THE WILD ANIMALS’ KINDERGARTEN
An animal learns by association. Though it is a common belief, fear is not the reason for his obedience to the trainer’s commands. Habit and ignorance are what cause the animal to become an apt pupil in the hands of the trainer. The animal becomes accustomed to the same way of doing the same things at much the same time, and ignorance of his own power keeps him in this state of subjection.
TEACHING A LION TO RIDE A TRICYCLE
This habit is developed in the animal by a laborious and patient process, and it requires an intimate knowledge of animal nature to perfect it. The easiest animal to train is one that is born in his native haunts and new to captivity. The reason is obvious. The one bred in captivity has nothing to fear from123 man, and knows his own strength and the fear he inspires. Accustomed from earliest infancy to the greatest care and coddling, he arrives one day at the stage of growth where he realizes the value of his own claws, for the use of them has shown him that human beings do not like to be scratched. Some attendant, who has, perhaps, been playing with him day by day, admiring his pretty, innocent-looking little face, soft furry body, and velvety paws while he is still a mere cub, drops him suddenly one day when he feels the deep prick of the claws hidden in those paws. The next time some one comes along, the cub may not be in the mood for handling; he remembers his past experience, that scratching means “let go,” and he puts this into practice. His liberty is promptly secured, and he lies in peace in his cage.
The next man who comes may get a deeper scratch, and he lets the cub alone even more severely, a fact that the cub notes and remembers the next time, for he is gradually acquiring a deeper disrespect for man and his puerile ways; he is beginning to know the124 value of the little knives he carries sheathed in those paws, and he is very soon autocratic in his independence. He accepts his food as tribute and his care as homage due, and regards man simply as another and much weaker animal.
Such an animal is difficult to train. The only method that may be pursued at all is severe letting alone for several years. All that time he holds himself more and more aloof. He is, in a way, congratulating himself on his success, and man in time becomes a shadowy being who periodically brings his food, and who, in some inexplicable way, keeps him in that oblong box for people to stare at.
He does not mind the people, nor does he mind the cage very much, for he has never known anything else; but deep in him—so deep that he barely realizes its existence—slumbers a desire for freedom and an unutterable longing for the blue sky and the free air. Man, in some way, is to blame for that intangible “something” that he wants, and scarcely knows that he wants; and man has shown him that he is afraid of his claws, and, therefore,125 the animal hates and despises man and all belonging to him.
The cub grows insolent in his haughtiness; then his undefined desire for freedom decreases somewhat, becomes more and more vague, and his existence is finally comprised in just two sensations: eating and sleeping. The disturbance of either is an insult, and any one who disturbs either an enemy. Man allows both to continue, and so the cub in his arrogance tolerates him.
The cub passes beyond his days of cubhood, and acquires almost the years and stature of a full-grown lion. He has few of the qualities of the newly captured animal. He does not fear man; he knows his own power. He regards man, as an inferior, with an attitude of disdain and silent hauteur.
When it is considered that his memory of the days when scratching insured independence has faded, his training is begun. He meets it with a reserved majesty and silent indifference, as though he had a dumb realization of his wrongs.
He has probably been in a large cage. This126 is changed to a smaller one that has movable bars. The bars are fitted in this way for a definite purpose. Until now the lion has kept in the rear of his cage, as far as possible from the man who feeds him, grabbing his meat and retreating with a sullen growl. It is desired to bring him into closer relationship with his would-be trainer.
The bars are moved day by day. Soon the cage is small enough to permit a fairly long stick to reach from the front to the back. Such a stick, in the hands of a man, is introduced and allowed to remain several hours. The lion may take no notice of it; he may growl and he may grab it. Whatever he does, the stick is kept there and replaced if destroyed. When he has grown accustomed to the stick, it is gently rubbed along his neck and back. Though he snaps at it at first, when once he finds that the stroking is a pleasure, he soon allows it to be done without any protest.
POLAR BEAR USED AT PAN-AMERICAN EXPOSITION FOR DRAWING CHILDREN’S CARRIAGE
Sometimes a piece of meat is put at the end of the stick by the trainer, and this is found to act as an inducement to allow the stick to come129 close to the animal. Very often the lion will crunch the stick to splinters, and this the trainer allows, as he wishes to prove to the animal that he has nothing to fear from the stick itself. In a very short time he takes the meat quietly, without even growling at the stick; and when this stage of the proceedings is reached the stick is made shorter each day, until finally it is not much longer than the hand.
As a rule, when once the stick trick has been accomplished with an animal, it is comparatively easy to get on a little farther, for by that time the animal not only has no objection to the presence of the trainer, but appears to look for him and expect him. His objections, suspicions, and resentment disappear, and very soon the fingers replace the stick in the stroking process, and, being softer and more soothing than the stick, seem to give greater pleasure than the wood. This is a great step taken, for one of the most difficult things is to get any wild animal to allow himself to be touched with the human hand.
With a lion which comes straight from130 Africa or Asia, the case is different. Lions are usually trained when between two and three years of age. A two-year-old of fine physique and restless nature has been brought straight from his native haunts. There he has been actually the monarch of the jungle. His life has been free and fearless.
Suddenly, in the midst of his regal existence, he falls into a hidden pit or is snared in the woods. His desperate struggles, his rage and gnashing of teeth, all the force of his tremendous strength, are ineffectual in breaking the bonds of his captivity.
After his first supreme efforts are over and he has thoroughly exhausted himself, he proves himself a very king of beasts in his haughty disdain. He apparently realizes his helplessness and submits to everything in sullen, dignified silence.
The lion comes to the trainer from the jungle, after having been subjected to abuse and gross indignities. From the time of his capture by natives who have neither feeling nor consideration for the poor animal, until he reaches his final quarters, his treatment, as131 a rule, is such as to terrify him and render him nervous in the extreme.
He has been kept in cramped quarters, cruelly joggled and crushed in a narrow box, while on his way to the coast from the interior, his bedding left unchanged, and the poor food with which he has been provided thrown carelessly into the refuse and offal which surround him. Clean and fastidious, as the lion always is about his food and person, he often refuses to eat, and this, added sometimes to seasickness, makes his suffering terrible.
The finest health and strength will not stand such a strain for long, and by the time the journey is ended the lion is disgusted with man and his ways. In many cases he arrives in Europe or America sick and weak, and appears only too ready to die and get rid of his troubles. The only passion he has in this state is a genuine hate for man, and this hate seems to be the only thing which arouses him at all.
It frequently happens that wild animals kill themselves in frenzies of fear during transportation.132 Everything in their surroundings is new and strange to them. They have lost their freedom and the fresh air; they are cramped and half stifled in close quarters, surrounded by dirt and unwholesomeness, and cannot even keep their bodies still for two seconds, owing to the perpetual motion which goes on, and which, pe............