Zoo Blog

Choose Three Things!
by Holly Henry, Marketing Director

The Lake Superior Zoo has a Green Team – a committee of people representing various areas of the zoo whose job it is to make our staff squirm if they get caught putting compostable items in the regular trash bin.

While we joke about this, it really is the Green Team’s responsibility to keep our staff accountable and aware of how their actions affect our campus and the world around us.

During the past year our Green Team leaders have presented us with a variety of challenges, one of which was to carry recyclable containers in our cars so we could use them for leftovers at restaurants. This, of course, is a much better option than bringing home more Styrofoam, paper or plastic.

This was a fun challenge for our staff. Some of us were impressively committed to it. Others, such as me, failed dismally. OK, I did it once. The rest of the time I forgot my containers, and was then shamed into eating all of the food on my plate so I wouldn’t have to be seen leaving a restaurant with an environmentally unfriendly container.

Let’s just say I had gained four pounds before realizing I sucked at this Green Team challenge and needed to find other ways to contribute to society.

So, I decided to make a difference by choosing three Earth friendly things to do on a regular basis. I chose to shop more carefully for products not tested on animals, buy recycled toilet paper (even though it costs more) and to not watch television (thus saving tons of electricity.) Even though all of these were fairly easy for me, they still make a difference.

Oddly, over the course of the past few months “Choose Three Things” has become sort of an unofficial life motto for me. Once aware that I could conquer and control three things for the planet, I decided it was possible to Choose Three Things to make the situation better whenever faced with a challenge.

For instance, when something is clearly out of our control we can Choose Three Things we can control. Computer crashes? You can always file those papers on your desk, write a thank you note and offer to assist a co-worker with a task (after calling IT of course.)

Personally I like to apply this same approach at home. The house is a mess and I have to be at work in 15 minutes? I choose three quick tasks to make the place look better, if not perfect. You’d be surprised what a difference just putting magazines away, straightening the couch pillows and making the bed makes.

I also applied the Choose Three Things approach to people who annoy me. Whenever I get mad at someone I generally like, I force myself to think of three of their good traits and focus on them.

A friend has also applied the Choose Three Things approach to her daily life. Her goal is to make three people’s lives happier every day – by giving a sincere compliment, writing a friendly note to someone who is struggling or running an errand for a frazzled co-worker.

When we Choose Three Things, we accomplish many. Not only do we contribute to the wellbeing of our planet, our co-workers and complete strangers, we also accomplish one thing – and that’s feeling better about ourselves!

"Don't Shoot the Dog" lessons for the animal trainer in everyone
by Holly Henry, Director of Marketing

In her book Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert describes her decades spent sublimating herself to lovers with the dedication of “a golden retriever and a barnacle.”

While her self-assessment was an attempt to draw attention to her thoughtless devotion and loyalty, it also struck a nerve in many of us who read the book. Yep, it’s true, we’ve all got a bit of golden retriever in us. Who doesn’t love a pat on the head and an “atta boy?” Likewise, who doesn’t cower at a heavy hand?

As an owner of a golden retriever - black lab I can say that indeed, their blind loyalty, addiction to positive reinforcement and adorable neediness are delightful characteristics that place the breed up there with the most sought-after pets in the world.

But several days into the puppyhood of a golden, one realizes one may need help directing their pet’s energy, lest one wants to come home to a disassembled Christmas tree and a shredded lampshade. (Yes, both happened to me.)

Then a zoo keeper gave me the book Don’t Shoot the Dog, by Karen Pryor. In its most basic sense, the book is about positive reinforcement - mainly for animals from dolphins to elephants to dogs. But Elizabeth Gilbert would be pleased to know its strategies apply also to spouses, bosses, colleagues and teenagers.

In fact, our Director of Animal Management Peter Pruett, suggests all animal care staff read the book.

“It’s as much about people as it is animals,” he said “It’s teaches good management and leadership skills along with positive reinforcement. Every interaction we have with staff or peers or the person in the grocery store can be improved by reinforcing good behavior. Whether you realize it or not, we are training people how to react to us. If I’m grumpy every day to the gas station attendant I’m training him to be negative to me.”

One of the first things that become apparent in Don’t Shoot the Dog is that getting rid of it would be the easiest solution. In essence, if the way to solve a problem is simply to make the source of the problem go away, we could simply get rid of the dog, fire the person or divorce the spouse.

But, both in life and pet ownership, that’s often not an option. And so Pryor guides the reader through positive reinforcement training used to manipulate training subjects into good behavior. Positive reinforcement rewards a desired behavior and causes that behavior to occur more often.

While this doesn’t sound complicated, sadly people often rely on punishment for behavior modification in animals. And, sadly again, we use the same tactics human to human.

There’s a lot I could say about Don’t Shoot the Dog, but mainly this is what I gleaned from it – positive reinforcement gets better results – in unruly golden retrievers and people. And so after reading the book, I began to apply the strategies therein to both. What I found was this – when you say “Bad dog, bad, bad dog” to a dog who tipped over the Christmas tree three hours before you got home, the dog thinks “Wow so I greet you at the door with my tail wagging and I love you more than life itself and I’m a bad dog? I’m sooooo confused!”

Likewise, when we say to colleagues or significant others “You forgot to turn off the lights, put the laundry in the dryer, feed the goldfish, (or insert your crime of choice here) . . .” they immediately think “Hey, what about all the stuff I did right? So I meet you at the door with a smile and the house smells like pot roast and you tell me I parked too close to the garage door? I’m soooo confused and hey while you’re at it make your own darned pot roast next time chump.”

Instead, how about we enter the house and the first thing out of our mouth is “Wow, does that pot roast smell GREAT!”

At the risk of quoting someone far more prominent than I, Don’t Shoot the Dog made me a “kinder, gentler” person and therefore made my relationship with others (dog with lampshade on its head included) just, well, easier.

One reader described Don’t Shoot the Dog as a book “on good relations between intelligent creatures.”

And hey, who couldn’t use more of those?