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.

Curious Reality

I have gotten so many responses to my posts about non-verbal communications with dogs that I decided to provide some excerpts from The Conceptual Dog to enhance our understanding of how such an ability is not only normal and quite natural, it's something we can all experience.

Electromagnetic Harmony

Consciousness is a quality that lacks any clear and collaborative definition, its neurological basis is unknown, but it is measurable, at least in part, as electromagnetic energy. When we think, whether or not we are conscious of our thoughts, we produce energetic emanations that are measurable. What we say and think about provokes negative and positive feeling responses that are communicated throughout the body 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 affect the body’s organs and influence the function of higher brain centers involved with perception, cognition and emotional processing. These waves of energy change as our thoughts and feelings change. When we have thoughts that inspire feelings of frustration and anger, the heart’s rhythmic pattern is erratic, disordered and incoherent. When we have thoughts that lead us to feelings of love, peace, joy and appreciation, its pattern is smooth, ordered and coherent. And in this state of coherency or electromagnetic harmony, our physical and mental functions are enhanced; 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.

This state is referred to as "psychophysiological coherence” – the harmonious nature of mind and body and as we will soon see, the effects of our words, thoughts and feelings reach beyond our physicality.

Where is Mind?

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 a growing body of 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. Our thoughts can also 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, modern science seems to be arriving at realizations that ancient societies recorded on stele and in pictograms, creation myths and sacred texts. There aren't separate "things" here, each possessing a separate and individual "mind."

One or Many?

It was once believed that consciousness was a secondary phenomenon of material reality. In other words, it emerged from materiality or existed as a result of bodies and things. It is now understood to be the field of energy that is antecedent to all phenomena – coming before, as source. Therefore, mind and body are manifestations or expressions of a single, all-encompassing field of conscious energy. We constantly affect this field with our words, thoughts and feelings, feeding it waves of coherent and harmonious energy or incoherent and chaotic energy. In fact, the effects of our verbal, mental and emotional creations can be measured some distance away from the body and they have been found to have an immediate impact upon the inert things and living beings within that distance. In a very real sense, as Nicola Tesla suggested in the late 1800's, our bodies simultaneously act as energy transmitters and receivers.

Over the past 300 years, our understanding of the universe as an entirely physical phenomenon has changed. Quantum physics has demonstrated that matter can be simultaneously defined as solid and as an immaterial force or field of energy. "Things" are nothing more than waves of possibility until they are observed by a conscious being when they "collapse" into space-time phenomena. Reality became quite curious with the discovery that essentially, there is no distinction between something we think of as real and the space between “real” things. Within the scientific world, the duality of mind and matter as separate constructs has collapsed into singularity. All known phenomena are actually waves of unlimited potential, existing in multiple places at once, denying the laws of the known reality. We and the world we inhabit are a web of interconnected and inseparable energy patterns. In this understanding of reality, there would be no such thing as a separate or individual “part.” There is no difference between a thought form and a human form. All are waves of energy. Albert Einstein recognized that energy and matter are the same when he concluded that E = mc2 (energy is matter or mass multiplied by the speed of light squared). Max Planck, the Nobel-Prize-winning father of Quantum Theory, describes all matter as originating and existing “only by virtue of a force…we must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind."

We arise from a creative and conscious field of energy and we influence it. Our current ability to know the full range of that influence is limited by the limitations of our current measuring capabilities. But scientists, spiritualists and metaphysicians agree with ancient understandings – our thinking, feeling energy emanations extend every "where" and to All - to beings, things and no-things, to the whole of the universal reality. There is one mind here, a unitive force imagining.

Our material-reality worldview issues from the concept of a mechanical universe of “things” reacting in response to certain immutable laws. We perceive a subject-object split and understand ourselves to be separate from all else. Our adherence to these tenants has erased our ability to perceive the interplay between our thoughts and feelings, this conscious field of energy and the world of matter. It has detached us from the divine energetic essence of our reality. It has created in us a separation from nature, from animals, from other humans and from all else. Science proves the existence of a single unitive force that creates the world and gives it meaning. But we have gotten into the habit of "knowing" by looking outside ourselves. We gain "information" about the dog through the flat reality of a computer screen and the pages of a book. We develop understandings and interpretations of the dog that are developed and guided by conceptual understandings and by rational thought and inference and all of this relies on what’s already “known.” We follow our avatars of canine behavior and education philosophy and application and all the while, the real master lies prone at our feet, waiting for interaction.

