The Truth About Aggression

When we look around in our world, we can see aggression everywhere. It is on our roads and in our cities. It is in foreign lands and in grocery stores and workplaces. We certainly see it in the dog park and often when dogs meet along the sidewalk. No matter where or when we encounter it, we have an immediate emotional response and an almost compulsive inclination to try to stop it. In the process, we often end up displaying it ourselves. But what exactly is aggression? I propose that it isn't what we believe it to be. In fact, I’m going to suggest that the English-language dictionary made a huge mistake in defining it.

At its root, the word “aggress” describes creative action – “to advance, go to or approach for the purpose of conversing or advising with, asking counsel of, entreating or soliciting something of.” It was meant to communicate “taking steps, walking forth, living, and conducting one’s self.”

Our modern definition describes violent action - “to attack and to commit the first act of hostility or offense.”

The word's origin implies communication – an energetic exchange. It describes the natural type of force and power through which all things in the phenomenal world both come into being and survive. This is “aggression” as a constructive impetus. It is the power of energy directed into material action. The modern definition, on the other hand, describes acts that are destructive in nature. It confuses the poised, focused and directed action that is at the foundation of each creative act with violence and hostility. This mistake has changed us. It has changed our world and the way we perceive it. It has led us into conflict and wars – like the one we unconsciously wage against dogs who we believe to be “aggressive.”

Because we confuse natural aggressiveness with violence and fighting, we consider aggressiveness to be bad and wrong and when we believe that something is wrong, then in our experience it will be. We try to suppress aggressive thoughts and actions in ourselves, attempting to hide what we feel and what we think to be aggressive behavior. We have been trained to think that it is best to act nice and calm and we unconsciously impose this standard upon the dogs in our lives. In truth, we actually try to be “good” precisely because we fear or believe that we are so bad. We punish aggressiveness in children and we will not tolerate it in dogs in whose aggressiveness we see the worst forms of perversion, disrespect and dominance. We fail to see a difference between acting aggressively and actually being aggressive. Aggressiveness is a potential that lies within all living systems - it is not who or what they are.

Although we might like to think otherwise, we can not restrain energy - including the energy of natural aggression. It collects and grows and it will eventually seek fulfillment. Indeed, it is when we attempt to deny the natural, constructive elements of aggression that we finally do explode into violence. Violence is a distortion of aggression. It is an overwhelming surrender to emotions that we fear and it is accompanied by the passion for destruction.

Natural aggressiveness gives motive power to all of our thoughts and creative activity and we employ it daily. In fact, it would be impossible to have a living experience without it. In dogs, natural aggression is used with great integrity. It is highly evolved and developed, ritualized and perfectly spontaneous. Its signals are understood. The various degrees, postures and indications of natural aggressiveness are all steps in a series of communications in which the nature of canine encounters are made clear. An entire series of symbolic actions are carried out long before any conflict would take place and these are aimed at preventing violence.

Throughout the day, we have an endless variety of normal irritations and aggressive ideas and impulses that could actually be expressed quite safely and responsibly, providing a natural release and a system of communication. By trying to “stop-up” an inevitable force, we eventually experience only the type of explosive and distorted pseudo-aggression that causes rage, violence, wars, individual neurosis and a great many other problems. In this state, we blame "others," we lash out against them. We fight and attack and we punish the dog. This distortion, then, is what we think of as “aggression.” In fact, we feel compelled to prevent and stop aggressive displays in dogs because we believe that this is what they are exhibiting. In an awful twist, the constant suppression of natural aggression in canines will eventually lead to the very thing we wish to prevent. It will lead to the same type of extreme loss of emotional equilibrium that we experience when the energy finally finds an outlet.

We can better appreciate and understand our own true natures by watching dogs demonstrate theirs. Dogs understand the constructive forces of natural aggression. They allow their energetic impulses to discharge and this actually prevents violence and hostility and fosters peace. It makes each successive moment new and empty – ready to be filled with joyous possibility.

If I Was King

If I was King in a bygone era, a being of supreme worth, I would compel my subjects to do as I wished. They would fetch me drink, clean the castle, and repel intruders. If they refused my edict or showed hesitation to comply, I would deliver correction, swift and sure, for a King suffers no disobedience or disrespect. As the all-powerful, dominant authority, the King would not ask inferiors or make suggestions; The King would command.

