I hate the zoo. I’m sorry, but I really do with few exceptions. Now I’m not one of those who is going to go chain themselves to the tiger’s cage and protest his captivity. We all know what we as a people do when we see that stuff going on – we cheer for the tiger. If I were chained to the cage, I’d cheer for the tiger, too until he started giving me the eye and winking.

I could go on at length about what I don’t like and how it all makes me sad inside, but this post isn’t about that. This post is a bit about hypocrisy but mostly it’s about monkeys.

I may make the sad face thinking about Digit being confined to a 10×10 cage, but you put a gorilla in a dress and bonnet, teach it to dance and I’m all over buying the tickets. Just pass me the show times and make way as I head to the front row.

What brought all this on was this weekend we chatted with our realtor and she told us about the local rodeo that had come and gone. Apparently, the rodeo features a monkey in full cowboy get up with a lasso that rides a dog and herds sheep. That’s just BRILLIANT! Forget all that forcing animals to do something unnatural to entertain the masses. It’s a MONKEY! A monkey dressed up like a COWBOY! As soon as I heard about it I called at least two other people to let them know what we’d be doing come the next rodeo. That’s right, front row for the monkey show.

Removing an animal from the wilderness and confining an animal to a small space is wrong, but if you give it a purpose – maybe a little bike or some cymbals and a little hat, then you’ve improved its life tenfold.