This is a long post, if you read anything, read the last few paragraphs.
Hi guys, It's been awhile. some of you know what's been happening in my crazy life. I don't want to get on here and complain, but life has been hell for the last two years for me. It actually sounds like a great country song. Lost my dream career after 11 years, my house went into foreclosure. One dog died the week after I lost my job. I lost my fiancee, and was forced to retire from baseball this year even though I wanted to go another 2 years playing class A ball. and finally, and this is the reason that I haven't been on in awhile, I lost Benji, my bobcat.
We have been fighting the laws in Ohio on exotic ownership for two years now, since the "MASSACRE" in Zanesville Ohio happened a couple years ago. Look it up. there are graphic pictures and the whole story if you just google it. and that horrible horrible incident started these ridiculous laws being passed, making it impossible for even responsible owners and rescues like me to keep our exotic animals.
As a lot of you know from Benji's videos and his thread here and just from me talking about him non stop in the chat box for the last three years. lol. He was my baby. I rescued him when he was four weeks old from a bad breeder with bad breeding practices. Most all of her bobcat kittens were always sick, or born with deformities or died shortly after birth or were just still born. Benji was lucky to survive birth, but as he was being born he suffered a stroke. And since he was not 'SELLABLE" she was going to put him down. My ex and I were lucky to be able to get him and save his life. It was 24 hour around the clock care for him for about 6 weeks or more until we knew that he was going to survive.
WHen you spend that amount of time with anyone or anything you form a bond with them, and they form a bond with you. He literally saw us as his parents. We had to carry him around like a baby through the house for many weeks, and even when he was gettting big he still wanted carried. It was a litttle ridiculous and I kept telling my ex that we had to try to make him a little less dependent on us or a little less spoiled or this was going to make it much harder as he grew up. It was seriously like having a child. and I don't have any children. But he was my responsibility, and I took that responsibility very seriously. It was kind of funny, having an animal that is the top predator in most states in the United States, only lower than bear, wolves and cougars, we had a bobcat that would only eat when fed by hand, a bobcat that had to sleep in bed with us. and not at our feet, he had to be in between us, and touching one of us all night. We had to wipe his right eye about 50 times a day the entire 4 years we had him because the stroke caused the right tear duct not to close, so his eye constantly watered. So we walked around with tissue all day in our pockets. Who wipes a wild animal's eyes? lol. I trimmed his toenails, and I've worked with a lot of wild animals in my life and not one would have ever let that happen. I would have been in the hospital if I would have tried with any other bobcat, cougar or tiger. But Benji was different.
He wasn't different because of the stroke. he was different because of the way he was raised. He was an awesome little guy. I started filming him the day we got him, and I loaded all the videos on my computer everyday. My computer finally became slow and was shutting down all the time and crashing. So someone suggested that I start uploading his videos to youtube, and I did. and that was the start of Benji the bobcat on youtube. Before I knew it within a few weeks I was up to 4,000 subscribers and already had millions of views, and signed a contract with youtube to make money off the videos, which was awesome because it is not cheap owning a bobcat. That money came in so handy for his care. I made videos regularly for about 2 years successfully and loved doing it. and then I lost my job and my fiancee not too long after. I gave up doing the videos completely.
Just didn't feel like doing anything. Quit my hobbies except for baseball. Looked for teaching jobs but nobody would hire a teacher with 11 years of experience because they would have had to pay me a 12th year teacher salary. I told the superintendent's that I was more than willing to accept a first year teacher salary just to get my foot in the door. and they all told me that because of the unions that wasn't possible. So at that point I knew my teaching career was over, and it was over because the schools here were all in financial diress, and were all making cuts like my district was. Even though I had 11 years of excellent evaluations and only missed one day of school in those 11 years because of a funeral I could not find a teaching job.
anyway, I didn't handle it well, I was here on the site a lot, but I sat in this recliner from morning til night everyday. The only thing that kept me sane was my workouts, which I am surprised that I even did that. but everything else I gave up on.
Then the incident in Zanesville happened, and immediately the state began work on revamping the laws for owning exotic animals. From the beginning they told us that we had nothing to worry about. We had our exotic permits and licenses for ten years. and always passed our inspections very well with not one citation ever. Long story short, it was all a lie. They made the laws to where it was impossible for us to keep him. Their goal was to remove every exotic animal from private owners in Ohio, and so far they have succeeded. There are less than 30 still in captivity owned by private citizens, where just two years ago there were almost 900 owned in captivity. At the hearings in Columbus we presented the statistics on incidents with exotic animals compared to that of domestic animals, and those statistics went unheard. Because they had an agenda to get these animals out of people's hands.
