(This post is actually the second part of the previous - A Thin Line. To put this in its proper perspecitve, you may wish to read that first.)
Intellectual Evolution
Humans have undergone an unprecedented intellectual evolution in a very short period of time, resulting in brains that are disproportionately big, about 250 percent bigger than that of our closest relative, the chimpanzee. Our intellectual interpretation of the world has diminished our experiential involvement with it. Instead of engaging in actual experience, we prefer to build and then rely on our beliefs about the world and its inhabitants. We read books to learn about dogs while the ones at our side lay prone waiting for interaction. We admire and respect our avatars of canine behavior and education when the most capable teachers are sitting right in front of us.
The ability to formulate beliefs is one of the most basic and vital features of the mind. A belief is a mental state in which we have an opinion, conclusion, take or conviction that a particular proposition or its future likelihood is true. Characterized as being a “propositional attitude,” a belief is a representation or model of fact. Our beliefs play a causal role in every aspect of our behavior. They are the filter through which we interpret and interact with the world. They influence not only our ability to learn but what we can and will learn. They define our limitations and our strengths and affect our likelihood of success or failure. They create our view of reality. What we believe influences what we are able to perceive.
The problem with beliefs is that they can originate in ideas and information that are inaccurate. They can be distorted through representative heuristics, biases, social pressures and fixations. They can sometimes originate through our acceptance of an “umbrella” concept or theory. Often, we won’t have any actual experience or accurate information with which to validate our beliefs. We may even accept and come to believe ideas that we suspect to be inaccurate. We will often accept broad concepts and theories for the sake of efficiency and conformity. In contexts to which they apply, we will behave as though the originating hypothesis was a literal truth.
The establishment and acceptance of a belief will thwart continued investigation and discovery. We will come to see the matter as settled and stop seeking to demonstrate truthfulness. We will forget the conceptual, biased, incomplete, rearward-looking and often false views of reality upon which our beliefs were built. We will look upon the astonishing eruption of unique living experience with eyes that are blinded by belief.
We Become Our Beliefs
We unconsciously become so fond of our beliefs that we are unwilling and unable to perceive anything to the contrary. We find it easier to accept any version of reality that agrees with our opinions, considering them to be more valid and more rational than versions that do not agree. This is “belief bias” and it predicts that we will demonstrate a tendency to distort logic in support of what we think we know.
“Belief perseverance” is another form of irrationality in which we will cling to our beliefs and justify them despite evidence or authentic experience that refutes or contradicts them. A belief in the need to correct, punish and dominate a dog overrides any ability to realize that issuing a forceful jerk upon his delicate neck structures while he is wearing a choke or pinch collar causes pain, fear and even physical damage.
We approach our living reality as our beliefs - we will identify with them as though they are our very selves. This separates and divides us from other beings. It disconnects us from the full and vital reality of living. Our mentally created self-concept will be bolstered by what we think we know. We will compare our beliefs with those of others, trying to convince them that ours are facts. We will appeal, reason, persuade, offer evidence and argue our points. When they aren’t accepted, conflict is the likely result. It is often our habit and more comfortable for us to make an enemy of the disagreer than it is to recognize our beliefs as the mere propositions and possible distortions that they are. When we superimpose our beliefs and knowledge upon an animal with whom we cannot reason, we will simply overpower and defeat him. He will have to squeeze the fullness of his thinking and feeling reality into the smallness of our beliefs. This is how we create The Conceptual Dog.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Thursday, April 30, 2009
A Thin Line
Whether or not we are aware of it, we have agreements with the people with which we are in relationship. We can share our passions, our rants and our desires with some people and not with others. We have permission to tell them what we think, give them advice or provide unsolicited information. They will forgive us our forthrightness and our opinions. It is when we break out of the boundaries of these agreements that people may not forgive us.
