Down into the glare of the electric lights and the carbides. Down to the shouts of the razorbacks and “polers,” the clatter of wagons, the hollow pounding of horses traveling up the runs to the stock cars. At last the “bull” or elephant car. The three big hulks clambered upward—and the bull-man waited, standing far aside in the darkness. Again a moment of hesitation, then a creeping something came forward, to slink to the runway, to pause, one foot slightly raised in preparation for progress or flight; but there came no sound from the bull-man; nothing save the shifting of the big brutes within the car and the crunching of hay. The interloper took a step forward, paused again, moved on once more, then with a sudden dart was inside the car and hidden in the hay. The bull-man turned.
“Hey, Deafy!” he called to a passing property man. “Tell that there dog punk I can fill up that empty compartment in the wagon to-morrow. Just joined one out.”
Which meant that the next day there would be a new occupant for the dog wagon of the circus, a new applicant for training, a new “trouper” among the canine personnel of the show. One that would respond to every command, for the simple reason that he had chosen his own life; that he had run away with the circus because he loved it and wanted it, because he was a circus dog at heart, with the love of trouping ingrained within him. Without knowing it, he had passed an examination and proved himself worthy of a life where there can be no weaklings. The dog wagon of a circus is the custodian of many a dog history, and of the inside story of many a queer quirk in a dog nature. And to the name of practically every occupant can be placed the notation, “Present through his own knowledge and desire.”
To those of you who watch the various trained-dog acts of a circus, it may seem a difficult thing to procure the various performers; perhaps you’ve often wondered where they came from, how they were trained; and in some cases you may have sorrowed a bit at the “poor animals” forced to travel day by day, earning their living by the performance of their tricks. All of which is very sweet and pretty, but it is wrong in one particular. In seventy-five cases out of a hundred, the circus dog is there either because he has insisted on being there, and persisted even in undergoing hardships to be able to pass his examination, or because the fact that he was wanted by the circus has saved him from the chloroform room of the pound-keeper. The circus dog as a general rule comes from only two sources,—the dog pound, or the voluntary “joining out” of a canine who comes to the circus of his own accord and insists upon staying with it, even to the extent of “bumming” his way from town to town! With the exception of the twenty-five per cent. representing the dogs belonging to the individual performers, which perhaps have been purchased from other performers, or trainers, or which, like their human counterparts of the circus world, are of a long string of performing ancestors, the offspring taking up the life of their forbears and “carrying on the act.” In these instances, the values run high; Alf Loyal’s dogs, for instance, with the Ringling Brothers-Barnum and Bailey Circus, are worth a young fortune, while Abe Aronson’s “rabbit” and “elephant” dogs are insured for several thousand dollars. The same is true of other canine troupes belonging to individuals. But even here and there among these valued dogs are others, performing as well and valued as highly, whose past could be written in a continuous chapter of back alleys and weird escapes from the dog catcher.
Nor is every dog which joins the circus taken along merely as a performer. Quite the opposite. There are often more canines outside the ring around a big show, each with his or her job, than ever appear under the big top. There is the elephant dog, for instance, trained to remain around the big animals, to trot under their heels, to appear without warning from one side or another, or to stand in front of them and bark or snarl, to sleep with them in the big bull car at nights, and chief of all, to keep other dogs from the vicinity of that herd. Upon that dog, usually a nondescript, does the safety of the show often rest, and for one very good reason: elephants seem to form a strange fascination for dogs, while to an elephant, a dog is a fearsome beast, breeding fear and trepidation, and forming one of the best excuses ever invented for a panic! Hence the elephant dog, to which the big mammals become accustomed, and upon which they eventually come to look upon as a sort of protector, acting in the final analysis in the same fashion as a pacifier to a mammoth baby.
Then too, there are the menagerie dogs; just dogs, with apparently no purpose in life except to trot around the menagerie tent, or sleep beneath a cage. But they all have their duties. There are the ones which accompany the led stock—any animal which can be led by a halter is known in the circus as “led” stock—and which know every member of that department. More than once, when on the check-up at night, a zebra or llama is found to be missing, the led stock dog has departed also, not to appear again until that missing animal is accounted for and presented at the runs, with the dog nipping at its heels! In circus history there is even the case of Scotty, a little Scotch terrier rescued from a dog pound, her puppies chloroformed, and a baby lion given into her keeping to raise. Which task she performed with the result that Kaiser is now a feature lion of the menagerie of a big circus, while Scotty sleeps in a little silk-lined casket, her life shortened because of her faithful sacrifices to a king of beasts.
Around the menagerie it seems that the dog forms the natural companion for any animal. No matter whether its breed be feline or canine, equine or bovine, when a companion is needed, a new dog is added to the circus roster. Seldom does that dog fail, even though the course of its faithfulness should lead to danger or even to death!
COLLIES MAKE EXCELLENT CIRCUS DOGS.
