Panda School: (EXCLUSIVE) How the National Zoo Trains Its Panda Cub | National Geographic

I'm one of a very select group of people to get to interact with this animal, and I don't take that for granted. It's really cool for me to get to do something like that. Beibei is just absolutely a joy to work with. There is something about him; he's so sweet. He is very interested in interacting with us. She seems to really like us. Good boy!

He just started training with Beibei, so we start very basic with things like calling him to us, so he learns that when he's out in the yard, if we call him, he needs to come inside if we ask him to. One of the things that we have to be mindful of is that he's only eight months old. So if you have a toddler at home, or have ever been around little kids, you know they don't have a very long attention span. He's very much the same way. When I go, "What do you think?" he just likes to go two feet and then rolls around.

Now, it's gonna dive! Yeah, it's very science fun. Oh, pandas generally lead with their noses. They use their sense of smell, and they kind of test things out with their noses. So we asked them to touch the target. Good, good target! We use food as a really good reward. He really likes sweet potato, so we tend to use that. It's actually cooked; he likes it cooked. It's a little bit sweeter probably that way.

Then we move on to slightly harder things, like asking him to, you know, put his paw up for us to show on the mesh, or to stand up so we can look at his body, or open his mouth so we can look at his teeth. Even at 40 pounds, baby, he's really strong, and if he wants to come and latch on to my legs, sometimes I can't get them off of me.

So when we get to that point, we have to stop going in the mouth. We do have this special training chute that we can put the adult pandas into, and it's basically a small enclosure that is safe for the pandas and for us to interact. It's got an attachment where they can put their arm in a little sleeve and hold onto a bar. We can get their blood that way or their blood pressure, and they can do it without using anesthesia.

When we can train him, maybe five, maybe ten minutes, and then he starts to lose interest. You can tell that he's losing interest in A) he's not participating in the training anymore, and B) he starts to want to play. Generally, he starts to want to play a little bit rough, so at that point, we try to end the session on a good note and then get him shifted out to his mother so he can burn off that energy that he's now kind of got going outside with his mom.

It's definitely a great job to have to be able to play with baby pandas here all day. Yes, it's fun. I'm not gonna lie; we all love it! But it's not just a petting session; it's more about building a relationship, right bud? I also love the fact that I'm contributing, and my team is contributing to this greater effort of saving giant pandas.

We have produced three cubs, and all of our cubs are going to go to China and be part of the breeding program. We're helping to create larger numbers of pandas in captivity so that we can continue to put them back into the wild.