First thing in the morning, we go around and check all the animals, administer medications
if we need to.
Just make sure everyone's okay and then we start cleaning yards and preparing diets for
the cats and we prepare enrichment for the animals before they go out for the day.
We'll go in and we'll set up the yards in the morning before we let them out.
We'll put food out into the different parts of the habitat.
We like to encourage the animals to search for the food and sort of stimulate their natural
instincts, their natural behaviors of going out, sniffing out their food.
The really great thing about sloth bears, especially for the cubs, is that even though
they're in the same enclosure every night, as long as you change their structures of
the logs or you put a different enrichment item into the stall, it's almost like giving
a brand new habitat every night.
The training is done, basically, to check every part of their bodies everyday without
actually being able to touch them.
We use training for medical reasons only, there are no special tricks or anything that
we ask them for.
If we do this, they open their mouths, so we can check their teeth.
They're trained for voluntary injections.
We're also working on training them for blood draws from their tail.
So anything we can do voluntarily with the animals without having to anesthetize them
is something that we work for.
The interactions on a daily basis that you have with your animals and there is a relationship there.
A lot of people just say "Oh it's a lion or a tiger," but these lions know us.
They trust us.
They train for us and to us it's just like having a pet at home.
You know, we cry when they are sick and we’re happy when they have babies.
And so just being part of their lives everyday and being responsible for their care is the
best part for me.
Particularly if they're interested in animal work, I would suggest just starting with dog
walking or pet sitting in their neighborhood.
That's a really good way to get into the industry at a very early age.
And then when you get older, you can become a keeper aid at the zoo and actually learn
what it takes to be a zoo keeper and sort of the care of exotic animals.