A neighbor brought a new dog into her life this week. She rescued him from a local shelter’s pending euthanasia group. She has two other rescue and foundling dogs in her life. Both are well-cared for and dearly loved. I saw her out on her golf cart this week. She uses it to exercise the dogs, adhering to Cesar Milan’s mantra that a tired dog is a good dog. When she spotted me, she tied her two old friends to the cart and brought the new addition up to meet me. I was thrilled! As the pair got closer, I noticed that a choke chain encircled the dog’s neck. A foot or two away, it suddenly tightened as the pup pulled toward Jack. I asked her to just let the two dogs greet. I told her that jerking the leash as one dog approaches another might actually cause the dog to associate the sudden pain with the act of getting close to another canine. (I don’t know about you, but I see the outcome of this habit on sidewalks wherever I go – dogs losing all emotional equilibrium at the sight of another dog approaching.) I saw her jaw tighten as she looked away from me. I was immediately aware that I had crossed a line. My advice was not asked for and I could tell that it was not wanted.
Jack wasn’t interested in puppy energy and he gave clear signals that the pup picked up on. I, however, was smitten. He is tan with a black face, about thirty pounds and as I leaned in for petting, he sat right away. I fussed over him while his person told me the story of how she came to meet him. He gave me some tentative licks and his tail swept across the ground. I rose up and the pup came right up with me – from sitting to standing on all four paws, to rising onto two, front legs reaching for my body as his eyes followed mine right up.
The picture I saw next is one that I won’t forget for a long time. With great and sudden force, the woman jerked the leash. The choke chain tightened; the dog’s little body was thrown back. His eyes were wide. His mouth opened as if to scream, the corners of his lips drew back. The woman’s face looked angry. Her brows were knit, her eyes were squinting and hard. I couldn’t help myself; I blurted out “That hurt him!” Speaking through clenched teeth she replied…”It was supposed to hurt! It was a correction!”
Nearly breathless, like the wind had just been knocked out of me, I started talking. I told her that it isn’t necessary to hurt a dog to teach him. I quickly showed her the approach-and-turn-away method of allowing a dog to learn that good things come to him when he is sitting and not when his paws are on your body. I explained that if she would give attention only when feet or hips were on the ground, feet and hips would remain on the ground. I had to draw a breath. She made a brief reply and quickly moved away from me.
I won’t be putting my fingers into that pup’s fur again. For starters, I’m not certain that I’ll be given the chance and I don’t ever want to set him up for another “correction.” Moreover, like with most punishments, the dog had no way of relating the sudden pain to the act of raising his paws up on me. It is more likely that he will relate it to my presence instead. So he will likely avoid me at all costs.
This woman is not mean and she is not stupid. She is a wonderful person who feels great affection for her canine companions. What operates her operates all of us in our own unique ways, and most of us are powerless against their effects. Next time, I’ll talk about the processes that govern us, blinding us to living reality.
Relationships often end when their unspoken agreements are violated or when two people realize that they disagree. We tend to condemn the person rather than the act. We will feel enmity toward them and find it hard, even impossible, to forgive. There is a thin line between peace and upset. There is a thin line between frustration and all-out rage, between disaffection and outright hatred. The guardian of the line is us. In order to have peace ourselves, we must forgive “the other.” In order to keep from slipping into anger or hatred, we must separate our brothers and sisters from the things they believe and do.
I’m going to need a lot of forgiveness because I’m pretty sure that I'm going to keep violating agreements. I can’t see myself failing to speak up to advocate for the loving protection of a dog’s thinking and feeling experience. I may not be forgiven and I may not get another chance but my words can’t be unheard. And one day, in a moment when love opens the heart, they may be listened to.
A neighbor brought a new dog into her life this week. She rescued him from a local shelter’s pending euthanasia group. She has two other rescue and foundling dogs in her life. Both are well-cared for and dearly loved. I saw her out on her golf cart this week. She uses it to exercise the dogs, adhering to Cesar Milan’s mantra that a tired dog is a good dog. When she spotted me, she tied her two old friends to the cart and brought the new addition up to meet me. I was thrilled! As the pair got closer, I noticed that a choke chain encircled the dog’s neck. A foot or two away, it suddenly tightened as the pup pulled toward Jack. I asked her to just let the two dogs greet. I told her that jerking the leash as one dog approaches another might actually cause the dog to associate the sudden pain with the act of getting close to another canine. (I don’t know about you, but I see the outcome of this habit on sidewalks wherever I go – dogs losing all emotional equilibrium at the sight of another dog approaching.) I saw her jaw tighten as she looked away from me. I was immediately aware that I had crossed a line. My advice was not asked for and I could tell that it was not wanted.