Commanded subjects are powerless. Stripped of their rights, their actions are not their own. Their thoughts and feelings are dismissed. They are ordered to move here and there, do this and that, at the whim of the autocrat who rules them. Interestingly, the “command,” an edict of absolute power – of demanding, ordering, requiring and controlling – has come to describe human-to-canine communications. How did that happen?

“Command” is one of a family of words that traces its roots to the ownership and subjugation of living human property. It is not a word that implies partnership or willing cooperation. It doesn’t inspire compassionate consideration of a being's mental and emotional reality, their right to choose or to self express. It is used when they have no rights or can’t be trusted to willingly comply. This single word - command - can lead us to impulsive acts of domination and control.

English writer and poet Rudyard Kipling considered words “the most powerful drug used by mankind.” Linguists and scientists agree. Words are more than mere building blocks of sentences; they determine the nature and content of our thoughts. They unconsciously induce and compel us to certain actions; they change our emotional states. Inextricably tied to the concepts they embody, words are translated by the brain and heart into electromagnetic energy patterns. These patterns have been shown to immediately affect everything within the measurable vicinity. They produce either chaotic, incoherent patterns of energy or harmonious ones. As you may have guessed, the word “command” creates chaos.

The communications we give to dogs are usually in the form of a visual or sound signal - a cue or a prompt. These words have the feeling of a suggestion or a request. Instead of commanding dutiful submission, we ask for willing compliance and this simple change establishes partnership. It affirms our truest natures, our deep affection for dogs, and the dog’s right to a creative experience of life. The word ask creates harmony.

The King is dethroned!

Black Dog Syndrome

Throughout ancient mythology and folklore dogs are commonly associated with death, as guides of the spirit or guardians of the underworld, but the black dog holds a special status as a universal symbol of malevolence and death. Black Dogs are phantoms, ghostly apparitions who appear at night on dark lanes and foothpaths, in thunder storms, at crossroads and gateways and at places of execution. They are said to simply vanish or fade from sight and to disappear into the earth or in a flash of light. They sometimes walk on their hind legs and through solid objects and no one dares to venture past them; they are associated with the Devil and if they cross your path at night, they may set you ablaze.

In some places the spectral Black Dog is known as "Shuck" and is said to be headless. Shuck or "Shock" is derived from the Old English scucca, meaning 'demon.' They were also called Black Shag, Trash, Skriker, Padfoot, Hooter and Barguest – from the German bargeist or 'spirit of the funeral bier.' In 1127 big and loathsome Black Dogs were seen with black hunters who were riding black horses and goats. Such packs of spectral hounds—with or without hunters—are reported to have been seen all over Europe, and are generally known as the Gabriel Hounds or Gabble Retchets – from an old word for 'corpse.' Thought to be the restless dead or the souls of unbaptized children, these phantom black hounds were huge, with big eyes that glowed in the dark.

Some people deny the existence of what is referred to as "black dog syndrome" – a term that has become common in animal shelters. It predicts that dogs with black fur will languish without attention while dogs with lighter fur not only get attention, they get adopted. And black dogs get the lethal injection and an end to their lives. This does happen and it happens in shelters everywhere and people who are partnered with large, black dogs will tell you that others don't receive them with the same eager affection they do smaller dogs with lighter fur coats. What is it that operates on adopters as they go down a row of cages, passing by those that contain black dogs? Are myth and folklore a part of our genetic make-up, perhaps somehow encoded in our DNA? I suppose that's possible but I think that something much more simple and basic influences us. I think it is a single, powerful word.

From Old English, the word 'black' was first associated with dark or malignant purposes in 1583. It is defined as a color lacking hue and also as gloomy, pessimistic, dismal, sullen, hostile, threatening, evil, wicked, deliberately harmful and boding ill. It indicates disaster, misfortune or potential danger and the illegal and misleading, treacherous, traitorous and villainous. It symbolizes ambiguity, secrecy, and the unknown. It is equated with the sinful, inhuman, fiendish, morbid, grotesque devilish, infernal, monstrous, atrocious, horrible and nefarious. Black has come to symbolize death, mourning and bereavement. Bad guys wear black hats while good guys wear white ones and villains are dressed in black. Black magic is destructive or evil and black days are sad or tragic, like the Black days in 1929 when the Stock Market fell and fell again. This word has a lot of baggage and a lot of power.

