Anika is a “periphery” dog by which I mean that she feels most comfortable moving along the outer “emotional valence orbital” as there’s less resistance along this track. She’s analogous to the outermost electron in an atom. As such she ranges as far as she can from her handler while still maintaining contact. I believe her personality trait would place her in a wolf pack as the one best at catching small prey for the cubs, flushing rodents from cover due to her activity level in the search, as well as being the first to notice something on the far horizon. Personality types striating along paths of resistance in integral to a systems logic for the group. However the problem in domestic life is that everything we want a dog to do requires that she feel comfortable not only when she is not moving, but when she has to spend time “centered” at the core. At the core a personality type such as Anika’s feels compressed and thus compelled to bark or do something to relieve the pressure. Before the above photo we have gone for a long walk, played hide n’ seek so as to draw her in closer to us rather than her usual trait of scanning the far horizon, and then we took her to a stream that seemed to generate an emerald mist coloring everything around it. Woodland fairies and water nymphs were no doubt cavorting as Melissa and I took it in the sight and Anika drank from the water pooling through the moss covered ledges. On the way back we paused in the middle of a field and played some keep a way with the “sacred toy” to help her feel grounded to the group, centered at the core and within her core. In this photo she’s learning that her kill is greatly appreciated. I’m laying down to minimize my predatory aspect and this gives me the chance to rub-a-dub as we wallow in the fall glory together. Thanks to Melissa for capturing the moment.
Kevin, I will be attending your November workshop at Rowe Camp. Will you have any post workshop availability for individual training sessions? thanks, Rose
A very helpful tableau describing your work with dogs and the impact of varying temperaments. I think I can identify with Anika, alongside one (or more) of my dogs! As I continue with my work with my own dogs I have been trying to focus my attention on defining my goal for that work. At the moment I have opted for a sort of affirmation to remind myself what I am trying to achieve “It’s all about staying in relationship, by aligning and synchronising”. I started off with just “it’s all about staying in relationship” but for some reason those words didn’t help me break out of my old cycle of just trying to do right by the dogs, keeping them happy, with me hanging on the end of the lead! Reinforcing MY temperament if you like! So I added the words “by synchronising and aligning” that I have learnt from you to help describe the nature of that relationship. Your post has made me wonder, along the lines of “Your Dog Is Your Mirror”, can you say any more of how you see the dog owner’s temperament fitting into the group mind?
Also on a practical note…what is the game of “keep a way”?!
What’s this Rowe Camp workshop? I want to come too! I love your question Joanne about where the temperament of the owner fits into the group mind! If the dog is our mirror, i have imagined that my dog’s temperament is a reflection of mine, but seems like not necessarily so. I have noticed with Bella that she is a medium periphery dog – she doesn’t stay and come super close, but she doesn’t stay super far either. I always thought she “should” be more close and wanting to be more close, but at the same time i don’t like a dog that is needy and pressing and jumping up against me. Kevin, my question for you is, how is Anika learning that her kill is greatly appreciated? Because you are there with her in a non-threatening way? Also if she learns that her kill is greatly appreciated, is she more likely to stay closer and feel less compressed energy close by?
The reason Anika can be moved by praise and touch to feel her prey is accepted, is that things arise in the mind in terms of their resistance to consciousness. Therefore when an “object” (such as a handler) vibrates in a way that resonates with how a dog vibrates, they feel at one with said object. I use sterile terms here because I’m talking about the architecture of the mind on the deepest level well before any of the higher cognitive processes get busy with processing the data that is presented to it. If an object is a function of resistance to flow (consciousness) and if it then vibrates, it suggests intuitively to the architecture of the mind that it can be moved. And were it to move in alignment and in sync with the subject, then the subject feels as if it is an extension of its own body since it responds coherently to the same subliminal beam of attention by which it wills its own body to move. This architecture by which the inside is more important than the outside to causation, (an inside/out versus an outside/in intellectual construct of reality) is how the simple force of emotion constructs a complex social configuration. In other words emotion effects a network consciousness.
Are you saying that the dog perceives praise and touch as the handler “vibrat[ing] in a way that resonates with how [the] dog vibrates”?
I’m not following how feeling at one with the handler conveys acceptance of the prey. And why prey would need to be accepted – is the prey being offered? I’m missing a link here.
