The first thing to say of course is compassion for the unspeakable horror the victim must have endured, as well as for the suffering of her family. The trainer was obviously full of life, she loved her work, and the world needs more people like her who fearlessly pursue their life’s dream. And I’m also not going to drum away on the obvious point that keeping a highly social animal, adapted to the vastness of the open ocean, in a small tank might be a bad idea. As one Orca advocate put it, “We don’t belong in their world and they don’t belong in ours.” And finally in cases such as these, for any of us that work with animals, humility rather than sanctimony is always in order. On a much smaller scale I’ve been through my share of training disasters, like the time a dog bolted from me, sunk its teeth into a cow, and started a stampede that drove over twenty tons of cattle back and forth across a quiet country lane (and this was during the pre-SUV era of tiny cars such as the Pinto and Honda Civic) and it was only sheer luck that no one was killed. So I know all too well that sinking feeling of helplessness and morbid dread when everything goes south in one split second, accompanied by the futile feeling of desperation that can so clearly be seen in the trainers at poolside, frantically slapping the water and trying to entice the Orca to them for a “cookie”. My sympathies are with them as well.

But there does unfortunately remain an important lesson to be drawn. As we all know there’s usually more to be learned from failure than success. One motivational speaker put it this way: it’s okay to fall, just make sure you always fall forward. And over the course of my career in dogs I’ve learned to always “fail” forward by never indulging in the luxury of telling myself a dog story. So one of the main reasons I’m writing this commentary is because it seems to me that in the aftermath of this incident, the PR machine at Sea World is hard at work crafting a whopper of a fish story.

The usual spin on these kinds of animal acts gone awry is a poly-sided bromide, one side being a dose of hard cold wild animal realism: “These (bears/Orcas/tigers) are wild animals and wild animals are unpredictable.” Therefore we should view trainers of dangerous predators such as Orcas as if they are aquanauts, the theme park equivalent of astronauts; and as such they knowingly assume the risk and understand the danger, all of which is in service to advancing the general public’s awareness and appreciation of the animals of the deep, just as astronauts quicken the public’s awareness and appreciation of space exploration.

And then another side of the spin is the romanticized version, as in: “That tiger wasn’t attacking Roy; it was trying to stop him from falling and hurting himself.” (I want to point out just how precise a control of its body an animal can have. I once took care of a large, overweight border collie/cross “Columbo” that would run across the yard and if I wasn’t paying attention, leap from the ground and delicately “buss” me on my eyeball. All I felt was a little smudge of wetness on my eye being that he was so gentle at the moment of making contact. And if it happened when I was wearing sunglasses he would slightly knock my glasses askew because the point of impact apparently remained perfectly calibrated for the lens of my eye. It was annoying, but I couldn’t help but marvel at the kind of physical dexterity Columbo manifested that an NFL wide receiver or principal dancer in the Russian Ballet would envy. So needless to say I don’t think a tiger would try to break someone’s fall by crushing their skull and I don’t think the Orca was playing with the trainer either.)

Eventually, the third side of damage-control, PR spin will end up being “pilot error”, although the reports seem to be conflicting. Was the trainer violating prescribed policy by being in the water with the Orca, or in the shallow pool, or was she outside the pool and on the coping when the attack occurred? I’m not sure what actually happened. However, the official version from Sea World seems to be in: the Orca seized the trainer by her hair and then violently thrashed her around and dragged her under because it was “curious” about her pony tail.

So does injecting the energy perspective into all of this shed any light? Yes I believe it does.

What strikes me the most when I watch the videos of Sea World performances, is the incredible degree of sensory stimulation to which these animals are exposed. In the audience’s mind the trainers are just dancing, – entertaining. But to the Orcas, arching out of the water and facing them on the fantail, it might seem that the trainers are writhing provocatively in black and white shiny wetsuits (if I’m not mistaken a human being is about the size of a seal). Perhaps the input isn’t being absorbed as simply good theater that it’s intended to be. Just as I always advise dog owners not to let their children wave their hands in a dog’s face or run past the puppy’s crate, I know I’d feel very uneasy sashaying around in the face of a killer whale. So the question is: since sensory input energizes the nervous system, and Orcas are bombarded with huge doses of it, where does all this energy go? I do know that in the deepest most primal recess of animal consciousness, when there is a high rate of sensory input, it means either danger or dinner; predator or prey; and either way the “computer” commands BITE.

