The Heart of the Matter

Some recent questions posed by Heather really bring us to the heart of the matter.
1) Heather: “It is good that we don’t have to understand the physics when 2 dogs are in motion ;)”

KB: Yes, while the laws of motion are simple, the actual computations are vast and too complicated for most of us, especially me. Nevertheless our body and specifically our heart does all of this computation automatically, and so to see the heart in action one just has to feel the answer in something simple and then practice holding onto it. For example, the physics of two dancers in motion is extremely complicated, but after all the “data” has been entered into their physical memory banks (emotional battery) through what we observe as their practicing together, they can easily compute where their partner is going to be and be in perfect position to complement them. So after your eye is trained and you acquire the feeling for what’s going on, soon you will be able to see it by feel in complex behavior as well.

2) Heather: “But once 2 dogs have made “contact,” their interactions then would be like the induction motor, the dogs flipping polarity (to get the motor to turn)…if the flipping polarity got out of synch you could go back to look at things from the “stationary” analysis of BB/l-b?”

KB: Exactly. They are flipping polarities just as in an electric motor wherein the rotor is made to spin by alternating the magnetic poles that then push the rotor along a circle to the opposite side of the arc wherein the polarity will flip at just the right time to keep it spinning. And if the rate of intensity gets too much for the emotional capacity of the bond between the two of them, then they revert to the “stationary” question of getting the BB energy grounded back into the lb so that they can resume the flipping of polarity motoring.
When you watch two dogs meet prior to play you can see they are trying to get a wave going, pushing in on one, then feeling the push back, sometimes it just fizzles out and they can’t get it going. But when they can then the collapse of electrostatic pressure into the hunger/magnetic circuitry, that then collapses into the electrical current that recreates the magnetic field, which then again collapses into the electrical and on an on, is just like the propagation of light. The epicenter of all this consciousness is each other’s heart, that then physically manifests outside their body eventually when they project it onto a midpoint or an object of resistance that can ground out their combined energies.
Now you can see that young wolves in play are not practicing how to hunt (because even deer perform these actions when they feel safe enough and deer certainly aren’t practicing how to hunt) but rather they are creating an emotional connection that can handle a higher and higher rate of intensity that eventually will be strong enough so that it can encompass the rate-of-change that a high object of resistance (the moose) will offer and then the wolves are informed so as to conduct a syncopated approach toward the moose and this coordinated activity can ultimately bring it to ground.
Now you can see that learning in animals is a process of evolution, gravity (the initial impulse of displacement) evolving into electrical evolving into magnetic evolving into an overarching light wave evolving into adding new energy to the network, and this process of elaboration has nothing to do with the mental acquisition of facts or extrapolation from ideas. They are creating a wave function with a frequency within which the intensity of the moose can fit. A group of wolves in the hunt equal one heart. Then when the moose is weak, they can bring it to ground. (The only reason they can’t bring a healthy moose to ground is that in early imprinting the adults put a governor on how strong an emotional bond the wolf cubs can generate by putting a whooping on the cubs ala a pack instinct. So when they encounter a strong moose, they see in its resistance their overbearing mama. Too much pack instinct is also what limits a dog’s capacity to cooperate with a human as well and unlike their wild counterparts, everything we want a dog to do is the path of absolute highest resistance. Not chasing the neighbor’s cat but remaining calmly by our side is emotionally the equivalent of bringing a healthy moose to ground.)

3) Heather: “What if the dogs have not made physical contact, but see each other from a distance – if they have previously established an emotional circuit, are they still able to resolve their respective arising emotions into feelings? Or even in the case of the established dog-owner group mind, the example you or Lee gave regarding the owner’s plane landing and the dog becoming excited – does the owner sense this emotional displacement too?”

KB: If they have previously established an emotional circuit, then they are energized on sight through the bodily affects of physical memory, just as a magnetic force can transmit energy over a distance between a radio and a magnetic antennae even though the two devices are not connected by wires. And then there are special states of attunement when a dog is in a rarefied state and not dealing with the material reality of friction, when I believe that a paired photon is created by syncopation of the two brains and which takes up residence in the heart. I believe that this is a state of quantum entanglement which can account for the telepathic moments of attunement.

4) Heather: “Finally, do you think the experience for each dog is similar, or different, depending on temperament or other factors?”

