And Now I Work With Dogs

Before I was a dog trainer, I was an entertainer… And during my apprentice years of entertaining, I was a circus performer. 

Ringling trained, I performed with the Ringling Bros. Thrill Circus in Montreal, Circus Fantasy at Disneyland in California, The China International Children’s Festival, and Magic Land in Bangkok, Thailand. But the place where I really honed my craft was the Royal Lichtenstein 1/4 Ring Circus. We were a small circus, with only 5 members, so we all were involved in every aspect of the show.

It was the most fun I’ve ever had, and the hardest I’ve ever worked in my life. The show was made up of acrobatics, juggling and unicycling, aerial acts and wire walking, story telling and magic. We worked seven days a week, in a different town every day. When we weren’t performing in the ring, we were moving props, setting up for the next act, spotting for an aerial act, or getting animals ready. It was a busy high energy show, and there was never time to sit down until after we bid the audience farewell.

The animals we worked with were two dogs, a macaw, two monkeys, a miniature horse and a bear. Nick Weber (the circus boss) was the animal trainer and worked the animals in the ring. The animals were trained with positive reinforcement, and were treated (in and out of the ring) like stars. They all seemed to love performing and getting the rewards of the crowd’s cheers as much as we did.

Though Nick was leading the animals in the ring, we human performers were always moving and setting up their props, and leading them / carrying them in and out of the ring, so the show could flow and the animals weren’t distracted by pauses in the action.

Our bear was a Himalayan Black Bear named Jill, and during her act, one of my jobs was to roll her barrel out into the ring and up to her platform just as Nick had her facing him, taking a treat. She would then turn around, see me and the barrel there, step onto the barrel and walk on it, rolling it over to the platform on the other side of the ring. There was no cage, no muzzle. She was just working in our small ring, with hundreds of audience members seated two feet outside the ring curb. Was this totally crazy and dangerous? Looking back… probably.

One day, while doing an outside show at East LA City College in Los Angeles, I pushed the barrel up to Jill the Bear’s stand, and when she turned she pushed the barrel away. I put it back, and she pushed it away again. Maybe she was just having a bad day, and didn’t feel like walking on it. I put it back. She turned to face me, and I turned to face her… and we looked into each others eyes, and she she swatted me across the head.

Her giant left paw hit me so fast, that I had no time to move. It was fast, and she hit me hard. 

Knowing that she was upset, and was not going to cooperate or maybe even finish the act, I stood and backed up. I knew that if she panicked, that she would head back behind the backdrop to her backstage crate, where she would feel safe. It was my responsibility to be there and open the canvas curtain, let her into the backyard area and the crate, and close and latch the door. If no one was there to open the curtain, she might head the other way into the audience… 

So I backed up and stepped through the opening in the canvas and looked out through the peephole. Sure enough, not 10 seconds later she was headed for the backstage area. I opened the curtain for her, opened her door and let her into her crate.

Nick was right behind her. He looked at me and asked, “Are you okay?”

I said, “Yeah, I’m fine.” 

He looked down at my costume and said, “You’re not fine.” 

I looked down to see that I was covered in blood. Jill had sliced open my head - just above the right ear - when she hit me. 

“Go and find the infirmary, and we’ll try to finish the show without you.” 

“Okay,” I told him and left through the back entrance of the backyard area.

So I was walking through this city campus, dressed as a clown, holding my hand against my head to stop the bleeding, and asking students (who didn’t even know about the circus), “Excuse me, can you tell me where the infirmary is?”

I’d get a worried, panicked look from the kids, who would then completely change their attitude and say, “Awww man, that’s sick…” and walk away, thinking it was some kind of evil clown prank. This happened two or three times, until one of them finally directed me to the campus infirmary. 

I ran in through the infirmary door and up to one of the doctors. “What happened to YOU?” she asked. 

“I got attacked by a bear.”

She stood and looked at me. I’d just run into her office, dressed as a clown, covered in blood and told her I’d gotten attacked by a bear. Right in the middle of the city of Los Angeles.  

“Okay, get up on the table,” she told me, and reached for the needle and sutures…

The doc cleaned me up, stitched me up, and told me to check in with my regular doctor within a week to remove the stitches. Jill got the next day off as a health and wellness day. I was given the choice as to whether I wanted to continue to work with her, and I said yes, of course. 

And now I work with dogs.