Coffee with the Critters

No set topic this week as Lara jumps on and answers questions.

Join Lara for another info packed Q&A about Parrot training, behavior, and enrichment. She’ll discuss what to observe, how to approach training challenges, and practical ways to encourage engagement with enrichment.

What happens when you combine dinosaurs, live reptiles, science, and hands-on wildlife education? You get Dino Buddies.

I’m joined by Tiffany Johnson, founder and owner of Dino Buddies, a wildlife education company based in the Greater Cincinnati, Ohio, area.

Tiffany and her team use live reptile ambassadors, animatronic dinosaurs, fossils, replicas, and interactive programs to make science approachable, exciting, and memorable for people of all ages.

We’ll talk about how Dino Buddies got started, what goes into creating meaningful wildlife education experiences, the animals and audiences they work with, and how Tiffany has grown a unique idea into an award-winning outreach program.

And yes, we’re going to talk dinosaurs. 🦖

We pay attention to what animals can see, touch, eat, climb on, move toward, and move away from. But what about sound?

A newly published review examined research on human-generated noise and zoo animal welfare. The findings do not give us a simple rule that noise is always harmful. They do raise an important question:

What changes in an animal's behavior when the acoustic environment changes?

I'll talk about how sound may affect behaviors such as alertness, resting, foraging, social interaction, hiding, enclosure use, and participation in training.

We'll also look at why saying an animal is “used to it” doesn't tell us very much unless we're actually observing and measuring behavior.

For this special Coffee with the Critters, Lara is joined by:

• Dr. Jason Crean, biologist and Principal Investigator with the Animal Nutrition Laboratory at Saint Xavier University

• Dr. Tatiana Tatum, geneticist and Principal Investigator with the Animal Nutrition Laboratory at Saint Xavier University

• Dr. Jamie Abete, avian veterinarian at Niles Animal Hospital

They’ll talk about avian nutrition beyond simply asking what belongs in the bowl, including nutrition and health, whole foods, wild feeding ecology, foraging, behavior, reinforcement, the avian microbiome, and what current evidence can and cannot tell you.

Lara is joined by Dr. Lauryn Benedict, Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Northern Colorado. Dr. Benedict studies animal communication and social behavior, including how birds use vocal signals in different social and environmental contexts. She is also part of the Many Parrots Project, an international research team studying parrot vocal learning and cognition.

We’ll talk about what scientists are learning from companion parrots, including recent research examining whether parrots may use names as vocal labels, and how observations from people who live with parrots can contribute to research.

In this episode, Lara discusses a recent study published on target training 48 rats. Target training may support welfare beyond what the food reinforcer alone can.

Join us for a conversation about helping animals participate more willingly in handling, grooming, veterinary care, and other necessary procedures.

Deb will bring her extensive dog-training experience, while I’ll share examples involving parrots, pigs, deaf and deaf-blind dogs, zoo and shelter animals, and wildlife education animals.

We’ll discuss:

• ​ What cooperative care actually looks like
• ​ How animals communicate willingness, hesitation, and discomfort
• ​ How to break procedures into manageable steps
• ​ What remains consistent across species and what must be adapted
• ​ Common mistakes that can slow progress or damage trust

Training does not have to be long, complicated, or overwhelming to make a difference. In this episode, we’ll talk about how short, intentional training moments can help prevent behavior problems, modify unwanted behavior, build trust, and give animals clearer ways to get what they need.

Whether you work with animals professionally or share your home with them, the animals under our care are learning from you every day. Let’s make those moments count.

We are discussing animal stress in relation to quality care. This could include veterinary care, grooming, socialization and more.