Within the walls of Animal Discovery Center (ADC) exists a place of quiet natural beauty with a well-equipped art center so you and your children can express the creative energy gained while experiencing ADC’s exhibition of life. The museum charges a modest $1 per person donation and the art and activity center is available at a cost of $5 per child.

“It’s all about our animals,” Beckwith said as one of her roosters crowed at our approach. The fowl are penned while they spend the day at ADC, but each evening get a ride back to the Beckwith home where they enjoy free range. The clean enclosure also houses finches and guinea pigs.

Beckwith provides healthy environs for numerous plants, birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, and arthropods at the center. So many interested people call to offer exotic fauna that Beckwith often must turn them away.

“We’ll accept an animal if we can care for it and if it fits with our community here,” she said, “and if we can find a good home for an animal we are glad to help, but too often things like monkeys, iguanas, jungle cats, and parrots just require conditions we can’t provide.”

ADC houses several small species that can be safely handled by young children, but the business functions as a true living museum—not a petting zoo or a pet store. Kids can enjoy thousands of tiny feet crawling over their hands and arms with a 13-inch African millipede. Ever think you’d like to cuddle up to a cockroach? The long enmity between roaches and man comes to a safe and clean end at ADC.

“Roaches in the wild do not innately harbor disease germs,” Beckwith explained, “but when they infest human houses they spread germs that live in the dirt left by the people.”

Some of the funniest moments the ADC staff enjoy involves their cockroaches. Occasionally a youngster will stand fascinated by the long antennae waving about and turn and say, “Mommy, we have those at home! They live in our kitchen!”

Birthday parties and other celebrations can be hosted at the center. Just think about how much fun a special celebration will be as your children and their friends tour the displays, learn about the animals they see, and then play with educational games or various art media while parents sit and enjoy a soft drink or a cup of tea or cocoa.

“We never stifle creativity here,” Beckwith said, “and we allow the kids to tell us what they want to do or create.”

In the art center, a series of microscopes lets patrons view microscopic life forms or see animal parts like bug legs or pond insects up close. An overhead projector shows color slides onto large poster paper so kids can trace their favorite animal or dinosaur and then color, paint, or decorate it. One youngster modeled a hedgehog out of clay, inserting Q-Tips™ all over the model to imitate the soft nubs on the live animal’s back.

When a resident animal dies the creature’s useful life doesn’t necessarily end. Empty exoskeletons of crabs, beetles, and scorpions are dried and mounted for viewing. Bird hides with feathers intact are tanned and may be carefully handled 

“We also sell animal artifacts here,” Beckwith explained as she wrapped an alligator skull for a customer. The museum area keeps preserved specimens on exhibition like squid, jellyfish, worms, leeches, and beetles. Other artifacts for sale include shark jaws, preserved piranha, dried blowfish and starfish, deer hides, and various animal skulls. All sales and donations go to support the center and maintain the well-being of its animals.

Buddy had just sipped some water out of the water trough. I dumped out his grain and started to walk away to feed the other horses. Then I thought Buddy had taken another drink—the water rippled a bit. I looked in and saw a poor squirrel on his last lap around the black deep water trough.

Decision time.

I detest the abundance of squirrels at our farm. They have eaten leather, chewed through the plastic lids on the grain cans, required me to store all food in my (squirrel proof) horse trailer, and stolen food right out of the buckets while the horses eat. They refuse to be baited by food in the squirrel traps, and continue to multiply at an astounding rate.

But, could I kill one—bat him on the head with a stick or my bucket? Hold down his little muzzle in the water till he said “uncle.” Or worse, just walk away as he struggled doing his best breast stroke?

That day I must have earned bonus points for heaven.

I scooped him out of the water with my trusty blue bucket. (Only to suddenly get scared that the squirrel would go rabid and jump out and bite me—resulting in me hurling the bucket with him in it to the unforgiving ground—almost killing him yet another way!)

After finding my courage and breath, I checked my blue bucket. Squirrelly was still inside, in a little pool, tired.

I turned the bucket gently toward the sun—he swaggered out like a worn-out cowboy after a long, hot day.

Met with a squirrelly decision, I sided with the “wildlife.” (Buddy just looked at me and snorted.) Just another day on the farm in Reno.

Later that evening, I recounted my tale to some friends who all came back with gleeful “hurrahs” and “yippees” to my act of compassion and courage. To all my fans of the squirrel support group who encouraged my “right decision”—I say, “Thanks for the encouraging words—I hope to be this strong with the rodents every summer!”

Next door to me is a farmer who plants the annual Community Corn Maze—the local squirrels are quite happy. Maybe they will leave our family alone.

