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Coco is a Capuchin monkey with a very inquisitive personality. She loves to open cupboards and throw the contents on to the floor. The fridge is especially enticing, as things break and squish once hurled out. Very rewarding indeed for a naughty little monkey, especially as this behaviour gets her “parents” to spend a lot of their time chasing around after her to try and prevent the chaos she causes.

Much-loved by her owners, Coco’s behaviour was getting a bit out of hand. She had free range of the house and garden most of the time, being confined only at night in a very spacious outdoor run. But when Coco opened a bedside drawer and helped herself to the tablets inside, it was agreed that the time had come to adopt a stricter stance. House rules needed to be laid down and adhered to.

So I went to visit Coco at her house near Bela Bela. Capuchins are renowned for their intelligence and easygoing personalities. In the olden days the organ grinders used them to attract the attention of the crowd by teaching them to wear clothes and dance. As a one-year old, Coco was feeling the need for a bit of direction in her life. Too much freedom can be quite stressful if you’re immature and given a free run to do what you like.

We decided firstly to teach Coco that actions have consequences. If she behaves in an appropriate manner, she will get a reward. If she misbehaves, she gets time out. To achieve all the goals set in just a few hours training, we decided to use both management techniques and clicker training. To stop her opening doors ad lib and helping herself to whatever she chose was simple – a gob of scrapbooking glue was placed in the centre of each handle. So when Coco grabbed the handle, she felt this sticky mess on her palm. Monkeys don’t like sticky messes, so she would let go. The fridge door was secured with a hasp and staple. I am writing this a couple of months after implementation, and to date Coco has not opened any cupboard doors with glue gob on them.

I like to teach animals to think, so we agreed on a behaviour that would benefit the family and be fun for the monkey. Golf practise being a favourite pastime of her owner, we decided it would be great if Coco could learn to pick up golf balls and place them in a container. So we conditioned her to the clicker (i.e. made her understand that when she heard the clicker she would get a treat) and then clicked and treated her for picking up golf balls. We didn’t get as far as having her place them in a container, but with diligent practise, I believe that the whole behavioural chain could be achieved within a week. Of course her activity and feeding regime had to be controlled in order to achieve this, and this proved to be our main stumbling block. Coco had been allowed to eat what she liked when she liked, and could run around wherever and whenever she pleased. It takes quite a serious mind change to put feeding and movement constraints on a cosseted and very cute pet.

Training sessions had to take place early in the morning before Coco had access to food. She resented being restrained in her sleeping quarters as she was used to being let out early in the morning. So we had conflict trying to get her to understand that she no longer called the shots, but had to do something in order to be let out to play. Of course she tried everything in her power to try to manipulate the situation. But eventually she started touching, and then occasionally picking up a golf ball. Her concentration span was fairly short, so we had to capture as many good behaviours as possible in a short space of time.

Having to think and problem solve was a new experience for her, so she was quite tired at the end of our session. So a quick nap on the sofa with mom and dad was her special reward. Notice the stuffed monkey that Coco carries around in her tail – a bit like Linus’ blanket.

As with all animals, training needs to be ongoing to be truly effective. Let’s hope that Coco finds a new dimension to life once she discovers how to please her owners. She has already been easier to have around the house because her cupboard-opening behaviours have ceased. Once she learns that she can do things that earn praise and admiration from her human family, she will be a much happier and more biddable monkey to have around.

One of the animals I was asked to work with at the Zoo was a Komodo Dragon. What an honour!! At the time there was only one in the country. The Dragon had been a present from Indonesia to the then President Mandela.

Komodo dragons are the world’s heaviest lizards and can grow to over 3 metres and weight almost 100kgs. They have an incredible sense of smell, using their forked tongue to track down prey (often carrion) for up to 8 kilometres away.

The enclosure that the dragon was being kept in comprised two display areas, and I was asked to train the reptile to move between these two areas on cue. This was necessary so that the door between the two outside enclosures could be closed and the keeper could clean one of the areas in safety. I was asked to get the animal to move between the two outside enclosures within 5 minutes. Komodo dragons move incredibly fast, and have very sharp serrated teeth with which they cut out chunks of their prey. Their mouths are also host to nasty bacteria, so if the Komodo isn’t able to kill its prey immediately, the bacteria in its saliva often kills its prey over the next few days: a prolonged and very painful death. So it was necessary to little to no contact with this animal during the training process.

