Children and animals love nothing more than playing with their new toys but for one baby panda, matters escalated into something much greater.
He became so obsessed with his new toy, a large green ball, that he wouldn’t let it go, no matter what. Thankfully, the adorable moment was captured and shared on the internet by the staff at the San Diego Zoo.
Baby panda Xiao Liwu was seen playing with a ball in his 18th exam, the description of the YouTube video says.
“Panda keepers gave the cub the ball to test his coordination and encourage him to play with new objects,” the video description reads.
It is clear that he is having a lot of fun by playing with the ball.
In panda exams, the bundles of fluff are usually given various objects to play with. Their caretakers encourage them to learn about their environment by interacting with the things around them.
In this case, Xiao Liwu, who is just a few months old, was given 2 balls, a limb trimmed from a tree, and some bamboo, the zoo staff revealed in a blog post.
The panda was extremely interested in playing with the ball because he had already seen the tree limb and bamboo before.
And that’s why the adorable baby was unwilling to stop playing with the green ball even when his caretakers tried to take it away from him.
Whenever the ball would pop out of his grip, the panda would happily latch back on as soon as his caretakers roll it back to him.
In fact, the ball kept Xiao engaged throughout his exam.
Little Xiao was so engaged in his simple yet interesting game that, unlike any other time before, he didn’t put up a protest when nutritionist Jennifer Parsons tried to take his measurements.
The distraction proved useful and thanks to it, vets could easily complete their routine checkup.
Fortunately, Xiao was in the best shape possible. He measured 29 inches in length from head to tail and weighed in at 14.5 pounds.