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Sunday, July 23, 2006
Training ways
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You just never know what people are going to want to read. Amy Sutherland is finding this out in a big way. Sutherland was a features writer at the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram for eight years before leaving to become a full-time author. She recently wrote her second book: "Kicked, Bitten, and Scratched: Life and Lessons at the World's Premier School for Exotic Animal Trainers" (Viking, $25.95). Her idea for the book was to spend a year observing the teachers, students and animals at the Moorpark Community College Exotic Animal Training and Management program. The program, dubbed "the Harvard of animal training," turns out people who train animals for movies, TV shows, live performances, you name it. As Sutherland learned more about the methods at the school, she began to try them, little by little, on her husband, Scott. Stuff like ignoring behavior she didn't want repeated or praising behavior she did want repeated. Sutherland decided to write a column about her husband training and pitched it to The New York Times, around the time her book was coming out, so it might generate some interest from readers. It did, to the point that her column, titled "What Shamu Taught Me About a Happy Marriage," has been among the most e-mailed Times stories for the past three weeks. The result is that media types around the world have been writing about Sutherland's column, about why it generated so much interest and what it says about our society. Sutherland is a little perplexed by the buzz her column generated, and would rather talk about her book. She lives in Portland and Boston.
Q: Why did you want to write a book about exotic animal training? Were you more interested in how a seal can be trained to balance stuff on its nose, or in what kind of person it is who is willing to spend a year learning how to make a seal balance stuff on its nose? A: Training is really another word for teaching or communicating, so this is a book about humans essentially learning to talk to animals. It doesn't get much more fascinating than that. I like subjects where worlds are converging, in this case animal and human behavior. The book is equally about both. Also, I like to take subjects where people make assumptions, then dig in and find out if they are right or wrong. People have a lot of misconceptions about animal training, even dog training. This was a chance to offer some objective information and, hopefully, clear up some of those misconceptions. Q: Was it difficult getting the trainers and students to talk to you? A: It took time. They are a closed group. So I had to spend a lot of time just hanging out, showing them that I didn't have an ax to grind. I also had to be very stand-offish with the animals, so that the students or staff never had to worry about having me around. I basically observed all the rules at the school that are imposed on the first-year students. I didn't talk to the animals, stood well away from the cages and never made erratic movements. Q: During your research, were there any animals you grew to really love? A: The hyena Savuti and the olive baboon Rosie. Both of these species kind of gave me the creeps before, but seeing them work with a trainer, I really got to know how smart they are, not to mention their individual personalities. Rosie is like a grand dame of the cinema, ladylike, an old hand, very poised. Savuti is Mr. Enthusiasm. He loves training and hops with excitement when he sees one of his trainers approaching his cage. Q: Were you actually kicked, bitten or scratched at any time during your visits to the school? Did you see students get kicked, bitten or scratched? A: I was not, even though while working on this book I got to do some cool stuff, like go into a cage with a cheetah. I was with a longtime trainer whom I trusted. She had me take off my jewelry and put down my purse before I went in, anything that the cat might want to bat or would catch its eye. She, the cheetah, purred while we petted her. Turns out I'm allergic to cheetahs. Afterward my eyes watered like hoses. The year I worked on the book, a number of students were bitten by parrots, including one on the lip. The kinkajou sunk his teeth into two students' hands. The deer dragged another. And the hyena managed to bite a student's finger, though she was outside his cage. He probably mistook her fingertip for a chunk of chicken, which is what they reward him with. Q: After you wrote the book, you wrote a piece in The New York Times about how you tried out some of the exotic animal training techniques on your husband. What made you think animal training techniques would work on, in your words, "the American husband?" A: Well, the techniques and approaches animal trainers use just made such practical sense, and, in fact, progressive animal trainers borrowed their ideas from a human school of psychology called operant conditioning. So I just borrowed these ideas back. The funny thing is these ideas were demonstrated to me by a whole zoo full of animals. It was hard to argue when you saw such dramatic results, like a trainer teaching a baboon to roller skate or an elephant to paint. If humans could get another species to do that, seemed obvious that the technique should work human to human. I also read Karen Pryor's book, "Don't Shoot the Dog," which the students use in class. Pryor explains how these ideas can be used with any species. Q: Did the methods work? Which in particular? A: I adopted the basic approach with my husband and people in general that the students are taught at the school, reward good behavior and, as much as possible, ignore negative behavior. This change of mindset, which does not come naturally to humans, who are rather wed to punishment, improved our everyday exchanges. In short, nagging and thus squabbling decreased. It's not gone for good, but, hey, we're only human. Q: Why do you think so many people in the media have picked up on your story about training your "American husband"? A: I think because I mixed humor with simple ideas of how to improve your relationship. You don't want to have to go into analysis to smooth out small, everyday annoyances in your marriage. These techniques also just make plain, good sense. I've heard from a lot of people who say they already used these ideas on their kids. Well, they work on adults too. Q: Do you think it'll become a trend, women training their husbands this way? A: Well, husbands and wives are already training each other, mostly without realizing it. We spend a lot of time trying to change each other's behavior. Nagging is training. Spousal deafness is training. I just decided to do so consciously, and to use a positive approach. Q: What will your next book be about? A: I'm going to expand the Times column into a book. Q: What was the most surprising thing you learned in writing this book? Either about animals, people or yourself? A: That's a long list. I guess it was that any species can be trained. I met trainers who had worked with eagle rays (a kind of fish), rhinos and polar bears. The list is endless. I even heard of one who trained a clam to open its shell on command. The sky's the limit, and I find that really cheering.
Staff Writer Ray Routhier can be contacted at 791-6454 or at:
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