KB: After the nervous systems of two dogs have been displaced and electrochemically ionized, think of two dogs as being electrolytes so that if one is positively ionized the other must be negatively ionized in order to fit into that frame of reference.(One can’t be in hunger while the other is in hunger, or balance when the other is in balance, and when forced to be there will then be a fight/flight response. So it is axiomatic that eventually they will become different but in a complementary way.) Since every dog’s temperament is a ratio of a preference along the hunger/ balance continuum, one will be inclined to absorb energy (pick up an electron) the other inclined to reflect energy, (give up an electron). The one that picks up energy via hunger circuitry reliance will feel an internal current and become magnetically inclined and will be deflected into a circumspective manner towards the other dog, whereas the one that reflects energy is now more electrically inclined and will be more static-like and tentative because it is “feeling” incomplete, but this suits the network parameters just fine because it allows for the next phase of elaboration so that the former ends up calming the latter (by acting prey-like thereby triggering the electrically charged dog’s hunger circuitry), and not through any signaling intention whatsoever. The interpretation of “calming signals” is the projection of thoughts onto the principle of emotional conductivity.
The basic differentiation between breeds is what I call “prey threshold” which can be envisioned as a frequency, i.e. how high the peak/valley and long the wavelength that a wave function has to be to propagate a state of attraction that can evolve in sync with object of attraction. Bull baiting dogs have high prey threshold, bird hunting dogs low prey threshold. Low prey threshold dogs are typically “friendly” because it takes very little for them to generate a wave function (mere flutter or a wing, quiver of a body), whereas at the opposite end of the spectrum are the guarding breeds of dogs. But, within any given litter, you find the same pattern of differentiation as well but in case of the guarding breeds, when a wave function cannot be created there is a greater degree of fear as well (so we see sharp/shy trait) as the complement to the stronger force of drive in those of that litter that orient through the hunger circuitry.Then there is the style of hunting, kill the prey (terrier) or herd the prey wherein the latter I feel is a higher prey threshold than the former because the dog has to be able to allow the wave to propagate at a higher frequency and amplitude in resonance with the domesticated needs of the sheepherder and economy, which is the highest prey threshold possible. Thus GSD are better at police work than pit bulls, but pit bulls are better fighters than GSD because the process of elaboration will collapse into the strike/shake/kill reflex sooner. At any rate, a network consciousness is infinitely nuanced because it is constantly elaborating in terms of the other components to the system, nothing stands in isolation from the other parts of the system.
Breed traits, personality dispositions, difference between species of animals, the variation between sexes, (male/female/homosexual), and the variation between races, are in my view simply more complex elaborations of this simple template of differentiation. In other words variability (and not by random) is the nature of information because there cannot be information without the network.

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Published August 18, 2010 by Kevin Behan
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44 responses to “The Heart of the Matter”

  1. Heather says:

    Thank you, Kevin, I am in fact feeling how this works! If you have insight on a couple of follow-up questions I would welcome it.

    -Regarding the pack instinct, which from what you are describing brings to mind the image of a sort of switch or transistor in the dog-owner emotional circuit, what if a dog owner and dog do not come to alignment around a common want or object of resistance for whatever reason, the dog’s unresolved emotional energy is going to be triggered somehow, and I recall you writing somewhere that it is not going to be a socially acceptable outlet – what is there to do in that case, are dogs adaptable/social enough that they usually develop benign quirky behavior, or does the hunting/biting always find expression when the emotional battery is triggered? EG what if someone comes to you with a problem but won’t or can’t consider the energy theory of behavior, what do you do for the person/dog (if anything)?

    -I will get more insight into this in time, but regarding what I’ve seen of you interacting with dogs – you are inducing in them feelings of pressure (electric)-release (magnetic)…on your part is this intentional action or do you have the complementary experience…I guess in a way that cannot be parsed apart except via language but I am curious about this.

    -And regarding the paired photons, the dog and the owner would each have such a pair, so the quantum aspect of it that you mention is that it is then possible for each to induce in the other the same electromagnetic force at the same “time”?

