Trust and training

Working at the Birmingham Zoo means many of trainer Erin Miller’s co-workers are the four-legged kind. One of Miller’s favorite co-workers is Necie, a rock hyrax who works for Craisins rather than a paycheck.

Miller, who lives in Homewood, came to the Birmingham Zoo two years ago after working at zoos in Akron and Cleveland. One of her first tasks was to crate-train Necie, who had never accepted human interaction.

“Nobody has ever succeeded with Necie before,” Miller said. “Many people have tried, and many people have failed, so she took a lot of work.”

It took six months and liberal amounts of dried cranberries to train the hyrax to go into her crate on command. The Craisins, Miller said, were a lucky suggestion from one of the sea lion trainers, but it took time for Necie to trust her trainer and recognize that humans could bring her good things.

Many of the animals at the zoo are trained to perform certain behaviors on command, and Miller works with everything from the fennec fox and coyotes to red pandas and big cats. The training is not only mental and physical stimulation for the animals, but it also serves the practical purpose of letting keepers check their animals’ health and care for them in a low-stress way.

“Every animal in our building works for food,” Miller said.

Training also forms a bond between an animal and the keepers who work with them.

“Necie knows Erin is not going to ask her to do anything that’s going to hurt her,” said Bobbie Cavanaugh, who manages the predator and sea lion keepers, including Miller.

It took six months to train Necie to enter her crate, but after that, she started learning new skills much more quickly. Miller works with hand and voice commands, as well as a whistle that serves as immediate positive reinforcement before Necie gets a treat. She now works for carrots and sweet potatoes, but Craisins are still her favorite.

“After that [crate training] it was hard to keep up with her. She actually started learning behaviors so quick that I wasn’t able to think up things fast enough,” Miller said.

“So now she keeps Erin on her toes to keep ahead of her,” Cavanaugh said.

Necie now knows 22 commands, which include standing on her hind legs, backing up, going to different parts of her exhibit and sitting on Miller’s shoulder. The hyrax is also working on more difficult commands, such as “speak” or opening her mouth for keepers to brush her teeth. 

Miller said some behaviors are easy and picked up in a day, while some, like accepting the toothbrush, can take weeks or months. She is still working on building enough trust from Necie to pick her up entirely off the ground.

Part of the keepers’ jobs as they learn about the animals in their care is recognizing signs of frustration or boredom with training. So Miller is always balancing hard and easy tasks to keep Necie learning while enjoying the training sessions.

“It’s just like anybody learning a new thing,” Miller said.

Other trainers also work with Necie, but Miller is the one she knows best. Necie watches Miller in the mornings as she’s preparing food and will look out her exhibit window to see her favorite keeper in the mongoose or black-footed cat exhibits.

Miller works with Necie three times a day, as the little hyrax enjoys a lot of socialization. It’s a big change from an animal that at one time would immediately jump up to the highest parts of her enclosure whenever a keeper entered it. When Miller started training her, she used to joke that Necie thought “the floor was lava” if a person was present.

“I think that she really thrives on these interactions and looks forward to them,” Miller said. “I’m happy to give it. I love interacting with her, so if she wants more and if I have the time, I’ll do it.”

Some animals at the zoo do a lot of their training where the public can see them, such as the red pandas, bobcats and lions. Miller said this lets the keepers teach the public how they care for wild animals. Other animals like fennec foxes, coyotes and fishing cats work with keepers in separate enclosures away from the public eye if they are new to the zoo, easily distracted or don’t like the keepers entering their main exhibits.

Necie’s training mostly happens in front of the public, and it can be a big hit with visitors. During one morning training session, two children pressed their faces up to the glass to watch Necie give Miller a “kiss.” 

“I don’t know what she’s doing, but it’s cute,” one kid said before moving on to see the next animal.

Miller said a lot of visitors think she does nothing but play with the animals all day. While it’s true she loves her job, a lot more of Miller’s time is spent cleaning, preparing meals and making sure the zoo’s residents are healthy and happy.

“People only see the fun part of the job,” Cavanaugh agreed.

But the time spent on hard work is totally repaid every time Necie learns something new and Miller gets to reward her with another Craisin.

“There’s not a day that I come in to work and I’m mad or sad about being here,” Miller said. “These animals — we put everything into them.”