The Orangutan and the Hound

Then this great adventure happened one day,

which happens every day in a sense,

in that I take the elephant out for a ride.

Often the orangutan accompanies me.

Surya the orangutan loves to get up on the elephant

and go through the forest and play around out there.

Their daily walk takes them through the woods

to a nearby neighborhood that sits on a river.

Here the elephant normally takes a dip.

On this one particular day, at the river,

a worn out hound dog came out of the woods.

As we come along the river's edge,

the hound dog and the orangutan are
looking at each other.

Off, the orangutan jumps,

the hound dog runs up,

and they jump into each other's arms.

The orangutan and the hound dog are
hugging and rolling around on the ground.

They just seem like they're having the
time of their life together.

They seem like the greatest long-lost friends.

It was very unusual.

After Surya and the hound dog meet
and play down by the river,

Doc Antle and Moksha assume the dog will eventually

find it's way back to it's hunting pack.

But Roscoe, that's what they eventually
named him wasn't having any of that.

The facility gates are tight, but not sealed tight,

and the hound dog presses through the gates.

We ride back into the facility, take him outside and say,

"It's okay. Go on. Go home. Find your pack."

And he circles around to the other
gates and comes back in again.

He finds the orangutan habitat, he goes up there,

and immediately Surya, the orangutan boy,

he's got his big biscuits, his monkey biscuits,

and he's feeding biscuits to the hound dog,

whose obviously very hungry.

And we're stuck with the hound dog now.

Surya also has an incredible thing and that is sharing.

If I feed Surya he has to give half of his food to Roscoe.

And Doc Antle describes the orangutans
at his park as being very generous.

If you give an orangutan a candy,

it will often break it in half

and hand you back half of it.

Now that Roscoe is part of the family,

he and Surya get to spend time together every day.

They like playing in the yard, too.

Surya loves rolling around with him in the yard.

He grabs a hold of Roscoe's leash
and takes him for a walk.

Anything they can do together, I think they enjoy,

even if they just lay down together and hug.

I think that Roscoe and Surya have a relationship

that has a lot of attributes of fun and interaction

for each other that they don't get from everyone else.