To keep the elephants from running away all that the thai’s do is just tie tie a rope (or a single chain) to the elephants leg and secure it to a stake in the ground. Once his leg is secured, he will not run away. Now, do you think the elephant actually has the potential to break the chain or rope if he wanted to? Of course! He can pull down an entire tree!But why won’t he break the weak rope that holds secures his leg? The answer came from the keepers.

It lies in making the elephant “believe” that he “cannot” break the string. This conditioning begins from young. When the elephant is a baby and still too weak to walk or even stand properly, they tie his leg to the stake in the ground. Sure enough when the baby elephant tries to run to its mother, it would not able to break the chains that bind it. When it attempts to run, the chain will catch its leg and it will fall onto the ground. After expriencing all the pain from falling again and again, one day the elephant will not bother to pull the chain any more. The moment this happens, the keepers know that the elephant has been condiitoned to be trapped for the rest of its life.