Trainer for a day March 2, 2002 at SWC When I switched my website over to this server I forgot to save my TFAD pics. My scanner is broken so I can't rescan the pics, and I don't have them saved to my computer. Eventually I hope to get the pics back up, but for now enjoy the story.
     I did this with Seana (my sister), and my mom paid the $95 to follow us around with the camera and video camera. She was allowed everywhere we were, and was allowed to take as many pictures as she wanted, she ended up taking 8 rolls of pictures. We started off meeting our trainers. There was a sea lion trainer, Vic, and a dolphin trainer, Lesa. We got the dolphin trainer. After we met our trainers we went and did educational workshop, which was about 30 minutes long. They talked about animal training and we received our whistles. After that we got in our wetsuits and split up.
     We started off at the dolphin stadium. We filled all the things (nice descriptive word) with ice, I don't know what they're called but the things the fish stay in by the pool. There were 5 of those to fill. Then we put pills in the fish (the whole time this was going on my mom was taking pictures of the dolphins). After that we helped them get ready for DIP, by holding Beaker in the side pool so she wouldn't go in the DIP pool. We got to give her rubdowns and feed her. I also got to feed and rub Madison a little bit, Seana didn't. After that we met all the trainers, then waited around for the first show to start (my mom again was taking pictures). We clapped and put down the flag.
     After the show was supposed to be our water session (which was right after a DIP) but it took about 30 minutes for them to be ready. So we got to do stuff with Misty, Bullet and Priscilla. With Misty we each got to hug and kiss her, and run up and down the side (we were in the front side pool) with her following us. We got to put our legs in the water and hold her with our legs while we gave her rubs. We got to hold her tail, and I got a pec shake. Then she went back to the DIP people, we got her a few times after that too, but we just fed her and rubbed her. We also got Priscilla and Bullet for a couple of minutes, but we didn't do much with them.
     After the DIP was over we talked with the trainers for about 10 minutes and actually ended up being 30 minutes behind schedule by the time we got in the water.
     Then it was time for our water session. We did our water work in the DIP pool. We got in first w/o dolphins. The water felt good because it was a pretty hot day. My trainer asked me to dive to the bottom (if I wanted to of course, I didn't have to) so I did. It was only 12 feet but I wanted to see if I could do it with a wetsuit on, it wasn't as hard as I thought, but it was only 12 feet. After I came back up they were ready with Beaker. Seana went first. She got to give Beaker a hug and a kiss, and rubs. She got to grab her pecs and just kind of swim there in the water. Then she rubbed her flukes and peduncle area, and then she grabbed her flukes and pulled Beaker backwards. Then Beaker was sent to me (I was on the ledge with Lesa) and we walked to another ledge to feed her. Then Seana came to the ledge and I went out. I got to give her some rubs and kisses, then I laid upside down with her, while holding her pec. Then I got a dorsal pull to the ledge, that was fun, and I didn't fall off :). At the ledge we gave Beaker more rubs and fish. Then Seana went back out with her and did some doe-c-doe. She did it 3 times because Beaker doesn't really know how to do it that well, but she finally got it, and it was a good one. After that Seana swam back to the ledge with Beaker beside her and they had Misty come in. I went out with Misty and did a doe-c-doe with her, she was really good , I did it twice in a row. The trainer (Courtney) started her and then handed her over to me then I gave her back then she gave her back to me. After that there were more rubs and more kisses. Then we swam back to the ledge. We posed for a picture with both of us "holding" Misty, and got more rubs and more feeding. Then we swam to the other side of the pool. It was time for another ride (the rest of the time was spent with Misty), I went first. I held onto Misty's pecs while she was upside down, and laid on her and went around the whole pool until I was back where I started. Seana did the same thing. After that the guy trainer (who was really funny), named Bob, asked if we wanted to do more, of course we said yes. So we got to do a foot push across the pool. I went first again, then Seana went. We got more rubs more feeding. Then we went on another little ride, Seana held one of Misty's pecs and I held the other and we went across the pool. Then we gave her a last rub and a last feeding and said good bye.
     We changed and went to lunch, we had to change fast because we were already behind schedule. We got our food and we went back over to the DWS area, but a dine was about to start so we had to eat in the trainers office area. I loved it, they had cute pictures of all the orcas and had info under them (I've never been in there before so I thought it was cool lol). The other TFAD group came in with us, Becky and Tucker were in there as well. I couldn't eat most of my lunch, I mean please I just swam with a dolphin, plus I was excited about the stuff coming up so I didn't have that big of an appetite.
     After lunch was our lab tour, where you go back to AC and look at the facility. We weren't even going to do that because we were behind schedule, but Seana and I wanted to go back and see the dolphin, so Lesa said we could do it really fast. So we went back there quickly and looked at the veterinary stuff. Then we walked out and went over to the dolphin pool where Lisa (the animal care) was playing with the dolphins by herself. She was surprised to see Seana and me, at first I don't think she knew why we were back there because we weren't in our wetsuits. Then Lesa told Lisa that we wanted to come back and see the dolphins, it didn't surprise Lisa at all. We couldn't stay more than a few minutes though, and we didn't get to pet the dolphins. But Lisa told us if we had time after everything else, we could come back.
