[p110]
Guided by these remarks, a trainer enters upon his task. He will attain his end if he judiciously uses the triple forces of fear, greediness, and habit.
The first time that you make a dog stand on its hind legs you have to contend with the indolence which makes the animal wish to revert to its usual position. Practise the [p111] lesson every day, and each time reward the pupil with a lump of sugar. An association of ideas will be soon formed in the dog’s mind: the disagreeable sensation of walking on its hind legs will be inseparably linked in its memory with the pleasure of crunching sugar. And since the frequent repetition of the same movement lessens the fatigue of maintaining a vertical position, the dog will at last willingly perform the feat which it at first disliked. On the other hand, it must be remembered that the whip is always ready to punish any obstinacy or awkwardness, and you will readily understand that a poodle, finding itself in the dilemma of either walking upon its hind legs and receiving a dainty, or of not walking and receiving a blow, at once chooses the polka.
And here, in its simplicity, lies the whole secret of training animals. Patience and regularity from the man, habit and greediness in the animal. There is no other talisman. You have all seen a pigeon-charmer on foot or on horseback; it is [p112] one of the prettiest performances exhibited. A young woman is carried round the arena at full gallop by her steed; she raises herself or crouches down in graceful attitudes which show off the suppleness of her figure. Behind her, like a mantle streaming in the wind, the white flight of pigeons follows her movements. They alight on the arms, neck, and shoulders of their mistress, who recalls one of the young priestesses in the groves of Gnide, offering her rosy lips and soft white throat to the caresses of her doves.
Now would you like to know the secret of her charm? It is explained in an amusing vaudeville of the old style—Le Sourd, ou l’Auberge pleine.
“Would you like,” one of the characters in this farce remarks to his companion, “Would you like me to tell you an infallible method of catching birds? Well then, listen! You must strew some corn on your window-sill—the little birds will come and eat it. Put it there a second time—the little birds will come again. On the eighth day you need not put any. The birds will come open mouthed . . . and they will be caught.”
This is the whole secret of the pigeon-charmer. For seven days she strewed corn in the folds of her mantle. The eighth day the pigeons were charmed.