So You Want to Work with Animals

"I get a lot of letters from kids—any age from about five years old and up—telling me they want to work with animals when they grow up. Some of them want to know how they can prepare themselves. Let’s suppose that you are one of them. There are many things you do—things that will teach you to observe carefully and begin to understand more and more about the true nature of nonhuman animals. You can watch animals and see what they do. You can write notes about what you see. And you can ask those why, how, and what for questions. . . Some answers you will find by watching. Some you can find only by looking them up in a book or asking a knowledgeable teacher. Whatever you do, don’t do anything that hurts or frightens the animal you are interested in....

Do you have a dog? Suppose he wants to go outside. How does he ask? Does he bark or whine at the door while looking at you? That’s easy to understand. But dogs can ask in other ways. Perhaps he or she comes up to you (or another member of your family) and lays his head on your knee. Or he looks at you, gives a tiny whine, and wags his tail. Or he starts to pant, getting louder and louder. Or he becomes restless and walks about a lot. If he gives up in despair because none of the dumb humans seem to understand or care, he may lie down. But then, when you do get up, he will probably become very excited and start bounding about. . . .

Dr. Dolittle’s parrot, Polynesia, tells us that in order to learn animal language we must have “powers of observation.” We must be able to notice “small things about birds and animals—the way they walk and move their heads and flip their wings, the way they sniff the air and twitch their whiskers and wiggle their tails.

Of course, you don’t have to become an ethologist to study or work with animals. There are lots of other “ologists” to choose from! You could become a zoologist, a biologist, an anthropologist or an ecologist. And there are even more. You can look up what they all mean in a dictionary. Or perhaps you want to become a veterinarian, work in a kennel, or work with horses.

 Just remember—if you are really and truly determined to work with animals, somehow, either now or later, you will find a way to do it. But you have to want it desperately, work hard,take advantage of an opportunity—and never give up.”

This excerpt is from Jane’s book My Life with the Chimpanzees, pp. 108-113.

Photo: Joanna Vestey