Queen Annie
The matriarch and alpha animal of our little family is Annie, born at DeWildt Cheetah breeding facility in Africa on April 15, 2012.
Learn more about the DeWildt Cheetah Center: http://dewildt.co.za/
Annie is listed in the 2012 CCF Cheetah Studbook. Learn more about the CCF and the Cheetah Studbook: https://cheetah.org/research/by-type/international-studbooks/
She was hand raised but did not receive Ambassador training. A dental problem when she was young was corrected with minor surgery but has now left her the habit of sticking her tongue out slightly and can often be seen in photos this way. It makes it very challenging to get a good photo of her.
Annie Rose was named after Ann Van Dyk; the founder of DeWildt who has in her lifetime of 40 years looking after cheetahs bred over 1000 cheetah kittens and is responsible for reintroducing the rare King Cheetah variant back into the mainstream. She is one of the few CITIES licensed facilities that can sell cheetah kittens.
Annie and Robin.
Female cheetahs generally lead a solitary life once they reach maturity. This means they raise their litters entirely on their own and lead a difficult life, so we were surprised when Annie and Robin developed a significant bond together. So much so that they cannot be separated for more than 10 minutes or they start “chirping” for one another. They even go the vet together. This may be due partially to the fact that Robin is blind. Annie goes out of her way to help support Robin. Despite Robin being blind, it is obvious to us that it is Annie who needs him more than he needs her.
Annie and Ricky.
Annie and Ricky have a rather strained relationship. We got Ricky the golden retriever at roughly the same time as we got Annie and Robin in hopes that Ricky would be a companion dog that would help socialise and calm Annie and Robin. Instead Annie and Robin developed an immediate strong social bond and Ricky became the third wheel. His goofy and somewhat laidback attitude seems to annoy Annie to a certain degree. While Ricky and Robin tend to ignore each other for the most part, Annie will occasionally try to beat up Ricky when his back is turned. This has turned into an almost comical series. Although roughly the same weight as Annie, Ricky has much bigger teeth, a bigger jaw and more jaw pressure and is considerably stronger. In an all-out fight, Annie would find herself in dire straits very quickly. This doesn’t happen. Ricky defends himself and growls and shows his teeth after Annie’s sneak attacks which cause Annie to wisely back down. She is however always the boss and she loves her sneak attacks if dumb Ricky is not paying attention. Picture a sneaky house cat that loves catching the family dog off guard, only this cat weighs 100lbs. One of the biggest problems between these two is that they share the same toy ball. Ricky is a retriever and fetching a ball is the center of his universe so when Annie has the ball, Ricky is distressed.
Beyond that she has become a one person cat and generally will tolerate no prolonged contact with anyone except Carol.
Annie has an exceptional level of social skills. When she meets someone new she expects them to have good manners or she will show her displeasure by hissing or walking away. The best way to introduce yourself to Annie is to let her come to you. She has never bitten or scratched anyone.
When she was just more than a year old she punctured her stomach with a chicken bone which caused her stomach to fuse with her liver. This was a very dangerous situation which would have killed her. Luckily Carol was very attuned to Annie’s habits and realised very quickly something was wrong. She underwent an emergency 3 hour surgery that saved her life. We had been told by DeWildt to feed them chicken. We later learned they grind their chicken before they feed it. We stopped feeding chicken after that.
Like Robin, her favorite food is ice cream (of which she can only have small amounts as a treat) or scrambled eggs.
She eats about 3lbs of food a day and is fed the Toronto Zoo Feline Carnivore diet which is horse meat that has added vitamins and minerals. Big cats favor horsemeat since it is sweeter than other meats. Annie has very good health with only a few minor medical issues. She suffers constipation from the horsemeat diet. Carol counters this by feeding her psyllium with her meals or using cooked squash. Unfortunately her constipation has caused her to have rectal prolapse Carol monitors this closely and it has not been significant enough for veterinary intervention.
Annie loves lure chasing. She is the only cheetah we have ever seen who will capture the lure and return it to Carol so she can run again. This was a behavior Annie started by herself with no guidance from us. Lure chasing is her favorite activity.
Annie is very well socialised and trained to obey a number of commands. She has what we refer to as a “hard mouth”. She grabs food offered to her with a fair amount of aggression and Carol is the only person who can safely hand feed her. Robin has what we refer to as a “soft mouth”. He takes food offering gently and carefully and is easy to handfeed.
We believe strongly that Annie will someday make a very good mother.