Showing their small animal care schooling is for the birds, two Penta Career Center students have been
training feathered creatures for an area pet store.
Naomi Ortega, a junior from Rossford, and Summar Coogler, a junior from Springfield, explained the
project to the Penta Board of Education Wednesday.
The collaboration between the school and Pet Supplies Plus was arranged by animal science instructor
Nicole Costello.
Costello, who has worked as a trainer at the Toledo Zoo, said she had a similar program when she worked
in the Toledo Public Schools. As soon as she was hired at Penta, she called the company.
Ortega said that when the birds first come in to the Penta lab "they’re really scared."
The feeling is mutual. "They bite hard," said Ortega.
Unlike other animals that display threatening behavior, birds show few signs that they are about to
attack, Ortega explained. And when they strike, they are quick, Coogler added.
Ortega said it takes several days to acclimate the birds to the lab. "You have to be patient."

Ortega has worked with three birds, getting them ready to go into homes. Coogler has trained four. But
everyone in the lab works together so the birds get used to being handled by different people.
Sometimes the training involves undoing things the birds have learned.
Coogler said she had a large bird that had picked up "bad words." She had to train the bird to
get rid of the curses because no one would want to buy a bird with such a vocabulary, she said.