Life Of An Animal Trainer

On my bucket list is the desire to write a book. I have an incredible job with amazing animals and think the book would focus on that. The goal of this Tumblr is to improve my writing. Feedback is welcome. What you like, what you dislike. Let me know what makes you laugh or makes you cringe.

[kriti-g]

Self care isn’t always pretty , it’s not always candles and a bathtub full of roses , sometimes it’s forcing yourself to get out of bed and dragging yourself , sometimes it’s the pep talk you give to yourself or the quick cry in the corner . sometimes it is convincing yourself to do all these things you should be doing but you have no will whatsoever , sometimes it’s cutting some ties no matter how precious they were , sometimes it’s the bitter medicine you need to give yourself . Self care isn’t always pretty but it’s so worth it .

Kriti.G (via kriti-g)

[sargentkdc-blog]

The Value of a Voice

You probably know your voice is important. It allows you to communicate. You can express energy, feelings and all kinds of things through it. At one point in time my job title at work probably should have been "eternal backup". Backing up meant I would assist a trainer with what they needed for a training session and that I would talk the presentation that went along with the session. I would usually get sent to cover the stage for an hour between 9 and 10 with Mongo the African grey parrot, Mango the military macaw, and Tarzan the black roughneck monitor. Then I'd usually be assigned to talk the 12:30 animal encounter with benzy the honey badger, and servals or kasten the caracal for our 2:00 encounter. My confidence for public speaking really grew. I learned how to convey our conservation messages. I learned to project my voice over crowds and into a microphone. I wasn't uncomfortable hearing my voice so loud any more. At that point I could only work two parrots, the monitor and the snake and so I took pride in being able to backup every other animal and give a good spiel about them. But with that there were two or three years where I lost my voice every November. The santa Anna winds would come blowing through Escondido and dry my throat out. And with talking and projecting so much my vocal cords just couldn't handle the stress. It was always pretty awkward when I felt it coming on. My throat would be dry and scratchy and I knew what was ahead - my voice getting frail and weaker, to the point of no voice at all. My position on the team had been pretty cemented in, as I would talk almost all the scheduled events through the day. I didn't talk cheetah run - that was too big and intimidating, so I felt I was most useful by talking our scheduled encounters, and the teams behavior agreed with that. If I spoke up and said my throat hurt, then I felt like a weenie and that I was letting the team down. And I hate to let people down. I would always try to work harder on projects, but ultimately I'd talk until I could talk no more. It probably wasn't the healthiest behavior on my part. I remember one time I was in the process of losing my voice and quite frequently I'll grunt an "ok" in agreement with someone. I was asked to move a cheetah crate and when I made my usual noise it came out very unusual. There must of been three different sounds that squeaked out of me and sent my coworker missy into a fit of hysterics. She almost peed her pants she was laughing so hard! I tried really hard to defend myself and say it's something I normally do, I just don't normally sound this way. But she was so amused it became a joke between us and she would groan out this bizarre noise at me making me sound a tad ridiculous. I love inside jokes and how it can help people to bond. Missy and I formed a nice friendship after that and it helped me to open up and not be so shy! Fortunately things changed for me and my coworkers. I moved my ways through the ranks. I moved into the role of senior trainer. I stopped loosing my voice like I once did since I didn't talk nonstop as often. I still talk encounters, but most of the time now I am the person running the training sessions so my vocal cords get a nice break after I do talk. And we balanced out the talking of events so now things are a little more evenly distributed and we don't have someone talking as much as I used to, unless they volunteer for it. There's more variety in people's and animals days which is almost always a good thing. I randomly came down with laryngitis easter of 2017. It had been several years since that had happened and I couldn't stop playing around with my voice (that probably didn't help me heal any faster!). The vocal tract still allowed air through, therefore still making noises. But my vocal folds were so swollen that I couldn't really get them to vibrate (which is how you produce certain sounds). My voice was no more than a whisper. My throat felt so weird. Looking inside it colored bright red and inflamed. It hurt to swallow, but the most interesting thing was how my neck felt so full. I kept running my hand up and down my neck trying to feel something different, but my neck still felt the same. The only conclusion that I have from Dr Google is the inflamed vocal folds were so big it put pressure on my neck and created that "full feeling" in my throat as if something was stuck in there. My husband came home and was stunned that my voice was literally gone. He claims to have never lost his voice. I tried yelling at the top of my lungs to see what I would sound like. Matt laughed and said I sounded like a goose. He couldn't really understand what I said. Talking to my dogs was the worst. They still knew the commands that were on visual cue, but calling them over to cuddle was basically nonexistent. Apparently dogs don't understand gesturing too well... and all I wanted was to cuddle! I put a funny video of me whispering and yelling on my Snapchat and my little brother texted to ask me what the hell that was. It all made me laugh and start thinking about how important your voice is. And not the metaphorical one. Your voice is important literally and figuratively. When you have it and people talk about a voice you think about "standing up for those who can't stand for themselves" or feminists or people involved in some sort of movement (hopefully not keyboard warriors). But when you literally loose your voice and can't speak, it takes on another meaning. Being able to use your larynx, vocal folds and create sounds is a key way we communicate with one another and when you don't have it, then it's very easy to feel lost. And that's my story for now... we will see what happens when I go back to work!

