you understand each other. Caress him softly. Don't make
a dash at him. Say pleasant things to him. Be gentle; but at the same
time you must be _master_." That is a good basis. And then he teaches
one thing at a time, a simple thing, and waits a good while before
he brings forward another; does not perplex or puzzle the pupil by
anything else till that is learned, and some of the first words are
"come," "stand," "remain."
What a horse has once learned he never or seldom forgets. Mr.
Bartholomew thinks it is not as has sometimes been said, because a
horse has a memory stronger than a man, "but because he has fewer
things to learn. A man sees a million things. A horse's mind cannot
accommodate what a man's can, so those things he knows have a better
chance. Those few things he fixes. His memory fastens on them. I once
had a pony I had trained, which was afterwards gone from me three
years. At the end of that time I was in California exhibiting, and saw
a boy on the pony. I tried to buy him, but the boy who had owned him
all that time, refused to part with him; however, I offered such a
price that I got him, and that same evening I took him into the tent
and thought I would see what he remembered. He went through all his
old tricks (besides a few I had myself forgotten) except one. He could
not manage walking on his hind feet the distance he used to. Another
time I had a trained horse stolen from me by the Indians, and he was
off in the wilds with them a year and a half. One day, in a little
village--that was in California too--I saw him and knew him, and the
horse knew me. I went up to the Indian who had him and said, 'That is
my horse, and I can prove it.' Out there a stolen horse, no matter how
many times he has changed hands, is given up, if the owner can prove
it. The Indian said, 'If you can, you shall have him, but you won't
do it.' I said, 'I will try him in four things; I will ask him to trot
three times around a circle, to lie down, to sit up, and to bring me
my handkerchief. If he is my horse, he will do it.' The Indian said,
'You shall have him if he does, but he won't!' By this time a crowd
had got together. We put the horse in an enclosure, he did as he was
told, and I had him back."
Mr. Bartholomew said, "My motto in educating them is, 'Make haste
slowly;' I never require too much, and I never ask a horse to do what
he _can't_ do. That is of no use. A horse _can't_ learn what horses
are not capable of l
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