As our eyes fall upon a black dog, we don't consciously run through these associations – they act upon us behind the scenes, unconsciously, and this is exactly how we relate to most of our waking experiences in life. Our minds are full of illogical and superstitious beliefs and some, while seeming completely rational to us, can be truly insane. I encountered a man walking two Yorkshire terriers a few days ago. When they saw Jack, both strained on their leashes to get to him. The man began to shout "No Running!" as one little dog sounded the telltale honk of a collapsed trachea. The three dogs circled and sniffed. The man grabbed the honking dog, opened her mouth and forced his very large finger into it and down her throat. She squirmed in distress. It didn't help her but somehow, he thought it would.

Have you ever really examined the beliefs you hold about dogs? I admit that this is hard to do without bias and prejudice but if you could do it you'd probably be humbled and amazed. Have you ever become fully conscious as you interact with a dog to learn what you are thinking about in that instant and to see what those thoughts would have you do next? Some of us have, of course, but we don't do this routinely. We don't do it very often with family members, friends or co-workers either. That's just the way we roll!

In The Conceptual Dog, readers will practice a type of hyper-awareness – the kind that dogs still employ. We'll set our determination to make conscious living a habit. We'll start noticing and controlling what we think and be in control of how we react, and we'll stop leaving our minds to the influence and energy of the unexamined words, thoughts and beliefs that lead us into enmity and conflict. We'll make sure that every interaction we have with a canine is compatible with our truest natures and this will naturally honor theirs. Basically, we're going to begin to wake up. The dog has been waiting a long time for this and it can't happen soon enough!


(c) 2009 Madison Moore, The Conceptual Dog. All rights reserved.

The Automaton

Our unconscious controlling attitudes toward dogs cause us to regard them almost as René Descartes* described them – as automatons. Descartes argued that because animals do not use language they would be completely indistinguishable from machines built to resemble them. His point was that the use of language is a sign of rationality and only things endowed with minds or souls are rational. All else are mindless slaves. This fallacy persists in the thoughts and actions of many. Instead of allowing a dog to think, to imagine and create, to formulate a plan and to bring forth the resolve to enact it, we command him. And he becomes an automaton – a mindless follower.

The word “command” is the very source of our unconscious controlling attitudes. We use it so casually and so often that we are numb to its meaning and to the ideas it conveys. When we command, we make another comply, we force, threaten and intimidate. One who commands must demand compliance to maintain authority and control. To give away any power to subjects would eventually bring them into conflict with our edicts. The disagreeable, slow and the reluctant-to-obey must be punished.

Yes, there are situations in which a dog’s response is urgently important but research shows that performance latency and predictability degrades in dogs who have been made to comply, particularly when their guardian is not near enough to make good on their threats. There are some very essential conditions under which dogs don’t or can’t give us the response we expect when and where we ask for it but the unconscious processes that follow the intent to command will disallow us any awareness or consideration of them. They will cause us to leap off into immediate corrective action. We will repeat our command again and again, to the point of shouting. We’ll handle the dog’s body. We'll become arbitrary and oppressive, frustrated and angry. We will give threatening facial and body-language signals. We may use our might and force to gain compliance and we might deliver a painful and frightening punishment.

The failure will be regarded as an intentional slight or refusal and as disrespect for our ultimate “pack-leader” authority. The act of commanding gives us an unconscious “do this or else” perspective. We turn the energy of absolute power upon the dog and deliver him unto powerlessness. I don’t believe that we really mean or intend what this word implies.

If we were to issue requests or suggestions instead, we would create opportunities to see how the dog we are communicating with actually feels about the interaction. That surely stands an old paradigm on its head and its something that commanding doesn’t allow. We can learn what makes him happy, what he’ll absolutely flip for and what he considers to be uninteresting. We can give him a chance to think and to create unique responses. In turn, we can alter our thinking and behavior to meet the dog at the place where he is most joyous and most involved. Instead of commanding an automaton, we'd be participating in a creative, happy and inspired partnership. And this experience will kill off another old fallacy – that the dog actually lives to please us.

*A 17th century philosopher, mathematician, scientist and writer considered to be "The Father of Modern Philisophy"

Educating Cats and Italian Greyhounds

I’ll confess that I have not personally attempted to educate a cat. I did try to bathe one once and later reflected upon that decision as the most insane one I’d ever made. Not only did the cat protest with his weapons drawn, he showed up the next day as dirty as he had been before the bath. I have, however, educated Italian greyhounds and I’ve been told that their attitudes toward education are very similar to those of cats. If you try to threaten or force them, they’ll just walk out of the classroom and won’t return for the next lesson.