I’m answering the question as to why praise or petting would indicate to a dog that it is good to be near the handler with its kill. Since objects come into mind as a function of resistance to flow of consciousness (this capacity underwritten by the phenomenon of emotion) and so if the handler (complex object of resistance) vibrates at a small prey frequency (elongated and high pitched sound waves), then the dog can feel resonant with the handler even though it is intensely attracted to the prey, and which could trigger an instinct to increase distance to lessen sensations of compression. In other words emotionally speaking, high pitched sounds and smooth soft strokes are equivalent to moving away from a dog thus inciting them to want to follow and be near and in this state they don’t feel compressed.
OK, let me see if I got it…
This dog is tuned to small prey (low prey threshold?), sensitive to resistance and easily compressed (low emotional capacity?), and thus would normally be repelled by handler’s predatory frequency, especially in the presence of small prey. Sounds like moose energy would present too much resistance, so by attenuating that vibration to small prey frequency, the dog is pulled in by the potential of greater magnitude flow by way of coupling with another body at a similar frequency, which feels better than scampering away solo with its catch?
It sounds like this dynamic would also pull such a dog back into the group to share the prey; and thus “complex social configuration” emerges. And then would it also be how a mother would draw in this bearer of prey through “submissive” posturing (vibrating at small prey frequency) to snatch the catch for her hungry cubs?
It seems like keep-away would extend the period of pull to the prey because prey flies away from the eyes of the handler before the dog gets too close to feel their full predatory impact… and would build attraction momentum in order to eventually overcome the negative to bite the toy that might otherwise be too close to the handler’s eyes.
This example reminds me of how whenever I lay down on the ground, the dog invariably runs over and pounces onto my face or chest.
The challenge in flow interpretations is blending the general principles with the specific principles so I’ll restate things to make sure I understand what you’re saying and to make sure I state things surely. For example all water wants to run down hill, but some parts of the channel are narrow and thus turbulent, some are wide and thus smooth, yet both are variations of the same overall principle. “Motherese” is universally attracting to all dogs because it indicates vulnerable prey, or to put it thermodynamically, since all objects arise as a function of resistance to flow, a vibrating object (such as a handler sweety-pie talking to their dog) indicates that the object can be moved and therefore the individual recognizes its “self” in said object and feels safer to connect and possibly couple to this additional force. The object is resonating with the flow principle. Since the predatory aspect triggers stress, and since stress is the physical memory of a positive preyful aspect that wasn’t fully grounded, even the predatory aspect can make a high prey threshold dog aroused and sensual and in this way is another avenue to indicate that the object of resistance can be accelerated. The low prey threshold dog on the other hand loses its sense of the preyful aspect in the presence of the predatory aspect and so we need a lot of motherese to keep this dog feeling connected close to the core as well as minimizing our predatory aspect. Since even a prey is an object of resistance, it is possible to induce a dog to bring the prey back to the core so that the core individual can be accelerated. With prey in its jaws, the low prey threshold dog feels grounded and can be inspired through flow to use the prey to accelerate the handler. This for example is why adult wolves bring their kill back to the cubs. The prey minimizes the feeling of compression, although that would be the normal state of affairs in the “narrow channel” where there usually is high turbulence. My goal is to turn the narrow channel into the broad main channel so there is smooth emotional flow and which is actually moving mass more effectively.
That’s helpful. Thank you.
So the wolf brings back the prey rather than just eating it because it feels less compressed amidst the pack with prey in its mouth?
And the dog brings the prey back to handler because it feels more flow coupled with handler, and prey in mouth mitigates compression of handler’s predatory aspect?
Could you define what you mean by “core”? This may be a new concept for me and I can imagine many definitions.
I wanted try to understand how this relates back to attraction.
So the dog assesses by feel whether the object of attraction and resistance (prey) can fit in its mouth because carrying in the mouth accelerates the object, which feels conductive. And if it can’t fit in its mouth (handler, deer, moose), it assesses by feel (sufficient arousal without spilling over into collapse) whether the object can be accelerated otherwise. And this determines whether they feel that they can make contact with the object.
But if they’re aroused over their capacity, then they can’t make contact, but not repelled by too much resistance, so they try to get things moving internally by barking?
Is that close?