  2. kbehan says:

    If the dog and owner don’t agree on a group trigger, then the dog’s definition of it will be the deepest layer of unresolved emotion of which the owner is unaware and if the dog has a high prey threshold, then these will tend to be of the explosive variety. The lower the prey threshold, the more quirky the dog’s personality since it will tend towards implosions, the extreme end of which is the very friendly dog that is noise phobic. So pack instincts aren’t so deleterious among wolves because the deepest layer in each members’ emotional battery will have the chance to become tuned to the moose, and the experience of hunting together attunes them to each other and cements the bonds and allays the downside and keeps aggression ritualized in static moments.
    When I work a dog I use the pressure and release to induce the electrical pressure and ground it into the hunger circuitry. For example, if you walk into a room and your dog lifts up slightly off the ground and yawns and then stretches backward with its rump higher off the ground than the front end, you have in effect pushed a “charge” of energy into its system and it’s grounded into its hunger circuitry which is why it feels sensualized back there and has an overall soft expression and body language. I feel I am experiencing the same pressure/release and so on, but it’s more muted for me relative to an animal since I have an intellectual frame of reference that is also whirring away and has to be seen through. A very good way however to become vividly aware of the electrostatic pressure is to work with dogs that are on the verge of exploding. Wow, do you feel the pressure in your head just as if electrons are rising to the tip of something just about to arc across a gap. Then also when working a dog at a high level say for example in protection work and you get into “the zone” that’s a good example of magnetism becoming vivid and everything you do is returned to you by the dog at an even stronger amplitude.
    I think the paired photons which we feel in our heart as a state of resonance is the basis of attunement with another being since the process of quantum entanglement can spread emotionally as long as the problem of decoherence is being solved. Two beings can become one magnetic domain and the same electomotive magnetism is induced.

  3. Burl says:

    Can you use NDT with dogs that must go in the water…wouldn’t all their electrical fields cause them to be instantly electrocuted? Do they need special rubber insulating suits 🙂

  4. kbehan says:

    No nature is infinitely miraculous. Their hyper-catalytic-spatulater-differentiator keeps them securely grounded even when wet.

  5. Burl says:

    I always wondered what that ‘hyper-catalytic-spatulater-differentiator’ thing on my dogs was for 🙂

  6. kbehan says:

    A word of caution. If a dog sleeps on a bed it needs regular re-calibration or it can lose default settings. Don’t let them near water until a certified NDT technician checks that the differentiator is catalyzing the splatulator.

  7. Burl says:

    Is that where we got the expression ‘let sleeping dogs fry’?

  8. kbehan says:

    Burl, what do you see as the gap in logic in NDT energy theory? Starting at the bottom, origin of life, do you believe in evolution by common descent?

  9. christine randolph says:

    i would like to know what you all think is the best way to break up a dog fight.

    my oldest 5yo border colliex likes to fight, especially with other border collies.
    this happened on vancouver island on vacation on a farm where we stayed with 2 other border collies and 2 jack russels so kind of a 7 dog pack.
    so one of the border collies was more like a karelian bear dog so my dog got rolled (alpha roll ? it looks like that ??? do you think an alpha roll exists, many dispute it…)and then she became less aggressive and more likely to become friends with the dog.

    and with the other border collie, dainty and only 1 yo. she went after the dog, then all other dogs gang up on her, including my little malamute who persistently tries to bite her “sister’s ” butt, is this a way to get the electrical charge to discharge so the fighting stops ? that is what it looks like to me, the little one defusing the situation, i was told that grabbing the dog from the back is the best way to break up a dog fight. it is NOT easy !!!! is there an easier way ?

  10. Christine says:

    Enjoying the witty repartee‼ 🙂

  11. Burl says:

    We do not need to know how the computer works at the machine language level (1s and 0s in the bits) in order to use a word processor. The WP could not perform without the electrical switches (on/off bits), but they really have nothing in common.

    This is what I was saying about the levels of evolutionary development practically identified as specific sciences – quantum mechanics, atomic physics, molecular inorganic chemistry, organic chem, microbiology, biology, anthropology, and psychology. Each higher level is dependent on its evolutionary precursors, but for most practical purposes, its subject matter can be developed without regard to this dependence.

    The essay ‘The levels Undressed” by Magnus Berg at http://moq.org/ does a nice job of explaining how the levels are discrete yet dependent. It is a fairly easy read.