     Then we went over to the place where they keep the 3 river otters. They all had been hand raised since they were born, and their parents play O.P. otter in the show. They make the cutest little noises in the world. The Animal Care for the otters put 2 of them in their leashes, which took a few minutes, and tried to get the third to come out but he didn't want to. So we just took Xander and Buffy. They were put into otter carriers (hee hee) and we took them to the bay. Once we got there Seana and I each got to hold a leash (yes each leash had an otter attached to it) and walked them around. I had Buffy, who is very dominant, and Seana had Xander. We walked them down to the bay to see if they'd go for a swim. Buffy wouldn't even go near the water, so neither of them went in because Xander won't do anything w/o Buffy. Se we just walked along the bay, then we went into the bleachers at Cirque De La Mar, and ran up and down the bleachers, all the way across. Buffy loved it. Then we ran back and stopped at the bottom and fed them shrimp out of a bag. We walked back to the bay to see if they'd go in that time. They at least went down to the rocks and Buffy put her head in, but neither of them swam. After we walked around a little more it was time to go. They went back in their carriers and we went back to their home. When we got back the third one was ready to come out, his name is Willow. So we got to pet him and get our picture taken with him. And if you hadn't guessed already those 3 otters were named after Buffy the Vampire Slayer (I never watch the show so I didn't realize until Lesa explained) because Sarah Michelle Gellar had come to SW right around the time they were born so they named them after her show.
     After the Otters it was orca time. This was the worst part of the day, kinda hard to imagine huh? But it was true. At least now I get to say I've petted an orca. Anyway so we got there around 30 minutes before a Shamu show so we had to do the session in B. We got Kasatka and Tamaree was our trainer (Tom was preoccupying Nakai), we did it one at a time. I went first. I got to rub Kassy's back and dorsal, mainly the dorsal because it was hard to reach. And feed her some ice. Then I did some signals, then Seana did the same thing. Then we got to grab huge handfuls of fish and feed her that. Then guess what! That was it. We were there 10 minutes, and I think the trainers were rushed because of the show.
     After the orcas TFAD was supposed to be over, but Lesa could tell we were disappointed about the orcas, so she asked if we wanted to go back to Animal Care again, because Lisa (AC) had offered. So we went back there and met up with Todd, he said hi and again he was surprised to see us (this time we were in our wetsuits). He took us to the Commerson's dolphins, I think Lesa wanted to see them lol. I got 1 pic of them, they were going to fast. But they were being really cute. We stayed up there for 5 minutes (Todd had left already) then we went over to the bottlenose dolphins. The Animal Care were about to feed them, so we watched them feed which took about 10 minutes, we got some pictures. After they were done Todd told us to come up on the ledge and him and Lisa gave us some basketballs and told us to play (with the dolphins not the basketballs lol). So we did for about 20 minutes. Steime came up a lot, I played a lot of basketball with her, and Cometta and Scarback came up a lot for rubs. The whole time Pacino was to my left, it was so cute, he didn't want to leave. After we played with those dolphins Todd said him and Lisa (ac) were about to feed the big guys (meaning Sharkey, Crunch and Gracie) and if we wanted to we could help them feed them. Of course we did, we love them too. We got to pick who we wanted. We both wanted Sharkey, but Todd was all "you don't want to separate?" so Seana said she loves Gracie too so she went with her. I offered to let her have Sharkey but she said Gracie was fine. So she got Gracie with Lesa (dt), Lisa got Crunch, and Todd and I got Sharkey. We had to walk to the other side by going over a thin wall, it was hard to walk across it, I'm glad I didn't fall in :-P. Anyway once we got there Todd quickly showed me all the signals, and told me I could do whatever I wanted with Sharkey. I got to pet shake with her twice, have her do bows (she did one bow but when she was supposed to do the second one she ended up doing a vertical spin), make her squeak (she has some of the best squeaks ever), tail walk, spin in circles (I got to dance with a Sharkey lol), pec wave, had her slide out on the ledge, half way because it's a small ledge. And I got to give her rub downs. I got to line her up in order for me to do it. I couldn't do that very well I kept messing up and she would go all the way down to the fluke. So Todd had to help me a few times. But I got to rub her down :) I also got to hold her fluke in my lap. I think that's it. I only gave her 2 fish for every few tricks so by the end when Crunch and Gracie were about to be done Sharkey still had a lot so Todd told me to give it to her in handfuls, so I gave her handfuls of fish, hee hee fun. Her small mouth is a lot harder to get all the fish in then an orca though lol. After we were done with that we went back to the other dolphins and played for another 30 minutes or so. I played catch with Steime, Daphne and Copper and a little with Corona (she was mainly with Seana the whole time), Pacino was to my left again, he didn't leave much even if I wasn't playing with him. I tried to give him a lot of attention while giving everyone else attention too. I got a lot of Cometta, Steime and Scarback pets. All Copper and Daphne wanted to do was play catch so I didn't get big rubdowns (I pet them a lot though). I squirted water in Pacino's mouth, he likes it, so does Scarback. Todd was still with us. Lesa was talking to my mom and Todd some, when he wasn't playing with the dolphins, he was up with us playing with them too. We finally had to go, we spent a little over and hour back there.
     We went back to the stadium and changed. Said bye to Vic (the sea lion trainer) and his TFAD group. And walked with Lesa over to where we pick up our photos, she was going to Shamu anyway so she said she'd walk with us. And that was it. FUN FUN FUN!
     btw Lesa was really cool because she kept asking us what we expected, and she wanted us to get our money's worth so she kept asking what we wanted to do. I thought that was sooooooooo cool of her.




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