I visualize a social structure as akin to an atom, with a nucleus (what I mean by a core, for example, the cog of the solar system is the core, barycenter, and most of the time this exists within the sun given its huge mass), each individual would be akin to an electron occupying an orbital and the closer to the core the more energy released when dislodged. So we have friendly dogs as the outliers and the more aggressive types centered on the core. So the same drive to return with prey to the cubs at the den (core) is a mirror image of the drive to ingest prey to satiate the void at the body’s core. The complex elaborates upon the simple. As per the individual wolf, he would feel safe, grounded, to gain admittance to the core with prey in its mouth, or partially digested in his belly as its core valve in its intestines are closed and hence can’t fully digest, and deliver nourishment to the cubs at the mouth of the den and then the periphery of the den as the pups mature and venture farther out. Likewise the handler represents the core, and our challenge is to induce a dog to bring its prey close to us and want to give it up without being in conflict because this satisfies a more complex social urge that is piggybacking on the simple hunger brain-to-gut connection.
Don’t know if this directly or fully answers your question, but I’ll throw the following logic stream into the discussion as it should answer the questions. — Stimulation compels movement, thus it is equivalent to momentum. Momentum commits the mind to a forward point that the body MUST occupy. Ingestion is the simplest way to occupy said forward point. Fitting the object that contains the point in the mouth is the next easiest way to accelerate the object and occupy said point. And then aligning and syncopating around a midpoint that the objectifies around the combined momenta of two beings, is the most complex form of occupying said forward point. So we can see how complex social behavior that can capture new energy follows from the simple brain-to-gut connection that ties the locomotive impulse to emotional arousal. The higher the emotional capacity, the more readily it can apply the simple brain-to-gut connection to complex situations with intense resistance and compute a complex social configuration according to the simple principle of emotional conductivity. Barking in a deep metered way would be a means of generating a wave form that makes it easier for another being to reciprocate and subsequently participate in the construction of a wave now composed of the collective movements of synchronized individuals. A wave connects the various points into the complex configuration. Therefore herding the prey for example would feel highly conductive because predator and prey are composing a complex wave form. At some point the prey may not be able to sustain its end of the wave and fall out of phase and then the predatory impulse of the group collapses onto that prey individual.
I would be nice to see a clip with this type of play, as I’m having trouble replicating it with my problematic dog.
My small dog is of the same “periphery” type (his trademark is obsessive smelling/marking when we are outside), and I cannot get him to come near me after he grabs the toy. Same thing with tug of war, he will not push into me by himself, I need to call him to hop on me.
Praise and petting doesn’t seem to work, it seems I’m too much of a pressure to him.
He’s attracted by me while I have the toy or food, but after tug&release or throwing the toy for a fetch, he comes back but stops short of me or even tries to avoid me after somehow getting too close. I always let him win the toys so that’s cannot be the source of problem. The problem must be me, maybe I don’t know how to “vibrate” in the right way.
Here’s a clip with me throwing a stick while walking in the woods:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69Go3L3tuUM
He goes for it, comes with it, and always chooses to sit down for a chew. I didn’t do anything in this instance, I was just filming the default behavior, and it doesn’t seem to really matter what I do. If I ignore him or go away, he will quickly get bored and start foraging again, while keeping an eye on me from time to time.
My question is, what can I do to attract the dog? (I do pushing, heeling, bark and command for over a year already)
By the way, he’s a dog that doesn’t like people at all and mostly ignores them. He’s attracted to people if they have food or they smell like a dog (dog owners).
People’s voices mostly trigger him to bark at them. Sometimes he will suddenly bark at a stranger that talks on his mobile phone.
I’m guessing that’s why he’s not very attracted by my praise either, probably a woman would do better than me, but that’t the situation, I have a pretty low voice and cannot make high pitch noises easily.
I see the problem. Your dog should be on lead so that he learns to run along side you as you lunge him in a circle with yourself at the center. When he’s free he’s degrading into chewing it up. Next step practice having him jump up on a box or wall with toy in his mouth. If you identify a “midpoint” wherein you objectify a place you have in common, then he has 90% chosen to give you the toy. But don’t be in a hurry to get the toy. The carry no-matter-what is far more important. Giving it is easy. The next step is for him to jump up with toy in mouth, then push him off and he push back with toy in his mouth, then “Ready” and bark so that he automatically releases it into your hand. Good luck, happy guy, fun to watch him work.
