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·"The most unique book I kaya ever read."
HANS CHRISTIAN ADAMSON
D YOU KNOW
-Tet's cats are subiect to slaus infection!
That wild animal tra.ers oprer City guns?
-That elephants tave tralars as long as a ran's band and
that they can, and do, pull thar cnn teeth?
That Gargantua, the rest vainas aynal ever in car Uvity.
was "Els tun warst enemy?"
You ll lean these and hundreds of cther strenge foc's
thus time-of-otund" bock N hody e se coud te 1
the story but Doc Henderson the man who has the 1c5
keeping 700 coumas well and happy
To anyone who loves animals, this bock is a mast'
- Binghanta FRES

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·"The most unique book I have ever read."
-HANS CHRISTIAN ADAMSON
DID YOU KNOW
That big mats are subje:t to situs Infection?
that wild animal trainers noyer party fun!
That elephants have malars as big as a man's hand and
that they canard da, full their own teeth?
That Gargantua the most valus 31mal ever in calivity.
Was his cwn worst enemy?"
• You li leam these end hundreds of cther strenge facts
from this one-ot at nt bork N body else cou & tell
this stury tut Dec Henderson the man who has the job
cf keeping 700 an nas well and heppy
"To aagone ho loves animals, this bock is a must."
inghamtoa PRESS

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·CIRCUS DOCTOR
BY J. Y. HENDERSON D.V.M.
CHIEF
VETERINARIAN
OF THE RINGLING BROTHERS
AND BARNUM&BAILEY CIRCUS
As told to RICHARD TAPLINGER
BANTAM BOOKS NEW YORK

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·Contents 1 11 45 56 69 I Want a Job? It Meet the Patients II Starting with a Roar IV Elephants Haie Tender Slins v Mc Dont Shoot Them Any More 17 Training the Big Cats VI This Wont Hurt Vluch 171 We Prepare to Travel IX Wc Hlit the Road * Under the Big Top x1 Three Minutes in Cleveland x1 On Again, Off Again Gone Again XIT 'The Girl on the Flung Trapeze XN A Chance to Remember xv Me Changed a Leopard s Spots XV1 Moniers and Vfe XVII Gargantua Was So Lost xva Sun dust in Vy Stethscope XX Moer a Dull Moment 85 102 116 132 139 143 153 162 170 17 184 193 ·CIRCUS DOCTOR A BANTAM BOOK published by arrangement with Little Brown and Company Tárynino IlISTORY Little Brown Editon Publ shed Apni, 1951 Ist Pnnting December, 1930 2nd Pnnung May, 1951 3rd Printing May, 1931 4th Printing June, 1951 5th Printing June, 1951 6th Ponting August 1951 7th Printing October 1951 Excerpts Published in Arcoss issues of July & August 1951 'A part of this book (2500 words) appeared in Readers Digest issue of September 1951 Bantam Ed tion Publ shed April 1952 1st Printing March 1952 Copyright 1951 by J Ilenderson and Richard J Taplinger All rights reserved No part of this book in excess of fic hundred words may be reproduced in any fom without permiss on in writing from the publisher Little, Brown and Company Bantam Pooks are published by Bantam Books Inc Its trade mark consisting of the words BANTAV BOOKS and the portrayal of a bintam is regis tered in the US Patent Office and in other countries Marca Rre tudo Printed in the United State of Amer ca Esotam Books Inc., 23 Mest 45 Sin Tew York 36 ·Want a Jobs 3 Tous boy hocd drcarts, waged berec and total 731 inside By ban Curcus 1 fen a lot of <215 The pay for the 528 IT lions ut a change for me Wy father was a small rancher in Kemille, Texas about seal Ese mites out of San Antonio I grew un in the midst of horses cattle, goats no “Яруеаrѕ mu, trusted me with my own wiree brothers handled animals well too but I wat apparent's the only one who inbented Pap2 s love for then alt When I had nothing else to do I would always be with De snimais-witching them groomiog thons, plastog wath them and, when old enough working then Papa was particularly fond of horses and so was I le 25 a meticulous nder by the time I was ten he had traped me to be an able, good horseinan He never toler ated careless and sioppy ndung not because he wanted to male shormen out of his soos but because he had too mldrh sespect for the horses Onre, u ben Pap3 and I were nding the range, I got about a hundred 23rds ahead of hmm Vis legs were achung and tired as the frequenth seve, because he resisted se de ereco sth the legs tight, back relaxed but straight as a sod "When tou slouch a the saddle he would say you 2 cofi balance and you are hard oa the borse Sit_straight und spare rour horsa Tor a Lid of ten thus is tnng So once di out of try,

·To Sitectlicart and Sonya, to Benny V and Ruth,
to Champion and Rossia and Astral Princess, and
to all my other friends and patients, this book
is affectionately dedicated
If you pick up a string dog and male lum
prosperous, he will not bite you Tlus is the
principal difference between a dog and a man.
-VARK I XAIN

·Tet a job para las tead, then the bars of "Frogressie edu- 5 in Corta a part of nor earlest moletom? Who I was ahcct thr und Paud dat have is 078 ranch yt, wer-Loin, with Vlothes folks, here be borrord to miest in goats Erer cent he had sent on tho e ato - mokar was a valuable crop but at first h- CC Lateien and a shed to shu a them la Texas hill the temperatura mzi be seventy danes and wcha a minutes drop to forts so that every hu to two parte alth careful when h- shears his lose the freeze to death if that cold or rur spell comes up Who Papa had first shon h.s 30 mals and with wool, th a two hours th siad shufted the car ndb r blusters cold and ranr All the adults in the faruty mauk set to camas cer fire of fun tare of the home and takin, all the coats and bedia en Losce There we all stared for the n,ht until it terad m3923-nobods thate or rep us gouts As I go oder o e of my johs was to nd- the fence In Goals 2.e far from ben the be tost anul ta the Id, and the Eronte habt is to ench thar beads thothes de mesh cf a fence a aa erort to gt2.c ca thach s do. The Ras poster the suhtes bt of dif i me in the gras 07 ather side of our forme, brt to the gou as th-h 23 th- ditance alrars Icoks greener Then Of course the long tao od them and three stuck, Is this be permanent, it was ceressars to "rd- the fenre mw.o the 2n."2! would baie sumply started to death n s 4mporal filones B.ds th.s, goats are uzan urefooted and have te rena labe Loa k cf bear, ab! to lmd down tre mous disarts to land in roy small areas withou karting them.chessad vet the coat unfortunatel bine the ah? to jump back .p 2527 ·my horsc ancc Cucus Doctor father's sight, I took my right leg out of the stirrup tossed it once the saddic horn in a relaxed position T Papa came galloping up and ordered me off Now, son," he said, "lead the horse baci fome" ] was a little matter of five miles, it made an adequate pression Naver since then have I ridden a llorsc off 1 As ach child was bom, Papa gasc him a heifer, for cry own and as soon as we ucrc old cnoug, sc lund tale complete care of our cou mly father supplied fc pasture, bam space and use of lus bulls The cost remain our property and any hcifers born remained the prope of the boy whose con bad bred Papa took all the b calves We neer thought of tlic cattle as commcrc cnterprises, lioncier, they were more like pots Our little one-room village school, I now realizc, sometlung wluch today in a big city would be called cxperiment in practical progressive cducation 'We didn Inox then about such things To us it was just School BA some thirty six ycars ago, in this country onc room schoc besides Icarning to red ind writc ind where Dalla Chicago and London xcrc loented on 1 mart we wci trained to take care of our fathers' farins We were taught about animals-not out of a textbook by the animals themscles ! ach cluld sould le assigno onc from his father's stock Ilc would be told try so liom and talc a slicep 501 or cow, or whalaet the famul could be persuaded to let him hue to feel thic anima and to give it every attention it needed to send o cach year, wc lind a sort of minutuc count for at the Ittle school Each of 115 sonki bring in the mil we Tiad cared for, and nbbons were awarded for those in the Lyst condition This didn t seem particularly startlin. of modern at the time but from what I luase seen and mad ibout bn city schools I suspect that somic of America's firal schools ·Want a Job? Lase been teachung them their ways of "progressive edu- 5 Cost are part of mr earl.est recollection When I 1135 just about three, and Papa didn t hare hus ont ranch yet, I RO were living with other's folks here he he couch to a snals, sh coalda tee 1a Texas w we leunperature ms be sesont degrees grd rithin a few minutes drop to forty, so that every furtret has to be particularis careful when he shears his goats lest the frecze to death of that cold or ramt spell comes up Wher Papa had first shom his animals and sold the nool within two hours the sind shifted the day tuned bter blusters cold aad rams All the adults in the family madl set to caming ever, pece of funiture ont of the house, and taling all the goats and herding, them inside There we all sa ed for the night until it wined warm agam-nobods there exrept us goats As I gter oder one of ms jobs was to nde the fence inc Coats a e far from being the brightest animals in the world, and the fasonte babit is to back their heads th the wide mesh of a fenice in an effort to graze on the che s de There was nee the shghtest bit of dif te once in the 5-25 07 either side of our fence, but to the gat as the human the distarce al mais looks greener Then of course their homs tangind them ard ther Beie stuck, les this be germanent, it was ceressary to "nde the fence Coat mual's or the animals would have simply staned to death in selfmposed pilones Bes Jes this goats are uncannik surefooted and have the remarkable knack of being able to jump down tre ir cudous distanzres to land in very small areas sithout bating themselesaand get the cont, lnfortunately, lucthe abilits to jornp back up again ·Circus Doctor father s sight, I took my right leg out of the stirrup: tossed it over the saddlc horn in a clared position 17 Papa came galloping up and ordered me of Iny horse Now, son 'lie said'lad the horse back homc 1 was a little matter of five huiles it made an adequate 1 pression Neser sincc then lave I ridden 3 horsc off b ance As each child was bom Papa garc him a licircr, for 1 very own and as soon as we ucrc old cnough wc luza tale complctc carc of our cow My father supplied fcc pasturc, bom space and use of his bulls The cow scman our property and any hcifers bom remained the proper of the boy whose con had bred Pipa took all the bu calves We neer thought of the mattle as commerci enterprises however they were more lile rets Our little one-room village school, I non rcaliza, something x lucli today in a big city would be called a experiment in practical progressive cducation We didn inou then about such things To 115 it was just school Bu some thirty sır years ago in this country one room schoo besides Icating to read and write and licrc Dalla Chicago and London were located on 3 mip wc wc trained to take care of our fathers farms We were taught about animals--not out of a textbool by the animals themselves Lach chuld would be assignce one from His father s stock Ilc would be told to go home and take a sliccp coat or cow, or whatever the family could be persuaded to Ict lum line to feel the animal and to great con attention it needed it the end of cich jest we had 3 sort of minuture counts for at the Istile school Lach of us would bring the imunilic Jad card for and nobons were awarded for those in the best condition This didn t secm particularly starting or m dem at the time but from what I lusc scen and to about br city schools I suspect that some of Arcticus turat chools ·7 1 \Vant a job? has b: far the most interesting part of our orh, although Itel to haul us out of bed at all hours of the night and it all kinds of the Di Foung and I equalh duided the hardships and easy ob. We took tuns at both the bospital oil and the Earne calls Trys kept us from getting bored It also enabled one of us to get sested up doing hospital duty after spend ing the previous night racing around on farm calls About two months before Worth scall a terrible anthror epidemic had broken out among a}} the anaals on the surrounding famous This deadly disease, often fatal ro animal, and humans, strikes wath the suddenness of light tung Animals die almost before they can be treated, hu mans cato it through direct contact with infected animats When an epidenic broke out in those dars it was al Frost impossible to do anything for the mfected animals, the healthy must be 12ccinated at once of thev a ere to be S31d Today perucillin as a successful combatant, but in 1941 thus drug was only a rumor to us in the country Ihab ul studied about anthra m school-epkens, fortunatel being rare But non is the SUIToonding farins thousands and thousands of animals of all lands had to be vaccinated pract call at once Dr Young and I, and also Dr loung's brothy Pete who is associated with us, wed no ked twents four hours a day when one of us got too exhausted to go on We would grab an hour's sleep lien we tool and where we could, then continue the effort to get at as an animals as possible When the epidemic had Erst hut and we could onir suspect it might be anthat I had performed a post mortcin on the brst 29thrax-suspected cox to die ds 1 pulled her spleen out it fut iniy left arm leasing a rou ska pa splotchi just s here I had an opeti cut. This inspred m setting uſerted Despite the fact that I happea to be allergic to any horse sesum I had to undergo inoculation ·Circus Doctor And so we boys rould go out I, being the ughto wuld be lowercd down a cliff by a rope My job 3425 i tanother rope around the goat, thcn ny brothers you I ist both of us So life went on till I was cigliteen and wrote to Tex: * scultural and Micchanical College for thic icterinar ool prospectus and was so intimidated by it that I al 11 lly cnrolled in the engineering course! But it didn me long to find my say back to tommals and I cI I d college with a good practical Inow ledge of them ch was fortunate in inother way too By the time sed, Depression had anned and Papis moderate pros po ty disappeared around the comer with that of si in my other lard working citizens lie lid zluars bosstas "' he could never go broke because he neser lid cnoug! to o brole sath, honey these things ut relative ane the simple fact was there wasnt any money to pay tuition y'at I lud one thing to sell knowledge of horses I rode amateur, showing liorses in the am iter oss all osci 1 tite on week ends and trung nudu, borses for i college and at last I mide enough to piy my way 1 righ the icterinan school V' hon Jolin Ringling North mile as he itor to truch il the CiTCUISI as in price 115 11C1 eport, I 011711.2 lich! and discosifier proctice illius lc setup Di Young is one ons in the country, so I as Itt the 311 ter 111 > < 1 1 (ir practice 13 duuded into no part Wc liad a typical small animal hal Ini care of the dogs and thic cats of the o Toy population and sc had a lurge firtis praete { ·Want a Job? of the wild and semitild animals the curcus camad A far as I had learned no one knew too much about them so besides the life the actual job was a mystery Well I thought, another doctor might just take huis clarces on their living or dying of lus limited knowledge couldnt help But I like animals too much to male mysel responsible for them without losing I can gue tieru sally adequate care I decided to find out as much as I could about how wild anurals are treated before maling up my mind There kas one month in huch to any estigate Betscen 17uts to the library I made countless telephone calls to Dr J & Northnas chuet veterinarian of the King Ranch whom I kne of old At the end of that allotted month I lud discovered to interesting facts lot very much indeed was know about treating sick wild anmals most because no one hid gamered any typerience wild beasts were usually restrained for treat ment when injured but setc seldom watched for discasc they were subicct to The second thing I learned from Dr Morthway was that the circus's biggest preoccupation was with its horses Ring Jirg Brothers had a fortune tied up in what was undoubted ly the most beautiful collection of horses in the world They wanted cry thing possiblc donc for the rest of their animals too but experience had taught then that they couldn t espect that to be too much At this time certain drugs like the salfa group had just come on the market and there there other drugs like peucillin which sucre not then ready for utc, but which CY DK ·8 Circus Doctor against anthrar and I took to it so badly that for a while I thought I was going to die The post ho months I had spent trying to figlit th cffccts of that anthrax inoculation yot growing inorc in more rundown from the resulting desultor appetite an debilitating insomn: By the time that Scptenibet cc ning rolled around, I was probably at the lowest cbd of m: lifcI 105 physically and nerously depicted and suffering from the moodiness and discouragement that only com plcte exhaustion can bring Now, as I sat in my living room in the dark after the telephone cill smoking cigarette after cigarette these cpi sodes of my life wandered around in my mind I calways felt the future can only be built on what has gone bcforc how did my sort of life laid to 7 circus? Suddenly I remembered 1 story Mother liled to tell When I was ten and returning froin my first circus I cry proudly announced to the fainals I am going to be i ictorinanan when I grow up and I am going to work for Ringling Brothers Circus So hcrc was my cliance to fulfill a childhood dream Hos many of us c cr have that opportunity? Still I had doubts It had then me miny Scots to learn my preference for thic conipiny of anus to that of people But surely circus people would be miglits different from folks around Texis and Louisiana? I Inca noulung alout living conditions in the Circus cept that mimals tri cled in cittle cars the doctor probably traveled with tch? Wiere would I sleep-in a tout or borcar? What would I at-badly prepared fool or maths sind kiclics? It was an unknown world to me a licult to 1111inc I could manage thic lio ses all nilit burt 1 Anica abso lutely nothing about the handling disces or treatment ·CHAPTER II Meet the Patients I PARTICULARLY IGAOW Tous prizening defeat had reet! immortalized the expression, 'I should of stood in So nov as may train sped eastasard towards Sarasota, hrough calendar lile Southem landscapes, the wheels icemed to click along to nenous reiteration I should of stood in bed. I should of stood ... in bed ... To the v 100 of seven hundred wild animals hungrily Izrking their chops I shuddenngls got off at Sarasota Bustling streets, colorful with palm trees and tropical shrubbery a DRIVE IT TOURSELF sign With a car soon . the dentist A huge billboard ahead ... RECLING BROTTIERS BARXIVI & BAILEY The Greatest Shost on Earth (Turn left here) Handsomely decorated rith roanng lions, great mouths "nd Rith lon, sharp, bungry fangs. I tuned left. Almost immediately I came to the Main Gate 11

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·fcct the Paticots 13 Just lie that No preliminanes; no wasted time. Sick animals are waiting As he walked outside of the electrical shop Mr North paused **Thus is it be sud proudly swinging his arm in a com plete arc Pouting straight ahead almost as far as one could see, he indicated a large, square. brick building Thats oux machine shop" he said "That where we build and repor even thing uc use here or when ic are on the road in men build our own specially designed railroad cars Acathing but the arles and u heels Wouldnt it be easier to use reconditioned standard boxcars and coaches? I nancis asked "And hou kould you fit a giraffe into a standard bor Mr? he demanded I scratched my liead over that puzzler my first stune fying realization of the nomut and the complexity of the manifold problems that sete daily fare to the whole tircus organization I should doubtless have to digest sone of my own but first I must leam what they were Mt Norths arm swung gradually to the nght. Where he po nted of in the distance I saw a large aren), about th 5.20 of the big top It had 3 ning for horse and clephant arts and a large grass area for acrobats spectacles and scellaneous performances on the far side of it was an old grandstand similar to the lind found in any nesghlor hood ba'l park Thats is here CIC OUT Sundar shows for the tounsts, and where all our acts do their rehearsing where were here in winter quarters Vir north explained Troy he toured me through all the buildings scattered over the end ess actes of the lot in the monkey house I ! met Cargantua and Toto boiling but still slosening E-reelt is that accordstioned as 'The Duna and

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·Vect the Palients 15 We stopped in front of a huge black bcat sluggishly loling to a come of the mage. I looked at him Ile locked at me "Looks like you have a pabent alreads Doc, North stalrd Tim is sather mcan he wamed-then fortunate he added "I wouldn t examine him noht now if I were Jo, but -s si... Just on a quick look what do you thund 25 WTON_7 This was the first time I'd been at closer rare to a bear than perhaps, fftr yards At first glance he had seemed like any sleepy bear and I vaguely remembered hang something about how bears hibernate Now I studied bus ses They seemed unusually sellos and as hc opened his mouth I noticed more undue yellot around the guins Under pressure from my nes boss a strange th ng nos happened Suddenly the bear was no longer a bear He 11 nm hal Le complaint Notch ng my thumbs in my belt and settling back on my knels I tumed to the boss and said I think this bear has something seriousis strong with his lover "Livet? Ile was obrously surprised "Thats what I th nk without examining hm I sud, tidlik- to look him over UN ishment stand, he hailed a dignified gentleman of mnden build 117C 15 SO'7"one voe mill 3nt to know nght away ke to din "Mi Cout Doc Henderson Doc, here, 5 Cut Dots 1 ou se probably heard of Alfred Court, Doc."

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·Meet the Pabents 17 middle of the kraal, the enormous animals surrounding tis aad loomin. Olet us like redsood trees, it was in possible to avoid the implications of thess pink, meza little $$ 152, relieved to see the lethal tusks had been removed trti a thought came whose job would it be to take out those of future elephants? Iath. -L-IL. 11, less **{{ vou eser ned any help, just call on ne, Doc''-11C- Cl2 took up the cheerful refrain-"I knos most of these mais pretiy well and have a lot of good inends among them Thamn--- VLC kog themselves available "I might as kell sho s tou the truined cats sshile we are about it, North reminded himself "The cher each other Cp que a bit and they will be probably your most frequent and certain your most important patients." lle led me through the cat burn wth its scientific m coor ard outdont cazes We come to the outdoor cat training area There I was started by the spectacle of a kare-chested bronze-skinned man stand og in the affection 3'e embrare mf played with alled her "S blih.ghly sctuned to JUU 411 .

·16 Circus Doctor Indeed I didnt hue to listen to the rest of the 11 duction Mr Court is called the greatest trainct of animals of 1}} tunc This was the biggest thrill I d had in curs Since I 1 a kid Id known his name and had seen him do onc of I most difficult icts that can be performed with wild anima the mixed group I have seen Court put throus their paces lions kopirds panthers tigers jaguars, pola bcars and greit Dincs in one (ige at the same time I xactly host difficult it is to tum id control a cigcful of natural enemics took me leirs of cyperience with the circus to learn But chen cam first dis there, I inch that it was the peak ot ding and efficiency in wild animal training I hope you wont let all these new dainals scarc you, Court said hindi Im not ankth since Irried but I know hic lan haud Tint minine (ser touch ing them are all in the let il ne lasing to treat thein Well dont im Id like to think m Care I thical uus fur thur 37 good Ill be ghid li filie! nc As far as I ou by chung von (ich indrucudumu it .ess le CIts i 2011 I hus amused in lermo ( all of in helg Tut I know ne to my busi + 1

·Meet the Patients
19
I was to learn that friendship with wild animals was not
and can never be completely trusted
T
the wall of horses' heads to the middle of the main horse
corral. On three sides of us there were open stalls, and on
the fourth were box stalls where the most favored liorses
#cle kept in the immediate center of the corral were
patches of grass decorated with palm trees and a large
watering trough,
I felt that the entrance to the corral would justify
plagarum in an inscription Through these portals pass
ibe most beautıful horses in the world
ܘ 1 . n ܐܢܫܡܟܪܫܝܝܙܫܙ ܢܫܘ ܚ 1
d
bewe vi
CVICCU Aung tue 147 end were the ponies In
all the show carried about two hundred horses-divided
Deutca this corral and the lower corral across from the
at bam-and all ind i condition
The horse doctonng was to present many problems, but
here I was thoroughly at home. This I looked forward to
with Leto anticipation.
So there are me ashente ! comhed
11
sh with sucurea re-seen after a long absence by the

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·Meet the Patients 1 TIR those wild animals would also be doctored The next morning Worth was on the job even before 1 checked in He called me into his office *Doc," he said, "Tim the black bear died last nuht ! didnt think he was as sick as all that or I would have used you" "I am som to hear that, Vir North I really should have erinned him yesterday Do you mind if I perforth a post mortem "I wzh you would." The animal was brou,ht to my operating table where Sorth stased to watch I opened the best and cut straight for the lser And the sure enough g10% ing nght on top of it, was a tremendous tumor "Vice guess, Doc I couldn t restrain a grin If a knox ledge of dogs and cats and horses and pres could Ically be transferred to their wald counterparts so easil then maybe I was going to be able to keep these seven hundied wild animals in pretty good Flytical condition. Beo e the day was out, Worth innted me into one of the streamlined railroad cars took a key out of his poclet and opened the door Th s will be your stateroom on the road," he told meand when my surpise must have shoned "Hon did you tak jou were going to track cattle care i lal.shed embarrassedly potably making it very obvious that that was exactly my thougbt miedo ne a battle i 107 you he added. In case

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·t Stirting-Iith a Roar þm early mom.ng until kite at night and frequently ght long I was on the cucus grounds This was not fuse of love of hard work or long hours I hadn t been fron Teus long enough for that I was plunged beadlong into an overpowenag job I kaated to leam about it very rapidly and I was leaming that for me there was a lot to learn For mstance, once I pointed my finger--"What is that Little animal tbcre? The menasente superintendent looked over and laughed * 4 coramoz ber-and they arent so uttle That hap pens to be a baby I hoghed too Lut until then I had thought vaguely that bears came in two vaneties-bars and polar bears Our arcus owned five different kinds The shox had just come into winter quarters for the fremt four months all sould brst rest then the performers rould start practicin, nex tncks and in marr cases nev acts that for about a mon h the entire group togethes with row imports would be co-ordinated into a finished perform3nce for the road Although now there was no dzil pa 13 3 3 unpack and able hans all the animals permanent's housed In the period was an advantage, ufc was busy and some bumes habis teak with voruting because of the ocean trip and neous bewuse of their new surroundings Animals I have found, are parruash sensite to teir reghbors Put one post to 1 d.creat animal from the one le 15 osed to and you illel, to bude trouble I had know the to be true of ·22 Bath Circus Doctor you haic a cry sick animal who needs sitting up the road" He desenbed to me what was to sone for curs asf hospital car It was a cir with just blank stalls in ilmoon sized stalls, with equipment to Leep animals froin tál' r; from train motion or illness and sleeping quarters lor' or one of my assistants at the for end That is for you when you want to use it or need to LC st," North said, "othensise, this statcroom is where he lnc' It proscd more the comfortable living Pullman traxe cien at its best could ncier be as liomcy as I was to find! tluat circus setup CHAPTER III Starting with a Roar IT WICHT rust orrv the Tlond. climate it could hau been the vigorous toutine of life in the circus Or perluan the complctc cluange of micry detail of my 171 of living cffected the cure not being an animal i don t pretend ti luc able to diagnose for myself the fact reinains that the next four months luch comprised the busiest pono lo ms ite, lept me so occupied that I comp cicly lozol about my illness due to the anthrar injection ·Starting-With a Roar into the flesh He was treading sery lightly on that paw it was already badly infected Afva Ico Den wul du anesthetic he eats little work just as We called a couple of boys from the adjoining animal houses oser to help I made a lasso out of a long length rope and after three or four tnes managed to slip the loose over Arvids noch one of his fotepan's sticking hrough it (This was necessary because if neither paw had stuck through there was the danger of the noose tightening around his neck ) To accomplish the trick ve kad to dingle the rope through the bars and tease Arvid with it, and the bear being a playful animal instinctively stuck his head and a pau through the loop in a somen hat teasiog, somea hat exploratory manner then we had him We tightened the noose, and then all four of us leaned on the Tope, pulled him oser and held him tightly against the bars of the cage We then put another rope around the injured paw and two more boys held that pon through the bars so that it couldn t moie While thics held tight I went to work on And The operation itself was very simple a local anesthetic injected into the par so that the bear wouldnt suffer any pain and amputation of the two broken toes Then I made an inmision up highet, large cnough to drain the infection, and doused the pan witii a good strong antiseptic The cage boy was instructed to sprinkle sulla on Ands pau as often as he could get near him and the business was Oset It wasnt ans thing to write to one s veterinary school sorgers professor about but as my first operation on a wrid animal it stays in my menor more vividly than any ! have pxrformed since And for tears whenever I had ·Circus Doctor horses and here it isas truc of practically every othical that I came to Inow At 6 30 cery morning I reported to the little building, my liospital Ilcre I would famılanze mysch my medicines and equpment and add to the list of plics needed not only for winter quarters but for the road And licre, on my second dry, cimc in first "action I uus looking over the interior of the hospital, sonder ing how best to consert one comer into a csearch laborz tors, wlien 110cc outside shouted the call which-thour I didn't know it at the timc-vas to become any trade mark "Hey, Doc! Many years 150 thc cry 'Tim Rubct' brought circus linds running from all direction It meant "trouble" Its modem cqunalent 'Ilcs Docl' brings inc running-fre quently in all directions It too usually means trouble I opencd the door and yelled "Ilcy? It was Jolin Sila the menagere superintendent Doc, lic got a big black bar ou cr thcre," he said "? thought since you icre a little fogst about bears you might want to start icming Nothing iery scrious, but hic lits broken cl11 and its broken all the way up into the flesh I think it might be infected I drew in my breath but said 'Sure John Ill be the in 3 minute" i put some instruments and antiseptics and mis big and started oser llus 175 at I felt a sort of stars fright, and that feeling stayed with me for a long, lon: tunc Bcars are both unfriendk and cn untrustuorthy Trai? cts and Icepers has been mouleul and Lilled by those thin! for seis hinc acted lic truined clogs Thus clins T long and sharp, and they hi\c chormous strength in the multipurpose arms We crimined the right forepin of And, thic beir through the angs et 35 es limit that fic had split it is cll uur ·Startiza-Yith a Rour jolted in my potebook Whenes er a nevy bar roins 12. he dort for Forms Sure there is ro time for hesitation or research then an imal mn be drog it was encouraging to me to find, 1 and again, a point of reference in my former practice helped with wild animals As I was walking back to the hosp tal that das a question mell as it a uitle foolish to walk mog ber s cage even ouzh pretty sure he was too sick and too weak to be STOUS' Erdenath he had accepted my manner A maatuaa very seldom considers dis a dangerous profesi on and yet ae math domestic animals there is dinger Lorse can kick a mia s head off with one swift kich, and bull ca be at least as dangerous as any animal known forazier, nou simply least the 'mals characteristics and Ich vou can calmly and intelligent protect yourself I would seem that the <a ta get along with wild animals i the 31 you treat domestic animals fest none but espect all Soles 1 made that dan mere useful but there are shal nexpected truchances Sometimes a bear will show no ymp'oms of soins until it is too late to belp hum and a und some menagene polar bear died thus quite secently despite all our prcciutions He had refused food the previous day and this dis as be swalloned his first bite of food he went into con 330s and was dead before I could get to his cage Because bis manner of dying made me suspect strychnine posses ng I started to perfonn a post mortem on him in the aire When I cut him open I noticed that the intestine est buya the stomach was as hard as sood As I plunged the knife s'ost the wall burt and worms sprayed into the at like water from a frc hore.

