Efan said:

I'm squeamish. There aren't pictures are there?

jone70 said:

No, no pictures; just details in the article. It's pretty awful.

jone70 said:

I'd change that law ASAP, not just for Connecticut, but the whole damn country. Enough with the exotic pets.

This really makes me mad. How stupid can you be? Dressing up a chimp. Giving it Xanax. Sleeping with the chimp. What made her think she could control a 170 pound wild animal? What made her think the chimp was human? A chimp that weights 85 pounds possess a ridiculous amount of strength--I can't imagine the strength of a 170 pound chimp.

Dang...I thought he had karate-sized the woman but he was eating her face. I didn't know chimps did that. *scared*

That 911 tape sounded funny as hell with that damn monkey squealing in the background. The 911 operator kept asking "a what is trying to kill your friend". Hell bitch, you can hear the damn thing in the background sounding like Cheetah from Tarzan.

I heard this morning on the "Today" show, that the crazy ass woman takes a bath with the damn monkey.

I would have shot the shit out of it.

uPtoWnNY said:

But not all exotic pets are dangerous are they? I mean I don't know, but wouldn't a parakeet be considered exotic? I can't imagine a parakeet would be dangerous. And dogs aren't exotic and they *can* be dangerous.

Yet another reason I prefer plants!

vainandy said:

I'm sayin'...it was kind of sad when she said it ripped her friends face off but when LAWD when she kept saying "bring a gun, bring a gun hurry..." and the cop was like "who has a gun?" she was all "No bitch, I said you bring a gun." {although she didn't say those exact words, that was the tone she used} I laughed my ass off.

I didn't hear the part about the monkey ripping the friend's face off because they just played a short clip of the call. All I could hear was the woman saying...."My chimpanzee is trying to kill my friend"....over and over, and the 911 operator trying to hear (or even believe) what she's saying because that damn monkey's squealing in the background like Cheetah.

Really terrible story and I feel so bad for the woman attacked and the chimp who had to be killed. I just don't think Chimps should be Household pets. They need to change the laws. I also wonder about the woman giving a Zanex and tea to this animal. Maybe there was an adverse effect on him. These are PEOPLE PILLS NOT ANIMAL TRANQUILLIZERS. I hope this woman SURVIVES...What a HORROR for her...Tragedy for the CHIMP also being Stabbed and Shot...SAD, Very SAD all around.

I used to have two doves that were tame and as gentle as they could be. My mother had a cocketiel and she thought she could reach in that cage and pick it up like I picked my doves up. That damn bird grabbed her thumb with that crooked beak of his and held on to my mother's thumb while it was bleeding. I tried to pry him off with a towel but the way his beak was crooked, it would have ripped the flesh out of her thumb. I had to hold that son of a bitch's body with the towel, and pop that fucker in the head a few times until he screamed so he would open his mouth for me to get him off of her. That was a mean ass bird.

I was going to ask this question the next time I took our dog to the vet, but I will ask it here to see what you all say.

What is the difference between "wild" animals and "domestic" animals? To me, this chimp was domesticated in a way. And then, like is capable of ANY animal, this chimp turned on its owner--well not owner but another human yet the owner could not control the chimp..

Can't dogs also turn on their owner when.. they feel threatened for example? To me,this chimp just was powerful..and could easily kill a human.

I have read and also seen on TV little dogs trying to bite their owners.

So I just wonder if ALL animals are capable of this kind of behavior? I guess one must keep in mind they are all just animals, not human.

I was wondering your thoughts on the subject. To clarify, I think this woman treated this chimp too much like a human and not an animal. But I have seen on TV dog owners doing the same thing, and then they end-up with dogs not behaving very well--even dangerous dogs. So I just wonder maybe if the potential is there for all animals whether "domestic" or "wild"?

P.S. I want to add that there also can be lawsuits against domestic animals--and owners can be liable.
[Edited 2/21/09 5:22am]

lascantas said:

I'm no expert on this, but I think the difference between a "wild" and "domesticated" species has less to do with how a particular animal has been raised than how generations of his/her ancestors have been raised. Many horse, dog, cat and livestock species, for example, have been selectively bred by humans for millennia for particular traits like friendliness (or trainable viciousness), strength, beauty, health, etc. So while there are exceptions (like, say, an uncharacteristically vicious, untrainable or dumb Labrador Retriever), we can somewhat more reasonably expect that one of these animals will grow and behave as we've, in effect, "engineered" over a few hundred or thousand years.

In contrast, "wild" species still overwhelmingly exist apart from humans, and those of them that have been raised in intimate contact with us have been so since only very recently in the grand scheme of things... perhaps just a few years, decades or one or two centuries at most. So while a Chimp like Travis might usually show a certain temperament by way of his own upbringing, genetically speaking, humans have had far less time to "create" the pet Chimp they desire... and so there's a lot more risk with regard to how they'll turn out.

Having said all this, I personally don't think any amount of "controlled lineage" is absolutely foolproof. I don't think any sentient thing is merely the sum of its genetic parts -- even if the "good" stuff is kept and the "bad" done away with. Heck, look at what we humans still do to one-another!
[Edited 2/21/09 19:37pm]

Lammastide said:

Thank you so much! Of course, this is it! I was thinking more about behavior than generational breeding.

I watch a lot of those dog training shows. In fact, I was watching one briefly last night.. the one with the British lady-trainer. Well, it was so weird because the owner of these troubled dogs treated them better than he treated his wife(?) or maybe it was his girlfriend. Anyway, she was about ready to leave him because one of the dogs had bitten her--the dog hid under the bed..or something like that, and then would bite her! Then the other dog (maybe both of them) would sleep in bed with them right in between them.. and the wife would nearly fall off the bed.

I didn't see how it turned-out, but from what I can tell humans get into trouble when the forget that their "pets" are animals, you know? The animals seemed to get confused. We have a little dog that had some problems early-on when we first adopted him. I took him to our vet and the vet told us to just walk away from him when he tried to bite us. Isolating the dog was better than scolding him because according to our vet the dog was just scared. Well then he said to make sure we walked him on a leash and socialize him with other people and dogs. So far, he is doing much better; in fact, the nipping or biting has stop. But I am always aware this can happen when he is scared, so I am careful with introducing him to "new" situations.

Well, I like to learn from this shows how to deal with dogs. And in way, I also learn from this horrible situation with this chimp.

Thank you again for your informative response.

Maybe the chimp was abused?

Mistreated animals do turn on their owners. But something set that chimp off to attack that woman.

Wild animals belong in their natural habitats or some safe place like a zoo.

luv4u said:

I've not read all the posts here, but isn't there speculation the owner had given the Chimp Xanax to relax him while he was being treated for Lime disease? It is sometimes licitly prescribed by vets, I guess, but it isn't approved for animals by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. And hadn't one of the women gotten an odd new haircut? Perhaps the combination of illness, being drugged and being confused by the woman's new look sent him over the edge.

It's an interesting thought that maybe being raised pretty much as a human was, in itself, some form of abuse.

Sad situation.

StarCat said:

It makes me wonder why Bubble never turn on Michael or the other Jackson siblings (apart from giving Janet a hard time with the house cleaning)?!?

TonyVanDam said:

I'm sorry, that just made me bust out laughing.

TonyVanDam said:

I bet he liked the groupies.

KatSkrizzle said:

In what way, because of Bubble or The Jacksons?!?