We were at the San Diego Zoo Safari park.
They have routine events in the tiger area, where they have talks and such.
Another thing they do is they demonstrate working with the animals.
Safari Park is a breeding facility for Sumatran Tigers (I think), and they're a hand off facility. They don't touch the animals, unless necessary. No tigers walking the parks on leashes here.
So, they have to work out techniques to routinely inspect and interact with the animals.
Naturally, it's all done with food and training.
So, the trainer was there working with the animal, I think they used a whistle (maybe a clicker), and they had these paddles that they would have the animal target. And if they did, they got fed. They would use these to stand the animal up on their hind legs so they could view the body of the animal.
A visitor basically said, essentially, that the animals were tame.
At that moment, you could see the tiger basically tiring of the routine and she gave a bit of a growl to the handler.
"No, these animals are not tame. They're barely trained." and trained != tame.
My cats are tame. Little balls of domestic joy rampaging through the house on their own accord.
But these tigers? Hah, no.
Not tames or domesticated. Historically, it's pretty clear that they can't be. Many a "pet" large cat has attacked their owner.
That said, as a child, we had "Charlie, the lonesome cougar" visit our house. He purred, we petted him. We didn't see our cats for a week.
But I think that was just focused training going on with that animal.
