From the start of my career I have been exposed to shows with marine mammals with a lot of excitement. It has been a big part in my life to train animals for “show” behaviors. Lots of fun I have to say and learned so much on the way. From Read more…
Over time we all develop our own training style. Seeing other trainers is enriching for me just because you can learn so much about how and why people train their animals a particular way. Nobody is perfect and especially in the training world, many topics progress and chance all the Read more…
A couple months ago I went to Israel with one of my friends. We had to do a workshop for Jerusalem Zoo where they invited many other keepers from other parks. The outcome was great 36 people in total from about 7 different parks. As preparation for this symposium we Read more…
Being a zookeeper is a great opportunity for a lifelong learning process. It’s a profession that requires continuing education every day. In general, people think that being a zookeeper is just a job where one gets to hug animals all day, but in reality, general work duties include feeding, cleaning Read more…
Within my career I’ve developed a different way looking at behaviors animals have. Some behaviors desirable some behaviors undesirable. Regardless of what behaviour it is and in what box we should put it I started to see how these behaviors could be solved or how they could be build up Read more…
A month or so ago one of the head keepers of the safari department in our zoo came to me and asked me about what the options are for training fallow deer’s. She ultimately wanted the hooves being trimmed. I thought this is possible but we have to put a Read more…
1. The know it all. One of the worst parts is working with people that think they know everything. You know that I’ve been this way before and saw all the bad outcomes coming from it. It all happened when I worked with Sea Lions for about 2-3 years. I Read more…
Going through the social media sites many questions come in regarding what books others have or read to extend their behavioural knowledge. I concider myself an animal training addict and have read quite some books. Lately my focus slowly goes to further psychology in people because a lot of that Read more…
I want to ask you a question, are you an optimistic person or a pessimistic person? For some of you a question you know the answer too right away and for some of you a question of what do you mean. What it means is: Optimism: One who usually expects a favourable outcome. Pessimism: the state Read more…
Throughout my career I discovered that the phsycology of animals interest me most. Questions like why animals do their thing and why they have certain responses etc is an interesting part of why I enjoy what I do. Animal Training in general is a passionate part where I try to Read more…
