Elephant School Is Not One to Forget : Animals: Keepers from around the world swap ideas and learn new techniques at sanctuary in Arkansas.

Today’s lesson: How to trim an elephant’s toenails. Using a rasp, nippers and a hoof-cutting knife, 10 students from as far away as Australia are learning the finer points of pachyderm pedicure--part of a two-week elephant-handling school hosted by Scott and Heidi Riddle on their 33-acre elephant sanctuary in the Ozark foothills.

Unlike dog, cat or horse owners, who can go to bookstores or libraries for information on caring for their animals, elephant handlers find that the information they need is harder to come by. At the Riddles’ farm, the elephant handlers can talk shop, exchange stories and ideas.

“Elephant handling is a dying art,” Scott Riddle said. “We have knowledge we’d like to share.”

The farm has seven elephants. On this day the students are grooming Betty Boop--known as “Booper”--a 23-year-old, 8,000-pound female Asian elephant. Booper stands on a pair of stands shaped like inverted washtubs.

Her two front feet are on one tub, her back ones on the other, allowing the handlers to go under and around the elephant’s feet.

Scott and Heidi take turns showing the shape of healthy nails and how to use tools and salves to create them.

Booper responds quietly and quickly to each command, getting off the tubs and back up as quietly as a cat getting on and off an easy chair. Excused from her duties for a few moments, she wanders into the high grass, trunk swinging, seeking a snack. She returns at a call from Heidi.

Booper came to the Riddles from a circus, where an injury to her right hip prevented her from performing well. She also came with a tough reputation.

“She got down on top of one guy and rolled him around and put him in the hospital,” Scott Riddle said.

“But now she knows the rules,” he said. “She’s nice--if you know the rules too. You both have to know the rules. Elephants are highly intelligent, and dangerous animals when they’re improperly trained or poorly handled.”

Riddle, originally from El Cajon, has 30 years of experience in handling elephants, including work at the Los Angeles Zoo and the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. He has never been seriously injured, but he says that without bravado: “They have the ability to take the sharp edges off your arrogance.”

The Riddles’ sanctuary is nestled among cattle and horse operations, with their white fencing or wire fencing to keep the stock in.

From a distance, the elephant paddock looks the same.

Guinea fowl, geese, ducks and chickens run freely at the farm. Happy, well-fed dogs and cats circulate, accepting pats and praise. The Riddles’ three children--ages 4, 5 and 7--bound about.

Ian Freeman of Melbourne, Australia, has worked with elephants for 15 years. He heard about the school through the Elephant Managers Assn.

“It’s a lot of use, because in Australia, there are experienced people, but there just aren’t that many. We don’t have access to them. To come here and pick up some more techniques is a tremendous opportunity,” Freeman said.

Lynn Polke joined the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus in 1980 after auditioning for a dancer’s job.

At the circus, she said, she “started at the top, and now I’m working my way down. I was an ‘elephant empress’ “--one of the ladies who gracefully ride atop the elephants.

“I learned to love it. They’re remarkable creatures,” she said.