The other thing that strikes me from watching the performances is what might the Orcas be experiencing as they perform their various routines. In the trainers mind they are conditioning the Orca to perform tricks, simple conditioned responses. The “cue” is the input, the behavior is the output. And in the trainer’s mind the output of behavior, no matter how complex the linked chain of behaviors, it nonetheless merely equals the input: in short the animal mind is basically a learning machine. But behavior is fundamentally about the transmission of energy, and energy has a quantity as well as a QUALITY to it, and so the relevant question becomes: what is the Orca FEELING when the trainer riding on its back points at people in the audience and then it flicks water in their faces by a sudden swoosh of its powerful tail? For example, if I were to condition my cat to flick its tail at a dog, I would worry if I’m inciting the cat toward feeling “aggressive” toward that dog.

Of course, the vast majority of times, with the greatest percentage of Orcas, the performance routines go off beautifully, and so this supposed primal command to bite by computer apparently isn’t being given. Or is it?

It’s my contention that the question, ‘why are Orcas the stars of aquatic amusement parks’ – - is also the answer to the question a to why most Orcas don’t maul their trainers while some do. Killer whales excel at these performances for the reason some attack, and most don’t. In other words, so far “Tilikum” has been characterized as a 12,000 pound Orca with a big problem; this may be his third victim, whereas an energy theory characterizes Tilikum as a big Orca with a 12,000 volt problem.

THE ANIMAL MIND IS AN ENERGY CIRCUIT; it absorbs sensory input and converts it into physical and psychic energy. Physical and psychic energy evolved to do work, to overcome resistance so as to move energy throughout an ecosystem. This is what truly drives evolution. It is more fundamental than the matter of gene replication or even survival. If an organism can capture, harness and move energy through an ecosystem, it thrives.

And in order for an energy circuit to reliably repeat itself, there must be an “emotional battery”, its purpose being as a reservoir for the sublimation of simple, pure emotion (pure emotion is attracted to a preyful essence) so as to be converted into unresolved emotion and stored as stress, with this stored energy being a built-up degree of force that can do work, but it is simultaneously information on how to align with others in order to do such work. (I.E. synchronize with others so as to overcome more complex and stronger forms of resistance.) This means that the purpose of sociability isn’t for companionship and for the pleasures of affection, as wonderful derivatives of sociability as these indeed are. Rather, the purpose of emotion, affection, love and its first cousin stress, is to do the work of evolution.

Meanwhile Sea World is peddling a Disney story that “love makes the world go round,” “We are one with the Killer Whales”, and “Orcas just want to be friends”. “We’re really good to these animals, we love them.” However, the fact remains that because Orcas are predators, this is how they are equipped to perform as they do. I’m no fan of the circus but at least old time Lion tamers cracking the whip, brandishing the chair (and we all knew there was a sniper off stage with a high power rifle) were selling honesty.

When animals are emotionally bonded, such as Killer Whales living in their pod, two, three, four or more synced up into a complex energy circuit, their many emotional batteries become one emotional battery, with this collectivized energy being for the purpose of overcoming more and more complex objects of resistance, – which is really what a complex routine of tricks represents. And interestingly as alluded to above, the featured star players at parks like Sea World are the oceanic equivalents of wolves, i.e. group hunters, such as dolphins and killer whales, and they evolved to herd schools of fish for efficient killing or disorient huge whales that are much larger than they are.

