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Jazz got here on July 11, 2004 in a cage that was too small to be appropriate for his species. He was extremely aggressive while in this cage and we could not take him out of this cage until we had built him a proper enclosure.
Because we were in the middle of many other projects, and funds were low, it took us a while to get him into an appropriate cage. On August 22, Jazz was able to be moved to an outside enclosure! We were still working on adding enrichment to this cage. However, his attitude immediately changed in this enclosure and he seemed quite happy to have the space.
The majority of coatimundi owners have them declawed and defanged, a practice that is considered inhumane by the American Veterinary Association, and one that we feel is mutilation.
The picture on the left shows the enclosure that we built for him, you can see his original cage, which is what he'd lived in with his old owners inside the larger enclosure. So he was quite happy to have more space.
The picture on the left is the cage that he came to us in and had been housed in with his other owners, as you can see, my husband had to wear thick welding gloves just to move the cage due to the unpredictability of Jazz in that cage. The two orange hammocks were added by us. All it came with was the hammock on the top which was a ferret hammock and broke within two days of getting here. There was nothing else in the cage to entertain him. Which is why we thought he was acting so mean. And why when he was so friendly in the larger cage we were so happy to have provided the space for him.
Unfortunately, Jazz's story does not have a happy ending. Just minutes after these photos were taken (August 24, 2004), without any warning at all, Jazz attacked me, puncturing the muscle in my arm pretty deep with his canine teeth. My arm almost immediately became infected. Two days later, Jazz died very suddenly. A necropsy showed that he had a systemic staph infection which he had passed on to me.
These pictures were taken just minutes after the attack, which occurred just minutes after the peaceful interlude depicted in the previous pictures. The wounds on my left arm (right picture, bites) were so deep, it took them about a half an hour to even really start to bleed. The wounds on my right arm (left) were scratches from his claws. Thankfully, I've got a lot of experience with similar animals, so was able to pin him quickly and keep him from causing worse damage or getting to my face as he was trying to do.
From the test results he had this infection long before he came here, probably first presenting itself as pneumonia. By the time he got here, his symptoms were gone. The infection however, had permeated every organ in his body, including his brain and bones, which is why they knew he had this infection for so long.
This was the first time we had seen him act in any way ill. I called our vet the minute he began acting a bit off, but by the time our vet arrived here he had passed away.
The saddest part to us is that we had scheduled him to go to the vet to be neutered and have a full check up. This appointment was scheduled for just two days after he passed away. There was no way for us to get him in to the vet prior to this. As long as he was in that smaller cage, he was too uncontrollable and mean, so we had to wait until he was in a bigger enclosure where he felt less trapped.
It was with great sorrow that we had to say Goodbye to this wonderful animal who never had the chance he deserved at life.