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Saturday, March 3, 2001

Trainer excels with unusual cat act

By LYNN BULMAHN
NEWS-JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

DELAND — Cats are difficult. Cats rule their owners. Cats do exactly what they want, when they want. And you just can't train them.

Anyone who believes all that hasn't seen the cats Svetlana Shamshecva puts through paces at the Clyde Beatty-Cole Bros. Circus.

Not lions. Not tigers.

Housecats.

Or, in the flowery language of circus ringmasters, those "famously fastidious and felonious felines."

Under Shamshecva's direction, they're real pussycats. And, they turn out a purrrr-fect performance.

How does she do it? Is she a magician? An animal hypnotist?

No. She's actually a dog lover. In fact, the Russian-born performer first developed her animal-training talent with canines.

Therefore, she said, "I think about a cat like it's a dog."

"A cat needs a little bit more time to think and understand," Shamshecva said. "You have to give them a little bit more love than a dog."

That's especially true at the start. "A dog trusts you right away, but a cat holds back and waits," the trainer said. "It wants to know what you are going to do with it. A cat needs more and more love."

Love for these cats consists, in part, of chicken flavored treats.

Shamshecva is a circus veteran. She's performed in the Soviet Union, where she trained for the circus, and in South Africa before coming to the United States. She's done so many shows that she has had her eye makeup and lipliner tattooed on -- a big timesaver for someone who does two different acts each circus performance.

Floridians will be able to see Shamshecva and her animals at the Clyde Beatty-Cole Bros. Circus, performing in DeLand on March 14 and 15. Her first time in the ring, she puts her cats and birds through their paces. Her performance in the second act features her trained dogs.

The birds do not have their wings clipped -- and can fly away. They are trained not to want to. Because it spoils the act to have even one feather out of place or missing, bird handlers wear special white gloves. Shamshecva said it takes 40 days for a single bird feather to grow back in. She likes the birds to fly to her during her act. It makes the performance more spectacular.

Shamshecva only recently moved her entourage -- a dozen cats, 11 dogs, 65 birds and two camping trailers -- to the circus' winter quarters here in DeLand. Her act just finished the rounds with Ringling Brothers Circus.

"The small trailer there is where she lives," said circus senior marketing director Chuck Werner. "The big trailer is for her animals."

So do cats make good roommates for birds?

"Oh, the cats think Svetlana crazy," she laughs. "They think she is friends with stupid birds."

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