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Monday mornings begin with a staff meeting to outline the week's upcoming events and to check on shifts. As the compound is required to be staffed at all times, 7 days a week, days off or time needed for personal errands are requested now, with the trainers doing their own version of "Let's make a deal," to get their desired days off. This bargaining and horse trading of time slots with each other goes on until all the shifts are covered.

While there is no "assigned duties" to any one person, there are general things that have to be taken care of ASAP. One of these tasks is to refrigerate the meat that has been pulled from the previous night so that it can be defrosted in time for the night's meal. Placed in defrost bins, these now need to be cleaned, disinfected and readied for the evening's frozen meat selection for the next day's meals. Each cat eats about 250 lbs. a week of raw chicken, beef, pork, lamb and horsemeat. As we buy from wholesalers to save money, "meat cutting morning" which happens about every 8-10 days, will find us knee-deep in sides of beef and bones for 3 hours. The sides of meat must be cut, bagged and frozen for use during the coming week and is a very tedious and time-consuming process.

Each animal has a tolerance and an acceptance level for each staff member. It is a privilege that you earn by hard work, patience and your developing skill level that allows each handler to interact "hands-on" with these animals, and they will let you know in their own timetable when you will be welcome into their "home or habitat."

Depending who is on shift that day, the habitats are cleaned on a rotating basis with no set order. We have 5 quarter acre habitats that the animals are rotated through to give them different scenery and enrichment as they all have different "motifs" and play areas. A bored exotic is an animal that will look for something to amuse itself if you do not provide it with things to do. Woe to the trainer when he is on the inside of the enclosure and the animal decides to amuse itself with YOU to relieve its boredom!

The Habitats at Destiny are composed of grass or sand which have to be raked, cut or manicured. Each contains a pool that has to be cleaned, chemicals checked and pool pumps maintained. Water buckets have to be cleaned, disinfected and refilled. Existing fence structures are checked for structural integrity, chewed-up toys, twigs and other similar items are removed, or cleaned and put back into the area. Weeds are pulled, cement is kept clean of algae and any plants or flowers are watered and fertilized.

Just when you think you're done, there's always more! You may end up cleaning out a pool 2 or 3 times, as the animals think it's great fun (as well as it being an instinctual act) to defecate in the newly cleaned pool just to watch you clean it all over again. We are fanatic about odors, hygiene and cleanliness, so poop is scooped up immediately, a special deodorant is sprayed where the cats have marked their scent with urine, and the habitat is scoured for any discarded bones or debris from the previous night's dinner. We feed in food pans rather than tossing the raw, bloody, meat on the ground, so we keep flies and bugs bothering the animals to a minimum.

With 2 people, it will take most of the morning to do a cleaning that has earned us the distinction of being one of the premier compounds in Florida by the Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission, which is our state, regulating body.

Before heading in for lunch, any morning medications are given, locks are checked, oiled and replaced if needed and everyone gets a little morning attention. Each animal has their favorite interactions, which could be playing, rubbing or just hanging with them, sitting quietly with their head in your lap.

Again, this is all done with the utmost thought in our minds of SAFETY FIRST and we always interact with the animals in a 2-person back-up team. It is also up to each animal if they WANT us to play with them, and we respect their right to privacy should they not wish to come over and hang.

After lunch, we all turn into gardeners and landscapers. Our compound is composed of 6 acres, at 500 palm, coconut, mango and orange trees, 5 ponds, 4 waterfalls and endless bushes, flowering shrubs and flower beds. That's a lot of weeding, picking up palm fronds, lawn cutting, and general leaf raking.

We tackle new projects around the area where the cats live so that they always have different scenery to look at. Because we are built on a swamp, we flood a lot during rainy season, so the sod is replaced when it gets ripped up or dried out during the dry season.

If it's garbage day, which happens twice a week, all poop buckets where the poop is stored in sealed containers around the habitats have to be emptied, cleaned and refilled with bleach and plastic bags, all the used toys, trash cans and broken equipment has to go out at this time.

Also, the ordering of pool supplies, chemicals, food, and medicine is done on inventory day when we check all supplies. Once a month we go to Costco where we load up on cleaning supplies, paper towels, dog food and all the wonderful things you can buy in bulk.

Once the daily projects are finished, it's time to start getting the meals ready. The cats are carnivorous which means everything they eat is raw meat. Each consumes about 250 lbs. of uncooked beef, chicken pork, horsemeat and lamb mixed in with vitamins and extra calcium supplements. Their dinner bowls are huge, round cake pans that we found at the wholesaler where huge wedding cakes are made. The food that has been defrosted from the night before is divided up into each cat's plate depending on their current diet and then slipped under the food slots that are built into the bottom of each habitat.

If you ever doubt that a captive exotic does not retain all of its wild instincts when it comes to food, one step toward their food dishes after they've been put in front of the animals will change your mind in a heartbeat. It's all fangs and teeth as they lunge at you from the other side of the fence. This action makes you very aware of why food is one of the four behaviors a wild animal will kill over to protect; the others being the defense of themselves and their family, the defense of their territory, and during the sex act, the defense of their right to procreate.

Dinner usually takes about an hour with two people, from start to finish. Clean up and pulling the food from the freezers for the next day's meal is one of the final chores performed as the shift comes to a close for the day.

As the sun starts to set in the west, sending fiery streaks of fading sunlight bursting across the skies, the last task of the day is performed, a final check of all the latches and locks are done on the Habitats. As a staff member goes around to each area, they manually pull each of the locks and chains to test its security. A verbal confirmation of "Habitat 1 secured, Habitat 2 secured…" is called out by radio and is answered in turn by another staff member to provide a double back-up system to make sure each and every animal is accounted for and secured in for the night. For a final after dinner "mint" each animal is given a rib bone to gnaw on as the staff wishes their charges a restful night.

After a very hot and humid 10 hour workday, the staff heads inside to clean up, and decide on who's doing the cooking, or going out to pick up dinner. Then they each do their extra nightly work of catching up on the business details of the sanctuary like phone calls and answering e-mails. As the night grows late, they are slowly lulled to sleep by the sound that had awakened them earlier that dawn, the call of the king of the beasts letting those lesser being who inhabit his world know he is alive and well, and more importantly, ever watchful of his domain.