Archives for 2010

It’s tough, it’s usually hard saying goodbye. It seems there have been quite a few goodbyes lately. The most recent was saying goodbye to Laramie, the Golden Eagle at the zoo. She had been sick the past few weeks and severely went downhill this past week. She passed away on Friday last week. One of the oldest animals we had at the zoo, and one who had been there the longest, Laramie was amazing. I feel so very lucky to have been a trainer on her, and to have had the incredible experiences of being able to handle her, carry her onstage for shows, and learn from her on a daily basis. I already miss everything about her, except maybe of course having to skin rats for her dinner. It’s only been a few days that she’s been gone, but I still get sad when I go into the mews and see her empty mew, and her outdoor perch which she spent so many hours sitting on, watching people go about their daily activities.

These were taken not even 2 weeks before she died. Oh how I love this eagle.

Other goodbyes, let’s see…… we had to go through another semester turn over process for animals we were trainers on just for the past semester. This meant turning them over to new trainers. I had 2 semester animals that I had to say goodbye to: Savuti the Hyena and James the Donkey. With James, I still get to stay on him as a Groomer so I can talk to him and spend time with him still. But Savuti was hard to turn over, I grew to love him soooo much, and I have a whole new fascination with hyenas now since training him. He is an amazing animal and so smart. I trained him to allow me to vaccinate him, and for my final exam, I actually had to give him both a rabies and a distemper vaccination. I also trained him on a Focus behavior where he will listen to other people ask him behaviors and do them, then I reinforce him (feed him). Usually he only listens to his trainers as they have his food. The third thing I trained him was to do a “Peek” while he was standing with his paws on his shelf, then he peeked underneath it – so cute! I got 100% on all my exams with him. : )

However, turning over semester animals also means that we get new animals to train for the coming semester! I am happy to announce that I am a trainer on one of our new baby goats (Elliot) and the adorable Beaver, Hudson. I’m very very excited!!

Now back to July, I got a week off so I headed back home to Canada and it was wonderful. I got to visit with family, and even go to a family reunion to see relatives I haven’t seen in ages! I also got to visit some of my friends, but not as many as I hoped to, there just wasn’t enough time to do everything : (

So since I don’t really have a home in Canada anymore cause it was sold after I moved here, I got to go stay at my parents beautiful country estate in Victoria. Poor Angus and Zoey had to stay behind in Cali, and my parents little dog Mitzy missed them. They used to love going to my parents place and Mitzy loved having them visit. It was awesome being “home” again, and I was lucky enough to have my guy come home with me. Steve had never been to the West Coast of Canada before, and I was pretty eager to show him around. We got to go over to Vancouver for one day, so he got to experience the BC Ferries for the first time. (ugh, for anyone that knows that BC Ferries, you will know what I mean when I say I have spent WAY too much time on those ferries over my lifetime….that’s what you get when you live on an island). I miss Vancouver and the little town I lived in near it. We even walked right by my old house on our way to meet up with one of my very best friends Jodi and her awesome daughter (who is in several of the mini albums featured in my book!). Love those 2 girls SO much, so it was awesome seeing them, and I was so excited for them to meet Steve. It had been a whole year exactly since I had seen them but once we were with them, it was as if no time went by.

We also went right downtown Vancouver on the new skytrain that was built for the Olympics, to visit my Dad at his office, and we also visited Brent and the cats! Oh Oscar and Gracie – I miss them so much! It breaks my heart that they are there and I’m here without them : (

The rest of the week we spent in Victoria. My dad cooked amazing meals for us. Steve got to try perogies for the first time and the awesome Hungarian Langos (also called elephant ears when they are found at fairs and stuff). We ate so much that week! My mum taught Steve how to embroider which was pretty cool and he’s actually really good at it now.

I got to meet 2 very special little people that I had been waiting to meet for months. My best friend Britt had twins while I was away, and they were 8 months old and I hadn’t yet met them. A boy and a girl and they are perfect. Britt is close with my family so my mum has got to spend quite a bit of time with these babies, and I got to spend quite a bit of time with them while I was home. : )  It was really hard saying goodbye to everyone when we had to leave. I was sad to leave my parents again, having only seen them a couple times in the past year, but at least I know I get to see them around Christmas, so I’m looking forward to that a lot. Hard to say goodbye to my friends and really hard to say goodbye to the babies as they will be so much older when I see them again (probably not until next summer).

