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Last updated on August 9th, 2017 at 07:36 am
You know, if these Animal Olympics were widely broadcast, they’d probably out-rate the regular Olympics.
- I say we parachute in Lancelot Link, Secret Squirrel, and Morocco Mole to investigate the situtation further.Posted by Ed Driscoll on 2006 09 30 at 01:39 PM • permalink
- The things these animals are being made to do are not natural acts, and there will no doubt be cruelty involved in making them perform these tricks.
The assumption that cruelty is involved is not justified. It might be, but good trainers don’t use it, nor is it effective. Instead, they go a great distance to meet the animal.
- My guess is that cruelty is probably involved in the training of these animals. It can’t be presumed, but there would be clear evidence of “reward” training I suggest, had it been used.
We should avoid hypocrisy here. The “boxing kangaroo” is an Australian invention and no doubt there are old Movietone films still around of the famous sideshow attraction. You do not have to go back to Henry VIII for bears and chimps riding bicycles and orang hutans in chains drinking beer at the bar of country pubs. A few decades will do.
And yes Tim, I agree this would probably out-rate the regular Olympics. But then again so would a live execution.
- Chimpanzees are forced to play basketball
The horror. The horror.
With all the human rights abuses going on in China, these people get their dander up about a few trained animals?
Posted by Bruce Rheinstein on 2006 09 30 at 03:37 PM • permalink
- Aw, you’re all just a bunch of speciests.Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2006 09 30 at 04:05 PM • permalink
- “There’s much more available to a trainer than psych 101.”
I have a dog. There used to be two. Dachshunds. One died recently despite a 100 kilometre dash to the closest specialist animal hospital and a six hour($7000) operation.
The one left? There has been no training involved at all. None whatsoever. I do everything he commands without having received any silly rote learning. I always have.
- There’d better not be any rabbits involved.
As for the regular olympics, I say ban drug testing! Let’s have a chemical free-for-all and breed five-legged sprinters and three-arme javelin throwers.
That’ll revive interest in ‘em.Posted by Crusader rabbit on 2006 09 30 at 06:01 PM • permalink
- grr..“armed”Posted by Crusader rabbit on 2006 09 30 at 06:02 PM • permalink
- I do everything he commands without having received any silly rote learning.
Actually the rote learning is an outline, often leading to an occupation with much discretion on the part of the dog.
The have a strong drive towards cooperation, if you hold up your end ; showing you take what you’re asking the dog to do as seriously as you’re asking him to is most of the game.
It appears to onlookers that you’re just showing him what you want him to do, and requiring it.
Actually you’re answering questions. “Surely he can’t expect me to sit next to a fence!’’ Answer, yes I do. And so forth down a list of questions about applicability of a rule, until the dog satisfies himself about it.
Far from repeating what he’s been taught, he questions every aspect of it.
If it happens to suit him, like an at-liberty retrieve of a sock dropped in a large field, he can’t wait for his next opportunity ; and carries the found sock around the house for a couple of days, just remembering it.
There’s practically no rote learning in dog training.
It’s quite far from psych 101’s operant conditioning. For instance, this kind of dog training doesn’t work on cats.
So anyway PETA notices my Doberman walking at heel on no leash, sitting when I stop, getting up when I go, and thinks: “Poor dog!’‘
Annie in the meantime thinks : “I am the sort of dog who has no trouble walking on heel,’’ and passes up no opportunity to “go for a walk.’‘
Susie story : We were doing drop-on-recall’s in the town square, where there were lots of distractions so it was good for practice.
I leave Susie on a sit-stay at one end of the block, and walk to the other end; she watching me. I signal a “come.’’ She runs towards me. Halfway there, I signal a “drop.’’ She drops to the sidewalk, and resumes the “come’’ on another come-signal.
As it happens, as I turn at the other end of the block, a guy comes up to Susie and kicks at her, apparently offended by the unattended dog.
Susie gets up (breaking her sit-stay) to avoid the kick, and walks towards me. I meet her halfway, and “heel’’ her back to the sit stay, giving a new command for it.
What has happened?
She took a guess that when kicked at, she didn’t have to hold a sit-stay. But she asked me about it, by walking up to me for a correction, if a correction there was to be.
