Mo came home with a roommate. The plan was for Mo to share a tallish cage with an Abyssinian long-haired guinea pig, a cute little guy with tufts and cowlicks. Mo would live in the upper section, the guinea pig would be in the bottom area, and the two would become good buddies. That was the plan. Reality soon proved otherwise. The guinea pig expressed his aversion to sharing by biting Mo’s tail (and we learned from Kong that monkey tails are rather sensitive). Mo would, in turn, rip out fistfuls of the guinea pigs long hair. and so began the saga of Mo’s need to establish Alpha-maleness in his relationships with other household inhabitants.
As the roomie arrangement was not working, the guinea pig soon moved out, leaving the entire cage to Mo. Since Kong had been so friendly and amiable, we decided to leash Mo to the top of his cage, leave the lid off, and allow him to go in and out (similarly to Kong’s accommodations on his little red stool). Mo enjoyed this freedom tremendously. However, we had two dogs at the time, Georgeanne who was a shepherd mix and Chico (otherwise known as “Chickie-poo” or just Chickie), a little beagle-ish fellow. Georgie and Chickie were, of course, curious about the new guy on the cage and would come to sniff around and make friends (and scope out the possibility of snacking on a monkey chow if one strayed outside the cage). Mo handled this attention by a) pinching the dogs’ lips and/or b) pulling their eyelids, all the time feigning innocence by looking at me straight in the eye with an “I-don’t-know-what-my-hand-is-doing” expression on his sweet little face. The dogs quickly learned not to mess with Mo.
Eventually a third canine housemate joined us, a boxer pup named Schultz. Mo was extremely frustrated with this situation because Schultz was a dauntless marauder. He would come in, knock over the cage, and steal monkey chow right out from under Mo. Mo was at a loss because his usual modus operandi was totally ineffective. Try to pinch the lip on a boxer. Lips all over the place. Doesn’t phase them. And….ever find an eyelid on a boxer? Nope! Just big bulging eyes. With no recourse to manage Schultz’s impudent behavior, Mo spent a few weeks in serious pout mode. Until….the ultimate opportunity. Schultz had gotten his ears clipped, as boxers do, and, after the bandages came off, the first time he got within a leash length of the monkey cage, Mo jumped on his head and chomped him right in the stitches. Schultz never stole another monkey chow. Situation resolved.
Mo, who was clever like his older sib Kong had been, embarked on a career as an escape artist akin to Harry Houdini, renowned for freeing himself from shackles and straight jackets while in boxes under water. Mo’s leash was a lightweight cat leash attached to a lightweight cat collar cinched around his tiny waist as a belt. (Squirrel monkeys, as adults, generally weigh about 16-20 ounces and are quite skinny.) Mo first figured out how to shimmy out of the belt. He would stretch as tall as he could, thereby thinning out his body circumference (much like Kong when diving for tomatoes in the grocery) and wiggle the belt off over his hips and tail. A rather annoying trait when the human parents want to maintain a sense of tranquility in the household instead of, say, chaos. He further began to figure out how to manipulate the belt to unfasten it. And honed his skills even more by learning to unhook the leash from the belt. Mo, of course, would then get into all kinds of mischief, so mommy had to take dire measures and secure him inside the cage with the lid fastened. Guess what!! He learned to a) jimmy the lid, b) jimmy the tray on the bottom, c) unsnap the door, d) remove the food and water dishes, and e) bend the bars apart to get out and wreak havoc. (A favorite sport was getting into the cupboards and throwing his human brother’s snacks on the floor so the dogs could get them.) Finally, when I could not successfully contain him, I opened the basement door, threw a banana (his favorite) down the steps, and, when he went after it, banished him to the basement until we could get a cage that would hold him. Since he had the run of the basement and all the spider snacks he could find, he was relatively satisfied with the temporary arrangement. And, through all this, we loved him despite his incorrigibility!!! We quickly located a secure new cage that would keep him (and the household) safe during the times that he needed to be contained.
More Mo stories to come soon.