Comments on: Indy and Milo Recreate the Past

By: christine randolph

christine randolph — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 16:41:27 +0000

yay ! I think Happy would be OK with a little dog, but then I am far away and do not have to become nervous when I watch the encounter

By: Heather

Heather — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:40:24 +0000

Little dogs are certainly much faster and would leave Happy in the dust. If I find a willing owner with a friendly small dog I’ll try it!

I wonder if it is the same with kids? Happy responds to the kids very well.

By: kbehan

kbehan — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 21:27:28 +0000

The natural order of things is that little dog “controls” big dog. So have Happy with little dog and with a handy place for little dog to scurry under if Happy gets too excited, and then little dog learns it has emotional leverage and begins to practice emotional jujitsu on Happy and now all the stars are in their right place. The little dog has to be old enough, and not cranky, for this to be a good experience for all.

By: Heather

Heather — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:52:14 +0000

–I wonder if Happy would play with little dogs or attack them –

I doubt very much that an attack would happen, but I will never know, because I go by the “30 pound difference” rule–if Happy is more than 30 pounds heavier than another dog, they don’t play. I have friends with smaller dogs and we sometimes walk together…but I don’t want to be sued if a little dog is injured even accidentally.

A small dog may have its back or legs broken from a 120 pound dog lying on it or swiping at it with a big paw. Or what if Happy picked the dog up like a toy and shook it by the neck?

Also, most small dogs that we have never met are terrified of Happy. The owners are sometimes not sensitive to that, and would force the dogs into uncomfortable situations because Happy looks so docile. His looks are deceiving – he is in fact very sweet and easy going, but when he plays, which he is always up for, he is very active, coordinated, and powerful, and he loves, loves, loves to roughhouse.

By: christine randolph

christine randolph — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:55:04 +0000

ha ! i never get scared of strange dogs, just scared that Betsy might get into a fight.
I guess I should be more scared of dogs I do not know.

I am an idiot.

my little dog barks like a moron when she is off leash on the side walk – and sees people or people with dogs on leash, especially when they are near our property or walking towards it.

it is embarrassing.

when my dogs are at that trail where all dogs are off leash, it seems fine…

when my little dog is on a leash, no problem with moronic barking…

when she wants to play with a large dog, she goes up to them, does something annoying to them and then runs of squealing like a stuck pig so they will chase her but not hurt her.

most owners get a fright because they think their HUGE dog bit my little one and this is why she is squealing. I have to calm them down
tell them this is her favourite game
that the squealing is pre-emptive and part of the game. (…she is sooo disturbed, poor thing but having fun with it…)

I wonder if Happy would play with little dogs or attack them ?

By: Heather

Heather — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:04:30 +0000

Happy doesn’t lie down, but if the barking dog is behind a fence, or super small (small dogs go into barking frenzies upon just seeing him, even if he doesn’t glance their way), he sits down. If it is a large dog (I am thinking of the Beauceron down the street that sometimes escapes her backyard fence and comes charging down her driveway as we walk by her front yard), he stops and stands still. My flight instinct kicks in, although that would just make us prey.

By: christine randolph

christine randolph — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:54:32 +0000

would licking other dogs be different from licking the owner ?
i felt recently that one of my dogs is licking us so much because she is hyper-friendly. when I have been away from her for more than 10 minutes, she literally throws herself at me and licks my face for several minutes.

is that another way of giving the owner all her energy ?

I think there are dogs who do not want to avoid a fight. my border collie is one of them, and she is a huge resource guarder, so depending on another dog’s inclination,

a- when another bitchy dog comes up they get in a fight.
b- when a dog comes up who wishes to avoid a fight, no fight.
c- when a dog comes up that can get the better of her, she gets put in her place.
( i wish there were more of those…)

so, big trouble if the other dog also wants to fight. it is impossible to see that at first sight though…
always wary of that.

my dog also lies down when she sees another dog approaching, like Happy. i think this is hunting behaviour. the next step with my dog is running to the dog at full speed, sniff them out and bark a little…she sometimes likes to stare down other animals, that is intimidation i think…

By: Heather

Heather — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:06:50 +0000

–“Licking is another signal that is used often. Especially by black dogs, dogs with a lot of hair around their faces, and others who´s facial expressions for some reasons are more difficult to see –

My particular hairy, black dog with dark eyes doesn’t show these “calming signals” to other dogs.

When I am out with Happy and an unknown dog barks at him (a loose dog, or from behind a fence, in a yard, or on a leash), his reaction is to stop dead and stare silently at the dog. Often he’ll sit down. He stays this way until the barking dog shifts its attention to sniffing, or walking away, or whatever. Then Happy will refocus on me like nothing happened and continue to walk. Sometimes I feel awkward, because the barking dog’s owner may be staring at me, wondering why the heck am I standing there doing nothing, while my dog is driving their dog bonkers. Once a guy in his underwear came running down the driveway screaming at his dog (and me), and I simply wanted to get the heck out of there, but Happy was not moving, not reacting, not even aware of anything else but that dog.

He will also sometimes do this if he sees people approaching from a distance (like if we are walking on our country road, and someone else is walking toward us in the distance). With people and non-barking dogs, when they get close he would want to approach them if it was up to him.

