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Show You Can Easily Have a Trained-Pig- Act All Your Own and Here's How By C. R. COOPER, in " Lions 'n' Tigers 'n' Everything." Likewise the pig which you've seen squealing in the wake of the clown in the circus. The secret? Simply that his hoglets has been taken from his mother at birth and raised on a bottle. His feeding has been timed so that it comes during circus hours. The pig follows the clown because he knows he's going to get a square meal. A pig isn't supposed to have much intelligence. Perhaps he hasn't but you can have a trained-pig act all your own very easily. Simply build a pen leading to a set of stairs which lead in turn to a chute, the chute traveling down into another closely netted enclosure. In this enclosure put a bucket of favorite pig food. Then turn the pigs loose and let them make their own deductions. First of all, the pigs will try to reach the food by going through the netting. That's impossible. So at last they turn to the runway, go up the steps, hesitate a long while, then finally slide down the chute and get what they're after. Then here's the strange part of it: after a week or so, remove the food. The pigs will keep on shooting the chutes just the same. By some strange form of animal reasoning, the pleasure of food has become associated with that exercise of sliding down that incline. |