A challenge to be sure!! How was I going to get this animal to move around whilst standing outside its armour plated glass enclosure? After prolonged consultation with the curator and keepers, it was agreed that the easiest, safest and quickest option would be to use a target stick. This was quickly procured, and a large rag tied to one end. The method we chose to adopt was as follows: because of the animals’ prodigious sense of smell, we decided to stimulate it by dragging its food through one of the display enclosures. So the inter-leading door was opened, and the target stick waggled in the opening. As soon as the dragon spotted the stick and started moving towards it, the keeper would nip back into the night room and secure himself in there. Of course initially the dragon was not moving forward to get to the target stick, but rather to investigate the interesting new smell. In a very short space of time the dragon learnt that the sight of the target meant that on the other side of its outside enclosure would be a scent trail leading to food. Within a few sessions we had our lizard responding to the lure within 2 seconds and zooming in to the other enclosure within 30 seconds of the target being shown to it. Great!!

As I had been given 6 months to get this behaviour on cue, and had achieved it within a week, I asked if there was anything else they’d like their dragon to do. Jokingly they answered that they would like to be able to cut its toenails and take DNA samples for sexing. “OK” I responded, “let’s do it!”

The first thing we did was teach the dragon to go into the night room. This was done so that it learnt to follow the target whenever it was shown, (for a reward), and to go in to whatever area we dictated. We got this behaviour in one session. We locked it in the night room for a short while before targeting it back outside again.

Since the animal was being so cooperative, I asked whether they would like to weigh it to get a measure on its growth over time. They were delighted with the idea. So trusty Pieter the keeper rushed off and got a nice big plank. This was placed on the ground just outside the inter-leading door. Once again we used the target stick and reward to get the dragon to move over the plank in both directions. Once that was OK, the plank was elevated on to a number of bricks, so that the dragon had to climb up on to it. It took a few sessions for our Komodo to be confident about this behaviour.

The day of reckoning arrived!! The veterinary section lent us their scale and we prepared to weigh the animal. We locked it in the one outside area whilst we set up the scale and plank. The measuring device was craftily hidden in the night room. When everyone was in place, the inter-leading door was opened, the target waved and our Komodo casually wandered across, climbed on to the plank and stood there for a good two minutes. (Our lizard weighed in at 35.5 kgs). In fact it seemed to so enjoy the fuss it was causing that we had some difficulty targeting it back in to the other enclosure so that we could dismantle the equipment! So behaviour number 3 was a wrap.

As the Zoo still had the crate that the dragon was flown out in, I thought it would be a good idea to make use of it for the nail cutting and DNA testing. Using the same principle that had been working so well, we taught the dragon to target (walk towards) the stick when it was held on the far side of its wooden crate. By now the lizard was too big to completely fit in the crate, with about ½ metre of its tail remaining outside. But within a fairly short time it was happy to go in and be fed on cue. Once I was convinced that the dragon was happy walking in to the crate, and had learnt how to back out of it, the medical team were called in.

The dragon behaved perfectly. It walked in to the crate on cue, and stayed there whilst the veterinarian cut off fragments of its nails and tissue aspirations which were then sent for DNA testing. The result – a female!!

Komodo dragons have a very interesting survival technique. Probably because they evolved on islands subjected to tropical storms, the females have developed the amazing ability to reproduce on their own. If a mature female (around 5 years old) has lived alone for some years, she is capable of fertilising herself and producing offspring. And all these babies will be males. Because Komodo dragons have a very limited gene pool, it is very important to ensure that they are not related (and allowed to breed) if kept together. It turned out that our female had compatible breeding genes to a male in England. So she was sent to England, and that country in turn sent out two of the males that were asexually produced.

Although it is very difficult to form an emotional tie with a reptile such as a Komodo dragon, I do hope the girl I had the privilege of working with is happy in her new home in England. Hopefully in time a new line of Komodo dragons will be born to her, thereby helping to ensure the survival of the species.

What a thrill to be asked to train an Okapi!! These animals hail from North Africa and are shy creatures of the forest. Their coats have lovely white stripes on them to help break up their outline so that they are not so easily visible to predators.

The okapi is the only living relative of the giraffe. Like giraffes, okapis have very large, upright ears, which catch even slight sounds, helping them to avoid trouble. They also have a long, dark prehensile tongue similar to the giraffe.

Okapis are hard to find in the wild. Their natural habitat is the Ituri forest, a dense rain forest in central Africa. Okapis are very wary, and their highly developed hearing alerts them to run when they hear humans in the distance. In fact, while natives of the Ituri Forest knew of okapis and would occasionally catch one in their pit traps, scientists did not know of the animals existence until 1900.

There were two male adults that I was asked to teach to walk on to a scale to be weighed. This because one of the easiest ways to determine if any animal is unwell is if it loses weight. Easier said than done!! After having a look at their (rather wonderful) night enclosure, and some prolonged discussion with the curator and keepers, we agreed upon a training schedule.

