Читать книгу A Dog’s Best Friend - Jan Fennell - Страница 7

I can’t remember a time in my life when there wasn’t a dog around and somebody trying to train him to do something. For 65 years or so, I have seen professional dog trainers work, watched amateur dog trainers work and observed as Western rancher-type people as they dealt with their canine assistants. I have seen dogs treated with profound brutality and have witnessed partnerships between dog and human that were as close as one could imagine.

In the early 1950’s, I became acquainted with a man who produced contract dog acts as a part of professional rodeos that were conducted throughout the United States. His name was Jay Sisler and he usually had a gang of border collies with one or two retired racing greyhounds thrown in. I recall that he had a few Australian Shepherds and sometimes an Aussie crossed with a border collie.

Jay Sisler loved his dogs and, probably more importantly, his dogs loved him. I recall times when he would work with a half a dozen dogs or so in one session. I would watch as each dog sat with eyes sparkling and feet prancing in place begging for the opportunity to be the next actor on his stage. Jay specialized in offbeat acts where dogs did things that people just didn’t expect to see.

I remember one night in 1955 when Mr. Sisler turned up at a popular old pub-style restaurant near my university. The proprietor knew about Jay and so allowed him to bring two dogs into the saloon portion of the building. I sat and watched as this man sipped a drink at the bar and then would simply say things in a normal tone of voice that he wanted the dogs to do, and, boy, did they do it!

Watching in utter amazement, I saw these dogs interact with one another and with patrons of the establishment. ‘Blue, go to sleep.’ he would say, and Blue would flatten himself in the middle of the saloon. ‘Freddy, take my jacket and cover Blue up. It’s going to get cold.’ And Freddy would do just that. ‘Now, Freddy, find me a pretty girl. Lead her over to have a drink with me.’ And this dog would circle the room and for all the world it seemed to me that he would pick the most attractive female, gently take her hand in his mouth and lead her to Jay’s side.

They walked tight ropes, sat up on one another’s shoulders, the same as trapeze artists would do. They danced and sang, rode horses, and one would even lead a donkey wherever Jay asked him to go. Sisler loved to create a situation where the Sheppard types would form obstacles over which the greyhound would jump, and those greyhounds could jump the moon. People were consistently left mesmerized by the awesome feats that Jay’s dogs could perform.

For me, it was far more how they did it than what they did. I never saw him strike a dog and I never even heard him raise his voice to one. I don’t know how he did his basic training but looking back on it with two doctorates in behavioural sciences I know how to assess that these dogs did it because they wanted to and because they loved to work with and for this man.