Herding Elephants!

[denali]

Video in the link :)

http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/video/10153815-dogs-play-big-role-for-elephant-handlers-at-pittsburgh-zoo/

PITTSBURGH (KDKA/CBS) - What makes a gigantic African elephant tuck its tail and run? A pair of 25-pound dogs at the Pittsburgh Zoo and Aquarium.

Two Australian cattle dogs - Major and Zeta - give the staff at the zoo a buffer zone when dealing with pachyderms.

"If you are dealing with, say, a dangerous animal it kind of gives you that added advantage to 'the elephant's not so focused on me,'" said Willie Theisen of the Pittsburgh Zoo. "Now the elephants have to watch that dog to see what they are going to do so that they are going to become actually more responsive to me."

When the dogs are not working, they go out and interact with the public, and they love when people pet them.

Theisen said, to his knowledge, the zoo in Pittsburgh is one of two places in the Northern Hemisphere that uses dogs to herd elephants. One of his friends uses the technique in the Canadian facility, where Major and Zeta were trained.

[Loving my Oldies]

Hmm, I'm not too sure that I go along with it. Those elephants looked pretty riled up to me, they aren't being just slowly mooched along - they are being snapped at around their feet. If it is true that elephants never forget, I wouldn't want to be one of those dogs off in snooze land when one walks by.

[RuralPug]

I found it really interesting.

Watching it, I think that the elephants are well aware that as soon as they back away a certain distance, the human keepers call off the dogs. I've never really seen a herded animal so clearly aware of that before. Perhaps in time, the elephants will respond to the keeper's commands to the dogs before the dogs do!

I doubt that there is any more danger to the dogs than if they were herding wild buffalo or feral cattle, and a lot less than if they were trying to herd wild boar. I also suspect it is a much cleverer way to ensure worker safety than having to divide the area into a series of enclosures and move the elephants from one enclosure to the next before cleaning and other maintenance.

[persephone]

I dunno - I thought elephants would be trained to do the housekeeping routines ...thought also that training would be a big part of filling in their day?

[RuralPug]

I dunno - I thought elephants would be trained to do the housekeeping routines ...thought also that training would be a big part of filling in their day?

Mama elephant with a super sized pooper scooper - What a visual image!!! Thank you for the giggle!

Elephants with young can be overly protective and may easily choose to ignore training in favour of keeping the youngsters out of perceived danger. In India, they removed baby elephants from working mothers and trained the infants separately, otherwise the mothers were too unreliable to work for a year or more. I much prefer the herding to that horror.

[denali]

I dunno - I thought elephants would be trained to do the housekeeping routines ...thought also that training would be a big part of filling in their day?

Mama elephant with a super sized pooper scooper - What a visual image!!! Thank you for the giggle!

Elephants with young can be overly protective and may easily choose to ignore training in favour of keeping the youngsters out of perceived danger. In India, they removed baby elephants from working mothers and trained the infants separately, otherwise the mothers were too unreliable to work for a year or more. I much prefer the herding to that horror.

I definitely agree.

I dont think the dogs were hurting these elephants at all. And a DEFINITE improvement from those elephant pokers that horrid places use

Maybe they will catch on with the herding.

[Loving my Oldies]

I dunno - I thought elephants would be trained to do the housekeeping routines ...thought also that training would be a big part of filling in their day?

Mama elephant with a super sized pooper scooper - What a visual image!!! Thank you for the giggle!

Elephants with young can be overly protective and may easily choose to ignore training in favour of keeping the youngsters out of perceived danger. In India, they removed baby elephants from working mothers and trained the infants separately, otherwise the mothers were too unreliable to work for a year or more. I much prefer the herding to that horror.

I definitely agree.

I dont think the dogs were hurting these elephants at all. And a DEFINITE improvement from those elephant pokers that horrid places use

Maybe they will catch on with the herding.

Do you mean the hooked sharp rods? The man still had one of these in the video.