Your Questions

Thanks to our readers, the Natural Dog Training site is full of fantastic questions and interesting scenarios. We are continuing to develop the site in order to nurture this dynamic, growing community, and hope to provide more and more resources to improve your learning experiences with NDT. At the moment, we realize that there are often questions or comments that don’t quite have a place within the articles, and so we’ve created this post for that exact purpose.

Please feel free to come here and leave a comment about your experiences, a question about your dog’s behavior, something that you’re stuck on, or something you’ve accomplished. In short, if you’re going through the site, and have something to say that doesn’t quite fit elsewhere – this is the place! We hope this will make your reading experience a little easier, and we’ll continue to develop the tools you need to Keep on Pushing!

~ The NDT Team

The Selbach family dog, Athos

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Published June 27, 2010 by Kevin Behan

506 responses to “Your Questions”

  1. kbehan says:

    Because they project their self into their human and then want to reconnect with their self. The question then becomes, does this mode of interaction allow them to reconnect with their self at its highest level? For many softhearted dogs, this won’t necessarily produce problem behaviors, but as we approach the lionhearted end of the canine spectrum, it will ultimately prove suffocating. I read Bradshaw saying that sleeping on the bed won’t produce problem behaviors, after all military commandos sleep with their dogs of war. So yes, if you and your dog are air lifted into combat together and are trained in extreme warfare and are capable of standing on parade with a hundred other dogs, and then sleep together while on the move in hostile territory, absolutely no problem because these lion hearted dogs are indeed getting their ya-yas out and giving their handler credit. However, I have to wonder if when stationed in a barracks for a long time, I expect there would be blood letting from time to time.

  2. Christine says:

    So then, what does one do when your woofer pushes into you for a head rub or insists you rub his belly instead of his chin? Just curious…

  3. kbehan says:

    The main thing is to just pay attention to what’s going on within oneself. Is the dog doing it reflexively in compliance to an owner’s neediness, or is it an authentic expression of affection. I definitely wouldn’t nit pick it to death, just open one’s mind to an objective observation of what’s going on in the overall and over the long run.

  4. john says:

    you often hear about dogs being fussy eaters alot seem to be sensitive dogs for one reason or another,it often becomes an issue for the owner who tries feeding tastier and more expensive food to no avail,

    ,im just wondering does the whole issue become self fulfilling in itself,that is, owner expecting dog not to eat ,and dog not eating,,,
    or have some dogs a real issue with food ,and cant eat in close or around their owner maybe because of dominance training or otherwise,

    is the pushing for food in ndt,,not just about the pushing ,but also the taking of food and feeding in close contact to the owner,,
    thanks,,

  5. kbehan says:

    Right, it’s inconceivable to me that a dog could ever be fussy about its food, although of course I’ve cared for thousands of such when I ran a boarding kennel. It completely reflects an issue in the owner and yes the pushing for food activates the hunger circuitry so that it becomes a more predominant player in the dog’s perception of things.

  6. Crystal says:

    Yes, having two dogs allows me to see your point Kevin. Colt could sleep in my bed over nights and I would bet there would never be a problem. Bea, just being allowed to come up in the mornings or lie down for naps over the past few days since we have been home has helped herself to my bed when I am not in it and grumped at the kids when they hopped on, albeit in a passive way, i.e. startling, grumbling as she jumps down to her own bed.

  7. Alwynne says:

    Hi Kevin:

    My friend has a dog she got from the shelter that is terrified of walking on the sidewalk. As in — she cannot get the dog to walk on the sidewalk with her; it cowers, shakes, pulls back on the leash, etc.. They’ve had the dog for a year or so and have accommodated it by driving it to the woods every day — the dog likes the woods and the car–but she would really like to be able to walk the dog on the sidwalk to the woods or wherever else. Trainers she’s talked to have recommended feeding it as she walks it along the sidewalk to “desensitize” it, and she’s tried it but this hasn’t worked. Of course I recommended that she look into Natural Dog Training and your website, but I was wondering if you had some specific recommendations for dealing with this problem.

  8. kbehan says:

    I would guess that the dog is an actively friendly sort and so its fear of being on the sidewalk fear is an opportunity to download all the stress she internalizes via her friendly personality. So I would first encourage the owner to encourage the dog not to be obedient but to become pushy with her, and to concentrate on tug of war, etc.. (is sleeping on bed going on?) If it were my dog I would get it aggressive and snarly toward me, and then smooth this out with strong pushing/barking/biting. Then when enough foundation is in place, there should be a boogey man on the roadway so that the fear of sidewalk can be “objectified” into something that is definable, knowable, and therefore something that can be successfully dealt with, i.e. the boogey man runs away and everybody praises the dog for being so “brave.” Then eventually the boogey man can approach and the dog can play tug of war, bark and push and then soften for rub a dub, so the dog is experiencing incredible group energy for letting that last .01% back into its system and emotionally fusing with it.
    This might seem a little too much for the average dog owner, but the truth is that unless the last .01% of the battery is invested in a productive energy channel, toward-an-object-of-attraction-that-can-run-to-completion—then paradoxically all the positives that are being done for the dog are actually reinforcing its fear of the sidewalk because that is where that last .01% is currently being invested. The higher we build a house on a shaky foundation, no matter how pretty or well made each floor may be, the more crooked grows the house.