The scale was of a kind that could have a board of the right dimensions for that animal placed on it. Well of course our Okapi were not going to just leap up on to the plank and make our job easy for us. They were VERY suspicious of the whole idea of being weighed, and were quite certain that we were up to no good.

Initially the keepers located what they felt was a suitable plank and we placed this on the floor across the door between the night room and their outside enclosure. The plan was to reward the animals each time they passed over the plank. Of course they tried every trick in the book to avoid stepping on it. Prodigious leaps and sideways approaches with little hops to get over that frightening piece of wood went on for about a week. Then the boys settled down and walked over it as if it had never been a problem.

The plank was then elevated on to bricks, so that it was slightly off the ground, and the animals were encouraged to move over it. Only one of them was comfortable about trying this. The other would follow his friend, but with great trepidation.

The next step was to place the plank on top of the scale and get them to walk over it. We decided to work with Shumba, the more stable of the two initially, with his friend shut into a nearby night room where he could watch the action.

We clicked and treated a lot to get our chosen lad to move towards the scale, which we had cannily placed between two of the night rooms. Being an Okapi, he found it a bit difficult to work out how to lift his foot up to step on the scale! (ah-hum!! – not the most mentally active of animals). It took quite some time of swinging his head from side to side to get him to step up high enough (read about 8 cms) to get on to the plank.

Wonderful!! We were nearly there. I thought if we could get him to gain confidence by walking backwards and forwards over the plank between the two night rooms, we would then be able to get him to station (stand still) on it so that the scale had a chance to register a figure. But this was not to be!

Once Shumba had worked out how to lift his front right hoof on to the plank, his other feet seemed to follow quite naturally. Then – DISASTER!! His full weight proved too much for the plank, which promptly broke in two.

As you might have gathered by now, Okapis are not renowned for their intelligence, so our friend stood there for a few moments wondering what had happened to the floor beneath him. A minor earthquake? A sinking of the substrate? Or was it a dastardly plot to attack Okapis? Once he’d worked out that he could move, he shot off the plank like a rocket. And then had a little temper tantrum to show us what he thought of the whole business. We had people manning the doors into the corridor, so were able to get out of the way until he got his temper under control. But of course he was then very nervous of going anywhere near the scale again.

Whilst he hovered around watching us anxiously, the keepers scurried around to try and find another more robust piece of wood. This was eventually found and we placed it underneath the broken plank. (to have just used the new one would have thrown our Okapi into a fit of nerves – don’t forget it had taken him two weeks to get him used to walking on the first plank).

We clicked and treated any movement towards the new structure, even if it was just a head swing. We then put food on the new structure and clicked and treated him for eating it. By this time the keepers and other watchers wanted to call it a day – they had other duties to perform and they couldn’t see any way of enticing the somewhat shocked animal back over this awful abyss. But I insisted it could be done, and took over all the handling myself, getting everyone else to move out in to the corridor and keep as quiet as possible.

As I’m sure you all know by now, the clicker trainers mantra is “you can teach any animal to do anything it is mentally and physically capable of doing”. My Okapi had just proved that he could walk over the plank one way. So I didn’t see any problem in getting him back! Grabbing a nice big branch of mulberry leaves, I started to click and treat him for moving his head back and forth over the new assembly. Within about 10 minutes he tentatively put a foot up over the plank. Jackpot!! He removed his foot instantly!! (wicked and manipulative Okapi that he was).

But I was absolutely determined to get the behaviour, and to get it within the next 20 minutes. So we started again. Sure enough he realised that I was adamant that he was going over it, and with a resigned attitude he walked up onto the scale and stood there for a few minutes until we were certain that the reading was accurate. (he weighed 249,1kgs). I then encouraged him to climb down off the scale and gave him the rest of the mulberry leaves as a well earned reward.

My job was done. Within 3 training sessions I had successfully weighed an Okapi. This proved to the curator and keepers that it could be done. All that remained was for them to get the second Okapi to do the same thing. This should not prove a problem, as the second Okapi appeared happy to follow Shumba across the plank when it was on the floor. And all thanks once again to the little, highly effective clicker!!

On another occasion I was asked to teach a Giraffe to walk through a crush. This crush is about 20 metres long and 10 metres high. The keepers who were responsible for caring for this animal assured me it couldn’t be done. The giraffe had been under their care from some 13 years, and in all that time no-one had been able to get him to go through the crush on cue. Yet within the hour allocated for his first training session, Gerry walked through that crush with me not once by five times. I was delighted.

