“All right, gentlemen, take up them guy ropes!”
When the weather is foul, and the circus lot is hip-deep in mud, when men have struggled to their utmost and can go no longer on their own power, he doesn’t brace them with bootleg whisky. Instead, he keeps a man on the pay roll whose job is to laugh and sing in such times as this—the superintendent knowing full well that one laugh begets another, that singing engenders singing, and that the psychological value of that laughing man is worth barrels of booze. It has saved the show more times than one!
Just as conditions have improved with the human personnel of the circus, so have they progressed in the menagerie. The circus animal trainer of to-day is not chosen for his brutality, or his cunning, or his so-called bravery. He is hired because he has studied and knows animals—even to talking their various “languages!” There are few real animal trainers who cannot gain an answer from their charges, talking to them as the ordinary person talks to a dog and receiving as intelligent attention. It is by this method that cat animals are trained for the most part, it being about the only way, outside of catnip, in which they can be rewarded.
In that last word comes the whole explanation of the theory of present-day animal training, a theory of rewards. Animal men have learned that the brute isn’t any different from the human; the surest way to make him work is to pay him for his trouble. In the steel arena to-day, the same fundamentals exist as in any big factory, or business house, or office. The animals are just so many hired hands. When they do their work, they get their pay envelope—and they know it. Beyond this lies, however, another fundamental principle, by which in the last score or so of years the whole animal-training system has been revolutionized. The present-day trainer doesn’t cow the animal or make it afraid of him. On the contrary, the first thing he does is to conquer all fear and make friends with the beast!
A study of jungle animals has taught him that they exist through fear; that the elephant fears, and therefore hates the chimpanzee, the gorilla and any other member of the big ape tribes that can attack from above, and therefore, simply through instinct, will kill any of these beasts at the first opportunity. In like manner does the hyena or the zebra fear the lion, the tiger fear the elephant, the leopard fear the python. It has taken little deduction to find that with this fear, hatred is inevitably linked, and that if an animal fears a trainer, it also hates him and will “get” him at the first opportunity. Therefore, the first thing to be eliminated is not fear on the part of the trainer, but on the part of the animal! I am no animal trainer. Yet, as I say, I’ve occupied some mighty close quarters with every form of jungle beast. Nor was it bravery. It was simply because I knew the great cats wouldn’t be afraid of me, and that, having nothing to fear, they would simply ignore me. Which happened.
Perhaps the best example of the change in training tactics lies in the story of a soft-hearted, millionaire circus owner who is somewhat of a crank about his animals being well treated. One day, several years ago, we happened to be together at a vaudeville theater, in which an old-time trainer was exhibiting a supposed “trained” monkey band. The audience seemed to enjoy the affair; but there were two who didn’t. All for the reason that we could see the cruelty of it.
The unfortunate monkeys were tied to their chairs. To their arms were attached invisible piano wires which ran to a succession of pulleys above and thence to the wings, where they were pulled and jerked by an assistant to create the illusion that the beasts were obeying commands. By an elaborate network of wires, the monkeys were made to raise horns, which also were tied to their hands, and apparently play them. Time after time, as he watched, the circus owner snorted his displeasure, and, at last, the act finished, rose from his chair and sought the stage entrance.
“Swell act you got!” he announced to the owner. “What do you want for it? You know, I own a circus; I’d kind of like to have that layout in the kid show.”
It was the beginning of a series of bickerings, which ended in the purchase of the act—why, I could not quite understand. So I asked the reason. The eccentric little owner waved a hand.
“Going to have it in my show.”