·26 Circus Doctor stage fright over work on 3 bear, Jolin Sabo nould 1071 . me I'd had my "Anid education > * # Img My next contact with the beir family happened just two days later, and that also made a lasting impression ? A trainer had arnıcd in winter quarters from Germ 17+ with tweke trained polar bears Fc cine ninning olcrt my hospital on this particular morning and I githered from his screams that he was giving me the German cous valent of "Iley, Doc!' I followed him, wildly guessing 2! what equipment to tale with me In the cage one of lus polar bears 11.35 in the midst cf tertible convulsions It struck me-judging again bs mi dog cxperiences that this looked very much like a case of worms It didn t seem too lil cly, because thcsc trund animals are nursed like babies by their trainers and are watched tucnty four hours a dy by cither the trainer or the age boy Their diet, too, is carefuly regulated Nec theless, it did look like worms We lud the other bars nin ont of the cage quickly and the trainer and I gave the bear n shot of a scdainc A test proved that my diagnosis was correct and I wormed in jinmediately in due tinc that one bei iclicscd humself of 01 cr half a gillon of long white womis I figured that this must be a wcalness of rolir bersif it could lappen to them under such cinse surucillance so next I gue the other bears the suc treatment a do col tetrachloreth lenc to drug thic wons folloucxl an hout later by a strong purgatic (Without the latter the buis nuglit dic of the worn poison or cle the worms nuigil come to, hungrict and peppick thin Cici ! I lety one of thesc baars yielded at least 1 hali gallon of wonins In 111 mi subscquent experiences with sich bears, purtaulas polu bmis, I alway5 suspect wom s first ·Starting --Vith a Roar -7 I polted m my notebook Whenever a not bear joins the show introduce yourself to him with a test for forms Hlc me need a good stuff sorming The first of hundreds of routines had started Snce there is no time for hesitation or research then an inimal may be dying it was encouraging to me to find, imº and again a point of reference bat hrinai the Add too sicak to be d2. Lident's he had accepted my manner A Setornanan very seldom considers bis a dangerous profes Sion, and yet en with domestic animals there is danger 3 horse can lick a min s head off with one swift kick, and 2 bull can be at least as dangerous as any animal knonn llowever sou simply learn the animals characteristics and then you can calmis and intelligentis protect yourself t would seem that the way to get along with wald animals s the way you treat domestic animals fear none but cspxect 211 Wotes I made that day were useful but there are still unexpected mischances Sometimes a bear will show no svenpions of woms until it is too late to help hun and a handsome me zagene polar bear died thus quite recently despite all our precautions lie had refused food the previous das and this day as he swallowed his first bite of food he went into convul sons and was dead before I could get to his cage Because hrus manner of dying made me suspect strychnine poison Ing. I started to perform a post mortem on him in the C1,C When I cut him open I noticed that the intestine just balo the stomach was as hard as wood As I plunged the lnite inout the wall burst and words sprayed into thra: llcuate from a Ere ho e.

·28 Circus Doctor Apparently the norms, staned from the previous day had hit the upper intestinc like a crowd of honcuará bound New Workers raiding the BMT on a rain, night Pached in just as tightly, they paralyzed the bears na testines Bears, sou sce, are more vulncrable than subayt Thc hospital nccded straightening up, supplics needed ordering, I had to get acquainted with personnel art ammals and all their vanous routines, and at the $20* time things hcpt happening One neser kney what A33 coming next (That is a situation, I might say, that !c? changed to tus day A onc-armed piperhanger as a slout compared to a two armed circus icterinarian) Onc noon during my first Nice I stopped at the hont corral for a routine check on two horses with colic, to mult sure that the grooms were carrying out instructions DCICT permut a horse with colic to bc Icit alonc, there is chance of lus lying down, and frcquently loc wz!) tos around so that an intestino s sl loop around another, C15 ing what is known as twisted gut" When the ças 115 the abstruction, the intestinc niptures After medicatır, wall funn, for hours if neces ystem) happened to glance out the Window and saw that Alfred Court was bringing kus si mals into the big outdoor case for rehearsal i ludn't lad time set to see that act so now I watched, wfulc brought lus animals in, duccted each one to 1 pedestal and then smoothly and apparently effortlessly put trecer through their 107) difficult piccs He was almost finished wlien lic turneri hus bach for a moment to get a piece of meat as a reward for a leopard As he did, a tiger sitting on a pedestal pest kft of a big male lion struck at thic lion with fuis pas It might line been in play, or it might has been in alicer, naxcd groups prescrit these mishaps ·Starting sth a Roar The teet's pza grazpt the inner 13 33 instan is de did he grourd its pedestal Court took one look at the lion and immediatels drove he other animals through the chute back into thru cages He called me 01er "Look at this, Dor, will you ?" he said I walked to the bars of the cage and looked in at the los I nodded ms head I san khat Court meant the jant was definitely broken What do you think?' Court and "I dont know," lansaered 'Hate you En PT hmodes operation to monde huys Yeady, t) of that wil worn Similt operations had been perfonned on dogs, and I kondered whether the lon's naturc vould permut an exact imitation squeeze cage was being brought up against the door of the hons coge A squeeze cage is sma)), strone gni-- Aboels One end is a done Bides are fred og ru can gradually bec! : Lumad out Il object of . c squeeze age us to hold a wild animal unmobilen bile he is beinz voted on, to cep him from hurting himself-or his doctor! The ends of the ·30 Circus Doctor şqueeze cage hare straight up and down bats The side haic closer bars running in both directions in order to lec; squeeze cage It prodding doesn't work, a small piece o meat placed in the squecze cage will do the inck The the door at the end of the squeeze age is loiscred and th handle round until the animal is held, not tight's enoug! to hurt him, but snugly cnough so tliat he non't hurt any onc else A good precaution is to rope the squeeze 035 to the animals cage before opening the doors The first thing I had to do was anesthetize When th lion was safely in the squeeze cage I pncked a ven in du front les and Icpt injecting the flud slowly until lie looke drons and began going limp Then the needle was with drawn and he collapsed on thic floor and from that pom on we were out of danger he would sleep from sir ! cight hours I believed We moved the case over to the hospital buildin: opened it up and slid the lion onto the operating table examined his jaw and found that the lower jaw bone 7 broken clean through in two places, leaving the entis center section lianging limp When 3 dog has a broken as you wire thc brolc bones together; you then use the lower 1234 to the uppi jak, tight's, to keep his 2018 clenched and completely in mobile Then till tlic bone Laits sou feed sour dog! drpping mall slowly into the corner of his mouth whici the fish is loosc.

·Starting-With a Rou 31 o the corner of his mouth We had to figure out an net 425 By considering where ne must van the usual plan, I qught of something that might wol Drilling holes on * side of the two breals, through the lower pow just eath the guin line, und using stiff wire, I laced the cenbroken section of the fan to the two outer sections, 15 would hold the entire lor er jau bone sold m one cec to heal, but there was still the problem of leeping le lon from moving this fan and at the same time allow 3 him to eat I took two blocks of wood each about tuo Iches thick. One block fitted between upper and lower olurs on each side, leaving room for his tongue between cm Vlore holes ucre bored to lace wires through the tu bones, top and bottom, his jaus being uued tightly et separated by thoce blocks of wood This meant that the entire lower pax was solid in one nece, and both upper and lower JIS nere being held firm, nhs mouth was permanently open because of those Horis of rooj Because the center section had no wood, Accould get his tongue out to Lap up milk The only question that bothered me ashether for the six or exght seks it rould take the jaw to set mill would give him the noutishment he aceded After we had finished world. I sesed him in an!! Au ulis, The operation had taken three hours Court and 1 boked at cach other and it was bard to tell which of us 135 more tored W'e has shared the nerous strain and, anche 25 asted are throughout the operation, our physical Labor suas equilly d sided a nell Mis strain wis due to the light that I wanted this operation to be a success this $125 dic to the fact that a truiter docs become attached to his ·30 Circus Doctor squccze cage lire straight up and down bars The sides have closer bars running in both directions in order to keep the animal from getting lis claws through By bringing th.s squeeze cage up to the door of thc lon's cage and opening both doors it is usually an easy matter to prod him into the squeeze cage If prodding docsn't work, a small piece of meat placed in the squccze cage will do the inck They the door at the end of the squeeze cage is lowered and the handle wound until the animal is held, not tightly enough to hurt him, but snugly enough so that he won't hurt ang one cise A good precaution is to rope the squecze cage to the animals cage before opening the doors The first tlung I had to do was anesthetic Whion th lion tunc enfelt in the en ann man land annanhs fro. drc drawn and he collapsed on the floor, and from that point on we were out of danger-he would sleep from six to eight liours I believed We moved the cage over to the hospital buildin, opened it up and shd the lion onto the operating table ! cxamined his jaw and found that the loucr au bone was broken clean through in two places, leaving the entire center section franging limp When a dog has a broken jau you wisc thc broker boncs together, you then ute the louer jas to the upper jau, tightly, to keep his jaws clenchied and completely im mobilc Then till the bone knits you feed your dog bs dripping mill slowly into the comer of lus mouth where the flesh is loose idea Turst of tuo shifts to dn, uth Secondly (though numerical scquences may well be rcversed), you Nould linse a difficult time finding met who would be willing to stand alongside a sore lion dopping anything 1 1)- all, ·Starting With a Roas 33 There was understanding betaten us, and although in Just a few days after this operation on Court's lion, I was tanding outside the cat bam having my first lengthy chat mith Damoo Dłotre He was weanng a tan T shirt and Jeung !!! damals i had observed how they ad every timing but now I wanted to know why they did it While we were talking I noticed that the cage boys were hinning some of Damoo's cats from their cages in the cat bam into the chute which connects with the outdoor train ing ring There were leopards, panthers, black jaguars, pumas. As ach animal was dris en forvard into the chute, a board was inserted partitioning him off in his own cell I had noticed this out of the comet of my eye, and dunng a break in the comersation, 1 pointed and said to Namoa "llos con la Oh," he said VOL" lle snuffed mc You will pardon me please? I must work for a while I will be free in a half hour and re can talk some more ficreupon lic walled the fer jards to the cage, opened the door swung himself in, Latched the door after him and then gue the signal to the cage boys to let the cats into the ring with him Vi first wild animal interest was the big cats and to Plus day! this it is the greatest That may be because they actric most tenting Actually, I think my interest is a ·ning 32 Circus Doctor animals, almost the way a parcnt does to his chill The next morning the lion was full of pop and they came up to his cage he was assiduously lapping up at milk the boys could put in his cage After the third der af began pulvenzing meat and putting it in the milk found that he was ablc to get most of this mest up his tongue and to swallow it without chewing Hey some weight, but he came through that operation fully and recovered completely Six weeks later ve anesthetized him again opened -. jaw up and removed the ware The jou had Init perfect the bone was smooth and stright and hard, and we hadi completely healthy lion who went back into the performed just as well as he ci cr had bcfore Ilclused in jars after that, when he finally did die, not so Sery long Igo, it was from old age I had hoped that nothing of this sort would tum 13 quite so soon, but in looking back on it I think perlaps !!! opcration, coming when it did, is the luchsesi thung thu happened to me dunng that period Thuis was no router treatment It was something for wluch there was little 2013 procedent if it hadn t vorhed I don't know hor? would have felt the fact that it was successful gascar on amount of confidence that I needed badly at that time and u hrch I am sure enabled me to sauc thc lnses of cour" less other animals during the chung months Alfred Court and I acte friends and saw a great deal ach other until lic retired quite recently The friendstos; dated from this operation As se vorhed together, both the same end, cach of us realized-without either of v saying anything that we were men who were happie When 10 *CIO Borling for and with animals We seren misanthropes our relationships with people were excellen and cnjoyable but ne ucic more at home ut), anmas When there had been a choice in our lives, cacl of 1 122 always made the decision that icpl us close to animals ·Startina-Txth a Rau 33 its The male as usualls be identiscd by the tremendous IC 03 the back of his head and around his neck The cas a little less ferce than people amigine lle 15 a 10.5* zal, and acis animals like noist people gre -" nend's The Lon molla atlle cat be tas ruag leis an cea Turers, horsier hare been attacked by lions they era leen lied by them Wule I was working on 4.s book, Vaelovar whom I ken well when she was 32 nal tr.ner for Runglag Brothers, kas Lilled by 3 1 on Calipmuz When a lion attanks he mill never spring in leap and land on vou the wat some of the other ats XII Ness more likely to como in nishes, or he will knock 104 Conti sath bus para las cans are lang and sharp llis Paras ken ard ca easils break a mun s back or his neck befme the animal pounces on hum The lion is most din TILS les males ard females are the nn together It was Dingo who poned out to me that of all the farle ca's, the lion us the one one that travels in prides or TO The tigers, the leopards, the panthers, all tric fither singh o in pairs That makes an important dif Irena In ite jungle, Rben a lioness in the pode comes ja heat all the males will fight over het They will fight ut ce cauerges the victor He trz: hare left a train of des mines.mph nounded animals behind Thuat * rus male and the female go off together mini, m3u Stadt an almost complete hiding, and there that have what meats to a hocemoon Tom stan 131 two or the teeks Viest of that time they sether hunt for cal, 132 should ass unfortunate anual of 1330 code in theu 12. te u çuck, dopored of Thuat sanctz'e isect dorsatleie a lion because be horreas to be conto a shop and quartered in a crus ncy thousands calles 787% from home. Widzuals, *s love to be recent tave thes au be ·34 Curcus Doctor combination of admiration for their beauty and digt and the challenge they present to any man, be he trau doctor, or age boy Visitors to winter quarters by thousands stand in front of the cages of these animals almost invanably call them by the wrong name An will stand in front of a leopard cage and say to his w Come over here, Mary, and look at thesc tigers' It seemed odd to me that tlus should be so until I membered that exccpt in our largest cities there arc zoos and the vast majonty of our population ncscr has ! chance to sce wild animals That accounted, I suppos for the tremendous popularity of the circus menage when the showy went on the road Thuis was the only z many people ever saw, and a considerable zoo it was As a result of my fnendship with Court and Dhotic al my increasing fondness for the cats, I now bcgan to ler more about them than I had ever known before I talk to the cat men I read animal bools The commonly found cats in our 200s and circus a the lions, tigers, leopards, black panthers, paguars, bla jaguars, and then some of the smaller oncs such as occlot cougars, wildcats The differences are rather striking The lion, of course, has long been known as the hing Basts I asked Damoo once whether he felt thc title jus' fied "Yes' he said, 'in my opinion it 15 Tirst of all, he loo the part llc looks like a king fic has size he has digrit hc has shat appears to be great pnde Secondly, ac though some of the smaller animals can attack faster tha he can the long hair around his neck usually prescrits f1 getting Mulled by them I think. Damoo concluded, thi: if there is a king of the jungle, the lion certainly carns th The lion is onc of the few animals that nearly acny bor recognizes It comes from Africa It is the lairest of the titlc ·Starting fith a Roar 35 ts The male an usually be identified bs the tremendous 13e on the back of his head and around his Beck, The sa us a little less fesse tkan people imagine He is a DOS mal, and noisy asumals le noisy people are usually cadls The lion makes friends easily He is highly intella ont. He can be truckt tncis rather e3ssly if he is cugbt bung He us a me animal to have som Trainers, hones er, hare been attacked by lions; they ne een been filed by them ile I was working on zus book, Mae Kovar hom I knet kell when she was an mal traines for Renklig Brothers, was killed by a lon Califorou When a loa attacks he will never spring in se leap and land on you the way some of the other cats (721 He is more blely to come a tushes, os he will knock ou dont with bus paw Hus claw are long and sharp His 3 es heavy and an asıls break a mins back or bus neck Defore the animal pounces on tum 'The Sony s most dan STTOLS # hen males and females are in the ning together It mas Domoo who pointed out to me that of all the lagle cats, the fron is the only one that trasels in prides, or groups The tigers, the leopards the panthers, all travel ather singly or in pairs that makes an important dif ference in the jungle, when a loness in the pnde comes in heat all the sales ]] fight over her They will fight watil ose emerges Uit victor He may have left a train of dead, mamed, or simply wounded anımals behind That tonous male and the female go off together many, muay miles aw) in almost complete hiding and there they hac 4.925 amcants to a honeymoon They stay 12 tao or throc Reels Most of that time they westbet boot nos cat, and should any unfortunate animal or mad come ia theu 52 ini bes guxkk disposed of That same jungle instinct doesn't care a lon because be barns to be desconto a ship and quartered m a cucus macs thousands of miles away from home. Wild animals, er hinata la caranded are nec tame; thy can be ·36 Circus Doctor trained with patience to do certain tricks but thcs a still wld in ercry respect In the ring when a female lion comes into hicat t? males as a rule dont fight only because the trainer h them under control They liale been punished in thc p3 for fighting in the ring and remembering that punishmer they stay on their pedestals But they do growl at ca other ind cicry instinct urges them to fight The arc c tremely nenous At this time thcy arc icry unpleasant is at this point that any slight change from thc usurl! voice or movement-nything at all unfamiliar that th trainer does--is likely another animal male peated it is likely to u point he will attack cither the other animal or parlar the trainer lumself For that reason many trainers wi remo1c the femalc from thic act during tlic tunc slıc is 1 heat A very good friend of minc Dick Clcmcns was attacke twicc in onc recent season by a lion at the time a femr? in the cage was in licit Once a lion knocked him dow and maulcd lum Tlic other time hc bit lum through th shoulder At that point thc rclationship became so straina that Clemens had to take this lion out of his act Yety thus case the lions is n bottic fcd pct of Clemens s licla been carefully rused and trained by Dick from the tim thic animal was a cub Mevcrtheless when jungic instinc comes to the forc cien domestic born lions arc blanded tlungs lilc loyalty and friendslup llc reminded cycry bodi that he was a jungle animal Lion acts asc sensitional because the animals arc large because they do look fierce and because a trainer ullo Cut train a lion to faign attack aan malc fumiselt look like: cry great heto indeed igcts are the ones with stripes They are considered by many trainers the snost 1cols and the least icarlle ai ·Starting-IV'ith a Rou 37 - . Both ansinals are atreinek 1100us They are quick, y house mean tompers, but they also have a high degree atelligence and we be trained to do a number of amaz. tricks Ozmoo tells that when he started leaming about animal ning, at the age of thuteen, his first trick 125 to nde iger around the ning His teacher told him, "If you can m to get along with tigers, nothing will keep you from ng a great animal man The tiger is the largest of the cats next to the lion, fre catly measunn; twelve to thirteen feet from nose to tail, d weighing up to four hundred and Efts pounds. In tor, the tiger probably looks bercer than any of the The leopard is a comparatively small, spotted anıma). ber cats 1.671 aide on the limb of a tree and leap on any passing ma Mays naturalists contend that he is the best annouaccd 2022.mal in the ple Home te 1.35 tad kcorris who permit kim to cam them "ound bs reck Ike fur feces can though the vogla in he neabbrikood ch oge buaded and Elts pourds The black panthe 5 actually a fork leopard Ike huans, sone sarmals as melanistis-thst bord with an scbnost, a condtion opposite to albinout, CL of orchid leopard may baie a litter ·11 38 Circus Doctor containing one or more black Icopards Ilcmrse brecding tuo black leopards may produce citlicr black or spotted : both Tlus is the animal normally called the "panthez" (though various countries often refer to some local anıma as a panther) If you cver look at this sort of panther closely you will find that although his coat sccins to be solid blach, he actually contains the same spotting as ? Icopard in a black of cich darker intensity than the rest ol the coat llc is a freak, and perhaps because he is poorly camouflaged for the jungle the black panther is crcm quicker than the Icopard and is commonly considercd the most dangerous animal to work with llc is almost impos sible to make friends with, and sometimes docsn't pa! its, then thim plas ful-jus on the otha hand, da ciops into a snariing mass of fury within a les wechs after he is bom llc sccms to know that things ?** going to be tough for one whose color deviates, and literal's comes out fighting llc gets worse and worse throughout his life, and can be controlled only through sheer will power and patience on the part of the trainer llc always icinains 1 sullen and somcıs hat reluctant pupil Tlc spotted jagunt looks like a lcopod but is natusc !? thic Western 13cmisphere from Texas to Pariguis Ilci slightly larger and more hcauly built than tlic Asiatic or African Icopid, and his face is larger and more frangular ilis head and neck lasc a similarity to a bulls ratlıct th17 à cat's Tlc 13guar is normally not too bright, although jc can be trained, and lie his thic s3mc kind of mennes that a Icopard lias it is seldom that one finds trainers going out of their 71 to work with luni Thic black jaguar luas the same relation to this spotted jugular as the panther does to tlic spotted leopard 'It is a freck It is poorly camouflaged and it is a vicious violent ·Starting-Vith a Roar 39 2unal. A trainer very seldom works with black jaguirs be Juse it 257 t apparent to the audience that he is perform 22 one of the most difficult jobs in wild animal training, 2nd scams therefore not worthwhile. Damoo Dhotre, hon esc, has a pur of black jaguars--for many years, I believe, th-only truned ones in this country He has taught then to do a number of difficult tricks including that of allowing themsek es to be carned around bus neck Considering that Vegus, the inale, once used to attack Damoo every time they were in the ning together, this is something of a feat jut the average onloolet sont consider it as exciting s seeing Damoo with a leopard around his neck. What c onlooker doesnt loow is that this is something per soma! Tegus is the onls animal of some hundreds that he has forled with that continued creating trouble for Damoo per a long period of time. Purely as a personal matter, Damoo determined that he was going to subdue and carry luis animal on his shoulders before another om hngcrous? Indescribahk o .en't built of this wattress of training These Tete the lus types of cats we had when I ormed the shox Training any of them takes courage, skill, ad patience, and a very long apprenticeship pounng a rued assortment of them into one cage at one time tales 500 more and is the most admired feat of all All wild animal trainers will admit that once an animal is complete's out of control there is nothing a trainer 2 do Although there is a common belief that in a pinch & trainer can pull out his resolver and shoot the animal ad this is certainly benet done in the Ringling Brothers cus and I doubt that it is resorted to elsen here. Dunng my introduction to cursus ufe and animal train 1 nas surprised to leam that there wasnt a gun carried amcnc connected wath the orgaszation--unless per ·40 Circus Doctor haps in the pay wigon Thic cxplanation sccms logo cnough As Alfred Court said to me once What you you do wath a gun? With an audience completely su rounding you if you missed the animal you would u doubtedly hit one or more spectators and he adde your chances of missing the animal would be exccllcu Rencmber lus attack is sudden llc is coming at you is moving lle is in tlıc middle of a lap llc is dang 0 - you have come to thc point of rcalızıng that 1 stick an! hold him off he is almost on you lou fire at a quick! moung target The chances of butting him with one sho out of one try arc almost negligible Licn if you are luck cnough to do that you probably wont sanc yourself Los cause he continues luis lcap which he has started llc prch ably wont dic instantaneously because your un cant be that good on a moving target and so you still get hurt ci Lilled Their safcts depends on their ability to loep the ar mals under control or to defend themschics in other 1315 against ans anual out of contro] I spent many liours during those first fou months lan ing on a fence outside the cat bam filling to Alfred and Damoo I believe I like cats parth because of my fondnes for these two inch but I tunk it worked the other wir too because I was fond of cats I instinctuels liked these men und was fascinated by their profession Both of tliem sccicd in mani wase rather piridoxica! Alfred Court not only liad the iron ncnc ind the physical dominance that all animal trainers must harc but' hc 35 also a cry courteous almost Old World courtly person Ilis name might almost harc been tailored for luun Damnoo although short of stature, often impresses luis musicnces as a giant llc too his in 111 of physical dom nance mcluding a sort of daredeul quality But Dimoo is, also sonicthing of an intellectual llc is steeped in a back ·Stat.smith a Rou und of Iliada philosophr and Hindu mysticism Al ulbs life has not up-luded more than five months of mal education, be us one of the most lared Den 1 tuale ti mct. His knonledge of animals as thoroughls pract.cal, ore he luzs a lees mterest in the animals he soils shant nn maltin male 1 > me of the most enlightening experieuces in the world Like Tarzan, for whom he once doubled in a move, moo was used with wz!d animals lle nas bora in Indu cd at the age of thirteen had already spent three years na 25 Enc'es arcus Tbove rears acte spent as an acrobat. om, add tnek biatle nder but at thirteer he begad 2.1.rg logs, as a student an mal trainer Br the time be *24 sa cater he *as well known throughout Inda as a Edel baric acrobat and an equally daredevil anıma 11- has had run 02mo escapes He has an mat occi the how the Lures," he says "and etery time it 135 m ond Vestra gong agree that the chief fault among trainers the che reason for the beng burt u that the bar toue ontroonfident and ate in lined to forget that bear 22 mars are still gle creatures The trainers ho reman best... us ala215 on his guard The trainct si ho doesat armul gets to killed We sculd see Damoo or Wired casualls walking ***o the fire with the ma's, practicing their act fast 195 cm enruis gngmyak, ard coins out aşam to have 1 - ·42 Circus Doctor frankfurter between rchearsals, I would ask them wheth they ever worried about getting hurt soniedzy It scer impossible that they did, and at the saine time it SETIT unlikely that they wouldn't What I land was that parently with all wild animal trainers there is usually : fear as the rest of us know it Dimoo hias told nie mu** times that lie is thoroughly aware of danger, that he knos just " hat cach animal is likely to do to him, but this 'fear as he calls it, is apparently a mental process, not an erre tional onc On the otlıer hand, I have seen animal traint who on certain days sccmcd rcally frightened. I, myself, on the many occasions when I luasc gonc irt a cage with a wild animal, liave usually been frightenci Through my own experiences and through talking to uz animal tramers 1 fuave evolved a thicory tlut is at odds ut! that of the medical profession I had always heard that animals could "smell far", 1923 of a human were really afraid of an animal, the anır? would know it no matter w liat the person did to caseri up I think this is stong I think I can provide aden" to male a case for the fact that animals cannot smell itt: thit foar is not something tangible I think animals ci? sense ferr, but I think they get it through the tone of a pe? son's voice and from his actions I myself hasc hinda horses, mean forses, of whom I was terrificd, but by kcep ing my voice stern and my actions dcfinite, I was able 1 Accp that fict froin the animals Some of thesc horses know, would flase kicked me into a corner if they hai been able to smell my uncertainty And I 111c gonc ir cages with beats and leopards who would lic attacker me instinctisch, if they had {clt I was bluffing my contic ..