The rest of the summer we got to do some pretty cool stuff between field trips and Zoo days at other zoos. (Zoo days are where we go shadow zookeepers at LA Zoo and Santa Barbara Zoo for an entire day. We did 4 days during the summer, and we will do 5 this fall.

I think the 2 most memorable field trips we went on this summer were to Universal Studios Hollywood (Animal Actors Show), and… wait for it…. a little place you may have heard of….. the PLAYBOY MANSION!!! Totally awesome. They actually a little zoo there (private collection) of some primates and birds. We got to tour the grounds, visit the game room, the grotto and pool area, and the gym. Very very cool.

Animal Actors Stage: this little dog was in the movie “The Proposal”, she played “Kevin” the puppy : )

haha, thought it was funny that the security of Playboy mansion was controlled by ACS security!

Zoo days were a great experience so far for me. I have done a few different ones so far: Hippo/ Rhino, Nursery, Children’s Zoo, and Elephants. Yes that’s right, ELEPHANTS. My favorite kind of animal, and anyone who knows me real well knows that. And anyone who doesn’t know me real well might guess it if they see the silver elephant hanging on a necklace around my neck. My parents gave it to me right before I moved here and I wear it everyday. For some reason, I have been obsessed with elephants since I was a child. I knew they were special and they are. They are such intelligent and remarkable creatures. But wow, do they produce a lot of poop and it’s HEAVY! 7 wheelbarrows full of poop when I cleaned with the zookeepers. I can only imagine how strong those keepers are! It was a hard day – tons of physical work. But being so close to the elephants and being allowed to touch them was just beyond amazing. Words can’t really describe it. It is still my absolute dream job to be able to work with them one day.

So that was my summer here in California. Not much time to do much of anything else, but Steve and I did take the dogs to the beach one day last week and it was a lot of fun.

He makes me so very happy : ) I am so lucky

Goodbye Summer and Hello to a brand new semester and a new class at EATM for 2012! We are officially 2nd years now! Very exciting but also terrifying as we graduate in just 8 months. I am having the time of my life here, but full of mixed emotions. I miss my family and friends back home, but I’m dreading having to say goodbye to all my classmates here who have become such good friends. Not knowing where I’ll be living or working after I graduate really scares me. I don’t even know what country I’ll be in. This experience has surpassed all my expectations and has been so much more amazing then I ever expected. : )

Another semester over already. Although this one ended with relief from most of us that we made it through another semester, but sadly, for a few of my classmates, it ended altogether. Just another reminder of how quick it can all end, how important it is to keep our grades up, and once again the biggest reminder of all: how lucky I am to still be here.

It still amazes me how busy life is here, how little time I have to do anything that doesn’t involve animals, zoo stuff or studying. But I love it and I’m happier here than I ever have been.

So…..since I haven’t blogged for almost 3 months (gasp!) there should be lots to say, but I’ll try to just talk about the more interesting stuff. (not that everyday isn’t interesting around here: it’s ALWAYS interesting working with animals on a daily basis, you never know what is going to happen!….like the porcupine getting loose the other day….. um yeah…)

I’ll start with way back to March. For a school project, we had to make a trip to LA Zoo to meet with a zookeeper and learn about a certain animal. My group was assigned to the Hippo, which was totally awesome!! We met with the hippo keeper and learned a ton of stuff, and we even got to get up close and touch the hippo which none of us expected! Totally amazing!!! We also got to touch the Rhino as well as she was in the next exhibit and had the same keeper. It was a fabulous day! For one of our classes this summer semester, we actually get to go do “zoo days” at the LA Zoo and Santa Barbara Zoo. We spend an entire day working with a zookeeper in a certain area of the zoo. My first zoo day at LA Zoo is actually tomorrow and I’ll be in the nursery. I’m really looking forward to it!

Also in March, I adopted 2 adult guinea pig females. One was pregnant already and she had her 3 beautiful babies in April. The dogs love them so much and they’re so good with them. The baby piggies adore the dogs and will actually run to them, it’s quite cute.