According to formerly secret documents about the CIA’s undercover operations during the Cold War, cats were trained to act as spies. Equipped with acoustic transmitter/receiver devices, felines would be directed to approach specific people in public places so that operatives could eavesdrop on their conversations from afar. Reportedly, the cats were directed to their targets in busy airports and on crowded city sidewalks. Once there, they would be asked to remain for a period of time and might then be directed to another target or to return to their “home” base.

The key element in the education of these kitty spies was what is known as a “keep-going signal” (KGS). If the cat went straight ahead and that was the desired direction, he would hear a sound – maybe something like “good-kitty, good-kitty, good-kitty, good.” If he veered off of the intended course, the sound would stop. The cat would then try another direction and when he heard the sound again, he would know he was on the right track and would continue on. The KGS had been conditioned as a secondary reinforcer – something that predicted the delivery of a primary reinforcer, like a tidbit of smoked herring or a rousing game of chase-the-wind-up-mouse. So the KGS would come to be thought of as the equivalent of a big, happy, wonderful, juicy YES!!!

Imagine the opposite. The cat veers off course and into his receiver he hears “No! That’s wrong! Stop! Go the other way! Not that way, the other way.” What might that predict? Maybe that when or if he returns he's going to get some kind of CIA smack-down. I can just imagine the look on the little kitty spy’s face at being bombarded with such negative input; in fact, I’ve seen that look before. Who wants to keep playing when the game is no fun?

Early on, I recognized the effect of the word “NO” on my canine partner, Jack. Not only did he seem to receive it as a virtual slap in the face, it was an educational dead-end. It gave him nothing to go on; it flattened his interest and squashed his creativity. I tried very hard not to use it and quickly realized how much a part of our response to life it is. We are always resisting the unwanted, responding to it with amplified feelings and remedial actions. We seem to like to wait until things go “wrong” just so we can become reactive and throw out some “NOs.” I wondered why we didn’t concentrate on ways to say “yes” instead – looking for and commenting on good experiences. Why don’t we tell the people and the dogs in our lives about everything they do that we like and want? To extinguish my inclination to “NOing” I decided to come up with some “Yes” games and ways to use keep-going signals.

Hide Five Treats is a game that Jack and I play often. Although he can certainly sniff out the booty, he has become accustomed to using my “yes” signals to direct him instead. He waits in a room while I go into another and hide five treats; I then release him. When he is oriented in the right direction to find one, I say the word “yes.” As he gets closer to the target, I say it faster; when he is very close, I increase the pitch of my voice and say it so fast that it is almost a single tone. When he hears that, he sniffs out the immediate area until he locates the treat. If he is not oriented toward a treat or begins to go in the wrong direction he simply hears nothing. This prompts him to try something else.

In education particularly, I have practiced eliminating the word “no.” I give some forethought to how I might encourage certain actions, postures or behaviors and I have taught myself to look for tiny things to approve of and mark so that Jack keeps learning and the education game stays fun. The rewards have been tremendous. Jack has a cue library of over 100 words and thespian and comedic achievements that will keep you entertained for a long while. He has mastered object handling and developed the ability to discriminate between same and different, big and little, left and right, up and down, and into and on. And he accomplished all of that through the happy application of affirmatives. (If you want to see an example of his work search for “IggyJack” on http://www.youtube.com/.)

We can actually train ourselves to watch for and even expect what we want when we stop using the word “no.” Our relationships transform from negative refusals to happy affirmations. The dogs in our lives begin to live in an experience of constant celebration. What other simple little change has such enormous positive potential? Try it. “Yes!” And, if you happen to also be partnered with a kitty, you can actually use it to prepare her for a career in clandestine services.

Instant-Messaging

Because we use language, we tend to believe that if we don’t talk about our feelings we can hide them from others. When we don’t feel good emotionally, when we are worried, upset or sad, we often don’t want anyone to know. We try to put on a happy face; we tell everyone we’re “fine” and we can usually fool the people around us. Humans unconsciously employ a variety of cognitive processes that remove them from the immediacy of the moment. We rely on what we think we know and what we believe and this causes us to have an intellectual experience of life. Animals aren’t similarly afflicted. Not only can they immediately initiate sharp and fully focused awareness, they are inherently receptive to the energetic changes in the “environment” that our thoughts and feeling create.

