By all accounts, Travis, the 14-year-old former child actor, was a pampered boy. He dined on lobster and filet mignon, sipped wine from long-stemmed glasses, soaked in warm bubble baths and cuddled in bed with his beloved each night. Like so many other child actors past their prime, Travis also had his brushes with the law. Police records indicate that he was picked up for frolicking in traffic in downtown Stamford, Conn., in 2003.
Unfortunately, Travis wasn’t simply a spoiled child living off residual checks from his Old Navy or Coca Cola commercials, he was a full-grown, 200-pound chimpanzee. His genetic makeup and primal instinct ultimately prevented him from behaving in a manner consistent with his fine suburban upbringing.
Travis’ owner, Sandra Herold, learned a tragic lesson last week after failing to heed the warnings of local animal control officers and continuing to treat Travis like her human child. In spite of being served a lovely tea laced with Xanax (a claim Herold made and later recanted) he savagely attacked his owner’s friend, causing massive injuries to her face and hands. In an attempt to end the brutal attack, Herold stabbed at him repeatedly with a butcher knife before police officers arrived and shot him to death.
The lesson, of course, is that no matter how cute and cuddly they are as youngsters, wild animals shouldn’t be considered appropriate house pets. They’re not people, no matter how hard their owners work to treat them as if they were. This attack is the latest in a long line of serious incidents resulting from the attempted humanization of wild animals.
Fans of Cesar Millan, TV’s “Dog Whisperer,” know that his successful canine training strategy involves treating dogs like dogs, not like human beings. His theory applies to non-domesticated animals as well.
Case in point: In mid-February, Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo was shut down and visitors were evacuated following the escape of a small Debrazza’s monkey. For comparison, male Debrazza’s monkeys at full maturity are only about 2 feet tall and typically weigh less than 15 pounds. Although the evacuation was mostly a precaution, zoo officials appropriately noted that they were dealing with a wild (and therefore unpredictable) animal.
Things may have ended differently for Travis if his owner had used similarly good sense.
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