They took the dog away, far into another part of the gardens, and there gave it luxuries it never had known before. But the dog did not want luxuries. It wanted only that lion. While, in the lion’s den, a tawny beast roared and bellowed and beat itself against the bars in a fury of excitement; nor could even the distance of the width of the gardens really separate them. The dog could hear the roaring of the lion, and answered in staccato barks and in howlings. The lioness caught the call and answered in turn. Day and night it was the same. The menagerie men returned them to each other, waited a week and attempted it once more. In vain. Then, for a space of three months, they tried a scheme of separation, for an hour at a time, then two hours, then three, with success apparently before them. But when the first separation of a night came, the old remonstrance began again and was continued. They were partners, that lioness and that dog, and partners they are to-day, their battle won, cage-mates forever as far as the menagerie men are concerned. The dog appears perfectly happy. It has no desires for the usual canine pleasures; running and playing mean nothing to it. It has a cage nature, a cage appearance, if such a thing can be, and it cares for nothing except the company of its leonine companion.
But to return to the circus and its dogs, and its methods of gaining possession of them. One hears much of the boy who runs away to join the circus, a thing which rarely happens, for circuses are business institutions. In the first place, they don’t want young boys. They need persons grown to sufficient strength to possess the necessary muscle to endure the hardships and work of a circus lot, and that strength doesn’t come until a boy is old enough to go about where he chooses. One hears little of the dogs which run away with a circus, and yet there is a set formula about the menagerie, a question asked almost daily:
“Shall we watch for a mutt to-day?”
Because there is hardly a day in which some dog does not attempt to “join out,” and through his own efforts, seek to attach himself to the show. For all of it there is a reason. If there is one thing that a dog loves, it is horses. If there is another, it is the sound of a band. And if there is a third, it is a general air of excitement and hurly-burly. The next time the circus comes to town, watch the band wagons of the parade. You’ll find in the wake, at the sides, and at the rear, a collection of from one to twenty dogs, trotting happily along, tongue lolling from open jaws, tail aloft, step as springy as that of a high-school horse in the ring. The circus represents to the average dog a sort of heaven where things go exactly the way he wants them to go, and he deliberately chooses the show as a permanent place of abode and insists upon his choice until the circus allows him his desires.
For the dog who goes to the circus undergoes a period of apprenticeship which lasts for days and for hundreds of miles of travel. The “likely” dog usually follows the parade to the circus grounds, there to loaf about under the cages, or trail some particular hostler or menagerie man until that person takes cognizance of him. Which doesn’t happen until night comes, when the circus has traveled to the train, and the dog is still in evidence.
If the circus is “full up,” the dog stays behind. But if there is an opening for a good, faithful dog that likes the show life, there is a gruff command just as the “high-ball” signal sounds, then a scramble as the dog is tossed to one of the flat cars, there to find a bed as best he may, beneath a wagon, or upon a pile of canvas. Thus he spends his first night, in the open upon a jolting flat car, with every possible opportunity to think it all over and decide whether or not he really wants this rough-and-tumble existence. The next morning, when the circus goes to the lot—and if he goes with it—he may be fed or he may not. Usually not. If that dog wants the circus life sufficiently, he’ll find a way to exist and to remain. When night comes again, if he is a weakling, he’ll not be present at the loading runs, having found an easier existence. But in nine cases out of ten, there he’ll be, whining and begging to be put aboard again. When the third night comes, he usually discovers a means of getting aboard himself, and when he shows up on the fourth morning, satisfied and happy, there is a gruff verdict, and a new occupant for the dog wagon. He has won his place as a circus dog, just as any candidate wins a position, through merits, and being the “dog fitted for the place.”
So much for the dog which voluntarily “joins out.” The other type—the one which comes to the circus as a result of a circus demand—is perhaps a far more fortunate creature, even though he doesn’t know it. For he has been saved from death; his place of collection is the dog pound.
Only the mutt, the mongrel, the dog which by his actions, his appearance and his mannerisms displays plainly that he is only a stray and worthless, so far as dogs go, is allowed to “join out” in the usual fashion. The circus doesn’t care for lawsuits, or be attached in the next town for having “stolen” the pedigreed pet of some mourning dog-owner. The result is that a dog with a collar, or one which appears too sleek or well fed, is not welcome about a circus lot. The friendship of the hostler, the performer or the menagerie man is not for him. It is too dangerous; and besides, there is an easier way,—the dog pound.
There the circus man goes to look over the collection of animals which have been picked up on the streets, and for which the time-limit for redemption has passed. For certain acts, there must be certain dogs; for “pad work,” where the dog seizes the clown by the seat of the trousers, or does a “strong-jaw” act all his own, by being pulled to the top of the tent while hanging by his teeth to a leather pad, there must be the bull dog, preferably a large-sized, not-too-highly-bred dog of the Boston bull type. For the races there must be Russian wolf hounds; for hind-leg walking, there must be the collie or the Spitz; while for general, all-round performing excellence, there are the fox terriers. And around the circus, you’ll find many a pedigreed dog of these various species, but rarely a dog with a pedigree. Their pasts are hidden, owner and ancestor. The pound-keeper usually forms the wall between.
Nor is the dog which comes to the big show a circus dog immediately upon his arrival. Instead, for a week or so, he is a dejected individual, snarled at, mistreated by the rest of the pack, tied to his own picket pin, apart from the remainder at feeding time, jailed in his compartment of the dog wagon when the rest are liberated. And all for the reason that there is nothing so clannish as the dog pack of a circus. Some way, the members of that pack seem to realize that they are occupants of a different life; apart from the common, ordinary dog which knows only a home and a master. A circus dog never fights singly. He has the whole pack to back him, the wolf instinct strongly to the fore. When a town dog crosses the trail of a circus dog, it is usually a battle to the death.