03/08/2025
I didn’t get a chance to post last weeks animal, so I’ll combine the 2!
Last week, our animal of the week was a blue heeler named Whisky! 🐕 We learned that the blue heeler is from Australia and closely related to the Dingo. They are a work species and herd cattle, sheep, goats, etc. We learned what they eat, that they are extremely smart and can learn verbal commands to help them do their job, even on other languages, and everyone got to pet Whisky!! Our staff was just as thrilled as our children! ❤️
Today, we met Zazu, the Red Crowned Amazon! 🦜 Even though, Zazu was a “look at only” animal today, due to his bite strength, immune system as well as stress reduction for him, all of our kids and staff got to look at him and hear him squawk and “mimic”. We learned that parrots don’t actually talk, they “mimic” what they have heard (also called echolalia, for those of us who are therapists 🤪). We learned that they are very smart, have fewer tastebuds than humans, where others like Zazu came from, and that they are endangered. There are only about 700 left in the wild. 😢 What a FUN day for everyone! Zazu even seemed to enjoy himself and was a very good boy while his Daddy worked!
Thank you, as always, Dakota, for sharing yet another amazing animal with us and teaching us so much about each! This is truly the highlight of everyone’s week!! ❤️
Next week!!!! We should have chickens and quail (it’s Spring Break week for our school) but hopefully they will come back the following week to lots of fluffy chicks and quail followed by ducks, a week or so after!!! 🐣 🦆
