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Lunacy Fur Babies & other critters (the pets thread)
- Thread starter dorkus_molorkus
- Start date
This dog..... 
He's got to pull inspection on EVERYTHING....
He's got to pull inspection on EVERYTHING....
Oh Walter...... 
CarolKing
Always in search of the perfect vaporizer
Feeling really sad about Koko passing. I almost put this in the RIP section. I teach kindergartners and 1st graders how to read. This is one of the stories we would read. Then. I would get my iPad out and we would watch Koko on video. Koko wanted to be a mother but never mated with any male gorillas they would bring in. She was so gentle with her pet kittens.
Koko, the western lowland gorilla who learned to communicate with sign language, cuddles her new kitten at the Gorilla Foundation in Woodside, Calif., in 1985. Koko died this week at the age of 46. (Elaine Thompson / Associated Press)
Koko the gorilla doted on her pet kitten as if it were her own child. To the amazement of her human handlers, she seemed able to capture the joys and annoyances of maternal love in strings of simple words.
“Soft,” Koko said in sign language while cradling the kitten, which she named All Ball because it resembled a fuzzy gray pom-pom. “Good cat.”
If All Ball tried to bite or wriggled free, the gorilla would sign “Obnoxious cat” by pounding the wall and running her hand across her cheek to denote whiskers.
And when All Ball died in 1985 after being struck by a car, Koko pretended she didn’t hear her handlers for about 10 minutes after they told her the news. Then, she started whimpering. She signed “sleep cat” by folding her hands and placing them by the side of her head. Researchers gave her a stuffed animal, but she wouldn’t play with it and kept signing: “Sad.”
Koko, whose extraordinary ability to communicate with humans and aptitude with American Sign Language helped show the world the emotional depth and intelligence of animals, died in her sleep this week, according to the Gorilla Foundation, the Northern California nonprofit that oversaw her care. She was 46 when she passed away Tuesday morning.
Koko, the western lowland gorilla who learned to communicate with sign language, cuddles her new kitten at the Gorilla Foundation in Woodside, Calif., in 1985. Koko died this week at the age of 46. (Elaine Thompson / Associated Press)
Koko the gorilla doted on her pet kitten as if it were her own child. To the amazement of her human handlers, she seemed able to capture the joys and annoyances of maternal love in strings of simple words.
“Soft,” Koko said in sign language while cradling the kitten, which she named All Ball because it resembled a fuzzy gray pom-pom. “Good cat.”
If All Ball tried to bite or wriggled free, the gorilla would sign “Obnoxious cat” by pounding the wall and running her hand across her cheek to denote whiskers.
And when All Ball died in 1985 after being struck by a car, Koko pretended she didn’t hear her handlers for about 10 minutes after they told her the news. Then, she started whimpering. She signed “sleep cat” by folding her hands and placing them by the side of her head. Researchers gave her a stuffed animal, but she wouldn’t play with it and kept signing: “Sad.”
Koko, whose extraordinary ability to communicate with humans and aptitude with American Sign Language helped show the world the emotional depth and intelligence of animals, died in her sleep this week, according to the Gorilla Foundation, the Northern California nonprofit that oversaw her care. She was 46 when she passed away Tuesday morning.
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