The emotional battery is “ionized” by environmental/sensory inputs so that the body/mind becomes “polarized” in a complementary manner. Thus the animal can align and synchronize with its peers in order to hunt collectively. I would guess that killer whales love synchronized activity for the same reason that dogs love car rides. And the higher the capacity of the emotional battery, the more adaptable the organism because its capacity for synchronization is higher. This then means all stimulation, be it gently petting and stroking the Orca’s tactile sensory regions; visual arousal; audio inputs such as blaring guitar solos and driving bass rhythms, is – in the final analysis – emotional energy. Neurons fire, bio-chemical energy is generated and so we return to the fundamental question: what is this energy “designed” to do? In my view, it is designed to do work, and the work that Orcas evolved to do is to pool their collective batteries in order to hunt.

I’m reminded here of an impromptu experiment Dr. Mech conducted when filming the “White Wolves of Ellesmere Island” with Jim Brandenburg. One can see this for oneself on the National Geographic video of that title. Mech and Brandenburg were set up above the wolf’s den and one afternoon while the wolves seemed fast asleep, Dr. Mech whispered to Jim that he was going to sneak down wind a couple of hundred yards and then let out a howl. Jim got excited; this was going to be an interesting field experiment.

When Mech got into position he began to howl, and he was very good at it because the wolves arose and became very excited. But then to Jim’s amazement, they began to fight, several of them biting and locking up and then tumbling into an alder thicket before they came to their senses. When Mech returned, Jim filled him in and recounted blow by blow what had just happened. And then he turned to Mech expectantly and waited for the interpretation of the results to the experiment. Oddly, Mech had nothing much to say. We had just observed an experiment, the results had been tabulated, and yet no interpretation was forthcoming.

So then, what happened? In my view, the wolves were summoned to a hunt that wasn’t. They got all dressed up but had nowhere to go. Their prey-making impulse, which in social interactions is sublimated into emotionally deflected behaviors via the emotional battery (i.e. mounting, posturing, rub-a-dubbing, rolling, flipping polarity, chase-and-be-chased, deflection  onto a common bite object), was in this context not available because they had been suddenly energized for the hunt and yet no prey was available to absorb this sudden arousal of energy. This meant that the only way out for the “charge”, – which is made of compressed prey-making arousal and normally reserved for the large, dangerous prey animal, – was each other, which is why they ended up fighting, or making-prey on each other. Between wolves, this not too big of a problem given that as canines they are endowed with the reflexes of a ninja and can avoid tooth to sensitive body parts, and then even when bitten their tough hide and thick pelt can virtually resist a leather punch. So no harm no foul. Whereas when a dog “flashes” a human, we can’t get out of the way, our soft skin easily tears and a relatively harmless pinch and twist of the incisors can need 20 stitches to close. In other words, over-stimulation can fry the circuitry and cause the batteries to violently dump energy as a survival response.

Currently in dogdom, everyone’s on the lookout for the abusive dog owner, – animal rescue 911 is all the rage on TV. Everyone thinks that the remarkable increase in aggression in dogs is due to abuse, but I believe it’s primarily due to over-stimulation of the emotional battery in conjunction with a romanticized version of what it is to be “one with an animal”. Dogs used to be tied to dog houses in the back yard, and now they’re invited on the bed if not under the covers. And yet the purpose of sociability is not companionship; it’s to move energy, and when no outlet for synchronized group action that can channel all this energy, stored up in the battery, is provided, instinct finds its own way out.