Just to give you some of the statistics. In the united states each year there are over 40,000 domestic animal bites or attacks that require hospital attention. compared to that of only 30 hospital visits from bites or attacks from exotic animals. That's an alarming number, and to me shows that the problem lies with domestic animal owners that don't have control of their animals. and people say that there are less exotic animals in captivity than there are exotic animals, but you would be surprised because there are hundreds of thousands of exotic animals in captivity in the united states. Another statistic is that there is an average of 40 deaths per year in the U.S. because of domestic animal attacks, compared to that of only 1.5 deaths per year attributed to exotic animals. To me, these statistics alone speak for themselves and show that exotic owners are very responsible on the whole. But these arguments meant nothing in our fight to keep our animals. Very very sad. And yes, I did agree with a lot of the new laws, there were some very good new laws that were proposed, like before, just anyone could go out and buy a tiger or lion or any exotic animal they wanted in Ohio with no prior experience. The new laws were to make it so that people had to have so many hours of training and hands on experience to be able to own any exotic animal. I thought this was a great idea, because so many exotic animals were bought only because people though it would be cool to own an exotic animal. and within the first day or two they would end up getting rid of them because they were bitten or attacked or their house destroyed. These people had no business owning such animals. and that was why our sanctuaries and zoos were completely full, becuase of irresponsible people. and the other thing was no public contact with the animals, which I already did anyway. I always allowed people to come and see Benji when he would be outside in his enclosure, but people had to stay back 3 feet and never ever try to touch him. and if I had guests over I would lock Benji outside in his enclosure. The rest of the time he would have the freedom to come in and out of the house at will. People don't realize the strength of these animals. A bobcat can take your finger off in less than a milisecond. They can slice over an inch and a half deep with their claws and sever arteries. THeir bite strength is stronger than any domestic dog, and just slightly less than a wolf's bite strength. They are very dangerous animals, that should only be in the proper hands.
There are exotic animals that can never be put into the wild, and Benji was one of those because of the stroke he had at birth, and that is why I had him. I provided the best possible life I could for him, and gave him so many activities every single day of his life to keep him happy, and do some of the things that he would have gotten to do in the wild. There has to be places like me where these animals can go to live out thier lives, because if there's not people like me willing to do it these animals will just be put down. and I have always thought about that. What if Benji would have been put down at birth? nobody would have ever known him. Nobody would have ever seen a video of him on youtube. He touched so many millions of people's lives. It was just amazing, If I wouldn't have gotten him, none of this would have happened and nobody would have ever known the beautiful bobcat named Benji. It's so hard for me to write this.
I'm going to end this shortly, and Rob, I know, here I go again. It's a goddamn novel. but I am so mad because what happened to Benji should have never ever ever happened. WIth these new laws I was forced to place him in a sanctuary several weeks ago. THis story makes me cry, and even right now I am. The morning I brought him there I brought Athena's crate out to his enclosure and opened the door thinking he would want to explore it and get right in and I would shut the door and carry him to the car. It didn't happen that way. Instead he wanted to play. We played for over an hour straight, which was unusual for us to play that long at one time. He knew the crate was there, but he never went near it. We played and played and I cried most of the time, until he finally jumped off my shoulders turned around, gave me one of his big head butts then walked straight into the crate and laid down. I shut the door and sobbed, because I knew he knew what was going on. He knew something was wrong, but he wanted to play with me. whether he knew it was going to be the last time or not, who knows, but it was like he knew. and that was it. He had never left my property since he arrived at 4 weeks old. He laid there on the ride up and looked at me and was just quiet.
I was told that once I brought him there I would no longer be allowed to go in the enclosure with him once he was in their possesssion. which I knew because I know the laws. and I was perfectly fine with that. As long as I could visit him and be next to him outside the enclosure that was fine. They were wonderful people and called me everyday to tell me how he was doing. He was angry, he hated it. he hated everyone there even though they talked to him all day long and tried to make friends with him.
I went up to visit him last week. I was so excited. But when I got there I could hear him growling at the workers as I walked up to the enclosure he was in. WHen he saw me he stopped growling. They said that's the first time he hadn't growled since he got there. He didn't growl the whole time I was there, but instead sat there about 20 feet away from me and never came near me, but just stared holes through me. I felt like a piece of shit. I felt right there that he thought I abandoned him. I stayed for about 30 minutes and left because I couldn't take it. He wanted nothing to do with me.
I got the call 2 days later that Benji had died. It's very hard to write this I'm sorry. But once again I failed something else in my life. Like I failed my own child. The autopsy came back perfect. There was absolutely nothing wrong with Benji. The vet said he had no will to live, and died of a broken heart. I don't know what else to say. I can't say anything. but I failed him. He would still be alive if he was with me. He didn't deserve that. He was so happy living with me, and you know that by my videos. it's more than obvious. But he felt abandoned, and I did it. They are sending me his ashes. I don't know what else to say. I'm sorry.
