Double the Raspberries

They're such goofy boys!

Talon and Pax are two of the big boys that live at Dolphin Research Center. Not only are these magnificent guys best friends, but they’re also brothers! They have a bond with one another that allows them to be silly but yet want to show each other up.

Recently, the boys trainers were having a fun session with them and decided to ask for audience participation. One thing we love to do at DRC is show our guests how great the dolphins are at imitating. We ask the audience to do a certain behavior, then ask the dolphins to copy. Most of the time the dolphins get it right, but every once in a while their minds are elsewhere or they just feel like being silly and they don’t do the right behavior. Since everything we do at DRC is revolved around what the dolphins want to do, if they show us they’re not interested then we move onto something else. This is exactly what happened when we asked Talon and Pax to imitate the audience blowing raspberries. After being asked twice, you could tell the boys just weren’t into it so the trainers changed up the session.

Since the big guys were very energetic that particular day, their trainers asked them to do combination behaviors incorporating a raspberry behavior. First Talon was asked to dive and raspberry, but instead he dove and wiggled. Then Pax had a shot at it and pulled off the correct combo effortlessly. Once Talon saw that his brother was raspberrying, he got into the mood to do it too. He took off on a raspberrying speed run, where his head got so far out of the water we thought it would slow him down. It was quite a sight to see.

It turns out all the boys needed to do was a few high energy behaviors to get them going because the remaining of the session was raspberry filled! As they strutted then waved goodbye to the guests at the end of the narration, every behavior was coated in raspberries. It’s no surprise we always say that the silly sound is a favorite among guys.