Don't buy a pet monkey...seriously.

One of the things I want to avoid with this Blog, is to give the impression that owning a monkey is all cuteness, fun and easy. It's hard work and someone must be with him 24 hours a day. You can't just leave him, even for a few hours. He will fret and panic, and he can become quite upset. I am very fortunate living in Thailand that I have staff that can take care of him when I do have to leave him alone.

I expect some people considering buying a monkey will stumble on to this Blog and see some of the cute pictures and ignore all the hard work. Cleaning the cage every 2 days, picking up monkey poop, having monkey pee on you (cant house train a monkey), cleaning up food from cage and a 20 foot radius of the cage, waking up early to feed him, buying fresh food every few days, getting bitten, putting up with his vocalisation and him throwing toys around and changing your dirty clothes 5 times a day.

If you are considering getting a monkey, think really, really hard. They live for 30 or 40 years and get VERY aggresive at about 2 years old. They should be in the wild or with other monkeys, and if I had the chance that's where George will be.

But I do want to document and share my experiences with George. He is truly an amazing creature. We sit together watching TV and he will groom my eyebrows and arms and I will grrom him in return...which is proper monkey ettiquete.

For all the monkey "experts", I know he shouldn't be drinking root beer, but he loves it, and he gets only a tiny rimfull.

I sometimes look back at his early pictures at that tiny litle, fragile monkey with the head that was too big for his body and am amazed he has grown so big and confident and wonder where he will be in 2 years with teeth that will hurt....even when he is playing.