Like words, thoughts provoke negative and positive feeling responses in us. This happens whether or not we are aware of it; in fact, we often aren’t. Our feelings produce energetic emanations that are instantaneous and measurable. They are communicated throughout our bodies via electromagnetic field interactions. The structures that originate these electromagnetic waves are the brain and the heart. The heart generates the body’s most powerful and extensive electromagnetic field – estimated to be 5,000 times stronger than that of the brain. It has been found to have its own “brain” which enables it to independently learn, remember and make decisions.

Research demonstrates that the heart’s pulsing waves of energy change as our thoughts and feelings change. When we have thoughts that inspire feelings of upset, sadness and anger, the heart’s rhythm is erratic, disordered and incoherent. When we have thoughts that lead to feelings of love, happiness and appreciation, its rhythmic beating pattern is smooth, ordered and coherent.

Humans and canines inhabit very similar physical structures; both have hearts and brains. And both species demonstrate thought, perception, memory, imagination, reason and understanding – this generally describes “mind.” Most people believe that there is a distinct difference between body (or matter) and mind. In the philosophy of mind, this is known as dualism. But growing evidence from multiple fields of study demonstrates that mind and body are not separate. The mind, previously thought to be focused in the head or even to be the brain itself, has been found to actually disburse throughout the body by way of signal molecules to which most of our cells are receptive. And it goes further than that.

Our thoughts can transfer by means other than the five classical senses. There have been many reports of instantaneous non-verbal communications between humans, between humans and animals and between animals. We can now operate computers, wheelchairs and artificial limbs using only our thoughts. This might suggest that things other than bodies, including the “space” in between things, is also mind or receptive to mind. In fact, the energetic emanations created by our words, thoughts and thus, feelings, can be measured some distance away from the body. And they have been found to have an immediate affect upon the inert things and living beings within that distance. In a very real sense, we are energy transmitters, receivers, resisters and capacitors – we are instant-messengers and dogs “get” us instantly.

Long-term exposure to incoherent, chaotic energy negatively affects the body’s cells and organs. It can detrimentally influence the function of higher brain centers involved with perception, cognition and emotional processing. In contrast, long-term exposure to states of coherency – through continuous thoughts and feelings of love and happiness – enhances our physical and mental functions. The body’s systems show an increase in efficiency and compatibility. Our perceptions of stress decrease while our emotional balance, mental clarity and cognitive and intuitive acuity increase. We experience a marked reduction of internal mental dialogue and greater awareness of and sensitivity to others.

How can we achieve this harmonious nature of mind and body? What methods can we employ to get and stay happy? I say…play with a dog. Play as often as you can. Play like a child; play like a dog. Focus the whole of your aware and present being upon him when you play. Miss no opportunity to learn what he is thinking and feeling and do all that you can to make sure he is happy. Fall in love with the dog you love. And be grateful for the dog. Be so humbly appreciative that the one in your life chooses you!

The Power of Words Illustrated

Researcher Masaru Emoto has made thousands of images that show the effect words can have on droplets of water. When he freezes them, they might form into perfect crystals resembling beautiful snowflakes.



Sometimes the crystalline shapes are multifaceted and complex but incomplete, broken or deformed. Water can also freeze into brown and grey sludge-like shapes that don’t look like crystals at all. They look more like a mold or virus.



Before freezing the water, Emoto tapes a word or phrase to the side of each container. The words love, happiness, harmony, truth, appreciation and partnership and phrases like you can do it produce perfectly beautiful and quite elaborate crystal shapes. The words hate, sadness, stupid, war, lie, enemy and rage formed into shapes that looked broken, blurry and even putrid. And so did do it. In its meaning, energy and essence this disharmonizing phrase is no different than the word we use to describe the directives we give to the dogs in our lives. It is a command. Isn't it odd that we have chosen this word? Why don't we say that we "ask" or "suggest" a posture, a behavior or an activity? Actually, this word has a long history of use and in The Conceptual Dog, I reveal its origins, how it operates on us and what it can actually lead us to think, believe and do without our even noticing.

When we consider that water constitutes seventy percent of our living body and that water is the messenger medium through which our trillions of cells simultaneously communicate with each other, it is easy to see how our entire being is impacted by the energy and meaning of words we speak, hear and see.