Training Is Tricky When All The Animals Are Asleep

As soon as I got onto the property yesterday several of the peacocks were showing off to each other. This display is, unfortunately, futile since we do not have any female peacocks on our property for them to swoon.

I then went into the building to prep the meat for the lions. One pound of venison for each of the mountain lions and four pounds of beef and one pound of turkey for the African lion. While I waited for the food to thaw I went over to the med center to help feed the ten day old baby barn owl we have currently. He was found on the ground near his nest with his other dead siblings so we now have him and will take care of him until he is old enough to care for himself.

Other than being found abandoned he is in good health and is eating and drinking normally.

Once I was done in the med center I went up to the mountain lions to feed and help work on training with them. Our training varies depending on the particular lion. For Sasha we are hoping to get her used to us so that we can approach her and be able to touch her with a scratcher without her thinking we are trying to hurt her. My part was to sit next to our trainer and while she enticed Sasha with food I would very gently press the scratcher on her shoulder. She usually would jump away or bite at the stick, but she is improving a lot from when we started. 

For Tonka we are getting him used to his small carrier placement so that we can more easily move him once his new enclosure is fixed. My part was to scratch him and give him food, encouraging him on how good he was doing while the trainer went away for a while to do other things. We leave him in his crate for longer and longer periods in order to get him used to it.

Once we were done with the mountain lions we tried to get Samson to train, but it was 85 degrees out and he wanted nothing to do with us and instead stayed hidden under his house in the shade. 

The same was true with Hannah, she slept in her hay and even when we tried to entice her with food she refused to wake up. She simply opened her eyes a little to see what we were doing and then fell promptly back to sleep!

I then went to play with to bobcats. However, I ended up mainly pulling weeds and cleaning their carriers instead because they didn't want to get off of their platforms.

The last thing I did was help train Chewy. His is very nervous around people so my job was to walk around the perimeter of his enclosure multiple times so that he could see me and with time will hopefully begin to relax when people are around his enclosure for extended periods of time.