Animal Training Adventures

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 for walks at various parts of the day, most of them with their trainers and staff members. Throughout the day, we hears various calls such as “Camel here!” “Emu coming around the corner!” “Bird here!” announcing which animal is out in the area.

I started my morning and afternoon areas on Wednesday. This is the 4 days where we have to be at the zoo by 6:30am to start cleaning and feeding and we’re here for 2 hours. Then we come back in the late afternoon from 4-5 to close down the zoo. We cannot be late – as in never – or we get docked points. Most of us are here in the morning by 6:15 so we have plenty of time before roll call begins. Some mornings start off really cool so we’re all in our fleeces and sweatshirts but then by afternoon it’s scorching out! I usually come home at some point in the middle of the day, which is great cause then I can change into shorts before going back. We are outdoors A LOT, in the sun A LOT. Sunscreen is a must here.

Today was a Saturday morning area which we have to be there from 8-11am. We learned how to transfer the large carnivors from their cages to the Arena (a really large enclosure that each carn gets to go into twice a week for exercise). It’s quite the procedure which involves about 4 people and several doors. Taj, the tiger, spent last night in the Arena, so we watched them open it up and she walked through the door, down a corridor and into the door to her cage. All the doors behind her slid closed and were locked securely.  on Saturdays, the arena gets fully cleaned so there was no other animal going in it today. We then all got a turn to practice pulling the lever that pulls the guillotine door up from the arena to the corridor – that thing was HEAVY!! We also learned the whole procedure, who says what and who closes which doors. It was basically a series of: “Ready?” “Ready!” “Ready!” ” Guillotine door going up!” “Animal in corridor!” “Slider door closing!”

I think the coolest thing was just being in the “Carns” section for that time, all of us being watched by the coyote, the mountain lion , the wolf and the lion (who is so incredibly BIG in person!) and hearing her roar was pretty awesome too! Then when I was over in another section practicing how to slide one of the big doors across, I was standing right beside the Hyena’s cage. He was pacing back and forth, literally about 2 feet away from me – he is so gorgeous – another of my favorite animals there!

So now I am done until Monday morning and that means I have the whole day off tomorrow! It’s going to be spent studying and doing homework – we already have assignments and tests this week.