Three Men and Baby

Fans of the motion picture, Three Men and a Baby, which came out in 1987 and starred Tom Selleck, Steve Guttenberg, Ted Danson, and Nancy Travis may be disappointed to find out that I’m not talking about that movie.  Of course, astute readers may have noted the missing “a” in the title of this post, if that was what I had meant…but it wasn’t…so it isn’t…missing, that is.  It’s just not there.

Yeah.

And the baby I’m talking about weighed 70 pounds.

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Baby came into my life through an ad in one of the Columbia, Missouri newspapers.  We had bought a farm outside Centralia, Missouri and I would peruse the paper frequently to see if anybody had any pet livestock to get rid of.  By pet I mean people bought them because they thought it would be neat to own them, then got tired of them.

Don’t laugh; we acquired chickens, ducks, rabbits, goats, sheep, and even some donkeys and horses that way.  Most were free and the others required very little cash outlay.

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One day I was looking through the ads and saw one that said something along the lines of, “For sale, mountain lion and cage”. 

Now you are probably thinking that I had no need for a mountain lion and you’re probably right.  But this was in the time when raising and selling exotic animals was exploding in popularity and profitability.  Vietnamese potbelly pigs were selling for as much as $500 each and miniature horses were up to several thousand, with the smaller ones going for much more. So, I had an excuse to at least go see the animal.

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Annie and I drove to the house of the young man who owned Baby.  He took us out to his back yard where he kept her in a pen that was about eight feet wide by 12 feet long by eight feet tall.  I made quick note that, when and if she was mine, I’d keep her in a bigger cage.

Yeah, that’s how it started.

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As we walked out to the pen the young man told us that he had raised Baby from a…well, baby.  He loved the cougar and was only selling her because he was getting married and his future mate didn’t like the cat.  Or maybe it was the other way around.  She was declawed and defanged so there wasn’t much harm she could do to an adult human…the cougar not the fiancé, that is.  Her owner had a harness for her so he could take her out for a walk now and then, blah, blah, blah.

As he was talking, the big, beautiful cat was rubbing against the side of the cage, looking at me, and purring. 

PURRING!  AT ME!

I was sold and, after a little research on my part, Baby was too.

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I acquired the proper permit from the Missouri Department of Conservation, built a cage (several times larger than the one her previous owner had kept her in, and tight enough wire that the kids couldn’t get their hands through) and took Baby home. 

She loved her new, spacious home and we enjoyed her.  Every day when I would go out to check on her, she would glide around in the cage, meowing for my attention, then rub against the wire, purring loudly. 

Yes, cougars can meow and purr, just like a house cat.  In fact, I read somewhere that they are the largest members of the cat family that can do that.

If I went into the cage with her, she was so incredibly lithe that she would jump down from the top of her house, hit the ground once, and leap up to land on my shoulders, without knocking me off balance.  Remember, she weighed 70 pounds!  How’s that for balance?

She would stand on my shoulders and wrap her paws around my head.  As I said before, she was declawed so there was no danger at all from her gripping my head.  It felt like someone giving me a hug while wearing furry-soft mittens.  Being defanged, there wasn’t much danger of me losing a limb to her powerful jaws either, so I was safe.  Hey, I’ve got a big head, OK?

But there was one problem.

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When the previous owner had her defanged, whoever performed the procedure did not pull the fangs; he or she just ground them down flat to the gum line and left the root canals open.

Bad idea.

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Poor Baby had an infection.  It’s a testament to her sweet nature that she didn’t try to attack anyone due to the pain.  As soon as I got her to my home I talked to my veterinarian about the infection.  We treated her with antibiotics but, with the root canal open, she was constantly re-infected by the food she ate. 

After treating Baby, Doc Farmer had an appointment with his dentist…uh, my dentist…well, our dentist.  Doc Farmer brought up the fact that he had been treating Baby and mentioned that she really needed a root canal surgery but that he was neither qualified nor had the equipment it would require.

I don’t know much about their conversation but I do know that Doc Farmer’s dental appointment was followed by me getting a phone call from the dentist.  He wanted to do the surgery that Baby needed.

Yes, he wanted to.  He offered to do the surgery on a weekend so that none of his regular customers would walk in and find him doing a procedure on a mountain lion.  Doc Farmer would put Baby to sleep and accompany me to the dentist’s office, help us carry her in, and monitor her health during the procedure.  The dentist said the only thing he wanted from me was a promise not to tell anyone.  Again, there was the whole thing about his customers finding out he did an operation on a cougar in the office where he also worked on them.

I may be slow but I’m not stupid.  I quickly agreed.

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On the chosen day Doc Farmer came out to my farm and Baby was quickly sound asleep.  We transported her carefully and safely, and carried her into the dentist’s office.  Of course, the two docs and I were there (three men, get it?) but of course the doctors’ assistants were there too.  It was a little crowded but everything went well and Baby was soon back home recuperating.

And all it cost me was my promise that I would be discrete about the whole thing.

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Because of the dentist’s insistence on my silence, I was surprised a few weeks later when I started getting phone calls from people asking me if I was the crazy person with a lion.  That day, when I checked my mail, I found the doc’s newsletter, which contained a report about Baby’s visit to him, accompanied by some of the pictures taken during our little adventure.

I guess the cheap advertisement was more important than the secrecy.

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Baby lived happily with us for a few more years.  I even acquired a boyfriend for her.  Prince was a beautiful 200-pound male.  He was declawed but not defanged so I didn’t go into the pen with him.  He was big and massive and when he purred he rattled the cage. 

I don’t know if it was the disparity in size or the residual effects from Baby’s infection but we never got cubs from the pair.

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Annie and I, however, were more successful along those lines than the big cats.  After Scotty and J.B., we got our twins (Bobby and T.J.) and Andy, all within 13 months.

Yeah.

So, the cats needed to find a new home…and they did.  Prince went to an exotic animal breeder and Baby went to a young man in our area.

We lost track of both of them for different reasons.

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A few years later I was in Springfield, Missouri on business and stopped by the exotic animal park in Strafford, Missouri.  It has since changed hands and is now the Wild Animal Safari.  Anyway, I was walking through the facility and stopped at a cage that contained a pair of cougars.

One of them was Baby. 

I talked to one of the employees who told me that Baby was healthy and happy but she didn’t know how they had acquired the cat.  Obviously, for safety reasons, visitors were forbidden from climbing over the fence that separated them from the cougars’ cage but I went to the upwind side so my scent would blow toward her, then got close to the cage and spoke softly to my old friend.

She perked up her ears and looked at me quizzically.  She walked to my side of the cage, meowed softly, and started rubbing against the wire…and purred.

Baby remembered me.

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We had a short, pleasant visit, then Annie and I left.

I don’t know what happened to Baby after that, but I hope she had a good life.

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