Training is a critical tool as Disney Animal Training Programs strive for excellence in animal care and welfare in a zoo or aquarium setting. High-quality training programs benefit animals by reducing stress and allowing them to assist in their own medical health care. Below you will find an introduction to Disney’s Animal Programs’ animal training methods; including our definition of animal training, effective training components, our training philosophy, and an explanation of our training methods course.

Training is one of many tools that an animal care staff uses to enhance the welfare of the animals under their care. Historically, animals have been trained to shift on and off exhibit, providing opportunities to examine them closely, offer individual diets, and create an environment that facilitates enhanced care. By training this and other behaviors, the number of physical captures and handlings can be minimized, reducing safety hazards to both animals and caretakers. Animals can be trained to participate voluntarily in their own medical care. Additionally, training can facilitate research on zoo and aquarium animals; results from these studies can enhance our abilities to understand and care for animals. Presumably, training provides a level of cognitive stimulation for animals (Hediger 1950) and thus may be enriching to the animals as well.

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Whether we are aware of it or not, as animal caretakers, we influence what animals in zoos and aquariums learn. In other words, as caretakers, we are teaching or training animals under our care all the time. In fact, Ramirez (1999) simply defines training as “teaching.” Sometimes we are aware of what we teach or train; we make conscious efforts to “train” animals to exhibit a variety of behaviors for husbandry, education, research, and entertainment purposes. However, sometimes we influence (train) animals’ behavior inadvertently through our actions, our husbandry routines, or through other stimuli present in the captive environment. In effect, animal care staff is always training and needs to be aware of that fact. Training is all about associations. The key to an optimal captive environment is to facilitate an animal’s opportunity to make associations that enhance its well-being.

As various applications for animal training are being developed and as training methods are being applied to an increasingly diverse number of species, it is important to discover what methods are appropriate and most successful for each species. There is a popular, and possibly misleading, philosophy among some animal caretakers that “training is training.” The concept of “training is training” comes from the behaviorist psychology literature related to learning theory. Early in the twentieth century, psychologists (e.g., B.F. Skinner 1938) suggested that the mechanisms of learning were the same in all animals (“learning is learning”). However, as comparative psychologists and ethologists studied learning throughout the twentieth century in a broad range of species, they discovered that while the basic concepts associated with learning were very similar, the natural history of an animal strongly influenced how that animal learned. This was called “constraints on learning” or “preparedness to learn” (Dewsbury 1978).

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In order to select the most effective and appropriate techniques to train behavior, we need to consider a number of factors: the animal’s natural history, its individual history, the animal’s function or role in the collection, exhibit constraints, and safety. Animal trainers must “do their homework'” as part of their training preparation and planning. A successful animal trainer uses knowledge of natural history, individual history, animal’s role in the collection, facility design, and an awareness of safety issues in developing and implementing a training plan. Knowing what is reinforcing or aversive to an animal, knowing the time of day when an animal is most receptive to learning, and understanding and recognizing the stress-related and comfort behaviors of the species are all critical to setting up the animal and the animal caretaker for success.

Below is the training philosophy created by a cross-section of Animal Program’s staff. It is meant to provide an example of an institution’s training philosophy. We encourage you to consider developing a similar document for your institution.

1. Safety is always our first consideration in any training initiative (i.e., animal safe, staff safe, equipment safe, process safe, guest safe).

2. The program should cover all taxa represented in the collection.

3. The program should involve all relevant staff members, including directors, curators, veterinarians, scientists, nutritionists, horticulture, and maintenance representatives, as well as keepers; all have a role in providing animals with a proper training program.

4. All keepers and zoological managers are expected to understand and articulate the animal training philosophy that was taught in training methods class. All keepers are expected to be able to articulate and apply animal training techniques to achieve training goals as outlined by their area team.

5. There is no separation between animal training and animal management. All keepers/zoological managers are trainers, all trainers are keepers/zoological managers.

6. Training is one of the many animal management tools that we use to facilitate good animal care. Many of the behaviors trained are meant specifically to facilitate medical care, often allowing us to minimize immobilizations or physical restraint of an animal for treatment. The combination of chemical, physical, and behavioral restraint used during a procedure will be based upon the level of training, the severity/urgency of the illness/injury, and the benefit/risk to the animal and staff. Sometimes it is more beneficial to the animal to use chemical agents to provide analgesia, relaxation, and reduce anxiety, as well as provide added safety and restraint during a particular husbandry/medical procedure. The choice to not use a training technique for a particular situation should never be considered a failure of training.

7. A successful training program should be proactive, and be flexible to accommodate unexpected situations (for example, a new medical treatment or respond to an emergency).

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11. When training, keepers need to work together as a team. The measurement of success of a completed behavior is that it is trained to the level that other members of the team can also successfully have the animal perform the behavior. The success should be the animal’s and the team’s, not just the person initially training the behavior. The zoological manager will facilitate the integrated approach.

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The general objective of the Course for Disney's Animal Programs' Staff is to give an overview of the basics of animal training. The course is designed for animal care staff that needs to acquire basic concepts around animal training. The course will provide a brief overview of animal training theory, as well as terminology and an overview of training techniques. The importance of understanding an animal’s natural and individual history and how these impact training are discussed in the course. In addition to lecture, selected training concepts and skills will be taught via group activities.

END - Article & Photo Credits:  animaltraining.org

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