Now, suppose there was some reason for her to hold a sit-stay in spite of being kicked at, say she’s training to be a police dog that has to hold position for some reason. Then I’d grab her collar and haul her back to her sit-stay, and leave her there _without giving another command_. And she’d accept that, the rule being you have to hold even if kicked at.
There being no such reason, my heeling her back and giving a new sit-stay command told her that she’s responsible for her own safety when I’m not right there with her.
Hardly rote learning.
It’s a Q&A.
This is standard stuff (Koehler); for wild animals the trainer has to go much further towards the animal, and he’s on his own. It’s pretty creative
- “…it was a fine partnership between man and beast”
That was not the pigeon’s view of it, one assumes.Posted by Crusader rabbit on 2006 09 30 at 06:17 PM • permalink
- Oh. Thanks Ric, I feel much better now.Posted by Crusader rabbit on 2006 09 30 at 06:30 PM • permalink
- Bah-who cares about Chimp basketball or Kangaroo boxing? If you want quality animal entertainment, you can’t go wrong with Jack Russell Terrier racing.
- The Animal Olympics will spur Americans to a jingoistic, national frenzy of win-at-all-costs triumphalism.
America’s Sweethearts are no longer just Kerri Strug or Michelle Kwan. We now have a Calico cat named Mrs. Sniggles that lands perfectly on her feet when dropped from a second story window.
Yessssssssssss. Another Gold Medal! I’ve won a Big Mac! USA! USA! USA! Take that, World.
- #11 I’ll bet those animals are a lot happier in China than they would be in, say, Denmark.Posted by Bruce Rheinstein on 2006 09 30 at 07:08 PM • permalink
- Hmmmm.
Frankly the new DVD issue of Lancelot Link holds far more interest than any Olympics ever has.
Though I’m intrigued by the Live Pigeon Shoot. Not so much for the blood sport aspect but more for the potential hilarity of liberals gone nuts were it to be reconstituted.
Posted by memomachine on 2006 09 30 at 07:10 PM • permalink
- Dad told me an iteresting performing animal story from his youth.
A man had in his display “peking dancing ducks” which was a number of ducks appearing to prance and dance around indide a cage. The cage was metal with a metal floor.
The bloke was banned when it was found out the reason the ducks were “dancing” was the floor of the cage was burning hot.
/trivia offPosted by thefrollickingmole on 2006 09 30 at 09:00 PM • permalink
- But, but, I thought Chicoms were just “progressives in a hurry”. The fact that their urgently “progressive” policies result not only in things like animal exploitation, but also human rights excesses and environmental degradation on a scale unimaginable in the wasteful, decadant West seems to be lost on our own “progressives” as they advocate the same for us.
I mean, chimps forced to play basketball is just wrong. Funny, but wrong.Posted by Vanguard of the Commentariat on 2006 09 30 at 10:16 PM • permalink
- #30 I agree. And, it makes you glad you’re not livestock in Denmark. Just say neigh!Posted by Bruce Rheinstein on 2006 10 01 at 09:51 AM • permalink
- It was the best of times, Rebecca, it was the blurst of times.
Darn it! My helper monkey got at the keyboard again.
Posted by andycanuck on 2006 10 01 at 02:22 PM • permalink
- Animals everywhere are being successfully exploited or have disappeared already.
But embarrassingly, another politically motivated documentary has been screened in cinemas worldwide that suggests there is a revolving-door policy for detainees at the New York Zoo.
The controversial new Disney film has children as young as four wondering how security could become so lax that escaped animals have been found as far abroad as Antarctica, Madagascar and The Wilds of Africa.
Ironically, even when they reach freedom these hapless refugee creatures find that they must struggle for a reason to exist and can eat only vegetables.
There can be no sanctuary, all of Nature will be ours!
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OR these people are merely celebrating their culture! Those Animal Rights people are a bunch of RACISTS!
OR we shouldn’t criticize these animal exploiters; didn’t Henry VIII watch bear-baiting? Don’t we, even today, watch men torture innocent fish on “Bass Catchers,” Sunday afternoons on ESPN2?