Kinship with all life by John Allen Boone
Author:John Allen Boone [Boone, John Allen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Animals
Publisher: New York, Harper
Published: 1954-07-15T08:00:00+00:00
19. IMPRISONED SPLENDOR
NOW came the crowning achievement in my kinship adventure with Strongheart. He shared a fascinating secret with me, a mystery that had baffled professional dog handlers, Hollywood entertainment producers and countless thousands of his admirers all over the world. This was the mystery: What had been done with Strong-heart behind the scenes so successfully to transform him from a dangerous and difficult-to-manage war dog into an understanding and friendly motion picture star? I did not get the answer to this question from Strongheart all at once but bit by bit as we shared silent talk together.
If you would understand this secret, you must first understand the distinction between training an animal and educating one. Trained animals are relatively easy to turn out. All that is required is a book of instructions, a certain amount of bluff and bluster, something to use for threatening and punishing purposes, and of course the animal. Educating an animal, on the other hand, demands keen intelligence, integrity, imagination and the gentle touch, mentally, vocally and physically.
The most significant difference between training and educating an animal, I learned from Strongheart, lies in the matter of emphasis. It depends on whether one places emphasis on the mental or the physical part of the animal. The conventional trainer, following traditional and rigid patterns, places his emphasis almost entirely on the physical. As long as his animal looks its best and obeys orders promptly, he is satisfied. This method is limiting to the animal and stereotyped in its results.
The conventional trainer starts from a negative premise. He assumes that he is working with a dumb and inferior form of life which even at its best can go only so far in intelligence and accomplishments because of its "limited brain capacity." If he happens to be working with a dog, his primary ambition is so to dominate the animal that it will be completely subservient to him, obey his every command and treat him with idolatrous attention at all times. It is as though he were constantly saying to the dog: "Now don't forget, you down there, that I am your lord and master! So follow and do everything I say, or else!"
Most of the animals that man has used to serve his own selfish ends down through the centuries have been products of this training-without-education system. A minimum of intelligence and a maximum of force are employed in order to compel blind obedience. In professional circles this is known as the "make 'em or break 'em" technique. The animal's resistance is so broken down and its spontaneity and initiative so dulled that it supinely does whatever the trainer demands. With its thinking and natural impulses walled off, it becomes a four-legged slave, submissively serving the moods and whims of the human ego that is playing God to it.
The animal educator does just the reverse of all this. Moving into the situation with insight and intuition, he places full emphasis on the mental rather than on the physical part of the animal.
Download
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.
Beautiful Disaster by McGuire Jamie(24995)
Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh(21010)
Call Me by Your Name by André Aciman(19891)
The Secret History by Donna Tartt(18146)
Cat's cradle by Kurt Vonnegut(14754)
All the Missing Girls by Megan Miranda(14699)
Pimp by Iceberg Slim(13769)
Norse Mythology by Gaiman Neil(12818)
The Tidewater Tales by John Barth(12391)
4 3 2 1: A Novel by Paul Auster(11780)
Scorched Eggs by Childs Laura(11117)
The Break by Marian Keyes(9075)
Adultolescence by Gabbie Hanna(8584)
The remains of the day by Kazuo Ishiguro(8378)
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens(8323)
Never let me go by Kazuo Ishiguro(8304)
All the Light We Cannot See: A Novel by Anthony Doerr(8272)
A Man Called Ove: A Novel by Fredrik Backman(8177)
Circe by Madeline Miller(7812)
