Solomon and five other tigers, Apophis, Kabul, India, Kali, and Odin, all came from a breeding facility in Wisconsin. Due to unhealthy living conditions and non-compliance with USDA regulations the facility was forced to close. We rescued a total of 6 tigers from the facility. The 4, including India are affectionately known as Fantastic Four.
The facility contacted us with the intention of staging the rescue of the cubs on television in order to promote their agenda. As we sincerely believe that using animals for publicity is not in the best interest of the animals we declined the television show and agreed to take the cubs. When we declined to do the television show, the breeding facility withdrew their request for us to take any of the cats. A week later, the same facility called us back and asked us to take four older cats. We agreed but only if they included the cubs, Kali and Odin. Again, the facility terminated all contact.
About a month later, we received a call out of the blue giving us a thirty minute warning before the facility showed up in our driveway with 6 tigers. None of the cats had names that we knew of and they did not arrive with veterinarians or health information.
Solomon is a gorgeous boy with a goofy and strong personality. He pretty much does what he wants when he wants. There are two ways to get Solomon to cooperate; 1) do what he wants to do when he wants to do it or 2) find the right motivation of the day, could be meat treat or could be rolling a ball in the walkway but usually involves embarrassment for the keepers and amusement for him!
Solomon possesses a very unique trait not found in many tigers. He has huge blue eyes. He bats them often to get his way. Everyone finds him captivating and he quickly became the favorite of many volunteers and staff.
One morning in February of 2020, staff were doing their daily morning checks when a keeper noticed that Solomon wasn’t coming out of his den. It quickly became obvious that he physically could not get up. We were able to finally coax him up with treats and we saw that his left side was mostly paralyzed. We took Solomon to our onsite vet clinic and started conducting tests and x-rays. We reached out to specialists as well. We took Solomon in for an MRI which revealed that he had a fibrocartilaginous embolism. He was also diagnosed with Horner Syndrome which disrupts nerve signals between the brain and one side of his face.
We treated Solomon as you would a human who had suffered the same CVA. We brought in a veterinarian who specializes in senior animal care and pain management. We used acupuncture treatments, laser therapy (with a laser machine that some very generous volunteers bought him), along with medications and physical therapy to help Solomon. He was determined to get better and we were determined to help him. We started putting down rubber mats in his enclosure in the clinic so that he would have more grip and padding. We custom created a rig that allowed us to lift him up enough to practice placing his feet on the ground. We celebrated every step that he took. With time, love, and weeks of intensive care, Solomon got better and stronger. He started playing again and taking more steps on his own. Eventually, he was strong enough to leave the clinic and go back to his enclosure! We installed his rubber mats in his enclosure so he could continue to have padding and grip. With the use of his playground, we could give Solomon longer therapy sessions which helped him grow even stronger.
Although it has been 3 years since his incident, Solomon, until recently, had not been able to use his left paw. His ability to lay his left paw down flat had been severely impacted, which prevented him from walking on all four paws, rather dragging his left affected paw. Around 8 months ago, Solomon was observed to occasionally place his left paw flat on the ground during his strolls. With continued therapy and a custom created paw brace neural regeneration was achieved and in April of 2023. Solomon has been spotted placing his affected left foot flat and walking on all four paws consistently!
Whether he is using 4 paws or 3, he is still a playful, loving, and stubborn boy who runs around the playground and can give the keepers a hard time when he feels like it. We adore this loving, chuffy, beautiful boy and are glad that he recovered from his neurological event so well. Solomon’s strength and determination touched all of our hearts and inspires us in our daily lives.
