Cheetah Update: Cruise

From your last update on Cruise, we’d like to tell you a bit more about him and what he has been doing over the past six-month period.

As you know, Cruise and his brother Kilmer were brought to CCF in September 1998. Unfortunately his brother, Kilmer died in July 2005, but Cruise lives happily in his enclosure.

Cruise is one of our more vocal cats, with a distinctive "bark". Since his brother died, he seems to enjoy a “talk” with his keepers at feeding time. Earlier this year he was moved to a new compound, in close proximity to four other adult males. CCF staff had some concerns that Cruise might feel intimidated and may suffer stress as a result in his new environment, but he is very stimulated these days as he appears to be the dominant one! He spends a lot of his day, marking territory and letting the other males know he is boss of the area.

Cruise tipped the scales at 42 kilograms. During his physical Dr. Larry Freedman, a visiting dentist and a CCF volunteer, had to pull one of Cruise’s teeth. When Cruise first came to CCF he had to have a root canal. Dr. Freedman checked Cruise out filling in the entry hole at the tip where the old root canal was done and smoothed the fractured edges. Cruise’s anterior incisors showed severe wear, the cuspids showed slight wear and the posterior none, except the lower posterior molars. Dr. Freedman smoothed off the right and left sharpened cusps of the lower molars as well. In addition to this, all burrs were combed out of Cruise and he the rest of his health check was normal.