As I talked with one of the animal handlers he told me that he could get quite close to the tigers, but he was always on the alert. Here Sheeba let him scratch her chin. She looked very affectionate. "Just a big pussycat," I thought. Then he said quietly, "Watch it. She's going to try to grab me." He was right. He had noticed a slight shift in Sheeba's body language as had I, except that I didn't know what it meant. He pulled back at the sametime that Sheeba made her move. All of this "affection" by Sheeba was an attempt to sucker him into being a snack. As he said, "They are wild animals, and we have to be alert at all times."