Other ways to "Know," "Be" and Gain Wisdom

We seem to have forgotten that "knowing" can arise through introspection – a reflective looking inward, and through intuition or quick and ready insight. It can be gained through inspiration – the divine influence and reception of sacred revelation. These origins of wisdom become acute when we are willing to release our propositions of fact – our coveted beliefs and the things we think we know, and when we enter states of psychophysiological coherence or electromagnetic harmony. They can become acute when we practice them and when we train our minds to be receptive to them. They are not weird or magical powers to which only gifted individuals have access. They are natural and organic, ancient and innate. And it is through them that we can experience unity, oneness, the one mind and...the genuine dog.


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

Thinking Out Loud

An amazing thing happened a few months back. I was walking with Jack around the lake, following a route that we have taken most mornings for the past five years. There is a point where we can choose to turn left to access a road that borders the lake or go straight to walk along the main road. We had never gone straight; we had always turned left and I really don't know why. One morning as Jack and I were approaching our turn-off, he stopped to sniff out an interesting aroma and I gazed down the main road. I thought about the row of mailboxes stretching into the distance and about all of the dogs who lived along that road. I had a vision in my mind of us going straight one day and Jack stopping to inspect the new urine-inspired mailboxes with great excitement. We walked a few more yards and as we came to our turn, Jack went straight! He did not hesitate. He did not look left. He went straight on down that main road and collected pee-mail with great excitement, just as I had imagined.

A couple of weeks went by and during those weeks, we turned left as we always had. Jack never looked down the main road again and did not hesitate at the turn. I had been thinking about what happened that day and decided to try another experiment. As we approached our turn, I began to envision us walking down the main road. I saw Jack taking in new smells, nose to the sidewalk as we went straight ahead. When we came to the turn, Jack went left. It looked like my intentional experiment didn't work. But then, he took a couple more tiny steps, stopped, turned around and headed down the main road. This was only the second time we had taken that route.

The next day, I envisioned us going straight and Jack went straight, not hesitating at our turn. In the middle of the block, I looked across the street and imagined the smells on the mailboxes over there. We had never walked on that side of the road and I held a picture in my mind of us crossing it and continuing on the other side. Three driveways later, Jack turned to the right, crossed the road and we walked to the end on that side.

I have used this visualization technique frequently since then. We have taken different routes, turning in places we never considered or even noticed before. I can think of playing with a toy and Jack will show up with it in his mouth. I can picture our reunion when I'm on my way home and my husband will report that he goes to the door several minutes before the garage door raises.

Can we have nonverbal communications with dogs, the kind that comes from what we envision, think of feel? There is actually a growing body of evidence to prove that we can and do. Rupert Sheldrake's book Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home, And Other Unexplained Powers of Animals, provides research findings and anecdotal evidence of the unitive mind. The Institute of HeartMath has been studying the impact of thoughts and emotions, the electromagnetic energy they generate, and the instantaneous way in which this transfers between beings and things. They have been able to demonstrate that what we think influences our surroundings and those around us. And when beings are in close contact with one another, as we are with the dogs in our lives, what we feel, what our heart signals, actually registers in our partner's brain waves.

Don't take my word for it; try your own experiment. Clear your mind of its unconscious streaming feed by willfully inserting your intent to create a vision. Create one that the dog will surely enjoy, like joining you in the kitchen for a nice piece of sausage. Concentrate on that vision, seeing it in full detail. If you aren't a visual person, think the words that you would normally say out loud, calling the dog by name, asking if he would like a treat. Don't give up if it doesn't work the first few times. Dogs have to tune out the constant parade of thoughts and visions that our minds produce. Just like tuning a radio with subtle twists of the knob, one day, you'll establish a clear channel and be on thinking terms with your constant companion. Go try it now and let me know how you do.

For related information, read other articles in the communication section.

I Can Fight You

“Put 'em up, put 'em up! Which one of you first? I can fight you both together if you want. I can fight you with one paw tied behind my back. I can fight you standing on one foot. I can fight you with my eyes closed.”1 In what can only be described as a screaming, slobbering, teeth-baring bark, Jack would issue this challenge. Standing on his hind legs, straining against the leash, his front paws raked the air frantically. For clear and obvious crimes, the “others” would have to be dealt with. He would show them no mercy. They had come too close and one of them had made the mistake of being big, and dog.

From my perspective at the time, Jack’s aggressive outbursts seemed to come from nowhere. One minute, we would be tootling along enjoying our walk, another dog and person would appear on the horizon, we’d all get closer and then suddenly, Jack would erupt into a full-blown primal reaction. He’d appear to be angry, menacing and mean.

