Louis’s day at the zoo

Spring was blossoming all around us, it looked like the number of vaccinated people was reaching a local maximum, and Kathleen and I got the urge to go out and see something!, like the old days. We felt like those people in the City of Ember [ref] who had spent two hundred years underground to avoid a plague that ravaged the surface world: in a word, antsy.

The Washington Post said that the Smithsonian was reopening its buildings and facilities, and further said that dogs were welcome in most of their outdoor places, so we thought, Let’s take Louis to see the National Zoo!

Although the zoo was open, entry was controlled by access passes that you had to get online. They were free, but were quickly claimed up weeks in advance, when they were offered. If you wanted a parking pass to go with that, you were talking more than a month in the future. And if on top of that you wanted a “Panda Pass”, the wait was almost two months if you could get it at all. The pass requirement was a hassle, but at least when we got there, the crowds would be lighter than back when they let just anyone in.

I haven’t been following zoo goings-on this year, but I reasoned that if these Pandas needed their own passes to go see, they must be something really special. Maybe like Fiona the baby hippo at the the Cincinnati Zoo, who is so adorable that it makes us want to go visit that zoo also, despite the ten-hour drive to get there.

Flash forward a month or two, when the passes we had ordered finally became valid. Kathleen, Louis and I drove into DC (which was in itself an adventure—we hadn’t been into DC in well over a year. Had it changed much? What’s this new bridge going up over the Anacostia River? Am I even going to be able to find the zoo from memory?)

My first impression on arriving at the Connecticut Avenue National Zoo entrance was the hordes of people going in! Couples, families with all their survival supplies balanced precariously on strollers, school or other groups with matching t-shirts in various stages of dishevelment (and this was just as they were arriving at the zoo–I shudder to think what they’ll look like by the time they’re leaving!). The place seemed as crowded as I’d ever seen it before the plague year. That’s a good sign that things are returning to normal, I guess.

We parked (it’s lucky they required advance parking passes; at least we knew we’d find a spot), and strolled in.

Louis was an immediate hit! It makes sense since the zoo audience was animal lovers, and Louis is an undeniably photogenic labradoodle puppy. “Best looking animal here!” one bystander told us.

(This is no exaggeration. Every time we’re out walking anywhere, I estimate about 90% of the people we meet feel obliged to say, “Aw, what a cute puppy!”. They all use the same word, cute, and of the 10% of the population that don’t exclaim how cute he is, I bet 90% of them are thinking it. I sometimes forget when I’m up late with puppy diarrhea or cleaning up yet another TV remote that’s been chewed to bits, but Louis is undeniably one cute animal. He’s got a puppy bouncy enthusiasm, a winning personality, and long, soft chocolate dreadlocks. He’s like a little grizzly bear cub, only even cuter.)

Everyone at the zoo wanted to come admire Louis, and many, especially the kids (of which there were many), wanted to pet him. Louis was having a great time despite the heat, and he hardly noticed that he was surrounded by animals he had never before seen or smelled.

We found the “Asia Walk”, which led to the Panda House. A couple of young zoo interns were taking a break at the entrance, so I asked if dogs were allowed on this Walk. “Well, yes, if they’re service dogs. Otherwise they aren’t allowed in the zoo at all.”

Uh oh! I guess I should have done a little research on whether the zoo fell into the category of “most Smithsonian outdoor places” that allowed dogs!

Louis was in plain sight next to me, at the other end of the leash, but I calculated that these interns were too comfortable sitting in the shade drinking their big gulps to pose a threat to our day out. “Well, thank you, forget I asked,” I mumbled, and we hot-footed it away from the Asia Walk.

It may have been coincidence, or I may have underestimated the interns’ dedication to law and order, but soon after we ran into a uniformed zoo guard. Like everyone else there, he was instantly enraptured by Louis’s cuteness, and before talking to us he had to give him a good rubdown and tell him several times what a good boy he was. Then he spoke to us.

Kathleen was more prepared than I had been with the interns.

Great answer, Kathleen, not least because it was true—we do have him in training (leash walking, and coming), and we do hope he will provide us emotional support. How could he not, he’s so cute!

I was grateful that we had left on Louis’s seat belt halter, because it looked a little like a service dog harness. But we were starting to get nervous. We tried to stay on the less-frequented paths of the park, but there didn’t seem to be any. People were everywhere, and they all wanted to ooh and ahh at Louis!

We passed the elephant yard, and Louis finally noticed the animals. Several elephants were ambling lazily outside, and one big bull also saw us—and Louis! He didn’t make any obvious behavioral changes, he was too cool and had been around too long for that, but he kept his eye on the little brown pup at our side. Louis saw him too, and just stood and gawked as the bull elephant casually sauntered over to the hay tree, which just so happened to be near where we were standing.

The air was charged with mano-a-mano nonverbal messages zipping back and forth between Louis and the elephant, even across the stretch of barrier that divided us. That old bull kept his cool, and never batted a huge rheumy eye. But the conversation was too intense for Louis. His resolved snapped, and he dissolved into a spate of nervous barking.

Busted! We quickly turned up our collars to prevent us from being recognized, and skulked off. I was intently watching the animals, Kathleen was engaging with the interested people we met, and we both were trying to project the auras of two service trainers disguised as ordinary tourists taking our student for a field trip. I didn’t feel very convincing.

Louis, meantime, was happy just scouring the grounds for other dogs to sniff and people to pet him and tell him how cute he was. His search for other dogs was unsuccessful, because as I’m sure you already knew, dogs aren’t allowed in the National Zoo.

Finally the stress of living a lie got too much for us, and we lammed it for home. We had missed a lot, hadn’t made even one complete circuit of the campus, and didn’t see any indoor animals at all, but it was still a fun adventure.

The moral of this story is that when you are planning a trip, you’d be smart to do a little research on your destination, to make sure you’ll be welcome—unless you’re really, really cute, in which case you’re welcome anywhere.

Here’s a joke I stole from myself [here], adapted to this post.

A cop pulls over a car and notices that there is a grizzly bear cub riding in the back seat. "What a cute bear cub! But you know transporting grizzly bears this way is completely illegal. I'll tell you what, we're not far from the National Zoo, I won't arrest you if you immediately take him straight to the zoo with no stops on the way." The driver (in the original joke this was a Norwegian pig farmer, so let's keep that) promises to do so, and the two part company.

Several weeks later, the same cop pulls over the farmer again, and again there is a grizzly bear cub in the back seat. The cop tells the farmer, "You promised me you would take that bear to the zoo!" 

"I did!" she replies, "and he had such a good time that today I'm taking him to the Botanical Gardens!"

Thanks,
Dorn
7/20/2021