Kudos! First glance attraction always interests me, because I am consistently poor at producing it. I initially thought this was a Halloween shot of someone's dog. Way to capture the fur through the barrier; I'm sure it wasn't as clean as you'd like.
No, it's real. It took me a while to get this shot. A lot of moisture in this animal house that caused a bit of a problem for my lens and ... too much digital zoom didn't make it better ;( .. and hell, they move fast :)