Even though I was on the Jack side of the leash when the violence erupted, and that was distracting beyond all reckoning, I did manage to take in the reaction at both ends of the leash just ahead. Any reasonable person, and perhaps even canine, knows that an eleven-pound dog probably can’t overtake an eighty-pound dog, but fear isn’t rational. And they seemed fearful. And Jack wasn’t rational, but it took me a while to figure out that a loss of courage was the reason he was acting the way he was.

Unconscious Enabling

All I could think of was that he had been psychologically damaged by prior incidents in which big dogs had chased him. One of them was quite frightening. I came to rely on my stories about those experiences – using them to explain his behavior – and in a weird way, that reliance prevented me from actually helping him to modify it. During this period of unconscious enabling, I hate to admit it, but I developed a case of big-dog prejudice. I even came to look unfavorably upon the people they were attached to. We were your worst nightmare duo to encounter on the daily traipse through the neighborhood.

Without realizing it, I became a partner in the insanity. The mere sight of an approaching big dog and human would cause me to stiffen, take up slack in the leash, grit my teeth and resist the inevitable. To Jack, my actions were a confirmation of his suspicion that all dogs of a certain size were dangerous. Too caught up in the drama to think, I would continue to walk right toward them. Jack would explode and I’d try my best to keep him from being defensively eaten.

It finally occurred to me that Jack was extremely uncomfortable and that I really needed to do something to help him. Not long after, I got the nudge I needed. One day at a crowded dog event, Jack got too close to a largish dog and lost it. The event’s photographer, a friend of mine, heard the ruckus and turned to see who was causing it. In a voice that sounded like that of the Almighty’s booming down from the heavens, she proclaimed “I don’t believe it….that’s the “trainer’s” dog!!!” Quiet fell across the land and all heads turned in our direction. Funny what it sometimes takes to wake us up.

Getting Courage

The next morning, I began a rehabilitation program in earnest. I realized that there was a zone of sanity, a distance at which Jack could see the other dog and still keep his wits about him. I began to test this distance and failed on the first few attempts. There was no sidewalk or shoulder big enough for any encounter. We would have to cross the street. There, Jack could only mange to keep from shouting and pulling. His body, stiff and vibrating was cocked like a loaded gun. Squatting in front of him, I tried to block his view but he simply couldn’t take his eyes off the monster. I realized that we were still too close.

I aimed for a distance where he could actually sit and where his head and neck weren’t going to stretch to enormous “Alice-in-Wonderland” proportions so he could see around me. Those big dogs looked really small from where we started – like toy breeds. This gave us a great advantage. We could both dispassionately look at them. Since I have a brain a little bigger than Jack’s three-ouncer, I would initiate some calming conversation. I’d comment on how normal and even friendly the pair looked. Jack took it all in, we both came to believe it, and we slowly moved closer.

For months, we probably made people feel bad by avoiding them like they had a pox and that was mostly my fault. If the roles had been reversed and I was the non-verbal reactor, Jack would probably have shouted a friendly greeting…“Sorry, but the human’s got a confidence issue. Don’t take it personally. Hey, by the way, there’s a flattened toad in the road just ahead; it smells fabulous.” Eventually, I did begin to explain what we were doing and was happily surprised when a familiar pair would see us coming and volunteer to cross the street themselves, waving and asking how things were going.

I learned a lot of Jack-speak during those months as a psycho-doggie therapist. I noticed that hesitation with a paw-raise and lip-licking were dog talk for “I’m not too sure about this.” The full-frontal freeze, eyes, ears and tail up, stiff and forward was a way of saying “Come any closer and I’ll fight you both together.” All of these signals preceded a blow-up but I had never been aware enough to catch them before Jack became overwhelmed by his feelings. I am now! I’m still not certain what caused this to happen. It may have been those prior chasing incidents and it could just as well have been Jack’s lack of contact with dogs larger than a matchbox car.

By creeping closer and closer, sitting and talking, and perhaps enjoying a piece of lamb lung, Jack and I not only saved our dignity, we added a few days, months or maybe even years to our lives by eliminating some incredible stress. Today, Jack will approach any dog. He has acquaintances who are Weimey, Goldie and Rottie and I have a few new friends too. Life is good!


1. Spoken by the Cowardly Lion, a character in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s 1939 American musical-fantasy film, The Wizard of Oz, based upon a 1900 children’s novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum.