Wow, March was a busy month now that I think back to it. That was also the month where we started our turnover process at the zoo on the animals we got assigned to. Turnovers is the process of the animals current trainers, basically training us on how to look after the animals, how to train them, feed them, and also for the animals to get to know us. We had to write papers on the animals, spend hours observing them and documenting it all, plus numerous sessions just watching the current trainers work with the animals and then finally we got to start working with the animals ourselves. It took a lot of time and we were going through mid terms at the time as well. I was thrilled to get all my first choices for animals: Laramie, the Golden Eagle; Savuti, the Hyena; Bennie, the capuchin monkey; James, the donkey; and Rupee, the Indian Crested Porcupine.

Me and Steve at the Zoo’s annual Spring Spectacular: this year’s theme was Western. It was a lot of fun!

Now it’s more than 2 months later, our second years have graduated and we are now on our own running the zoo until August when the new group of 1st years arrive and we officially become 2nd years. Excitement. : )

And now we have all settled into a routine with our animals. There is the morning rush around the Nutrition building as we all try to fight for counter space to get our animal’s diets made before we have to be in a show. The afternoons are a bit more relaxed (sometimes) and walking down the back road is an array of animals going for walks with their trainers. The baboons get walked everyday, but while they are out, no other animals are of course. Servals, the pig, birds, llamas, the emu, they are all out there on a daily basis walking around the zoo. We are now walking the donkeys around the zoo too which is very exciting to us donkey trainers. The donkeys are new to the zoo, in fact we just got them in March a little before our turnovers started. 2 of them are still very young, less than a year old and they were born in the wild. The other, James, which is the donkey I’m assigned to, is about 5 and he’s quite a bit bigger than the younger boys, but more stubborn too! None of them had had any training before they came to the zoo so it was starting with scratch with all of them. They are doing amazingly well though and are even making appearances in some of our animal shows.

My left arm is getting remarkably stronger the more I handle the eagle. It’s both terrifying and exhilarating having an eagle sitting on my arm! Not many people can say that I guess! Laramie is a beautiful bird, and while she is enormous and looks like she’d weigh a ton, she only weighs slightly over 10 pounds. BUT when you have that 10 pounds teetering back and forth on your forearm while you’re walking from one end of the zoo to the other, it gets really heavy!! Not to mention the fact that she is a dangerous animal and we have to be very careful at all times: always wear sunglasses as eagles tend to peck at eyes; always wear a double leather glove as if her talons get your bare skin, they go through to the bone, and the scariest one of all (not that the others weren’t scary enough): the eagles feet are so powerful they can easily break a person’s arm in half if they weren’t wearing the glove. She’s left bruises on my arm from gripping me so hard – and that’s through 2 layers of gloves.

Now onto home life: Zoey and Angus are doing good. They got a haircut yesterday and look very cute, all ready for the summer now! I really haven’t done much outside of the zoo lately, and that is due mostly to not having a day off since….March? Yeah. I don’t anticipate having a day off until my one week of holidays coming up in July – when I will be returning to Canada for the first time in a whole year!! When I’m done at the zoo, I come home, eat dinner and usually fall asleep pretty quick.

One thing I can definitely say though, is that my life is not boring. How many people can say they’ve carried an eagle on their arm, scratched a hyena, walked a porcupine, groomed with a monkey and brushed and walked a donkey – all in the same day? : )

* A gorgeous sunny day after a couple days of rain
* clean puppies!! Both Angus and Zoey had baths today : )
* Finding out that I’ll be training a hyena, a capuchin monkey, a golden eagle and an Indian crested porcupine!
* new animals at the zoo
* getting to touch both a hippo and a rhino at the LA Zoo last weekend
* having a great workout at the gym
* getting emails from my family and friends (even though I’m horrible at writing back right away – I’m sorry!)
* snuggling with my puppies after a long day
* being right where I am, right now
* and of course, being in love : )

Today is my only day off until at least mid-April so I’ve been cleaning, doing laundry and heading off to the gym now. I’ll be back later, hopefully, with a longer post. That is, if I can get all 7 papers that I have to write for school done…..

Happy Sunday!

