Critter Club Goes to the Llamas

For years Kathy and Mark Harder have been bringing their Llamas to HAWS for camp and other kid programming, and were kind enough to invite us to visit them sometime. Critter Club provided the perfect opportunity since it was a small group of middle school aged kids and because they've been cleaning cages on Saturday mornings they deserved a special treat.

On Sunday morning a school bus picked our Critter Club members up and drove them just over the border in Jefferson County to the Harder Llama Farm. There they learned about llamas, life on a hobby farm, and how much work goes into taking care of farm animals.

The kids moved bales of hay and dropped them down a chute from the second floor of the barn down to the first floor where the llamas eat. They discovered just how heavy dried grass can be!

I think the best part was spending time with the animals -- including the farm's cats,and of course the llamas. And after they got over how cold it was in the barn, the kids really enjoyed sitting in the bales of hay eating apples.

Why Humane Education is Important

Every now and then a child will tell me something that astounds me and makes me realize the importance of my job as a humane educator. Earlier this week I experienced one of those moments.

When giving a tour here at HAWS I have times where I'm giving the entire group information, and other times I'm allowing the kids to look at the animals on their own before we move on. Often the kids will take the opportunity during these latter moments to tell me something about an animal experience they've had, or tell me about their own pets.

One of the girls this week asked if we had any parakeets - and in particular if we had three that were green, yellow and blue. She wanted to know because she was wondering if her parakeets were here at HAWS, since her mother had "let them go" since the cat was after them.

"Let them go?" I asked. "You mean outside?"

The girl said yes -- her mother had let the birds go outside.

It was then I most likely made a mistake. "Parakeets are from Australia," I said in shock. "They can't survive in Wisconsin!"

I hadn't meant to make the girl feel bad, so I was a bit relieved when, ever the optimist, the 4th grader told me that maybe by now they were in Florida. At that point my shock had worn off and I allowed her to think this was a possibility.

As upsetting as this conversation was to me, I realize that this isn't this little girl's fault. My job allows me to reach children and adults and help them become educated about pets and how best to treat them - and hopefully put an end to the ignorance that creates inhumane actions like releasing pets into the wild.

Perhaps if I reach the child, I may allow the child to educate her mother. Even if this isn't possible I may be able to plant a seed and allow the child to make better choices than her parents.

Later in the tour I approached this same girl. "Tell your mother that if she ever has a pet that she can't keep or doesn't want any more she should bring it here. This is what HAWS is for -- we will be more than happy to help you out with pets you can't have."

Hopefully I reached two family members that day.

Project Learning and HAWS Animals

Earlier this month I was contacted by an extremely mature middle school student from Bay Lane Middle School in Muskego, WI about a school project she was hoping HAWS could help with. Cassie, and her friend Nicole, were researching the effect that human and animal interactions have on both people and animals, and were wondering if they could come in and interview some people at HAWS about this topic.

Bay Lane Middle School is unique to Wisconsin -- it is a project based school in which students are placed in teams of two to four individuals, and are educated through doing projects, rather than through traditional curriculum.

Cassie and Nicole stopped in one morning and got a tour of HAWS while the staff and volunteers were still cleaning animal cages and spent time with volunteers who work with dogs, cat and small animals.

Before they left I asked them if I could see the project when it was finished, and just today I received an e-mail with a link to their finished project -- a website with their findings.

Congratulations to Cassie and Nicole -- they did a wonderful job finding the information, putting it together and creating a website!

Wild Animals as Pets

Every other Friday I do an after-school program at Blair Elementary School in Waukesha, WI. Last Friday my planned activity was one in which students are read a story about a boy who dreams that Martians have captured him. The boy is lonely, eats the same food every day, is bored, misses being able to be outside and be free, and is frightened when the martians pick him up and when they yell at him for misbehaving.

After the story the students are asked to discuss how the boy felt, and how it might feel to be a wild animal in the same situation.

While I didn't plan it, the timing of the activity corresponded with the news that an Ohio man had released his 56 exotic animals (including bears, lions, tigers and leopards) before committing suicide.

The activity generated some really great discussion about keeping wild animals as pets. Most of the kids understood that wild animals would be very unhappy being kept in captivity -- especially after I showed them photos of lions at the San Diego Safari Park and then photos of tigers being kept in a small chain link cage. I explained the range of habitat that big cats would have in the wild, and the type of space they'd have if kept as someone's pet. And we talked about how zoos attempt to create environments that are similar to those the animals would have in the wild and how they spend a lot of time trying to ensure that the animals are happy in a zoo habitat.

One of the boys said that if you raise a wild animal from baby on it won't be dangerous. I told the students about one of Siegfried and Roy's tigers attacking Roy -- a tiger that he'd raised from a cub and that had been working with him on stage for years before the attack. I explained that wild animals will always be wild -- and that they have instincts that will always be there no matter how they are trained.

While I know that kids often think it would be cool to have an exotic animal as a pet, I think the Blair Elementary School after-school students were given some ideas to think about that may change their minds. Hopefully the seed of doubt planted today will help them feel more humanely about wild animals kept in captivity in the future.

Anthropomorphism

Anthropomorphism is defined by dictionary.com as "ascribing human form or attributes to a being or thing not human..."