Jack wasn’t interested in puppy energy and he gave clear signals that the pup picked up on. I, however, was smitten. He is tan with a black face, about thirty pounds and as I leaned in for petting, he sat right away. I fussed over him while his person told me the story of how she came to meet him. He gave me some tentative licks and his tail swept across the ground. I rose up and the pup came right up with me – from sitting to standing on all four paws, to rising onto two, front legs reaching for my body as his eyes followed mine right up.
The picture I saw next is one that I won’t forget for a long time. With great and sudden force, the woman jerked the leash. The choke chain tightened; the dog’s little body was thrown back. His eyes were wide. His mouth opened as if to scream, the corners of his lips drew back. The woman’s face looked angry. Her brows were knit, her eyes were squinting and hard. I couldn’t help myself; I blurted out “That hurt him!” Speaking through clenched teeth she replied…”It was supposed to hurt! It was a correction!”
Nearly breathless, like the wind had just been knocked out of me, I started talking. I told her that it isn’t necessary to hurt a dog to teach him. I quickly showed her the approach-and-turn-away method of allowing a dog to learn that good things come to him when he is sitting and not when his paws are on your body. I explained that if she would give attention only when feet or hips were on the ground, feet and hips would remain on the ground. I had to draw a breath. She made a brief reply and quickly moved away from me.
I won’t be putting my fingers into that pup’s fur again. For starters, I’m not certain that I’ll be given the chance and I don’t ever want to set him up for another “correction.” Moreover, like with most punishments, the dog had no way of relating the sudden pain to the act of raising his paws up on me. It is more likely that he will relate it to my presence instead. So he will likely avoid me at all costs.
This woman is not mean and she is not stupid. She is a wonderful person who feels great affection for her canine companions. What operates her operates all of us in our own unique ways, and most of us are powerless against their effects. Next time, I’ll talk about the processes that govern us, blinding us to living reality.
Relationships often end when their unspoken agreements are violated or when two people realize that they disagree. We tend to condemn the person rather than the act. We will feel enmity toward them and find it hard, even impossible, to forgive. There is a thin line between peace and upset. There is a thin line between frustration and all-out rage, between disaffection and outright hatred. The guardian of the line is us. In order to have peace ourselves, we must forgive “the other.” In order to keep from slipping into anger or hatred, we must separate our brothers and sisters from the things they believe and do.
I’m going to need a lot of forgiveness because I’m pretty sure that I'm going to keep violating agreements. I can’t see myself failing to speak up to advocate for the loving protection of a dog’s thinking and feeling experience. I may not be forgiven and I may not get another chance but my words can’t be unheard. And one day, in a moment when love opens the heart, they may be listened to.
Friday, April 3, 2009
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!
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!
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Predators
The dog came upon a pair of Muscovy ducks resting in the shade. He crouched and slowly stalked toward them, taking careful steps, punctuated by pauses with one front leg raised. The large male was closest to the dog, the female a few yards beyond. As the dog crept closer, the big drake rose and began to move. He slowly took a few steps to the right. The dog responded by moving to the right and a little forward. The Muscovy turned and moved to the left; the dog matched his movement and crept closer. The big drake changed direction again. Staring intently and slowly stalking, the dog seemed to be engaging his quarry in a synchronized waltz – back and forth and back again.I am partnered with Jack, the little greyhound in this story, and I watched this scene play out. Jack was not taught to execute such a clever hunting strategy; it is simply part of his canine programming. Domestic dogs are descended from free-roaming canids who practiced predation for hundreds of thousands of years. No matter how we have morphed and styled them, stretched and shrunk them, today’s dogs have the tools and often the inherent inclinations to execute some or all of the sequence of predatory behaviors seen in their wild forebears.
