, her energy is better, she is wandering as much as Rana will allow (Rana likes to come back to Lady) and full of rumbles but something still seems a touch off, so we are keeping a close eye on her. After her bath, we used a laser on some kidney acupuncture points, to try to aid her compromised kidneys. She was also a little watchful after us doing a blood draw and an injection yesterday. The laser is something we will continue to use on Ramba as another way to help support our grandma.

December 4, 2019

Comments(8)

Kelejan says
December 4, 2019 at 8:08 pm
Thank you for all you do and also making us feel a part of the healing process. Little things like an abscess drying up and noticeable swelling reduction in her right foot is wonderful news. I am sure that already she is feeling better and happier.
Carey says
December 4, 2019 at 8:38 pm
Lovely to see Maia, and she is looking so physically well. Remembering how physical she was with Guida touching heads and all – they seemed to grow so close, she is probably still missing her – but she is getting on with life, and it must be of some comfort that there are other elephants close by if she chooses to do a spot of socialsing. Is it the case that ex-circus and zoo elephants spend more time on their own than their wild counterparts? It would be natural given their histories. Delighted to hear about Lady and Ramba’s training, and very much hoping that Ramba stays around for a while longer to enjoy her new life….
Barb Wilson says
December 4, 2019 at 11:36 pm
I was elated to get this thorough update about the girls. Every detail you can share is deeply appreciated. You are so busy and I know it takes time to compile such an extensive report so it doesn’t go unnoticed that you care enough to do so. Many thanks!
Tammy says
December 5, 2019 at 12:07 am
What causes an abscess on the side of their faces in those little holes which don’t know what they even are but i’ve noticed it seems to be rather common with captive Elephants?
- REPLY
  EleComposer says
  December 5, 2019 at 9:28 am
  The abscess is a pressure sore from lying down on hard surfaces, it doesn’t involve her temporal gland, which is a good thing, but it’s close. Ramba has an old recurring one as well. We haven’t seen it flare up here, but it may.
Maggie says
December 5, 2019 at 2:56 am
Thank you for this update on all the girls. All very interesting. Sending healing thoughts to Ramba. ??????
Patricia says
December 5, 2019 at 4:31 am
I love Maia very much. I’m still not over Guida’s loss myself. What is this about Ramba? She might be seriously ill? This is rough. Thank you for loving these big angels.
Sherry says
December 5, 2019 at 4:56 pm
Thank you so much for this post of Maia. It is a great learning experience and I am grateful .

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