At the Big Cat Sanctuary in Spokane, WA, we had a lion named Jambo (ya-mm-bo). Jambo was by far my favorite of our Zoo residents because I absolutely am in love with Lions and Jambo was the only Male Lion at Cat Tales.

Jambo, however, was not the most charismatic of our cats. Lions are not like housecats, they don’t care about cleanliness the way you would expect your couch tiger to. Jambo smelled, his mane was a multitude of thick mats that had years to soak up faeces, urine, and other nasty things. Once I actually thought there was a dead squirrel on Jambo’s den box. When I entered his habitat  to clean it, I realized it was in fact a giant snarl of mane he had left behind (I took it of course)! When he was awake (which wasn’t often) he sat around with his tongue poking out of his mouth as if he just couldn’t be bothered to put it away.  Most of the time Jambo slept, so why was he the most appealing of the Big Cats to me?!

Jambo and I shared a joke. Cat Tales had a “Feed the Cats” program where guests could buy 10 chicken necks and feed a Lion or a Tiger through the fence. One of the keepers (like me) had to supervise these feedings by providing plastic gloves and instruction on how to feed the cat without losing a finger. The guests had a choice, feed a Tiger (Ali, was a beautiful, charismatic, friendly Bengal Tiger) or a Lion (Jambo, described in detail above). Most people chose the Tiger. But if I was the keeper on duty, and the “guest” was a large  football player showing off to his friends, I would steer him towards Jambo as the “more exciting” cat to feed.

It took Jambo a leisurely 5 minutes to  open his eyes, yawn, stretch, remove himself form the top of the den box, and saunter over to the fence to receive his well earned offering. In fact I could have timed this process to the second because Jambo and I knew this routine so well. Most of the other keepers liked feeding the tiger because he happily jumped up for his chicken necks, where Jambo was slow and rarely did the other keepers have the patience for this process.  So Jambo seemed to appreciate the fact that I would wait for him , I actually enjoyed his “process” because I knew at least partially that a lot of it was show. I believe he enjoyed the gasps and awe as he slowly extended his body, showing off his enormous muscles and  rough  mane to onlookers. He would then settle down by my guest and me and proceed to take chicken necks from the “large” rugby player-like guest.

After the tenth neck, came the fun part. Our inside joke that never got old. I would tell the young man with me that after the last neck he should open his empty hands to Jambo and say “No More”. That was Jambo’s cue. He opened his mouthed and submitted the man to the most sinister growl, then  slam his head-sized paw against the fence right at face level.

You can imagine the reaction. Absolutely side splitting every time!  Self satisfied he sauntered back to his den box to sleep the rest of the day.

This was not exactly a  zoo-approved behavior, although the owners of the park were rarely paying close attention to what happened there. And if I am being completely honest, it wasn’t a behavior I “conditioned” in any real way. It was almost as if I had stumbled upon a cue that someone else had conditioned long ago. The really interesting thing was that for other keepers at the park, it took an effort to get Jambo to participate at all in one of these “close encounter” sessions, so most of them just didn’t bother trying. I found that over time, Jambo would come more quickly and with more enthusiasm for one of my sessions. If that isn’t classical conditioning at work, I don’t know what is!