The Pettin Place on Wells Avenue in Reno is abuzz these days. Friday is someone's special birthday! Hermalinda is a Capuchin Monkey from South America. She was brought into the United States as a baby, lived a few years with a private family in Fallon, and has lived at the Pettin' Place for the past 33 years. She turns 42 on Friday. And that's close to 100 in human years.
"She loves to play but she's slowing down a bit. Who doesn't with age?" asks Linus McKibbin who owns The Pettin Place.
He watches out for her. He handles her everyday. And she loves him!
"She loves him a lot," says Marcia Sherman who works there. "Years ago when she was younger we all played. But one day she just decided he was hers. She was jealous. She decided she wanted him for herself and that was it. She just wanted to hold him all day. So I decided she has bigger teeth than I do and decided she could have him."
"She's working on her third generation of people right now," McKibbin says. "I have moms come in with kids and tell me that when they were small their mothers used to bring them in just to see the monkey."
Hermalinda is smart. She is the same kind of monkey that the government uses to train as helper monkeys for paraplegics and quadriplegics. But in the wild, their life expectancy is only about 20 years. She far outlived that here. And that in itself is cause to celebrate.
The monkey party for Hermalinda is this Friday at the Pettin Place at 1121 Wells Avenue, starting at 11:30am.
(775) 323-3348
Written by Erin Breen
