For the next several posts, I’m going to be reminscing about some of my favorite animal-related memories of all time.
Dreyfuss Leopard leapt into my thoughts tonight
When I volunteered at Cougar Mountain Sanctuary (CMS) in the late 1970’s, there were some big cats there that I was able to take for walks, train to buzzers, and spend true quality time with. Dreyfuss was one of them.
He was by far the biggest leopard I ever saw. I think he was mixed with a jaguar, truly, he was so big. You can see his size in the image below. He was as big, or bigger, than I was, and I’m no shrimp. I was 5’7″ and weighed about 185 pounds at the time this picture was taken.
But he was a real mensch. For those of you who don’t know what that means, a mensch is “decent, honest and upstanding. An all-around good guy who can be trusted and who does good things.”
Unlike every other leopard I ever knew, I could trust Dreyfuss. He was relaxed, gentlemanly, and very, very cool.
Leopards are usually inscrutible (“impossible to understand or interpret”). They play their cards close to their vest. You never can tell what they’re thinking, so they’re eerily unpredictable.They can be thinking about tearing your face off and you’d never know it until the deed was done. They’re like bears: one moment they’re happy; the next, enraged. Which is why you seldom see leopards paraded around on TV and why bears are always muzzled in circuses.
But Dreyfuss was different. He was the one I preferred having at my side whenever I had to do publicity-type activity for CMS.
One time, Fusser (that was his nickname) and I went to a TV station to do a brief interview about CMS
The plan was to bring Fusser into the studio setting, which was designed to look pretty much like Johnny Carson’s set. Fusser would (we thought) lie or sit on the carpeted floor, I would sit in a comfortable chair with his “leash” in hand, and the interviewer (who didn’t feel entirely safe) would ask questions from a respectful distance.
But when I tried to walk Fusser into the studio, what he saw — inside his instinctual mind, I quickly realized — was a bunch of “massively long snakes” (cables) lying in wait for us, and what he said, unmistakably, with his body language, was “Nope! Not doing snakes!!!” and no assurance, baby talk, treats, or other tactics could convince him that it was safe to enter this insanely problematic viper’s pit.
So, when it became abundantly clear that Dreyfuss had put the kibosh on the plan, the interviewer and cameraman decided to do a “remote”: Dreyfuss and I would stay outside in the parking lot and the interviewer and cameraman would come to us, unencumbered by snakes.
That was the only time Dreyfuss ever told me “no,” and he didn’t do it in a nasty or dangerous way. He was just passionately certain that he was not going to enter the studio. He shrank down on his haunches, pulled me defiantly in the opposite direction, and fervently communicated, “You’re out of your ever-lovin’ mind if you think we’re going in there. You stay out here with me. We can take care of each other out here, but if we go in there, all bets are off!”
I miss him like crazy every time he crosses my mind.
(I share another revealing story about his charming character in my book LET NO DAY DAWN THAT THE ANIMALS CANNOT SHARE.)