The Misbehaving Dog

I was at a dog park the other day and heard one woman tell another “He’s got to learn not to do that.” She was referring to the dog she brought with her, the one she said “misbehaves” and “tries to get away with things.” Like so many of the words and phrases we use to talk about dogs and our relationships with them, these statements left me with an overwhelming feeling of incongruity.

Why didn’t the woman say “I’ve got to teach him not to do that” or “I’d like to teach him (the opposite of that)? Obviously, there is an underlying belief that the dog is somehow responsible for what he does and does not learn. Yet, he bides his life almost completely in our homes, care and company. He has little freedom of will or action. The dog is unable to discern what he must know about our world. He can not devise an education plan or teach himself something we’d like him to know but have not taught him. When we make a dog responsible for something over which he has no power or authority, he will fail. We will fail to recognize that the responsibility is ours. And the dog will never learn what “he’s got to learn.”

Does a dog really misbehave? To "misbehave" is to conduct oneself without regard for good manners or accepted moral standards. To behave is to conduct or comport oneself in a proper manner. Dogs behave in the ways that are natural and proper to dogs. The problem with this is that most of us don’t really know what proper doggish behavior is; many of us have never have even contemplated it. Instead, we have opinions, beliefs and concepts that we gather from lifetimes of influences and we set out to impose them upon the dog. Sometimes, when we’re done, there’s very little doggish left.

The accepted standards of conduct, the “good manners” by which we expect a dog to behave are guidelines that we create and think a dog can uphold. The dog does not know them and can not know them unless taught. Even then, if they run counter to what it is to even be a dog, he may not be able to demonstrate them. The responsibility for setting realistic standards is ours. This can be done in a couple of ways. We can turn off the mind’s chatter program – the one that feeds us only history and makes us believe that we know it all – and observe the dog from a fresh and vigilant perspective. Dogs aren’t too much different from people in the ways they feel and express their feelings so we can learn a lot about them just by being aware, open and receptive. Or, we can soak up information on ethology, behaviorism and canine education practices. Either way, it is our responsibility to teach a dog how to meet the standards we conceive. Therefore, any dog who "misbehaves" is a dog who has not been properly educated and this is certainly not a failure that can be attributed to the dog.

And what about trying to get away with something? Do dogs really do this? This sounds like dogs are attempting to foil, overthrow or usurp us by conniving or conspiring against our standards or wishes. It implies falseness – tricking, misleading or deceiving. Fortunately, dogs aren’t that complicated. If a dog knows the rules, he plays them to his advantage. This isn’t something he deliberates about; it’s part of his canine constitution. We either teach him the rules, as we’ve already learned, or we don’t and he just does what serves him in the void. There’s nothing conniving or false about this. In fact, we do the same.

When we truly don’t know much about dogs we will fix them with human models of conduct and comportment. This will lead us to create unreasonable standards and expectations – like making a dog responsible for learning something we have failed to teach. When we truly do know dogs, we actually don’t believe very much about them. We just continuously discover the wonderful ways in which they doggishly happen.

The Problem with Confinement

Belief as Reality

We construct the canine’s reality with our thoughts and beliefs. And as we impose it upon him, we will be unaware that our concepts are not natural, innate or providential. We are not born with them; they are not given. They are learned and fabricated as we go through our lives.

The problem is that much of what we come to believe and to think of as knowledge is flawed, incomplete, and may be just plain wrong; even our memories can deceive us. Our belief system doesn’t differentiate or judge, it simply accepts as truth what we feed it. We have long forgotten the sources of our beliefs and “knowledge” and in many cases, we never bothered to test the accuracy of the underlying theories that formed them. We are completely unaware of most of our deeply held beliefs. They are not only the product of a lifetime of conditioning, they are the sum total of our long-forgotten decisions, declarations and proclamations. They are the evolution of what we as groups, societies and cultures have collectively agreed to.

Many have heard the story of a mother who trimmed her pot-roasts into square shapes before putting them into the oven. When her daughter asked why she did this, she couldn’t say. She did know that her mother had always done the same. When she was asked why she trimmed pot roasts this way, she said that she had to do that to fit them into the only roasting pan she had at the time – a square pan.

An Unexamined Practice

We seldom ever question the ideas, beliefs, or “knowledge” that forms the basis of our most routine canine-care and keeping practices. We just do them. We do them because others do them so they seem normal and right. If we were to seriously question what’s really behind them, we might realize that we don’t have any idea why we do some of the things we do. We might find that we do them for the sake of convenience. We may uncover a long list of other ideas and beliefs that seem to justify doing them. This is a good first step, because if we don’t question why we do what we do to dogs, we won’t ever ask ourselves…How does what we do affect the dog?

