The story continues

How many of you remember this?

If you don't then the full story is here http://kolosworld.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/not-unique.html, it will fill you in on the details, but to cut a long story short this was the moment my person and I realised I was not the only baboon like me.  In fact, we realised I was not even the only baboon like me on the island.

Tis baboon worried me because he looked as though he had never been hugged.  He worked in the shop all day and lived there at night, and did not have a proper home.  It was a shock to me that there were baboons who did not have homes and that is how the whole baboon re-homing programme started.

Anyway, back to the point.  This baboon had an important job to do in the shop and could not come and live at Baboon HQ with us.  It was suggested that he might be able to at some time in the future but I didn't really think that would ever happen.  We left our phone number with the shop lady and hoped that one day we might hear from her, but we really didn't expect to.

Well, last Wednesday I was working on re-homing business at Baboon HQ and my phone bleeped to tell me that I had received a text message.

Imagine my surprise when I read the message and saw that it was from the shop lady, saying that he could come and live at Baboon HQ.  I texted back saying that I was very happy and that I would ask my people to come and collect him on Saturday.  The lady agreed and it was all systems go.

I still knew that I wouldn't believe he would come here until he arrived.  Yesterday my people went to collect him.  He had not seen much of the outside before, only Ventnor High Street, so he sat up eagerly looking out of the window all the way here.

When he arrived we stared at each other and we were both very nervous and shy.  He has not see other baboons before and I was nervous because he was shy.

Well we are not identical as you can see but we are really the same family.  He is much more plush than I am but that is because he has not been hugged like I have.  I used to be plush like that.

Look at me here!  I was really dark too. He may have been as dark as me but he has been sitting in a sunny window so he may be faded!

He was very shy and we are letting him settle in in his own good time. 

He has only ever eaten bananas before.  Baboons love bananas but we do like other food as well.  This morning he tried raspberries and blueberries.  I think he likes them.

Yes he is sitting exactly where I was sitting in the picture above!!  He seemed to like the new food!

He may take a while to settle in, he has been working all this time and needs to find out about living with a family and other baboons.  When he is more familiary with his new life we will have a Twitter event to welcome him, and maybe to raise some money for a baboon charity.

There is probably one question you are still asking!  You probably want to know what his name is!  Well, it is Edward!  So please welcome Edward to Baboon HQ and I hope you will get to know him when he has settled in.

Baboons can read

Recently I saw this article online (it will open in a new window)

http://thomasfortenberry.net/?p=9776

it revealed what all of my friends know, that baboons can read. 

The article and this You Tube video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKjbaWYot8o&feature=related (it will open in a new window)

show that baboons can make out real words from fake words.  Well, I'm here to tell you that baboons can do much more than that, but you already knew that.

I love a good read:

Here I am with one of my favourite books, Soon Baboon, about a baboon in a rock band.

There is a lot of baboon literature out there, here is just a small sample of it.

Soon Baboon, Does a Baboon sleep in a Bed? and Akimbo and the Baboons, just three of the many books about baboons that I enjoy reading.  Then there is Baboon on the Moon, designed to help little humans to learn to read, yes little humans need baboon help to learn to read.  There are lots of baboon books, some people might say a whole body of baboon literature.

How would there be so much baboon literature if baboons couldn't read and write?  Yes write, we can write too.

We don't only read baboon literature, here is another of my favourite books.

So yes, baboons can read, they have ecclectic tastes and, on a wet, stormy day like today reading is an important way to pass the time.

So, case proved, the researchers are right, baboons can read, but the researchers are behind the times we can read fluently and write our own literature.  Some of us even Tweet and Blog!

Baboon re-homing update - March baboons

Well the re-homing is still going strong, we won't rest easy at baboon HQ until all baboons have loving homes and all our friends who would like to re-home a baboon have done so.  The process is not always quick because we work hard to find the right baboon for each friend.  So far it seems to be going well.  Here is how the baboons that were re-homed in March are doing.

The first baboon to leave baboon HQ in March was a little girl baboon who was keen to live in California.  She was already called Honey and was very excited to go and meet @pinkbunny, Grey and girl and boy.  Leroy was able to tell how all about LA and pink bunny so she didn't need to be nervous when she left.

Honey was very happy to meet pinkbunny.

@jazzydacat agreed to adopt a little girl baboon and her even smaller brother, they called them BooBoo and Jubliee after a present of monkeys that was given to the King of England in 1935.

These too little baboons are very happy with Jazzy and Jazzy is helping BooBoo to look after little Jubilee.  They are having lots of adventures in London.

We know that our great friend @BorisKitty is a SciFi nut, so when a pointy eared baboon called Spock who is an avid SciFi fan arrived at the re-homing centre there was only one destination for him.  You can see he his having a lot of fun over there with Boris and his family.  Its not every baboon that gets to go out for Indian food (not even me).

How lucky is that!!

Another baboon with a special interest arrived at Baboon HQ.  This one was a keen detective called Morse, well again, you can guess where he needed to go and live.

 Morse has been on adventures to the beach already and had pancakes.  I am sure he and Spencer will soon be working on cases although Morse will happy watch and not interfere.