·Startin-lits a ficar Ord 2 1 815 kilkudz ma to the outdoor ing to *** 5 Donco itherse hus act. I noticed a cluster of pa Featud one of the cages I ran over to the care Dinno, osho spends a bus free bours walking up and down ia En ct the ages making Eneods with his animals and ktong 2n me on then, had discovered a break in the tl of Lima, one of hs pumas Tof-ther ne looked a' the tail les, definitels broken. (We meet discosered hos thus happened it might hare been creu br a nezhbor although there were no cbw miks Sanctimes shen an animal is being shuttled from One tage to another the age box swings the iron gate cloret Lekad the animal too qu ch bila transferring bcat 3 soon as he is through a gale, often swings zoted and starts through in the cher direction for th.s *** the bois lca a to kork sens rapidly closing the **es, and it may have been that Lima got her tail caught and boter that 31 Sher dsda t seem to be in pain Nedended that together neno. na her to the squeeze cage 201 Dinoo could ahead an 3 xork the rest of the animal tkile I operated hal at rended a puna taul before, but of course I had ha scribar operations on domestic anuals I had a couple of the cage bors hold be forepins ont through the bars of the squeeze cage aod I give ber an in pat.ca of Verbaal ilken she 23 asleep I opened the tak m3 of the squeeze cago--) ddnt bother to remove blemuse this operations at tale ven long and set e ol bunding it tights with a plaster cast wlucb i hoped the norant ches up to 5001 Ixt he he Yery Orials for the next fer das Al that she at for the cast bolbored boz and she did chen att abt she left coezh on for protectios the tail shred pa and the m te fact that that was an an00136 action to male Lama conscious coczy of the tail 190033, mund ce gettas it caught in places it ·44 Circus Doctor that might have injured it When we removed the her tail was perfectly straight Damoo put her nght into the act and she was an entirely licalthy and able animal pic I stumbled across some amazing facts dunng those few weeks that big cats have sinus trouble for insta Alfred Court had suspected this for a long time, and, whencier an animal of his appeared sluggish he would mcover and we would examine at C crything I found finned his suspicion On certain days, certain of the mould hang their heads lox, indicating headache 1 would be cither ill tempered or completely spintless, pending on the individual animal I found that letting an animal rest for a couple of would usually help him rccoice and frequently, mi aspirin in Ius food would speed the process-30 grains Mon, 15 grains to a Icopard, 60 grains to a horse grains is the adult human dosc ) I know that horses frequently suffer front sinus tro whicn 1 cold is neglected and the animal as worked hard What apparentis lappens is that the cold in Ins il pe you pubi both horses and dogs In tlıcsc cascs, as with hum aspırın rcheves thc prin There has been a fast horse which I have actually had to operate to drain the infect but these cascs are rare and I do it only when absolu 116ccssan I lad bought a ratlıct large and as I recall an expert black lather bound notebook, and here it 17$ I be riting dosti jothings of new information obscnat: theories and just p!un facts Tlus I hoped would be ili on the road when things ucc mulied and KC KCIC work ·Elephants Ila5e Tender Slias on a tight schedule when I didnt be time to sit and chat with trainers and cage boys and menagene men befort making decisions 15 CHAPTER IV Elephants Have Tender Shing SOVETITES One recalls v12dls certain ctperiences without bong able to understand the importance of their details or hy memory retains them When I was about Ese a neighbor tool me for a nde in 37 and in those days revolutionan automobile I ked for so nething during the nde-Ice cream I think 3 h- sa d lery positnely losiree! I dont knon rhs 21e gone on remembenng that so clearly but every time as that neighbor after that, although he was fond of me Inent out of b suy to do little fasors I wanted to run Lahuse, I wall alsays remember the day I discovered clephants have tender shins but this memon I do !restand--ind for a very good reason The story starts kabt just before I o nied the show ola d the end of the tour that rear there was a tragedy Itlant3 Atlanta was on the swingback toward winter tors and the show was to play there aa October Just the tine John Rin lang north was telephoning me ·46 Circus Doctor to offer me the job, thic circus train was pulling into t Atlanta sıdıng and prepanng to unload Suddenly one after another, the clephants dropped c: the ground By the time the boys were ready to walk ther: to the lot most of the animals were out cold The newspapers made a good dcal of it at the time bu cause there was something of a mystery attached to it 05 viously, the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey on phant herd had been poisoned A number of the animals died very quickly The othman were saved, although some of them were volcntk sich fry a while Nobody could imagine who would dislike els phants enough to fccd them poison What made the mye tery cren decper was the fact that the clephant herd ncier unguarded It is guarded partly to lccp pcoplc Prema teasing or hurting the animals and partly to Icep theamh mals under control if onc cieplant should cier brezt loose and go on a rampage the tendency is for thc obliers In this particular casc tlic clephants had been watcher very carefully and yet had been poisoned The sur41175 clephants crc trcated on the spot Post mortems within performed on the dand clephants and it was determined by laboratory tests that arschic had lilled them The mystery was finally solied when it was found thi1 not too far from the milroad siding at the previous st* there had been a chemical factory Among the waste mats rials which it scattered-it supposed liarmlessly over the surrounding territory, was arsenic When, quite innocent the clephants' hay had been scattered over this arsen! cou cred ground some of the animals lad talcn cnough to them Those tliat didn t die still took cnough to get Sick The actornanan who treated tlic clephants gasca mer cinc intravenously in the car In seilial cases, some of the to do so ·Elephants llare Tender Slins 47 dre got out of the vein into the tender tissue of the Xud abscessed By the time I joined the arcus, se bad some thirty cle kants with abscesses behind their ars Walter McClain role the acts to me The clephants had had these abcesses for some wechs before I got there, but they weren't bo serious McClain Ineu that as soon as a setennanın 173 hired he could take care of them He was also smart nough not to confroat me with a problem lile that dur- ELLT Amselt We charted ids for thirty mibutes or so and then be asked, "Doc, you know much about elephants> YoI dont knos ant thing about clepliants' "Dos we've got some sick elephants" That's just hne," I sand "Whats wrong mth them?" "Well,' he said, "tou remember reading about the poisoning Atlanta A lot of them are still suffenng from the aftcreficcts "Well, I ll see what can be done about it," I said. "Do the Ict you treat them" "Yes," he said slosk" think may be the two of us might be able to manage On the nhole they are fairly calon while you are treating them that is, of course, if you 3.) stworthy highk intelligent, yes probably he most intelligent of all old animals ercept chips But i's mess unpredictable. They have been known to at ·48 Circus Doctor tach, for no apparent reason Despite my qualms, there to be worked on, honerct, and I was only thankful ani telligent elephant man like Walter McClain #35 around! help I got some of my equipment together and 11c start walking over to the elephant Iraal "I'll tell you one thing about these clephant abscesses Walter said "Just draining won't be cnough I guess would call them incapsulated abscesses, becausc hat hu pens is that a capsulc scems to have fomed bets cort! cartilage and the skin Instcad of just digging a holc 3" draining, you'll have to cut and actually remove the ato capsule "Well," I said, "let me open one up and I ll soon Er out The elephant Iraal is really a row of open sheds fort into a square with a watering trough in the center As se enter, you find four solid rows of clcphants stanng at yo from around the sides Cach is chained to a ring embeddin concrete by onc bind and onc front leg There is a 100 chain strung across in front of each ros of animals to Ice pcople from getting too close to them In the circus, this Inown as the “picket line" The clephant who was in particular pain this das named Jenny She was restless She was moving her los in circles and stamping licr fect Walter and I approach her cautiously, and Walter grabbed the clephant hool This is a stick about the length of a broom handic 0 the end of it is a small, dull look lus liook is used by a clephant men in leading and training clephants It does? hurt the animal, but it tugs at hier in one direction or a other and shc soon learns to respect orders given by meas of thc hook Walter got in front of Jenny, holding her trunl up an hics licad down I could just about reach thic arul in buc of tlic car where it was necessary to operate As soon 15

·Elephants Hate Tender Slinis
19
ched her, Jenay started bobbing her head and wering
pite the hook
Why as she bouncing so much?" I asked l'alter ann
* "I am pot hurting ber I am just patting her ear"
Touching them can dme them nearly crazy," Walter
"Dont you lnon, Doc, that elephants bare very
det skins?"
"Are you kidding?" I scoffed, slapping my hand sharply
Jensy's gras hide to disprose Walters joke To my
razement Jenny nmct linched She en seemed to
"That's what I mean, Doc,' Walter laughed "They love
Em slap, but a fiy or a tickle on their shen will drive
"In crazy
I was being crowded by the elephant next to lenny be
use the clephants on the picket line are chained rather
ose to esc& other I took out mv synage and, after
opping the area with antiseptic, injected 3 local anes
itic just to be sure An anesthehe isn t cry good for this
ind of thing usually, because an animal can fight the i
ction as much as the operation and an infected part lile
zus asn't too response because of the fact that the infec.
Sudamily, without my Inosing it the elephant nett in
I for sbat tesson 1 Bül no er non-dropped her
tank an 11-
1 dlsp
tit
11.

·50 Circus Doctor and is my neight made it go taut, it spring me back 2. Ilinded flit on my back undemcatli Jenny Iliy sprawled on the ground, lialf stunned more sc than í linic cier been in my life, when Jenny's blod! Oscilloned Then I moscd so fast that it might be & scribed is bouncing Only one thun and there, and to tlichool and hc fortlı and laugh incdiately and I managed to pull myself together pati up my dampened dignity, and, in a mucli calmer framet mind, continue the operation I haic had hundreds of such operations since but I har never liled them-not onc As a general rulc, the abscene becomes as big as a mins hand and I have to make correspondingly big opemng through which to work 17" abscess must lic packed with silicr nitrate to loo en capsule, and then worked around and around by hand u? the entire capsule is loosened and can be taken out throus llic opening It is seldom printul to the clephant but this pc ? tchibic fuss simply because they do not like to be handled I lepliants ! fer could nici cr be influenced by the "soft fcminine touch An cleplant wall invanalily toss liny and dut or what cvcr he can get luis trunk around onto lus buch It is sch com you see an clephant without tlus laser of dirt and has on luis bick Ilic las and dirt is insulation against ! packs and tickles of flics and mosquitocs an clephants worst enemics Ilus surprised me because I d'aluit thought as ? ost peo lc do, that an clophınt? ks that way I burst Icared to scs also havc lcm der skins the them is to wa tung : a thick skiy up and ·Elephants kase Tender Skins 51 umber when considening walking up to pat a hippo) An elepluat's normal temperature is nunty De to nd.ed degrees but the tour perature of the veterinarun ing it always shoots sky high shen he is trying to get 2d.ng on an elephant "The thermometer is about four ches long but it is breakable, and it can be lost-I always a strng to the one I am using so I can recover at And lenever the performance of temperature taking is neces I always like to lure the elephant trainer handy hen the trainer is around the aruma) has a combination both fear and confidence He has a fear of doing som be is not supposed to do and the confiderice that ham will come to bum Sometimes the trainer lumselt bake the elephants temperature More often he wall ind at the animals head and talk to her and just genet keep her calm a kile I try to get the reading When we do find an elephant with a high temperature d other symptoms of stomach upset we have our work pleasantly cut out for us A horse can be fed a laxative zny other medicine by means of a capsule There's no ck at all to making a horse swallow such a capsule This not true of an elephant An elephants mouth cant be 1d open His teeth are hard and strong and you cant Ica chance on putting your hand in his mouth if you are iting him do something he doesn t want to do He wont allo% 29thing he doesn t want to swallos and his gue is so por erful that nothing can get past it if the phant doesnt approve All in all, kes a duiñcult patient The first time one of Walter VicClain s elephants got an Het stomach 1 decided simply to feed her a lagore ough a s'amach tube That dont work It would work 319 other animal to get a tube into the stomach you mat it through the nose Well Il nort became a mat of workmg with the trainer and holding the elephants lalanit... 111 down the buic ·1 1.) anon 50 Circus Doctor and as my weight made it go tout, it sprung me I landed flat on my bach underneath Jenny I lay sprawled on the ground, lialt stunlcd morc scio than I have cier been in my life, when fenni's bladder os crlowed Then I moved so fast that it might be do scribed as bouncing Only one thing saved me from giving up the circus ther and there, and that 1125 the hook and he was dos forth and laughing fitt mediately and I managed to pusi may scul lusu up my dampened dignity, and, in a much calmer frime O' I have had hundreds of such operations since, but I hard never liked them-not one As a general rulc, the absccer becomes as big as a man's hand and I have to make : correspondmgly big opening through wluch to nos lha abscess must be packed with sık er nitrate to looscat) -111 on enrhed round and around by land until . handled Llcplants, I fcar, could never be influenccd by the "solt fenuninc touch An elephant will invariably toss lay and dirt or slut cier he can get his trunk around onto luis back It is sci dom you sec an cleplant without this laser af dirt and 1235 on his back The lay and dirt is insulation against the pricks and tickles of fries and mosqustoes an elephants Korst enemies Tus surprised Inc because I liad 111:35 thought, as I suppose inost scopic do, that an clcpk int is a thuck shunned animal Ilc simply Jooks that way 1.1 leamal that hippopotam; and slunoccroscs also hasc ten der suas The worst thing you can do to them is to wr! up and touch them lightly (77us is 3 çocul turn to to ·Ek phants 11.30 Tender Skins 51 aber rhen considering walling up to put a hippo) An clephant's normal temperature is finty nine to a a string to the one I am wmg so I can recover it. And henect the performance of temperature taling is neces T, I aluars like to laic the elephant trainer handy hen the trainer is arourd, the animal has a combination i both fear and confience He has a fear of doing somemp3 he is not supposed to do, and the confidence that oham will come to him Sometimes the trainer, bumself, tu bke the elephants temperature More often he will band at the animais head and talk to her and just gener !y keep her calm while I try to get the reading When we do End an clephant with a high temperature ind other simptoms of stomach upset, we have our work npleasantly cut out for us A horse can be fed a laxative or any other mediane by means of a capsule Theres no muck at all to making a horse swallon such a capsule. This is not truc of an elephant. An e'cphant s mouth cant be 5- open Ils teeth are hard and strong and you can take a chance on putting your hand in his mouth if you are making him do something he doesn t want to do le sont 5*110s anything he doesnt want to swallow, and his T3 e 5 30 porerful that nothing wan get past it if the cephsnt doesn t approve Ani ta all, he is a difficult patient The Erst time one of Ilalter VicClain's clephants got an rect s'orgach, I decided sundly to fced her a lohur 1 ·50 Circus Doctor and as my weight made it go taut, it sprung mc back ank I landed flat on my back undementh Jenny I lay sprawled on the ground half stunned more scarer than I have ever been in my life, when Jenny's bladde overflowed Then I moved so fast that it might be de scribed as bouncing Only one thing saved me from a noun the circus ther and there, and that was the hool and he was doi forth and lauglung fit to kill His attitude eased me im mediately and I managed to pull myself together, patel up my dampened dignity, and, in a much calmer frame o mind, continue the operation I have had hundreds of such operations since, but I hav never liked them--not one As a general rule, the absces! becomes as big as a mans hand and I have to make : correspondingly big opening through which to work The abscess must be packed with silver nitrate to loosen the capsule, and then worded around and around by hand unti * through it they to be handled Elephants, I fcar, could never be influenced by the "soft feminine touch An elephant will invariably toss hay and dirt, or what ever he can get his trunk around, onto his back It is set dom you see an elephant without this laser of dirt and hay on his back The hay and dirt is insulation against the pncks and tickles of flies and mosquitoes, an elephants worst enemies This surprised me, because I had always thought, as I suppose most people do, that an elephant is a thick skinned animal He simply looks that way i hasc - learned that hippopotami and illinoceroses also have ten der skins The worst thing you can do to them is to wall up and touch them lightly (This is a good thing to se + tonn a ·Llephants Ilase Tender Skins 51 ember when considering walking up to put a hippo) An elephant's nommal temperature is nunty nine to a EL ches lõng, but it is breakable, and it an be lostalways : a strag to the one I am using so I can recover tt And henaer the perfomance of temperature talog is neces. .TV, I always like to have the elephant trainer handy. hen the trainer is around, the animal has a combination both fear and confidence He has a fear of doing some 110 hab -- 1. -- the confidence that s the trainer, himself, More often, he will band at the animais head and talk to her and just gener- Wy keep her calm whủe I try to get the reading When we do find an elephant with a high temperature nd other symptoms of stomach upset, ne have our work npleantis cut out for us A horse can be fed 3 laxative or any other medicine by means of a capsule There's no nck at all to making a horse sallon such a capsule This 3 not true of an elephant An elephants mouth an't bc held open. His teeth are hard and strong and sou can't tale a chance on putting your hand in his mouth if you are making him do something he doesn't want to do He won't 53llow ansthing he doesn't want to sallou, and his ton un An todo. Luisdeu, uecided simply to fecd her a laatut th INS illustu get her to l down the lirttit 4 ·52 Curcus Doctor (The normal laxative dose for an clephant is one gallon of rau linseed oil ) The clepliant was Eva It took about five gallons before We got one gallon into Lia's stomach She would stick her trunk in her mouth, draw out the medicine we had managed to pour in and squirt it all over Walter and me We sloshed around anlle deep in laxative, and decided sadly that as a general routine this was not going to work A new system was called for I next tred a medicine called Lentin, and this later be came my standard clephant procedure Lentin is a laratxe that can be given by injection It is extremely strong and lias to be administered with great care it immediately starts secretion of all the glands in the body and it works in about ten minutes If there is a danger that the animal may have an obstruction in huis intestine, Lentin can ki" him Elephants come down with chills frequently, cxactly the way horses do It is casy to medicate a horse with brand using a dosc syringe but an clepliint is almost impossible to treat with a dose synnge A dosc syringe is long cnough to reach way back into an animals moutlı, by holding the animals head back and unloading the syringe you can make him swallow Not an clephant When they have chills and won t take brands I give them an injection of camphorated oil and guaiacol or some simlar preparation The clephants hase always been a sort of seterinarian's nuisance factor, because they seldom get anything scry SCTIOus but they are continually uling with one little thin: or another for instance, cry often a tusk will break and the root will have to be extracted (what I do tlien is to cut back three or four inches and pick out the broken picces of tush) All of our clephants are fcmiles because we liave found ·53 HL Clephants Ilare Tendet Skins ba Le malos ton to be troublenilers Since elephants catbed very well in capturts, there is no advantage in mg males lle male at a practice to remove a large portion of the turk as soon as we get an elephant, so if she should start to muke trouble, she n] be a good deal less danspanne ** she would be if she Erst day s qualmst tusk is a fantastic ul we boys coarns her down on uer knees and I take ber tusis off about fout inches from her cheeks with a hack sax There is no $*Tuitivity and the elephants dont seem to mund the car pentering in the leasti When Walter McClain 2 alive-he met a tragic death shortly after I jo ned the circus-he and I used to tall frequently about breeding elephants It has proved to be birtually impossible, at least in this country There have ben reports from Germany and Italy that elephants luzve xera bred in captivity and the offspring have ined As far sI can check this has not happened in this country There bave been a negl sible number of cases of elephants having Icon bred but none where the offspring have ined over Mity days I think the reason for this is that the clephants mut be left alone and must be lept cry calin and un exited befo c they will breed I would like, someday to buy a good male elephant, pick see or fou of our better females and pu* them off four T Esc miles from the cucus grounds in ? lorer sc pen bs themselves i 1011th them to tal. s from comirg rca unds, by autorrobilos-leit alone in the wilderness, as it veu by people, by et- th ni they might stand a pretty good chance of ducirg lica thi ofispnog It so it would be a famous st" in ths country, and I thunk the publaty value to Cirrus would be immense ·54 Circus Doctor I lcplint men are among the busiest of animal men, be cause their charges are probably the only ones in captivity that need manicuring Llephants have all kinds of trouble with their foct Thicir pads get sorc, they become infected, tlicy have the same kind of cuticle trouble human bangs do, only worse An elephant man's spare time is usually spent working on cuticles, paring toc nails, polishing, rub bing with antiscptic, and, if the clephant act is going to be extremely fancy that year, actually applying fingernail polish Our clepliants have to walk on concrcte going to and from the lots We have found that it is rather hard 00 tlıcır fect 'To avoid scrious trouble, se caminc cach cle phant's fcct cvery day We look for cracks, breaks, and sliglit infections, and treatment begins at once before the animal becomes lame 'This is good for the animal and ne huc found that the time spent is decidedly worth our whic Sometimes our clephant charges turn up with new, un known discascs I liad a phone call recently from an annual man in St Lows Hic had trained clcphant act and one of the clephants had developed a rather prominent swell ing under the belly over in area of perhaps two and a hall or thrcc fcct Ilc had asked a couple of local veterinarians but they were pretty much in thic dark because there is nothing in horses that corresponds to it I had run across a innor aise only once in the Circus but I told lum to apply hot towels, to lccp the animals belly cased in hot packs, licld on with a sling and to Icep constantly setting them I also suggested that he give her streptomycin duly for fauc days As far as I could guess it was a toxic condi tion caused by an infection soinculiere in the elephants system and it 1975 collecting under the shin at the lonest portion of the animal's body I doubted cry much if it was an infection of that immedatc arca, or that it was ·Elephants Hare Teader Skus Recus infection anu bere else. The trainer treated the anal as 1 suggested and checked with me by phone toy day Witha tho Weeks hus elephant was all right od the aiment on et recurred. Particularly as they gror oldet, elephants are likely to ther from paralyzed trunk. A sort of creeping paralysis ne over this vital part, and although the anstaal can 2010 at the trunk does not have its usual flexibility nor Locsit luve its normal strength an elephant with para: lyzed tunk can feed himself pretty well but instead of boaz able to trunk up and drop his food into his mouth, bu has to toss his head and catch his meal in mid 3.r. The muor adments can usually be put into the bands of the elephant boys, as for instance a bea their skins get Cry and have to be oued. Once the proper oil has been pirms to the bos, he can rub it in as well or better than I, bersuche us there all the time and the animal Inows him. Eleplants bite ach other's tails, partly out of nervousness and partis because that's the war elephants are. The tails get infected at the bitten part and they have to be recolentually th hot packs and sulfa and other I a hurt · afe, and > a good, In ou moet ni L ?ראי Po X1412uts, apparenth, she calmed the patient while I tocated bes. I became, in time, quitc attached to Ruth, and she is saill m chet assistant in my clephant work

·56
Circus Doctor
ill always remember how I laimed about clepluan!!
from Jenny, but animal men agree that clephants on the
ly when the night
that they and the
httle while
CHAPTER V
Wc Don't Shoot Them
Any More
Irir morses I know they are excitable and have to be
watched carefully and I will aclmit they arent is smart as
some of the other animals They get injured casily and
dont take care of themsels es too » But I like !icm
It may be that my accumulntion of knowledge about
them docs tungs for my cgo I don t Inow wint thic re1907
is It doesn t make any difference when I am working
with horses no matter how hard tlic work or how long
the hoitrs, I am contentcd
I like lorses I know how they act and why I think!
know what goes on in their heads I know how to tell a
horse what I am thunking and I know liow to figure out
what he is thinking I have suglit horses practically ciers
tlung you can teach a horse, and I have learned a lot from
them too
A horse an be the most beautiful animal in the world
1

·We Dont Shoot Them Any More 57 of hess healthy and well-cared for He can be a good com panion for the long pull, or a means of escape in a CTISIS İforses can save you or run you, hurt you or protect you. They surpass all other animals in their ability to respond to human attention I like them Dunng my first sechs in Sarasota I was lonesomeonesome for my horse, a mare named Benny V She was a colt when I last saw her in Kerrville, the fifth genera tion of a line owned by my father ever since his marnage The first animal he owned was Benny V's great, great, srcat grandmother I couldn t have her with me in Shreveport, but here in Sarasota te had all the space in creation it was a heaven for horses There was no reason why Ben zy V and I couldn t be together She arsed one Saturday moming She looked wonder ful. I spent all that moming scrubbing and grooming her and then left her in the lower corral wth orders that she be tamed loose in the pasture for several hours a day My plan was to Icase her here while I was on the road, hoping she uduld be in good shape for breeding the following year I didnt breed het non because I wanted to be around Xhen she foaled It looked sery much as though I were Oon to be raising a family and it was a pretty happy feel ng llorses can do that to a man On one of my daily inspections of the horses my at on v3s taken by a big black stallion named Lindy bo had a swelling just above his stifle. He was one of the test saddlc horses I have ser known Iles lameness both ered me a great deal Ladi didnt secm to limp very much and the groom bad told me he thought the infection was draining But for come reason I didn time the look of it It had kung on för Por to or three days, I tried draining the infection, but odl o cz otlic at neiet seemed to got any better It was 'co long ·58 Curcus Doctor very hard to cxaminc becausc, althought Lindy was a gen tic horse normally and never caused any trouble, the min utc I went near his bad leg lic would stnke out in al directions with what seemed like all four fect at once On this day, as on most others, I had more things to de than there was time for I was always being forced to pul off a lot of routine work for some emergency By the after noon, cverything scemed to be under control and there was nothing pressing for attention, so I gave Lindy a loca anesthetic much against his wall and opened up the in fection I took out a piece of stick about two and a ha! inches long and about three quarters of an inch in de ameter It had apparently run up at an angle in his le above the knee No one saw it happen and there had been only the smallest wound I don't know how long it had been there, but st was casy to see why the infection hadnt clearcd About a ucek later, I was a little puzzled to find that this samc infcction was still draining It was just as though noth ing lud been done to it This time I was seriously worried, 50 I immediately went for my equipment I got three of the better grooms to liclp me, we laid the horse down and I injected a shot of anesthetic that put fum completels to slecp I had decided to open the leg I went into the wound the way I had before, but this time I continued cutting This time, I found that the vea continued clear on through to the other side of the leg Before I finished, I pulled out another piece of stick some six inclics long, Apparently Lindy had rubbed aguinst something or had fallen, this splinter went almost directly upward in one side of thic leg and almost out the other side After this, I kept fus leg packed for a few days and it liciled beautifully There was not the slightest suggestion of a limp and this pleased me, because for a performing horsc it isn't enough to make him self from an economic standpoint, you must make him well enough to perform, ·We Dont Shoot Them Any More 59 It Rouldn't pay to have a horse on which thousands of dollars hae been spent for training and be able to use Lm caly for hauling a feat He must go back into hus act. Some of the things that happen to our horses in the process of the amazing tracks they do are rather spectacular; ome of the treatments and cures are equally so But whether the treatment is spectacular or not, the horses, because of their great number and their great value, are a continual source of trouble. The way my net routine was working out, I was spend og about half my time with the horses Coming out to arater quarters early, i nould first make my rounds of the horse coral Then I would examine ans animal that ! knew was sick or injured or any animal that had required corking on in the last day or two Then I would go through the menagere, the elephant rual, the outdoor menagerie cages the monkey house, the ruer corral, and end up sith the cat bam Also I was called continually all day and frequently at ght to examine animals that setent acting right Vost of e time these didnt require much actual attention the ge boys the trainers helpers, and the grooms all had nct orders to call me if they had the slightest suspicion at an animal was ofl color, and they did their work well, it that meant they called me many times when an animal sud some slight discomfort that didnt require treating- Soucthing that possibly could simply be slept off It was better that was but it was hectic and time-consuming Furtherinore, I 835 still spending a lot of time talking to people tallang to the cage boys, talking to the performers This thing to learn as much about the circus as such as I wossibly could, so that I wouldnt be bothered with the Ile matters of timing and routine when we went on the med and, thacforc, could devote all my energy to the rmals ·60 Circus Doctor My hospital was coming along finc 'The managemer: ordered anything I wanted in the way of medicine an cquipment I had liad new shelves put in, and now too pride in my small and unpretentious but efficient litti setup So much of my time was spent with the horses becaus it was a sure bet that once they started traveling ther would be illnesses, accidents, fights and other mishaps wanted to become so sell acquainted with each individua horse that there would be no chance of anything progress ing when I could nip it in the bud I had to operate on th theory of the old time family physician who perhaps knev more about his patients than he did about medicine rather than the newer type of doctor who knows mori about medicine than he does about his patients One moming, shortly after a very early breakfast, Jerry a beautıful, big white bareback horse, was brought into the indoor training ting for rehearsal Jerry was the Numbe Onc horse in a horse to-horse trick The tvo horses can tered around the ring, one immediately behind the other While they ran, an acrobat standing on Jerry's back, woul jump into the air do a backward somersault and land o the back of the Number Two horse Thuis was a rather spectacular act and a very difficult one to do Jerry was : good horse and he had been doing this routine for a num ber of years was a loud commotion past the door Tiny, 1 me running out calling I mn in to find Jerry down on the ground He had stepped on the ring curb and broken his leg All bareback horses trained to follow the ring curb 11310 scidom known one to step on it Onc quick look at him and I found that the break wis right above the hoof Leaving hun where he was I ran for my erncrgency lit, 11 -1 1 11 .

