Docent Training - Week 6

I just completed my 6th week of Docent Training at the Louisville Zoo.  Today we covered rules and regulations, and teaching methods.  They covered a lot of how to handle difficult situations both in the classroom and on the Zoo grounds.  Most of it was common sense, but it is amazing the situations that may occur.  From dealing with people for years, I know there's no telling what some people will do or say.  Situations, everyday or emergency,  from cell phone usage, lost children, misbehaving children in class, escaped animals at Zoo, Tornado warnings, etc.  Anything unusual that my happen when teaching a class or talking to people out around the animal exhibits.

The animals I handled today:

The Prairie Kingsnake.  This little guy was about 3 feet long.  He was pretty docile.  He didn't slither around much.  Kinda just let you hold him while he kept sticking his tongue out.  Compared to the Ball Python, he was pretty skinny

Then the Greek Tortoise.  He was pretty good size.  His shell was a little smaller than a normal sized Frisbee.  The trick to holding him was to keep your hand up close enough to his front foot and far enough away from his back foot that he could't reach your hand with his legs.  He had pretty good pushing power.

The Giant Millipede was pretty neat.  He would crawl from hand to hand.  His legs felt like Velcro.

These are pictures I've Googled.  We are not allowed to take pictures because they want to control what pictures from behind the scenes, or from Class, that are shown on Facebook!

We didn't go behind the scenes of any exhibit today.  We had two of the animal trainers come in and show us how they train the animals.  That was pretty interesting. They use the same basic principles on all the animals when training.  The training of animals is mainly for easier handling and health care.   

Next week the Class will be "Understanding Food Webs/How Organisms relate to each other.