I am very lucky and get to work with our 3 Bornean Orangutans. Molly, Jin and Belayan. These guys have incredible characters and it has been a joy to get to know each of the orangutans personalities.
From the very start of my journey with them at WWP, Molly was the one I spent most of my time with. She is a rascal and we had a few areas we wanted to focus on with her.
Mainly recall into the house and injection training in the bedroom. She had come with previous training. However, the new environment and enclosure set-up meant we had to start over again with a lot of the behaviours.
Tunnel training
She was very wary of the tunnel which connects the house to the outside enclosure. We found that she would run through it, and was also nervous of the shutters to the tunnel and the house. This was a big task and one that would require a lot of time and patience.
I first set out to build a relationship with Molly, get to know her mannerisms, her favourite treats and her behaviour. Molly and Jin are pretty inseparable and this relationship helped as she tended to watch what Jin was doing and took reassurance from him that nothing scary was going on. She’d rarely come over when she was outside and I knew I had quite a way to go with her.
The training plan
The end goal was to have her come into the house when we called her and close the shutters. I broke this down into the following steps:
- Acknowledges keeper calling her
- Comes towards keeper when calling her
- Comes to the entrance of the tunnel
- Enters the tunnel
- Enters the tunnel and goes past the shutter
- Remains in tunnel for an extended amount of time with shutter open
- Stays in tunnel whilst handle to shutter being touched
- Remains in tunnel when shutter closed halfway
- Remains calm in tunnel when shutter fully closed
- Will repeat behaviour each time called
- Maintain behaviour training at different times of the day
The training plan I wrote up was to go in the house at around 2:30. Turn on the hydraulics that power the shutters to the tunnel and house and call Molly and Jin into the tunnel. Reward them when they entered the tunnel. Then, give a jackpot if they would go all the way through the tunnel and into the house.
Moving forwards
We continued this everyday and eventually, Molly began to come into the tunnel. She would usually hang halfway in so that she was obstructing the shutter. This is fine and it was her way of having control of the situation. She knows the shutter can’t be closed this way.
Gradually I encouraged her to come past the shutter and down the tunnel- this was the step that took the longest. As she had to lose that little bit of control and trust me. Of course, I did not touch the shutter at all during these important sessions. All I wanted was for her to feel safe in that tunnel, I wasn’t focusing on the shutters at this stage.
She grew to come into the tunnel much more reliably and frequently without pausing under the shutter. When it came to starting on closing the shutter I had to make sure she still had some control over what was happening.
Communication is key
To do this I made sure she was paying attention to what I was doing. I would say ‘Molly I’m going to touch the shutter now’ move towards the shutter and touch the handle that closes it. Using the queue ‘Closing’. She was very aware of what I was doing and it wasn’t a surprise. I would repeat doing this and reward her for staying put in the tunnel.
For her to feel comfortable with the shutter being closed we would make sure that any time she moved towards the shutter we would immediately stop closing it and open it again. Only when she would remain in the tunnel would the shutter be closed. And given a high value reward, then it would be opened again straight away.
This was a turning point in her training as it gave her much more trust in us. She knew that if she wasn’t comfortable with the shutter being closed, she could go towards it and we would open it again.
Making progress
After this point she became much more reliable at coming into the tunnel and all the way into the house. At which point we would train for the shutter in the house to be closed using the same method.
I very much believe in the method of giving the animal control of the situation when you first start training, and only when they are ready should you take it to the next stage.
After this point we would close the shutter for longer periods of time. Now it is just a case of maintaining it. Molly has come a long way in her training journey and is now recalling into her bedroom at different times during the day.
Injection training
When it came to injection training she was quite nervous of being shut in the bedrooms in the beginning. We worked on this by using the same method as before. Once she was in the bedroom by herself we worked on getting her to hold her arm to the mesh for about 5 seconds. I then introduced the blunt training needle and would work on touching it to her arm with enough duration that would allow for a successful injection.
It is very useful to injection train animals in case of vaccinations, injecting medication or for anaesthesia. Molly was due her contraceptive implant so the clock was ticking to get her ready. We wanted to avoid having to dart her as this is quite a stressful experience. Plus, the adrenaline from this can easily counteract the effects of the anesthetic.
Sure enough, Molly trained excellently for this and enabled me to hand inject her. That led to her falling asleep very quickly and calmly- no stress!
Follow some of my other training journeys here.
