Pachyderms on parade

Danette Goulet

Dixie was born in 1965 and weighs 7,550 pounds. Kitty was born two

years later and is an impressive 8,000 pounds.

These ladies are not overweight, but the 30-somethings are sporting a

few wrinkles.

And for the next two weeks they will also sport a ring of flowers on

their heads and bright red saddles.

You may have seen them around in past years. They are two of the Asian

elephants that for a mere $4 can be ridden and petted at the Orange

County Fair.

For 11 years, Kari Johnson and her husband have offered fairgoers the

experience of a lifetime.

Pony rides are fun, but hardly a rare opportunity. Now to climb atop

an 8,000 pound Asian elephant -- that’s not something you do every day.

“It’s wonderful,” Paula Sleiman said.

“We felt the joints, the hips move under you,” added her husband, Ray

Sleiman. “It’s a very interesting sensation.”

Their skin is rough, and they are covered with sparse coarse hair. But

thanks to daily baths with bristle brushes and special soap, they are

very clean animals.

So where do elephants sleep? Anywhere they want on the Have Trunks

Will Travel Ranch in Perris, Calif.

Johnson said she has been training elephants since she was 14 years

old, when she began an apprenticeship under her stepfather.

Her husband has been in the business since he was only 16. The two now

have eight elephants on their ranch, Johnson said.

“We only have Asian because they are endangered, and we interested in

conservation,” she said. “Some of the most important work we do is

breeding -- we have had two baby elephants -- and a lot of research.”

Elephants don’t often get sick, but when they do very little is known

about how to help them, Johnson said.

The ranch is not a nonprofit organization, so they use the money they

make at the fair and parades to help maintain the ranch and to fund

research, she said.

Some of the recent projects include the use of ibuprofen -- of which

vets know the proper dosage for horses and other animals, but not for

elephants -- and walk research, which is determining arthritis and other

problems by the animals’ gait.

The average passerby may not learn all this during their visit to the

elephant tent, but the Johnson’s have put up signs with many other

educational facts such as this one -- elephants walk in their own

footprints. The hind foot usually steps in the track of the front one.