[sargentkdc-blog]

"Your dog is on the roof"

My favorite story about Jedi happened one night in September 2016. Matt and I had gone out to dinner. We were at Nikki Rottens about 45 minutes south in cuyamaca. I had just put my order in and my phone rang. It was an unknown number and I'm not sure why I answered it - typically I let it go to voicemail. If I'm being honest I know why I answered it - I was not super thrilled to be with the people we were eating with. We were there to see the Mexican (yes our best friend has an inappropriate nickname. He proudly gave it to himself), but about 8 others who I didn't know, were all younger than me and didn't have much in common with had come as well. Frankly I was looking for an excuse to step away. So when my phone rang I was more than happy to go answer it. And the night got exciting. "hello?" "Hi. Is this Christine?" "Yeah this is Kristyn..." people who get my name wrong are usually a good indicator I don't know you and I probably don't really want to talk to you. "Hey this is Shawn - your neighbor from two doors down? I took some of that broken concrete?" Oh!! Yeah, ok - I know this guy! I had given him my number because we were doing a construction project in our front yard and I wanted to be a consciessebtus neighbor. Well.. what's he want? It's strange that he's calling me... "Oh, hey Shawn! What's up?" "Umm so I'm calling to let you know your dog is on your roof." "... huh?" Did I just hear that right? Shoot! "Jedi? He's on the roof?" "Yeah. He's running around barking on your roof." At this point my phone starts ringing again. I look at it to see who the caller is this time, and my next door neighbor on the other side is calling me. I didn't answer and he left a message. I kept that message on my phone for months. In fact in April 2017 it's still on my phone. I played it for strangers. In the message he says "hi uhh Kristyn? This is Efren. Your neighbor. I'm just calling to tell you that your dog is... on the roof..." his voice trails off and you hear Jedi panic bark 4 times then hang up. It's hysterical. I played that many times to make myself smile on a bad day. So anyways back to my phone conversation with Shawn I tell him Efren is calling me. And I go into animal trainer mode. I'm breaking down the situation. Who are my players? Where am I? How long will it take to get to my dog? Will my dog jump off the roof? What's he going to do if he does? I ask Shawn what his comfort is with dogs and dishearteningly he tells me he doesn't know much about dogs or do well with them. That was something I pondered long after. But my quick answer was "ok. Don't do anything. Don't touch him. He's not a nice dog and I'm on my way home!" Somewhere in this short conversation I had grabbed the keys from matt and hopped in the Kia and was speeding my way home in the dark. Shawn dubiously said ok. Efren called me back, or I called him. I can't remember and told me that his daughters boyfriend had climbed up on the roof. Alex picked Jedi up and put him back in my room, then shut the window. Now they were looking for something soft for him to jump off the roof and land on. My front yard was filled with bushes, but matt had been working in the backyard and our ladder was out back. I told them they could use that. I was probably 15 minutes into the 45 minute drive home and Jedi was safe and sound, secure in the house. I turned around and went back to dinner with a great story. And a great appreciation for my neighbors.

[sargentkdc-blog]

Explosion!

Every job is work. One of the most common things I hear as an animal trainer is “they pay you for this???” Yep! This is why: my job is work. Just like yours. There's parts I love. There's parts I hate. There's incredible opportunity. It’s labor intensive. There’s grunt jobs. It can be disgusting. This morning was one of the grossest, vile moments. We came in cheerful ready to work knowing it would be a busy day ahead. Our 6 month old Rhodesian ridgeback puppy was presenting with minor allergies so we had her sleeping in a crate in the kitchen overnight. On the morning of april 11 we came in to the most explosive diarrhea. It was like a scene out of a horror film. The precursors were there. Bird show told us they cracked the break room door open an hour earlier as it was kind of smelly and they weren’t sure why. The smell was so bad it leached through the walls into the room next door. AG and I have the weakest stomachs on our team and unfortunately for us were the first to walk through the kitchen door. I can’t handle moldy food or dog diarrhea. AG vomits regularly because of stress. This sent us into vomit mode. I stopped dead in my tracks just shy of the doorway. The bird show manager had warned us it wasn’t a pretty sight. That the little pup had been covered head to toe in poop, but I was not prepared for what I would see. I Took a deep breath of fresh air in and stepped into the kitchen. Little Rae had finger painted with her poop. It was smeared on the hammock. Her toys had been her paint brush. The floor was her canvas. Puppy poop, no, puppy diarrhea was slathered all over every surface she could reach. I was ok. I was ready to be brave and clean it. Until AG said “oh god! She squirted out the crate!” That was it and Sure enough I was ready to keel over and toss my cookies. A puddle of brown gooey liquid was on the bars and overflowing out of the crate onto the floor. It looked like a squirt gun had been used to blast the wall behind her crate. It was too much, I started dry heaving. The smell and taste of the air made the gagging worse. I ran out of the kitchen with AG on my heels yelling “don’t you dare!” Too late. The stench, the visual and my response sent Ashely running to the toilet. I held my breakfast down, with lots of dry heaving, but Ashley did not. It was a team effort to clean up that mess. Everyone was involved. AG grabbed gloves to take the tray and hammock out. AC, JH and I broke the crate down to fit it through the bars for a thorough scrubbing. DL began the tedious scrubbing of the kitchen floor and walls to disinfect. SS set up a fan to blow the stench out. AR called the vets to get the ball moving to provide the best care for our little girl. It’s pretty glamorous to be in front of a bunch of people walking the dog next to a cheetah. But what we do is work, with many disgusting dirty deeds. Surprisingly Little Rae was still happy as a clam and her butt wiggling in happiness all different directions. It took two baths to get the smell off her. 24 hours later our kitchen still reeked. But what we do is a labor of love, and that little happy body pressing into you for a hug makes it all worth it!