A further clue to what’s going on with the Orcas might prove to be the curled-over dorsal fin that is characteristic of a killer whale in captivity. It has been suggested that this is a physical condition of deterioration, however in a number of videos on-line where the Orca is actually making prey, the fin appears to be firmly upright. One clip shows three Orcas taking out a hapless Pelican that alighted in their pool, and then the videos of the various attacks on people that have been captured, in particular the scene of the Orca taking a “victory” lap with the trainer in its jaws being held by his ankle (2006), – again the fins appear to be perfectly upright. My hunch is that the disposition of this fin might very well correlate to a dog’s tail, with its set and action being configured around a dog’s physical (as well as its emotional) center of gravity: the core of the body/mind as an emotional battery. This would then suggest that being in a small enclosure, especially a hard reflective surface such as a concrete or metal pool brightly painted, would make the Orca feel compressed and curl the tail over, much like a dog with a tucked tail. It doesn’t feel “grounded” but then after the tumultuous download of its battery, just like a dog with the prey in its mouth and trotting along with an unmistakable bounce in its stride, the fin rises as does the dog’s tail. In all these cases, the emotional circuitry, which evolved in service to the fundamental purpose not of sociability, but of moving energy through an ecosystem (which in Orcas as in canines means the hunt), has run to ground. In the Orca’s mind, all that stimulation finally arrived at its energetic endpoint; the hunt has finally hit the stop signal.

I believe that the synchronized actions mimics for Orcas the experience of hunting, just as playing fetch with a dog, or taking a dog for a car ride, does for canines. Group synchronization is the basis of Orca motivation and why they enjoy performing their tricks. But apparently it must prove to be an exercise in frustration, like always praising a dog and getting it worked up and excited so that one day, seemingly out of nowhere, it bites. This is why I stress the concept of an emotional battery, as you can only fill it up so much with energy before it has to start downloading or crash. All input that can’t be conducted through the pure channel then goes into the emotional battery and is stored, – it doesn’t just go away after the lights dim and the crowd goes home. I’m suggesting that performing a back flip for a fish doesn’t constitute resolution of a 12,000 volt problem.

Sea World and learning theorists characterizes the system of training they do as being purely positive, but in the animal mind, the negative equals access to the positive. So even when we’re being 100% motivational (from our point of view), our dog is giving our “eyes,” i.e. our predatory aspect, credit. We are becoming increasingly negative, and if this isn’t grounded in purposeful work from an evolutionary point of view, things can run aground. (If I were to design the costumes at Sea World I would appropriate my design from the rubber workers in Burma. I would outfit the trainers in a garish wet suit with harsh right angles as the design pattern, and shockingly bright colors that hold in graphic relief two menacing eyes prominently featured on the trainers’ back. This might more effectively reflect the energy they project onto the trainers, back at the Orca’s and keep their energies on track and deflected toward the fish in trainer’s hand.)

Over-stimulation, rather than abuse, is why I believe there is a rising rate of aggression in domestic dogs. Owners are pouring so much energy into the relationship, and it’s got nowhere to go. The fact that most dogs can sublimate the energy and become even more intensely friendly is what confuses the real picture of what’s going on. If being positive could stand on its own, if it were possible to be purely positive in a way that meant something to the animal mind, then dolphin training as practiced at Sea World would work in the wide open ocean on free Willy. But the animals must be constrained so that they can perceive the trainer as the negative-as-access-to-the-positive. This is why the social hunters such as dolphins and killer whales are so readily motivated and able to perform amazingly synchronized activities. The hunt is what makes it worth it to an Orca to rocket out of the water, spin three times and then dive back in through a hoop for a fish. This is as close to hunting as it’s ever going to get, unless another unlucky Pelican wanders into its pool.

Orcas are constantly being summoned to a hunt that is never to materialize. And sadly, in some tragic instances, it becomes trick training run amok.

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So a car could be parked with the engine revved, and the tachometer registers 3000 rpm and to a passenger the car is generating a lot of vibration. Then, on the open highway the car could be going 80mph at 3000 rpm and now to the passenger it all seems grounded since the energy is being smoothly transferred to the wheels and translated into forward motion. The two situations appear completely different but then if the driver were suddenly to kick the car out of gear, then the underlying intensity of engine output would be apparent. And then in between these extremes, the car could be in 1^st, 2^nd or 3^rd gear and we would again see various degrees of vibration coming from the system at 3000 rpm, but the intensity value, the rpm of the engine, is exactly the same and so whatever resistance is being encountered from the systems’ or car’s point of view would be categorized in terms of that same intensity level.

