So Tako has recently added to the list of why she is The Best Octopus (all octos are the best but we don’t tell her that of course.)
She’s starting to get a lot more outgoing and spends more time wandering and moving stuff around in her tank as she gets bigger, which is pretty standard. So to help with her newfound confidence and energy we’ve been doing a lot more enrichment, and she now comes right to the top as soon as she sees one of us three handlers.
(I’m still her favorite. The others know this.)
Along with enthusiastically grabbing people-arms and seeing how hard she can pull (very hard. My baby is growing up and leaving weird suction cup hickies up to my elbow), she started spraying water at us with her siphon.
Her predecessor, Quinoa, would spray at us if we were doing something annoying like trying to take a toy back or not handing over food fast enough, or handed her something she didn’t like. So at first when Tako started this up we were like “what is this octos problem” and would just splash back at her because sometimes you are fed up with an 8-armed brat.
Fastforward to now, when it has just come to light that the trainers have been tained.
Tako LIKES being splashed. She waves her arms above the water, tries to grab onto the bubbles made, has a grand time, and now knows how to make us Do The Thing.
She has mastered aiming and firing right at us and lo and behold, when you start splashing her the sprays of 48°F water aimed at your face stop, she turns a bright excited red and frolics around with her arms up and waving about to feel the water getting splashed around.
We now have a splash game of going back and forth with the spraying and splashing. Today was spent with me splashing at different areas of the tank while she chased the splashes, one arm towing her current favorite rubber duck along.
Bless this weird animal she is the best.
We had a GPO that liked to tent over the incoming water flow like
It was pretty dang funny! I think it probably felt good on her skin. Sounds like Tako is a happy camper!
I’m reblogging this exclusively because I love octopuses and they make me happy.
Hearseeno 