People enjoy spending time with animals, we tamed them, turned them into pets and in many cases also rely on them. Since the beginning of time animals are part of our lives. We train them how to ‘behave’ and do little tricks. It's fun to do and many people enjoy the experience, which is why animal taming and training has been around for longer than we can accurately trace back.

Although the majority of animals performing tricks were never in circuses, animal acts would often have been the highlight of many circus shows.

One of the first animals that were tamed were wolves for the use of hunting down other animals for food. Wolves were useful to us because of their loyalty and their ability to hunt in groups like our ancestors did. The taming and domesticating for the purpose of entertainment had yet a long way to go. After the wolves, it was mainly herding animals that were tamed, which nomads used as food resources, which once again, was only for the purpose of using the animal for it’s resources and practical uses. (http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/plaintexthistories.asp?historyid=ab57) The type of taming and training we know today only has a purpose once communities were there and it was possible to make money of the business or to have enough money for keeping animals for fun.

The step from using animals for their recourses and practical uses, to using them as entertainment was a long run as they first had to be domesticated in the first place. Scientists don’t agree on exactly what time in the past dogs started become a part of the human pacs, however, we do know that it is a part of human domestication aswell. We, people, humans, are not like wild animals, we have agriculture and we have domesticated other animals. So the start of our domestication also meant the start of the domestication of other animals.

One of the earliest forms of animal entertainment was watching animals fight to death or close to it. This was also known in the Circus of ancient Rome. The circus in ancient Rome consisted of a large tribune, mostly like a hill or such around the ‘stage’ where wild animals would fight each other or humans to death. Of course this also existed small scale and also still exists illegally today with species such as bulldogs, cocks and even spiders. In the big arena’s, they used wild animals which is what made the games interesting for the audience, as well as the violence. In this case, the animals were not tamed, to increase the tension and violence in the ‘games’ using the animal's natural instincts.

The circuses were also used for other ‘fun’ activities, such as chariot races using horses. As it is also done nowadays, often, the horses would be bred especially for the races meaning that it was worth the effort for the money that could be earned. Races are still quite common nowadays, however they are usually not used at religious festivals as they used to.(http://www.mariamilani.com/ancient_rome/Ancient_Roman_Chariot_Races.htm)

After making animals fight, something like the modern day zoo came to existence, called menagerie. People started attracting audiences purely by showing exotic animals to them, which were almost always in a terrible state and lived to an average age of two years.(http://www.libraryindex.com/pages/2189/Entertainment-Animals-HISTORY.html) After the success of the business, some entrapeneurs started traveling around with their menageries, creating the traveling circus principle and by the end of the 18th century, menageries were renamed as circuses. Of course, Europe is not the only place using exotic animals to make money in those days, it is believed the aztecs and others were already ahead of the Europeans.

One of the earliest well known menageries was established by King Henry the first in the 11th century. Quite a while after Ancient Rome’s circuses.

By the start of the 1900s, theatrical acts were added to the circuses e.g., jugglers, dancers, singers, comedians. Even in these more ‘developed’ circuses, animals were still treated badly often to create a dominance over an animal. Animals would be starved, separated from others and also physically wounded. This type of activity sadly also sometimes appears today. Moving from a menagerie to a circus was a slight change for animals, as they now had to do more than be present. Making tricks and walking up on a stage required a lot more effort and money to do for the entrepreneurs, also resulting in more audiences, as the variety of acts had increased. Sadly, this probably also increased the punishments for the animals as there was more demanded of them.

Training animals is can be a tricky business, especially when it comes to wild and exodic or simly big animals like big cats or elephants. On the whole, there are two types of animal training, the traditional and the modern way of training animals.

The traditional method:

The traditional method is still used in many places around the world to train animals nowadays, though it has become a lot less common in circuses due to the attention brought to it over the last few years. When training an animal the traditional way, it means to punish the animal for the things it does wrong and forcing it to do what the trainer wants. This makes the trainer dominant over the animal and tells the animal to do what is wanted from it out of fear of punishment.

The modern method:

Most modern animal trainers use the modern method of training animals as it creates a positive bond between the animal and the trainer. It focuses on rewarding good behaviour that the animal performs as oppose to punishing bad behaviour. It is a lot more peaceful, humane and won’t create aggression against the trainer, reducing the chance of an attack on the trainer.

Often the animals will be kept in cages too small for them and be trained with harsh punishments. Apart from this, animals, like tigers and elephants can also be a danger for the trainers and therefore also the audience. At several occasions the animals attacked the trainers, e.g. Tyke the elephant in 1994.

Tyke elephant outlaw: (documentation on netflix) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfQGrNV81gU

The documentation about tyke the elephant, also indicates that there are many different ways of handling animals, (in this case elephants) and  depending on the circus different methods are used.

With elephants, many people believed they would not be dangerous as long as they were scared of the people, leading to a lot of beating. It was also stated that many people liked being in control of such a large animal and making it do what they demand, rather than actually working with the animal in a peaceful manner.

http://themoonlitroad.com/murderous-mary/

The audience's respect for the animals in shows has also changed. This is evident when comparing the two different elephant cases of Tyke and Mary (both elephants). Mary was an elephant in the show business at the beginning of the 20th century. She was publicly hanged after having killed her trainer backstage.

After Tyke had killed her trainer on stage (1994) and escaped the circus tent, she was chased around the city and people rather would have put her back in a cage than to kill her. Unfortunately, this was not an option and many people on the streets were shocked and sad about the death of the elephant that was shot on the streets. She even has a grave you can still visit today. This shows how people prefer to treat animals in a humane way and feel like they have a bond  and responsibility towards them.

Audiences seem to have always be fascinated with wild animals performing tricks. Due to a recent movement against the unnatural keeping of these wild animals in circuses, the majority of the audiences don’t. Recently there has been a major push against the keeping of animals in circuses because of the way they are kept and often treated. Many videos have been published showing the behaviour of trainers towards the performing animals, causing an outrage against keeping animals in circuses.

Many countries in have changed the law and made the keeping of animals in circuses illegal in their countries. Even if there it is known that some circuses treat their animals correctly, it is impossible with all the traveling, to provide enough space and peace for the animals at all times. (https://www.animallaw.info/article/animals-circuses-and-laws-governing-them)

There is a lot of proof that animals in circuses are generally treated better and trained in a more modern way which does not involve severe punishment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fD7pZYMpoI