From Darkness Into the Light

By Dr. Russell Gusack

I purchased Tyler in June 1995 from a pet store in Las Vegas, Nevada. My lover Vinny and I were on vacation when we happened upon Tyler in a pet shop we were strolling through. It was love at first sight when we laid eyes upon him and he seemed so much like the "baby" we dreamed of having together. Tyler would look up at us and suck his thumb. He was wearing a diaper. He lay on the back of a teddy bear, hugging it tightly. The manager of the store let us hold him and he would cry when we put him down. We saw him for the first time on a Friday, stopped back to see him on Saturday and decided that we could not leave without him.

Now that I know better, I have come to realize that all the adorable baby-like behaviors we were observing were actually the result of negative traumas which Tyler experienced around the time of his birth. The constant thumb sucking, crying and clutching at a stuffed animal were all abnormal behaviors that result when breeders ruthlessly tear monkeys from their mother's arms at an early age. In the wild monkeys typically nurse and cling to their mother's backs for up to two years. Tyler was only four weeks old when I bought him, which means that he was probably taken from his mother at a very early age.

It did not take long after bringing Tyler home to realize that no healthy baby would behave the way that this wild creature behaved. Within two years of our raising him he would tear off diapers as quickly as we would put them on him, destroy some of our most cherished possessions and brutally attack my lover Vinny whenever my partner would tell him to behave. Yet Tyler had become a part of me and I could not imagine parting with him under any circumstances. While Tyler bit both my parents and my lover, he had never attacked me for the first five years that I raised him. I deluded myself into thinking that there was a special bond between Tyler and I and that he would never show anything other than his gentle and loving side to me. Reality set in on the fourth of July weekend in 2000 when I told Tyler that he could not bite apart a straw rocking chair I had in my family room. Upon hearing me say the word "NO," he proceeded to start biting into me. I panicked and for the first time of my life I was petrified of him. I called the police for help and they sprayed his eyes with mace to drive him back into his cage. I cried as he cried over being shot at with mace.

Tyler's bites landed me in the emergency room and I was told how lucky I was. Had he bit just a bit further up my wrist he could have done the equivalent of slitting my wrist, I could have died. After the attack I could not get anywhere near Tyler. He would attempt to attack me as soon as I would approach his cage. In desperation, I contacted Jungle Friends and Kari brought me into the light.

It was difficult for me to give Tyler back his birthright and send Tyler to Jungle Friends Primate Sanctuary, which I now refer to as the 'heaven on earth for monkeys'. I almost changed my mind the night before Tyler was due to travel to Jungle Friends, but I realized how selfish and cruel I was being. Kari Bagnall, Director of Jungle Friends, came to our home in New York to help us prepare Tyler for the journey, as I was no longer able to handle him. I did the right thing. Tyler, my mother and myself traveled the next day to Gainesville, Florida with Kari. We stayed with Tyler for over a week at Jungle Friends to ease his transition. From the moment I took Tyler to Jungle Friends, I realized how right this was for him and wished that I had known better sooner.