Athens Stray Dogs Participate in Protests

Interesting news story from NPR shows strays dogs in Athens, Greece, participating in the local protests. What are your thought about what’s going on here? Athens Stay Dogs Mingle At Protest Rallies

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Published May 13, 2010 by Kevin Behan

5 responses to “Athens Stray Dogs Participate in Protests”

  1. Donnie_O says:

    Personally, I believe that the riot is one of society’s greatest acts of self-expression, the result of living in a society based on coercion, repression and fear. It’s our collective emotional battery being released and the dogs are attracted to this movement of group energy.

  2. AZdogermanstu says:

    I think movement of group energy is on the mark. I think it’s fascinating that these dogs are willing to participate in such intense activities when they could avoid it all together. Something that popped into my head was that the police form a very defensive formation so maybe the dogs are adopting the active role in opposition to this.

  3. kbehan says:

    What strikes me in the pictures are the police in formation, an amorphous, faceless wall, like they are the prey being hunted, shielded by their protective armor, because incongruous as it might first seem, being constrained by jurisprudence, for the most part they are, relative to the provocateurs, occupying the passive, defensive polarity, with the demonstrators occupying the aggressive, predator polarity, they charge the line and are basically rebuffed by the “bison” holding fast, except for some movement generated by the prey in small outbursts of retaliation. I think the dogs may be aligning with that dynamic because it feels like a hunt, not to mention resonating with what I presume is the prevailing mood of the country.

  4. Some stray thoughts:

    The Darwinian Perspective.
    Evolution is a process of change, where simpler forms constantly evolve into those that are more complex. Modern human culture is the result of evolutionary changes, and some of those changes came about because of our close relationship with dogs. Governments are designed to resist change, so the Greek dogs are on the side of protesters because they’re natural agents of change/evolution.

    The Freudian Perspective: Consciousness operates via two basic principles, unrestrained instincts, emotions, and urges and a governing mechanism, designed to control those impulses. Each nation has its own unconscious energy (the national Id) and a control mechanism (the nation’s Ego), which is designed to keep a lid on the volatile energies of its citizens. Recent events in Greece blew the lid off the restraints that had previously been in place. Since dogs are, in many ways, a reflection of human consciousness, when the lid blew off in Athens, the dogs of Athens naturally felt pulled into the confluence of events, and being more Id than Ego, they gravitated more to the anarchists than to the police.

    LCK

  5. Sorry, I muddled the Freudian perspective a little.

    The Freudian Perspective:
    Consciousness operates via two basic principles, the Id (unrestrained instincts, emotions, and urges) and the Ego (which acts as a governing mechanism, designed to control those impulses).
    Since consciousness is a reflection of Nature, the overall consciousness of each nation has its own Id (the unrestrained impulses of its people) and a governmental Ego (designed to keep a lid on the volatile energies of its citizens).
    Recent events in Greece blew the lid off some of the restraints that had previously been in place. And since dogs are a reflection of human consciousness, when the lid blew off in Athens, the dogs of that city naturally felt pulled into the confluence of events. And being more Id than Ego, they gravitated more to the side of the anarchists than to the police.

    LCK

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Books about Natural Dog Training by Kevin Behan

In Your Dog Is Your Mirror, dog trainer Kevin Behan proposes a radical new model for understanding canine behavior: a dog’s behavior and emotion, indeed its very cognition, are driven by our emotion. The dog doesn’t respond to what the owner thinks, says, or does; it responds to what the owner feels. And in this way, dogs can actually put people back in touch with their own emotions. Behan demonstrates that dogs and humans are connected more profoundly than has ever been imagined — by heart — and that this approach to dog cognition can help us understand many of dogs’ most inscrutable behaviors. This groundbreaking, provocative book opens the door to a whole new understanding between species, and perhaps a whole new understanding of ourselves.
  Natural Dog Training is about how dogs see the world and what this means in regards to training. The first part of this book presents a new theory for the social behavior of canines, featuring the drive to hunt, not the pack instincts, as seminal to canine behavior. The second part reinterprets how dogs actually learn. The third section presents exercises and handling techniques to put this theory into practice with a puppy. The final section sets forth a training program with a special emphasis on coming when called.
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