All training needs to be ongoing. Gerry needed to be confident of walking through the crush in case he ever needed to be examined or medicated. There are sliding doors at various intervals along the crush where the giraffe can be contained without being able to kick out and injure itself. An elevated platform runs along the outside of part of the crush so that the veterinarian can work at back height to the giraffe, maybe to take a blood sample or give an injection.

Of course there were hiccups along the way. My job was primarily to assess whether the animals could be taught the required behaviours. Then I needed to convince the keepers that clicker training does really work, and hand over the training to them. Usually from the very first session the keeper would be involved in the training process. Most of the time there are secure barriers between the animals and keepers. However, sometimes it is necessary to get in to the enclosures with the animals. This was the case with Gerry the giraffe, as he initially needed to be lured down the chute which meant that we had to be in front of him all the time.

Luring is a method commonly used in clicker training. It helps the animal to understand in a relatively short period of time what it required of it. The trick is to stop luring as soon as possible. With Gerry we knew that he had a passion for carrots. So, armed with a bunch of carrots we would click and treat him for eating them. Once he had mastered the Art of Carrot Eating (which took him about 10 seconds flat), he was happy to follow wherever the carrots led. Which was down the chute with us and the carrots in front of him. This was a potentially dangerous manoeuvre, as there were several of us in the chute at any one time – one to hold the carrots or browse out in an enticing manner, one to click (me initially until the keepers got the hang of the importance of timing) and one to ensure a never ending supply of carrots. The chute is relatively narrow, being just wide enough to allow a mature giraffe to fit through snugly. Two people could not walk comfortably alongside each other. We also had to be very carefully synchronized, as if our giraffe decided to speed up, we had to get out of the chute before him without tripping over each other. We had some near escapes!

Safety always being paramount, there were never less than three of us working with him at any one time. Sometimes we had overseas students and veterinarians asking if they could come and watch and our ranks would swell to twenty or more. They would then be let into the enclosure in batches to experience what it’s like to have a giraffe pounding down a crush after your bunch of carrots. On one occasion one of the keepers got cornered by the giraffe. This was an extremely dangerous situation, as although the keeper had known and worked with him for upwards of twelve years, the animal was still capable (and quite willing) to kick and wound mortally. Giraffes can kick both forwards and sideways equally easily as backwards. Fortunately because of our rule of always having a number of folk working with the animal at one time, I was able to run around the other side of the crush and entice the giraffe away before anyone got hurt.

I also had to go in to the enclosure with the Bactrian camels in order to separate out the one we needed to work with. I wasn’t comfortable with this at all, but had little choice in the matter. Once again there were three of us that went in together. Vusi and Bheki had worked with these animals for many years and knew what to watch out for. I decided to keep them between me and the animals, and call out instructions on what to do. In this instance we were trying to get certain of the camels to accept a head halter.

As is normal at a zoo, there are always visitors spending their free time enjoying the sights and unusual animals. Or should that be animals and unusual sights? What happened was this……

Vusi and Bheki were closing in on our selected camel (with me neatly tucked in behind) and trying to entice her to accept the head halter. A party of school children wandered down the road, and the teachers decided that the situation looked decidedly promising, instructed the children to stop outside the enclosure to watch our performance. Now these camels were separated from the public with a split pole fence. There were eleven camels in the enclosure. Our session was going very well, with Bheki having persuaded our camel to have the halter placed on her head (which she had to lower to man height) and being duly rewarded (clicked and treated) by Vusi. Training any large animal is generally a team effort. I was right there with them – well OK – behind them, when one of the male camels decided he didn’t like us on his turf. So he spat and charged. (Ever seen a camel spit? It’s disgusting. Very frothy and bright green. And it stinks.) There was no choice for us – we had to run for it.

As Vusi and Bheki are both considerably younger and fitter than I, they soon outdistanced me (afterwards they told me that they knew I preferred to be behind them, so considerately moved in front of me during our flight). They reached the split pole fence and with skill born of long practice, dived between the slats and landed up back on their feet amongst the children. I took note of their technique as with a final burst of speed I made it to the fence. With gay abandon I hurled myself between the slats (there’s nothing like being chased by a camel to give you a bit of speed). Unfortunately I hadn’t thought to practise this exercise. My top half shot through the gap, my middle connected with the horizontal bar and my legs cannoned out underneath the slat. I ended up in a crumpled heap on top of half a dozen amazed children. The teachers very kindly gathered their charges and moved them off to see the cheetahs – their giggles changing to roars of laughter as they moved down the road. I do hope they remember some of the animals they were taken to look at that day, and not just the sight of me trying to bisect myself on a split pole fence.

