97 Behavior Education - Exotic Animal Welfare through Training and Low-Stress Management

me also to my next and more detailed questions like how these practices, the training that you can apply, how it can contribute to the animal's welfare or more about the purpose behind, like, are there problems that you can solve or is it more like a preventive measure to prevent certain issues? Can you tell us more about that?

Yeah, well, I would say first and foremost, it improves the animal's well-being because anytime animals are restrained, forced into things against their will, it's going to elevate their stress level.

And

it's going to be unpleasant for them.

And they are going to build negative affective associations with whatever's causing those negative emotions.

If it's the handler, the person, the environment.

So if they're being forced, you know, to do anything, to sit on a scale, to come in and out of their habitat, to go in a carrier.

and they're fearful and they're not doing it voluntarily, it makes for poor welfare for that animal.

It elevates their stress level, which also equates to poor welfare.

And so any time that you can give animals the opportunity, and this includes snakes and other reptiles, to voluntarily participate in their own care, meaning that you're giving them the option to shift out of their habitat or not, and they're choosing to do that on their own, it's going to be much different of an experience for them than if I am forcing them out of the habitat by grabbing them or using a tool to grab them out.

If I'm simply opening the door and giving them a signal that is asking them to come out and they're choosing to come out, it's going to be a positive experience for them.

It's also going to make a safer experience for the keepers, the handlers, because anytime the stress level is elevated for an animal and they're experiencing fear, anxiety, distress, then they are more apt to get defensive.

I mean, it can go one of two ways.

They can just totally shut down and be so fearful and anxious that they just shut down and withdraw.

Or they can become more aggressive and defensive because they're so frightened.

And to avoid all that, if you can simply ask them, hey, will you shift into this carrier? Will you come out of your habitat? Will you move from this location to this other location for me? And they do it of their own free will, then there is no elevated stress level.

Everybody's happy and it's safer for me to do the enclosure maintenance or whatever it is I need to do.

And then they have a more positive experience.

in association with their keepers and they can build more trust with us.

Instead of being fearful of us, now they trust us and they can even come to view us as something positive, especially if they're getting reinforced for their behavior with something they like.

Usually it's food, but there are other things that we can use as reinforcers.

Yeah, makes total sense to me.

And I can imagine different scenarios, right? As you just said, maybe cleaning of the cage where the animal minding to move or veterinary visit.

Yeah, I can imagine it's all better than just lifting maybe the protective environment or cave, whatever they are in and grabbing it, then better letting it voluntarily choose, right? As you say, coming out and maybe learning through experience what would happen next.

So they