This is Jati, who was interacting with Val.
(It's possible that she doesn't care for strangers, as I was not invited to mess with her).
She is quite beautiful :)


My hand on Schottie's side. In the video you can hear how dry and rough her skin sounds, but that is natural for an elephant.
Deep creases and folds are natural too, and thick hairs in every pore that feel like you're running your hand over a bristle brush.


Val asked if I'd like a photo with Schottzie. Of course!
The female keeper said, "Schottzie, trunk!", and Schottzie obliged.



What a special moment.
I miss our elephants.
I hope they're all right.

Val and I talked about circus elephants that we had known. We both had interactions with Mable, a teenage elephant who was VERY smart and loved to learn new activities. She could paint, play soccer, basketball, catch hula hoops on her trunk, spin a jump rope, throw a bowling ball, and lots more stuff that I probably can't remember. And no, she wasn't TORTURED into learning any of it. She was introduced to activities in conjunction with treat or physical pets, which is called "repetition and reward" training. And she just happened to be an elephant who loved it so much that she wanted to do EVERYTHING presented to her. We had other elephants who would do one or two activities, but Mable was the only one who would learn a thing and then actively wanted to know, "What's next?".

Mable and I. This was close to Halloween, which is why the elephants were dressed up (she's Wonder Woman!)


I remember Siam the elephant was dressed as a mummy for this event
(HUGE backlash for that because OH NO AN ELEPHANT IS BANDAGED) and Baby was dressed as Batman.

I'm wearing my elephant walk coat in this photo; elephant walkers were given bright red Ringling coats.
Crew coats were black with red trim (I have one of those too even though I'm not crew...ssssh!)

I often wonder if Mable is bored out of her mind in the elephant preserve where she's been housed since the circus closed.
From what I understand it's a no-contact preserve, so she is probably living a life close to what a wild elephant would experience.
But she was so bright, excited, and engaged. I wonder how she copes with having that engagement taken away from her.
Or maybe when she hit maturity, she became more interested in breeding, and other Adult Elephant Things.

Anyway.

With that, Val escorted me back outside where we watched the ladies enjoying the yard for a bit.
It was cold and windy, so they probably wouldn't be out for long.
As we were talking, Mai-Thai came over (she's the matriarch of the herd).
She heard Val's voice and wanted to see what was up (and was probably hoping for treats).

So Val said, "Mai-Thai, trunk!"
And Mai-Thai raised her trunk across the way, and we got a nice selfie.


We hugged and parted ways. I made sure to hand off the last of my homemade caramels which Val promised to share with the other handler who had been with us today. I am so grateful to Val for this experience, which brought back many wonderful and bittersweet memories.

For some fun context, here is my first-ever picture with Asia in 2012, just a few months after I'd joined the circus.
She is not tied in any way. Her keeper was taking the photo and said, "Asia, trunk!" right before taking the shot.


Takeaway: animals are intelligent. They do not need to be bullied to learn simple commands or perform a basic action.

Think about that the next time an activist is crying about animals "tortured" to "perform tricks".
Did you have to torture your dog to teach it "sit" or "shake"?
Is an elephant smarter than a dog? (answer is yes).