  12. kbehan says:

    If one is going to offer or debate a theory for the “consciousness” of computers, then indeed they would require an intimate understanding of the zeroes and ones in the bits otherwise they might mistakenly think that a word processor has nothing in common with a computer. This is the problem with intellectualizing the nature of animals, it creates arbitrary demarcations out of intellectual expediency and convenience when and where they don’t actually exist. I doubt for example that Pirsig would be able to offer a meaningful answer as to why his dog (were he to have had one) does everything in a circle. The circle constantly replicates itself at every level of organization and in the logic of NDT follows a consistent line from the nature of consciousness, information, evolution all the way up to the complex behavior of social beings. So to repeat the question, where is the hole in the NDT stream of logic? (First of course you would have to be able to repeat the stream of logic.)

  13. Burl says:

    KB: So to repeat the question, where is the hole in the NDT stream of logic? (First of course you would have to be able to repeat the stream of logic.)

    I’m afraid you are right.

    Does Pirsig do everything in a circle, too?

  14. Heather says:

    Christine,
    Some dogs’ good natures make them amenable to play with just about every other dog (friendly or not)…sometimes I think that drive to connect with different objects of attraction, and efforts trying to figure out how align with dogs who’d just as soon fight, puts extra unresolved emotion in an emotional battery that needs to get out by a dog playing among “friends.”

  15. Burl says:

    What y’all think about Alex http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_Fpad20Zbk&NR=1 ?

    I know people with less sense!

  16. kbehan says:

    Well then, if you are going to offer abstract principles in critique of a practical flesh and blood model of consciousness based on real world observation, which is by the way how physics is conducted, then you are offering a model based on reason with no evidence to support it other than the conviction that animals should from a moral perspective conform to human reason.

  17. Burl says:

    All I have meant to say of animal thought is that, as Hume advises us, we see behavior analogous to our own, so we can assume similar mental processes are at work.

    But at some point, we do not see in other animals behavior analogous to ours, and this is where conceptual thought is concerned. For a very well developed statement, read http://radicalacademy.com/adleranimalists.htm

    And note that for any belief I hold, I feel obliged to support it with references to others who have also considered the subject. As I said before, we have a right to our own opinions, but noy our own facts.

    If you read the Adler paper and still maintain that my dogs do not think, I give up.

  18. kbehan says:

    Burl, are you a teacher? You seem to like to hand out homework assignments rather than answer the question. At any rate, skimming through the article it seems Adler’s arguing more against the “animalists” (differ by degree from man) rather than the humanists (differ in kind), but there are many tacks into the wind going on in the article so I think he also said that the evidence of separation by kind is too superficial to be meaningful. The problem you and philosophers in general are having is akin to trying to understand the nature of plants without understanding that they all have photosynthesis in common, and which then creates an atmosphere and a general climate and local conditions to effect a network-wide weather system. Likewise in a discussion of the nature of animals you don’t apprehend what all animals, humans included, share in common, “emotosynthesis,” turning energy into information. Even framing the discussion in terms of a degree-versus-kind is a false dichotomy, animals and humans differ by degree AND in kind, just as various plants differ by degree and in kind given what they all have in common which allows them to adapt to specific network niches by degree so that they ultimately differ in kind. Humans are able to project their self outside their current frame of reference, and then detach from their self due to an intellect. This is a higher order of elaboration of the emotional projection phenomenon (degree) but differs in kind because the human can entertain the alienated self within its own frame of reference detached from the emotional body. Hence, the existential angst that plagues the human condition but not the animal mind.

  19. kbehan says:

    I’m not going to make a study of parrots at the moment, but it will be fun to pursue at some point. However on a first glance the effects of physical memory rather than abstract reasoning seem immediately apparent. You can see the Parrot having to reference the item with its beak, or use its subliminal beam to access some internal spot in its body in order to summon up the physical memory of the association that was paired with the item, an association formed interestingly enough WITH THE HUNGER CIRCUITRY. People mistake this as mental cogitation when they see it underway in dogs as well. So here we are reducing the capacity for mental thought to an organism with the brain the size of a walnut and I have no doubt that the trend will continue until some clever scientist will devise an experiment with an amoeba or single celled bacterium that is then interpreted to demonstrate abstract reasoning as well. Note that if it were true that parrots and other species could reason abstractly then animals would not be content to occupy an evolutionary niche and there would be no such thing as an ecosystem. And so on the one hand behavioral science is running this precept of a capacity to conceptualize head on into the main precept of evolutionary biology that adaptive behaviors exploit evolutionary niches as the pathway to success, and it doesn’t notice the internal contradiction. Modern behavioral science is developing a bipolar disorder.