Kevin, I was wondering if running away with a “sweet” sounding voice would attract the dog even more, in other words, to act more prey-like with his dog??
Yes sometimes that helps. Sometimes however that will distract the dog and he will leave toy to get to handler. In that case the dog requires pressure from the handler to sustain its attraction to the bite toy, the lead then in conjunction with handler running away sustains the dog’s drive to grip the prey and carry on. So experiment to see which way you need to go and also be aware that one can do both at the same time, challenge the dog over the toy, but then run away with the lead (rope on toy if necessary) and sweet talking as you run as well.
Interesting…since this post I have been working with my trail hound who never carried anything close to me. He will chase a moving stick or tennis ball and will bring it towards me, but not right up close, so tug has been out of the question. If I have a longline on him he shuts down, so I have left him free for the moment and have been hiding pieces of hotdog inside the innards of an old fluffy toy tied to a rope. That has encouraged him to tug a bit, and then he gets the toy to find the hotdog. Which allows me to sustain a tug for a second or two before he devours the prey while I lay in the mud nearby! I’m not sure where to go from there or whether I’m digging myself in a hole with the food being the end game in the tug. Maybe a bone on a rope would be held for a bit longer and running in a circle? He will jump on a rock to get a treat…in fact I think he chooses that when it gets a bit tough for him…and we can sort of get a whine and mouth open if not a full bark. Regarding belly rub, after one of these tug sessions I started to stroke him and he rolled over..he does this straight away always, but he’s not relaxed. When I touched the inside of his thigh this time he almost jumped out of his skin, and into me, as if correcting his mistake of reacting to my touch…if that makes sense? He’s not in pain, could it be I had touched a memory for him and he nearly let himself go and then remembered. I feel the biting in close proximity to me is helping release something. And yet with the dogs he will happily put his nose in their dinners if he finishes first, even though he has been nailed by them for doing this previously. Don’t know if you can offer any pointers for me to consider
Hi again, thanks very much for the input Kevin.
In the video He wasn’t on a lead because in the woods we usually play hide&seek and I’m alone with him so I need to make him stay on a “box” and go away quite far as the visibility is pretty good through those trees and he finds me too easily 🙂
I know it would be better to have another person hold him while I hide, but that’s the situation for now…
I actually do have a question about hide&seek, what is the best thing to do when he finds me? Pushing for food, praise or just toy play stuff you mentioned? I usually do any of the above, but I have the feeling that he doesn’t get a good re-connection with me when he finds me. Most of the time I use food (pushing) but I’m thinking that my progress is maybe slowed down by using too much food when working with him.
The problem with running away with the toy and chewing happens when playing fetch or letting him just win a toy after a simple tug of war that is not followed by carrying the toy. I guess I should stop playing this type of games which reinforce the behavior and stick to bite&carry and pushing the toy into me?
By the way, I already do those things, it’s just that the progress seems to be painfully slow:
1. Bite & carry works pretty good, especially with bigger and heavier toys (if the toy is small and light he tends to re-grip the toy fast while he’s running with it), and indeed he gives up the toy almost immediately after getting up on a box.
I have a question here, once he’s on the box and gave up the toy, what is the best thing to do: praise&petting, a mouthful of food? And what to do with the toy at this point? If I let him off the box, especially if the toy is a piece of wood (that he likes to chew because it can tear it up easily) he will try to grab it again.
2. Jumping up on me with the toy is the most difficult part, because he seems to be doing it from obedience (I say ‘hop’ to him), he doesn’t want to make contact by himself. I would say we are half there at this point, but the idea is that he not that excited to do it. Using the lead and sweet talking helps a bit, indeed.
Pushing him back is also not working, he will just growl and step back, he doesn’t re-engage. Also, if he jumps on me he drops the toy most of the time, so I don’t get to the point of getting him to bark at me.
Should I ignore this exercise and concentrate on a good bite & carry first? Is it possible that I’m mixing them up too much and confusing the dog?
Maybe I’ll manage to make a video of bite & carry and jumping on me, right now it’s pretty difficult because I’m alone with him …
It seems that there is a softness missing so that he’s not able to make contact when charged. When he finds you see if you can give a deep neck massage and whole body suppling so that he doesn’t associate you with being stimulated but rather being sensual. Use tug just enough to keep him committed to the toy, your goal must be the bite and carry and then push.
