The Lee County journal. (Leesburg, Ga.) 1904-19??, 1907-11-01
ANIMAL TRAITS.
An Old Horses Gratitude
Memory in Wild Animals.


horse trainer--he must have been a
new one-who. among other things,
sifted out the statement that the
horse possesses neither initiative,
memory nor gratitude, remarked a
veteran animal man in charge OF the
horses of a show that passed through
Washington recently.
Maybe that chap meant the carpen-
ters horse-he must have. He
couldn't be horse trainer and have
made that kind Of a crack about the
sure enough live horse.
Down in Athens, Ca, the other
day a little thing happened that prov
ed, If 1t needed to be proved, that the
horse sure does possess all three of
the traits which this maybe horse
trainer said the horse lacked.
One of our old time draught
horses-he's been touring with cir
cuses so long that lie liked the taste
of the left over pink lemonade-had
wrenched his shoulder in an uphill
pull in South Carolina a couple Of
weeks before, and he was still on the
hospital list when we struck Athens.
His driver, a hard nut that we picked
up somewhere out in Kansas, had
passed up the sleeps that were com
ing to him to take care of the injured
horse, applying liniments and hot
cloths to the old nag's torn shoulder,
and, in his gruff way, petting and
soothing the suffering old beast.
While the afternoon show was on
in Athens the driver got in to a mix
up with soused tentman 1t was a
pretty hot hst thing between the two,
with honors about even, both being
hard. knotty men. Then the GONZALES
cent old horse got in, and in less than
a minute there was nothing to it. The
back of wagon, munching, and the
scrap wasn't more than ten feet away
from him. He was used to scraps,
and when it began he raised his head
to look it over in an idle sort of way.
But the instant that he saw his
driver and pal, the hard man from
Kansas, who had been nursing his bad
shoulder, was one Of the mixers, he
got busy, He broke the halter strap
with one jerk of his head, bounded
over to where the punchfest was COM
ing off, wheeled around so as TO get
his heels to it, and then he deposited
as swift brace Of heels right in the
pit Of the stomach of the man hitting
at his nurse as you'd want to see.
THE man went down like a salt
cod, but even then 1t was all that
half dozen of the hands could do to
keep the angry old horse from sayag-
ing the fallen man with his teeth and
fore feet. And he's an old horse at
that, that was never before known to
use his heels in the way Of buck. A
few minutes later he was beaming
upon his driver pal and Tipping and
nuzzling his hickory shirt. They were
sure enough pals, those two. We had
to leave the man that he kicked in
the Athens hospital. | guess maybe
that old work horse didn't show, that
afternoon that he possessed initiative
memory and gratitude.
IF there's any one thing that all
animals, wild and domestic, from the
weasel to the white elephants have
got, it's memory Not all of them
are grateful. But they all remember.
Their memory works in different ways
"The cats, for example, remember
an injury great deal longer than
they do kindness. All cats are re-
yengeful, and they've got to have mem
cries to be that. One injury inflicted
by keeper will cause cat--lion,
tiger, leopard. panther-to forget
years of kindness and care on the part
of the keeper. Instead of being suf-
fciently grateful for past kindness to
call the account square after the in
Jury the cat passes up the remem-
brance of all of the Kindness and de-
cides to get hunk for the one injury.
eve had a case of that kind in our
show not long ago. The boss cat
man was breaking in a new cat hand
who aspired to be an exhibition cage
trainer The new man accidentally
ftcked the big leopard, which he was
irving to get the training mastery Of,
in the eye with his whip.
"The leopard hoped him and was
about to claw him apart when the boss
cat man, who was outside the cage,
stuck pair of red hot pole irons
through the cage bars and let the snar-
ling leopard have them in about half
a dozen parts of his hide at once.
The leopard curled UP ut that and
sneaked to a corner of his cage, while
the new cat man skunk out of the cage,
pretty glad to slam the door behind
him