I’ve been training dolphins and other critters for some 18 years now and a few years back I was asked to stop working dolphin everyday and create an education course for our trainers at Dolphin Discovery. I must admit, my first answer was a polite ”no thanks”. Well turns out like most requests from your employers it wasn’t really a request. It was an order. I was totally bummed and wondered why I was being punished. If memory serves me correctly I even shed more than a few tears.
So I found myself I trading my wet suit for normal working clothes and, most horrific of all SHOES! I discovered the hard way that corporate type folks frown upon bare feet in the office. And as a side note I also discovered that daily trainer activities such as talking to yourself, singing, and yes, even dancing are also unacceptable office conduct. Go figure. It should be no surprise then that my tiny office eventually was located as far away from all the other office people as possible. That was all right by me.
Well, time past and I flung myself wholeheartedly into my new project, acquiring skills I never knew I needed, much less wanted. I learned movie editing software, camera angles, lighting and other such things needed for a successful DVD production. ABC of Animal Training was born. I also learned power point and refined public speaking skills and such for classroom seminars. Dolphin Discovery now has a state of the art in-house training program for its trainers. To my surprise I just recently began teaching these classes to the public, ABC Dolphin Trainer Academy, which is a 5-day hands on workshop with marine mammals.
The most common question I get from trainers is “Shelley, don’t you miss the dolphins? This is the funny part. NO, I don’t. Let me try to explain.
Being a trainer is an evolutionary process. When your first start learning your humble and wide eyed and think only of yourself and how someday you too want to be that trainer, yeah, her, the one in the water, whistle in her mouth swimming with HER dolphin. Then you learn a few things, become cocky and all sure of yourself and think you were put on this earth by God almighty to train animals. If you stay in the business long enough that phase mercifully dies a miserable, painful death. You begin, slowly at first mind you, to actually listen to the dolphin, actually really see them for the first time. Once you acquire these new skills the dolphin teach you more than you ever thought possible. Humility returns and you realize after all it really isn’t about you, the trainer, it’s about the animals, the reason you became a trainer in the first place.
So do I miss the dolphin? No, I don’t. My teaching allows me the ability to reach out and affect animal’s lives so they may live a happy, healthy life living under human care. Before I could only affect the animals directly under my supervision. But now, I’m blessed to have the opportunity to affect dolphin and other animals all over the world. This is what motivates me. To see a trainer ‘get it’ knowing full well the animal reaps all the benefit. So that’s my mission, that’s my goal, create happy trainers and happy dolphins. That’s what I call Happy Training!
Shelley