I remember the first time I met Snooty. I was astonished when he rose out of the water, smoothly powering up on strong flippers, rested on the side of his pool and looked straight at me. Instantly my muscles took over, bringing me from my standing feet down to my knees, the fastest route to reach him. He wanted attention, my attention, and I couldn’t give it fast enough.

Over the years it was one of my greatest joys to give people that experience for themselves. It was a thrill to meet Snooty. He liked you, and was unhesitating about showing it. Raised from infancy by humans who’d loved and fussed over him and called him “Baby,” he’d grown to love people right back.

And boy, did he love. As we grow up we realize it’s only in Disney that marine mammals seek out humans to bestow affection; when they do it’s the tip-off that their chosen one has a pure heart. But the magical could happen for me at the museum in Bradenton. When Snooty powered up from the water to see me, suddenly I was

special. As he gummed my hand or elbow, taking progressively more of my limb past his bristly face and into his toothless, chomping mouth, I knew my abraded skin would sting for hours. And I absolutely did not care. I never wanted it to end.

So when my mother got sick, and sped through her decline, and my life became doctors and hospitals and almost unbridled fear, I needed help to endure it. I went to the Museum. Cradling Snooty’s head, I whispered, in the voice I’d use with a baby, “I’ve missed you. I’ve missed you! How have you been?” We sat together and I petted

and fussed over him while he gummed and nuzzled me, and in time I was me again.

Because of very special circumstances, Snooty was an animal who related to the people he knew and constantly expanded his orbit to include new ones. I never fed him, but that wasn’t required. He interacted with me and behaved like he genuinely enjoyed our time. And there I pause, because I believe the magic of Snooty was that he seemed to enjoy most of his time. Swimming down deep in his tank, he did barrel rolls. Eating breakfast from the hands of a volunteer, he’d pause to do a trick, completely unprompted. He thrilled us, watching him, because whatever he was doing, it looked like he was unabashedly enjoying it. So children, less constrained than we grown-ups, would loose themselves and start shouting, cheering, uninhibited in their glee. They loved Snooty. We loved Snooty. In him we could feel our own surging joy.

– Jennifer Turner Gans