STORY
BEHIND THE TIGER PHOTO
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We got a call one night
of a tiger running loose in the 1000 Main Street behind the Cobalt Hotel.
I was the Acting Sergeant and in charge of the incident. Naturally
everyone was sceptical, but when the first unit onscene (an ERT unit) reported,
and we were surprised to hear there was a tiger there.
.
ERT had taken up a position
with a sniper rifle and were asking for the "green light" to shoot.
I was still racing to the scene, and remembered seeing an ad in the paper
about a stripper named "Jungle" Jane Jones who used a tiger in her act.
I called off the sniper, and sure enough, when we got to the scene, Jane
was playing there and it was her pet tiger.
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The tiger was pacing back
and forth, but was on a 50 foot tether that nobody could see in the dark.
Once we got there, we called our Ident section down and Jane let us pet
the tiger and have our pictures taken with her. For me, a lifelong
dream since I love tigers.
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The tiger is a female whose
name is Quadesh. She weighs 600 pounds, which apparently is small
compared to a male tiger. This one was big enough for me. I
stand 6'3" tall and this tiger on all fours came up above my waist.
If she were to stand on her hind legs and reach up with her front paws,
she would be nearly ten feet long. She eats more than 100 pounds
of meat a day supplemented by a specially made dry cat food by, who else,
Purina.
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I had always immagined a
tigers fur to be soft, and it is in places, like under her chin, but the
rest feels like very coarse steel wool. I'll tell you, while it was
a lifelong dream to pet a tiger, it was still pretty intimidating to do
it. Knowing that if she felt like it, she could kill me with one
swipe of her paw and eat me for desert. However Jane told us that
she had raised Quadesh from birth and she was no more than a big kitten.
She had never bitten anyone or anything and was very tolerant. Jane
told us that when Quadesh has had enough petting, she will just get up
and walk away. If she really gets upset, she will gently take your
hand in her mouth and move it away. No easy task with 6 inch fangs.
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