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Posted by JoeM on April 10, 2002 at 13:46:01:

I can't get the photo thing to work. To see an image, copy the following URL to your Web Address, then hit return.

http://community.webshots.com/scripts/editPhotos.fcgi?action=viewall&albumID=35339021

We got a stuffed monkey, took the stuffing out, and made a hand-puppet out of the doll. Our pet tamarin, JoJo, plays with the puppet for hours, and he is free to bite, scratch, claw and wrestle with the puppet all he wants to burn off excess energy and stress. I also started trimming JoJo's hair short. Saddleback tamarins have long hair. Untrimmed, they look like some kind of alien Persian cat. With their hair trimmed short, they look like a cross between a tiny chimpanzee and a spider monkey.

Every day JoJo becomes a better and better pet. If I had to choose between him and any other animal I have ever owned, he would win hands down (no pun intended). We bought a leather animal carrier made by Samsonite from PetSmart. I put a small animal heating pad ("guaranteed" not to overheat) in the carrier. I put a tube of rabbit wire (also called "hardware cloth") inside the carrier and covered the inside and outside of the tube in fur. JoJo sleeps in the tube in the animal carrier. When we take him with us in the animal carrier, he is very much at home, because that is his "bedroom." JoJo has tended to bond more with me than with my wife, partly because she doesn't allow him to ride on her head and snuggle down in her hair. I don't mind getting my hair mussed up. But he likes both of us.

Because he poops (a lot) first thing in the morning (more than at any other time of the day) we set his food up in his playpen, put his bed/animal carrier in the playpen and cover the top of the animal carrier/bed with a pad (the disposable pads used for adults or larger kids who wet the bed) so he won't poop on the leather case of the animal carrier. Then we unzip the door of the animal carrier, and put a reptile UV light on the top of the cage (tamarins need UV light). JoJo comes out of his carrier and into his playpen when he finally wakes up. Although he would prefer to come out and play immediately, we leave him in his cage for at least two hours. By then he has time to eat, snooze, eat some more, and poop a lot. The diapers we created are great, but we only put a diaper on him when he is out of his cage, and I would prefer to change a wet diaper, as opposed to a soiled diaper. But that is just me. I created a GREAT harness/leash for JoJo so we could take him with us safely. I created a GREAT diapering system for him because I got tired of having a flood of monkey urine going down the back of my neck. I got a provisional patent on both the harness/leash and the diapering system. I normally change JoJo's diaper while he is riding on my head. If he gets cranky about it, I take him into a dark room and change him while he is sitting on my head in the dark.

One of the photos is of JoJo when we first got him. He is wearing a (sock) dress because we thought he was a she. The other photos were taken a few weeks ago. With his hair trimmed, he looks much more like a monkey. Also, his hands and feet have grown a lot in proportion to the rest of his body, and his manual dexterity has also increased.



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