TRAINING THE WILD : There’s Some Monkey Business and Instruction and Love at Compound

It’s high noon in horse country as ranch hands work, riders lead their horses over equestrian trails and Hilary Bennett goes for a walk with her baboon.

Around these parts in Riverside County, that’s not an unusual sight because this ranch has more than horses, cows and goats.

This is the home of the Wild Animal Training Center, a small, secluded compound just east of Norco and west of Riverside, where a hawk knows its name, monkeys beat drums and employees in safari clothes carry on conversations with chimpanzees and capuchin monkeys.

The Wild Animal Training Center, part of the Hidden Valley Wildlife Area at 1401 Arlington Ave., is a school where animals are trained for motion pictures, TV, commercials and music videos, where students are trained for professional careers, and where orphaned or injured animals are treated for release into their natural habitat.

The center houses more than two dozen animals, including red foxes, monkeys, owls, chimpanzees, wasps, llamas, possums and snakes. The variety gives students a variety of experience.

“If you’re going to make it in this business, you need to know how to do anything,” said Bennett, center director. “You even need to know about wasps.”

For Bennett, a retired junior high school teacher from Norco and part owner in the center, her job fulfilled a lifelong dream of working with animals, especially primates. She talks about the Devon, her 2-year-old baboon, as if it were her child. And for good reason: She raised Devon with bottles and diapers.

“She’s starting to get aggressive like baboons are,” Bennett said. “She’s into grabbing like little kids do.”

But Bennett has learned how to control Devon’s biting and grabbing. The key, she said, is to use their language. When Devon defies her commands, Bennett acts out a baboon’s own aggressions.

“When you say no to her, she’ll raise her eyebrows at you,” Bennett said. “Then I’ll grab her neck and raise my eyebrows back. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll even show my teeth. That is their language. “

The animals, like people, aren’t automatically fond of everyone. Many animals are partial to female or male trainers or to blonds or brunettes, for example.

Tundra, a 1 1/2-year-old MacKenzie Valley wolf who was brought to the center by a couple who moved from New York, took a liking immediately to Mark Johnson, 32, an assistant supermarket manager who trains at the center as a hobby. Several weeks ago, Tundra noticed Johnson’s whistling as he cleaned out chimpanzee cages.

“He just did a little whimpering,” Johnson said. “He was pacing back and forth trying to get my attention.”

Now, after weeks of training, Tundra walks along with Johnson.

The results of training can be impressive. Devon can do back flips. Harpo, a capuchin monkey with a nearly bare face and a hood-like crown of hair, was used in a Riverside County project to help paraplegics with their chores. He learned how to turn off lights, do slam dunks, bring sticks and give the high fives.

Even Cherokee, a red-tail hawk, has a few tricks. She responds to her name.

“She has no fear of humans,” Bennett said. “She knows her name. You say Cherokee and she turns her head.”

It can be a lucrative business for professional trainers. Dorothy Hughen, a full-time volunteer at the center and its assistant director, said the animals have earned from $150 to $4,000 for a single performance.

Through her acting, Hughen’s 4-year-old capuchin monkey, Cindy, has learned to look through a magnifying glass, beat a drum, jump 10 feet and ride a tricycle. She even played an organ grinder in a stage production of “Inherit the Wind.”

But probably the actor here is Michael the Chimp, who has appeared on television and in movies.

With hands behind his back, Michael does a Groucho walk. Then he does his funny face, wrapping his lower lip down to his chin. And he falls to the floor, grabbing his chest, at the sound of a bang.

Now, Michael even tries to get trainers to do some of the tricks he knows.

“They try to communicate with you; it’s spooky,” Johnson said. “Once I asked him for his funny face. But he wanted me to do mine.”