By: kbehan

kbehan — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:06:55 +0000

1) The back pack could be a good idea not because of the “job,” but because of the differentiation as you note, and also because it puts the dog in its body and does stimulate the whole body dimension, and finally deflects owners’ attention off of dog-as-person syndrome so dog doesn’t feel as much pressure from its owner.
2) When a dog gives its owner “all its energy” then it gains the capacity to discriminate as to what others are feeling. So it will not be charged by other dogs that hold that same charge so as to bring it to the surface. It will be able to feel the other dog’s charge (dog is trying to hold this back and this is revealed in its body language and tail set) and it won’t feel good so it won’t want to trigger it. Whereas when it’s consumed with its own charge, it’s compelled to put its wet nose into that hot socket. In the incident you’ve described, the other dogs “charge” eventually ran back to its source for replenishment, and so your dog was able to relieve its charge as well. The problem is that if the charge isn’t resolved, it just trickles right back in and the need remains.
3) The whole idea of transmitting signals is incorrect. What’s going on in a dog’s mind is that it is choosing to focus on a particular part of its own body and this is how it forms an association. It references that part of its body as the key to understanding the moment. So licking of lips (can be expression of nervousness) but is focusing on the hunger circuitry and gut region, trying to pull-in energy, whereas in contrast growling is focusing on the balance circuitry and head region (particularly inner ear) and trying to push-out energy. When a dog is pushing out energy, it’s difficult if not dangerous for another dog to approach it. When a dog is puling in energy it’s easy if not safe to approach. There’s no true signaling going on, it’s an energy dynamic that both dogs are built to respond to innately, and so it appears as if there is signaling with some degree of cognition. To understand this directly, consider how you FEEL when talking to someone who is truly listening (they’re pulling you in) versus someone who is not listening (they’re pushing you back either by being a passive reflector, or pushing out words faster than you can transmit them). It’s the exact same emotional dynamic.
My experience with black dogs is that if that color is a recessive trait for the breed, (GSD), they tend to be more nervous and hence might lick more, although I’m not quite sure what you mean by licking. Licking another dog is absorbing their essence and is part of grounding and not at all nervousness.
Rolling over can be a form of emotional overload, but one that grants the top line some grounding which is why it is also integral to pure pleasure, and if an overload indicates energy being held back and this can incite some dogs to attack further because they are getting an intensification of the preyful value of that dog, with the predatory aspect minimized. Most dogs on the other hand would feel grounded into the preyfulness of the belly up dog because they can hold the predatory aspect in mind at the same time and come up with a social value, and so we call that a turn off/appeasement signal which is okay as a description, but is a serious error if it’s considered a definition.
So if a dog goes belly up and is attacked, it will learn either generally to approaching dogs (if temperament is soft) or specifically to that kind of dog in that kind of circumstance (if temperament is hard, for example with a very young dog that’s in a situation over its head) that referencing that part of its body, (pulling in energy through top line connecting to its genitals), produced the attack. Therefore it will tend to flip polarity later on so that it will now when charged, push-out-from-muzzle. If it becomes successful at pushing out and inducing other dog to flip its polarity and become preyful, then it can get addicted to attacking other dogs. If it learned a very specific lesson, it may get very rough in play with softer dogs and only fight the dog that’s holding a charge.
With the foxes, they weren’t actually selecting for friendliness, but were regressing them back to “social stem cell” of infant canine puppies. But because foxes lack the high prey threshold of wolves, they aren’t able to be domesticated ala the dog because they lack the drive that high prey threshold wolf part of canine spectrum imprints onto domesticated dog. As in all things with dogs and science, the experiment actually proves the opposite of what it has been used to support, i.e. that friendliness and approachability has something to do with domestication.

By: AZDogerman

AZDogerman — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 21:45:11 +0000

I want my dog to self-regulate her conflicts. So I have a few questions with these goals in mind:

1.) Can I help my dog and other dogs differentiate better from each other? For instance, if she were wearing a training vest that was in contrast to her coat would this help her and other dogs of “like mind” to differentiate from each other?

I notice that CM uses pack-backs a lot to help dogs walk on-lead. He says “Dogs love jobs”. It doesn’t seem to me like a dog would automatically see wearing a back-pack as a “job” especially because there is no overcoming of resistance in a weighted pack. Does a weighted pack “smooth out” some of the dogs electric energy by virtue of stimulating the top-line? Or creating gait changes that are smoother?

2.) If dogs are attracted to other dogs of “like-mind” this implies that through cementing “negative (my eyes) as access to positive” that my dog will resolve deep stress and then be less attracted to dogs who are stressed out because they embody a resistance that can be overcome through conflict? In one memorable spat between my dog and another that lasted about 1 minute of non-stop chase/ inhibited biting, the other dog ran to its owner in a very “cowed” manner at which point my dog came back to me utterly exhausted and relaxed.

3.) In “Calming Signals” Rugaas States: “Licking is another signal that is used often. Especially by black dogs, dogs with a lot of hair around their faces, and others who´s facial expressions for some reasons are more difficult to see than those of dogs with lighter colors, visible eyes and long noses.” I was curious as to your explanation of this.. do dogs learn that some behaviors reduce conflict and others don’t? For instance, would a black dog start out in his interactions by using facial expressions that weren’t received by another dog and then he would modify until he found one that was transmitted? Rugaas says that if a dog is attacked while displaying calming signals that they might learn that they don’t work and then become aggressive/defensive but in her black dog example it seems like the natural progression would be one of learning through negative consequences and only until all signals had been extinguished by negative learning then would the dog become very aggressive/defensive. However, if the black dog somehow “knew” to only offer signals that transmitted from birth, then would these signals be genetic, or part of the personality-as-shaped-by-drive? I am very interested in this line of inquiry, perhaps you could could write your interpretation of the domesticated fox experiment where the coats turned color and ears got floppy as a result of breeding for “friendliness”. I know this is a lot of questioning but unfortunately, I am hooked on NDT!