Elderly Elephant Gets Acupuncture Treatment For Arthritis | The Zoo: San Diego

The elephants, Duchess and Gay are supposed to be pretty sharp, so their keepers have been planning to give them something to think about. They like an intellectual challenge. It's really rewarding, you put a little bit of effort in, you see the elephants playing around and bashing things, generally having a good time. It's probably the most rewarding thing about the whole job. Obviously you can't be right all the time. No matter how strong you build something, they always manage to get that little bit of extra strength from somewhere. They're very intelligent as well. If they don't get it right on the first day, they'll try and try again. Eventually they seem to break and damage everything you give them. Bless them. But hey, that's what being an elephant's all about. Because we're so big and strong. Richard and student Catalina are off to collect a few tyres, while Jim gets on with the daily grind. The plan is to make a puzzle feeder, and tyres make good toys for such large animals, as they're virtually indestructible. It's down to the elephants to work out that they'll only get the grub if they throw the tyre around. Richard looks after Gay, and Jim is Duchess's keeper. There's obviously a bit of favouritism. Gay'll suss it out. It's virtually the same with everything we do at Duchess, unless it's obvious, then she has a go and walks away, and always leaves it to Gay to sort out. Being the more intelligent animal, that was it. Not a chance. See, Duchess is the more intelligent one, because she doesn't bother to work out these things. She waits for Gay to do it, and then just helps herself once Gay's sussed it out. So, I mean, surely that's more intelligent. I mean, who's doing the most work? That's because she couldn't. Look at her now, sussing out the tyre. It's Gay. Yeah, Gay. And who's behind her, waiting for Grayford to get the food out? Duchess, look. As soon as the food comes out, Duchess will take it off her.