Whilst visiting my mother at Sandown Retirement Village in Pinetown, Kwa Zulu Natal, I met a friend of hers who had formed a relationship with a pair of woolly necked storks. These are a very gentle member of the stork family, and although wary appear to be quite happy to interact with humans. The adults have red eyes.

Over the past few years Professor Ken Knight has been putting out food for this pair of storks. During this time he has conditioned them to fly to the Village at 12 noon every day for a meal of chopped chicken bones, or similar type of food. The birds appear on the other side of the little dam at about 10 minutes before the hour, and strictly at 12 noon, they fly across the water and march up to their feeding area. In breeding season, they nest in New Germany, but still make daily visits for their midday meal. On several occasions they have brought their young across to be introduced to Ken and his food. If for some reason the food is not ready on time, the birds will go up to his lounge doors and shout for it. This type of animal training is always mutually rewarding. The birds get a meal provided for them, and Ken and his wife have the pleasure of the birds company.

According to Roberts Birds of South Africa, woolly necked storks “usually occur near water, banks of rivers and lagoons where they wade about feeding, also on open grassland. Seldom settle on trees outside the breeding season and frequently seen standing about apparently in meditation”. These storks naturally feed on insects, crabs, molluscs, fish and lizards. After every meal, the storks go down to the water for a drink before flying off.

I was asked to train an adult female Bengal tigress, who had come to distrust humans in general. She was so suspicious that she would not even enter the night room if there were people in the corridor, There can be no doubt that if by some dreadful mistake someone happened to be in the enclosure with one of these tigers, they would never get out alive. Most wild animals are extremely reactive, and would probably maim you before they were even aware of what they were doing.

I was asked to get a number of behaviours from this tigress by her keeper – she needed to be taught to enter her night enclosure without exhibiting fear or trying to intimidate the keepers. A charging tiger is a terrifying experience to have to face, even with stout bars between one. The first time she charged me it was over before it began – she rushed into the night room screaming her head off, threw herself at the bars level with my head and then disappeared again, the whole process taking about 3 seconds. Bearing in mind that one swat of her paw could kill you, let alone getting chomped between those fearsome jaws, it was not an experience for the feint hearted. And of course if you show fear, you’ve virtually lost the game before it has even started. And so I started to clicker train her…….

Once she was comfortable coming in to the night room (this took two sessions, each of about half an hour), she had to learn to stand on her back legs with her front legs extended above her body. This was so that her stomach and paws could be examined without the necessity of darting (*2) her. Similarly we taught her to lie down close against the bars so that her back and face were clearly visible, and to roll over on her side. She also learned to open her mouth wide and keep it open for a minimum of 10 seconds at a time so that her teeth could be examined.

With clicker training, the training process actually progresses amazingly quickly. The first thing to do is to learn something about the species you are working with – what are its likes and dislikes, what does one need to be aware of, what does the animal like to eat, etc. In the case of the tigress, she was initially frightened by humans in or near her night enclosure. So to get her more relaxed and happy to enter the night room, we simply placed food inside where she could clearly see it from her outside run. The keeper and I would be standing in the corridor running alongside all the night enclosures, positioning ourselves just behind the meat. (and behind the reinforced bars). At all times we and the food were clearly visible to the tigress should she choose to look through the door. The moment the tigress put her head into the night room to see what was what, we would leave. Very quickly she learned that when she entered the night room, we left and she found some tasty meat. The clicker was clicked whilst she ate her meat, thus giving her the association of the sound with something pleasurable (initially our absence and her feeding). After that trust has been established, training went very fast. She learnt to stand on her back legs on cue in about 10 minutes (in this case the cue was a hand held as high as possible on the bars). Even when we stood on tip toe with our hands extended as far about our heads as we could reach, the tigress was far taller than us. Each time she attempted a desired behaviour, she was clicked and treated with a piece of meat impaled on a long stick and pushed through the bars towards her. After about four training sessions, she would come eagerly into the night room to see what cunning trick we had for her to solve today.

This training proved very useful, as the keeper was able to pick up a problem with her eye (a scratch caused by one of the other tigers or a stick), and this was then treated with antibiotics in her food before it became infected and caused a problem. It is interesting to note that once an animal has learned the association between the click and treat, it starts to think about what it is doing to earn the treat. This thinking process in itself often becomes rewarding for the animal, and they really look forward to being given a puzzle to solve to get us to give them their click and treat.

(*2) Darting – a process of shooting the animal with a dart loaded with a sedative. This process can be stressful for the animal, and often results in issues of fear and distrust of humans.