I was at the zoo for three months as a Vet. Tech. intern. Four days a week I was working in the hospital, but one day a week I got to go out and work with the keepers. One of the first animals I got to work with outside of the hospital were the rhinos. The zookeepers obvious favorite was the baby. She was full grown by the time I was working there but she was born at the zoo and was still the youngest rhino there, so she was the baby. She had vitiligo (the Michael Jackson disease), so she had large pink spots all over her body. This meant that she couldn't go on exhibit because she couldn't be in the sun for that long.
The keepers had made it their morning ritual to go say hello to her before starting their day. They all crowded around petting her and cooing. When they left to do their work, she'd cry for awhile, sad to lose all of the attention. But they'd come back periodically throughout the day to say hello.
This is Tucker (not Rudy), but he was pretty darn cute too.
Being new to the group and not a normal keeper, I hung back during their morning love fest. I'm glad that I did, because if I hadn't I never would have met Rudy. I glanced over and there he was, a huge male rhino with the longest horn I'd ever seen on a rhino (admittedly not a huge accomplishment, seeing as how the only rhinos I'd seen at the time where the 4 at the zoo). He was standing there looking at me between the bars with his horn pointed away from me (as if he was trying to let me know that he wouldn't hurt me) and the back of his head facing the bars, like a cat waiting for you to scratch it behind the ear. How could I resist? I stuck my hand through the bars and scratched him on the soft spot behind his ear. He pushed his head closer to the bars and even rubbed them alittle (once again, like a cat begging to be pet). I stayed as long as they would let me, scratching all of his soft spots (behind the ears, under the eyes, the armpit, belly, groin...). Eventually, they made me stop petting Rudy and actually do some work. Every time I walked past his enclosure he would walk with me on the other side of the fence. You can imagine that rhino enclosures are somewhat large and it was nice to have the company for the walk.
I spent my lunch break petting him and playing with him. You know that game you play with dogs where you run really fast then suddenly jump and face him and the dog gets really excited and play bows? Rudy did that.
After that day, we were best buddies. He'd always come up to the fence to say hi, even when he was on exhibit. I'd go out to the public area to "get a drink" and he'd see me and come over. Even though he couldn't get close enough to get a rub down or a tasty morsel, he still wanted to say hello- the visitors loved that. I loved it too. The medical crew had a different uniform than the other employees and the animals knew that the ones in blue were the ones that caught, poked and prodded them. The other animals hated us, the gorillas would run up and pound on the bullet proof glass every time we walked by (another thing that the visitors loved), but Rudy didn't care, he liked me no matter what my job was.
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