That intensity ratings can run consistently across the behavioral spectrum is significant because it is how animals are able to link a chain of moments together into a contiguous sense of experience. For example, as a dog is “loading” it becomes more intense; let’s say it’s going from 1 to 10 on a scale of intensity, and then on the other side after taking action at the peak of a state of 10, on the descending side of the energy curve it will revisit 9 through 1 as matching values on its way down. What this means is that say for example a dog won’t push-for-food on the ascending side of the scale because that increasing rate of intensity (high-rate-of-change) has shut down its temperament through negative/instinctual experiences, but then after an outburst at a peak of 10, as its coming down one is far more likely to induce a dog to push in for food since it’s experiencing the rate of intensity as decreasing and is in the process of relaxing with that specific energy state. (This is akin to being physically and mentally okay with the same degree of pain on the descending side of the healing process, whereas it was fear inducing on the ascending side of the pain curve.) So I slip in the behavior I want on the downhill slope of the energy scale, i.e. push-for-food at say level 5, knowing that this vastly increases the likelihood that I can induce push-for-food at 4 if not 5 on the ascending side of the slope.

I’m thinking here specifically of taking a dog with incredible prey instinct down to my chicken yard. (This training sequence may be on/line as a Quantum Canine episode via FACT TV). As soon as the dog sees the chickens it goes into “missile-lock” and so I wait for it to begin to express energy into action. Meanwhile I’m holding the dog on a long lead at some distance from the chicken yard. At some point after dissipating some degree of tension in a futile expression of energy, the dog will turn to me and begin to show interest in the food, and then because I’ve already pre-conditioned the response I’m hoping for, it begins to push in with a fury. It’s now channeling chicken-energy into me at intensity state 5. On subsequent outings, its ability to turn to me for its release quickens. Soon, before it locks up it begins to willfully seek me out for the pushing outlet at full bore and little by little I increase MY INTENSITY to equal the high state of 10 that the chickens are able to induce. This becomes what killing a chicken begins to feel like. I’m turning prey instinct into prey DRIVE, i.e. be in harmony with me AND with the chickens. (Once I can get reliable drive energy, I can soon have dog and chickens eating food cheek to beak in the chicken yard with dog on a loose lead. Then I have dog search for egg in yard with chickens squawking and flapping so everybody gets the essence that Drive craves.)

Now the dog is learning that an increasing rate of tension doesn’t necessarily lead to a peak overload and paralysis of its temperament. This is why it’s so vital in the NDT system to not correct a dog for explosive behaviors (however I must make it clear that until the dogs’ Drive is strong enough to solve matters on its own, the dog is only put into safe situations so its expression of energy can’t do any harm to other dogs-or chickens-OR ITS OWN TEMPERAMENT.) because no matter how successful it may look in the short term, it only reinforces the old pattern of a shut down temperament in a high rate of change moment and with energy going toward the path of least resistance.

So resistance is synonymous with intensity, and all sensations of intensity are on the continuum of the fear of falling. For example, when someone is in our face, even though they may be passive in the way they’re intruding, we begin to feel a compression and this is directly related to the intense sensations affiliated with falling as an infant. These old physical memories are what make a “bad” feeling feel bad, although I also have to add that the physical memories of cramps and nausea are instinctual templates for why “bad” feelings feel bad innately. (When you think about it, why should a bad feeling feel bad?) When someone is compressing us either with their physical proximity or their words, if we pay close attention, we can feel the physical memory of our physical center-of-gravity rushing up our “First Primal Pathway” (spinal cord and alimentary canal) and then getting stuck in our face. (This is why we reflexively smile to dissipate nervous energy when we encounter someone (balance) whereas we intuitively smile in a far more relaxed manner as we open up and “ingest” or let someone into our being (hunger); like the newborn baby looking at her mother, no resistance, no physical memory; the wide open eyes and smile a pure expression of unmitigated Temperament.). And as I believe I mentioned somewhere else, we seek to “break our fall” by pushing them away with our hands, either physically, or literally with words. The most extreme expression of this would be slapping someone in the face.

