Two-toed Sloth Training
Posted at 3:14 pm January 19, 2009 by Louella Miller
In the comfort and safety of managed care, a two-toed sloth can live 30 years! So at the San Diego Zoo’s Hunte Amphitheater, we have concentrated on a slow, solid training plan with Majica, our two-toed sloth (see previous blog, Meet Our Two-toed Sloth). We began by building a good relationship with her. Once she was comfortable with us, we target-trained her. This is teaching her to touch her nose to our fist or the end of a target stick. You start up very close, only requiring her to move a few inches to connect with the target. Gradually you increase the distance, so eventually you can have her move anywhere you might want her to go.
Majica caught on quickly. She surprised us all when she started reaching out with a paw to pull the target stick to her nose. Since she knew the target was supposed to touch her nose, why not save energy by bringing the target to herself instead of herself to the target! Pretty clever, huh?
So we had reached the first goal of our training plan. But we still needed to develop a manner in which to respect her comfort levels yet move her out of her enclosure to share with Zoo guests. Remember, she does not like to be picked up or touched much. We had tried loading her onto a branch held between trainers. She did not like this mode of transportation: she would rush to one side or the other to disembark. This would put a trainer in harm’s way from those long claws and big teeth. Time to get more creative!
Majica sleeps in a milk crate. It resembles the crook of a tree in which she might sleep in the wild. It is her safety zone. The open holes in a milk crate give her good spaces to climb in and out with those long claws. After a lot of brainstorming we came up with a sloth taxi! We designed a large carrier crate that had an elevated milk crate built in. The crate is like one you might use for your dog with a top and bottom half. We stationed the bottom half of the crate, which had the built-in milk crate, in Majica’s enclosure. She immediately started sleeping in her new “taxi.”
Now we are in the process of teaching her to be comfortable being lifted off the shelf her crate is sitting on and placed upon a wheeled cart. The plan is to place the top half of the crate over the bottom half holding Majica and roll the cart onto stage. Once there we will have her climb out onto a branch for all to see this most unique animal.
Louella Miller is an animal trainer at the San Diego Zoo.
Watch video of Louella working with Majica, posted January 21, 2009
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January 20th, 2009 at 11:26 am
Wow, I’m impressed. Majica’s a very quick learner. Before long she’ll be showing off to the crowds in the theatre. Will she react to a large number of people when she’s out there? How do you get the animals used to lots of people staring and clapping and cheering at them?
January 20th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
That is so cute that Majica decided to bring the stick to her nose with her paw. She is quite the problem solver and evidently a fast study, too. What a great idea to create a taxi for her! Majica obviously has gifted teachers/trainers to help her along.
Susan’s question is a good one. Will you guys create distractions for Majica during her training to acclimate her to any noises, etc. she may face or are the audiences she will educate usually a more quiet sort? My cat is very smart and teachable but that is the one chink in her armor: being easily distracted when other people are around.
I hope you will continue to let us know how Majica is doing. I love her wavy fur.
January 21st, 2009 at 12:04 pm
Susan, great question! When we first introduce new animals to a large group of people, we do major crowd control. Often at the end of a regular show, we announce to the audience that we have a new animal we are training and invite anyone who would like to help in the training process to stay. Once those who choose to leave do so, we explain we need everyone to hold their applause. Then we do a show segment with the animal. If all goes well for a few sessions, we will ask those that stay to applaud “lightly.” This goes on until we are sure the animal is ready for prime time. Remember also that our animals are housed close by our stage, so they regularly hear large crowds. Thanks for your interest in this amazing animal.
January 21st, 2009 at 1:14 pm
thanks louella for another up-date on majica as you promised. it sounds like things are moving right along where the training is concerned. how inovated of you to come up with her portable taxi! it must be alot of trial and error to see what will work and what will not work. fun though! she is smarter than you think! she is just a little more cautious and leery about what you are doing where she is concerned. but,pretty smart to figure out that bringing the stick to her nose instead of vise versa is a little more on her terms with the same result that you want from her!!!!……….it will be interesting to see just how far you can really go with her training. good luck to you! keep us posted! I understand that they only come down from the tree about once a week to deficate! do they have a small pool of water that they could go in at this time to freshen up, drink, etc? or, are they in a hurry to get back up the tree and out of harms way from predators? I never thought that I would be interested in sloths, but I find that I am very curious about them.
January 21st, 2009 at 4:50 pm
There is a video starring Majica and Louella demonstrating their training progress. It is in the video section of this site.
Majica is very smooth and deliberate in her movements. I had no idea that a sloth could be so…fetching! She has her own special charisma, doesn’t she? And I don’t recall ever seeing a close-up shot of a two-toed sloth’s feet so it was quite interesting to watch her in action, albeit slow action.
I really like learning about how animals are trained. Thank you for all the information you provide about some of the less heralded but equally lovable species.
Moderator’s note: Here’s the direct link to the video, just posted today:
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid4552241001/bclid5172095001/bctid8707670001
January 21st, 2009 at 6:14 pm
Fascinating Louella. Look forward to hearing more about Majica’s training as Elephant Odyssey gets closer to completion. She sounds like a truely remarkable and memorable animal.
I have seen the sloths at the NZP who share an indoor exhibit with the Golden Lion Tamarin family. The sloths have always been asleep when I’ve visited, and they startled the GLT’s when they were first put in the enclosure together. Since the Sloths are nocturnal, and the GLT’s are diurnal, they don’t encounter each other now that they have become accustomed to the others presence in the enclosure.
January 22nd, 2009 at 11:45 am
Thanks Louella. I never thought before how the animals get used to crowds of people. When I was there last summer, joining in with the seal and singing and clapping along to Let’s Get Loud, it just seemed so natural and the seal (sorry, forgot his name) wasn’t even bothered. It must be great to be a part of the training process.
January 23rd, 2009 at 11:55 am
Nancy
So glad our wonderful sloth has you really thinking! Their once-a-week journey to ground level to eliminate is a ‘just get it done’ chore. Remember that is the time they are most vulnerable to predators. They make their way down to the base of a tree and do their business and ‘quickly’ get back up into the rain forest canopy to safety. They do not need a ‘pool of water’ to freshen up or drink. Since their natural environment is a tropical rain forest, the frequent rain showers supply their water needs. The leaves and twigs and fruit they eat gives them the sufficient moisture for their diet needs. They will supplement this by licking raindrops or dewdrops off of leaves or branches around them. Majica has a water dish next to her food dish as well as another shallow tub of water near her nest box. Can’t say we have ever seen her use either of these sources but she will lick water drops off our fingers when we are interacting with her.
January 30th, 2009 at 9:15 pm
I was lucky enough to catch one of the two Sloths climbing up the vines from the floor on the Golden Lion Tamarin exhibit cam tonight. Just as you described it slowly and deliberately move from the greenery at ground level to the vines, and slowly up the vines back up to its sleeping quarters in a box mounted high on the wall near where the keepers have a door they can enter the exhibit and provide food and enrichment through. It was very exciting, because everytime I have stopped to visit the GLT’s (my favorite monkeys) the Sloths were asleep. That is because I have always been in the Small Mammal house in the daytime, except in December 2007. But even then, the GLT’s were active but the Sloths were not. I can see why the GLT’s were intimidated by the Sloths when they were first released into the same enclosure as the Sloths are considerably larger than the tiny GLT’s.
Glad I read this blog before I got this view, because it helped me understand the Sloth’s behavior. Thanks for educating us, and for sharing these intimate details of the personality traits of these most unusual animals.