Let’s explore a practice that we appear to believe in, one that has become so commonplace in this country that few of us would ever question its suitability. And let’s look at it from the standpoint of how it does affect the dog. In this and subsequent articles, we will examine the effects of confinement which is usually attended by social isolation and forced repose or understimulation. We’ll try to get at the root of what we believe about the practice and then learn a little about its impact on canine minds and bodies, particularly those that are developing.

Confinement

Confinement is the physical containment of a dog’s body within a crate, kennel, or small room or area. The dog’s movements and liberties are restricted, often severely so. Behavioral opportunities are narrowed to a functional minimum. Depending upon the location of the confinement unit and the circumstances, social access and sensory input are also significantly reduced.

Every year, millions of infant canines enter homes that are empty for many hours each week day. They will spend this time confined and alone. Some will spend their nights confined as well. This is a fairly new practice; one that became popular when dogs transitioned from the outdoors to spend their lives inside our homes.

When asked, people report that they confine dogs and puppies for safety reasons because there are many things inside a home that can be dangerous, particularly to a teething, exploring infant. They say that they crate them to prevent damage to their furnishings and belongings and to keep them from urinating and defecating in the home. Some believe that a small crate is similar to a dog’s den and that dogs and puppies actually feel more safe and comfortable inside of one. And many agree that because everyone else seems to do it that it must be the right thing to do. So we generally believe that confinement is best for the animal and best for us and our belongings. This tends to settle the matter in our minds, to such a degree that we don’t consider that confinement has a big down-side.

Effects that can last a Lifetime

Neural organization, emotional stability, physical development and learning ability are compromised in puppies who are denied environmental access, social contact, and opportunities to play, explore and develop. Confined puppies lack opportunities to establish a full range of behavioral repertoires and their behavioral flexibility, motivation and control diminish. They are unable to develop general perceptual frameworks into which novel stimuli might be assimilated. They can not relax or positively express themselves. They are easily provoked and alarmed. When released from confinement, puppies demonstrate hyper-stimulation, increased motor activity, shifting emotional responses and easy frustration and distractibility. They disassociate with stimuli in the environment, fail to make social contact and demonstrate extremely impaired coping ability. Confined puppies are generally less socially active, and less assertive. They develop cognitive impairments, become slow learners and demonstrate poor problem-solving abilities.

As they get older, these canines demonstrate a diminished ability to cope with stressful situations and become neophobic, overacting emotionally when they encounter novel situations. They often develop lifelong fearfulness, becoming rigidly inhibited and/or offensively aggressive. They seek safety and become psychologically dependent upon and addicted to a particular person. The affects of confinement endure for some time after the restricting circumstances have ended and they can last a lifetime.

Confinement causes fear and panic and exposure to persistent or frequent stress states has been shown to result in sensory processing disorders. It impairs stress-coping ability, and leads to maladjusted behavior responses to aversive or conflict-inducing situations. The stress hormone cortisol can alter hippocampal functions, affecting short-term memory. It inhibits vascular function, blood flow and oxygen and disrupts the function of the hormone/neurotransmitter dopamine. It can affect the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis – a major part of the neuroendocrine system that controls reactions to stress and regulates the immune system and many other body functions. Many canines who experience these emotional, physical and developmental maladjustments are not successful in a home and their problems are almost never related to the root cause.

We Did Not Know

For the best chance of maturing into successful, well-adjusted and confident individuals and family members, puppies must be provided with near-constant access to a responsible care-giver. As they move through important developmental stages, they can be exposed to a variety of environments, objects, people and experiences. They can be acclimated to the sensory stimuli that occur in and around the environment in which they live and will be taken. They can be provided with canine interactions that will teach them how to be a social animal and how to communicate. The care-giver can manage the puppy’s day, mixing periods of play, exploration and education with periods of rest.

If you are already in a situation where the dog in your life is confined or crated during the work week, see if you are willing to imagine some alternatives to that arrangement. Perhaps you can utilize a canine day-care facility. Maybe an acquaintance who is home during the day lives with a dog who would enjoy some stimulation from a visiting companion. Maybe a friend, family member or dog-walking service can be arranged to provide the dog with a mid-day outing. Perhaps you can begin to work at home or take the dog to your workplace.

If you are away from your home during the work week and are contemplating bringing a puppy into your life, perhaps you will reconsider your choice until you have found some alternatives to physical confinement.