Our two dear therapy dogs @justanothertrend, Dusty and Hurley, along with Scribe and Pop, agreed to open their home to a baboon.  We sent them a very gentle huggy baboon, who had had a home before and needed the right sort of loving home.  Boise (an old Scots word for hug) has been making himself at home with Dusty and Hurley and giving lots and lots of loving hugs.  He has been on a trip with Scribe and Pop.  I think he found looking around antique shops exciting but tiring.  He found a chair to rest on.

I think Boise is a big part of the family and they are all very happy. It is so good to see all baboons in their new loving homes but especially one whose previous home didn't work out.

Our good friend @BlindMaximus also agreed to open his home to a baboon.  When his baboon arrived he named him Symon after Iron Chef Symon.  You can see that Symon has been aptly named as he seems to be a bit of a chef.

He has joined the right home.

One last baboon left here in March and that turned out to be a very special event.  @LilyLuWhoT's baboon arrived on the very sad day that our dear @Petiethecat crossed OTRB.  Lily named her baboon after Petie and little Petie, who is a girl baboon, is very honoured by being named after such a wonderful anipal.  I think Petie is a great name for a girl and it honours all of us baboons to have one of our number named after such a great friend.  Petie brought smiles to Lily on a very sad day.

Petie and Lily have become great friends and both seem to be very happy playing together.

So again, thank you to my friends for opening their homes to baboons.  There is a little waiting list now for baboons but everyone who wants to re-home a baboon will get one.  I always make sure its the right baboon for the new home so that everyone should be very happy together.

April is still underway with a couple of baboons still travelling and a couple more waiting to leave for their new homes.  When all of those have arrived I will blog about the April baboons.

Thank you for reading about the re-homed baboons and being interested in them.  I always like to hear how they are getting on so any updates are always welcome at Baboon HQ.

Baboon love revisited

Since my post of last week where I showed pictures of a few of the re-homed baboons a lot of people have asked to see all the baboons.  I am very happy to show all the baboons cos they are all so happy and their new families seem to be very happy to have them.  I cannot post pictures of all of them in one posting Blogger won't let me so I am going to do this in stages month by month and today I will look at February which was a very busy month for re-homing at baboon HQ.

For those who didn't see the first wave of re-homings between November 2011 and January 2012 I blogged about them in January http://kolosworld.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/spreading-baboon-love.html

In February 10 families agreed to re-home baboons, so here they are.

ShaynaCat re-homed Thierry vanPersie Baboon, guess what team he supports.

Thierry soon made himself at home with some interesting reading, but he is also making himself very useful around the house and even servicing the car.  He pops up on Twitter every so often as @ThierryVPBaboon.

Thierry's twin sister went in a different direction to join our dear friend @Pandafur in Arizon.  She is having fun there and is much loved by Pandafur.

Lulu has fun climbing in Pandora's cat tree and they play together a lot.

MariodaCat and Pumpkinpuddy adopted twin brothers.

Mario and Koko chill out together and chat about life in Wisconsin. Koko is settling in well to being an American baboon.

Pumpkinpuddy was very keen to make sure their new baboon got the right name, a contest was run on Pumpkin's blog and the name Barnabas was chosen.  A very good name for a baboon and very close to banana, a baboons favourite food (apart from pizza and chocolate and almost anything else we can get our paws on).

The next baboon was won in the Valentine competition and he went to a loving home in Berlin with our dear friends Burnie, Greg, little Chris and family from Can Be Social.

Otto was welcomed by the whole family and given a snack straight away.  Otto is very happy in his new home where his new bearants and siblings love him dearly.  He is a baby baboon so they are bringing him up in a loving home.

One of the most unusual baboons to ever arrive at the re-homing centre was Rhylan, a Hamadryas baboon who was looking for adventure.  I knew exactly where he would be happy, with a pal who was also keen on adventures.  Of course he went to live with Huntyr where he could have some great adventures.  Huntyr has already documented the adventures Ryhlan had getting to his new home. http://www.ryhlan.com/ you can keep up with Ryhlan and Huntyr's adventures with Zack Rabbit.

Mr Bono went to live with our dear friend @yayStella from Twitter.  He took a long time to arrive and has still to get his photo taken.  He is the twin brother of Persie who went to live with @tweetypie54 in Arkansas.  Gunner is a great Arsenal fan (he was named for it) so he got a great Arsenal fan baboon.

Finally in February two twin brothers went to new families in Europe.  OllyTed adopted Nyani a very happy, chatting fun baboon and another Arsenal fan so he fitted right in to Olly's family.

Nyani has his own Arsenal shirt and he joins in all of the many activities that go on in Olly's interesting family.  He is very happy.

Finally, in February Nyani's twin brother Jens arrived in Frankfurt where he lives with Miriam and the bunnies.  He is a quiet, shy baboon who doesn't have too many photos taken but he has fitted in well in Miriam's family and has become a photographer.  He likes to be behind the camera.

There are a few pictures of Jens out there although he is usually the photographer.

Jens was made welcome straight away by his new bunny friends, its only fitting since he has joined a bunny sanctuary family.
Look out for the next installment, the March baboon..

Bunny, Bilby, Baboon competition results!