Sounds like you need to be mawing with him so that the “pipe” opens and he can get soft. That will relax the belly rub. Don’t throw items, tease with the toy in close and keep away with one hand. When he grabs it put a little pressure on him so he tries to run away with it but with him on lead run in his direction and see how long you can prolong the carry.
If I may point out an observation… the first step that Kevin prescribed above involves having the dog on lead (“Your dog should be on lead so that he learns to run along side you as you lunge him in a circle with yourself at the center.”) and in both of the cases subsequently described, the handler has the dog off lead for various reasons. I suspect that this is an important step.
Kevin, thanks for the elaboration of the core concept.
These were most helpful:
“So the same drive to return with prey to the cubs at the den (core) is a mirror image of the drive to ingest prey to satiate the void at the body’s core.”
” Momentum commits the mind to a forward point that the body MUST occupy. Ingestion is the simplest way to occupy said forward point. Fitting the object that contains the point in the mouth is the next easiest way to accelerate the object and occupy said point. And then aligning and syncopating around a midpoint that the objectifies around the combined momenta of two beings, is the most complex form of occupying said forward point.”
“in both of the cases subsequently described, the handler has the dog off lead for various reasons”
I only have the dog off lead when playing hide & seek.
I do have the dog on lead when doing the rest of the exercises (bite&carry, jumping up/pushing on me with toy, etc).
I think the last thing Kevin said is one of the core problems, if not the single most important one. I actually was suspecting that was the reason why I’m not seeing the expected progress, even after a year. The dog is indeed missing a softness when being touched. Especially outside.
I do try to use gentle neck and body massage when he finds me (after hide&seek) and in other moments (after pushing, after leaving the toy in my hand), but it seems that he gets more energized instead of sensual. When I touch him, he starts moving away and searching, it’s like he wants to go away from the touch, he doesn’t lean into my hand as other dogs would do. The touch seems to add to much pressure.
I don’t know where to go from there, just insist with more massage or use another strategy?
It seems that there is something in him related to me touching him (maybe a charge since he was a puppy) that I’m not able to overcome, something that somebody as experienced as Kevin would probably have no trouble spotting it.
Oh, and I forgot to mention that he’s neutered, because of his aggression to males. This probably eliminated some if not most of the sensuality in him 🙁
Interesting. Seems to be a common theme here.
Kevin, so if the dog is energized and reactive to touch rather than softened, then mawing to open the “pipe” would be in order?
Could you give us an idea of how this changes the feeling for the dog? Does it present the dog with a situation where they must become Direct rather than their Indirect default behavior?
Seems like I’m having a light bulb moment here, allbeit with a dimmer switch…ie gradual! Trying to map the dog experience to the human experience Ingestion…or eating….over-eating in humans,is often to compensate for a psychological need….filling a void, but not the ‘right’ void? (it’s not ‘right’ because it leads to imbalance, overweight and health problems in the long term) overeating maybe compensating for inability of human to connect at a more complex level, where connection would be more satiating (or grounding) ..like deeper human relationships, more meaningful work,but isn’t available to the human for some reason. Taking the comparison further, what would bite and carry in the human be? Kissing? Hugging? Physical touch of some nature? (but that sounds like mawing and belly rub. How does bite and carry relate to mawing and belly rub in the NDT model..ie when do you need one and when do you need the other?) Then ‘aligning and syncopating around the midpoint that objectifies the combined momenta of two beings’ for humans is everything else more complex…deep conversation, sharing ideas, playing music in a group, team games, meaningful work. Does this make sense to anyone?
Use your dog as a feedback tool, he’s how you are going to learn to move from a source of stimulation to one of a sensual feeling state. It will be helpful to only pet his hind end and not his front end, in other words, make contact with hind end and if possible work your way up to softening his neck and cheek muscles. And indeed your dog should always be on leash so that you can make contact without reinforcing fear as in dog maintaining his distance or moving away. When he starts to get sensual then you can move into mawing, again using the dog as your feedback mirror. Have a heavy bite object at your feet so that if he gets over-amped you can naturally move into a bite and carry, and again, without much stimulation.
