A lot of things dogs do are really funny. But this can obscure that a fundamental truth is being revealed. So first enjoy a good laugh in the video below that’s been making the rounds, and then try to answer: Why do dogs do this? It’s no laughing matter. Below I will add my interpretation.
When you put a pair of batteries into a portable radio (remember those?), because the polarity markings inside the radio can be impossible to see, you learn to take note of the arrangement of the batteries as you take them out so that you will put the new ones in to their right slots. The (-) and (+) poles of the batteries must connect with the complementary (+) and (-) terminals inside the radio in order to complete the circuit so that energy will flow.
Likewise, an animal has a bi-polar emotional makeup. Stress is absorbed and stored in an emotional battery according to this bi-polar makeup. The head is the positive (+) pole and the butt is the negative (-) polarity. In the video you will note that the dogs aren’t randomly sitting on the cats, they are specifically targeting the cats’ head with their hind ends. This is because dogs become particularly sensitive of a cats head and claw action because cats aren’t as good at Mawing as are dogs. They tend to go right to clasp and claw mode which is pretty overwhelming to a dog. So the dog in order to connect and simultaneously neutralize the cat’s predatory aspect, sits on it which grounds out the balance problem of the cat’s predatory aspect, neutralizing it by completing a circuit. In other words, two batteries are coupling according to the (+) —> (-) (+)——> (-) i.e. grounding it out. This is closely related to humping between dogs who are better at Mawing and so there’s a lot less sitting going on when the poles start flipping. You see more hubba-hubba when things bog down. Nevertheless all these kinds of affiliative behaviors can be labeled as “wave coupling.” It’s a systems logic that begins with the negative meeting positive, and positive meeting negative in order to complete the circuit, the dog being the most adaptive component of the module because the dog rather than the cat is doing the flipping of poles to conform to the energetic parameters that allow for emotion as energy to flow. This is a funny video but it nonetheless reveals the underlying architecture of the animal mind.
<<<<<Postscript: While it may seem to be a radically different behavior, a dog sitting for a cookie is exactly the same emotional dynamic as the dog sitting on the cat’s head. The handler holding a cookie is blocking the dog’s access with his predatory aspect. To complete the circuit, the dog becomes the equal and yet opposite by pushing its butt to the ground. So two emotional batteries, dog and owner, are aligned by the dog towards their complementary polarities to complete a circuit. Researchers are currently looking for the simple rules that drive complex behavior, but the rules of a bipolar emotional makeup is quite literally, sitting, under our noses, as well as hands with treat. >>>>>
Brilliant! Thankyou
Finally “completing the circuit so that energy will flow” is making sense to me!! I’m still struggling with “wave coupling” though.
Emotion is a wave of motion based on the rhythm of locomotion. The locomotive rhythm is a wave, it is the metric for moving well, or for feeling well. Therefore the locomotive rhythm is the basis for the mental process of objectification since the object of all behavior, and thus the mind, is to feel well. Objects form in the mind as a function of this rhythm. For example emotionally we are more attracted to round shapes than square ones since they’re easier to move. In this way there is an innate capacity to couple with others in order to combine forces, a systems logic for self-organizing social structures.
Kevin, Could you elaborate on your comparison to ‘humping in dogs’? I don’t quite get it. Is the dog doing the humping trying to ground the energy of the humpee because it feels too much energy from the humpee?
Humping between dogs occurs when there is a sensual affiliation, at least in the humper for the humpee, but the humpee isn’t moving. Sensuality/sexuality evolved to deal with resistance first and foremost, its function of procreation is tertiary, and so that’s why it kicks in when things aren’t moving fast enough. In other words, the object of attraction isn’t generating a wave form by running and the other dog can sync with its movements and thus effect wave coupling. But with these kitties humping is off the table even though the dogs are sensually attuned to the cats because as we saw in the opening scenes, kitty plays rough and dog wants to sensually neutralize its predatory aspect, hence sitting on its head. However from the dog’s point of view it’s only trying to make its body whole by coupling with the body of the cat. And this is because flow is everything and to get things flowing a dog maps its locomotive rhythm to an object of attraction and then tries to either accelerate it into motion, or couple with it so as to amplify the locomotive rhythm, or wave. Thus all behavior is wave coupling and what we call anti-social is when those mechanics aren’t enabled. But in point of fact, even aggression is an attempt to accelerate something into motion, or differentiate in order to wave couple, two bodies making one common rhythm. I won’t digress into it here, but even the oral urge to ingest is a function of wave coupling.
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