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  • 3 days ago
The way he held his rescuer's hand! Tosya had spent his life confined to a tiny guinea pig cage at a petting zoo before he was finally rescued. Dodo editor Tarang shares how Drs. Valentina and Leonid of Vet Crew helped the little Barbary macaque discover everything he’d been missing, from exploring freely to finding comfort in holding his rescuers’ hands.

Category

🐳
Animals
Transcript
00:00For most of Tosya's early life, he had no idea what sunlight, trees, or grass even felt like.
00:08Leonid and Valentina are wildlife veterinarians who run an animal hospital and sanctuary in Ukraine.
00:13Even while living in an active war zone, they always stop and they always help.
00:17One unlikely place they've had to rescue animals in the past,
00:20a local petting zoo that kept their animals in awful conditions.
00:23It was there that they met Tosya, a tiny monkey who crawled out of his tiny cage
00:27and he wrapped himself around Leonid's hands.
00:32We treat animals in our own veterinary clinic
00:35and we have our own charitable wildlife fund, Vetcrib Foundation.
00:40He had been taken away from his mother when he was only a month old
00:43and he had been placed in an environment that no baby animal should ever have to experience.
00:48When he was found, he had fractures, a serious head trauma, and other medical conditions.
00:52At first, Tosya was in severe pain.
00:54He was experiencing convulsions and dealing with injuries that require lifelong treatment.
00:59But with time, Leonid and Valentina acclimated him to the real world outside of his cage.
01:04We managed to take Tosya to live with us.
01:07We managed to give him a good life.
01:12Every normal monkey experience became a huge first.
01:17Feeling the sun.
01:19Touching grass.
01:22Climbing a tree.
01:27Even eating some flowers.
01:31And watching him experience all that, it's hard not to think about all that he missed while living in a
01:35small cage.
01:36But it's even harder not to smile at the life he has right now.
01:42These days, Tosya is bigger and stronger, and he is still completely attached to Leonid and Valentina.
01:51That bond started the very first time Tosya reached out and grabbed Leonid's hands.
01:55And clearly, it never went away.
02:10And earlier on, you had to wait for another figure.
02:10So this is a big deal with you.
02:10So, Bill moves with you so far together and can't stop any.
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