Nobody said anything. Once in a while, we’d turn ’em loose at the end of the day and Connie would follow the other elephant wherever she went. And we’d take, drove them back, back up, up the hill, back up to their trailer. About somewhere along about July 15, I… Read More
And, “She can’t get her. She can’t nurse. It’s an Asian elephant doing rides,” and Connie was an African elephant. Two totally different species. And the public right away, “It’s mother and baby.” So I bought a heavy nylon leash the same length as the chain. Used the leash to… Read More
We took her in, up, and had to hire an elephant trucker to move the elephant from?… Read More
From?… Read More
Hawthorn. Hawthorn Corporation was Cuneo’s. Hawthorn Corp, yeah. From Cuneo’s to Omaha. I met her at Omaha. She and Connie loved each other instantly. I led Connie. You have to see the Omaha Zoo. Read More
We got a hold of Liz?… Read More
Tom was invited to come to Circus Vargas, and he went to Circus Vargas. Read More
Is it Liz or Debbie? I can’t remember. Cuneo. We took two of them out from Cuneo’s place, two different ones. Liz was one and I think Debbie was the other one. And I can’t remember that year, whether you had Debbie when Connie watched your rides, that year. I… Read More
with the clowns and they needed a, their elephants were out on the road, and they needed an elephant that was manageable enough to stand with strangers, the clowns. He took her over there, and they made the commercial, and then came back. Yeah, anyway. He was booked into Omaha… Read More
And this was 1989, right?… Read More
I’m not sure. Well, I’m pretty sure. Going by the age of Connie, we had Connie about a year by then, ’89. And we went ahead. We used Connie at a Circus Days celebration in Sarasota. We could truck her around and use her for being an elephant. We still… Read More
You couldn’t even get to come up to a platform with somebody standing on the platform. And it was at this point Tom was booked in to Omaha for the summer with a ride elephant. Somehow, I don’t know how he worked it or who did, who did what to… Read More
Cuneo. That’s what I thought. He decided he would take this giving elephant rides with Liz and went into, into Omaha with her. God almighty, big old truck. It just about made it everywhere it went. He had her here. I don’t remember what he went to Ringling for. You… Read More
All right, she belonged to?… Read More
How’d you develop those, from your experience?… Read More
Yes. Read More
From common sense. We weren’t being rough with ’em. It’s common sense on the part of circus trainers to go well at it. And when the elephant doesn’t do what you expect it to do, knock hell out of it, jab it in the leg with a bull hook. I… Read More
‘Cause she’s costing you money here. Well, you’re constantly training with no end in sight. You can’t handle an elephant without training. It realizes you want something, and it does it. Read More
So when did you decide you had to start training Connie to do something?… Read More
Did you have different training methods that you were saying you thought would work better?… Read More