Hi guys, It's been awhile. some of you know what's been happening in my crazy life. I don't want to get on here and complain, but life has been hell for the last two years for me. It actually sounds like a great country song. Lost my dream career after 11 years, my house went into foreclosure. One dog died the week after I lost my job. I lost my fiancee, and was forced to retire from baseball this year even though I wanted to go another 2 years playing class A ball. and finally, and this is the reason that I haven't been on in awhile, I lost Benji, my bobcat.
We have been fighting the laws in Ohio on exotic ownership for two years now, since the "MASSACRE" in Zanesville Ohio happened a couple years ago. Look it up. there are graphic pictures and the whole story if you just google it. and that horrible horrible incident started these ridiculous laws being passed, making it impossible for even responsible owners and rescues like me to keep our exotic animals.
As a lot of you know from Benji's videos and his thread here and just from me talking about him non stop in the chat box for the last three years. lol. He was my baby. I rescued him when he was four weeks old from a bad breeder with bad breeding practices. Most all of her bobcat kittens were always sick, or born with deformities or died shortly after birth or were just still born. Benji was lucky to survive birth, but as he was being born he suffered a stroke. And since he was not 'SELLABLE" she was going to put him down. My ex and I were lucky to be able to get him and save his life. It was 24 hour around the clock care for him for about 6 weeks or more until we knew that he was going to survive.
WHen you spend that amount of time with anyone or anything you form a bond with them, and they form a bond with you. He literally saw us as his parents. We had to carry him around like a baby through the house for many weeks, and even when he was gettting big he still wanted carried. It was a litttle ridiculous and I kept telling my ex that we had to try to make him a little less dependent on us or a little less spoiled or this was going to make it much harder as he grew up. It was seriously like having a child. and I don't have any children. But he was my responsibility, and I took that responsibility very seriously. It was kind of funny, having an animal that is the top predator in most states in the United States, only lower than bear, wolves and cougars, we had a bobcat that would only eat when fed by hand, a bobcat that had to sleep in bed with us. and not at our feet, he had to be in between us, and touching one of us all night. We had to wipe his right eye about 50 times a day the entire 4 years we had him because the stroke caused the right tear duct not to close, so his eye constantly watered. So we walked around with tissue all day in our pockets. Who wipes a wild animal's eyes? lol. I trimmed his toenails, and I've worked with a lot of wild animals in my life and not one would have ever let that happen. I would have been in the hospital if I would have tried with any other bobcat, cougar or tiger. But Benji was different.
He wasn't different because of the stroke. he was different because of the way he was raised. He was an awesome little guy. I started filming him the day we got him, and I loaded all the videos on my computer everyday. My computer finally became slow and was shutting down all the time and crashing. So someone suggested that I start uploading his videos to youtube, and I did. and that was the start of Benji the bobcat on youtube. Before I knew it within a few weeks I was up to 4,000 subscribers and already had millions of views, and signed a contract with youtube to make money off the videos, which was awesome because it is not cheap owning a bobcat. That money came in so handy for his care. I made videos regularly for about 2 years successfully and loved doing it. and then I lost my job and my fiancee not too long after. I gave up doing the videos completely.
Just didn't feel like doing anything. Quit my hobbies except for baseball. Looked for teaching jobs but nobody would hire a teacher with 11 years of experience because they would have had to pay me a 12th year teacher salary. I told the superintendent's that I was more than willing to accept a first year teacher salary just to get my foot in the door. and they all told me that because of the unions that wasn't possible. So at that point I knew my teaching career was over, and it was over because the schools here were all in financial diress, and were all making cuts like my district was. Even though I had 11 years of excellent evaluations and only missed one day of school in those 11 years because of a funeral I could not find a teaching job.
anyway, I didn't handle it well, I was here on the site a lot, but I sat in this recliner from morning til night everyday. The only thing that kept me sane was my workouts, which I am surprised that I even did that. but everything else I gave up on.
Then the incident in Zanesville happened, and immediately the state began work on revamping the laws for owning exotic animals. From the beginning they told us that we had nothing to worry about. We had our exotic permits and licenses for ten years. and always passed our inspections very well with not one citation ever. Long story short, it was all a lie. They made the laws to where it was impossible for us to keep him. Their goal was to remove every exotic animal from private owners in Ohio, and so far they have succeeded. There are less than 30 still in captivity owned by private citizens, where just two years ago there were almost 900 owned in captivity. At the hearings in Columbus we presented the statistics on incidents with exotic animals compared to that of domestic animals, and those statistics went unheard. Because they had an agenda to get these animals out of people's hands.
