Dolphin Lab Journal!
Day 5: Thursday
by Maia Dinsmore and Kaitlyn Farrell
Today was our last full day of the first week of Dolphin Lab! We started the day off with a short observation period, and a long encounter with the dolphins which was incredible despite the fact that the water was significantly colder than earlier this week. Our group split into two, with half of us working with Gypsi and Gambit, and the other half with Louie and Reese. During the session, we got to do back rubs, handshakes and kisses, a dorsal tow (where we held on to the dolphins’ fins while they were swimming), imitations, and group commands. It was interesting working with the younger dolphins, especially during the imitations and the dorsal tows, because they sometimes did not perform the commands correctly. When this happened, the trainer simply did not reward them, and waited patiently until they either figured it out for themselves, or gave up and came back to wait for another command. The dolphins were very energetic during this session, especially during the dorsal tows – Gypsi and Gambit went extremely fast when they were with Claire, almost as fast as during their speed runs!
This video shows what a speed run looks like:
And this video shows Lacey swimming with Reese and Louie:
Later in the day, we had a seminar on the various Special Needs Programs that the Dolphin Research Center has available. We learned about the special equipment that the center has available for these programs, such as the Aqualift chair, which helps lower handicapped people into the water so that they can interact with the dolphins, and modified life jackets that can give disabled people more support while they are in the water. We also learned about the DRC’s involvement with the Wounded Warriors program – several times throughout the year, the DRC offers complimentary encounters to veterans involved in this program that suffer from PTSD, TBIs, or a wide variety of other injuries. Additionally, the DRC has participated in one 12 week program with veterans suffering from PTSD, to observe the impact of dolphins on their therapy. This program was extremely important to the founder of Dolphin Research Center, Mandy Rodriguez, who served in Vietnam when he was a teenager and said that his relationship with dolphins saved his life upon his return to the US.
We also had a session with Mandy, the owner and founder, called “Mandy Unplugged.” This was our opportunity to ask Mandy a variety of questions about his life and experience with the Dolphin Research Center in the past and present. Mandy was asked mostly about his relationships with the dolphins, specifically with a dolphin named Natua who has passed away. Mandy seemed to truly have a special connection with Nat, and Nat even starred in some dolphin movies with Mandy’s help! Because of their relationship, Mandy was able to get Nat to do exactly what the directors and producers wanted, much to their surprise. He also told us about one time that Nat ended up “running away” with Theresa, his mother, while filming a movie. Theresa was found, but Nat ended up in the Bahamas. The dolphin wouldn’t let people try to help him by getting him with a net, but once Mandy showed up, Nat swam right into his arms. Mandy Unplugged was very enjoyable, and Mandy was extremely charismatic and open to all opinions and questions.