Savaged by the cheetah

I do enjoy the occasional sensationalist headline. Okay, so it wasn’t me who was savaged by the cheetah. And when I say “savaged”, I mean he was scratched enough to bleed. And when I say “bleed” I don’t mean pouring blood, more like a bit of oozing blood. But it was the cheetah that caused the bleeding scratches, so technically . . . . . . .

I was walking to school yesterday when I saw the office manager followed by one of the guests heading towards to laundry room where they keep the first-

aide kit. I noticed that the guest’s clothes were torn, so I stopped to find out what the problem was. The guest had bleeding scratches all over his legs and arms. He said he had been taking the cheetah for a walk when it had attacked him. He seemed to be in a jolly mood about it “look, I got attacked by a cheetah, isn’t that cool”. From a health and safety standpoint I was a little bit more concerned. I had finally taken the cheetah for a walk the day before (see photos below) and the big cat had gnawed a bit at my lower leg but didn’t put enough oomph into it to break the skin. I must say it was a bit of a troubling experience to have a cheetah gnawing at my leg, but in my case she seemed to be just playing around. Although, it would have been a great badge of courage to have a cheetah scar. Nothing disfiguring, just something I could whip out at dinner parties to make myself sound interesting. Alas, no luck. I asked Stoffle (who takes the cheetah walking every morning and evening) what had happened. Had the guest done something stupid like trying to hug the cheetah? His answer was “no, the cheetah just went after him. Maybe she didn’t like him.” Of course the cheetah attack was a hot topic of conversation over dinner. The cheetah seems to have just lunged at him again and again. He had defensive wounds all over his arms including one nasty puncture wound in his forearm from the cheetah’s dewclaw. While the cheetah had his jaws clasped around the guest’s forearm, the guest had the presence of mind (strangely) to grab his camera in his other hand, hold it at arms length and snap a really cool photo of the cheetah’s mouth attached to his arm. One of the other guests on the campsite had seen the attack happen. She hadn’t realized it was a “tame, pet cheetah” and had seen the big cat run at the unsuspecting man. She had yelled “watch out behind you” and become hysterical as she watched the attack unfold. Apparently it had been quite a scene. All the guests sign a disclaimer when they check into the guest house saying that they recognize there are dangerous animals on the farm and they take full responsibility for their own safely. The three-legged cheetah’s name is Circa and she was hand raised from a cub and probably isn’t full sized yet. Someone needs to decide when this animal is finally getting too big and dangerous to be unrestrained around the guests! I only have two more days left at the farm. I guess it’s not going to be my problem.