Suddenly, he broke into a course. The big drake lifted into flight in ample time, but the dog seemed not even to notice. Just beyond, still nestled in the tall grass, was the duck. She hadn’t seen the dog’s rapid advance; it began at the precise moment when the big male’s body blocked the view. By moving the drake into position, not only was the dog able to surprise her, his course was a perfectly arranged straight line from one target to the next. The duck lifted off just as the dog leapt forward to take her. If he had managed to grab her, the struggle would have been interesting. The tiny dog weighed about the same as the duck.
Through selective breeding, great emphasis has been placed on a portion of the sequence, resulting in specialization. Tracking dogs search, herding dogs stalk and rush, retrievers rush and grab, sighthounds seek and course, and terriers grab and kill. All dogs possess the ability to finish the sequence with prey of the right size that they are able to catch, but not all actually will.
We often resist and even punish the things dogs do that they are naturally inclined to do and predatory behaviors seem to upset us the most. A dog up the lane killed one of my chickens once. He didn’t eat her. I went to his house with the chicken’s body, intending to ask his people if the dog might be kept from wandering down to my barn. I no sooner got “your dog killed my chicken” out when the man grabbed its lifeless body and began to beat the dog with it.
We seem to forget that dogs are animals or that they are a different species. We have a model of a dog in our mind and he or she is often a huge departure from the actual dog in our life. Jack caught an enormous grasshopper one day. I watched as he ate every bit of it. That turned my stomach but I didn’t try to stop him. He once caught a bird but just held it awhile. I believe that he would kill a squirrel if he got hold of one
and maybe a duck. He has dispatched a few sweet anole lizards, abandoning them when they are dearly departed. When I come outside, he will take me to them and show me their little grey bodies. He will give them one more bite. Then, with great excitement, he will move through the foliage, poking with his long muzzle and scratching with both paws, looking for more.Friday, March 6, 2009
Becoming Dog-Present
Paula's comments on "Say What?" gave me a unique way to make a post about my forthcoming book - "The Conceptual Dog: Liberating the Indigenous Canine." Thanks Paula. (To read her comments or leave your own, click the topic title or the word “comments” at its end.)
I find that more and more people are beginning to deliberately express loving-kindness – that is, when we become awake and aware enough to actually choose what we will think and how we will feel. The human mind is feeding thought to us 24/7. Sometimes, we follow our thoughts and get lost in the labyrinth to which they lead. Oftentimes, they chatter away in the background as we interact with daily experience through a variety of cognitive efficiencies. By relying on concepts, beliefs, and what we think to be knowledge, we can engage the mind more readily, multi-task and process more than one idea at once. But this type of consciousness actually results in unconsciousness. It detaches us from the dynamic wholeness of the moment, serving us a conceptualized version of it instead. Without even realizing it, we are distracted and inattentive.
Nearly everyone has had an experience that suddenly catapulted them into acute awareness. Remember the time you reached for your wallet and found that it was not in your pocket. Or, the time you realized that someone had left the gate open and the dog was on the loose. Yes, we panicked, and we were acutely aware. We know the difference between everyday attentiveness and hyper awareness but we don't know how to purposefully get from one state to the other…without panicking.
"The Conceptual Dog" explores ways that we can habitually bring critical awareness forward while we interact with the dog in our life. When we fix our attention upon him, the dog is wholly there and completely ready to engage us. We can learn how to give him the same, how to be dog-present.
Once we begin to engage on this level of consciousness, we will not want to return to chattering distractedness while interacting with our dog partner. The rewards will be hugely obvious. And we will find that what can be known in a single moment of complete awareness is far greater than that which we can come to learn or believe in an entire lifetime. If we really want to know how dogs think and why they do what they do, consult the master in your home. He probably has his eyes fixed upon you right now, hoping that you will awaken and that the wholeness of you will come out to play.