·61 1'e Don't Shoot Them Asy Nfore Stral assistants and I went to work on him to set the wwe Donna bere the break was, there was sen little flesh d I could set it by touch I prepared some plaster of faris and made a cast. We walked Jerry back on three legis ols $131, bere he immediately lar dond Jory has a wonderful patient and that is what saved bus t For the next eight weeks he spent twenty three and -half hours of every twenty four Iyang down io bus stall He ta ' lung donn When he did stand up, he did it very • ctus and be held the injured leg off the ground Wetu e did he dona he did it as Grcully as though he were ettling down on a bed of engs. The bottom of the band elegan a even got dirty? le cape through it all beautifully We cut down on his ced so hus lying around wouldn't make him fat and slug sh or colcky, or gne him any of the diseases that horses it from eating too much and not exercising enough Sila s. months, Jony was perfectly healthy and walled inthorst a limp He was never good fos bareback work 213, though, because he had tumed nog-shy He was brays afraid he was going to hit that nng curb, and he was insure enough of himself to be unscluable in the nng But is did use hun for a number of other purposes for a long the after that, and he was always a good horse. Jerty was replaced in the act bs Tom, who had been mul tanned but even before we got on the road. Tom Lored Lasatisfactory During chearsal one day he lit out th both kind feet for ro apparent reason and licked the read of the Number Two house There wasn't much I Od do about the injured horse except to case his pain a fe and take care of the fish round His head bcalcd ru a se obrious dent in it for shon purposes, we aged to cover it up mth a tassel or flore, but that .33€ becainc tinchsia arothet was He would no lorge ** behind any cibet horse So he trained him as the ·62 Circus Doctor Number Onc horse to replace Tom, and a new Number Two horse had to be broken in to Howth him. Frequently, when a horse is sick he gets what is known as azoturia. In the old days, we used to call that "Alonda moming sickness.” It comes of a horse ising around all da Sunday, eating as much as he does when working. Starters te mrle ---T. T' IT b forced to move; he stands a good chance of ruptuning muscle or some internal organ. When azotuna does come on, although we male ciel attempt to keep it down by cutting the feed when it animals aren't working, I always give them an injection something to relax them, and then a calcium glucona! injection to restore their strength. They arc usually : right within 1 nouncoil 1 of t': Te pu lug is entire leg in a metal splint. The splint, which D Young built out of aluminum, was so made that it fitte him up around his hip and extended down a couple inches below his hoof We bored a hole through his hoc and bolted that to the splint It was like a permane crutch, and that Shetland could actually walk while th break was healing because his weight was on liis bod rather than on his leg. That is now a common treatinen for fractures for a number of four logged animals. Not s long ago, these same animals sould have been shot. I was leaming new things even about horses during thes first four months in winter quarters. Things ucc happen ing so fast, I often didn't dare wait until somebody callet ·We Don't Shoot Them Any More 63 * Anne Vv tam 1 ril, a kch was opening day in New York, rehearsals were Teasing in frequency and intensit; and there was an Teismg number of the little accidents that always hapan ben animals get together What I leamed about horses was the result of laung 50 zny korses doing so many different things in one place, at e time. I de cloped routine treatments for every fore rable contingency because only with a well worked out wire would it be possible to handle all of the animals the road Take the routine of anesthetizang 2 horse, for example 1 Met grve him Xembutal because it makes horses toss "ound a good deal while thev are coming out of it It is pribly dangerous for a horse to thrash Bround He can Sort bmscif too easily a chloral hydrate anesthesia on ho preferable 1 dont always anesthetize completely, on a small amount of chloral hidrate takes the fight u of them and removes practically all the pain while long a thorough internal opention, I simply use a large !o-c of chloral bsdrate Duang this paid at #3s necessary to astrate a number of Lorses I have beer like to castrate horses withaut Fol 163509 but that 270 nmes when a male is mean and too hard to handle unless he is castrated Our expert mce has been thist geldings, or castrated males, make by 13: the best performers in the nng Studs, although some the good are likely to be too etatable and unreliable They are the balets and kickets Mares are good except When they are in heal then they, too become theracls 113 ard are likely to ble and kick. But a well-ranned geld in or in the long ru" is the best performing horse. Whether ·62 Cucus Doctor Number One horse to replace Tom, and a nene Number Tuo horse had to be broken in to work with him Frequently, then a horse is sick he gets what is Lond as azoturua In the old days, we used to call that "Monday moming sickness" It comes of a horse lying around all day Sunday, eating as much as he does when working Starting 11 L Ar nmd I 1 bling Thc danger comes if he tres too hard or if he is forced to move, he stands a good chance of rupturing 2 muscle or some internal organ. When azotura does come on, although we make every attempt to keep it dosyn by cutting the feed when the animals aren't working, I always give them an injection of something to relax them, and then a calcium gluconate injection to restore their strength. They are usually all nght within a couple of hours I haven't had many bone brcals, luckily. Although most of them can now be treated, the constant traicling males for complications There was a white Shetland I treated in Shraicport Thuis pony broke his leg mather high up, which required put ting his entire leg in a metal splint The splınt, which Dr. Young built out of aluminum, was so made that it fitted lum up around lus hip and extended down a couple of inches below his loof Wc bored a hole through his hoof and bolted that to the splint It was like a permanent crutch, and that Shetland could actually walk while the break was healing because his weight was on lus body rather than on his leg That is nos a common treatment for fractures for a number of four legged animals Not so long ago, these samc animals would have been shot 14. Ju ·We Don't Shoot Them Any More 63 Tubog a cnsis 125 orly antu; 3 crisis My seven sed animal al needed attention enery day Out of : bundred animals, just 17 the ordinary course of 1 #20 t hard to Egure the audence of sickness incidents as we dress closer and closer to the first of Lab.ch is opening dayinde York, rehearsals were a frequency and intensity and there was an 250g norber of the little acadents that always hap- 50 anuals get together That I learned about horses 1735 the result of hayng so toʻses doing 50 11:20 different things in one place, at time I developed routine treatments for every fore- 7500cy be use ork with a well worked out c would it be possible to handle all of the animals head ake the routine of aresthetizing a horse, for erample 1 or gire bım Yenbutel because it miles horses toss wd a good deal whle tho are coming out of it. It 15 ab's dangt:ows for a borse to thrash around He an kanself too arīlu A chloral hydrate anesthesu 25 - prelerable I dont 1)*353 atesthetze competelv, won a sms' amount ci chloul hidrate takes the Eght of them and thores practicals all the pain while 3 a thorough 17"errmal operation, I s tplf ase a large To chloral bsdnate Damaths peroxi it* 3s Decessary to castsatenumbe Enages. I have nere Lied to aistrate horses without A reason but there goet mes when a male is man : too hard to band's caless he is castrated Our FETI is tuas been that geldinys, or castrated males make by the best performing a the mag. Studs, althorgh Some rod. The likely to be too eatable and unreluble by a thn b ters aad krlers Wares are good ocent the 2012 at then the too become extremely 1713. - Lich to bisandkk Buta nelltranet geld atbuling in the best perdorurg herse. Whether ·64 Curcus Doctor the circus leamcd this from the Western cowboys I don't Inox But I do know that con boys will almost fier er nde a mare, although for different reasons They almost always, to my know ledge, nde geldings Arthur Konyot, who was training the Liberty Act, came Over to see me one day and complained of a horse, a ICTy bright horse and a very good performer, but a ser mer animal I examined him and found something that on" finds only occasionally in horses he had only one testicle, It was up in his abdomen and had never dropped It hai to be brought down by mcans of what is known 25 1 ridgeling operation I anesthetized him completely, tied him up, and cute hole in the region of the groin 1 got my hand in throug the hole and poled around inside until I found the testido and, with an instrument, removed it This horse was all right within a very fert wecks and every trace of stubbomness left him I made the groom wall him three or four miles a day while he was recorenog for I have found that this continued forced exercising of a horse x hile he is recolenng from an operation is probably the best post-operatic treatment you can give him (From my reading lately, I gather that medical doctors are finderz that cry much the same thing holds truc for human patients ) There are also some of our horses whom one might ca] neurotic There is never a year that I don't hasc one or tid that are sentable babies about the slightest illness Tha smallest touch of colic will make them thrash around and kick and roll in their stalls unless somebody gnes them a little attention Then they will calm down and happily tale their medicinc But the minute they are left alone, they start thrashing around again This thrashing around so dangerous, cspccully of horse is colicly that I used to do almost anything to avoid ·We Dont Shoot Them Any More 65 L. And then one day, I found a treatment that has worlod bubully eser since. The medicine I gnc horses for colic sa very sharp burning mixture It is usually led to thern 03 capsule so that they dont taste it One day, hile atorg one of these hypochondnacs I took a little of this med.cwe out of the capsule, put it in a dose synnge, and dropped it in his mouth He tossed his head He poked his tongue out trying to get nd of it but he couldn t It burced him and he didat like it That gave him some tog to think about By the time he had forgotten about Laat he had also forgotten about his illness He slept gu.ctly for the rest of the day Some of our gentlest horses are among our worst pa ma's We have a little bas hackney named Sally a beautı iul horse. She usually nes et causes any trouble and never Eghts with the other horses But the minute anyone Ines to gale het any kind of medicine in the mouth she rears op and pass with her front feet She could casily kill a careless attendant Our horses are temperamental because thev perform They are always keyed up tense, and very nervous shen they are being saddled to go into the act and they are al 1715 very calmn nght after it This is partly due to their mun.ng, and partly because trainers baie found that high trung and high spinted horses make much better par ormets t'uan full listless too gentle horses There a e horns that can I bear to be separated from tar mates This is a characteristic that many people, par ularly those with little experience, attribute only to mees Miserpenence with monkeys has been otherwise hus characenstic entzat isnt particularly truc of any het animal, but I knon there are horse couples that cont ud being separated That first year we had to American siddle horses that Intet oa kell together Thes used to fight all the time er heless if one s taken out and saddled obvioush ·66 Circus Doctor to go to worh, it didn't affect the other But if it was ta out for any other reason, such as to go to the blacksn shop or for some other unaccustomed purpose the ot would neigh and whinny and break out into a scat thrash around until it, too, had to be taken away After watching this for a while, I gave orders that wh ever one horse had to be taken anywhere, they both shoi go together After that, we had no more trouble We had two beautiful white Liberty horses, Ackm and Alle They were mates, but we noticed no particu! attachment, though we know that they never fought ar had been stablemates for a long time One night, Ackm: died of a twisted intestine Alle carried on in a way th I have never seen any other animal do She whinnied co! tinually She refused to cat and she refused to sleep W doctored her, we tried her with new mates, we tned change of scene, wc tempted her with every possible food we did everything in the way of medication and psycholog! to increase her appetite but she simply wasted away With in two months she died of what can only be described as a broken heart There are pests too, of course We are seldom troubled with the dreaded botfly--which, throughout the South and Southwest, is the bane of a farmers cxistence It lays its eggs on the short hair around the horse s knee and under the chin The horse is annosed by the itching and licks the eggs off The larvae, in tum hatch in his stomach and at tach themselves to the stomach wall To avoid thus we watch for evidence of botfly eggs on horses' legs, and sim ply mop them off with kerosenc The circus has one groom to every three horses, which gives a chance for the kind of care that almost no farmer can afford Every time a new horse arrives, lie is wormed immedi ately I don't worm our horses every year because it hasn't ·Wc Don't Shoot Them Am More necessary. But I da see that try horse 15 formed at oace in three years rong lus equous Little Dupdxom that sucks an ut's blood-homes farmers, and we watch mrefully 103 of it to treat le abole a number of cases of quarter-crack among horses This means the boot starts to crack up top, at Eesky part. A sound develops there, an infection sets and the boot crack would, if it weren't stopped, con se all the tav dok the hook till the horse was permi tly lame. We watch for this becausc it is common and con 25 we see any sign, se Mke the horse over to out eksmith shop and have his shoes specially made to stop alment and allow healing sometimes a horse bas to be put away Sometimes he is land sick. Sometimes be as bad's founded Sometimes has an incurable break or an incurable disease When ings He this happens, we don't worry about the techni stics We destroy the animal, and se know, and every dy eke Inoxs, that this is a "mercy killing that there Horses, I usually inject the animal eta strychnine. fac no feeling until the strychnine hits the beart, then * animal dies instintancousls We busy bump a big of we keep as our gauna) cemetery at the far end of our 22c quarters Thiess an ailment among horses called founder or lanı the time Cu! He the loot , usual erperience has been that od cithe responds to treatment immediateh, or it t be health successfulls at all and the horse is in so Felpan le has to be destrosed In this disease, the sole ·68 Circus Doctor of the foot drops down below the wall of the hoof a causes excruciating pain I had two cases of founder during my first wecks w the show One was a bareback horse The cure 113S SO COI plete and so rapid that he was back in the act within Week The other was a high school horse A high scho -7 om lancir knee years bowing, waving a flag, or walking up and shaling him with the band leader There is, of course, perfect directo from the rider Horses like this take two to thrce continual expert training in order to be good performer The trainers, themselves, usually take a lifetime of traut ing in almost every case I can think of, they have com from families of high school riders and high school train ers Probably the most famous example in recent ser: is the great Konyot who was with the circus when I joinc it and remained for several years after that it was 0.19 of Ins horses that came down with founder, and it scemer impossible that any cure could be complete enough t: allow him to go back into the act Because such horse have to maneuver almost the way a human being doos they have to be able to do things that one has no ngh! to expect even a well horse to do. However, I would try I injected about a pint of normal salınc solution into this horse's vein every three or four days I also gave him normal horse serum every day, dosed him with alum nitrate every four hours and kept his front feet wrapped in cold compresses As soon as he showed improvement I stopped the alum nitrate but continued the other treatment In a few weeks he was back in the act without a trace of lump, When we were ready to go on tour, it was a safe bet that these horse troubles were just beginning, but this phase

·6
Tran.n the Big Cats
komad me the least. There is alsays a great
ca! ci sabsfartos to be eamed by canng for horses, and
E ETCe the helped dwelop the self-confidence I
whered for more in che animal departarents To put a new
hu'm a famous remark I like horses I am glad I like
L. Because i Iddat like them, I woulda t be around
too, and I like being around them.
CHAPTER VI Training the Big Cats
TuumCNTUD ANTILUS has nothing at all to do with my
Horhe whictrinary med cire in general and I have no de
ce to become a trainer I have acier trained a wild animal
por jon, a. boush I have raised too of them HONET ET
24d-cop a very real interest in this profession or art,
en my Erst stets with the circus, because of the tre
dos a Eutes of the job and because of my fnend
15 the trainers who wo ked rith th- shon
I lezned a good deal about the big cats from Alfred
- 2nd 0 from Damoo Dhotre. Damoos
approah to ar mal traurs is unusual Having a
y cocus as ne l as a 17) alet mind be bas studied
:: als bolsas species and as inderdaals Darroo
me of son about tra.duos cats
h.

·70 Circus Doctor A trainer's job tales a combination of physical aglit mental alertness, and courage It is naturally dangerou The trainers who le long are those who remember th: a wild animal is never, never tamed, but only truna Damoo has told me time and time again that when a trainer gets hurt, it is always the trainer's fault-and th is not the boasting of a smúg man who has happened 1 be lucky Damoo has been badly hurt and he has been i danger of death What he means is that it is bad to b come overconfident, to forget that the animals are sti wild, still savage, and always on the borderline of gettes completely out of control Damoo's theory on training a wild animal is similar h says, to that of training a child 'The first step," he $35) "is to remove the animals fear An animal is instinctne afraid of a stranger, and because lic is afraid, he Damoo spends countless hours in front of a cage.com - the cage He talks to with his voice Hi n the tip of a long pole Eventually, sometimes after weeks, the animal stops flying into a panic when Damoo approaches When he has an animal at that point, he takes him into the training cage, making sure that there are ropes around the animal and that those ropes are held tjut by boss outside the cage Then he plays with him, maanwhile doing cvery thing possible to inspire the animals com fidence he assures the animal that he is not going to be hurt, he talks to him, he feeds him, and escntually he returns him to his cage When the animal has become thoroughly friendly Damoo starts teaching him simple tncks with the aid of the boys holding the ropes, Damoo gives him the signal for his sithing on the pedestal Ile slows him uliat is expected of him and rewards him with a piece of incat attack" 1 1 ·Training the Big Cats 71 in bc obeys After several sessions sath the guide rope the mat, the animal begins to recognize Damoo's ual and, cvery time he hears it, he goes toward the This is perhaps, an oversimplification of the wild animal her be will push or prod kim and let him know where ne how whip opular elict, seldom are animals beaten by a trainer. It stands o reason, if a trainer wants an animal to lose his fear, he s hardly likely to beat him up every time he comes in ·72 Circus Doctor child is beaten into submission at every point, he 6-7l. no respect but he will have fear and a grudze He wait for the chance to tum on his parents and if the hotel fum on them, he wil tum on someone else. He 100 lieaded for gangsterdom In animals, too," he says must be both fear and respect He is punished only for doing itong and he must know why he is being purusbel each time. He must be rewarded for being good and be Sona in un "ther L instant" Damoo himself, though he has been attacked azia again, only severely hits an animal when there is a rai! fight and real danger, when the choice is betrecn buttons the animal and being hurt Damoo goes into the cage with five spotted leoparts two pumas, two black jaguars, and two black panthers 0.3" of the panthers still attacks him at the slightest provoz tion I have seen Damoo time and again avoid the animals claw by less than an inch I watched Damoo train Negus--the 170-pound baut nows who once almost Lilled him to be aimed around 11n trich, chimbing up to the top of a pyramid Wall animals By roping him and feeding him, Damoo final y got him to the point where he would stand on the hio stools, his forelegs on one and his hind legs on the otha When the paguar did this Damoo sovld te ud him with a picce of meat held out on the pointed cnd of a stick After sencral days of feeding lum in this manner, the trainer would pat him on the back to get him used to hu touch Then he went one step further he put Ius arm ·73 Training the B.3 Cats For your bu k and exerted pressure on hs bells with to pala c bs baad This was to get Negus used to that reske sou feel when Damoo put bus neck under i tel's to lt bim, Disz the East few days of this legus was inghtened le mm Lash out at Damoo and then run for hus own detl Bat br slot and patient work, Damoo got to Le poa bere be could get one art under the animals Cd Lit hin mo or three inches of the s'ools. By heed cl the month legus kould le quietly, draped ad Dawoo's cock. 1$ ct me perpose to trake heroes of these trainers by up the melodrama which is inherent in their proros, but too often in the public mind the amount of test and studs and understanding that goes into tram *mals is underestimated. Another common belief that the animals haie aa crgan removed, certain teeth dc cther mustenous operations performed to make gate. This is utter nonsense Other people think w the animals behave because the trainer Rhips the tar tothom If the people pho make these accusations 10'3 stop to thank for one moment, they would realze that the wh paere cred to slash the anual, his fur and ska would hard' be as smooth and labl-mished as it parabris Every crack of the whp is a cue in the act herna customed move, and a traire can be in senoas the fom the focus of instrunts this might brog to 328 mall. Sanelas 230 Datoo toned a black panther to attack Tas part of the at At a certa 7 sual the animal rould 31 at Danod and as Danoo vould step backward froin the fans7 soul! leap and sbsh cut 2 him with ha 195 Tme 3022321a, I base seen the panther soatch the belom aro y Dinoo s ceck so close to him da * furt come Vienka (pronounced Viea rok 2"), the " **s a irs Cuck an na! Ist Damso could be ·Circus Doctor successful with this lind of trick because he himx even quicker and has perfect physical control Hes how always managed to leep an inch or two! Menala's reach When Damoo rent into the army, another tramer over the act The new tminer was a very competent, intelligent noman The first time she preformed this with the panther everything went well until the pou which she wanted the animal to stop leaping and 50 to her pedestal Danoo had accomplished this bs stog in his tracks and thrusting his head out at Metala woman trainer was not entirely famılar with Me and wasnt quite sure of her Instead of stopping abso 1 suill probably afraid that the animal might try and Jeap, she took still another stop back But this was e the wrong thing to do Menala knew this as the ar jump and she mauled her badly In a mixed group all the natural jungle cnemies ar pected not only to sit quietly as neighbors, but actual come in close contact with each other during many ol tricks A mixed group truner has to be good but are is sometimes attached on complete absence of fear on part of these trainers is sometlung that ncier fails to ar For myself I cint clum to be thoroughly unconccy when working on a wild animal On the occasions whe was necessary to work (t1 an nimul that was not strained ind not unconscius I have had a strange ing in the pit of mt stomach as the symptoms of might be stater on the line but the truncrs dare not afmid in tare riche He triner his lud rc3sor becoine so fie usualls lu to Wat espedient to change profession Damoo is thoroughls rire of all the dangers but at same time he has the kind of confidence in bumself! malos him feel master of whateier einergety anses me

·Training the Big Cats
73
Cort had the same condence. He lived to reture.
tres abo hoe been in the business for many
sapert to reach a npe old aze Alans are sure that, il
dat will be because of 3 uttle bug rather than a
manal
op has a beaubft) sported Properd named Songs,
laked Damoo cade shether, despite the fact that he
intas o crated, and he kaows that be annot trust
"Hlox, ther," I asked bim, do you protect yoursell
ben rou do this trick?
"U rca wi") watch me carefulls" said Damoo, "you wall
Etat some days, on the days when Sony is upset. 1
Lomtahan
If this soakes your blood run cold or bring duck bumps
la mut skin vou acte not born to be an animal trainer
Tut the stuf ct shich successful cat trainers are made
my i beleve shat they have cas be developed We are
e that way, or Me are not
Czt taruns is such a fascinating art I nevet miss a
<!.360 to atch out of the trainers working his animals,
}

·b 74 Circus Doctor successful with this kind of trick because he himx cren quicker and has perfect physical control lle se how always managed to keep an inch or trol Menaka's reach When Damoo went into the army, another trainer! over the act The new trainer was a very competent, hi Intelligent woman The first time she preformed thust with the panther everything went well until the poin which she wanted the animal to stop leaping and go to her perlacia? in his tra woman t and wasn't quite sure of her Instead of stopping absolu ly still, probably afraid that the animal might try anot! leap, she took still another step back But this was craci the wrong thing to do Menaha know this as the cue jump and she mauled her badly in a mixed group, all the natural jungle enemies are? pected not only to sit quetly as neighbors, but actualı! come in close contact with each other during many of t: tricks A mixed group trainer has to be good, but acas is sometimes attacked so complete absence of fear on to part of these trainers is something that never fails to amin Por myself, I can't claim to be thoroughly unconcerned when working on a wild animal On the occasions when i was necessary to work on an animal that was not to strained and not unconscious I have had a strange feel ing in the pit of my stomach and the symptoms of that might be water on the knee But the trainers dare not be afraid In rare cases where the trainer has liad reason 1 become so, he usually has found it expedient to change ben profession Damoo is thoroughly awarc of all the dangers but at th same time he has the land of confidence in limself thui malcs him feel master of whatcher emergency arises AB mc

·No text on this page.

