...the goddess of love

Please click on their names below for the individual

biographies of Qadesh & the Tigerman:

An 'Open Letter' in response to the repeated question: "Why does Qadesh always seem so totally at ease, even  surrounded by hundreds, or even thousands, of people?"

     As it says on Qadesh's web site, she had never been caged. It means exactly that - Qadesh had never been put in, let alone kept in, a cage. People put animals - and even other people - in cages for one reason: to control their behaviour. To keep them somewhere against their will in an attempt to prevent them from doing something that they don't want them to do. In other words, to physically prevent them from going somewhere or doing something, rather than motivating them to control their own behaviour (in a socially acceptable manner). We, as a society, know by experience that caging our own species only makes them behave more anti-social when they are released from that confinement, yet we continue to do it while rhetorically asking: "What else can we do?" I say 'rhetorically' because we know by experience "what else"; that what does work to positively modify behaviour is to immerse them in a supportive, caring environment with consistently fair discipline, not confinement. This has been well documented,  particularly with the young: the huge majority of adult 'offenders' have a history of 'social conflict' from their youth, and the exceptions - those that break away from the cycle of recurring incarceration - are those that get sent to a Boy's or Girl's Camp, enlisted in the military (ever wonder why there are so very few 'outlaws' in the military, even in those countries with enforced conscription?), or 'adopted' (either literally or figuratively) by a 'Big Brother' or the equivalent. Someone, or some organization, that provides comprehensive and intensive attention. The same holds true for those trying to shake an addiction. Which should really be no surprise as most rebellious behaviour has been commonly attributed to efforts at gaining attention and/or the lack of consistently fair discipline during their upbringing. Why? I believe, and I believe Qadesh unequivocally demonstrated, that the solution is not caging the creature, of whatever species, but in socializing it, be it animal or human.

     So Qadesh was raised, and lived her whole life, always surrounded by people; people whose primary responsibility was to pay attention to, and interact with her. In addition to myself and my wife, we kept a minimum of two people hired to help us care for Qadesh. Throughout the first three years of her life she was never alone at all, and was never alone more than a few hours at a time. She grew up sleeping in bed with my wife and I, and slept with me nightly until the day she died. Qadesh would go with me in the mornings as I ran my errands, traveling beside me, on me, romping around. If she was feeling rambunctious, I would pull over and play with her, so as not to risk having an accident, until she learned that she couldn't play with my hands or my head while I drove. If she slept during the day (which she did a lot since they like to sleep up to twenty hours a day), she would do so on our lap or, as she grew, at our feet. Again, her first three years she grew up in four star hotels; chasing me, or me chasing her, up and down the hallways and stairwells or playing tag in their banquet rooms, or out in nearby woodlots, ponds, or streams; but always with lots of people around, interacting with her. This gave her the vital opportunity of growing up experiencing every conceivable (and some inconceivable!) interaction with her environment, and how to respond to it in a socially acceptable manner. In the wild, her mother would have taken on that role and taught her, by example, how to interact with her environment in a manner to afford the best chance for survival: how to hunt, what to avoid, etc. For her role as an 'Urban Tiger', Qadesh was taught - again, by example - how to interact successfully with humans; what behaviour was 'socially acceptable', and what was not. We provided positive reinforcement with approval, not "treats": love and affection; and negative reinforcement with scolding: harsh criticism with a stern voice, while scowling. But the 'feedback' was immediate because the behaviour was dealt with immediately due to the constant direct supervision, not after some interval when the lesson had been lost as the direct connection between cause and effect had long since passed. Even humans learn best (if not exclusively) by action/reaction, at least behaviourally. We all are very much aware that our children learn by our example, not by what we 'preach'!

     Yes, tigers are capable of exerting more than six thousand pounds of pressure per square inch with their jaws (sufficient to crush any bone of any creature on earth), but they also have the discretion - and judgment - to be able to pick up and carry their new-born cubs for miles without so much as bruising them. As Qadesh and I rough-housed with each other, four to six times daily, she naturally would grab or grasp me with her jaws or claws, usually my arms as I would be using them to grapple her. If she gripped me too tightly, as she sometimes did, particularly if she was getting worked up and frustrated,  I would simply tell her: "easy now, easy - Qadesh, just take it easy")  and she would ease up on the pressure she was applying, even as we continued to wrestle. The key is that to trust them you must extend that trust to them; and to get them to trust you, they must know that you trust them and what to expect of you; you must always be consistent in your behaviour, because that is what makes you predictable. That is, after all, true in our interpersonal relationships as well: if someone doesn't trust you (and you do not harbour any ill intent) you can't help but distrust them, because otherwise why are they behaving so paranoid (and therefore unpredictably)?  People frequently say "but tigers are so unpredictable"; on the contrary, I find animals, both in the wild and in captivity, are much more predictable than humans; its  just that most people are not that intimately aware of the animal's behaviour to be able to predict it, not that it is inherently unpredictable. Most definitely, knowing Qadesh as intimately as I did, I found her behaviour to be absolutely predictable; far more so than any human's I know, including my wife and child. The other anxiety people voice is: "But they are still wild animals; what about their 'wild' instinct? Aren't you afraid they're just going to turn 'wild' (read: 'berserk' - this is another variation of the 'unpredictability' theme)?" The succinct answer is a simple no; what they are calling 'wild instinct' should be more correctly termed 'survival instinct'. It is the instinct to attack prey for survival (food), and only fight to defend one's territory, because fighting is dangerous to one's own survival (evolution has taught even tigers that critical lesson - too bad we humans haven't learned it better as yet), but without territory one's survival is doomed, because territory is vital to the availability of prey (food). So my response is : "So are we (wild)", and I'm not being facetious; directly threaten my survival, or that of my progeny, and I don't think the thin veneer of 'civilized' behaviour would be sustained for very long. After all, homo sapiens are one of the very few, if not only, species that kills purely for the 'sport' of it - not exclusively for survival, as is the case for the tiger.

   Please take the time to explore the rest of Qadesh's web site, and thank you for your interest and support.

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Please click on their names below for the individual

biographies of Qadesh & the Tigerman:

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