Preparing Your Pig For Success

Brooke Durham is the Founder, Director, President of REP For Wildlife and SoCal Parrot. With her first priority always as animal care, Brooke has begun assembling an elite team of professionals to Represent, Educate, and Protect For Wildlife (REP4Wildlife). The first chapter of this organization is SoCal Parrot; a fledgling non-profit that exists to bridge the gap of care and consideration that naturalized parrots fall into because they are neither native wildlife nor truly domestic. Brooke is currently involved in every aspect of REP4Wildlife and SoCal Parrot; from personally assessing each animal, to working with other professionals to develop proper protocols and techniques, and all the way to keeping up with the administrative and organizational demands of a non-profit organization.

After growing up in Kentucky on a small farm (and always being “Ellie May” to all the critters), Brooke formalized her desire to help injured and orphaned wildlife by becoming an active volunteer with San Diego based Project Wildlife in 2005. Early on with Project Wildlife Brooke was especially interested and dedicated to large avian species like raptors (birds of prey). After spending the first five years of her time with PW working in the Wildlife Triage Center she gained exposure to working with a huge variety of wildlife species (reptile, mammal, and avian) that call Southern California home.

A peculiar thing happened when a pair of featherless nestling parrots were blown out of their tree, nest and all, in Spring of 2007. They were brought into the PW Triage Center during one of Brooke’s regular shifts. These green Amazon parrots were not considered native wildlife in San Diego and as such no real protocol existed to deal with the baby orphans. With the help of another PW technician who had experience with domestic baby parrots Brooke and her husband Josh raised the pair to be a members of her own personal flock and family.

These particular parrots were too young to avoid imprinting on humans and had no chance of being released as wild birds. However, the idea that there may be a chance for a parrot release program in the future is beginning to take hold among wildlife agencies. Many of the species of parrots found in the wild in Southern California are critically endangered in their native ranges, with habitats dwindling and little hope of preserving those wild instincts.

Recently wildlife agencies began releasing study information that initially shows no real threat to native wildlife from the wild parrots. It seems ironic that while these beautiful creatures may have diminishing chances of surviving their historical native ranges, mostly in Central America, they too find coastal Southern California to be as irresistible as the human populations do. More studies, information and communications need to be enacted in order to determine the impact – whether good or bad, that these birds have on the ecosystem. By working collaboratively with other experts in her field and establishing REP for Wildlife and SoCal Parrot Brooke is working to bridge the gap of care and consideration that naturalized parrots fall into because they are neither native wildlife nor truly domestic.

Deborah Jones, Ph.D. specializes in social and behavioral psychology.  For the past 25 years she has taught a variety of psychology courses at Kent State University.

She was an early and vocal proponent of clicker training for competition dogs.  She has spent her 25 year career combining the science and the art of training into humane and effective training techniques.   Deb has successfully shown and titled many dogs in a variety of dog sports including competition obedience, rally, and agility.

Deb has published 10 books, starting in the mid 1990s.  Her earliest books were some of the first on the topic of positive reinforcement based dog training (Clicker Fun, The Clicker Workbook, and Teaching Clicker Classes).  Most recently she has co-authored the Dog Writer’s Association of America Maxwell Award winning and highly popular 4 book Dog Sport Skills series.

She also wrote 2 books and helped to produce 5 DVDs through Clean Run Productions.  This series of materials introduced and highlighted her concept of focus and its importance as a foundation to all training.

Currently, Deb is focused on developing and teaching a variety of online courses through Fenzi Dog Sports Academy.  Her most popular courses include Get Focused!, Focus Games, Performance Fundamentals, and Cooperative Canine Care. She recently developed and taught a course on training your cat!  Check out this website for more information on her online classes www.fenzidogsportsacademy.com.

Deb is currently finishing a book on Cooperative Canine Care.  The concept of giving animals choice and freedom in husbandry processes is an important one to her.

In addition to her focus on canines, Deb actively seeks out opportunities to work with a variety of species.  She has developed a fascination with birds of all sorts, particularly birds of prey.

Check out her website at www.k9infocus.com.

Lara is the owner of The Animal Behavior Center, an international, educational center focusing on teaching people how to work with animals using positive reinforcement and approaches in Applied Behavior Analysis. She travels internationally giving workshops, lectures, and provides online, live-streaming memberships on animal behavior, training and enrichment. Lara’s focus is on the companion animal community, zoos, shelters and wildlife ambassadors. Her daily work focuses on live-streaming her training, behavior modification, and enrichment internationally via her Projects and Memberships. She sits on the advisory board for All Species Consulting, The Indonesian Parrot Project, and is director of animal training for Nature’s Nursery, a wildlife rehabilitation center in Whitehouse, Ohio.  She is also the founder of several animal organizations for animal welfare. She has been asked to co-author and is currently working on international manuals of animal behavior and training. Lara is a professional member of The Animal Behavior Management Alliance, The International Association of Avian Trainers and Educators, and The Pet Professional Guild. She is a published author and writes regularly for several periodicals including The Pet Professional Guild’ BARKS, a behavior columnist for BirdTalk Magazine, and contributes to blogging for Deaf Dogs Rock. She is a guest lecturer in the Zoo Biology; Animal Nutrition, Behavior & Diagnostics taught by Dr. Jason Crean at St. Xavier University; Chicago. Lara has presented for a wide variety of organizations such as The Philadelphia Zoo, The Ohio State Exotic Veterinary Club, The Association of Avian Veterinarians, The International Wildlife Rehabilitator’s Conference, The Autism Model School, and The Wheaton College division of Applied Behavior Analysis, and will be presenting and providing workshops at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary for a Pet Professional’s Guild Workshop. For more information visit her website at TheAnimalBehaviorCenter.com.