It’s hard to believe I’ve been here for 7 months now…
Hard to believe I’m in my second semester of Eatm already…
Hard to believe we find out what animals we get to train soon!

I do miss scrapbooking a lot but I’m going to throw myself back in for a bit as I’m going to have a couple mini books featured in an upcoming memory makers book! I need to get them done in the next few months. I also went to CHA in Anaheim last week and did a demo at the F & W booth, it was fun to be in that atmosphere again. One of the things I miss most about it is teaching classes and interacting with everyone.

I haven’t been the best blogger these last few months and there is some stuff I left out mentioning as I wasn’t ready to share certain things.

My relationship with Brent has ended but I will always be grateful to him for the good times and the support he showed me when I wrote my book and also for encouraging me to follow my heart here.

My sweet little guinea pig, Fro, who made the long journey here with me, passed away of old age a couple weeks ago. I miss him, he was definitely one of a kind. A few weeks before he died I got him a little friend to keep him company, I knew his time was coming to an end but I didn’t realize it was going to happen so fast. This new cutie is named Clementine and she and Fro became fast friends, they snuggled in the pigloo  together and I know she misses him now as well.

Angus and Zoey are doing well, they are so happy here just like I am. I don’t know what I’d do without my little furry sidekicks. They have a great backyard to play in and Zoey actually plays now which is something she rarely did before. It warms my heart to see them this happy.

Now on a sad note, I miss my cats Gracie and Oscar so much. They are back in Canada with Brent but I miss them everyday : (

Several of my close friends back home have just had or are soon having babies, including my best friend who had twins almost 3 months ago. It makes me so sad that I’m not there to see her babies and help her out with them, and even worse: I can’t go home until July and then it will only be for a week.
I have been quite homesick these past few months, of course I miss my family and friends a ton. There are some other little things that I miss about Canada too, the beautiful BC scenery for one, living so close to the ocean, and definitely the medical system!!! I’ve just gotten my medical bills for when I was sick in December and had to go to both Urgent Care and the Hospital – and even with my student insurance, I still have to pay some of it. Medical bills are new to me! I also miss certain stores like London Drugs, Save on Foods, Dollar stores (there are some here but not nearly as many as in Canada and the stuff isn’t as good either), A & W, my old local Sushi place, oh and I can’t find perogies or pizza pops here anywhere!!! Weird eh? (lol, I just had to throw that little Canadian tidbit in there, but really when I speak, I do not ever use the word “eh”. no really.)

Apparently I still have my “Canadian accent” and I say (according to my American friends here) “house”, “out”, “about”, and “couch” funny. *sigh* (oh yeah and they are called “grades” not “marks” and Pasta is pronounced “Paw-sta” not “Paa-sta”….)

I’ve also noticed that Pet Stores are way better back in Canada too, more variety, and cheaper prices believe it or not. I thought it would have been the other way around. A really sad thing too about businesses here is that so many have closed up. There are vacant buildings everywhere, stores going out of business… the economy sucks and it shows.

The best things I’m totally loving (food wise) is this place called Fresh and Easy – it’s a grocery store and it’s great! Cheese here is way way cheaper then in Canada and there are way more varieties too (and lots of low fat ones too – yay!). I am so addicted to both frozen yogurt (there are so many self serve places around here with like a million different toppings you can put on) and Shave Ice. If you’ve been to Hawaii, then you’ve probably tasted the best snow cones on Earth called Shave Ice. In fact, they are so good, they don’t even come close to a snow cone in comparison. I was ecstatic when I heard there was a place locally here that is just all Shave Ice and they claimed to be as good as the ones in Hawaii. WRONG. They are so much BETTER than the ones in Hawaii (and I tried a lot of shave ice when I was in Hawaii a few years ago). They have a huge variety of flavors, plus sugar free flavors and they will mix them all up or you can have ice cream added to them. YUM. Best stuff ever. Oh and Fuddruckers is right across the street… oh my goodness the Ostrich burgers are to die for….

Despite missing my family and friends like crazy, I’m loving it here. I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy.