·76 Circus Doctor whether it is running through an old act or breaking the for new tricks Since some of the best trainers in the no. have worked and do work with the show, I have had chance to study them all at close range There are two kinds of animal men There is a 101 of difference between them, although the public usual is unaware of any distinction The first group are the R trainers They take raw animals out of the jungle, bre them, teach them tricks, and perform with them. The are the men like Court, Dhotre, Proske, Clemens, Mathie and a few others Then there are the men who perfon with animals already broken and trained They simply pcat a given set of signals in order to make the anima perform One of the most famous of all American "trall ers" belonged to this group He even went so far as I employ a man to train his animals for him The Hager beck Zoo in Germany has for many years trained entire act and then sold them to "trainers" who were actually met performers It is an interesting fact that most cat trainers prefer to work with jungle raised animals rather than with bottle fed animals The reason they give is that pet bottle fed animals are pampered when they are babies and are seldom pun ished By the time they get big enough to be dangerous, it is too late to start punishing them They are so completely unafraid that even hitting them lightly, which is enough to bring a young wild animal under control, will only malc them savage and bring on an attack Trainers feel of tliey, themselves, raised an animal on a bottle, they would be sure to start disciplining it early so the animul would respect them and would respect their orders at a Jater date But if the animal had been raised as is a pet, by the time it was six or eight months old it would be much inore dangerous than : jungle raised animal, ber cause it would have no fear and would only become bitter if then punished for the first time ·Training the Big Cats 77 "here are many legends current about the experiences of nal trainers, One popular story which has been at uted to any number of traiters us about the man who onet attacked by one of his animals, one of the other mals then saying his life I have asked a number of acts about thus unukels story and have found none of > & e act. Before he got around to replacing him, the lon & night struck out at Damoo, npped his arm badly, and, Dimo stepped back, lunged at huım He knoched amoo down, and then, Damoa says, another of his lions hich happened to be directly behind him leaped over stallen body and landed on the attacking lion The to lions started Eghting This gare Damoo a chance to ncs both animals nnder control However, he says Treno manne that L. :-) to the detrimait of the trainer, where the other ins als became excited by the attacking one and all at Lacked the trainer When this happens, the shox has only onc choice and that is to find a replacement for the ܟ ܐܚܐ ܫܫ ܬܬܪ ܙܪ rr" ܫܝܐ 27 Fibo due cit trainers no doubt get a certain satisfac- Tim out of the difficult achics trent But as for ms-tbe panning ting us a nice place to visit but I d hate to make a Luing in it ·76 Circus Doctor whether it is running through an old act or breaking their for new tricks Since some of the best trainers in the world have worked and do work with the show, I have had : chance to study them all at close mange There are two kinds of animal men There is a world of difference between them, although the public usually is unaware of any distinction The first group are the rez trainers They tale raw animals out of the jungle, bread them, teach them tricks, and perform with them. These are the men like Court, Dhotrc, Proske, Clemens, Mathies, and a few others Then there are the men who perform with animals already broken and trained They simply te peat a given set of signals in order to make the animals perform One of the most famous of all American "train crs" belonged to this group He even went so far as to employ a man to train his animals for him The Hagen beck 700 in Germany has for many years trained entire acts and then sold them to "trainers who were actually mere performers It is an interesting fact that most at trainers prefer to work with jungle raised animals rather than with bottlefed animals The reason they give is that pet bottle fed animals are pampered when they are babies and are seldom pun ished By the time they get big enough to be dangerous, it m They are so completely n lightly, which is cnough under control, will only make them savage and bring on an attack Trainers feel if they, themsckes, raised an animal on a bottle, they would be sure to start disciplining it early so the animal would respect them and would respect their orders at a later date. But if the animal had been raised as is a pet by the time it was sit or eight months old it would be much morc dangerous than a jungle raised animal, bei cause it would have no fear and would only becomc bitter if then punished for the first time ·This Von't Hurt Much 1 cupcricace of this kind in school crease mt Anth 79 te hint 11 10 come up with lions, Pidues, and bears Back in my circus initiation period, we had an old lion named Samba. He was past his performing days and was 5 mg out his years in the menagerie Never having done In dentistry on a wild animal, 1 somehow had the con der: fecling that perhaps, if I lived a very good life, I ould never hne to But Samba didn't know about my Infidence and he wasnt a judge of how loves were lived le was just an old lion having a lot of trouble eating The keeper called me over one day, to ask me to watch he way this lion fed Samba would tear off a piece of neat savagely, and then chew, and chew, and chew He pened never to finish one bite of mcat I watched him ya shile and then realized that apparently the tneat was scking back in his molars It couldn't possibly stick there 'ess those teeth were in very bad shape There was only One thing to do check those teeth We ran Samba into a squeeze cage and gave him a mall injection of Nembutal (For a short operation he ht, there was no point in keeping him asleep for eight or en or taclve hours) I gate him just enough Nembutal 'phil hc a ent down and his jau's were related I or the next caple of hours he could do me no harm Thuis was all the me I needed to fix him up The menagene superintendent hclped me put him on i operating table to examine hım Two of his louce olars acte very badly Totted They were broken and so ayed they had almost casetas in them Extracting a in's tooth isn't too much different from attracting a man tooth The gurn is broken away from the tooth, • Ino'h is loosened then extracted the only difficulty ·CHAPTER VII This Won't Hurt Nſuch MY PASSIONATE DISLIKE of dentistry started in veterinary school One day an old Negro faner brought a horse ole to us and offered him for sale for one dollar Some of the horses that these poor farmers bning in at the end of the Scason are old, some are very old It had been many scans şince tlus horse had been very old Only once since then have I seen anything so decrepit, and that was a horse this? a farmer in Ohio tried to sell me as the circus was passing through Old as this horse nas, the school bought him and the students embarked on a campaign to return him to health if not to youth I volunteered to tale over at his dentistry because extraction is very casy in an old horse and I thought I would be getting away with something I was He had two bad teeth in the back of his mouth Ire moved my shirt and went to work with real enthusiasm certain that I remembered all my lessons in dentistry This was an easy job The boys who were assigned to the rest of his anatomy were really going to have tough going Though I established some kind of school record for ex tracting two teeth in a minimum length of time, for the rest of my years in rct school, it was impossible to Int down the fact that one of the tecth I pulled happened to be the wrong one Like most lids, I hated going to the dentist-may be more than most lids, because I had to go more often than most A dislike for dentists to start with, by 18

·Th.s tout llunt Murch
81
1 x hente, such as curs As a result, tooth decay
ct coneastert in horses
mes do bare otha tooth troubles Blind tooth us cot
amon Ths is a case of two alternate teeth growing
s together that the middle tooth has no room to
dora When it doesn't it simply grows backwards
root pushes its way upward until it causes senous
standard method for treating blind tooth is not
and bit, until you reach the root of the offending
..Then, with a little dental punch, you simply knock
cooth Lack into the month, and then pack the sound
has always been interesting to me to note an animals
han to pain Take the hone-this wound I have de
tus carly healed, 1 charge the packing and ungate
lou would expect that the tissues would be sensitive,
et to some extent. let I can't recall a single case of
mpore seeming to mind m the least this daily changing
67803, ad proting to determine the condition of
Ocnd.
Extract ng a horse's tooth becomes easier as the horse
no Jer As a horse ages, his teeth become longer, and
they do the root becomes shorter Horses frequently
ut loc tocth These are extremely easy to extract They
35 nally splt their teeth, but this, too, causes ro
cule escort to the horse
112-1

·Circus Doctor 80 is that the root of a lion's tooth extends into the gum lot about an inch and a half and it is ticklish to make sure the entire tooth comes out without breaking off and leaszcz enlinter of root to cause future infection ama mre This 17 it to be ngh! Once Samba au ole, I WOULUN look at t mouth to check its condition each day While working, explained cach step to the menagerie superintendent ab it seemed, had never witnessed any but the most roub' work on any of his animals and was fascinated by this pa cedure Ile asked questions continuously and I found th my answers helped clanfy my own thinking, as wel his We took the teeth out and packed the gums few minutes we changed the packing Meanwhile, its a good chance to study the rest of Samba's mouth iris this was all pretty new to me, too We both must have lost track of the time That is only way I can explain it for, while I was pointing something in the lion's mouth, his jaws, which had hanging loose under the anesthetic, suddenly snap Inichtly We both reacted instar wc slid lum back: iter, Samba was si When Samba woke up, he was un a cheap drunk also dripping wet is the normal result of taking Nembutal as an ancsthi We put him back into his cage, and after stags around for a while he lay down and went into a no slecp Wien he awoke he was not only eating norm but was much healthier and activc than he had bcc months Considering thic trouble they give otherwise, Iiorses not too prone to tooth trouble Ilıcır tccth almost 11 decay I have a rather obvious thicory that it is becau horse's tooth is a very solid bone 1

·This Tent Hot Voch
sz
+385 1 date, mail naam, gently touches
phants' titase contal tonble Tehsirimad
25'e to say ci tok, temose elephants do Esht
den za dephant Ezhts, she would be qute capable
yang opposent to sbieds with those ship tiks
ven though the task his beca cut off, frequently an
22 23 breat *fist romars. The problem then is to
3 local tosthesiz, then pick out as many fragments
task as can be fousd in order to prevent infection
1
would wucate the arerige length of the root of the
about Efteen uches The wall of the tusk at the
and a seadis as thin as an eershell
chad a Russan bear m an act. One das the trainci
bus *ife stopped me on the path to the hospital to as]
to ule a look at the bear He was eating poorly, the
trica and there are syns of wildness in what 43
*** 21ery gentle animal (The “gentle' 175 their
2. Centleness is something bears are not noted fo
sees, mazbe But not kindness)
eralked into the cage The trainer and his wil
Night on purposefully, and I couldn't do anythur
Follon tithout making an issue of it The train
the bear's head and his wife held the animals mou!
2. Then they looled at me and both assured me
Work unmolested and safely
*2s almost like a class toutine I was more than
s doubtful Although I hic no particular ambition

·1 82 Circus Doctor watch how he eats and also how he digests his food Il bath functions are normal, the chances are that the borses teeth are all right Once a year, I examine all the horses for rough teeth --- Pasle is that their upper mol's utside and their lone molars on the ISIUL We jubbed points are painful as the horse chews his food. The treatment here is ter simple I simply prop his mouth open wath an instrument made for the purpose and "Roat" luis teeth The foal D an instrument which looks like a wood rasp, the operator is simply a matter of filing the teeth down until thai points are dull I have seen dogs with beautiful inlay's and very care fully designed fillings My own hunch is that this is dor: argely for show, or perhaps for practice Nerer in my o perience has it been necessary to fill a dog's tooth ili ceth are esther healthy or they are split or broken an have to be extracted Although elephants have teeth, they seldom cus rouble An elephant has enormous molars Cach tooth i s big as the palm of a man's hand I had to pull onc ona ut the tooth was very loose Since my knees it ere precisel 1 the same condition, it was lucky that some care igging with a long handled pair of extractors lifted th oth effortlessly I should not relish the job of pulling ght molar, but thanks to clephant ingenuity and inteli ince, I very likely may be spared an cleplant, wlien si troubled by a tooth, sall pull it herself I have watch ic operation and it is amazing She puts her head dow til she can grasp her foot chain in her mouth Thci orking the chain back to and under thc offending tootl e jerks her head back and knocks the tooth out Some nes she has to try several times bcfore the tooth give at she keeps trying Tliere isn't as much crying an

·!
This Ton't Ilut fixch
on ng as a boa a doctor, in all innoceads, gently touches
rats' tasks must continual trouble. We have found
.
nou though the task has been cut os, frequents au
That will break what remains. The problem then us to
Whats the girl is hollow and the wall gets thinner and
** .
We had a Rossiin bear in an act. One day the traine
Als wife stopped me on the path to the hospital to ask
keto bake a look at the bear. Ile was eating poorly, they
20 and there were sons of wildness in what was
Cherare a very gentle animal (The "gentle was thers,
imme. Centleness is something bears are not noted for.
Dece, maybe. Bat not kindness.)
We walked into the cage The trainer and his wife
zed right in, purposefully, and I couldn't do anything
it for xithout making an issue of at The trainer
L'ithe harse's had onlin...

·82 Circus Doctor watch how he cats and also how he digests his foor both functions are normal, the chances arc that the ho teeth are all nght Once a year, I examine all the horses for rough to One thing that happens regularly is that their upper me develop jagged comers on the outside and their lo molars on the inside These jagged points are painfu the horse chet's his food The treatment here is simple I simp made for the an instrument IS simply a matter of filing the teeth down until t points are dull I have seen dogs wath beautiful inlays and very c fully designed fillings My own bunch is that this as di largely for shon, or perhaps for practice Never in my perience has it been necessary to fill a dog's tooth? tccth are ather healthy or they are split or brolen 2 have to be extracted Although elephants have tecth, they seldom ca trouble An elephant has enormous molars Cach tooth as big as the palm of a man's hand I had to pull one on but the tooth was very loose. Since my knees were precis in the same condition, it was lucky that some carc tugging with a long handled pair of extractors lifted t tooth effortlessly I should not relish the job of pulling tight molar, but thanks to clephant ingenuity and inte gence, I cry likely may be spared an elephant, nhans is troubled by a tooth, will pull it herself I have watch the operation and it is amazıng She puts her head dov until she can grasp her foot chain in her mouth The korking the chain back to and under the offending toot' she jerks her head back and knocks the tooth out Som times she has to try ses cral times before the tooth one but she lecps trying There isn't as much crying anı ·This Won't Hurt Aluch 83 nping as shed a doctor, in all innocence, gently touches ar Chcpluants' tusks cause continual trouble. We have found desirable to saw off tusks, because elephants do fight, cphant will break #bat remains The problem then is to ply a local anesthesia, then pick out as many fragments I the tusk as can be found in order to prevent infection. t. pithin the gom is hollow and the r all gets thrones and lnnct as the tusk extends inward This structure is sunilar b that of a cou's hom Mly post morteints on several Cephants mdicate the average length of the foot of the 223k is about Elteca inches. The wall of the tusk at the Pery cod is nearly as thm 39 an eggshe}} th, shu these were signs of wildness in what was cthttaisc a cty gentle animal (The "gentle' was theirs, Dot mue Centimee fromat L ·18 Circus Doctor over to us llis powerful build and perfect proportions ha! deceived me, I was surprised now to find lum almost head shorter than I 'Mr Dhotre,' said North, "tlus is Doc Ilenderson Tremendous force of personality was cuident in hus face Thıcı, when he smuled in grccting, it was as though all th lights vcrc suddenly switched on in a darkened housc !!! were tlic whitest teeth I harc cter seen I was to become scry friendly with Damoo Dhotic 07 of the most extraordinary combinations of personality harc ctcr scen in a human being Damoo hid bec triit ang ammals sincc lic was tlurtcen ycars old, wluch gas him at this time something more than twenty fivc sch as an anınıl trainer Ile was strong and muscular Ilc Coy bined the qualities of the physical dircdcu il and the Ilind plulosophier and mystic Jie studied lus animals thorough! and he kne them thicoretically as well as personally Damoo was a person wlio nacr offered advicc lut who when asked would pour forth a bottomless storc of pra: tıcıl hclp ( But I will tell you sometlung,' he woul say “I belicic that mery time anyone gets hurt by wild animal it is his own fault That goes for trainer: too") "What about doctonng these animals?" I asked hir nok "Do they requirc icry much?' Oh, ses," lic said maink becuuse thics fight so much Wicu sou put different kinds of ammals-natural encruc -In thc ring, they fight. All the time they fight-and the get hurt Sometimes badly * Is doctoring thein as big a problem as I imagine?' asked No" he said 'you call me when sou basc anything to do on my animals and I promise to kecp them qw.ct" fo you' And then hic added u liat I lord lialf-spected I will be difficult for you in the beginning but it isn't fo me becausc thc animals Inox mc We are friends ·Hieet the Patients C1 1142 1 :ose wild animals would also be doctored The next morning Worth was on the job even before I becked in He called me into his office "Doc," he said, "Tim the black bear died last night I 3dnt think he was as sick as all that or I would have used DU" "I am sorry to hear that, Vir North I really should have manned him yesterday Do you mind if I perform a post nortem" "I uzsh you would." The animal was brought to my operating table where Sorth stased to watch I opened the best and cut straight or the liver And there sure enough groning nght on top of it, was a tremendous tumor "Vice guess, Doc I couldnt restrain a grin If a knowledge of dogs and cats and horses and pres could really be transferred to their wild counterparts so easik then maybe I was going to be able to keep these seven hundied wild animals in pretty good flyteal condition. Befoe the day was out, Worth inszted me into one of the streamlined railroad cars tool a key out of his pochet and opened the door "This will be your stateroom on the road," he told me and when my surpzse must have shon ed “How did you think you n tre going to travelcattle care I laughed embarrassedly pobably maluz it very ob vrous that that was exactly my thought le da tnc a title or for you he added. In case

·20
Circus Doctor
grown adult Not so with these except for thic horses, the
were twice as large as I recalled What's more, some hs
snurled, some hid shorts their teeth, porse still ma:
simply stood with heads down and shreud ejes fixed c
nie
Through in archu zv of the horse comil, Mr North
dicated sinall winte slied wluch, on one side, kad
little horse corral of its own
"That one is all yours Doc he sud I read the signo
its door eternon Depistinent Suddenly, I was 11
longer the fascinated viitor but a blooded member
the circus famılı not only 1 Doc but a uhole departmen
It seemed as though truinputs slould blare me acro
my new threshold but the only blare i licard cine from
the snores of a but sleepmg on a cot in the far corn
This boy Online introl.....am neichni!

·Starting-tith a Roar Im early mom.ng until late at night and frequently ight long, I was on the Circus grounds This was not use of loc ot hard noil or long hours I hadn t been fron Teus long enough for that I was plunged long into an epoxenag job I waated to leam at it very rapidly and I was leaming that for me there a lot to learn or mstance, once I pointed my finger~"What is that e animal there? he menagere superintendent looked over and laughed coramon ber-and they arent so little That haps to be a baby" hoghed too Lot until then I had thought vaguely t bears came in two ranetics-bars and polar bers rarcus owned five different kinds The shox had just come into winter quarters for thic ** four months all yould first rest then the performers sekstant pastirss, itt tacks 2016 * cases its them for about a mon h the entire group together ith row imports would be co-ordinated into a finished formance for the road Although not there was to dal pa kg 3n3 unpack and a ble hans all the animals permaneath housed be the period as an advantage life was busy and some imes hactes teak with somiting because of the ocean trip and nervous kuuse of their new surroundings Anrnals I have found, Ir parruash senutuc to teir reighbors Put one per to discrcat amal from the one he is used to and rov, sellel, to bude trouble I had knox?t thus to be true of

·22
Circus Doctor
you have a very sick animal who needs sitting up with
the road"
He descnbed to me what was to sonic for mrs as
hospital car It was a car with just blank stalls in 11-600
$17cd stalls, with equipment to leep animals froin Isl!
from train motion or illness and sleeping quarters lo
or one of my assistants at the far end
That is for you when you want to use it or need to !
st' North said, 'othensisc, this stateroom is where JT
inc'
It proscd more thin comfortable living Pullman ir
csen at its best could ncier be as liomcy as I was to for
tluat circus setup
CHAPTER III Starting with a Roar
IT NICHT IST irry the rlondi climate it could hi
been the vigorous toutine of life in the Circus Or perha
the complctc cluange of Mery detail of my unt of love
cffected the cure Not being an animal i dont pretend
bc able to diagnose for myself the fact renains that it
next four months which comprised the busiest penoli
my life lept me so occupied that I compctcls lo z
about my illness due to the anthrar injection

·1 Starting - Vrh a Roaz into the flesh He was trcading Sery bgłıtly on that paw it was already badly infected Alen cets kittle ock just 25 wut di anesthetic We called a couple of boys from the adjoining animal LOUSES Over to help I made a lasso out of a long length rope and after threc or four tnes managed to ship the 2005C over anvås noch one of his lorepans sticking hrough it (This was necessary because if neither paw had tuck through there was the danger of the noose tightening kround his nicch) To accomplish the trick we had to Lingle the rope through the bars and tease Arnd with it and the bear being a playful animal instinctively stuck his head and a paw through the loop yo a somen hat teasing somea hat exploratory manner then we had him We tightened the noose, and then all four of us leaned on the tope, pulled him over and held hoy tightly agamst the bars of the cage We then put another topc around the injured paw and two more boys held that pozw. through the bars so that it couldn t more While thics held tight I went to work on And the operation itself was cry simple a local anesthetic injected into the pay so that the bear wouldnt suffer any Pin and amputation of the two broken toes Then I made an incision up higher large cnough to drain the infection, and coased the pas uitli 2 good strong antiseptic The se boy was instructed to sprinkle sulla on Ands pant 28 often as he could get near him and the business was OCT lt 255 t anything to unite to one s letersary school sorgers professor about but as my first operation on a wild onnal it stays in my memory more stydly than any I bave performed since And for ears whenever I had ·ing 24 Circus Doctor horses and here at ssas truc of practically every othe.al that I came to Inow At 6 30 ci ery morning I reported to the littlue building, my liospital Ilcrc I would familan7c mysch my medicines and cqmpment and add to the list or Surnam plics needed not only for winter quirters but for the road And hcre, on my second dry, cimc in first "action I was looking over the interior of the hospital, sonder how best to consort one comer into a csarch labore tory, ulicn 110cc outside shouted the call which-thour) I didn't know it at the time-was to become any trade mark "Hey, Doc! Many 3 cars ago thc cry Tic Rubel' brought circus Hunds running from all direction it meant "trouble" Its modem cquivalent 'Ilcs Doc!' brings mc running-fre quently in all directions It too usually means trouble I opence the door and yelled 'Iſcy? It was folin Sulu the managerie superintendunt Doc, lic got a big black bar ocr thcre," hc said ! thought since you were a little foggy about beirs you might want to start iciming Nothung cry serious, but hc 1:28: brokcn cl11 and its broken all the way up into thic flesh I think it might be infected I drew in my breath but said 'Sure John Ill be thm* in a minute" i put some instruments and antiseptics in'o mit bry and started over lluis 17s it I felt a sort of some fright, and that feeling stazed with me for a long, lon; tunc Bcars are both unfriendlı ind in untrustworthy Tran? cts and locpers has been mauled and hilled by those think for vers bine acteu lide trained dogs Their clius pra long and ship, and they have enormous strength in thes We crimined the right forepin Of Anid, tic beir through thic cigs at was eu leat that lic hird split at siell up multipurposc arms ·Starting Vith a Rom 27 I jolted in mr potebook Whenestr a new bar joins - Lanih tort for troms ure there is no time for hesitation or research when an pal ma be dving it was encouraging to me to find, and an, a point of reference in my former practice helped with wild animals 11 was walking back to the hosp tal that das 1 question nell as it a uitle foolish to walk mo a beus cage even Lgh pretts sure he was too sick and too weak to be SeTous Eudentk he had accepted my minner A maatua ser seldom considers tus a dangerous profes- A and yet ce math domestic animals there is danger otse can kick a mins head off with one swift kich, and pull co be at least as dangerous as any animal known FACCI, ou simply lean the arvuzl s characteristics and Il vou can calmls and intelligent protect yourself kould seem that the 13t to get along with wild animals the on you treat domestic animals fest none but spect all Does I made that dit were useful but there are still nexpected muchances Sometimes a bear will shox no rmproms of soruns until it is too late to help tum and a and some menagene polar bear died thus quite secently Ispite all our precautions He had refused food the previous day and this dis as xe swalloned his first bite of food he went into convul 19073 and aus dead before I could get to tus cage Because bis manner of dying trade me suspect strychnine posso ing I started to perfom a post mortem on him in the care When I cut him open I noticed that the intestine est buiga the stomach 35 as hard as uood As I plunged the knife into it, the wall burt and soms sprayed into the 2 : Oke water from a Src hose ·26 Circus Doctor stage fright oict work on a bear, Jolin Sabo vould 1011 1 me I'd had my "Anid education > mc My next contact with the beur family happened ju two days later, and that also made a lasting impressioa ( A trainer had arıcd in winter quarters from Germa with tweke trained polar bears Hc ame ninning over! my hospital on this particular morning and I githeri from his screams that he was giving me the German equ valent of "Iles, Doc!' I followed him, wildly guessing: what equipment to tale with me In the cage one of luis polar bears 113s in the midst tertible convulsions It struck mc-judging again bs m dog cxperiences that this looled very much like a cas of worms It didnt scem too lilcls, because these train animals are nursed like babics by their trainers and 3 watched tu enty four hours a diy by cither the trainer 0 the age boy Their diet, too, is carefuly regulated Never thcless, it did look like norms Wclud the other bars run out of the cage quickly ani the trainer and I gave the beat 1 shot of a scdamnc A tes! proved that my diagnosis was correct and I wormed IT jinmediately in duc tunc that onc bour clicscd himself ol Over half a gillon of long white womis I figured that this must be a wcalness of rolir bersif it could luappen to them under such clnse sunulance so next I gave the other bears the $.unc treatment a do col tctrichlorethlcnc to drug thic worms followed an hout later by a strong purgatic (Without the latter the but night dic of the form poison os clc the worms mugh! coine to, hungrict and peppics thin 61 l 1 1Cty ont ni thesc bars yielded at least 7 lali gallon of norins In 111 mi subscquent experiences with sich bears, purtaularly polar bmis, I always suspect wom s first ·Starting-Il'ith a Rodi -7 I pited m my notebook Wheneset a neu bear joins the shox introduce yourself to him with a test for worms Hemn need a good stift sorming The first of hundreds of routines had started Snce there is no time for hesitation or research then an animal may be dying it was encouraging to me to find, time and again a point of reference that heinai the Add too sicak to be 12 L.17dentls he had accepted my manner A eterinanan iery seldom considers his a dangerous profes lon, and yet men with domestic animals there is danger horse can lick a min s head off with one swift kick, and bull can be at least as dingerous as any animal knonn Sonever you simply learn the animals characteristics and en rou can calmis and intelligentis protect yourself would seem that the way to get along with wald animals the way you treat domestic animals fear none but pect all Notes I made that day were useful but there are still expected mischances Sometimes a bear will show no ap'ons of woms until it is too late to help hun and a dsome menagene polar bear died thus quite recently pite all our precautions le had refused food the previous das and this day as swallowed his first bite of food he went into convul is and was dead before I could get to his cage Because manner of dyng made me suspect strychnine poison I started to perform a post mortem on him in the When I cut him open I noticed that the intestine bulas the stomach was as hard as wood As I plunged Inife into it the wall burst and worns sprayed into t: ltc water from 2 Ere ho e ·28 Curcus Doctor Apparently the worms, staned from the previous dif liad hit thic upper intesting like a crowd of homewari bound New Workers raiding the BMT on a rain, sight Packed in just is tightly, they paralyzed the bears ** testines Bears, you scc, are more vulnerable than subayje The fiospital needed straightening up, supplies needed ordening, I had to get acquainted with personnel and animals and all their vanous routines, and at the 5377 time things kept happening Onc never know what #3 coming next (That is a situation, I might say, that lucy changed to this day A one-armed piperhanger as a slouet compared to a two armed circus icterinaran) One noon dunng my first cek I stopped at the hort corral for a routine check on two horses with colic, to mel: sure that the grooms were carrying out instructions ! DICICT permit alorse with colic to bc Icft alonc, there is chance of lus lying down, and frcquentis he wa)) 103 around so that an intestinc null loop around another, c11s ing what is known as 't isted gut" When the gas bus the obstruction, the intestine niptures After medicatie; wall tum, for hours of neces ystem) happened to glanco out the Windou and saw that Alfred Court 13s banging kus W mals into the big outdoor case for rehearsal i ludn't fad time yet to see that act so now I watched, *hole fim brought hits animals in, directed each one to 1 pedestal and then smoothly and apparently effortlessly put their through their cry difficult p?ces He was almost finished wlien lic tuned lus bach for a moment to get a piece of meat as a reward for a leopard As he did, a tiger sitting on 3 pedestal jest Kft of a big male lion struck at thic lion with jus pass It might line been in play, or it might have been in anger; nixed groups prescrit these mistaps ·Starting-It sth a Roar istnet's pza grazetthalmost istin e did grourd pedestal ourt took one look at the lion and immedutels drove other animals through the chute back into the cages c'ed medier Look at this, Doc, 1711 you?" he said walked to the bars of the cage and looked in at the I nodded ms head I san ahat Court meant the jan ; definitely brolen What do you think?' Court sad 'I dont know," I answered 'Hare you net hat es hon to mande 1 . cut wulwm Similar upcrations had been perfonned on dogs, and 1 ondered whether the lon's naturc vould permut an exact mitation squeeze cage was being brought up against the door of he lions cage A squeeze cage is sma)), stron. gn1 -- heels One end is a don ! ides are fred og ru in graually bec! 304 object of suceze cage is to hold a wild animal immobilen bile he is being othed on, to leep him T1ctرا ابا .