All physical memories are catalogued in the body/mind in terms of the sensations of intensity. So let’s just say that a dog has the physical memory of having stepped on broken glass and cutting its foot, and a year later a door opens on its foot, the intensity values relative to that part of its body sensitized by physical memory are close enough so that it will relive the broken glass experience. I believe this is where the phenomenon of sympathetic injuries comes from. A dog breaks its leg and an owner tends it with great care, the intensity of the experience now being affiliated with the R value of the owner. Then a year later the owner gets mad at the dog and it “feigns” a broken leg. It’s not faking it, it’s reliving it. Then, if that works in this new context, it takes on a life of its own as a way of dealing with stressful situations of that intensity value.

Since Temperament is a circle, physical memory is a circle as well. It is a memory of how the body was aligned in a sensual/sensitive pattern about the physical center-of-gravity that either led to unresolved emotion being acquired, released or resolved. This is how dogs know how to “plug in” their body to another body, sensitive (-) pole to sensual (+), sensual (+) pole to sensitive (-).

I want to preface the following by saying that life on planet earth is characterized by friction and fractiousness (unlike the weightless resonance of life in the womb or the vacuum of outer space) and so by default it is impossible to have an experience, even in the first seconds of life, without acquiring physical memory because there will always be sensations of intensity that the world of resistance imposes on its constituents.

A physical memory isn’t a logical and literal remembrance of what happened, rather it’s formatted according to energetic terms, in terms of Temperament as a circle, with a direction of rotation for the flow of energy, like a clock hand sweeping clockwise across the clock’s face. This hand can only move in one direction, towards increasing complexity, which is why I believe we perceive Time as having a discrete direction and why calculus cannot work the same forward and backward in terms of evolution, as it can with the movements of billiard balls.

When the hand isn’t moving in sync with the conductivity of the surroundings, the individual experiences a sense of compression and unresolved emotion is acquired. The emotional collapse of this circle is directly hardwired into the balance circuitry and the more sudden the collapse, the more intense the sensations affiliated with it, and the more unresolved emotion is acquired and stored in the deepest cells of the emotional battery.

From the individual animal’s point of view, this clock hand “points” toward the most intense predatory aspect in the situation, this becomes 12:00 high, this is the negative (-) pole, and if energy can move toward that variable, that feels to the animal like “access-to-the-positive,” the positive or preyful aspect that carries the most arousal value to ground out the intensity. If this movement is in accord with the conductivity of the surroundings and context, some degree of unresolved emotion can be released. If not, then more unresolved emotion is acquired. Taking on more of a charge may be a problem from an individual’s point of view, but not from evolutions’ perspective because Nature has all the time in the world and from its point of view, energy has nevertheless been captured by the individual becoming charged.

When access to the positive becomes secured, we should now visualize Temperament evolving into a compass face, with a North, South, East, West Poles, and North/South and East/West axes, and finally a center, or midpoint. This is a vital elaboration because it allows individuals to “flip polarity” from one magnetic pole to another WITH NO LOSS OF EMOTIONAL MOMENTUM and really get the needle spinning like the armature in an electromagnetic engine.

This invisible architecture is embedded in any and all states of attraction and serves as the scaffolding for physical memory as it’s acquired when an emotional state of attraction leads to resistance or to a collapse. If the whole of this imprint can be felt by the dog (when dogs go into a new situation, they orient around it like homing pigeons flying in a circle when first released, trying to pick up these temperamental values of rate-of-change, most intense variable, most preyful arousal, direction of energy transfer, magnetic attunement to the variables in the moment), then I say that temperament is on/line and in this state the dog can calmly learn.

However the intensity of a past experience can be so severe that it may not be able to sense the circle in its entirety, and this could lead to avoidance or missile-lock. That the circle must become physically manifest each and every time is why when two dogs meet they must initiate it like a booting up process a computer goes through when turned on (although with fast doggy buddies it can happen so fast we may not see it.) So whenever a dog “wants” something and/or is attracted to something, this template or some lesser aspect of it is the filter it sees through, not to mention whatever physical memory is attached to the particular degree of intensity triggered by the situation at hand.