I find that more and more people are beginning to deliberately express loving-kindness – that is, when we become awake and aware enough to actually choose what we will think and how we will feel. The human mind is feeding thought to us 24/7. Sometimes, we follow our thoughts and get lost in the labyrinth to which they lead. Oftentimes, they chatter away in the background as we interact with daily experience through a variety of cognitive efficiencies. By relying on concepts, beliefs, and what we think to be knowledge, we can engage the mind more readily, multi-task and process more than one idea at once. But this type of consciousness actually results in unconsciousness. It detaches us from the dynamic wholeness of the moment, serving us a conceptualized version of it instead. Without even realizing it, we are distracted and inattentive.
Nearly everyone has had an experience that suddenly catapulted them into acute awareness. Remember the time you reached for your wallet and found that it was not in your pocket. Or, the time you realized that someone had left the gate open and the dog was on the loose. Yes, we panicked, and we were acutely aware. We know the difference between everyday attentiveness and hyper awareness but we don't know how to purposefully get from one state to the other…without panicking.
"The Conceptual Dog" explores ways that we can habitually bring critical awareness forward while we interact with the dog in our life. When we fix our attention upon him, the dog is wholly there and completely ready to engage us. We can learn how to give him the same, how to be dog-present.
Once we begin to engage on this level of consciousness, we will not want to return to chattering distractedness while interacting with our dog partner. The rewards will be hugely obvious. And we will find that what can be known in a single moment of complete awareness is far greater than that which we can come to learn or believe in an entire lifetime. If we really want to know how dogs think and why they do what they do, consult the master in your home. He probably has his eyes fixed upon you right now, hoping that you will awaken and that the wholeness of you will come out to play.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Say What?
From the first moment that puppies or dogs enter our lives, they are learning. They learn how to get the things they want and need and how to avoid unpleasant or dangerous circumstances. They learn the nature of things and beings. Regrettably, few of us are purposefully directing that learning in ways that will result in a harmonious alignment between the dog’s characteristics and activities and our own.
Many of us bring a dog into our lives without any real information about how they learn and the best ways to teach them. We try to educate them as we would a child who speaks our language. We issue a verbal directive, wait a millisecond then issue it again and again, sometimes louder. When that doesn’t work, we use our hands to manipulate the dog’s body into the desired posture. We believe that the dog has failed or that she is disobedient or unable to learn through some fault. We can quickly become disappointed, impatient, frustrated and even angry at her inability to translate the meaning of our words and intent into the outcome we desire. Whether or not we overtly punish the failure we perceive, this approach to education causes the dog to experience stress. And her stress is compounded by being in the presence of ours.
The establishment of stable memories and long-term synaptic efficacy are impaired by stress. Its hormones activate primitive responses in areas of the brain that are primarily engaged to meet survival needs, diminishing activity in areas that are involved in learning and memory development. Instead of helping the dog to achieve education accomplishment, we end up diminishing her ability and her desire to learn.
Uneducated dogs will almost constantly run afoul of our desires and expectations. They may spend their lives getting little more from us than corrective interventions and punishments. They will not enjoy many freedoms and may never enter the outdoors off of a tether. I meet so many dogs who have passed their first birthday and have been purposefully taught little more than to sit when cued. And most of them do it to avoid the inevitable rump push. They are wildly impulsive and hyperactive. They greet humans and other dogs with almost dangerous enthusiasm while their partners shout and pull their leashes. They and their people are stuck in cycles of error and castigation.
We lack skill as educators and we give verbal lessons to students who don’t understand the language. This can’t possibly work. But it’s not the real reason that we fail to teach dogs. Ultimately, we fail through our own inattentiveness. Thinking that we are looking at the dog, we are actually looking at the insides of our minds. If we were genuinely seeing the dog, we would be able to take in her immediate living reality. She would standing there, staring up at us, just as she was the moment before we “told” her what to do. If we were present enough, we would have noticed that our words didn’t register. And after we had laughed out loud at the absurdity of thinking that they would, we’d have the wherewithal to try something else.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
The "New Deal"
If we were to approach a dog’s development with a focus upon creating conditions and situations in which he could succeed, celebration would be the foundation of our collaboration. But we rarely ever do this. Instead, we do something new, change a routine or take the dog to a place he has never been without much thought for his emotional response. We just plunge dogs into the unfamiliar “new deal” then become confused by and maybe even complain about or punish their resistance.
