WC: 369
He had a point. She couldn't think of anything that they could offer the animals that they could not achieve on their own. But there lies the rub: even if an animal could reasonably acquire food on its own, free food given to it was preferable because it did not require the hunting or any work on their part. She did not think they could necessarily tempt a very smart animal, such as a fox, but they could probably train a bird much in the same way the humans had. She knew that the smarter animals would be able to use their sense of reason and instincts much the same way the luperci did, so that was not a viable option. While they could lure a cougar once with food, that would be the end of it. Even if they promised food upon delivery, the cougar had no reason to co-operate. So, they needed to find an animal that was intelligent enough to understand simple directions, but not so smart that it could figure out why they were doing this.
Her first thought were birds. If humans had trained them to do their bidding, logically, luperci could do the same. Perhaps it wasn't so much about offering incentives, but identifying the incentives and then structuring their training in such a way that eventually the animals would want to perform the tasks.
Maybe it's not offering them food, but training them first with food and then removing it. Humans did this, somehow, so logically, we should be able to do the same. We can't always offer them food, but maybe we could do something to make them think they'll get food. If we can convince them to perform a certain task, we'd need to figure out how to train them to keep doing that task whether or not we have food. I'm just not sure how, she admitted. But there has got to be a way. She frowned in concentration and then added: maybe we could ask someone who knows more about animals. It's all about motivating the animals to do what we want, so we need to ask someone who understands animals better. Do you know anyone like that?