·30 Circus Doctor şqueeze cage hare straight up and down bars The aide have closer bars running in both directions in order to lec squeeze cage If prodding doesn't work, a small piece mcat placed in the squeeze cage will do the inci The the door at the end of the squeeze age is loiscred and th handle round until the animal is held, not tightly enoug to hurt him, but snugly cnough so that he won't hurt an one else A good precaution is to rope the squeeze 03 to the animals cge before opening the doors The first thing I had to do was anesthetic Whent lion was safely in the squeeze cage I pncked a vein and front leg and kept injecting the flud slowly until he looke drowsy and began going limp 711 the needle was with drawn and he collapsed on the floor and from that por on we were out of danger he would sleep from six ! cight hours I believed We moved the cage over to the hospital buildin opened it up and slid the lion onto the operating table examined lus jaw and found that the lower jou bonc * broken clean through in two places, leaving the end center section lianging limp When 3 dog has a broken jau you wirc thc brok bones together; you thon site the lower 1014 to the upp jais, tights, to lccp has 324s clenched and completely !! mobile Then till thic bone Inits sou feed your dog 1 drpping mall slowly into the corner of his mouth slic ·Starting With a Roar 31 o the corner of his mouth We had to figure out an Jet 425 By considenz u here ne must vary the usual plan, I Ought of something that might no1 Drilling boles on * side of the tio breaks through the lower pow just eath the gum line and using stiff wire, I laced the cen broken section of the fans to the two outer sections, 15 would hold the entire los er jas bone solid m one co to heal but there was still the problem of leeping clon from moving this fan and at the same time allon 3 him to eat I took to blocks of wood esch about two iches thick. One block fitted bet een upper and lower Lolirs on each side, leaving room for his tongue between 10 Vlore holes were bored to lace wires through the tu bones top and bottom his fans being uued tightly et separated by thore blocks of wood This meant that the entire lower jaw was solid in one sece, and both upper and loner IRS nere being held firm rths mouth was permanently open because of those oris of vooj Because the center section had no wood, se could get hus tongue out to Lp up milk The only question that bothered me was thether for the sex or eight weeks it rould take the jaw to set mall would give him the noutishment he aceded After we had finished world I sened him in and Uuwo The operation had taken three hours Court and I boked at each other and it was hard to tell ubich of us *35 more tired lle haš shared the nen ous strain and 7 hc 25 asted ire throughout the operation our physical Labor suas equally d sided a sell Vis strain wis due to the If that I wanted thus operation to be a success Flas was dic to the fact that a traiter docs become attached to his ·ch 30 Circus Doctor şquecze cage lule straight up and down bars The sides have closer bars running in both directions in order to keep the animal from getting lus claws through By bringing this squccze cage up to the door of the lon's cage and opening both doors it is usually an easy matter to prod him into squceze cage If prodding docsn't work, a small piccc meat placed in the squeeze cage will do the inck The? the door at the end of the squeeze cage is lowered and the handle wound until the animal is held, not tightly enough to hurt him, but snugly enough so that hc won't hurt any one cisc A good precaution is to ropc the squeeze cage to the animals cage before opening the doors The first thing I had to do was anesthetize Wien th“ lion une enfelt in the en ann an Innledninnih fro drc drawn and he collapsed on the floor, and from that point on we were out of danger-he would sleep from six to eight liours I believed We moved the cage over to the hospital buildin", opened it up and shed the lion onto thc operating table ! cxamined his jan and found that the lower jaw bonc 425 broken clean through in two places, leaving the entire center section franging limp When a dog leas a brolen jan you wise the broker boncs together; you then wire the low cr 173 to the upper jax, tightly, to keep Ins jaws clenched and completely im mobile Then till the bone knits you focd sour dog bs dripping milk slowly into the comer of luis mouth slicic the flesh is loose sdca First of all, tuo shifts to dri, uth crondly (though numerical scquences may well be reversed), you Would use a difficult time finding into who would be silling to stand alongside : non lion in ·Starting With a Rose 33 here was understanding betaten us, and although in Just a few days after this operation on Court's lion, I was inding outside the cat bam having my first lengthy chat 1h Damoo Dhotre He was weanng a tan T shirt and 7 diuinug is mals i had observed hos they did every !!ng but now I wanted to know why they did it While we were talking I noticed that thie cage boys were ning some of Dambo's Cats from ther tages the cat am into the chute which connects with the outdoor train ng ning There were leopards, panthers, black jaguars, numas. As ach animal was driven forward into the chute, board was inserted partitioning him off in his own cell I had noticed this out of the come of my ye, and furing a break in the consersation, 1 pointed and said to Damoa "llos con ** Oh," he said NOT lle snuffed mc You will pardon me please? I must work for a while I will be free in a half hour and we can talk some more Whereupon lic walled the fer 3ds to the care opesyes! the door swung lumself in, Latched the door after him spd then gic the signal to the cage boys to let the cats into the ring with him Vis first mld animal interest was the big cats and to Plus day? thu k it is the greatest that may be because they #etir most terning Actually, I think iny interest is a ·1 ring 32 Circus Doctor animals, almost the way a parcnt does to his chi?' The next morning the lion was full of pep and then : came up to his cage he was assiduously lapping up a milk the boss could put in his cage After the third dir el began pulverizing meat and putting it in the milk found that he was able to get most of this mest up his tongue and to swallow it without cliewing les soma weight, but he came through that operation fully and recovered completely Six weeks later ve anesthetized him again opened jaw up and removed the wire The jou had lnit pcrfect the bone was smooth and stright and hard, and we hadi completely healthy lion uho went back into the performed just as well as he cier had before IIc lived in scars after that, when he finally did die, not so Sery lost Igo, it was from old age I had hoped that nothing of this sort would tum ? quite so soon, but in looking back on it I think perlaps its opcration, coming when it did, is the luchesi thung that happened to me dunng that period Thus was no routz treatment It was something for which there was little an3 procedent if it hadn t vorhed I don't know hori would have feit The fact that it was successful gasem 7 amount of confidence that I needed badly at that tim and « Hoch I am sure enabled me to sauc thc lises of cours less other artimais during the chyting months Alfred Court and I acte friends and saw a great deal c! each other until lic retired quite recently Thic friends!»? dated from this operation As se Borked together, both to the same end, each of us realized thout either of u saying anything that wc rcre men who were happiest When we * CIC working for and with animals Wc scioni misanthropes our rclationships with people were excl.ml and enjoyable but nc nec more at home with animals When tliere had been a choice in our lives, cicli of us lund always made the decision that kept us close to animals ·Stating- t a Roa 35 Cits The male can usuall be identified by the tremendous Dic 03 the back of his head and around his neck 'The Icas a lttle less fierce than people imagine He us a nost camal, and noist animals hic noise people are freds The Lon mulai St. He can be tac Jaz Hic is a n cea 4 vuna Tarts, hoxever hare been attacked by lions they En nied been liled by them \lule I was working on Les book, Vlae Lovar whom I knen well when she was 27 22.matr.ner for Run Img Brothers, has killed by a lon Callou When 3 l on atta ks he will never spring in ne leap and land on vou the 121 some of the other cats w. He is more likely to coma in rushes, or he will knock You dont with his pin His clans are long and sharp His NT a hean ard can easils break a mans back or his neck hof me the anunal pounces on hum The hon is most din TLS when males ard fernales are in the ning together It w3s Damoo who po zied out to ine that of all the gonca's, the lion is the onk one that travels in pndes or DOLINS Th- tiems, the leopards, the panthers, all trauc! sither sing's o in pairs That makes 27 important dif Pag In ihongle, a ben a lioness in the ende comes almat all the males wall fight over her They will fight ttcre emerges the victor He may har left a train of led mu medc sumpl wounded animals behind That ordus male.ad the female go off to ether mans may estadt almot complete hidrag and there that have hat amounts to a horeymoon The stay in twd ot Leoks Most of that bue they rethe hunt nor eat, should n afortunate an ual or mua come in th-u 2. te u çuxk), diposed of Thut sanccperyle in last doesnt lee a lon because he pens to be dmca crto a ship and quartered in a arcus stbonsaads c cles 2621 trou home. Wild animals, have to be rea...erne tire thes can be ·34 Curcus Doctor combination of admiration for their beauty and digo and the challenge they present to any man, be he train doctor, or cage boy Visitors to winter quarters bvt thousands stand in front of the cages of these animals a almost invanably call them by thic urong name Am will stand in front of a leopard cage and say to his wi Come over here, Mary, and look at thicsc tigers' It seemed odd to me that this should be so until I membered that cxccpt in our largest cities there arc ! zoos and the vast majonty of our population ncscr has chance to scc wild animals That accounted, I supposc for the tremendous popularity of the circus menager when the show went on the road Thus was the only z many people ever saw, and a considerable zoo it was As a result of my friendship with Court and Dliotrc ar my increasing fondness for the cats, I nok began to len more about them than I had ever known before I talk to the cat men I read animal books The commonly found cats in our 200s and circuses 31 the lions, tigers, leopards, black panthers, paguars, blac jaguars, and then some of the smallcr oncs such as occlot cougars, wildcats The differences are rather striking The lion, of course, has long been known as the king Basts I asked Damoo once whether he felt thc title just fied "Yes' he said, ' in my opinion it is first of all, he lool the part llc looks like a king fic has size he has dignity hc has what appears to be great pnde Secondly, ac though some of the smaller animals can attach faster thai he can the long hair around his neck usually picicuits fu! getting killed bs them I think, Damoo concluded, thia if thcc is a king of the jungle, the lion certainly carns thx The lion is one of the few animals that nearly acny body recognizes It comes from Africa It is the barrest of one titlc ·3 Starting-Iith a Roar cats The male con usually be identified by the tremendou mise oa the back of hus head and around his neck. The 1 oa is a httle less Eerse than people imagine He is a noisy animal, and noisy animals lilc noisy people are usually Inendls The lion makes friends easils He is highly intella Bent. He can be taught incls rather easily if he is caught Joung He is a nice animal to have around Trainers, honerer, have been attacked by lions; they base es en been liled by them Wbile I was working on his book, Mae Kovar hom I knes well when she was an amal trainer for Ringling Brothers, was killed by a lon a California When a lion attacks he will never spangin se leap and land on you the way some of the other cats 771 He is more likely to come in tishes, or he will knock vou dorm with bus pan His claws are long and sharp His pax is heavy and can easily break a mans back or his neck before the animal pounces on hum The lion as most dan ECTOLS R hen males and females are in the ning together It was Damoo who pointed out to me that of all the jungle cats, the lion is the only one that travels in prides, or groups The tigers, the leopards the panthers, all travel tither singly or in pairs That makes an important dif ference in the jungle, when a lioness in the pode comes in heat all the males ] fight over het 'They will bght until one eanerges the victor He may have left a train of Ioad, maimed, or simply sounded animals behind That tonous male and the female go off together many, many miles away in almost complete hiding and there they haic rat amounts to a honeymoon They stay ang tro or three sechs Vost of that time they neither hant nor wat and should any unfortunate animal or maa come in their 17 inin he is quickly disposed of That same jungle instinct doesn't leave a hon because be happens to be dnien onto a ship and quartered in a CICUS mat:y thousands of miles anay from home. Wid animals, *c hxc to be reminded are nei ce time, they can be ·36 Ł Circus Doctor trained with patience to do certain tricks but they a still wld in every respect In thic nog when a female lion comes into hcat !! malcs as a rulc don t fight only because the trainer h them under control They live been punished in the pa for fighting in the ring and remembering that punishiner they stay on their pedestils But they do grow) at ca other und es cry instinct urges them to fight Thou arc c tremely nerous At this time they are very unpleasant is at this point that any slight change from the usual ! Voice or movement-nything at all unfamiliar that t trainer does—is likely another animal male peated it is likely to u point he wall attaci cither the other animal or perhia the trainer imself For that reason mıny traincts wi remorc the female from thic act during thic tinc slıc is 1 hat A very good friend of minc Dick Clcmctis was nttache twicc in onc recent seison by a lion at the time a feral in the cage was in licit Oncc a lion knocked him do 11 and maulcd lum The other time hc bit lum through th shoulder At that point thc rclationship became so straina that Clemens had to take this lion out of lus act cty thus case the lion siis 1 bottic fcd pet of Clemens s licha been carefully rused and trained by Dick from the tim the animal was a cub cierthcless when jungic instinc comes to the forces en domestic born lions arc blinded tlungs lile loyalty and friendship llc reminded cycry bodi that he was a jungle animal Lion acts arc scnsitional because the animals 750 large because they do look fierce and because 1 trainer ullo cur train a lion to faign attack an male himself look like: igers are the ones with stripes They are considered by many trainers the inost scious and the least schnlle ol ery great heto indeed 1 ·Starting With a Roz 37 t ir Both animals are atremek cous They are quick y love mean tompers, but they also have a high degree Intelligence and ma be trained to do a number of amaz 3 tricks Damoo tells that when he started learning about anual uning, at the age of thuteen, his first trick 82s to nde bagay around the ning His teacher told him, * If you can to get along with tigers, nothing will keep you from eing a great animal man The tiger is the largest of the cats next to the lion, fre feally measuna; twelve to thirteen feet from nose to tail, ind washing up to four huadred and Efts pounds In ction, the tiger probably looks bercer than any of the ther cats The leopard as a compararely small, spotted animal E OL 71 bide on the lead of a tree and leap on any passing Tu Vas naturalists contend that he is the best amou- Lased animal in the nola H. me 135 tao korris who partit him to cam therr 2 elnd bs reckike fur penes e en though the aeg 13 the nabbmhood cog-buaded and Efts pourds Thic black posthe is actually a fork leopard Lee hu as, sont soum's as meanty-thst es, boog with 20 Cress barot, a condition opposite to albidouTI, club of Scd leopard may hase a bitter ·38 Circus Doctor containing one or more black Icopards likewise breeding two black leopards inay produce citlicr black or spotted c both Tlus is the animal normally called thic "panther (though various countries often refer to some localamuma as a panther) If you cver look at this sort of pinthe closely you will find that although his coat scems to be solid blach, he actually contains the same spotting as : Icopard in a black of cien darker intensity than the rest o the coat IIc is a freak, and perhaps because he is poort camouflaged for the jungle the black panther is CC quicker than the Icopard and is commonly considered the most dangerous animal to work with Ilc is almost impos sible to make friends with, and somctimes dacsn't pa: its, when thim plas ful-jus on the oths land, de clops into a snarling mass of fury within a los uccks after he is bom llc seems to know that things ** going to be tough for onc s hosc color dorates, and litcral's comes out fighting He gets worse and worse throughoul bis life, and can be controlled only through sheer will power and patience on the part of thic trainer IIc alway? icinains 1 sullen and some hat reluctant pupil The spotted jaguir looks like a lcopard but is natıc! thic Western Hemisphere from Texas to Parigui, Ilc slightly larger and more hcauly built than tlic Asiatic ol African Icoped, and lus fice is larger and morc fringular Ilis head and neck lase a similarity to a bulls ratlıct thi a cat's Tlc gugs is normally not too bright, althoug! le can be trained, and lie his thic s3mc kind of meanincs that a Icopard lias it is seldom that onc finds trainers going out of their wy to work with him Thic black jaguar luas the same iclition to the spotted jugular as thc panther does to thic spotted leopard It is a freck It is poorly camouflaged and it is a vicious violent ·39 Starting With a Roar suunalA trainer very seldom works with black jaguars be Cause it 157 t apparent to the audience that he is perform ng ore of the most difficult jobs in wild animal training, 2nd scams therefore not worth while. Damoo Dhotre, hon ener, hus a pair of black jaguars-for many years, I believe, th- only truned ones in this country He has taught thein to do a number of difficult tricks including that of allowing themseles to be cared around his neck Considering that Vegus, the inale, once used to attack Damoo every time hey were 10 the nng together, this is something of a feat But the average onlooker wont consider it as exciting as scting Damoo with a leopard around his neck. What htc onlooker doesnt Inow is that this is something per sana! \egus is the onls animal of some hundreds that he has Forled with that continued creating trouble for Damoo over a long period of time. Purely as a personal matter, Damoo determined that he was going to subdue and carry lus animal on his shoulders before another om Dangerous? Indescribahis .co't built of this bu tress of training These were the lous types of cats we had when I formed the shox Training any of them takes courage, skill, and patience, and a very long apprenticeship pounng a trued assortinent of them into one cage at one time tales 100 more and is the most admired feat of all All wild aumal trainers will admit that once an animal ts complete's out of control there is nothing a trainer 7 do Although there is a common belief that in a pinch & trainer can pull out his resolver and shoot the animal this is certainly Doct done in the Ringling Brothers cus and I doubt that it is resorted to elsen here. Dunng my introduction to curcus bfe and animal train si nas surpassed to learn that there wasnt a gun camed aniche minnet ath the organization--unless per ·. 40 Circus Doctor haps in the pay wigon The cxplanation sccms logo cnough As Alfred Court said to me once What you you do with a gun? With an audience completely su rounding you if you missed the animal you would v doubtedly hit one or more spectators and he addo your chances of missing the animal would be excellen Remember luis attack is sudden llc is conung at you li is moving Ile is in tlic middle of a leap llc is dring 0 you have come to the point of rcalızıng that a stich can hold him off he is almost on you lou fire at a quick mouing target The chances of hitting him with one sh out of one try are almost negligible Lion if you are luck cnough to do that you probably wont saic yourself by cause he continues luis leap wluch he has starta? llc prc! ably wont die instantaneously because your zım cant by that good on a moving target and so you still get lurtc Lilled Their safcts depends on their ability to lccp the gr mals under control or to defend themsches in other 5131 against ans animal out of control I spent mans lours during those first fou months lam ing on a fence outside the cat barn tilling to Alfred and Damoo I believe I like cats parth because of my fondnes for thcsc two inch but I think it worked the other kur too because I 122s fond of cats I instinctuels liked the men and was fascinated by their profession Both of tlıcm sccincd in mani sase rather piridoxic! Alfred Court not only liad the iron nonc and the physical dominance that all animal trainers must havc but hc : 35 also a cry courteous almost Old World courtly person Ilis name might almost has been tailared for lun Damod although short of stature, often impresses luis zudiences as a giant Ile too h15 11 711 of physical dom nanec mcluding a sort of daredal quality Bit Duoo is also soncthung of an intellectual llc is stceped in a back ·Stzt. With a Rou end of Niada philosophr and Hudu misticism Al how bus life has not up-luded more than five months of Jual education, be us one of the most lured men i have Itt mct. H.s knonledge of animals is thoroughls pract.cal, rt sure he has a les mterest in the animals he souls 1 ms hat an mitan moule Lt ose of the most enl.ghtening expericuces in the world Like Tarzan, for whom he once doubled in a movs, Damoo was used with #z!d animals lle nas bora in Indu and at the age of thirteen had already spent three years 12 his ances arcus Those years acte spent as an acrobat. dorm, asd track bicycle nder but at thirteen he began tw.rg loos, zs a student an mil trainer Bs the tinc be 126 sm cateen he *as sell knoan throughout India as 3 Cedevil batle acrobat and an equally daredevil anına) 11- has had 277 02-01 escapes He has on mint occa i 315 lutres," he says "and cry time it 135 my own Viestra pong azzee that the chief fault among trainers d the che reason for the's be ng burt ti that the boom tome overconfident and are in lined to forget that tbeu 22 mats are s*x s'e creatures The trioci s ho remen bosts is alas on his gund The trainer who doesat arul gees hot or killed sculd see Damoo or Wired casuall silkırg goto the trg #th the ma's, practicing their acts Esht 115 CP ennuis angyals, and coinn, out aşin to have 1 > ·42 Circus Doctor frankfurter between rchearsals, I would ask them wheth: they ever worried about getting hurt soniedzy It seer impossible that they did, and at the saine time it secure unlikely that they wouldn't What I leamed was that parently with all wild animal trainers there is usually fear as the rest of us know it Dimoo las told me m3* times that he is thoroughly aware of danger, that he kno' just s hat each animal is likely to do to him, but this' fcar as he calls it, is apparently a mental process, not an ciri tional onc On the otlier hand, I have seen animal traine who on certain days socmed really frightened. I, myself, on the many occasions when I liave gone ist a cage with a wild animal, llave usually been frightenc Through my own cxperiences and through talling to 17 animal tramers 1 lave evolved a thicory tlut is at odds up thnt of the medical profession I had aluays heard that animals could "smell far", 14.3 of a human were really afraid of an animal, the anır: would know it no matter what the person did to cancel up I think this is itong I think I can provide cuiden to male a case for the fact that animals cannot smell fra: thit fcar is not something tangible I think animals com sense ferr, but I think they get it through the tone of a per son's voice and from his actions I myself hac hindio horses, mean forses, of a hom I was terrified, but by kces ing my voice stern and my actions definite, I was able ! ccp that fict from the animals Some of thesc horses, now, would llave kicked me into a corner of they ha bocn able to smell my uncertainty And I hic gonc ir cages with beats and leopards who would liaic attacke mie instinctncls if they had fclt i svas bluffing my contic ·43 . Statios-Wrth a Raam Ose der 25 I 15 walking over to the outdoor ring to mys! Danoo rehearse his act. I noticed a cluster of pa fleacundone of the cages I ran over to the case. Damoc, toho spends all bus free hours walking up and down in font of the cases making friends mith his animals and Eng an ere on then, had discovered a break in the til of Limi, one of his pumas Together we looked a! the tail Yes, definitely brolen... (Weces et discovered hos this happened It might hare : been clined be a nezb bor, although there were no claw 'marks Sometimes when an animal is being shuttled from come cage to another, the cage bos swings the iron gate closed behind the animal too gu ckli bile transferring hn. A cat as soon as he is through a gate, often sings zrocr.d and starts through in the other direction. For this sta 27, the boys learn to work ver rapidly closing the gates, and it may kne been that Lima got her tail caught and broken that was ) She dida't seem to be in pain We decided that together He nou'd nun her into the squeeze cage and Damoo could ahead and work the rest of the animal shile I operated. 1 ha) care rended a pura s tail before, but of course! ud ha scrilar operations on domestic animals I had a couple of the cage bows hold her forepans out brosh the bars of the squeeze cage and I give her an un. ca o lembutal When she was asleep I opened the rik mij of the squeeze cage I didnt bother to reinove because this operation d dat tale very long and set +61, binding it tightly with a plaster cst wbuch I hoped souldnt chens up too soon I watched het very carefull for the next fex dats Al. osh at Ers: the cast bothered her and she did chen att **lebt, she left enough on for protection, the tail stayed pire and the m.te fact that there 6925 an announce Te ted to male Lima conscious crocz' of the tail 710 1g; it around cr getting it caught in places ·44 Circus Doctor that might have injured it When wc removed the her tail was perfectly straight Damoo put her right into the act and she was an entirely hcalthy and prese able animal I stumbled across some amazing facts during those f. few weeks that big cats have sinus trouble for instan Alfred Court had suspected this for a long time, and my whencer an animal of his appeared sluggish he would c mcover and we would examine it C crything I found or finned his suspicion On certain days, certain of the la would hang their heads lox, indicating headache Ib would be either ill tempered or completely spintless, pending on the individual animal I found that letting an animal rest for a couple of di would usually help him rccoict and frequently, mit aspırın in his food would speed the process-m-30 grains hon, 15 grains to a leopard, 60 grains to a horse. (T Srains is the adult human dose ) I Incly that lorscs frequently suffer from sinus trou! When 1 cold is neglected and the animal is worked i hard What apparentis happens is that the cold in 1985 il po jou: publc both horses and dogs In tlıcsc cascs, as with hum3' aspirin schicies the pin There has been a fc horses ! #hich I have actually liad to opcmtc to drun thc infcchio brut these cases are rare and I do it only when absolut 11cccssary Iliad bought a ratlıcı largc and 7s I recall an cyper black lather bound notebook, and here it 175 l bus writing dosti jottings of new information absenato thiconics and just plun facts Tlus I hoped would be usef on the road w licn things ucic nilice and XC UEIL Norku ·Elephants Hlase Tender Skins 15 on a tight schedule when I didnt have time to sit and clezt szttrainers and cage boys and menagene men be fore making decisions CHAPTER IV Elephants Have Tender Shing SOMETIVES One recalls «zizdis certains expenences without bang able to understand the importance of their details of #hu menon) retains them When I was about lave a neighbor tool me for a nde m bsm and those dans Colutionen zutamobile I asked for so netting dunng the nderice cream I think 273 h- sad very positivek Vosireet i dont kaon mhs I have gone on remembenn, that so clearly but every time I saw that neighbor after that, although he was fond of me and cut out of buy to do little fasons I wanted to run Likewise, mahas temanber the day I discovered that elephants bare tesder shins but this memor I do dastand-ind for a very good tasan The story starts lack a bh just before I joined the shox Tova the end of the tour that rear thete *3$ a tagedy 11 Atlanta Atlanta was on the swingbaci touard winter $1794ets and the show 125 to play there ja Octobet Just I'm t the time Jobs Rin, ling orth was telephoning me ·46 Circus Doctor to offer me the job, the circus train was pulling into t Atlanta siding and prepanng to unload Suddenly onc after another, the clephants dropped c the ground By the time the boys were ready to walk the to the lot most of the animals were out cold The newspapers made a good deal of it at the time by cause there was something of a mystery attached to sto viously, the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey e* phant herd had becn poisoned A number of the animals died very quickly Thcolhim verc saved, although some of them is cre nolcntk sich for a while Nobody could imagine who would dislile ek phants cnough to fced them poison What made the my tcry even decper was the fact that the clephant herd: neter unguarded It is guarded partly to lccp people fren teasing or hurting the animals and partly to Icep the an, mals under control If one clephant should cier brcal loose and go on a rampage the tendency as for the otlict to do so In tlus particular casc thc clephants had been watcher very carefully and yet had been poisoned The surv11723 clephants were treated on the spot Post mortems when perfomed on the dad clephants and it was deterina by laboratory tests that arsenic had lilled them The mystery was finally solved when it was found thize not too far from the milioid siding at the previous stna tlicrc had been a chemical factor Among thc waste ma's rials which it scattered-it supposed harmlessly over tlc surrounding tcrritorywas arsenic When, quite innocent the clephants' hay lu3d been scattered over thus arsen! coucrcd ground some of the animals lid talcn cnough to 111 them Those that didn t die still took cnough to go sick Thic ctcrnanan sho treated tlic clephants gasca mer cinc antras cously in thic car In seilial cases, some of the ·Elephints Have Tender Slins sce got out of the vein into the tender tissue of the And abscessed is the branc I joined the arcus, se had some thirty cle Ints with abscesses behind theu ers Walter McClain Lc the acts to me The clephants had had these absses for some wechs before I got there, but they weren't SCTIOUS McClain Ines that as soon as a setennanın shared he could take care of them He was also smart ugh not to confront me with a problema lile that dur. mseit We charted idls for thirty miputes or so and then ;**£cd. "Doc, you know much about elephants> X I dont know ant thing about clephants "Dos, we'le got some sick elephants" That's just bre," I said "What's wrong Mth them?" "Well,' he said, "ou remember reading about the Disom, n Atlanta A lot of them are still suffenng from saltereffects "Well, I ll see what an be done about it," I said. "Do ho let you treat them?" "Yes," he said slosti“I think may be the two of us right be able to manage On the whole thes are farly alon while you are treating them that is, of course, if you l'ester 1 5) Usiworthy; highl intelligent, es probably the most intelligent of all old animals ercept chips But 1's 93% unpredictable. They have becs known to at ·48 Circus Doctor tach, for no apparent reason Despite my qualms, thev . to be worked on, honescr, and I was only thankful ani telligent elephant man like Walter McClain 135 around help I got some of my cquipment together and we start walking over to the elephant Iraal "I'll tell you onc thing about these clephant abscesses Walter said "Just draining won't be cnough I guess would call thern incapsulated abscesses, because a hat hu pens is that a capsule scems to have fomed betscort cartilage and the skin Instead of just digging a holc 3' draining, you'll have to cut and actually remove the nec capsule "Well," I said, “let mc open one up and I ll soon E: out The elephant Iraal is rcally a row of open sheds fort into a square with a watering trough in the center Asse enter, you find four solid rows of elephants staring at it from around the sides Cach is chained to a ring embedd in concrete by one hind and onc front leg There is a loo chain strung across in front of each ron of animals to la pcople from getting too close to them in the circus, this Inown as the "pichet lue" The clephant who was in particular pain this das named Jenny She was restless She was moving her bei in circles and stamping licr fect Walter and I approach. hcr autiously, and Walter grabbed the elephant hook This is a stick about the length of a broom handle o the end of it is a small, dull hook Ilus look is used by a clephant incn in leading and training clephants It does? hurt the animal, but it tugs at her in one direction or a other and slic soon learns to respect orders given by mei: of thc hook Walter got in front of Jenny, holding her trunl up an her licad down I could just about reach thic arci in buc of tlic car where it was necessary to operate As soon 15 ·Elephants Hate Teader Slins 19 uched her, Jenay started bobbing her head and nering pute the hook Who is she bouncing so much?” I asked Walter and test "I am not hurting ber I am just patting her ear" "Touching them aan dme ther nearly crazy," Walter 18 "Didn't you lnon, Doc, that elephants have sexy esder skins?" Are you kidding?" I scoffed, slapping my hand sharply n Jenay's gr) hide to disprove Walters joke To my mazement Jenny nect Binched She en seemed to alm "That's a hat I mean, Doc,' Walter laughed "They love Em slap, but a fly or a ticle on their shen wall drive th'm crazy" I was being crowded by the elephant next to lenny be cause the clephants on the picket line are chained rather close to eac& other I took out my syriage and, after mopping the area with antiseptic, injected 3 local anes thetic just to be sure An anesthetic intery good for this End of thing usually, because an animal can fight the in praction as much as the operation and an infected part lile thus isn't too responsive because of the fact that the infec- 4J Suddmly, without my knowing it the elephant next in • li --for what reason I mül never know-dropped her a clip stot 1123 ·$ 50 Circus Doctor and is my weight made it go taut, it spring me back Ilinded flat on my bich undercatli Jenny Iliy sprawled on the ground, lialt stunned more sc than I linic cier been in my life, when Jenny's bla: ou crflowed Then I moved so fast that it might be scribed as bouncing Only onc tlun and thicrc, and ti tlichool and hc fortli and laugh mcdiately and I managed to pull myself together pa up my dampened dignity, and, in a mucli calmer frain: mind, continue the operation I hasc had hundreds of such opcrations since but I b norcr liled them not onc As a gencral rulc, the abse becomes as big as a mins hand and I hanc to maki correspondingly big opening through which to work 1 abscess must lic packed with sık er nitrate to loo en! capsule, and then worked around and around by liandu thic cnfic cpsuic is loosened ind can be taken out throu llic opening. It is seldom pontul to tlic clephant hutt mc ? tcrtible fuss simply because they do not lilc to handicd I lephants I feir could not cr be influenced by thc'st (cminine touch An clepliant will invariably toss luy and dirt or wh Ci cr he can get lus trunk around onto lus bich It is s dom you see an clephant without this layer of dirt and h: on inis back Thic lay and dirt is insulation agunst! pnicks and tickles of flies and mosquutocs an clephant worst enemics Ilus stirprised me bccause I had alusas thought as ? nat peo le do, that an cicphint 2 tluck slug ks that way I LUS Icarned us scs also auc ! der skins la them is to 13 thing! up and ·51 Elephants Hase Tender Slins fríember when considering walking up to pat a hippo) An elephants normal temperature is nunty nine to a bund.ed degrees but the temperature of the seterinarian taling it always shoots sky high when he is trying to get reading on an elephant The thermometer is about four aches long but it is breakable, and it can be lost-I always ** a strng to the one I am using so I can recover it And henever the performance of temperature taking is neces 2V I always like to have the elephant trainer handy When the trainer is around the arumal has a combination both fear and confidence He has a fear of doing some ung be is not supposed to do and the confidence that ham will come to himn Sometimes the trainer himself bake the elephants temperature More often he will nd at the animals head and talk to her and just gener * keep her calm hile I try to get the reading When sc do find an elephant with a high temperature I other symptoms of stomach upset we have our work pleasantly cut out for us A horse can be fed a laxative any other medicine by means of a capsule There's no K at all to making a horse swallow such a capsule This ot true of an elephant An elephants mouth cant be open His teeth are hard and strong and you cant a chance on putting your hand in his mouth if you are ing him do something he doesn t want to do He sont 10% anything he doesn t want to swallon and his te is $0 por erful that nothing can get past it if the 137t doesnt approve All in all, he is a difficult patient e first time one of Walter VicClain s elephants got an stomach I decided simply to feed her a laxtve gh a stomach tube That ddnt work It would work ) other animal to get a tube into the stomach you it through the nose Well It nert became a mat working with the trainer and holding the elephants a hand trying to get her to swill doss the latte ·& 1 1 Jannt 50 Circus Doctor and as my kerght midc it go taut, it sprung mc I landed flat on my back undemeath Jenny I lay sprawied on the ground, half stunned more sac than I have ever beçn in my life, when Jenni's bladde Oscilowed Then I moscd so fast that it might be scribed as bouncing Only one thing saved me from giving up the circus the and there, and that was the hook and he was dos forth and laughing fitt. mediately and I managed to put 1733 SC luge up my dampened dignity, and, in a much calmer frimec mind, continue the operation I hatchad hundreds of such operations since, but I 1225 never liked them-not one As a general rulc, the absces becomes as big as a man's hand and I have to makc : correspondingly big opening through winch to work lh abscess must be packed with sıkcr nitrate to loosen t). 141 on invierd nround and around by land unti handled Llcplants, I fcar, could never bc influenced by thc "soft femunine touch An clcpliant will insariabls toss liay and dirt or slot cier he can get his trunk around onto us back It is sch dom jou sec an clephant without this las cr af dirt and 11:23 on his back The hay and dirt is insulation against the pricks and tickles of flies and mosquitoes an elephants storst encmies Tus surprised in because I liad 11:35 thought, as I suppose most people do, that an cicphint is thuck skinned animal Iſc simply Jooks that way I linic laamal that hippopotami and plunaccross also hinse tan der skins The Horst thing you can do to them is 10 WIL up and touch the lights (77115 is 3 pred tisor to it ·Ekphants 13e Tender Skins 51 member Rhea considering walling up to put a hippo) An clephant's normul temperature is runty nine to a 1 t. --- lie a string to the one I am wmg so I can recover it. And whenever the performance of temperature taling is neces SIT, I alwars le ta huic the elephant trainer handy When the trainer as arourd, the animal has a combination cf both fear and confdence He has a fear of doing something he is not supposed to do, and the confidence that no hay will come to him Sometimes the trainer, himself, wil ske the elephants temperature More often he will tand at the animals had and talk to her and just genet ay kcep her calm while I try to get the reading When we do and an elephant with a high temperature and other streptoms of stomach upset, we have our work pleasnally cut out for us A horse can be fed a laxative or any other mediane by means of a capsule Theres no tock at all to maling a horse swallon such a capsule. This 35 sot truc of an elephant. An elephants mouth ant be hul open Ils teeth are hard and strong and you can take a chance on putting your hand in kes mouth if you are making him do something he doesn t want to do lle wont silos anything he doesn t want to stallox, and his trg s 30 por erful that nothing can get past it if the cephint doesn t approve Af ra all, he is a difficult patient The Erst time one of Ilalter VicClain's clephants got an typect somst, I decided simply to feed her a laxative tunah.