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Allowing the Dog to Produce Something Good

The dog saw the bird fly into the greenhouse. He followed. The bird flew against the top and the sides of the glass and then back and forth. She was unable to find her way back out; she appeared to panic. Her wings beat wildly and feathers floated down as the dog watched. He was vibrating with excitement. Eventually exhausted, the bird fell to the ground and the dog grabbed her just as the man entered the greenhouse. The man was disturbed at the sight; he didn't want the dog to kill the bird. He asked the dog to “drop it.” He did not. With every muscle fiber tight and twitching, the dog stood clutching the bird in his mouth. The man asked him to “give it.” He did not. He asked him to “leave it” and he did not. Finally, the man spotted a colander sitting on the potting bench. He grabbed it and thrust it forward. He asked the dog to “put.” The dog took a couple steps toward the man and with his tail wagging furiously, he placed the bird into the colander.

The dog in the story is my canine partner Jack. He gave up the bird for the opportunity to do his most favorite activity – "put." Jack created the “put” behavior in a single education session and because of the way that it was reinforced he came to put any object he could handle “inside,” “up,” “down” and wherever directed.

This is how it all happened. Jack was shown a box and was encouraged to play a game in which any new behavior he created with it earned him a mark (click) and a reinforcer. Jack looked inside the box, he touched it with his nose and then with his paw, he jumped over it, went around it and created several more novel interactions with the box. Eventually, he spotted his favorite toy a distance away and went to get it. In the spirit of the game, I marked and reinforced that. He immediately picked up the toy again and moved toward me; he was marked and reinforced. At this point, I realized the opportunity that lay before us. I threw the toy off a short distance and put the box between Jack and I. He picked up the toy and made a few steps toward me and the box. I got so excited that I nearly threw the whole bag of treats. On the next toss, Jack had figured out that the game involved the box. He took careful steps closer and closer to the box and I marked and reinforced him with an excited celebration. On the next toss, he walked right up to the box with the toy in his mouth. As I hoped, when he was marked, the toy fell into the box. A bonanza of chicken liver pieces rained into Jack's experience. My normally squeally voice went into hyper mimi-mouse mode. We played and tugged and jumped around like clowns. On the next trial, Jack walked right up to the box with the toy and I simply waited. All time stood still. Jack stood there. I could almost see him thinking, and then he dropped the toy into the box. The “put” game was on and before the day was over, he had put everything he could find and everything I gave him into that box.

For a dog whose education revolves around learning opportunity, learning becomes a skill that is practiced and perfected. When he is given the opportunity to create behavior in an atmosphere where there are no wrong answers, he will. And when he does create a behavior that earns him the equivalent of a big-money jackpot, he’ll not only remember it, he’ll repeat it with happy excitement.

French philosopher Rene’ Descartes (1596-1650) reasoned that dogs did not think, that all the things which dogs are taught to perform are only expressions of their fear, hope and joy and as such, could be performed without any thought. The reliance upon prompting and cueing to solicit behavior produces a dog who is an agreeable model for Descartes unthinking machine. By attempting to put learning into the dog, we limit her potential for intellectual accomplishment. We deny her the opportunity to think and to produce something good on her own. Do we do this because at some level, we believe that she really can’t think and that she can’t create worthwhile behaviors or responses to our interactions and our shared experience? When we really examine what's at the root of some of our patterns of thought, action and reaction, we often find concepts that are so opposed to our true nature and intent that we are shocked to find that we harbor them.

When we prompt a dog and she doesn’t immediately respond, we feel compelled to take action. We literally give her no opportunity to create a response before we have prompted again, intervened physically or changed course. The need to do something is so strong and so impulsive that the only aspect of canine education most people find challenging is that of suspending themselves and just observing the dog. Why can’t she be given the time she needs to think things through and come up with a response? She may be just ready to offer an inclination toward action that we squash with our own reaction.

I ask my dog-partnered students to make an agreement with themselves that they will follow each cue or prompt with the purposeful suspension of their thoughts and actions, placing their full and complete attention on the dog. I ask them to notice everything they can about the dog’s mental and emotional state, as expressed through the body. Notice if she displays hesitancy or excitement. Watch for even the slightest movement and be ready to immediately let her know if that movement is going in the direction you want it to go. If it isn’t, happily move on to another exercise. Most of all, I ask them to intend to learn from these raw and genuine experiences. Learn how to improve the dog’s chances of success. Learn how to turn the education game into an opportunity to have unrestrained fun and excitement. Learn how to allow the dog to think and create on her own.