In assisting him to nod his head when you want him to signify Yes! when you use the word tap him under the chin. This leads him to throw his head up and down. Soon he will nod at the mere saying of Yes! and later, he will respond with a nod when you ask him a question to which he should reply with the affirmative.
Remember always, in all you do, that you are dealing with an animal whose brain power is far less than that of an ordinary child, and be patient, kind and persevering. Never allow yourself to believe the animal does not possess intelligence. Believe he has it, hope he has it, trust God that he has it and work in that belief, hope, trust, and you will accomplish wonders. Faith, hope and love are the abiding and moving powers of life. With them there is no limit to what can be done, for they belong to the infinite.
A SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION
It is natural that, to those who are skeptical as to a horse’s brain capacity, there should be some doubt as to the reality of Captain’s performances. Suggestions of trickery, of Captain’s being controlled by visual or aural cues that are unobserved and generally unobservable by the public, arise in the mind. The skeptic denies, positively and unquestionably, any assertion of the animal’s intelligence. He laughs and scoffs at the idea that the horse really thinks, adds, subtracts, multiplies or counts; that he knows colors; that he has any idea whatever of tone values, or, indeed, can tell one note from another. He believes in suggestions, or cues, or even that, unconsciously, Mr. Sigsbee hypnotizes the horse and thus personally directs all his actions, and he does not seem to see that these involve the explanation of mysteries as deep as the one of animal intelligence.
The first thing, however, is to be assured that the horse actually does the things it is asserted he does, and that, as far as the trained and scientific observer can detect, there is no conscious deception. In the case of Captain this has been done by Dr. G. V. Hamilton, a veterinarian, whom the Santa Barbara (Calif.) Press asserts is “nationally recognized as an expert in these avenues of investigation.” After witnessing a public performance he conducted a series of private tests and from the Press of February 27, 1916, I quote the following account from Dr. Hamilton’s pen:
Several days elapsed between the visit at which I took the notes recorded above and my private interview with Captain and Mr. Sigsbee. This enabled me to plan various tests which might enable me to check up on the following possibilities:
In performances of this kind it is at least possible for a confederate to conceal himself behind the curtains, under the stage or elsewhere, and to direct the activities of the animal.
A short whip or stick might easily carry a long, thin, black wire, which would be invisible from the front of the stage.
My experience with laboratory animals leads me to believe that it would be possible for a shrewd animal trainer to direct a dog’s or a horse’s activities by means of eye, facial muscle and bodily movements which are of a too slight excursus to be apparent to ordinary human observation. It is not to be forgotten, in this connection, that some dogs are notoriously dependent on their masters for directive cues, and that this may be characteristic of horses of a certain type.
It is conceivable that repetition of a given routine over a period of years might enable a horse to stereotype a highly complex set of habits.