Firstly, thank you to all of you for entering my latest competition, 60 friends entered, that is amazing.  Secondly, thank you to @WallasEKatt for donating the second first prize, that made the competition more exciting than ever.

Yesterday I sent one of my representativez, @Leroy_Sealion over to Portsmouth to meet Monty Baboon who was going to draw the competition winner.  Leroy took a secret envelope with numbers with him and gave that to Monty. @Henryandfriends was there to make sure everything was done fairly. 

As you can see because Henry was there they needed to have chips and ice cream.  But anyway the envelope was handed over so that Monty Baboon had the numbers, I had the names and nobody had both.

Monty here...

last night I did the draw for your Easter Prizes I took it VERY seriously! This is how we organised it ( I'm an Organising Sort of Baboon)

First I hid my eyes 

Then Arnold wrote the numbers on paper and Elmar folded them - they have the biggest paws...

Then Willow folded them some more and put them in a bag.. he has the smallest paws

Then I was allowed to look round and make the draw. Here's me picking the 1st winning number

to make sure everything was fair and proper we had an independent and international panel of adjudicators.  Including delegates from Norway!!

Monty sent me the numbers and matched them up with the names to see who the winners were.  Well done to all of them.  Sorry to everyone else I always want everyone to win but look out for my next competition in May.

1. First prize number one was the rabbit T-shirt. That was won by @OllyTed from Twitter.  I don't know if Olly will choose a T-shirt for himself or his particular person.  Either of them will look lovely in it on their next holiday.  Olly please look at http://www.hasenfarm.com/pages/de/motive/kaninchenrettung.php and let me know what size and colour you would like so that I can order it to be sent to you.
2. The second first prize, the bilby adoption and cuddly kangaroo donated by @WallasEKatt is a very special prize and that was won by @TweetyPie54 from Twitter.  Gunner I will let Wallas know that you were the winner and I can tell him where to send the prize to.
3. The third first prize is the baboon related mystery prize, (a baboon mug and a baby baboon to re-home), was won by my twin brother (we were born on the same day, you can see the resemblance @i_am_fuzzy from Twitter.  Well done Fuzzy, please DM me to let me know where to send the prize too.

Well done to all the winners!

Thank you to everyone for entering!

Specially thank you to Monty for drawing the numbers!

Look out for my next competition in May.

Update on the baboon re-homing

Yesterday somebody asked me how many baboons had been re-homed so far.  I was not sure but I keep an adoption book here at baboon HQ so I counted up and, including two who are travelling right now, there have been 29 re-homings so far.  There are also two baboons who are ready to leave as soon as I can get boxes for them and some more going through hugging school at the moment.

I had hoped the baboons would be helpful around the house and make people happy, as well as getting loving homes for themselves.  As you know I always say:

Every home needs a baboon
Every baboon needs a home

Well it seems to be working and my friends seem to be very happy with their baboons and the baboons seem to be very happy with them.  That makes me very happy too.  I don't think people know how baboons can spread happiness.

There have been so many re-homings lately and such a demand for baboons that I couldn't possibly show photos of all of them in their new homes or I would put you all to sleep, but here are a couple.

Thierry vanPersie Baboon is making himself useful around the house by making that great favourite of baboon dishes, pizza.  He has obviously settled in well.

Boise Baboon who lives with our dear Dusty and Hurley was so keen to meet them that he grabbed some scissors before he was packed up so that he could cut his own way out.  Dusty looks totally unperturbed by a baboon cutting his way out of a parcel, I guess therapy dogs are more resillient than most.

Ryhlan has been making himself very much at home, look banana pizza I'm not sure if its the one Thierry vanPersie Baboon was making but it looks yummy!

Dear little Petie Baboon arrived just in time to deliver some much needed hugs to Lily after our dear @PetietheCat went OTRB.  I think all baboons are honoured by the fact that she was named after dear Petie and delivered such much needed comfort.

I wish I could show more pictures but there are so many.

I thought I would show you all what your baboons go through in hugging school before they get to you.  Ryhlan is a very outgoing baboon and he was happy to have his classes photographed.

Here he is being shown how to give a hug to an anipal of similar size to him.  One of the instructors is giving instruction while another watches to see he is doing it properly.

Before they can graduate from hugging school they must show that they can hug a delicate friend without damaging them.  This can be very useful for baboons because we are not always the most delicate animals.  Our dear little 80 year old bear Frederick bravely lets them practice on him.

He has never been damaged.

Of course the final thing in hugging school is their goodbye hug from me.  This is always a bitter sweet occasion for me.  I love the baboons to go to loving homes and take happiness and hugs with them but I am always sad to say goodbye.

No pictures of that because I don't think seeing me with tears in my eyes is very good for my image.

Well I know that everyone wants to know which baboons came top of their hugging class.  Well the answer is that they all did.  I have only ever sent out baboons who are great huggers and have a lot of lvoe to give.  The instructors in the school are unrehomable but are still excellent huggers and teachers.

I have an idea about the unrehomable instructors.  They can't sing, they can't dance, of course they must be a boy band!  Wait for the news of a new boy band hitting the headlines, Baboonarama!