Friday Tale - the Elephant Story In india elephants are used for manual labor. But there’s a problem. On a building site, when the elephants aren’t working, their handlers need to restrain them. Here’s what they do ... An enclosure with three-foot-thick concrete walls will restrain a full-grown, 9,000-pound elephant, but it’s expensive and not portable. The solution the handlers came up with is surprisingly simple. They discovered that they could program the elephant while he’s still young — “imprint” self-imposed limits into his thinking — and he’d restrain himself, without an enclosure. Here’s how: When the elephant is small, weighing less than 200 pounds, they tie him to a tree with a heavy rope, giving him about six feet of slack. All day, the elephant tugs at the rope, whines and squeals, spins in circles and even attempts to chew it. But he ...