Just to give you some of the statistics. In the united states each year there are over 40,000 domestic animal bites or attacks that require hospital attention. compared to that of only 30 hospital visits from bites or attacks from exotic animals. That's an alarming number, and to me shows that the problem lies with domestic animal owners that don't have control of their animals. and people say that there are less exotic animals in captivity than there are exotic animals, but you would be surprised because there are hundreds of thousands of exotic animals in captivity in the united states. Another statistic is that there is an average of 40 deaths per year in the U.S. because of domestic animal attacks, compared to that of only 1.5 deaths per year attributed to exotic animals. To me, these statistics alone speak for themselves and show that exotic owners are very responsible on the whole. But these arguments meant nothing in our fight to keep our animals. Very very sad. And yes, I did agree with a lot of the new laws, there were some very good new laws that were proposed, like before, just anyone could go out and buy a tiger or lion or any exotic animal they wanted in Ohio with no prior experience. The new laws were to make it so that people had to have so many hours of training and hands on experience to be able to own any exotic animal. I thought this was a great idea, because so many exotic animals were bought only because people though it would be cool to own an exotic animal. and within the first day or two they would end up getting rid of them because they were bitten or attacked or their house destroyed. These people had no business owning such animals. and that was why our sanctuaries and zoos were completely full, becuase of irresponsible people. and the other thing was no public contact with the animals, which I already did anyway. I always allowed people to come and see Benji when he would be outside in his enclosure, but people had to stay back 3 feet and never ever try to touch him. and if I had guests over I would lock Benji outside in his enclosure. The rest of the time he would have the freedom to come in and out of the house at will. People don't realize the strength of these animals. A bobcat can take your finger off in less than a milisecond. They can slice over an inch and a half deep with their claws and sever arteries. THeir bite strength is stronger than any domestic dog, and just slightly less than a wolf's bite strength. They are very dangerous animals, that should only be in the proper hands.
There are exotic animals that can never be put into the wild, and Benji was one of those because of the stroke he had at birth, and that is why I had him. I provided the best possible life I could for him, and gave him so many activities every single day of his life to keep him happy, and do some of the things that he would have gotten to do in the wild. There has to be places like me where these animals can go to live out thier lives, because if there's not people like me willing to do it these animals will just be put down. and I have always thought about that. What if Benji would have been put down at birth? nobody would have ever known him. Nobody would have ever seen a video of him on youtube. He touched so many millions of people's lives. It was just amazing, If I wouldn't have gotten him, none of this would have happened and nobody would have ever known the beautiful bobcat named Benji. It's so hard for me to write this.
I'm going to end this shortly, and Rob, I know, here I go again. It's a goddamn novel. but I am so mad because what happened to Benji should have never ever ever happened. WIth these new laws I was forced to place him in a sanctuary several weeks ago. THis story makes me cry, and even right now I am. The morning I brought him there I brought Athena's crate out to his enclosure and opened the door thinking he would want to explore it and get right in and I would shut the door and carry him to the car. It didn't happen that way. Instead he wanted to play. We played for over an hour straight, which was unusual for us to play that long at one time. He knew the crate was there, but he never went near it. We played and played and I cried most of the time, until he finally jumped off my shoulders turned around, gave me one of his big head butts then walked straight into the crate and laid down. I shut the door and sobbed, because I knew he knew what was going on. He knew something was wrong, but he wanted to play with me. whether he knew it was going to be the last time or not, who knows, but it was like he knew. and that was it. He had never left my property since he arrived at 4 weeks old. He laid there on the ride up and looked at me and was just quiet.
I was told that once I brought him there I would no longer be allowed to go in the enclosure with him once he was in their possesssion. which I knew because I know the laws. and I was perfectly fine with that. As long as I could visit him and be next to him outside the enclosure that was fine. They were wonderful people and called me everyday to tell me how he was doing. He was angry, he hated it. he hated everyone there even though they talked to him all day long and tried to make friends with him.
I went up to visit him last week. I was so excited. But when I got there I could hear him growling at the workers as I walked up to the enclosure he was in. WHen he saw me he stopped growling. They said that's the first time he hadn't growled since he got there. He didn't growl the whole time I was there, but instead sat there about 20 feet away from me and never came near me, but just stared holes through me. I felt like a piece of shit. I felt right there that he thought I abandoned him. I stayed for about 30 minutes and left because I couldn't take it. He wanted nothing to do with me.
I got the call 2 days later that Benji had died. It's very hard to write this I'm sorry. But once again I failed something else in my life. Like I failed my own child. The autopsy came back perfect. There was absolutely nothing wrong with Benji. The vet said he had no will to live, and died of a broken heart. I don't know what else to say. I can't say anything. but I failed him. He would still be alive if he was with me. He didn't deserve that. He was so happy living with me, and you know that by my videos. it's more than obvious. But he felt abandoned, and I did it. They are sending me his ashes. I don't know what else to say. I'm sorry.
