Trainer Academy|by trainers for trainers!

Understanding the Dream Stealers

‘Hey, Ms. trainer, when you gonna get a real job?’ Sound familiar? For many of my colleagues and myself we heard this all throughout our careers as animal trainers. Mostly we heard this from those closest to us, our family! Training Flipper was not seen as a profession, it was a summer job at best. They hoped that soon we would tire of playing with dolphin, whales and sea lions and come to the realization that hey, maybe we should shake off this animal thing and get a real job. At the ABC Dolphin Trainer Academy we call these people the dream stealers. We don’t talk about them in a negative way, no; after all we are usually talking about your mom, dad, aunt, uncle, and grandparents. Rather we focus on not changing their minds but rather we focus on you, the student and what you can do to make your dream a reality.

To be fair our families only wanted what was best for us and they simply couldn’t understand how training animals could be a respectable profession. And the money, I need to be honest; I don’t know one trainer who began their career for the financial rewards. Trainers usually begin their careers with passion. Passion for the animals, passion for the environment and passion to make a better world. I call this the honeymoon stage. Why? Because animal training is a real job! It’s not all fun and games. It can be difficult, strenuous work. Trainers work long hours, work outside in all weather, spend much of the day wet and every aspect of the job is heavy. Atlantic bottlenose dolphin eat anywhere from 10 to 40 lbs of fish a day- multiply that by how many animals at the facility and that’s a lot of fish to move around. An average dolphin weighs between 300 to 500 lbs., add on the weight of transport equipment and your talking upwards to 700 lbs. to be carried.

There are lots of rewards however, and it is precisely that passion that motivates us. It really is a powerful experience knowing you are responsible for making positive influences in the quality of the animals’ lives. It’s a special accomplishment to be an integral part of the animal/trainer learning process. And how about the feeling you get when you touch someone else’s life for the positive? It can be something as simple and wondrous as a smile on a child’s face or knowing that you are an important part educating the public about conservation awareness and environmental issues.

So dream on friend, go for what you want, just make sure you go at in an intelligent thoughtful manner. Don’t let the dream stealers take anything away from you.

Happy Training!

Shelley

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.

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.

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.
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

Shelley has been training dolphin, sea lions, and other animals since 1990. In 1994 she moved to Cancun Mexico where she played an intricate role in the development and opening of Dolphin Discovery. Her career with Dolphin Discovery has seen Shelley evolve from hands on animal trainer to her current position as Corporate Trainer Educator (CTE) for all Dolphin Discovery facilities. As CTE she is responsible for the development of curricula, courses, and guidelines used in Dolphin Discovery’s continuing trainer education program.

Shelley is also owner of ABC Training Systems a company dedicated to producing educational material about the humane training of animals. She is the author of ABC of Animal Training.