Lady

Maia

How the Girls Spent Their Day

December 8, 2019 EleComposer Blogs

Maia

Just a quick photo of this cute girl. Maia continues to do well and spent the day with R&R. As you can see, she’s still super smiley and flappy. We mentioned the other day that while Scott was away with Lady, Maia became super smiley. We’re not sure why, but it’s good to see a smile we hadn’t seen for some time.

All of the girls did well this afternoon. Scott sat with Ramba when she received her dinner to make sure she is eating well and seems good. We adore her and will keep a close eye on her always.  Ramba and Rana are still together while Maia has gone her own way for the night, taking herself to the back of five again.

Lady spent her afternoon exploring the two yards to the East of the barn. She really seems to like yard three and all of the bunches of smaller trees and bushes that she puts herself in the middle of and kick and squish around. It really is charming.

We’ll go down at 10 tonight, which we do every night, to check in with Lady and give her some food in her barn. She doesn’t spend the night in the barn, but she seems to find it a bit of a comfort blanket for the time being. There is no reason to discourage this behavior, we want her to find comfort wherever possible. And it’s a quick little hello and often her rumbling at the arrival of the four-wheeler.

December 8, 2019

 

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Lady

Good Morning with Lady

December 8, 2019 EleComposer Blogs, Female Asian Barn, Lady

FIRST LIVE VIDEO: GOOD MORNING WITH LADY

It has been a while so we’re doing a little morning live with Lady. She is out of our wi-fi range, so we go as far out as possible without losing signal. Maia, Rana, and Ramba are out by the pond in yard four. Lady is in yard three. The yards do share a common fence line, so it leaves the opportunity for interactions where Lady can feel safe.

Lady continues to do well and move forward at her own pace. Kenya’s fundraiser is more than halfway to its goal thanks to our phenomenal supporters. And it’s a beautiful morning at sanctuary. 

December 8, 2019

 

SECOND LIVE VIDEO: COMING FOR FOOT SOAKS

We take advantage of Lady being close to the barn and bring her inside for foot soaks. She isn’t on a specific schedule, we let her wander, nap, and do her thing, but keep an eye on her proximity to the barn. When she gets close, we grab her favorite treat bucket and ask her to come in for treatment. Since she is food motivated and loves her rewards during foot soaks, she happily comes in.

December 8, 2019

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Lady

Lady’s First Foot Soak at Sanctuary

December 7, 2019 EleComposer Blogs, Elephant Diary, Female Asian Barn, Lady

Today we were able to try foot soaks with Lady for the first time at sanctuary. As many of you know, there was a large and angry wasp nest on the gate leading into her foot soak jacuzzi tub. Even after we removed the nest and relocated it quite a bit down the road, numerous wasps stayed and only dissipated yesterday.

Lady was very good, coming right in once she had a drink and a mini bath. We did warm her water soaks today, but we don’t intend to try any jacuzzi jets until it is a bit more of a routine for her. Since she does seem to like to take things slowly, we will do just that. We did a medicated foot bath, and she gave her body a little bath as well. Anything we use in foot soaks will always be ok for her to drink or bathe herself with. It’s essential.

As you can see in the video, we are working on her presenting her trunk calmly, holding it loosely in our hand, and keeping it there for several seconds at a time. She is doing really well with it. If she loses focus during treatment, she can be a little hard to get back, but she’s starting to understand the nuances of it all. Her nose has to go through one of the lower holes since the upper ones give her an opportunity to reach out further and grab. She also has to present her nose facing up, again, to protect against grabbing. This will all be refined down the road to what we have shared in videos of us working with Rana and Maia, but Lady’s off to a good start.

December 7, 2019

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Lady

Lady Almost Meets Ramba

December 6, 2019 EleComposer Blogs

This is a video I mentioned in another post where Lady approaches Ramba. Although Lady isn’t ready for an elephant friend, it doesn’t mean she’s not interested. Ramba was in the treatment chute getting a bath. For those that don’t know, her skin was very bad when she arrived and she had infected in-grown hairs, so she gets a bath every other day to do a skin check and to give her a soothing, healing, body spray.

While Ramba was eating and waiting to dry a bit before her spray, Lady decided to come and check her out. Ramba is enjoying her hay and not overly interested in the new elephant coming her way. We did throw Lady some treats during this ‘meeting’ because Ramba had hay and treats and we didn’t want to create a food-stealing situation.

As you can see, Lady comes up from the yard and takes her time getting closer and closer. When she is close enough to reach out and touch Ramba, she decides it’s close enough and leaves. She does stop part of the way down the yard and turns around to see her again. Although this often isn’t the introduction people dream of, Lady really is doing quite well. She just needs some time and we are more than happy to give her that.

December 6, 2019

 

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Lady

Lady and Ramba In the Barn

December 5, 2019 EleComposer Blogs

Lady

Since you only got to see her feet this morning, here is Lady’s lovely face.

This afternoon, when Lady came into the barn for treatment, Ramba was close so we let her come in the other stall. The gate was closed between the two stalls. As Ramba walked into her stall, Lady got a little nervous and spun around to put her hind end towards Ramba, which is a common submissive behavior. Quite honestly, Ramba wasn’t really paying any attention to her and was busy putting a fresh coating of dirt on herself. After a couple of minutes, Lady then spun back around to see what Ramba was doing- which was still dusting.

Ramba never walked over to try to touch her and Lady never walked up to the dividing gate. Lady is watchful but curious and as soon as they take a step or two away, she moves closer to them, smelling in their direction. She’s interested but doesn’t trust fully just yet. I’ll try to find a video of her walking up to the barn when Ramba was getting her bath. Lady gets very close and just when she is almost close enough to reach out and touch her, decides she’s done.

People often try to hypothesize why she’s so unsure, and the reality is we’ll never know. We don’t know when the last time she saw an elephant was, but we’ve had elephants that have been alone for 4 or 5 decades that have opened up to other elephants right away. She may have been put in situations that led to conflict during her circus days or it could just be a part of her general insecurity. No matter what the reason, she’ll have the time she needs to work through it.

December 5, 2019

 

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Lady's feet

The Changes in Lady’s Feet After Just One Week at Sanctuary

December 5, 2019 EleComposer Blogs, Elephant Diary, Female Asian Barn, Lady

Lady's feet comparison

Sorry, it’s not a cute elephant photo, but we wanted to show the almost immediate changes in Lady’s feet. This was what we mentioned in the post yesterday. At this point, we aren’t able to work on nail or pad trimming, Lady will require a lot of positive reinforcement training for that. Her nails are still in rough shape, but there is a noted decrease in swelling of her front right foot/ankle area. The reduction in swelling and pressure will definitely take the edge off of the pain she was having in that limb.

We joke that sanctuary isn’t rocket science, that nature does a lot of the work for us. Although we are treating Lady’s feet, increased walking, which increases blood flow, and Lady using her feet for digging up dirt and grass all aid in healing.

The ladies are doing well today, and we will post again later. Maia came back by the barn this morning, and she and Lady are sharing a common fence line. Neither is actively trying to interact with the other, but they definitely see each other. They’re both casually grazing in the drizzle. Rana and Ramba are closer to the pond this morning. It seems that Ramba won the battle to wander a bit further.

December 5, 2019

 

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