  20. Burl says:

    KB, man, go easy on us eggheads (I was an professor). Look at the wonderful things science has in store for animals http://www.theonion.com/video/scientists-successfully-teach-gorilla-it-will-die,17165/

  21. kbehan says:

    That’s the kind of homework I can enjoy.

  22. Heather says:

    Wow, it is quite amazing. When you say the “information is in the energy,” I get it, you are saying that the energy INFORMS conscious beings how to behave. Since there are universal feelings, there is no *need* for thoughts (though they certainly make the experience richer!!!). There can be perfect synchronization toward a common purpose without any intention whatsoever. We can use our own intention to enjoy an infinitely rich communion with nature.

  23. Heather says:

    Burl, That clip made me burst out laughing.

    But it is funny in inverse proportion to how tragic the human condition is. We have such a powerful need to be connected and what we all fail to realize is that we are connected.

    I really feel strongly that Peanut is an opportunity for you to experience your actual connection with nature (vs your philosophy of what you think is your connection). You do have a feeling that there is something to be learned from NDT, but just can’t quite put your finger on it…you’re trying to think your way out of the connundrum and there’s no way out with 100% thinking or simply re-arranging the furniture (looking at discrete behaviors). The most brilliant people are the most likely to be stuck in thoughts, but the flip side of that is that the more intelligent you are the more you can appreciate the wonder that thoughts are the icing on the cake, not the cake itself. Try the pushing exercise, read about the theory of why it works, see what direction that takes your thoughts in.

  24. Burl says:

    Heather:”I really feel strongly that Peanut is an opportunity for you to experience your actual connection with nature (vs your philosophy of what you think is your connection).”

    I retired from academia when I suddenly realized I would rather spend my day w/ my dogs than my peers – it is a matter of integrity, which I saw in my dogs… We feel that our mutts are so rewarding because they are a living connection w/ nature.

    I like the NILIF ideas, and in only a week we are seeing significant behavioral change (less anarchy, now). If we thought it was called for, we would try simply hand feeding with NILIF. Sissy and Red are strong-willed and may be culpable in the flareups

  25. kbehan says:

    Right, excellent. If something your dog is doing isn’t in service to your group, your network, by definition it is because it is working from an ELECTRICAL static load/overload dynamic. Therefore, don’t desensitize, RE-MAGNETIZE, by definition this will inform the dog how to ALIGN with you along the flow of a completed ELECTRICAL circuit, i.e. the owner as a part of dogs-mind-as-energy-circuit because owner is bringing the dog’s “moose energy” (deepest layer in the battery) TO GROUND.
    Indeed, thoughts can make this entire experience richer and even more sublime with the understanding as to how we are plugging ourselves into the network by choosing to see the dog in this light. Our thoughts can envision our emotional body in every frame of reference however the only way we can stay connected to our “self” is not through the mental faculty, but through our heart, our network brain because only the heart can hold onto the truth in the “noise” of all these frames of reference.
    Meanwhile, the thoughts that we project onto the dog and which preclude us from seeing the network consciousness that is organizing everything, are the thoughts that serve as the kink in our own mind as an energy circuit. The opportunity to examine these thoughts is the REAL REASON for the dog in our life and it is a point that is being lost in the modern marketplace of Dogdom and increasingly obfuscated by scientific research. (This pattern of modern science to find thoughts in animals is a high form of the intellect trying to maintain control over the Will.) In our high-tech, enervated, denatured world, people feel alienated from nature because they cut themselves off from feelings in favor of thoughts and especially guilt, and so they then turn to the dog for meaning and to reconnect with their “self,” but then they try to turn their dog into a person thinking they’re doing something positive, a self-defeating logic loop.
    The information is in the energy, not in the brain. It’s that simple, congratulations.

  26. Heather says:

    NDT is some serious, mind-blowing Kung-Fu, you know that, right?

    For example, I am beginning to understand exacly how fine a line there is between a dog exploding and imploding under stress. Yet also how necessary it is for an owner who is going to place a lot of demands on the dog to know where that line is. Hence the emphasis on teaching a dog to bark on command (dump stress) or build the capacity to wait to have access to a bite toy (raise the explode/implode threshold).

    I am not a musician or a dancer; language moves me in a similar way, I find it to be magical, and from as early as I can even remember I have been drawn to its power. Its form persists and thus its use to express ideas continues to in-form in seemingly endless ways.

