Very well trained on their commands. And the elephants were out in their yard and the dogs were in the space. And at this point, there’s an electric wire across, which the elephants very much respect as well. Never had ’em go through it. Electric wire across separating the part… Read More
They had a command to bark, right?… Read More
Like a protection dog, these dogs had an on command. Read More
Respect my space. Read More
And so it helped keep the keepers safer, because the dogs were there, the elephants wouldn’t reach out and try to grab a keeper who, for whatever reason, is too close, where they shouldn’t be, ’cause they’re talking to so and so and not paying attention. So it was another… Read More
This is my space, keeper space, right?… Read More
And so there were only maybe one or two times that the elephants, amazingly, these are little Australian Shepherd dogs, right?… Read More
And inquisitive. And so we had a long hallway, 12 foot down in our elephant building. And then we had the elephant holding areas, which had pipes, not solid, so that we could observe the animals, see the animals, feed the animals, blah, blah, blah. And so what the dogs… Read More
The elephants are amazingly respectful of the dogs. So once the dogs were introduced, the elephants were very like, hmm, staying away from that thing, I don’t know what it’s gonna do. So we never had a situation where the dogs had to attack the elephants or in any way… Read More
And there’s a whole incredibly awesome working dog group and philosophy. Working dogs have become incredibly important to farmers out in the Midwest who are caring for large herds of cattle. And they use dogs. Instead of having to use men on horseback or ATVs to bring the cows in,… Read More
They wanna take that trunk and they wanna touch everything, and they wanna touch every guest that walks in the building, and they wanna get in the hay that’s over there on the corner, and they wanna get in the grain over here. And, oh, you left a cup there,… Read More
And they’re just incredibly smart, intelligent animals, right?… Read More
And how did you, I don’t wanna say get in trouble, but how did people?… Read More
Much to do about nothing. Absolutely nothing. Actually many zoos had dogs in their behind the scenes, in their animal areas. We actually copied Houston Zoo that had dogs. Charlie Gray up in Canada, one of the absolute best, not one of, the best breeder of Asian elephants, caretaker of… Read More
How did that come about?… Read More
We tried very much to get people to understand, please don’t put us in this position. Please don’t make us leave. Please don’t push us out. But we just got no, no, no, with no compromise the whole way. You said, “Sometimes we did some things right, we did some… Read More
I did not feel that that was, we did not feel, the whole team did not feel that that was a function of AZA as a membership organization. Now we were wrong, ’cause AZA was no longer a membership organization. It was a regulatory agency. But we felt it should… Read More
So we had a disagreement on that. But it wasn’t just Pittsburgh. We had 12 different zoos who signed a letter to the board of directors of AZA, asking them not to make some of the decisions they were making at that time. Demanding zoos, requiring zoos, mandating, really, that’s… Read More
Brookfield Zoo was on that list of people, directors who signed. And then we met with the board directors at the national conference, directors, at the director’s retreat. We met with them and we tried to explain how this was not their role. This was not what this organization was… Read More
So how is it that a board of directors, some who have never been to the zoo, can tell us how to manage our animals on a day-to-day basis?… Read More