My New Name Is Lucky

My sister Sandi who works for the zoo in Memphis sent me the below e-mail yesterday afternoon. The whole time I was reading I was waiting for the punch line. I thought sure it was a joke but I should have known anything is possible when you work at a zoo.

Let me tell you a story about "Lucky" dog. We had been hearing on the radio about security chasing a stray dog around the zoo. That dog was fast, he was EVERYWHERE. Nancy and I were leaving lunch when we heard he had gone into the exit of cat country. We were close, so we walked through the entrance to see if we could head him off. We were standing by tigers when someone said he was climbing the tiger railing. We were both standing there and didn't even see him before we heard the splash. That's right SPLASH! He swam right across the moat and into the waiting arms of the tigers. We saw the whole thing happening in slow motion with nothing for us to do. When he reached the shore he ran up and got pounced on by the tiger. We both thought he's a goner, so we walked out of sight range (that's something I didn't want in my head). By that time there were several managers, security, and keepers around. I heard all this from the front of cat country while I was keeping visitors from going in there. The tiger had him by the throat and he was limp. Whenever he moved he got repositioned and bit again. Every time this happened everyone thought he was dead. They used fire extinguishers and starter pistols to scare the tigers inside. When they went in to pull the dog out of the water, he was standing up and trying to bite them. The vets took him down to the hospital and they think he should be fine. He SURVIVED!! I guess it just wasn't his day to die. I'll bet he hates cats from now on. Working in a zoo is the craziest job in the world.

Here are a couple of my favorite pics from my trip to the Memphis zoo over Thanksgiving.