  27. Heather says:

    On the one hand, it probably isn’t fair to make Burl the “ground” for so much energy.

    But on the other hand, Burl I am envisioning that you are like a worldly fisherman looking for the best place to catch fish. By taking the approach of looking at the dogs in terms of their discrete behaviors and the effect what you do has on those behaviors in a cause-and-effect manner, it is as if you are casting your net/pole in a small, stagnant pond. You are only going to catch whatever fish are in that pond. After you catch the first couple of small fish, you will be in search of a bigger fish. So at that point it might seem to be a matter of getting better lures or bait, using a bigger boat to get to the deeper waters, changing the time of day you fish, or learning a new casting technique or whatever. After you’ve caught the biggest fish in that small pond, you’ll be changing fishing spots in search of better fish.

    If you think of doing some basic NDT stuff in terms of a fishing spot, it is not as limited as the other, land-locked fishing spots you might select. You can start by casting your line into a small tributary of a bigger river (all rivers eventually leading to the ocean)…as you master fishing in one spot and go looking for more and bigger fish, you go downstream a little where there is more water flowing. THen move onto a bigger tributary, faster-flowing water, more and different fish.

    There are definitely going to be places where the water looks nice and calm, but in fact there’s a really strong current and the flow is too much to keep up with. But with practice you can master that and won’t be limited in the amount or type of fish you can catch. So you will really be able to enjoy your dogs for the real purpose you got them, instead of losing sight of the reason amidst all the technical finagling.

    One one problem is that Kevin can make fishing at the brink of Niagara falls look easy! The reality is that there isn’t a quick, easy fix for anything worth achieving…but the work you put in over time will have benefits in your life as well as for your dogs.

  28. Heather says:

    When I am struggling with a dog-related problem or feel stressed in some way, I often go running to clear my mind. In quieter moments, I read passages of works by my favorite authors (Whitehead is not among them, sorry Burl!). I almost always come away with a new perspective on things.

  29. Burl says:

    Shortly after getting Happy and Sissy in ’99, we decided we shouldn’t eat other fellow animals, so I quit fishing. This was easy, as I never caught any anyway. Also, Happy and Sissy hated standing around in the motionless boat.

    We had/have no agenda for our dogs save that they have a good home and as interesting a life as we have energy to provide. We got an RV so we could travel w/ them.

    Despite what ToM you hold of me, I am not that concerned about animal thinking, only with anybody uttering an unsupportable statement that they do not do it.

    We relate to our mutts by attempting to feel what is going on.

    Fish are for cats!

  30. kbehan says:

    I call it “Samurai Dog Training” as you have to pay very close attention. And you’re right, a bark is a wave. To execute a bark the dog must first project its physical center-of-gravity onto the form of what it’s attracted to, and then physical memory has the chance to get in the way. This is why dogs that are problem barkers, (always barking when you’re not paying attention) have the hardest time learning to bark when they are asked to look you in the eye and bark. I just trained a dog to bark and it actually performed the silent wave function with an extreme dip of its head and then its neck arching just as if a physical object had to travel up and out of its body, eventually the bark emanated and the extreme physical wave function became reduced as the dog mastered the projection by force of desire rather than through physical exertion. Very Tai Chi of the dog.
    A bark is a collapse of the electric field of the Big Brain, that then dips into the hunger circuitry, magnetism, compleing an electrical current that then generates a subsequent magnetic field. A bark is an electromagnetic wave that has to propagate just like light. The painful physical memories can interfere with this propagation and so one has implosions or explosions along that thin line as you note.

  31. Heather says:

    Probably the physical memories of being the object of attraction, or of owners that tried to “do” things for the dog. I can see how a dog would have no problem at all barking on command for a person who simply expressed that desire for the dog to bark as a “want”, vs. trying to convince the dog to follow a bark command by being nice to it, telling it good dog, etc.