·50 Circus Doctor and as my weight made it go taut, it sprung me back and I landed flat on my back undementh Jenny I lay sprawled on the ground half stunned more scare than I have ever been in my life, when Jenny's bladde overflowed Then I moved so fast that it might be de scribed as bouncing Only one thing saved me from ano un the circus ther and there, and that was the hool and he was do forth and laughing fit to kill His attitude eased me im mediately and I managed to pull myself together, patc! up my dampened dignity, and, in a much calmer frame o mind, continue the operation I have had hundreds of such operations since, but I have never liked them--not one As a gencral rule, the absces! becomes as big as a mans hand and I have to make : correspondingly big opening through which to work The abscess must be packed with silver nitrate to loosen the capsule, and then worked around and around by hand until Llanh through it they to be handled Elephants, I fcar, could never be influenced by the "soft feminine touch' An elephant will invariably toss hay and dirt, or what ever he can get his trunk around, onto his back It is sel dom you see an elephant without this layer of dirt and hay on his back The hay and dirt is insulation against the pricks and tickles of flies and mosquitoes, an elephants korst encmes This surprised ine, because I had always thought, as I suppose most people do, that an elcphant is a thick skinncd animal He simply looks that way I have learned that hippopotami and rhinoceroses also Ínye ten der skins The worst thing you aan do to them is to wall up and touch them lightly (This is a good thing to se 2 ·Llephants Ilase Tender Skins 51 member when considering walking up to put a happo) An elephant's normal temperature is nunty nine to a 1) 1.1, inches long, but it is breakable, and it can be lostæl altrays tic a strag to the one I am using so I au recover tt And Phena er the performance of temperature taldg is neces sary, I always like to hate the elephant trainer handy 11en the trainer is around the animal has a combination of both fear and confidence He has a fear of doing some then kunt - the confidence that s the trainer, himself, More often, he will stand at the animais head and talk to her and just gener ally keep her calm while I try to get the reading When we do find an elephant with a high temperature and other symptoms of stomach upset, ne have our work caplaanis cut out for us A horse can be fed 3 laxative or any other medicine by means of 2 capsule Theres no Inck at all to making a horse stallon such a capsule This s not true of an elephant An elephants mouth ant bc held open Ils teeth are hard and strong and sou can t tale a chance on putting your hand in his mouth if you are making him do something he doesn t want to do He won't 57llow anything he doesn t want to swallow, and his ton" sera pas ! JULIA 1 uended simply to focd her a latit 1 u ullut to get her to all down the Luxatire ·52 Circus Doctor (The normal laxatre dosc for an clephant is one gallon of rau linsced oil ) The clephant was Eva It took about five gallons before we got one gallon into Eva's stomach She would stick her trunk in her mouth, draw out the medicine we had managed to pour in and squirt it all oict Walter and me We sloshed around ankle decp in laxative, and decided sadly that as a general routine this was not going to work A new system was called for I next tried a medicine called Lentin, and thus later be came my standard clephant procedurc Lentin is a laratat that can be given by injection It is extremely strong and lias to be administered with great carc it immediately starts secretion of all the glands in the body and it works in about ten minutes If there is a danger that the animal may have an obstruction in lus intestinc, Lentin can ki" him Elephants come down with chills frequently, cxactly the way horses do It is casy to medicate a horse with brands using a dosc syringe but an cleplunt is almost impossible to treat with a dose synnge A dosc syringe is long cnough to reach way back into an animals moutli, by holding the animals head back and unloading the syringe you che makc lum swallou Not an clephant Wlien they have chills and won t take brands I give them an injection ol camphorated oil and guaiacol or some simlar preparation The clephants hase always been a sort of seterinarian's nuisance factor, because they seldom get any tlung sery Scrious but they are continually liling with one little thin: or another l'or instance, 'cry often a tush will brcal and the root will have to be extracted (su luat I do thien is to cul back thrce or four inches and pick out the broken piccc of tush) All of our clephants are females because ac lave found ·53 Clephants llare Tender Skins was the males tend to be troublenilers Since elephants cat b eed very well in captats, there is no advantage in harung males le male at a practice to remove a large portion of the tot as soon as we get an elephant, so if she should start to make trouble, she nill be a good deal less dan prone tk he would be if sheet 11 L ist days qualmst wsk us a fantastic ul we boys Qarns her down on merknees and I take her tusis off about * inches from her cheeks wath a hack as There is no Thirts and the elephants don t seem to mund the car tenag in the leasti When Walter McClan na al sc-he met a tragic death ortiv afta. I jo add the circus-he and I used to tall fremuy about breeding elephants It has proved to be tually impossible, at least in this country There have reports from Germany and Italy that elephants llave bred in captivity and the offspring have ined As far can check this las not happened in this country There have been a negi gible number of cases of elephants having teen bred but none where the offspring have Ined over usty days I th nk the reason for this is that the clephants mut be left alone and must be lept cty calm and un *ind befo c they will breed I would like, comedat to buy a good male elephant, pick ee or fou of our better females and put them off four 1 Ese miles from the circus grounds in 11 ar sc pen bi themselvet i 107 anth them to tal s from com rg rca unds, by autorrobile--lett alone in the ki derness, 23 it veu by people, by -- th ni they might stand a pretty good chance of duorg I callthi ofispnoz If so it would be a famous *t in ths country and I think the publ aty value to Currus would be immense ·54 Circus Doctor I lcpliant men are among the busiest of animal mcn, be cause their charges are probably the only ones in captivit that need manicuring Llephants have all kinds of trouble with their fect Their pads get sorc, they become infected they have the same kind of cuticle trouble human bang do, only worse An clephant man's spare time is usually spent working on cuticles, paring toe nails, polislung, rud bing with antiseptic, and, if the clephant act is going to bc extremely fancy that year, actually applying fingernai polish Our clcplants have to walk on concrcte going to and from the lots We have found tliat it is rather hard or tlıcır fect To aj od scrious trouble, uc cxamine cach cle phant's feet cuery day We look for cracks, breaks, and slight infections, and treatment begins at once before the animal becomes lame 'This is good for the animal and we huic found that the time spent is decidedly worth ou: while Sometimes our elephant charges turn up with new, un known discases I had a phone call recently from an annual man in St Louis Hc had a trained clephant act and one of the clephants had developed a rather prominent swell ing under the belly oser an area of perhaps two and a hall or threc fect Ilc liad asked a couple of local veterinarians but thcy were pretty much in tlic dark because there is nothing in horses that corresponds to it I had run across a minor aise only once in the circus but I told lum to apply lot toucis, to keep the animals belly cased in ho! packs, lield on with a sling and to Icep constantly setting them I also suggested that he gre her streptomycin duly for five days As far as I could guess, it was a toxic condi ton caused by an infection soinen licre m the elephant: system and it 1975 collecting under the skin at the lones portion of the animal's body I doubted very much if it was an infection of that immodatc arca, or that it was ·Elephants Haie Teeder Skins Lecus infection an bere else The trang trated the mal a3 1 sugested and checked with me by phone try day With a two weeks lus elephant sis all nght od the ailment et recurred Particularly as they gror oldet, elephants are likely to réer from paralyzed frank. A sort of creeping paralys.s Ofer this vital part, and although the anstnal an 0 it the trunk does pot have its usual flexibility nor Focsit lave its normal strength An elephant with para lyzed trunk ma feed himself pretty well but instead of beraz able to trunk up and drop his food into his mouth, bu has to toss his head and catch his meal in md ir The minor adments czy usually be put into the hands of the elephant boys, as for instance a bea their skins get csy and have to be oued Once the proper oil has been Fit to the bos, he can rub it in as well or better than I. benyjeche us there all the time and the animal Inows him Eleplants bite each others tails, partly out of nervous ness and partis because that's the war elephants are. The talls get infected at the bitten part and they have to be tried coumally with hot packs and sulfa and other na hurt afe, and a good, Intou moet af. FL mt ср 4 Xuts, apparenth, she almed the patient while trend les I became, in time, quitc attached to Ruth, and she is still ms ch ct assistant in my clephant work

·56
Circus Doctor
Ill always semember how I Jaimed about cleplun
from Jenny, but animal men agree that clephants on the
ly when the night
that they and the
a little lule
1
CHAPTER V
Wc Don't Shoot Them
Any More
Ir norses I know they are excitable and have to buy
watched carefully and I will cimit they arent is smart a
some of the other animals They get injured casily and
dont take care of themsels es too wo) But I like tiem
It may be that my accumulation of knowledge abou'
them does thugs for my cgo I dont know what the reaso"
15 It doesn t make any difference When I am working
with horscs no matter how hard tlic work or how lon;
the hoitrs, I am contentcd
I like lorscs I looss how they act and uly I think
know what goes on in their heads I know how to tell :
horse what I am tluphing and I know how to figure oul
what he is thinking I have taught lorses practically cier
tlung you can toch a horse, and I have learned a lot from
them too
A horse min be the most beautiful animal in the world

·We Dont Shoot Them Any More 57 he is healthy and sell cared for He can be a good com panion for the long pull, or a means of escape ia a crisis Horses can sie vou or run you, hurt you or protect you They surpass all other animals in the ability to respond o human attention I like theis Dunng my first secls in Sarasota I was lonesome Inesome for my horse, a mare named Benny V She was colt suhen I last saw ber in Kerrville, the fifth genera tion of a line owned by my father ever since his marnage The first animal he owned was Benny V's great, great, great grandmother I couldn t hare her with me in Shreven port, but here in Sarasota ne had all the space in creation it was a heaven for horses There was no reason why Ben ny Vand I couldnt be together She arsed one Saturday moming She looked wonder ful. I spent all that morning scrubbing and grooming her and then left her in the lower corral sath orders that she be oned loose in the pasture for several hours a day My plan was to leave her here while I was on the road, hoping she would be in good shape for breeding the following year I didnt breed her non because I wanted to be around when she foaled It looked very much as though I were Loon to be raising a family and it was a pretty happy feel og llorses can do that to a man On one of my daily inspections of the horses my at won was taken by a big black stallion named Lindy bo had a swelling just above his stife. He was one of the est suddlc horses I have one known Ilus lameness both ed me a great deal Lad didnt seem to limp very much and the groom d told me he thought the infection was draining But for TIC TC1507 I didn tic the look of it It had lung on for Fortwo or three dars, I triel rel ON OT AH.. ) long ·58 Circus Doctor very hard to cxaminc becausc, althought Lindy 17s a geu tlc horse normally and never caused any trouble, the min uitc I went near his bad leg lic would strike out in ali directions with what seemed like all four fect at once On this day, as on most others, I had more tlungs to do than there was time for I was always being forced to pul off a lot of routine work for some emergency By the after noon, everything scemed to be under control and there was nothing pressing for attention, so I gave Lindy a loca? anesthetic much against his will and opened up the m fection I took out a piece of suick about two and a half inches long and about three quarters of an inch in di ameter It had apparently run up at an angle in his les above the knee No one saw it happen and there had bech only the smallest wound I don't know how long it had been there, but it was casy to see why the infection hadnt cleared About a u cek later, I was a little puzzled to find that this samc infection was still draining It was just as though noth ing lud been done to it This time I was seriously worried, so I immediately went for my equipment I got three of the better grooms to lielp me, we land the horse down and I injected a shot of anesthetic that put him completely to sleep I had decided to open the leg I went into the wound the way I had before, but this time I continued cutting This time, I found that the prea continued clear on tlırough to the other side of the leg Before I finished, I pulled out another picce of stick some six inclics long, Apparently Lindy had rubbed agunst something or liad fallen, this splinter uent almost directly upward in onc side of thic leg and almost out the other side After this, I kept lus leg packed for a fess days and ! lıcıled beautifully There was not the slightest suggestion of a limp and this plased me, because for a performing horse it isn't enough to make him well from an economic standpoint, you must make Ium ucil cnough to perform, ·59 We Dont Shoot Them Any More t wouldn't pay to have a horse on which thousands of lollars hare been spent for training and be able to use lm only for hauling a fat He must go back into his act. Some of the things that happen to our horses in the ocess of the amazing tricks they do are rather spectacular; ime of the treatments and cures are equally so But hether the treatment is spectacular or not, the horses, beose of the great number and their great value, are a stunual source of trouble. The way my next routine was working out, I was spend ng about half my time with the horses Coming out to Winter quarters early, i nould first make my rounds of the horse corral Then I would examine any animal that ! knew was sick or injured or any animal that had required Morking on in the last day or two Then I would go through the menagene, the elephant krual, the outdoor menagerie cages the monkey house, the louet corral, and end up with the cat bam Also I was called continually all day and frequently at night to aimine animals that serent acting night Vost of e time these didnt require much actual attention the age boys the trainers helpers, and the grooms all had inct orders to call me if they had the slightest suspicion hat an animal was off-color, and they did their work well, ut that meant they called me many times when an animal ad some slight discomfort that didn t require treatingyoacthng that possibly could simply be slept off It was etter that was but it was hectic and time-consuming Furthermore, I was still spending a lot of time talking to ople talking to the cage boys, talking to the performers as trying to learn as much about the circus as such as I ossibly could, so that I wouldnt be bothered with the tle matter of timing and routine when we went on the id and, thereforc, could devote all in; energy to the mals ·60 Circus Doctor My hospital was coming along finc The managemen ordered anything I wanted in the way of medicine an cquipment I had liad new shelves put in, and now too pnde in my small and unpretentious but efficient litti setup So much of my time was spent with the horses becaus! it was a sure bet that once they started traveling then would be illnesses, accidents, fights and other mishaps wanted to become so sell acquainted with each individua horse that there would be no chance of anything progress ing when I could nip it in the bud I had to operate on th: theory of the old time family physician who perhaps knew more about his patients than he did about medicine rather than the newer type of doctor who knows more about medicine than he does about his patients One morning, shortly after a very early breakfast, Jerry a beautiful, big white bareback horse, was brought into the indoor training ring for rehearsal Jerry was the Number Onc horse in a horse to-horse trick The two horses can tered around the ring, one immediately behind the other While they ran, an acrobat standing on Jerry's back, would jump into thic air do a backward somersault and land 03 the back of the Number Two horse Thuis was a rather spectacular act and a very difficult one to do Jerry was a good horse and he had been doing this routine for a num ber of years was a loud commotion past the door Tiny, a me running out calling I mn in to find Jerry down on the ground He had stopped on the ring curb and brolcn his leg All bareback horses are trained to follow the ang curb around I have seldom knout onc to step on it Onc quick look at him and I found that the break wis right above thc hoof Leaving hun where he was I ran for my emergency hit, IT 11 t1 $ ·61 We Don't Shoot Them As, More han sieral assistants and I went to work on him to set the wne Dorn a here the break as, there was very little flesh - I could set at bo touch I prepared some plaster of ans and made a cast. We walked jerry back on three legs Ls stall, u bere he immediately lar dond ITTY Has a wonderful patient and that is that saved his For the next eight weeks he spent tweety three and ulf hours of every kenty four lying down in bus stall He rcmate lving down When he did stand up, he did it very cefully and he held the injured leg off the ground When he did Le donn be did it as carefully as though he were setting down on a bed of eggs. The bottom of the band aged leg aner aren got dirty! Ile cade through it all beautifully We cut down on his led so hus lying around wouldn't make him fat and slug Esh or colcky, or gue him any of the diseases that horses t from eating too much and not exercising enough Mithuna s. months, Jerry was perfectly healthy and walked inthout a limp He was never good for bareback work 5113, though, because he had turned ning-shy He was 'a'rays afraid he was going to hit that nng curb, and he was Ensure enough of himself to be unreliable in the nng But re did use him for a number of other purposes for a long time after that, and he was always a good horse. Jerry ras replaced in the act by Tom, who had been .n.la k traind but even before we got on the road, Tom pored insatisfactory Duning chearsal one day he lit out ith both hind feet for ro apparent reason and licked the read of the Number Two horse There wasn't much I od do about the injured horse except to case his poin a *le and take care of the fish round His head huuled th a sey obrious dent in it For show purposes, we unaged to cover it up with a tassel or fort, but that 33€ becarne ning shy in arothet was He would no longe be und any cther horse So he trained him as the ·L 6: Circus Doctor Number Onc horse to replace Tom, and a ne Number Two horse had to be broken in to work with him. Frequently, when a horse is sick he gets ķhat is know as azoturia. In the old days, we used to mll that "Honda moming sickness.” It comes of a horse lying around all di Sunday, eating as much as he does when working, Starter te primele - 1 -1. IT b forced to move; he stands a good chance of rupturng muscle or some internal organ. When azotuna does come on, although ne male et attempt to keep it down by cutting the feed when ! animals aren't working, I always give them an injection something to relax them, and then a calcium glucong injection to restore their strength. They arc usually : right within 1 unleafl. 1 of t': T? pt img is entire leg in a meta] splint. The splint, which I Young built out of aluminum, tas so made that it fith him up around hvis hup and extended down a couple inches below his hoof We bored a hole through his ho and bolted that to the splint It was like a permane crutch, and that Shetland could actually walk while t! break was healing because his weight was on liis bor rather than on his leg. That is now a common treatmez for fractures for a number of four legged animals. Not: long ago, these same animals would hase been shot. I was learning new things even about horses during the first four months in winter quarters. Things u ftc happer ing so fast, I often didn't dare wait until somebody callc ·We Don't Shoot Them Any afore 63 tomance v tap ril, alch was opening day in New York, rehearsals were Teasing in frequency and intensity and there was an 735ing number of the little accidents that alsays hipauden atımals get together What I learned about horses was the result of haung so zny borses dong so many different things in one place, at ne time. I dacloped routine treatments for every forc rable contingency because only with a well worked out ot.re would it be possible to handle all of the animals a the rood Take the routine of anesthetizing a horse, for example 1 MET gre him Xembutal because it makes horses toss "ound a good deal while they are coming out of it It us dar ir aitrise to that nuum Men Sort bmsch too easily s chloral hydratc anesthesia 20 h preferable 1 don t aliays anesthetize completely, son a small amount of chloral hidrate takes the fight Ms of them and removes practically all the pain While 2o.ng a thorough intema) opennon, I simply use a large doe of chloral bsdrate Dung this period it is necessary to astrate a nunty of Lorses I have never liked to castrate horses without 01 03509 but theit 270 nmes when 3 male is met and too hard to handle unless he is castrated Our expert tace has been that geldings, of castrated males, make by 13t the best performers in the nng Studs, although some tres good are likely to be too excitable and unreliable The arc the bilers sad kickets Mares ait good except then they are in heat then they, too become extremes dard are likely to ble and kick. But a well-ranned gold ing, in the lone ni 2 the best nerforming horse. Whether ·62 Cucus Doctor Number One horse to replace Tom, and a new Number Two horse had to be broken in to work with him Frequently, when a horse is sick he gets what is knout as azoturua In the old days, we used to call that "Monday moming sickness" It comes of a horse lying around a}} da! Sunday, eating as much as he does when working Startin L ar mi 1 bling the danger comes if he tries too hard or if he ! forced to move, he stands a good chance of rupturing muscle or some internal organ. When azotura does come on, although we male every attempt to keep it dost by cutting the feed when thi animals aren't working, I always gnc them an injection something to relax them, and then a calcium gluconali injection to restore their strength. They are usually al nght within a couple of hours I haven't had many bone breaks, luckily. Although mos! of them can now be treated, the constant traveling male for complications There was a white Shetland I treated in Shrctcport Thi! pony broke his leg rather high up, urich required put ting his entire leg in a metal splint The splınt, 'which Dr Young built out of aluminum, nas so made that it fitted lum up around his hip and extended down a couple of inches below his hoof Wc bored a hole through his hool and bolted that to the splint It was like a permanent crutch, and that Shotland could actually walk while the brak was healing because his scight was on luis body rather than on his leg That is nos a common treatment for fractures for a number of four legged animals Not so long on these samc animals kould hatc been shot ·We Don't Stoot Them Any Moze 63 ATUND3 a chasis R25 only mantuz 3 crisis My seren wdred animals al needed attention esery day Out of Cea bood ad animals, just 17 the ordinary course of Teuts, it #20 t hard to Egure the acidence of sickness darodents As we deer closer and closer to the first of pia Ich was opening day in det York, rehearsals were 3 frequency and infeasily and there was an MC:6250g number of the httle acudents that always happens when anwals get together What I learned about horses 13s the resalt of harmg so toʻses doing so trzy different things in one place, at Che time. I dacloped routide treatments for every foregeocy because only with a well worked out foot.cc would it be possible to handle all of the animals the road Take the routine of arestheting a horse, for example I per gore bır Yernbutal because it makes horses toss sourd a good deal whle the are coming out of it. It is crib's dangerous for a horse to thmsh around He an tar hanself too aritu A chloral hydrate anesthesia » mu prelatable i dont alaans anesthetize completelv, bren a sz' amount of chlool hidrate takes the bight o cf them and removes practically all the pain While coby a thorough 17ctreal operaton, I s topli tise a large doce chloral hscrate Douth.s penal it* 3s Decessary to castrate a numba of broses. I have never Lied to castrate horses without reason but there are tmes when a mi'e is mean 3t99 had to band's usless he is castrated Our ere) exclus becs that geldings, or castrated males make by Ir the best performing at the ring. Stods, although sonicprod. re ikely to be too eatable and unrelub'e These a tho b ters aad krles Mares are good except they are not then they too become extremely ilan Ja - Lleh to btsandkk Buta nel traned geld FL-inng ma is the best performing herse. Whether ·6f Curcus Doctor the circus learned this from the Westem cou boys I don't lnou But I do know that cox boys will almost never nde a mare, although for different reasons They almost always to my know ledge, nde geldings Arthur Konyot, who was training the Liberty Act, ame over to see me one day and complained of a horse, a 1ery bright horse and a very good performer, but a ser meno animal I examined him and found something that on" finds only occasionally in horses he had only one testice It was up in his abdomen and had never dropped it hai to be brought down by mcans of what is known as a ridgeling operation I anesthetized him completely, tied him up, and cut ? hole in the region of the groin í got my hand in through the hole and poled around inside until I found the testicl" and, with an instrument, removed at This horse was all right within a very fere wecks and every trace of stubbomness left him I made the groom wall him three or four miles a day while he was recovering for I have found that this continued forced exercising of a horse x hile he is recolenng from an operation is probably the best postoperatic treatment you can give him (From my reading lately, I gather that medical doctors are finderg that very much the same thung holds truc for human patients ) There are also some of our horses whom one might ca] ncurotic There is never a year that I don't havc one or two that are sentable babies about the slightest illness Tha srnallest touch of colic will make them thrash around and Rick and roll in their stalls unless somebody gnies them a little attention Then they will calm down and happily tale thcir medicinc But the minute they are left alone, they start thrashing around again This thrashing around is so dangerous, cspccully of horsc is colicły that I used to do almost anything to asoid ·6 We Dont Shoot Them Any Alote t. And then one day, I found a treatment that has solos bezutfally cer since. The medicine I gue horses for colic sa very sharp burning muxture It is usually led to them una capsule so that they dont taste at One day, while tatorg one of these hypochondracs I took a little of this medcme out of the capsule, put it in a dose synngs, and cropped it in his mouth He tossed his head He poked his tongue out trying to get nd of it but he couldn t It burred him and he didat like it That gave him someth.og to think about By the time he had forgotten about that he had also forgotten about his illness He slept Sr.ctly for the rest of the day Some of our gentlest horses are among our worst pa Ima's We have a little ba; hackney named Sally a beautı ful horse. She usually neiet causes any trouble and never Es with the other horses But the minute anyone Ines to gne het any kind of medicine in the mouth she rears up and pass with her front feet She could casily kill a reless attendant Our borses are temperamental because thev perform They are always keyed up tense, and very nervous shen hes are being saddled to go into the act and they are al 715 very calin nght after it This is partly due to their anaz, and partly because trainers haie found that high ring and high spinted horses make much better par mers than full listless too gentle horses There ae horses that can t bear to be separated from tar mates This is a characteristic that many peop'e, par ularly those with little experience, attribute only to mkeys Vis experience with monkeys has been otherwise 11s charactenstic en fant 150 t particularly truc of any her aturnal, but I know there are horse coupics that cant ad being separated Ihat first jede Be had to American siddle horses that inteloa sall together Thes used to figlit a the time er heirss if one . aken out and saddled obvioush ·66 Curcus Doctor to go to work, it didn't affect the other But if it was ta out for any other reason, such as to go to the blacksn shop or for some other unaccustomed purpose the of would neigh and whinny and break out into a sweat: thrash around until it, too, had to be taken away After watching this for a while, I gave orders that wh ever one horse had to be taken anywhere, they both sho go together After that, we had no more trouble We had two beautiful white Liberty horses, Ackm and Alle They were mates, but we noticed no particu attachment, though we know that they never fought ai had been stablemates for a long time One night, Ackm: died of a twisted intestine Alle carned on in a way th I have never seen any other animal do She whinnied co tinually She refused to eat and she refused to sleep W doctored her, we tried her with new mates, we tned change of scene, wc tempted her with every possible food ve did everything in the way of medication and psycholog o increase her appetite but she simply wasted away With a two months she died of what can only be described as : roken heart There are pests too, of course We are seldom troubled ith the dreaded botfly-which, throughout the South and puthwest, is the bane of a farmers existence It lays its gs on the short hair around the horse s knee and under e chin The horse is annoyed by the itching and licks the gs off The larve, in tum hatch in his stomach and at h themselves to the stomach wall To avoid this we tch for evidence of botfly eggs on horses' legs, and sim mop them off with lcrosenc The circus has one groom every three horses, which gives a chance for the kind are that almost no farmer can afford Cvery time a new horse arrives, lie is wormed immedi. y I don't worm our horses every year because it hasn't ·We Don't Shoot Them Am More 67 necessary But I da see that iery horse is normed at 01cc in three years itronalus equidusaa little roundwom that sucks an mani's blood-Homes farmers, and he watch Arefully signs of it to treat We also like a number of cases of quarter-crack among r horses Thuis means the hoof starts to crack up top, at : Els part. A round der clops there, an infection sets and the boot crack would, if it weren't stopped, con rue all the way doun the hoof till the horse ras perm... tly lame. We watch for this because it is common and soon as we see any sign, se take the horse over to our Hemith shop and have his shoes specially made to stop de ailment and allow healing Sometimes a horse bas to be put away Sometimes he is d and sick. Sometimes be us bad's Founded Sometimes e kus an incurable break or an incurable disease When amg Me this happen, we don't worry about the techni saties We destroy the animal, and we know, and every ody eke Inoxs, that this is a "mercy killing.' that there Dot Forses, I usually inject the animal stå strychnine. fecus no fecling until the strychnine hits the beart, then 15t animal dies instantaneousls Me bury him in a big E-!** keep as our apuna) cemetery at the far end of Our *22*cr quarters There is an ailmet among horses called founder or lamı the time IWCH! h. the loot \y usual crperience has been that onder cithet responds to treatment immediatch, or it t be treated successfullt at all and the horse is 10 $ Died In this disease, the sole ܂ܙ܂ ܙܢܙܝܝ.1-1 ܐ ܕܕ ·7 68 Circus Doctor of the foot drops down below the wall of the hoof a' causes excruciating pain I had two cases of founder during my first wedis 12 the show One was a bareback horse The cure was SO COI plete and so rapid that he was back in the act within Week The other was a high school horse A high scho -* om lancir knet bowing, waving a flag, or walking up and shaling home with the band leader There is, of course, perfect directo from the nder Ilorses like this take two to three years continual expert training in order to be good perfome The trainers, themselves, usually take a lifetime of trar: ing In almost every case I can think of, they have com from families of high school riders and high school trait ers Probably the most famous example in recent yer: is the great Konyot who was with the circus when I joinc it and remained for several years after that it was 0 of Ins horses that came down with founder, and it scemer impossible that any cure could be complete enough to allow him to go back into the act Because such horse have to maneuver almost the way a human being docs they have to be able to do things that one has no ngh! to expect even a well horse to do. However, I would try I injected about a pint of normal salınc solution into this horse's vein every three or four days I also gave him nomi horse serum every day, dosed him with alum nitrate every four hours and kept his front feet wrapped in cold compresses As soon as he showed improvement I stopped the alum nitrate but continued the other treatment In a few weeks he was back in the act without a trace of lump, When we were ready to go on tour, it was a safe bet triat these horse troubles were just beginning, but this phase -