We would probably all say that we want the dog we are partnered with to be happy, outgoing and confident yet we seldom think about how we can help him develop those qualities. For dogs who live inside homes where little changes, abrupt variation in habits and conventions can be very stressful. Our reason for the change, no matter how good or justified, ultimately makes no difference to the dog.
Without creating any incremental steps, we restrain a dog’s struggling body while we force his mouth open and begin to scrub his teeth with a brush. Suddenly one day, we encircle his neck with a collar and tie him to the end of our arm then drag him about as he resists the new experience. Before he has been anywhere except the vet’s office and Grandma’s house, we take him to a loud and crowded event. After years of sleeping in our bed we abruptly decide to change the arrangement and close him in the downstairs bathroom.
A dog’s reaction to new situations and settings can often be determined by how he is introduced to them. The way a dog responds to the first experience is a good indicator of his continued response. Long before fear and avoidance become habitual patterns, conditions for success can usually be created.
It isn’t difficult to plan a supportive and empowering introduction to a new deal. Positive emotional connections often result from gradual introductions to changing circumstances, novel events and new people. Break the whole down into brief episodes of exposure and stop while the dog still appears confident and happy. Associate each step with great fun and excitement. Celebrate with food and/or play. As positive episodes build, success becomes more likely and stress and failure less likely. The dog feels safe and develops an expectation that good things will happen in this circumstance, rather than a fear that bad things will.
These “new-deal” introductions can become some of the most transformative interactions that we can have with a dog. They provide us with opportunities to focus our full attention on his living reality. By watching the ways he expresses his emotional state we automatically become better guardians of it. We get in the habit of consciously intending to create conditions in which the dog can experience success. This brings our expectations in line with the conditions in which success can actually be achieved. And that’s a radical departure from the unconscious way that we usually operate. We expect and the dog simply must – however he can and no matter what he thinks or feels.
We would probably all say that we want the dog we are partnered with to be happy, outgoing and confident yet we seldom think about how we can help him develop those qualities. For dogs who live inside homes where little changes, abrupt variation in habits and conventions can be very stressful. Our reason for the change, no matter how good or justified, ultimately makes no difference to the dog.
Without creating any incremental steps, we restrain a dog’s struggling body while we force his mouth open and begin to scrub his teeth with a brush. Suddenly one day, we encircle his neck with a collar and tie him to the end of our arm then drag him about as he resists the new experience. Before he has been anywhere except the vet’s office and Grandma’s house, we take him to a loud and crowded event. After years of sleeping in our bed we abruptly decide to change the arrangement and close him in the downstairs bathroom.
A dog’s reaction to new situations and settings can often be determined by how he is introduced to them. The way a dog responds to the first experience is a good indicator of his continued response. Long before fear and avoidance become habitual patterns, conditions for success can usually be created.
It isn’t difficult to plan a supportive and empowering introduction to a new deal. Positive emotional connections often result from gradual introductions to changing circumstances, novel events and new people. Break the whole down into brief episodes of exposure and stop while the dog still appears confident and happy. Associate each step with great fun and excitement. Celebrate with food and/or play. As positive episodes build, success becomes more likely and stress and failure less likely. The dog feels safe and develops an expectation that good things will happen in this circumstance, rather than a fear that bad things will.
These “new-deal” introductions can become some of the most transformative interactions that we can have with a dog. They provide us with opportunities to focus our full attention on his living reality. By watching the ways he expresses his emotional state we automatically become better guardians of it. We get in the habit of consciously intending to create conditions in which the dog can experience success. This brings our expectations in line with the conditions in which success can actually be achieved. And that’s a radical departure from the unconscious way that we usually operate. We expect and the dog simply must – however he can and no matter what he thinks or feels.
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