Here’s another classic example of physical memory from the wild. When the ruffed grouse is fledged, it flaps its wings rather uselessly in its first attempts to fly. It’s arousal for flow knocks itself off/balance. Then when it has chicks of its own and a predator comes around, it flaps its wings rather uselessly, the “broken wing” ruse and the predator comes after mother hen while its chicks get lost in the ground cover. The grouse isn’t cognitively trying to protect its young. It’s more attracted to the predator than usual because its prey drive is aroused by its young, but the predator has so much of a charge it knocks mother hen off/balance and so it can only express its attraction to predator with the broken wing. My rooster does the same thing when it’s courting (hassling?) the hens. It circles them in the broken wing dance.

Here’s an example of a reflexive response (rather than Drive) to physical memory from human behavior. And in the case of dysfunctional behavior we’re dealing with the analogy of a clock face for Temperament as a circle instead of the compass with the four Cardinal points since we’re dealing with an electrostatic discharge. So you could say that the clock face evolves into the compass when the flow of emotion as electrical current renders a magnetic field.

At any rate, a boy is beaten by his father and he then grows up to be a father and is going to have to contend with the physical memory of having been beaten. One might think that the tendency with intelligent human beings would be to have an undue compassion for his own son but unfortunately we know that the exact opposite is the truth. The man’s emotional battery carries the imprint of energy moving along the path of least resistance, from a place of highest resistance (father figure at 12:00 High) to a place of least resistance (young boy at 6:00 low) so that father-losing-temper-at-son is energy moving from 12:00 to 6:00. Then that boy grows up and when he finds himself at 12:00 as a father, when his young son cries, whines or acts up, he will be revisiting, compliments of his emotional battery, the exact same experience of intensity that he experienced as a boy. In his animal/emotional mind HE DEFENDS HIMSELF from his son who is causing the recapitulation of the memory, in other words, his son is his father from his animal point-of-view. The abusive father is now expressing the energy he was forced to internalize when he was helpless. Instinctively, the man accords to the predatory aspect of his son the intensity value of his father, but since his son lacks the emotional mass of his father, he now has the instinctual license to vent from 12 to 6 in accord with the imprint in his emotional battery. (Alternatively he may leave the room, go for a drive, develop a cutting wit, or even tune out in general as a means of coping.)

In the father’s animal mind, he is only defending himself from his father who is no longer present logically, but energetically certainly is within the deepest layer of his emotional battery, in the physical memory and habituated reflex of energy dis-charging from 12 High to 6 low.

Physical memory is omnipresent. It’s impossible in my view for a dog to ever have a conscious experience that hasn’t first been filtered through the template that formed in the first days of life, and then did build up some degree of physical memory; for example, the struggle that the newborn puppy experiences in the first seconds of life, which is an incredible surge of nervous intensity that can’t be grounded into smooth muscle action because the pup doesn’t even have the motor capability yet, and then being flipped over and rolled around by its mother every day for the next weeks to boot. (I am going to go into this at great depth in my next book, “Your Dog Is Your Mirror” which will be published by New World Library in fall (hopefully) 2010.) This is necessary because physical memory is the only means consciousness could evolve to reliably transmit information of an emotional content through time.

Degrees of intensity are the basis of all later sensations related to the experience of any kind of resistance whatsoever. So while a dog may have a thousand different types of experiences from a door shutting on its toes, to climbing a steep grade, to prolonged eye contact, these are all related to the intense vibrations of its central nervous system associated with the condition of being “disconnected” from the womb. And given the fractious and friction-filled reality of life on planet earth, this problem is constantly relived every time there is some degree of change in its environment. Our task is to see through the mirror of our own thoughts and see the truth of how energy moves. And there’s no better guide than the one already available to us, the animal most familiar and ubiquitous in our world, the most misunderstood animal on earth, the dog by our side.

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