  32. Heather, you make a lot of sense. You know that?

    LCK

  33. christine randolph says:

    that’s funny. I try to say bark or speak when the dog barks anyway.
    that way i do not have to express a strong desire (too much work !!!!) nor be “nice” (do not like to grovel all the time)

  34. christine randolph says:

    this goes a LOOOONG way back.
    Kevin wrote how his schutzhund-in-trainingran to the car, although he saw his trainer on the hill.
    i am trying to teach my dog to swim so i am standing in the water getting my dog in the water, with treats. ball etc. so after being in the deep water with his flotation device. dog swims to the shore faster than i can get there..
    dog runs to the car. (about 100 meters away) so I stay at the shore, work with the other dogs, mine and other people’s – this is like a dog park.
    so my dog decides he is bored at the car, or jealous that I am working with other dogs, comes back for some more water work, etc, etc. repeat, dog moves back and forth between car and shoreline…
    it’s a bit like when they make you put your dog in the crate between exercises at the dog school. except the DOG decides when he wants a time out.

  35. christine randolph says:

    samurais pay attention ? shit, i guess this is why i almost did not grade in my samurai test last month….

  36. Heather says:

    Thanks Lee, it feels good to hear that. Orz

  37. Sondra says:

    “Heather, you make a lot of sense. You know that?

    LCK”

    Agreed!

  38. kbehan says:

    What’s good about NLIF is that it gets the dogs somewhat off the attention/tension/relief addiction cycle to the owner since the dogs’ personality “vibrations” aren’t being rewarded. In that way it begins to approximate an energy model by not subsidizing inefficiencies. So it might do a lot of good. But since it isn’t an explicit energy model but a crude approximation, and doesn’t account for the phenomenon of an emotional battery, and then fails to understand the group interaction as one dynamic of consciousness, it falls fundamentally short because it doesn’t touch the deepest layer in the battery And it still juxtaposes the will of the owner against the will of the dog without understanding the possibility that there can be one Will with each member of the group orienting to their right place because that feels best. The one overarching Will, regulated by Heart, can be traced in a straight line from the instant of birth, the developmental maturation of the litter, to full fledged participation in the hunt. The NILF mental approach is therefore still a denial of the one group mind.

  39. Heather says:

    I thought I’d give an update on my dog Happy, because lately he’s responding so well to the training we’ve been doing.

    My dog tends to the “electric” side anyway, but when a dog with that much presence gets electric, when he gets that look in his eye, it’s like being at the crest of the first hill of a very tall roller coaster – that quick-rising, energized feelin that makes you take a deep breath and hold on tight for the ride.

    So it has taken a long time to get comfortable working with that much energy – but that has turned out to have a lot of benefits, because he is like a new dog through pushing and tug and push of war and the box work – I have almost full control of where that energy goes.

    EG yesterday we were in the yard and playing push of war – I pushed Happy away while he was running toward me with his toy, and the toy went flying sideways out of his mouth…I had that uh-oh, here-we-go-again feeling, but was amazed when as I reached my hand in the food pouch, he softened just a bit, and as he ran full speed at me and I could practically feel the surrounding magnetic field hit me first – he weighs 20 lbs more than me, I have to bend forward to absorb the impact like you would do to catch a football to make this work.

    Of course with all things Newf you have to imagine all of this a lot wetter – when Happy accesses that “hunger-circuitry” the slobber flies even more than usual.

    What a good feeling it is to not hesitate taking him out to play…before instead of being magnetic to attract all that electric energy, I’d spend all my time avoiding the electric states, too caught up in thinking about things but energy runs way faster than you can keep up with thinking about it, you’ve got to go with the flow or get crushed like a bug around here, haha.

  40. Heather says:

    Who would ever have thought of the real reason for so many different and seemingly unrelated phenomena, how in the world did this whole model ever come into view for you Kevin, that is what really boggles my mind.

  41. kbehan says:

    Once you know the answer, that all behavior is a function of attraction, then it’s only a matter of time and paying very close attention without resorting to the luxury of a thought to putty over a confusion, until you begin to see dogs operating through a group mind perspective that is organized around an emotional battery. Eventually from this perspective you see that the group mind with all its complex, time deferred and intelligent behavior is conforming to the principles of energy. And from here a network consciousness comes into view as the source of creative adaptability. Thanks for paying close attention to what I’m trying to say.

  42. Heather says:

    With respect to a dog, it is clear that once the deepest layers of the battery are triggered, the emotions resolved, the “energy unleashed” so to speak, goes right back into the group mind for the owner’s use. I can see how we can make choices with our energy, where we invest it (like money) and what purpose it will serve. Do you think the group mind is in fact like printing your own money?

  43. […] is bringing the dog’s “moose energy” (deepest layer in the battery) TO GROUND.” – Kevin Behan [ed. his […]

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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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