I would like to introduce you to our newest program animal – Dakota. Her scientific name is Didelphis virginiana but she is known commonly as the Virginia opossum. Opossums are fascinating creatures but most people don’t know much about them. A couple of fun opossum facts: they are the only marsupial (pouched mammal) found in North America, they are practically immune to rabies and most venomous snakes found in their range. One thing most people know about the opossum is their interesting defense mechanism, which is known as ‘playing possum’. It is also called ‘playing dead’ but what actually happens is that the opossum goes into a catatonic state – their heartbeat slows way down, their breathing is almost impossible to see, and smelly gooey white ooze comes from their eyes. This is a very good defense against many carnivores, since they won’t/can’t eat something that is already dead, but not such a good defense against cars. Dakota’s mother met this unfortunate fate and thus she has been hand raised. She came to us three weeks ago from a zoo in Michigan and is currently in quarantine. (Every animal that comes into the zoo must go through at least a 30 day quarantine period to assure they are bringing no transmittable diseases with them.)
I’m introducing you to Dakota today so you can go along with me on the journey of training her. No, I’m not training her to dance or anything like that. We train animals here that the zoo for veterinary and program purposes. With Dakota, I’m training her so we can better exhibit natural opossum behavior while on program. I’m at the very beginning of the training process with her – target training. The video clip is a portion of a training session. The goal of target training is to have the animal touch the target and/or follow the target around. In Dakota’s case the ultimate goal for target training is for her to follow the target around so we can show classes how she moves. In most training processes there is a cue and a bridge. Think of training a dog: the cue is the command and the bridge is either the clicker or a “good dog”. Then a reward is given. It’s the same process here. Watch the video and you will hear me say “target”. This is the opossum’s cue. At the same time I am saying this I put the target close to her (we are in the first steps – where I am establishing the connection between the cue, the bridge, and the reward). When she touches her nose to the target you hear a strange noise. That strange noise is a dog training whistle. That’s her bridge. I’ve already worked with Dakota to establish that when she hears the whistle she knows food is coming. She’s a little Einstein and that took only a couple of sessions of blowing the whistle then giving her favorite food (egg and fruit). After I blow the whistle, or ‘bridge her’ in training terms, I reward her with a small piece of her favorite food. Soon she will follow the target around and I’ll be able to reward her every two or three whistles. Or at least that’s the plan. We’re also working with Dakota to make sure she is comfortable being handled. That is why you see me reach down to stroke her. No, she doesn’t actually like it a whole lot. Opossums are solitary animals and as such don’t feel the need for lots of touchy-feely stuff. But program animals are handled more than other zoo animals and so it’s a good idea to have them comfortable being handled. That’s actually one of the reasons I started training the opossums: so we could shift them into and out of their carriers and present them on program without having to handle them a great deal. It makes it much better for the opossum and it makes for a better program.
