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We’ve shown you Canine Musical Freestyle competitions and Bunny Show Jumping competitions, and now we have Feline Agility Competitions, too! In this video, a 5-week old Tonkinese kitten named Jumpin Jack Flash starts his training. He’s already got a blue ribbon in “adorable.” Find out more about these competitions from the Cat Fanciers Association. Link -via Buzzfeed
Who does better tricks, Kaiser the Bengal cat or Nana the border collie? I’d have to give the title to the dog, because I have a border collie, and can attest that they are always in a hurry to do everything perfect, as far as they understand it. However, getting a cat to do any tricks at all is a major accomplishment! This competition is from the pet trainers at Use Your Clicker. Link -via Laughing Squid
The Aviarios del Caribe sloth sanctuary in Costa Rica is an orphanage that cares for abandoned and injured sloths with the goal of releasing them back into the wild. But the youngsters have to be taught how wild sloths do sloth things. -via Arbroath
The Art of Manliness posted the physical fitness requirements and testing process used in the U.S. Army during World War II.
The Army first introduced a formal fitness test to the troops in 1942. Millions of men were being called up to fight in World War II, and not all of them were prepared for the rigors of combat. To get the men in fighting shape, the Army implemented a systematic physical development program as part of the Combat Basic Training course. And the Army Ground Forces Test was designed to assess whether the program was having its desired effect. The test included squat jumps, sit-ups, pull-ups, push-ups, and a 300 yard run. The emphasis was on functional fitness and giving American GI’s the strength, mobility, and endurance they would need to tackle real tasks on the battlefield.
In 1946, a Physical Training School was created at Fort Bragg with the mission of exploring how to take the goal of functional fitness farther. The training program developed at the school and the fitness test were codified in the 1946 edition of FM 21-20, the Army’s physical training manual.
Basically, Grandpa was doing Cross-Fit before it was cool.
The physical fitness standards for service members has been relaxed since then, and more emphasis is placed on technical skills. Take a look at the fitness testing done in the 1940s, and see how tired you get just reading it. Or -you may want to try and see how well you would do! Link -via Nag on the Lake
Over the past several decades, every mission that NASA has ever flown has first been practiced right here on Earth. This gallery shows dozens of training exercises from the Apollo missions through the shuttle launches.
In space, no one wants any surprises. To avoid being caught off guard where no one can hear you scream, every step of every space mission is practiced on the ground (or underwater, or in the air). We take a look back at NASA’s decades of creative methods of astronaut training.
Sammi Jo Stohler had a problem: her zebra Zach kept jumping out of his field, so much that she had an eight-foot fence built. So she turned his habit into an asset by training Zach to show off his jumps! Stohler took Zach in after his former owner had trouble with him.
“As I was training horses, I kept hearing, ‘You can’t train zebras, they’re untrainable.’ I said, ‘Why?’ To say something is untrainable implies that it can’t learn, and we all know that if they couldn’t learn, they’d all be extinct. They have to be able to learn and adapt. Obviously, the burden lies on the trainer to be able to train them,” Stohler said.
She got her first zebra about 10 years ago. “He was a dream to work with, and I’ve been hooked ever since. They’re very intelligent. When you teach them something, you don’t have to do a lot of review,” she said. “You train them something, put them away for a few months, then bring them back out, and it’s exactly as if you didn’t stop. A lot of horses need review over and over again before they’re consistent.”
Stohler has two zebras, Zack and Charlie, on her farm in Willis, Texas, as well as a zorse (a zebra-horse cross) and a zonkey (a zebra-donkey cross). She rides Zack frequently, especially on trail rides, and drives Charlie. Her exotic animal rehabilitation skills have led her to work with birds of prey, antelope, deer, elk, camels and badgers.
Stohler intends for Zach to jump in demonstrations, but not in competition. Link -via Arbroath
(Image credit: Kimberly Hahn-Orlaska)
Salon writer Sarah Hepola moved to tiny apartment in Manhattan and found the lack of space severely affected her cat Bubba. Should she take him outside on a leash? Have you ever been able to leash-train a cat?
I know, I know, a cat leash is a ridiculous idea. Cats are too prickly, too willful to endure such pampered indignity. I might as well suggest my cat learn to make a delicious veal parmigiana, or play Bob Dylan songs on the harmonica. In five years of living in New York — a city that prides itself on its vast parade of human experience — I’ve only seen one cat on a leash. (Putting the ratio of strangers’ penises to leashed cats at 2:1.) The New York Times wrote about a real estate broker on the Upper West Side who leash trained his cat, which suggests just how remarkable the feat is. Even the phrase “cat on a leash” has a campy spark of the impossible, like something you’d see in a Farrelly brothers movie, or hear about in a novelty song: “Cat on a leash! He don’t eat quiche!” But if you start digging a bit into the world of cats on leashes, what you will discover is just how many people have already tried it.
After much angst, Hepola tried a leash on her cat and was surprised by how the adventure turned out. You might not be so surprised. Link
60 Minutes ran an interesting piece on Olympic snowboarding sensation Shaun White last night. Informative as always, and full of facts about the athlete, the neatest part had to be near the beginning when he showed Bob Simon the halfpipe where he trains alone, and away from prying competitor eyes. It’s a 500 foot pipe carved into ice near Silverton, Colorado. The only way to get there is by helicopter.
Watch CBS News Videos Online
Video Link
Photo: Vincent Fournier
A photography exhibit detailing the training of American astronauts, along with spacefarers from China and Russia, was recently on display at the London Art Fair. In addition to snazzy spacesuits and a mission control center that still looks like NASA’s old room, the participants (Like the one in the lower right of the photo above) are made to mobilize in a barren, Mars-like location at the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah.
Vincent Fournier’s Website, where you can see all of his work.
It might look look just a big can, but this is a piece of high-tech machinery able to monitor racing animals at speeds of up to 60 miles per hour. The nameless vehicle has some kind of enclosure in front of it, resembling a horse starting stall, in which animals can walk and gallop while being monitored by veterinarians and racing experts. It has a centered seat for the driver and two more for a racing specialist and a veterinary expert. Onboard technologies include heart, oxygen, breathing and fitness monitoring to make sure they are in top shape for official races.
Link -via Bits and Pieces
“A Nintendo training video from 1991 teaching retail workers how to handle customers with defective Nintendo products.”
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by Jake.
I’ve certainly heard of training dogs, cats, parrots and almost every other animal under the Sun to do tricks but trained mice is something new to me. This little video presents Brain Storm who has been trained to run through a dastardly tough looking course. However, she prevails with the awesome Olympic Fanfare Theme by John Williams playing in the background to help her speed to victory and glory! Oh, and please don’t get too squeamish over the mouse or the mousey leftovers on the table.
And the judges have their score cards ready: 9.0, 9.0, 9.5, 9.0, 10.0! It’s a new record!
More info on Brain Storm and other mice here – Link
