Lions 'n' tigers 'n' everything

by Courtney Ryley Cooper

When bad weather comes, they simply bring out “Old Bonehead” and hitch him with a rope harness to whichever wagon happens to be stuck. Then a workman takes his position slightly in front of the beast, with a bucketful of carrots, and practices a little animal Coueism. He holds out a carrot. The elephant reaches for it but can’t quite achieve his object. Whereupon he takes a step forward—and drags the wagon with him. Which forms the end of that particular vehicle’s troubles. He is unhitched and taken to the next scene of difficulty. For every wagon a carrot, and the circus counts it rather cheap motive power at that!

However, the training of animals does not mean that they’re simply given food, in return for which, by some magical process, they realize that they are to do certain work. Far from it. It is a long, patient progress, in which the trainer, if he is a good one, grits his teeth to hold his temper and smiles many and many a time when he would like to swear. He has three jobs which must be synchronized into one objective—to teach the animal that there is nothing to fear from this strange human who has suddenly made his entry into the beast’s life, to plant certain routines into the beast’s mind, and to place there at the same time the knowledge that, for doing these things, the animal is to be rewarded. But there is this consolation: once a single trick is learned, the whole avenue is unlocked; and the way to other stunts made easier. Here and here alone is the whip used, but for the most part it is only the light, cheap affair which once adorned that ancient vehicle, the buggy.

The lessons start in much the same manner in which those of a human child begin; the primary object being to accustom the charges to the fact that they are going to school. And so the lion tamer merely takes his position in the center of the arena and calls for the attendants to release the animals from their permanent cages.

Often the lesson consists of nothing more than that. The beasts have become accustomed to mankind through seeing them every day in the menagerie and through being fed by them. Therefore they catalogue them as merely other animals which are harmless and upon which the beasts themselves depend for a livelihood. Again is the road to the brain opened through the path to the stomach!

However, there also are times when the cats seem to realize that they no longer are protected by intervening bars, and the old instincts of fright and self-preservation overcome them. One by one they attempt to rush their trainer. The answer is a swift, accurately placed blow of the whip, usually on the nostrils. In force it corresponds to a sharp slap on the lips, such as happens to more than one child, stinging it for the moment and causing it to recoil. Unless the beast is intractable, an inbred or a “bad actor,” about two of these blows are sufficient to teach the animal its first combined lesson: that a whip hurts, that the man in the arena commands that whip but, most important of all, he uses it only as a means of self-protection. The good trainer only strikes an animal to break up an attack; he has a specified task, to make the beast respect the whip, but not to fear it. After the first few minutes, the trainer can sit down in the center of the arena and wait in peace. His charges have ceased attacking and now are merely roaming the big enclosure, accustoming themselves to the larger space of their quarters and assuring themselves that they have nothing to fear. So ends the first lesson.

After which comes the second and most important period of all. The animal already has learned three things, that the trainer will not hurt him unless the animal tries to hurt the trainer, that the whip is something that can sting and it is best to keep away from it, and that there will be a reward for doing what the trainer desires, and that, taken all in all, he’s a pretty good sort of a being after all. Therefore, the trainer selects one beast at a time and falls into a routine. He cracks his whip just behind the beast, not striking the animal, but close enough to make his charge move away from it. At the same time, he keeps repeating his rote:

“Seats, Rajah! Seats—seats!”

Which the beast doesn’t understand at all. But by “crowding,” by the constant repetition of that command, and by desisting with the whip when the animal moves in the right direction and cracking it to hold him from the wrong course, the trainer gradually works the cat to its pedestal. Once this lesson is implanted in the mind of the beast, the whole door to a trained act is unlocked, for everything else is accomplished in the same manner.

More than once I have happened into a menagerie house to find the arena full of cat animals and a trainer seemingly nowhere about. The animals were doing as they pleased, some lolling in the spots of sunlight which came from the high windows, others playing, still others merely pacing. It was as though a recess had been called at school and the teacher had departed. Instead, however, he was hiding!

Hiding and watching the animals with hawk-like eagerness, as, left to themselves, they followed the dictates of their own likes and dislikes. It was not a recess; on the contrary, it was one of the most important features of present-day animal training, that of allowing the animals themselves to choose their own acts! In other words, the trainer was playing the part of a hidden observer, watching his tawny charges, and from his unseen point of vantage learning their true natures and the things which they liked best to do.