The Dog Days of Summer

With the Dog Days of Summer upon us I would like to introduce you to a very special member of the dog family here at the Perkins Wildlife Center - Huxley, a five year old red fox. Huxley came to live at Perkins in the summer of 2007. He is a special animal at Perkins for me in that I have had the pleasure of training him. I think we have a very good working relationship that is hopefully very rewarding for both of us (I know it is for me). The training technique that we use here at the museum is one of positive reinforcement. That means we never punish our animals but rather try to reward them at the very moment when they are doing what we want. The animal then associates the behavior we are trying to elicit with a reward. Since Huxley is a very food oriented animal, he LOVES food rewards for reinforcement. For Huxley a nice piece of fish, ground meatball or juicy mouse always seems to do the trick. YUM!!

So far the behaviors that Huxley has learned are come upon request, station and kennel. Huxley knows to come when I call his name and touch his nose to my finger. He also understands what "station" means. A station is a fixed point in an exhibit where an animal knows to go when asked. Huxley’s station is a log in his exhibit and the completed behavior is for him to stand up on the log with all four feet and wait. The last behavior that I am working on with him is to get him to voluntarily go into a kennel. We are very close to achieving this, but we are still working on it. Training helps build a relationship between animal and keeper and also serves to enrich our animals.

When Huxley first came to Perkins he was extremely leery of people (just what you would expect from a wild fox). It took a long time and lots of reassuring for Huxley to venture out from the back of his exhibit. Countless times visitors would walk right by his exhibit thinking it was empty. But with the help of our dedicated staff, Huxley is now a hit with visitors young and old. So please stop by and say hello to one of my favorite Dogs of Summer!

And speaking of the Dog Days of summer, join the Museum staff on Saturday August 23rd and Sunday August 24th for the 10th Annual Dog Days Celebration at the Museum where we celebrate all things canine. There will be service dogs, rescue dogs, draft dogs, all sorts of dogs throughout the museum's galleries. It is one weekend when the museum goes to the dogs - literally!

Danette Rushboldt
Wildlife Specialist