Behind-the-scenes look at animal training

Finally, the stage is hosed down, techno music is cranked up, and the star arrives. Schmoo, the twenty-four-year-old sea lion, head up and barking joyfully, bounds onstage like a rock star with her band — in this case, her four student trainers. Schmoo isn’t just the star of the show but of the whole program, with her 170-plus commands and her long list of movie and commercial credits.

Schmoo zips back and forth between the student trainers as they put her through her paces, tossing her chunks of slippery squid. She quickly rolls over and coats herself with specks of dirt, barks jubilantly, raises a flipper to her brow in a quick salute, and sticks her tongue out like a third grader. When a trainer points her finger and says, “Bang!” Schmoo collapses in an overly dramatic heap worthy of a silent screen diva. When a trainer says, “Shark!” she tosses a flipper up to imitate the killer. She tips far forward on her breast and pitches her tail happily into the air. Then Schmoo does the reverse, rising up on her tail, throwing her flippers out, and pointing her nose heavenward like an angel.

The first-year students are rapt. They lean forward and smile broadly. This is why they are here, why they’ll endure a brutal schedule, give up their social life, and take on huge student loans. A year from now it could be they who are having a high time tossing squid to this incredible creature and singing out “Shark!” This is proof, however fleeting, that their farfetched dreams of working with animals can come true. What they don’t know is that, backstage, Gabby, the Catalina macaw, has bitten one of the second years badly enough that she has been rushed to the campus Health Center. Dreams always come with a price, whether it’s money, time, or blood.

It is now the third day of what is likely to be the hardest twenty-one months of any first year’s life. This orientation week — a busy string of potlucks, ice breakers, and gag gifts — is a deceptive introduction to life at the school. However, the week is peppered with advice and announcements that foreshadow what’s ahead. Starting next week, the first years won’t have an official vacation until next summer. They will work most, if not all, holidays and most weekends. Four days a week they are due here by 6:30 a.m. and won’t leave until 5 p.m. During these long days, they will care for the teaching zoo of some 150 to 200 animals, doing everything from hosing out the cages to answering the phones. When not cleaning, feeding, or even weeding, they will attend classes — one of the few times they get to sit down during the day, which often induces deep naps complete with drooling and snoring. In the evening, drowsy from the day, they will study animal anatomy tomes and memorize agonizingly long lists of Latin species names. As an alum puts it, the school “pretty much owns you.”

It is now the third day of what is likely to be the hardest twenty-one months of any first year’s life. This orientation week — a busy string of potlucks, ice breakers, and gag gifts — is a deceptive introduction to life at the school. However, the week is peppered with advice and announcements that foreshadow what’s ahead. Starting next week, the first years won’t have an official vacation until next summer. They will work most, if not all, holidays and most weekends. Four days a week they are due here by 6:30 a.m. and won’t leave until 5 p.m. During these long days, they will care for the teaching zoo of some 150 to 200 animals, doing everything from hosing out the cages to answering the phones. When not cleaning, feeding, or even weeding, they will attend classes — one of the few times they get to sit down during the day, which often induces deep naps complete with drooling and snoring. In the evening, drowsy from the day, they will study animal anatomy tomes and memorize agonizingly long lists of Latin species names. As an alum puts it, the school “pretty much owns you.”

Excerpted from “Kicked, Bitten, and Scratched” by Amy Sutherland. Copyright 2006 by Amy Sutherland. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced without written permission from the publisher, Viking Penguin, a divison of Penguin Group (USA).

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