Hi guys.  Welcome back to Animal Wonders.  I wanted to give you an update on Mimi the marmoset because you guys haven't seen her since I first introduced her.  So the easiest way to show off who she is in our interaction together is to just show you our morning routine, so let's do that.

(Intro)

Okay, so the first thing I need to do is I need to make her morning diet because she's getting really hungry and she's gonna start yelling at me if I don't get this to her quickly, so let's do this.  First thing I need is her main staples.  So she gets a marmoset diet.  This is premade.  She gets two tablespoons of this, and so I like to cut it up into little, like, hand-held chunks, and then anything that doesn't stay formed, I'll squish up and make it into a fun little patty and you'll see what I'm talking about.  

Today, I'm going to use some banana and squish this up in here, 'cause every day, I want to make her diet kind of new and exciting and interesting.  So there's her little patty cake.  Alright, along with the marmoset diet, she also needs mixed vegetables and it's got yam and butternut squash and broccoli, purple cabbage, and carrots, and some turnip and some beet in there, so it's got a lot of good stuff in there, so she gets a tablespoon of that.  This will keep her healthy, but we like to have her have fun and keep her happy as well, so I'm going to take some fruit.  Papaya is one of her favorites.  We're going to use this as a training treat so she's gonna get the nutrients while we learn how to build on a relationship.  

Now I have this puzzle toy and this is used to keep her interested and active and her mind thinking about how she's going to get to this food.  In the wild, things wouldn't just be handed to her on a bowl.  She'd have to go out there and look for it and forage for it, so this is eliciting foraging behaviors, which is, which is really good, so we're gonna hide some of this food in here.  She'll have to reach her hand inside.  Gonna pull these out just so.  Now I'm going to add one of her favorite treats.  It might be kinda gross to us, but she loves 'em.  Let me go get 'em.  Alright, we're gonna give her four mealworms and we're also going to hide these in this puzzle.  Okay, one more piece of enrichment.  A bag.  Gonna take some of this patty, I'm gonna smash it on the side, put it on the bottom.  That's kinda hard to get to, and she'd have to look around for it.  I'm gonna cut a little hole that's going to help me hang it, and then I'll give her some peepholes in here, too.  Alright, let's put our training treats in my little training cup, we'll get a training clicker, here we go, and we're ready.  

Hi, Mimi.  Squeeze in here.  Hi, cutie patootie.  There's her foraging toy.  Oh, mealworms trying to make an escape.  Stop.  Here we go.   What's in there?  She's like, it's okay, buuuut.  I'd rather have something else.  Alright, let's get you something else.  I like giving her the option to go and eat other bits of her food while we're having a training session because I do like to give her choice where she doesn't have to be with me to get her food.  

Okay, she has seen her fruit and she knows she loves it and she wants it.  I'm going to go ahead and set these up.  I know, there you go.  Good job, good job.  I'll put it over here, too.  We're working on those, I hear ya.  I see ya, I should say.  Good girl.  You were sitting right on your mark.  So the things I laid down, those are called marks or stations.  Good girl, and she's supposed to sit on them to get a treat.  Alright, come on over here.  Good girl.  Thank you.  That was a good jump.  Alright, I'm going to ask her to target to this little stick here.  Target, and all she has to do is grab it.  

Mimi has--it's taken her a while to get comfortable doing things to get treats.  She's been kind of resistant so making it really easy on her and--you wanna sit on that?  Sit on the mark.  Sit on that mark.  Looking at it is an okay thing.  She's a little weirded out by the camera right now, which is fine.  I'm going to reinforce her for doing anything close to what she's supposed to.  There she goes.  Good girl.  We're going to try a jump, get some of our energy out?  Good girl.  Nicely done.  You can jump back.  Good girl.  Sometimes getting them to move will help with their, their nervousness.  Good girl.  Look at that.  

Do you guys notice I have a leash in my hand here and that is kind of the goal for us, is that she will eventually station and hold on to a mark up there and kind of turn away from me so that I can then put a little waistband, like a belt, around her and then she can be on a belt with a leash on it and she can come out and safely be out with me and we can go on lots of adventures and that would just be the best thing for her, to be able to get out and do more things and we'd also like to do public presentations with her and educate people about marmosets, monkeys, and another target.  

Look at her going.  She is so good.  When I first started to do her target training, she actually got quite aggressive with the target.  She didn't understand why I wasn't giving her the food right away and so her frustration went, you've been looking at your target.  Her frustration went in to  biting the target so she's--she had some trouble with the target training, but you can see she is, she is so good.  She's got it.  She understands now.  You wanna go see it?  Look at that.  Well done.

It's really important that she understands that we're done with the session so that she doesn't think that I am holding back or stealing any of her food.  She wants to go say hi to Matt and you guys, but there's also mealworms right there.  So she saw that--I made it very clear that I had no more treats.  She understood that and she was fine with it and she went and foraged on her own and she wants to eat that one in peace.

She is letting me touch her just a little bit, a little bit  on the tail, a little bit on her back, her lower back here, but I never really want to push it too much, not right now, especially when she's eating.  She might get possessive and think that I'm trying to take her food, but I do still try and work towards the touching and the interaction.  It's really good for her.

So after we've done our morning training session and she has all of her food hidden around her enclosure, I just kinda hang out in here with her for a bit.  Oh!  I moved my foot and it startled her.  Sorry, Mimi.  That was an impressive jump, though, wasn't it?  I love that we have this huge window for her so that she can look out and see things.  We're going to keep adding things to the ceiling and just keep improving her space as much as we can, change it up all the time so it never gets boring.

Nice jump.  Nicely done.  That is a very good mark.  I should have taken those back, huh?  Are you gonna rip it apart now?  Obviously she likes new and different items, which is why we keep adding things.  It's fun.  It's fun to get new toys and new things to play around with, huh?  Oh.  That happens when you push it off the edge, it falls.  Yeah, what do you think about that?  Do you want that around your waist? It's not so terrible, huh?  That one's got plastic and metal.  Hm, what is it?  Does it taste good?  Hm.  There's lots of good spots.  Yeah, click those two together and you got it.  I love that she's checking this out.  There's no longer going to be foreign object to her.  

One of my favorite parts of working with the animals is just being with them and seeing, you know, who they are and what they like to do and giving them interaction and new experiences, so this is one of our morning, just being together.  

Alright, well, I am going to let Mimi continue foraging for her food and having fun.  I'm going to say goodbye to you guys.  Have a wonderful day and a wonderful week.  If you'd like to go on an adventure with us every week, subscribe to our YouTube channel, AnimalWondersMontana.  Thanks for going on this adventure with me, guys.  Bye.

(Endscreen/Credits)