·Trams th- Big Cats
69
med me the least. There is anys a great
2cfsabstantica to be earned by anag for horses, aad
PT 2e the helped dwelop the sell condesce I
s for sock in ho animal departures To put a bet
ma famous forzark The horses I am glad I like
2. Because I didn t like therts, I wouldst be around
the head. I like being around them.
CHAPTER VI Training the Big Cats
Tac AD Asneus has gotbır at all to do with m
gol or
acting med gynen gencral and I bave no de
...sta besona a traxet I have never trained a wild ani.
ton, 2. Solskinne raised tio of them Horne
de copa vett real interest in this profession, or ar
de mong may Ent seeks with the curcus, because of the ti
SC Eutes of the job and beczase of my fnen
mu 3 the turers who a ked with the show
ilarand a good deal abou the bug cats from Alft
Cor de cor from Damoo Dhorre. Dimo
approa a to ar mal tur s unusual Hans
mang trus as v las 3 sen alet mind be bas sted
... als bo h as species and as andndoals Dair
memnonbat I kaon about trang cats
penet

·70 Circus Doctor A trainer's job tales a combination of physical aglit mental alertness, and courage It is naturally dangerou The trainers who Ire long are those who remember th a wild animal is never, never tamed, but only traina Damoo has told me time and time again that wheam a trainer gets hurt, it is always the trainer's fault-and th is not the boasting of a smug man who has happened t be lucky Damoo has been badly hurt and he has been r danger of death What he means is that it is bad to bx come overconfident, to forget that the animals are sti wild, still savage, and always on the borderline of getto completely out of control Damoo's theory on training a wild animal is similar bi says, to that of training a child 'The first step," he sam "us to remove the animals fear An animal is instinctive afraid of a stranger, and because he is afraid, he 92 attack" Damoo spends countless hours in front of a cage com "he cage He talks to with his voice He n the tip of a long pole Eventually, sometimes after weels, the animal stops flying into a panic when Damoo approaches When he has an animal at that point, he takes him into the training cage, making sure that therc are ropes around the anımal and that those ropes are held taut by boy outside the cage Then he plays with lum, meanwhile doing cvery thing possible to inspire the animals com fidence he assures the animal that he is not going to be hurt, he talls to him, he feeds him, and etcntually he returns him to his cage When the animal has become thoroughly friendly Damoo starts teaching him simple tncks with the aid of the boys holding the ropes, Damoo gives him the signal for his sithing on the pedestal He shows luim what is expected of lum and rewards him with a piece of incat TY 1 1 ·Training the Big Cats 71 en be obezs After several sessions with the guide rope the meat, the animal begins to recognize Damoo's nal and, every time he hears it, he goes toward the This is, perhaps, an oversimplification of the wild animal sther be will push or prod him and let him know where he ante how - whip opular ieliet, seldom are animals beaten by a trainer. It stands to reason, if a trainer wants an animal to lose his fear, he is hardly likely to beat him up every time hc comes in ·72 Circus Doctor child is beaten into submission at every point, he w7l no respect but he will have fear and a grudze lle wait for the chance to tum on his parents and if he con tum on them, he wil tum on someone else. He has headed for gangsterdom in animals, too," he says, must be both fear and respect He is punished only be doing wrong and he must know why he is being punisher each time. He must be rewarded for being good and by they L L Jana in 0101 agua instant Damoo himself, though he has been attacked again, only severely hits an animal when there is a ti sight and real danger, when the choice between hittar the animal and being hurt Damoo goes into the cage with five spotted leopardos two pumas, two black jaguars, and two blick panthers O.: of the panthers still attacks him at the slightest provoca tion I have seen Damoo time and again avoid the animal claw by less than an inch I watched Damoo train Negus--the 170-pound b..? 1010s who once almost killed him-to be camed aroun 11 na trick, climbing up to the top of a pyramid Will animals By roping him and feeding him, Damoo final: got him to the point where he would stand on the hit stools, his forelegs on one and his hind legs on the other When the paguar did this Damoo would renard him with a picce of meat held out on the pointed end of a stick After seseral days of feeding lum in this manner, tht trainer would pat him on the back to get him used to hu touch Then he went one step further fe put Ius ar ·73 Training the B.3 Cats Fonda' bu kand exerted pressure on his belly with to palací ks band Tils stas to get Aegus used to that restreke al ml shea Damnoo put his neck under in te to Wt him. D3th-East few days of this, legus was inghtened low Lish out at Damon and then run for his own atl Bat br slot and patieat work, Danoo got to po bere he could get cae an under the animals - Lith..n to or three inches of the s'ools. By end of the month legus would be quietly, draped Daupo s Cock sont te perpose to rake heroes of these trainers by en cp the melodrama which is inherent in their proberon, but too often in the public mind the amount of taad studs and understanding that goes into tram 31 ma's us underestimated. Another compon belief 153* the annuals hure aa crgan removed, certain teeth 1 octher mystenous operations performed to make emote This is uttet nonsense Other people think the aama's behave berause the trair et Rhips the bar to th. If the people pho make these accusations 3 stop to think for one moment, thes would realize it thanh page used to slash the animal, his fur and Shua wool hard's be as smooth and abl-mished as it anhht us Every crack of the whp is a ce in the act unua customed move, ard a trair can be in sensas :''e from the focus of a.counts this might brog to 23 mals. 10152ny Datoo trained a black panther to atta k 25 put of the art at a certa 2 sul the samal rould lat Dinoo and as Dingo rould step backward froin the fa 57 spu't leap and sbsh cut 2 him with her Tme 32237 a. I have seen the pasthet saatch the biomaro Dienoo s neck so close to him dd IT Come Venac (pronounced Viea rok 3") the ' 295 cuck an mal let Damso could be ·74 Circus Doctor successful with this kind of trck because he himsel even quicker and has perfect physical control le so how always managed to leep an inch or two En Menaha's reach When Damoo went into the amy, another trainer to Over the act The new tminer was a very competent, les intelligent roman The first time she preformed tout with the panther everything went well until the point which she wanted the animal to stop leaping and get to her pedestal Damoo had accomplished this by store in his tracks and thrusting his head out at Nenala ? woman trainer was not entirely familiar with Me and wasnt quste sure of her Instead of stopping abso! sull probably afraid that the animal might try ano! Jeap, she took still another step back But this was TIC the wrong thing to do Menaha knew this as the cu: jump and she mauled her badly In a mixed group all the natural jungle enemics are pected not only to sit quietly as neighbors, but actually come in close contact with each other during many of I tricks A mixed group truner has to be good but con is sometimes attached sn complete absence of fear ont part of these trainers is something that never fails to am: For myself I cint clum to be thoroughly unconcer when working on a wild animal On the occasions when was necessary to work (11 ju mumul that was not strained ind not unconscius I have had a strange fc ing in the pit of mi stomach and the symptoms of ? might be stater on the nice but the truners slare not afmid in tare riche triner has had reason becoine so he usually in to of crpedient to changel profession Damoo is thoroughls rire of all the duneers but at t same time he has the kind of confidence in Inmself th malos him feel master of whatever energetic anses mc

·Training the Big Cats
73
Post had the same togEdence. He lived to reture,
tomers abo hne been in the business for many
apt to reach a npe old age fans are sure that, if
dit will be because of a uttle bug rather than a
op has a beautiful sported iropard named Songs,
a ked Damoo once a kether, despite the fact that he
itus or eated, and he kacks that he cannot trust
'Flow, ther," I asked bim, "do you protect yoursell
tn rou do this trick?
"Z roa ni' natch me carefalls" sad Damoo, "you will
that some days, on the days when Sony is upset. 1
2017 mahni
il this makes your blood run cold or bring duck bumps
TOLT kon vou utte not born to be an animal trainer
in the stuff ct which successful cat trainers are made
am bel eve x lat they have cas be descloped We are
. b that 825, OC RC are not
Cu trarung is such a fascinating art I nevet mess a
:ce to ratch one of the trainers working bus animals,

·the wo 74 Cucus Doctor successful with this kind of tack because he him. cich quicher and has perfect physical control lle sore how always managed to keep an inch or tiro frame Menaka's Teach When Damoo went into the army, another trainest over the act The new trainer was a very competent, highly intelligent woman The first time she preformed this tut with the panther everything went well until the point which she wanted the animal to stop leaping and go b33 to her perlecua? in his fra woman t and wasn't quite sure of her Instead of stopping absolimo y still, probably afraid that the animal might try anotte lcap, she took still another step back But this was creacions thing to do Menala know this as the cue la jump and she mauled her badly In a mixed group, all the natural jungle pected not only to sit quietly as neighbors, but actuala i come in close contact with each other during many of th! tacks A mixed group trainer has to be good, but acus is sometimes attacked so complete absence of fear on to part of these trainers is sometluing that never fails to amas Tor myself, I can't claim to be thoroughly unconcerned when working on a wild animal On the occasions when I was necessary to work on an animal that 1135 not strained and not unconscious I have had a strange ang in the pit of my stomach and the symptoms of the might be sater on the knee But the trainers dare not by afraid In rare cases where the trainer has had reason become so, he usually has found it expedient to change bi profession Damoo is thoroughly awarc of all the dangers but at th same time he has the lind of confidence itt Besseli tha males him feel master of 1891c1er emergency arises A! enemies are mc

·No text on this page.

·76 Circus Doctor whether it is running through an old act or breaking tł for new tricks Since some of the best trainers in the ut have worked and do work with the show, I have ha chance to study them all at close range There are two kinds of animal men There is a WC of difference between them, although the public usu: is unaware of any distinction The first group are the trainers They take raw animals out of the jungle, bre them, teach them tricks, and perform with them Th are the men like Court, Dhotre, Proshe, Clemens, Matht and a few others Then there are the men who perfo: with animals already broken and trained They simply pcat a given set of signals in order to make the anım. perform One of the most famous of all American "trai ers" belonged to this group He even went so far as employ a man to train his animals for him The Hage beck Zoo in Germany has for many years trained entire ac and then sold them to "trainers" who were actually me performers It is an interesting fact that most cat trainers prefcrt work with jungle raised animals rather than with bottle-fe animals The reason they give is that pet bottle fed animal are pampered when they are babies and are seldom pur ished By the time they get big enough to be dangerous, is too late to start punishing them They are so complete unafraid that even hitting them lightly, which is enous! to bring a young wild animal under control, will only make them savage and bring on an attack Trainers fee if tlicy, themselves, raised an animal on a bottle, thies would be sure to start disciplining it early so the animal would respect them and would respect their orders at a later date. But if the animal had been raised as is a pet, by the time it was six or eight months old it would be much inorc dangerous than a jungle raised animal, be, cause it would have no fear and would only become bitter of then punished for the first time ·Training the Big Cats 77 There are many legends current about the experiences of animal traners, One popular story which has been at uted to any number of trainiers is about the man who Onet attacked by one of his animals, one of the other als then saying his life I have asked a number of iets about thus unukels story and have found none of & e act. Before he got around to replacing him, the lon night struck out at Damoo, npped his arm badly, and, Dimoo stepped back, lunged at lum He knoched 3moo down, and then, Damoa says, another of his lions hich happened to be directly behind him leaped over s fallen body and Lunded on the attacking lion The vo lions started fighting This gare Damoo a chance to og both animals ander control Honeycr, he says cre enn danne that it. day to the detrmat of the trainer, where the other als became excited by the attachung one and all al le the trainer When thus hippetos, the shoe bas on Pre choice and that is to end a replacement for the ܬܝܫ ܐ ܫܫܫܪ ܙܒrrܟ ܫܝܐ 27 13 by due car traucs no doubt get a certain satisfacfurry out of this difficult achiestnent But as for me-lbe opy ring ting is a nice place to visit but I d bite to make a ·76 Circus Doctor whether it is running through an old act or breaking ther for new tricks Since some of the best trainers in the word have worked and do work with the show, I have had chance to study them all at close range There are two kinds of animal men There is a soul of difference between them, although the public usuall is unaware of any distinction The first group are the re: trainers They take raw animals out of the jungle, brea them, teach them tricks, and perform with them. Thes are the men like Court, Dhotrc, Proske, Clemens, Mathie and a few others Then there are the men who perforr. with animals already broken and trained They simply peat a given set of signals in order to make the animal perform One of the most famous of all American "trair. crs" belonged to this group He even went so far as ti employ a man to train his animals for him The Hager beck 700 in Germany has for many years trained entire act and then sold them to "trainers who were actually meri performers It is an interesting fact that most at trainers prefer to work with jungle raised animals rather than with bottle for animals The reason they give is tliat pet bottle fed animal are pampered when they are babies and are seldom pun ashed By the time they get big enough to be dangerous," m They are so completely n lightly, which is cnougi under control, will only make them savage and bring on an attack Trainers fec af they, themsches, raised an animal on a bottle, they would be sure to start disciplining it early so the anima would respect them and would respect their orders at : later date. But if the animal had been raised as is a pet by the time it was sit or eight months old it would be much more dangerous than a jungle raised animal, be cause it would have no fear and would only becomc bitter if then punished for the first time ·This Won't Hurt Mſuch ? caperitace of this kind in school time nint 11 carcase me anth 79 be wwww 10 come up with lions, elop sues, and bears Back in my cirtus initiation period, we had an old lion ramod Samba. He was past his performing days and was i wg out his years in the menagerie Never having done kenys dentistry on a wild animal, 1 somehow had the con Edert feeling that perhaps, if I hved a very good life, I rould never hne to But Samba didn't knon about my "onfidence and he wasnt a judge of how lives were lived le was just an old lion having a lot of trouble eating The keeper called me over one day, to ask me to watch 10 way this lion fed Sarnba would tear off a piece of meat savagely, and then chew, and chew, and chew He cerned never to finish one bite of meat I watched hun or a while and then realized that apparently the theat was tacking back m his molars It couldn't possibly stick there J'ess those teeth were in very bad shape There was only e thing to do check those teeth We ran Samba into a squeeze cage and gave him a nall injection of Nembutal (For a short operation like s, there was no point in keeping him asleep for eight or a or ta clve hours ) I gave him just enough Nembutal til he went down and his jaw's were related I or the next uple of hours he could do me no harm This was all the ne I needed to fix him up The menagene superintendent hclped me put him on operating table to examine hım Two of his louco Lars CTC very badly Totted They were broken and so ayed they had almost caseins in the Extracting a i's tooth isn't too much different from cytracting a un tooth The gurn is broken away from the tooth, tooth is loosench then extracted The only difficulty ·CIIAPTER VII This Won't l'urt Nſuch MY PASSIONATE DISLIKE of dentistry started in veterinar schoo} Onc day an old Negro fammer brought a horse or to us and offered him for sale for one dollar Some of !! horses that these poor farmers bring in at the end of tt scason are old, some are very old It had been many year? şince tlus horse had been very old Only once since the harc I seen anything so decrepit and that was a horse thua a farmer in Ohio tned to sell me as the circus was passing through Old as this horse was the school bought him and the students embarked on a campaign to return him to health if not to youth I volunteered to tale over at his dentistry because extraction is very casy in an old horse and I thought I would be getting away with something I was He had two bad teeth in the back of hus mouth I re moved my shirt and went to work with real enthusiasm certain that I remembered all my lessons in dentistry This was an easy job The boys who were assigned to the rest of luis anatomy were really going to have tough going Though I established some kind of school record for tracting two teeth in a minimum length of time, for the rest of my years in vet school, it was impossible to IAT down the fact that one of the teeth I pulled happened to be the wrong one Like Inost lids, I hated going to the dentist-may be more than most lids, because I had to go more often than most A dislike for dentists to us 18 .al

·Th.s l'ont flurt Murch
81
hente, such as curs As a result, tooth decay
Iconexistent n horses
sco hare other tooth troubles Blind tooth is cot
102 Ths is a case of two alternate teeth groning
together that the middle tooth has no room to
3. When it doesn't it simply grows backwards
St pushes its way upward until it causes senous
standard method for treating blind tooth is not
d bit, until you reach the root of the offending
Then, with a little dental punch, you simply knock
ith back into the mouth, and then pack the sound
is always been interesting to me to note an animal's
to pain Take the hone-this wound I have de
It Is Dearly healed, 1 charge the packing and umgate
u would expect that the tissues would be sensitive
t to some extent. Iet I can't recall a single case of
"e seemng to mind m the least thus daily changing
to, ad escu probing to determine the condition of
ocnd.
tracts a horse's tooth becomes easier as the horse
soller As a horse ages, his teeth become longer, and
's do the root becomes shortet Horses frequently
1 ore teeth These are extremely easy to extract The
5 nally splt their teeth, but this, too, cuses ro
le escort to the horse

·look at Es 80 Curcus Doctor is that the root of a lion's tooth extends into the gum fot about an inch and a half and it is ticklish to make sure the entire tooth comes out without breaking off and leaving onlinter of root to cause future infection Ima mre This 12 it to be ngh! Once Samba au oke, I WOULUI mouth to check its condition each day While working ! explained each step to the menagerie superintendent a to it seemed, had never witnessed any but the most routine work on any of his animals and was fascinated by this phy cedure Ile asked questions continuously and I found that my answers helped clanfy my own thinking, as wel his We took the teeth out and packed the gums few minutes we changed the packing Meanwhile, it ** a good chance to study the rest of Samba's mouth inds this was all pretty new to me, too We both must have lost track of the time That is the only way I can explain it for, while I was pointing of something in the lion's mouth, his jaws, which fiad hanging loose under the anesthetic, suddenly snappet" Tianlah We both reacted instant wc slid lum back ır" iter, Samba was sch also dripping wet When Samba woke up, he was on a cheap drunk which is the normal result of taking Nembutal as an ancsthetic We put him back into his cage, and after stags around for a while he lay down and went into a no slecp Wien he awoke he was not only eating normall but was much healthier and active than he had been i months Considering the trouble they giảc otherwise, liorses a: not too prone to tooth trouble Tieir tecth almost novi decay I l131e a rather obvious thicory that it is because horse's tooth 15 a very solid bone formation, not •

·This too't Hot Voch
T3 As a adxuc, mal maakond, gently touches
blants' tasks cause coabasal trouble. We have found
5to say cá tak, because elephants do Esht
Isten elephant Ezhits, she would be quite capable
pas opposed to shreds with those sharp fisks
area thonch the task has been cut off, frequently an
Eat I breat #fst romars. The problem then is to
ya kcal aasthesis, then pick out as many fragments
the test is can be found in order to prevent infection
n
1
www wwcate the arerage length of the root of the
es about Efteen maches The wall of the tusk at the
y and is nearly as thin as an eashell
We had a Russan bear m an act. One das the trainer
bus wife stopped me on the path to the hospital to ask
ta ule a look at the bear He was eating poorls, they
me and there a tre signs of widness in that was
mue a very gentle anımal (The "gentle'178 theirs,
* Cenlleness is something bears are not noted for
es, may be But not kindness)
Ile walked into the cage The trainer and his wife
Harght on purposefully, and I couldn't do anything
bolor sithout making an issue of it The trainct
the bear's head and his wife held the animals mouth
162. Then they looked at me and both assured me I
Urock unmolested and safely
***ys almost like a close toutine I was more than a
cdnl Athoshi ha

·1 SAA 82 Circus Doctor watch how he eats and also how he digests his food II bath functions are normal, the chances are that the horses teeth are all night Once a year, I examine all the horses for rough teeth Parle is that their upper mol's utside and their lona molars on the iSTUL w Jubbed points are painful as the horse chews his food. The treatment here is ver simple I simply prop his mouth open with an instrument made for the purpose and “Roat" luis teeth The Roal D an instrument which looks like a wood rasp, the operation as simply a matter of filing the teeth down until their points are dull I have seen dogs with beautiful inlays and very care fully designed fillings My own hunch is that this is dor: largely for show, or perhaps for practice Nerer in my perience has it been necessary to fill a dog's tooth Hi teeth are esther healthy or they are split or broken 174 have to be extracted Although elephants have teeth, they seldom mus trouble an elephant has enormous molars Cach tooth i as big as the palm of a man's hand I had to pull oncong but the tooth vas iery loose Since my knees a: cre precisel in the same condition, it was lucky that some carch tugging with a long handled pair of extractors lifted th tooth effortlessly I should not relish the job of pulling tight molar, but thanks to clephant ingenuity and inteli gence, I very likely may be spared an clepliant, wlien sl is troubled by a tooth, will pull it herself i have watch the operation and it is amazing She puts her head dow until she can grasp her foot chain in her mouth Thci sorking the chain back to and under thc offending toot! she jerks her head back and knocks the tooth out Some tines she has to try several times bcforc thic tooth gue but she keeps trying Tliere isn't as much crying one

·This Won't Ilut Viixch
S3
:32 abra a doctor, a) innoceace, gently touches
s'tasks cute continual trouble. We have fouad
1.
.!.
lllente da Cal
on though the task has beca cut ob, frequentis an
at it break what remains. The probleon then us to
the ima u hollox and the wall gets thinner and
nu that
chad a Rossuan bear in an act. One day the traine
Es wife stopped me on the path to the hospital to ask
to take a look at the bear ile was eating poorly, they
101, and there were signs of wildness in what was
2 a very gentle anitial (The "gentle was theurs,
at Centleness is something bears are not noted for
Tere, trzy bc. Bat not kindness.)
We walked into the cage The trainer and his wife
and right in purposefully, and I couldn't do anything
fon rithout making an issue of at The trainer
the has had and
7
1
HUWW Wb.
Allt i base no particular ambition to

·82 Circus Doctor - watch how he cats and also how he digests his foot both functions are normal, the chances are that the home teeth are all nght Once a year, I examine all the horses for tough teet One thing that happens regularly is that their upper mols develop jagged comers on the outside and their loir molars on the inside These jagged points are painful : the horse chews his food The treatment here as 10 simple I sinp made for the an instrument is simply a matter of filing the teeth down until the points are dull I have seen dogs with beautiful inlay's and very car fully designed fillings My own bunch is that this as dor. largely for shon, or perhaps for practice Nerer in my s perience has at been necessary to fill a dog's tooth II tccth are eather healthy or they are split or brolen an have to be extracted Although elephants have tecth, they seldom caus trouble An elephant has enormous molars Each tooth as big as the palm of a man's hand I had to pull oncorde but the tooth was very loose. Since my knees were precisel in the same condition, it was lucky that some carefu tugging with a long handled pair of extractors lifted th: tooth effortlessly I should not relish the job of pulling: tight molar, but thanks to elephant ingenuity and intelli gence, I cry likely may be spared an elephant, when she is troubled by a tooth, will pull it herself I have notched the operation and it is amazıng She puts her head down until she can grasp her foot chain in her mouth Then working the chain back to and under the offending tooth, she jerks liet had back and knocks the tooth out Some times she has to try seseral times before the tooth gncs, but she lecps trying There isn't as much crying and 1 ·83 This Won't Hurt Aluch mping as aled a doctor, in all innocence, gently touches Chepluonts' tusks cause continual trouble. We have found desirable to saw off tusks, because elephants do fight, 3-1. cphant will break «bat remains The problem then is to ply a local anesthes:3, then pick out as many fragments the tusk as can be found in order to prevent infection. + 1.. lithin the gum is hollow and the wall gets thinner and Lunct as the tusk extends inward This structure is sunilar b that of a cou's hom Mly post morteints on several Sephants mdicate the average length of the root of the zak is about Siteca inches. The wall of the tusk at the rety and is nearly as thun 39 an eggshe}} th, JHU these were signs of wildness in what was otherwisc a cty gentle animal (The "gentle' was theirs, Dot mue Centimat cermath L