Animal Training Adventures

Summer semester is about to start, the 2nd years graduated last week and we’re on our own to run the zoo until the new group gets here in August and we officially become second years! yay!
I don’t think I was quite prepared for how busy the Spring semester was going to be. It started out [...]

Time is passing very quickly here at America’s Teaching Zoo. We are already into our 2nd semester and it’s also moving along quite fast.  Last semester was a little crazy, there was a huge learning curve for all of us first years, and at final exam time in December, we were all extremely stressed out. [...]

I know I haven’t written in awhile but really I didn’t want to bore anyone. The day to day stuff is just that: day after day after day of doing very similar things. However, there is some really exciting stuff that gets thrown in too!
Where to start….. ok well here is the typical week of [...]

Days are really starting to blend together….they are long but the weeks go by fast. It’s a little hard to believe its already September!
We have already completed our first week on “area” which means that we spend from 6:30am-8:20am cleaning a certain section of the zoo, and then again from 4-5pm. Each week we rotate [...]

Time is passing by real quick – even though days are long, they are going by way too fast! I don’t even know where this week went!
We have learned all about Animal Attacks and what to do if you do happen to get attacked by various animals. Definitely some good information to know.
The best part [...]

Yep, that’s probably the most exciting thing I’ve done so far, haha. Walking with an Emu. It’s super hard not being able to talk to or touch any of the animals. So when we were able to all go out on one of the Emu’s walks, that was fun. Lots of the animals come out [...]

Week 1 is officially over!
After getting our pigeon ordeal over and done with for the time being, the following day was exciting as we got to pick up our uniforms! We have to wear our uniforms at all times when at the zoo or in classes at the zoo. It has also been recommended to [...]

Yesterday was our first official day of Orientation at the zoo. With a new class of 52 students – there were lots of people milling about – some were very quiet and kept to themselves and others hovered around in their little groups of 3-5 (mostly groups of roommates). All bright eyed, excited, nervous and [...]

My good friend Alicia told me I should start a blog just to document my experiences at America’s Teaching Zoo. (EATM program: Exotic Animal Training and Management). Such an awesome idea as last August when I was researching EATM, I searched for such a blog but didn’t find one. So here it is! I will [...]