One morning, while opening his fitness studio at 600 South Center Street in Reno, Chad heard what sounded like the meowing of a cat? Not noticing the source of this sound, he went on about the business of opening his studio. Shortly, one of his clients found the noisemaker. Near a corner of the building was a visibly injured little orange tabby cat, obviously feral.

Shaking, hobbling, and covered with road grime, this poor little fellow no doubt was the victim of a dust-up with an automobile. Chad took it immediately to a veterinarian, who asked the cat’s name. Chad gave him the first name to pop into his head—Tom Selleck.

The veterinarian’s prognosis was that since Tom had suffered injuries to his hips, he would need surgery to restore him to full mobility. Chad, a cat person, took up a collection among his clients and people from the other fitness studio, Achieve Fitness, to cover the cost. The response was overwhelming, and Tom soon had the necessary surgery. The veterinarian even neutered him for no additional charge.

Tom quickly recovered from his surgery, and within days had the full use of his hind legs. Chad decided to adopt Tom, as at the time he was distraught over recently losing both of his previous feline companions—Bonnie (heart failure) and Clyde (run over by a car).

Chad decided that Tom should be an indoor cat to avoid further mishaps with cars and Tom quickly turned Chad’s home into a playground. Tom has adapted beautifully, exploring everywhere whenever he’s not zinging around corners and caroming into walls or launching surprise attacks on sleeping humans. All this activity means he works up a hearty appetite. One can expect to find Tom sitting by his dish when he’s hungry, usually making that fact loudly known.

Now is the time. Teaching your puppy or adult dog (and yes, old dogs CAN learn new tricks) is not only fun because of the end result, but it’s also a fun process—one that can also be a great bonding experience for the two of you.*

The easiest way to teach “Take a Bow” is by capturing the behavior when your dog does it naturally and then rewarding with a treat. Because of this, it works best if your dog bows naturally when happy or excited. (You can also teach “Take a Bow” by using a food treat the way “Wave” is taught above.)

Horses are creatures designed to be active nearly 20 hours of every day. In the wild they spend the bulk of their time foraging. Even so, they will make time for play when they can.

Because of their nature to stay constantly busy, horses in captivity can become quite bored. Horses that have daily jobs are usually a lot more content than those who don’t because it satisfies some or all of this need. Horses that live in box stalls are usually the most at risk for developing problematic negative behaviors that come from stress and boredom such as cribbing, weaving, wood chewing, digging, pacing, nervousness and aggressiveness to mention a few. We’d like to avoid letting any of these get started because they can be difficult or impossible to eliminate. Pastured horses have the most natural environment, so they are at the least risk of developing these types of so-called “stereotypical behaviors.” Unfortunately, many horses don’t have pastures.

Enter the element of play, or shall we call it, self-amusement! Getting out of the stall or pen and getting plenty of turn out, or play time, with other horses is helpful. Many horses (not all) will also play with toys. Not only do they enjoy chewing on unusual things, they are very curious and enjoy exploring. They even engage in interactive play using toys with other horses in unexpected ways. Sometimes they play tug of war, fetch or chase, and sometimes there are mock wars over preferred toys. One of our horses seems to enjoy attacking the toy, jumping on it, stomping it, and flinging it around. We provide toys within each horse’s living area also so that the opportunity for healthy amusement is always available.

Here are some examples of toys we’ve used or seen: balls of every size and texture (not too small or fragile, though); traffic cones of various sizes; tires (no steel belts, please), both plain and cut to resemble flowers or flatter discs; old sections of hose, tied in a knot on the fence; rubber feed tubs or pieces of rubber mats; long nylon braids, or ropes of various lengths with and without knots; dog Kongâ toys, and other non-destructible large dog toys. For safety sake, we always try to make sure that the toy cannot be swallowed, or torn to shreds and eaten. We also make sure there are no parts that can come off, are sharp or terribly hard because of the games the horses play together.

A dear friend of mine, who is an excellent instructor and international clinician and been involved with horses nearly all of her life, was astonished to see our horses playing with toys during turnout. She had never witnessed horses interacting with toys and each other in such a distinctly, purely playful way. Evidently, not everyone has such playful horses as we do. But we have found that they all seem to be much happier and content when they have their friends and their toys to play with. What a fabulous source of entertainment for us, too!

Now, I don’t really know how we could prove it, but I’ll bet that if someone could ever invent an I.Q. test for horses, we’d find that those that play actually learn better in training. Maybe it has something to do with being happier, and thus, more receptive to the teaching. I’m also sure we could learn a thing or two about how to better teach our horses, if we remember their love of play. Make training fun!