Thanks a lot Kevin, that does sound like a good plan.
There is only one void, the void is good, however since it is synonymous with vulnerability and exposure, trauma is rooted here and so one doesn’t want to subliminally reference the void when being an object-of-attention. The body/mind is in a constant state of tension. Ingestion is an act of grounding that releases the body/mind from that constitutional tension. Due to whole body tension, we can see how overeating could be a primal response to any sensations of stress/pressure/frustration that all occur along a tension spectra. Mawing triggers physical memory and with the softness of the handler, ultimately an early litter memory when the dog’s temperament was at its most pure can come up to the surface. Mawing opens the pipe if the dog feels grounded into the handler. The dog holds the apex of body tension in the shoulder blades as this is the point of leveraging and overcoming objects of resistance, so belly rub is converting that tension and physical memories of resistance to flow by physically touching it to the ground and wallowing and flexing the shoulder blades in an inverted position, the opposite of their moving through tension. Bite and carry in a human is the capacity to hold onto a true feeling when under a high rate of change/intensity/resistance. Yes, conversation and other things you’ve mentioned is orbiting around a midpoint, via intellectual correlates with emotional projections of momentum that words ultimately encode.
Mawing opens the pipe, but if the dog isn’t grounded into handler, one can get bit and so it’s safer to use a proxy object or do a box challenge as preliminary. After a box challenge many dogs will volunteer a belly rub and then mawing becomes safe if one starts with a belly rub, neck sensualizing, smear it down the toppling, stroke the belly then let the dog get up and try a gentle mawing and poking at the foosies.
So by proxy object do you mean bite and carry? If the dog wants to hold onto the bite toy during belly rub, is that still going in the right direction for opening the pipe?
By proxy object I mean something you can sweep the dogs’ feet with rather than one’s hand and the dog can bite without handler getting hurt, like a stiff toy on a rope that can challenge the dog’s sense of footing. Then when he bites, we can praise him and this softens the charge and allows the puppy mind to come to the surface. If the dog will hold onto the toy during belly rub that’s okay, but will probably spill quickly over into stimulation so the goal would be to move the dog into an active carry.
I have managed to get the bite out of my trailhound by posting. The experience has been a bit of a shock. We are still feeling our way in the process, the bite is very clearly being targetted at me and my dog is not comfortable with the dynamic..and neither am I. But as I think about going back to it on the 4th day I thought about the process that you describe above I realised how important my emotional and mental state is. I can either see it as ‘its a difficult job but someone’s got to do it’ or I can set the intention ‘ this is a process that is healing for both of us and comes from a position of love’. That might seem a bit gushy but it seems to me that its a very important distinction, because if I go with the former position, I will grit my teeth and shut off from feelings and ‘just do it’, and in that mindset I feel I can do just as much harm as good because I will not be ‘feeling’ the relationship. Any further advice on how to soften the charge would be gratefully received
New energy can only come out through old “fault lines” and so it may not look pretty. Just remember to counterbalance hardness with softness, in a periodic wave-like manner so that you can continually add intensity and eventually the dog releases DIS. Go slow and don’t indulge in judgements, no thinking, rather, the dog is your feedback auto-tuning mirror so that you can learn how to master the exchange of emotional momentum that is the true language of the dog.
I am assuming by counterbalance hardness with softness you mean my hardness and softness? as opposed to when the dog is hard be soft? Almost as soon as he’s posted the charge comes up but if I start soft talking him he will drop the tug and go submissive. I am working at getting a ‘give take’ action to try and keep the tug game going…at the moment the action looks a lot like what he might do (and has done) to a chicken!
Okay then he’s ready to deal with your intensity so your goal is to be able to praise him while he has the tug in his mouth without dropping it. You could also put box within reach so that he can carry tug to box and then get off and get back on etc.. The goal is to carry so that’s what I recommend here.
Thankyou I’ll give that a go…something makes me think the real truth is I’m ready to deal with his intensity
Ah…correction…it’s me ready to deal with my own intensity,..
And a further question…because keeping an interest in a toy proved difficult so I used a lamb bone on a string. I managed to get him to walk round and get up on a box carrying it, in a sort of jerky way. My question is, is there any problems in principle using bones for tug and bite and carry? apart from the increased possibility of getting bitten!