Maia and Guida are working on getting used to their new training wall. With the extra bars comes a right and a wrong place for them to put their trunk for treats. This is done for safety and so they learn a bit of elephant/human etiquette.
Maia has stayed true to her ‘rockstar’ status that comes with anything training. After having terrible relationships with humans in the past, she seems to appreciate her humans and work towards having a good relationship. Not only is Maia a people pleaser, but she’s super food motivated, so in no time she had it down pat.
Guida on the other hand has stayed true to her independent, slightly stubborn self. Sometimes she doesn’t want to put her trunk in the bottom slot, she prefers the one above it and if it means she doesn’t get a treat, she seems to be ok with that.
This morning we changed it up a bit and asked for her to put her trunk in my hand instead- of course in the proper slot. This she was great with, which is somewhat funny, because most elephants are more reluctant to have you hold their trunk than simply putting it in a specific spot. Guida did great the entire time and seemed to appreciate the extra baby bananas.
Each elephant is very individual and sometimes it takes just a tiny bit of tweaking to make things work.
photo: Guida in the front, Maia in the back
August 7, 2018
Comment(1) 
Susan Hunt says
August 9, 2018 at 1:04 amAnother fascinating post. There seems to be an infinite amount of nuances to their personalities!
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