Zoo life is still great, busy but great. I love it, this is what I was meant to do. Lots of sad stuff the past few months though, we’ve lost so many animals due to either illness or old age. Our goat, 4 sheep, bobcat, oppossum, sea lion, sugar glider, wolf, 2 parrots, raccoon, and then our camel and 3 pigs have gone back to their owners. So sad walking by all the empty enclosures every day. But there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, we will be getting some new animals, hopefully soon.
It’s been raining here lately and I have to admit (even being used to it from living in Vancouver for a few years) it downright SUCKS having to work outside in it.
Wet, cold, shoveling animal poop around, hauling wheel barrows full of stuff, slipping and sliding in mud, all kinds of nastiness (like sticking my finger into monkey poop this morning by accident!). Not fun at all. Then being cold and usually wet for the remainder of the day. bleh. However I still love it here.

Being from Canada, you’d think I would be accustomed to colder weather (even though I am from the milder west coast), however, oddly enough I don’t seem to be. As soon as the temperature dips below 50 degrees here (10-12 celcius), I show up at the zoo wearing at least one t-shirt (often with a long sleeved shirt underneath, my hoodie and my big winter/rain coat all zipped up. And I’m usually still cold. I know, I am a disgrace to Canadians. lol
Everyone is always saying to me “how can you be COLD? you’re from CANADA!!!”

Never before have I been so busy, never been so exhausted, never been so happy 🙂

There is another reason for my happiness lately, his name is Steve.
All I’m going to say right now is that we were really good friends for quite awhile, he’s in my class and I haven’t laughed this often or smiled this much in a long time 🙂

So yeah there have been some sad endings recently, but here’s to the sweet beginnings : )

Happy New Year!! Yes I’m still here, even though I haven’t blogged for well over 2 months – where does the time go??

I just don’t seem to have as much time on the computer as I used to in my pre-EATM days, hence the lack of blog updates. Lots has happened over the last couple months though, now I just have to try to remember it all!

Rewind back to November….I got to do my first care-taking week at the zoo with a hyena, a wolf and a serval. Totally cool and so much fun. In December I did another week care taking on the same animals. It was great cause I was allowed to talk to them, feed them and touch them. I am so in love with Savuti, the hyena – he is so incredibly intelligent not to mention adorable!

I got really sick mid November for a couple weeks – I think I had the H1N1 virus thing. It was nasty and I was pretty out of it for awhile. Not fun at all, and when I was finally mostly recovered from it, I was right in final exam week! Totally stressful and chaotic time! I was so stressed and so worried I’d screw up one of my finals and get lower than a C in the class – and then I’d get dismissed from the program and I’d be moving back to Canada. So many sleepless nights over this. Luckily, everything turned out great and I got straight A’s in every class, and just 1 B. Whew!!! Finals were over Dec 16 and then we had a bit of a break for a few weeks during Winter intercession at the college. No classes, but we still had zoo duties. I got sick again a few days before Christmas and was still at the zoo every day. It got worse and I ended up spending a few hours at the hospital on Christmas day between my 2 zoo shifts. It was definitely a different Christmas this year for sure – for many reasons. First Christmas that I haven’t been with my parents, that was tough. We had a big dinner at our house on Christmas night for any students in our program that wanted to come, those that couldn’t go home either. Everyone brought food and it was amazing. My friends were so great and understanding while I was sick: staying at the hospital with me, taking me to the nearest 24 hour pharmacy Christmas night, helping with the dogs, etc. And I did get to do a few fun things during the holidays too: Went to see the special holiday celebrations at both Disneyland and Universal Studios, and went to Las Vegas for New Years! A quick trip but lots of fun!

California Adventure Park

Whoville at Universal Studios Hollywood

Our group in Vegas : )

Last week my parents came for a visit! yay!! I haven’t seen them since July and this is the longest I’ve ever been away from them ever. It was so great to see them, I wish I could see them more often. It’s hard being this far away from everyone and not being able to go home.

I did manage to get a bit of scrapbooking done recently! I made a mini book (of course!) for my parents on my life here at the zoo.

So, life here is pretty good, hectic but good. The next semester starts tomorrow so that’s pretty exciting and a little stressful at the same time. Weather has been beautiful – not a winter like I am used to at all! Today I wore a sleeveless top and capris to the zoo!

“Happy” the Alligator

“Peggy” the opossum