Being anthropomorphic with animals can be a good thing or a bad thing. For instance, when I'm working with children I try to encourage them to think in anthropomorphic terms with animals because it can help them develop empathy and respect in how they treat all living creatures. If you can put yourself in a pets place it's easier to understand how frightening it might be to have a stranger walk up to you and immediately start petting. Often times I'll ask kids if they like to be bothered when they're trying to eat dinner or if they're trying to sleep. When they tell me no, I ask them to consider that pets also don't like to be bothered.

On the other hand being anthropomorphic can interfer with being able to provide an animal's needs. I remember years ago I had rats that I kept in my office as education pets. When I first got them one of our very kindhearted volunteers bought me a nightlight to keep in the office so the rats weren't in the pitch dark during the evening and on weekends. While this is something that most humans would appreciate, rats are nocturnal. Wild rats rarely see the light of day, and are most active at night when they have the cover of darkness.

Last week I went to San Diego for the annual Association of Pet Dog Trainers conference. I went a few days early and was able to visit the San Diego Zoo Safari Park which is renowned for keeping their animals in huge open enclosures with as natural a setting as possible. Unlike most zoos, the Zoo Safari park allows many of it's animals to roam over many acres. While I was there I was lucky enough to be able to see the baby elephant that was born only 2 weeks prior.

One of the opening speakers at the conference was Jeff Andrews -- elephant manager for the San Diego Zoo and the Zoo Safari Park. One part of his presentation - with video, was about elephants and how they care for new born calves. After an elephant calf is born the mother elephant tries to get the amniotic sac off the baby and get it to it's feet as soon as possible. This would be important in the wild to prevent predators for getting to immobilized calves.

The process is a bit hard to watch. Mom elephant bellows and roars and uses her feet and tusks to try and get the sac off. She continues after the sac is gone in an effort to get her baby to it's feet. It looks violent and from our standpoint appears that her baby will be hurt and killed as this is going on.

Jeff Andrews told us that in the past many zoos chain their elephants when they're giving birth because the process does look so vicious and the zoo keepers were afraid that the baby would be seriously hurt and killed -- which at times can happen. However -- this is how elephants give birth in the wild, and the Zoo Safari Park prefers to be as hands off as possible and let nature take it's course.

Anthropomorphism in this case got in the way of letting mother elephants follow their instincts. And since elephants have been giving birth for thousands of years without dying out as a species, who are we to say they're doing it wrong?

Critter Club Starts Again!

Last spring I wrote a post about a new program we started for middle school kids called "Critter Club". The program was a huge success -- the kids truly enjoyed coming on Saturday mornings to clean cages, scrub litter boxes and fold laundry. I think their parents were a little jealous they don't enjoy doing similar chores at home!

They also enjoyed the educational component to the program where they came to HAWS once a week for an educational program and had opportunities to spend time with HAWS adoptable animals. Many of the kids were invited back to become regular volunteers with their parents, despite the fact they were younger than 13, since they had shown a tremendous amount of responsibility, maturity and committment to HAWS.

Critter Club Fall 2011 started a few weeks ago. We have a total of 16 kids in this semester's program. Some participated in Critter Club last spring, and many are familiar to me since they've attended our camps in the past. We've picked up several new faces -- kids who hadn't been involved in any previous educational programs.

So far things are going extremely well. The club members have been trained in cat cuddling and small animal socialization, and will be trained as dog walkers next week. We plan to have them create a project to help HAWS during this semester's program, and they'll have a chance to visit a Llama farm and help care for the Llamas in November.

One of the best parts about the program is that I get to hold conversations with the kids and hear their thoughts. One of the kids told me last night about a dog owned by a relative. It upsets her that the dog is crated for most of the day and night, gets yelled at a lot and doesn't have access to water except for certain times of the day. These relatives have kids - I suggested she encourage this family to send their kids to HAWS Kids 'N Critters Day Camp because maybe we could help them develop empathy and learn how to be responsibile dog owners.

While it's a tough lesson for a kid to learn that not everyone is kind to their pets, I'm heartened that this club member is concerned, has empathy for the dog, and wants to make a difference. Hopefully HAWS programs will allow her to continue to feel this way.

Learn more about Critter Club and how your child can apply!

Captivity vs. Freedom

When Lad Lake met for the first time I explained to the boys what HAWS is all about and gave them a tour. One of the special treats they were able to see was the marmoset we had had surrendered. Jerry wasn't available for adoption --he was being housed in a back room that was off limits to the public while we tried to figure out what exactly we were going to do with him.

As the boys were looking at Jerry I explained that I didn't think it was right to keep wild animals as pets. I explained that in the wild marmosets would be able to roam for miles and live in the rainforest in large groups. Kept as pets we can't even begin to replicate that natural habitat, and since they are wild animals being kept in captivity their natural behaviors can't possibly be fulfilled which means that they most likely aren't happy being kept as pets.

The boys, captivated by how cool Jerry was, didn't buy into it. One asked why it was ok for zoos to keep monkeys. I explained that zoos have larger enclosures than what a person keeping a pet monkey would be able to provide, and additionally had full-time staff to ensure that not only were the animals cared for appropriately, but that zoo staff spent a good amount of time providing environmental enrichment opportunities to ensure the animals had the mental and physical stimulation they needed to be happy.

The boys still weren't convinced. And when they heard that captive animals tend to live longer than wild animals they jumped on that as an excuse to keep wild animals as a pet.

"Wouldn't it be better for them to live as a pet and live longer?", one of them asked.

I asked the boys if they'd rather live for 70 years in a jail cell or for 30 years in freedom. They seemed to get it.