Anyone who’s ever owned a cat knows you don’t own a cat. And you don’t train them to do stupid animal tricks, either, like standing on their hind legs while walking backward. It’s not part of the feline character.

That’s even more true of big cats like lions and tigers, who aren’t domestic house pets but wild predators with no inborn impulse to bond with humans or please a two-legged audience.

So circus events like the “Nerger Lion and Tiger Show,” currently running at the Champlain Valley Fair, that feature lords of the jungle doing sit-ups and jumping through flaming hoops require rather drastic training methods, namely, bullying, whips and physical intimidation.

Of course, circus performers say they love their animals and would never abuse them. According to a Burlington Free Press article in yesterday’s paper by Sam Hemingway, “the Nergers … said they do not harm the animals to make them perform.”

“It takes a lot of patience, a lot of treats,” Judit Nerger said as she stood outside the pen of a 3-month-old tiger cub at the fair Friday afternoon, according to Hemingway. “You never mistreat an animal like that. The training methods these days have nothing to do what they did 20 or 25 years ago.”

But unlike the Nergers, pictures don’t lie. To learn the truth, watch a video of Juergen Nerger using whips to control his big cats on YouTube at the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaKrXvgFb9k.

During the performance, the animals do the waltz, snake walk and even play leap frog—not normal feline behaviors, but unnatural acts performed out of fear.

On the McKay Entertainment website that books their shows, the Nergers say they consider their lions and tigers to be like part of their family.

Maybe those would be family members that they whip?