Dolphins Plus Marine Mammal Responder Blog

Happy New Year! 

The turn of each new year brings positive vibes, exciting resolutions and goals, new beginnings, and this year... hope. 

Alfonz - Alfonz and his trainer Kayla have been working on his belly breach and have recently made some strong headway! He is starting to come out of the water and "breach" on his belly. This is a relatively complex behavior that may take a while to build, so stay tuned for updates!  Al is loving it so far, though, and seems to be very excited when he succeeds with a new step in the behavior. 

October has been a busy month for our resident dolphins with the installation of new platforms in both lagoons. Here's how our 7 family members are doing: 

Alfonz - Alfonz continues to be the "big man on campus" and continues to work on learning a new "belly breach" behavior with Kayla. This month, he stayed busy interacting with our locals in the Florida Keys, celebrating our "Local Love" month with $50 swims for Monroe County residents. In an effort to provide variety and mental stimulation for Alfonz, this month the trainers decided to put a creative spin on how we run the Splash & Wade program, which Alfonz participates in almost daily. Instead of simply running the program from the platform, trainers jumped on Kayaks, rafts, and even into the water to conduct the program, which Alfonz seemed to adore! 

July 28th is a special day for DPMMR. It's the day each year we celebrate another trip around the sun with our big guy Bob! 

My husband, me, and my daughter in my ultimate happy place.

Nancy, How did you end up as the President of DPMMR?

There are no dolphins in Kentucky.

Everyone knows playing with dolphins is the best career anyone could ever ask for. The lesser known fact is that "playing with dolphins" comprises about 10% of your day... and the other 90% comprises of cleaning. And sanitizing. And re-cleaning. And re-sanitizing. And then some more cleaning. 

We sat down with Senior Marine Mammal Specialist, Wendy Kellam, to talk about her history with DPMMR and dolphins. We asked her a series of questions, and here's what she had to say: