A day at the Zoo – fun in the sun!

Another beautiful, sunny Cyprus morning saw the CyDRA Tales to Tails team setting up our stand at the delightful Limassol Zoo on Sunday 13th April for the Easter Children’s Festival.

The zoo was bustling from the moment we got there and it was great to see that everyone was very interested to see our presentation and to find out about our work.

You can see from the pictures just how many people came to the event, and therefore a great success for the zoo.

Besides our dogs there were many animals to see in their clean and shady environments, including a beautiful baby goat, Brownie, which people could see close up, a baby Lama, only a few weeks old and, my personal favourite, the pygmy hippo!

Of course the zoo animals are used to having lots of visitors so they just carry on doing their own thing. However for the three Therapy dogs, Ace, Sally and Marley, this was a very busy and noisy place for them and we are so proud of how well they behaved throughout the whole time. All the dogs had a cool and safe place to rest in when they weren’t taking part in the presentation or greeting their public. They were seen but not heard!

Carole gave a presentation to the children and parents on the basics of staying safe around dogs, how to recognise when a dog is not so comfortable with his surroundings, and how the children should approach and interact with a dog. We were not short of volunteers for the interaction part of the show! Sally and Marley relished all the attention.

Ace, as always, was the star of the show. What a performer! This delightful boy just loves strutting his stuff (and we think Carole loves it too!) and all the spectators obviously enjoyed seeing him perform his tricks at the end of the presentation. They were even more delighted when, towards the end of the afternoon, Carole and Ace gave an impromptu performance showing what amazing dancers they both are. A catchy tune came on and they both took to the stage – well the space in front of our stand – and the audience grew. Well done you two. I can see Sally in the limelight too in the future, but Marley is more of a laid back dude, happy to sit and be fussed and a bit to ‘cool’ for dancing in his mind!

So many people came to see us, to talk about what we do, ask for information and advice, take contact details and also to look at how they could help too.

With competitions for the children, dancers, face painting, pony rides and Ronald MacDonald, to name but a few activities, there was plenty to do for everyone.

When we finally packed up to go home I think the team and dogs were all ready for a rest, but we can’t wait to do it all again.

CyDRA are proud to have been included in this event and look forward to working together with the zoo in the future. Our sincere thanks to them for inviting us and we hope people continue to visit the zoo and support their work.