Trust Banks
What is a trust bank? It’s essentially a metaphor for your relationship with an individual animal. We want our relationship to be positive, just like a bank account. So, every time we have an interaction that is positive with that animal, we deposit money into that trust bank. Equally, any time we have a negative interaction, we withdraw from that account.
Once again, just like a real bank account, we always want to aim to be in high positives, no overdrafts here!
This bank isn’t just being created during training sessions though, it’s built every time we interact with our animal. When we bring food, when we’re cleaning, when we walk past and say hello. Anything! So if you’re struggling in a relationship with an animal, ask yourself if what you’re doing is depositing or withdrawing from their bank.
Deposits versus withdrawals.
Deposits: Bring a meal, bringing a treat, giving a groom, bringing a fun enrichment item, having a good training session, having the animal be comfortable in your presence, anything the animal considers ‘good’.
Withdrawals: Bringing something the animal considers scary, asking for trust when attempting a new approximation, having to manually restrain or catch an individual, bringing someone scary (sorry Vets!) to the animal. Creating a noise or movement that the animal considers scary.
Obviously, we cannot avoid withdrawing from our trust banks. However, the goal is that we have such large and plentiful deposits that small withdrawals are barely noticeable. That way we continue to build and keep our relationships ‘in the green’.
How do you maximize your deposits? Aka, increase your positive interactions with an individual. The more you can make every interaction positive, the quicker you’ll build up
a large trust bank, and therefore have more success in training sessions and a better relationship in general.
What’s the animals’ favorite part of their diet? Try saving it and hand feed it to them during feed outs.
Are they a tactile species? Can you give them a scratch in their favorite spot?
Can you spend a few minutes just being in their presence without doing anything? This allows them to sus you out and begin to accept you being around.
Do they have a favorite keeper? Can you be with the animal with that keeper to help transfer their positive-ness to you also?
The most important thing is remembering that every interaction, not just those in training sessions, accounts towards your trust bank. Keeping that piece of information in the back of your mind during interactions is what’s going to do you the most benefit.
How do you build up a trust bank with so many animals when you’re part time, casual or working on multiple rounds?
This is certainly the part where you have to get a bit creative. For example; can you make a point of driving a route that takes you past an enclosure so you can say a quick hello to an animal? The cockatoos in Education Aviary recognize the lemur round buggy now as I say hi to them whenever I drive past.
Looking for a sunny spot to have a quiet lunch one day? Try an animal enclosure. Or the backside where you can relax and allow the animal to choose to come near to you if they wish.
Can you utilize your training buddy to help you smash out your daily jobs to create an extra 5-10 minutes to go and spend some time with a specific individual?
You are always free to grab a member of the training committee or shoot us an email at training@nationalzoo.com.au and we will help you out best we can!
What happens when you have to make a withdrawal? There are 2 main types of withdrawals; standard and unexpected.
Standard: These withdrawals happen when you ask the animal to do something outside of their comfort zone. Generally standard withdrawals occur when asking for a new approximation in a training session or providing a brand-new enrichment item. Because you can plan ahead and be prepared for this, you can typically make a deposit immediately afterward in the form of a reward or jackpot to essentially not change your overall balance. Sometimes we think the animal can make a larger approximation that we accounted for and try to push it, if that results in a larger than expected withdrawal you are best to jackpot and end your interaction on a super positive note.
Unexpected: These happen when unavoidable situations occur. The animal may be hurt and panicking, which you as a result have to manually restrain or handle. You may have to move and animal out of an enclosure with no notice and therefore no time to train a petpack or similar behaviour. After this has finished and the animal has had time to calm themselves it’s all about making big deposits often. It can feel like you’ve gone completely backwards and lost everything, but the memories of the relationship are still there. So stay consistent and positive and you’ll build that relationship and trust bank up faster than you may expect!
Trust banks are all about positive reinforcement and giving the animal choice. The more an animal chooses to interact with us, the more we prove ourselves trustworthy and the more deposits we are able to make. It’s a positive reinforcement loop that can continue to grow the more you foster it.
Another way to think of trust banks is in our relationships with our friends. How do you make a friend? You start by being polite and open, and eventually graduate into small chats and hellos, then full conversations and boom, suddenly you’ve got a new friend.
Trust banks and relationships with animals are just the same, except your animal probably doesn’t care about what you watched on Netflix last night, so you may have to work on speaking their language!