  9. Christine says:

    Crooked house — excellent analogy!

  10. Christine says:

    Just curious….how would you encourage a dog to become pushy and aggressive?

  11. kbehan says:

    Grab and mock bite with my hands, have him jump up and push him off a little too rowdy, stalk when he’s not suspecting, futz with his foosies and muscle his muzzle. But be sure you have a good foundation and just play with the edges,

  12. john says:

    thats an interesting point about objectifying a form for the nervousness ,could that approach be taken where a dog is generally fearful of any situation a dog who looks at the world through fear tinted glasses in other words ,
    can we not get to that 0.1 through through pushing ,tugging etc,,or does the dog really need that 3rd party bogey man to get it out of his system,,

  13. kbehan says:

    Right, you often need the trigger to access that last bit so that it can become an externalized object of attraction (even stress is a “force” of attraction), and then the pushing is its means of resolution, smoothing out into a coherent “signal” so that the owner serves as a filter for the energy-of-attraction to run to ground. With the owner as the ground, you can then play with the energy that was triggered and as it ping/pongs back and forth between dog and owner, the owner-dog connection becomes a platform for that old stuck energy to elaborate into a refined feeling (synchronized group energy).

  14. Alwynne says:

    So interesting; your description seems to have relevance to my work with Cholula too–she has no problem being out on the sidewalk, but in terms of how challenging it is to access her real energy, and that some of the success I’ve had (especially since going to Vermont) is through bugging her to be more pushy with me. By the way, my friend added that she got the dog as a young puppy (through a shelter) after its mother had been killed in a hunting accident, and that the family was very concerned about inhibiting the bite since it was a young puppy without littermates… I’m guessing you would say that this has a lot to do with the dog’s inability to deal out on the sidewalk.

  15. kbehan says:

    Training a puppy not to use its mouth, is like putting a stopper in a flask full of a fermenting liquid. You run the risk of an explosion (aggression) or an implosion (phobia) depending on its temperament. So the nervous system needs to objectify this internal distress and it invents something by finding a gap in a stimulus, for example, a crack in the floor, the sound of something metallic, sharp, loud. Something that can reflect/interrupt the flow of emotion, and then this becomes the trigger and it compounds in significance on subsequent exposures.

  16. Crystal says:

    Do you see benefit to crating Bea for a few hours each day in a quiet room as I work through this .01 with her over the next little while? Is crating in general beneficial? I used it when they were chewing age at night and when I left the house and then stopped.

  17. kbehan says:

    There’s a lot of doggy politics going on in a household (due to a stasis that leads to static) so isolating Bea while she’s going through a critical learning period is helpful so that her last .01% can get attuned to you and in this new way and then the dog can learn by contrast, fight with all her heart for bite toy feels great, winning at doggy politics doesn’t feel so good.

  18. john says:

    just trying to clarify in my own mind,
    when a dog is in its puppy stage,it encounters different situations,things both negative and positive,
    how the pup deals with these situations or the frame of mind the pup goes into to ,to deal with a negative situation ,is the frame of mind that he will gravitate towards later on in life when dealing with something negative in his envoirement ,
    but can be taught or redirected in how he deals with negativity, through forcing him to reinvent an another approach through regression ,breaking down the original learnt process,and building from the inside out a new approach to situations,,
    thanks ,john,,

  19. kbehan says:

    Right, physical memories are acquired in both an adaptive and an inappropriate form, and these are then applied to later situations. The dog sees the past in the present. So in the case of damage through trauma or over-stimulation, these physical memories have to be triggered (after a foundation of push/bark/bite, contacting, hide ‘n seek, rub a dubs etc.,has been imprinted), and then the dog can learn a new way of processing this stress. He learns that the old pattern doesn’t work and can no longer be relied upon to control his experience, whereas if the dog is direct and active (this is the only polarity which can resolve unresolved emotion because it is the personality state that leads to the center of the circle (potential energy), sorry to be obtuse but just want to put it in terms of the underlying emotional dynamic, i.e. Temperament is a circle.) he learns he can control what’s going on around him by being poised for action (direct/active). This is critical because by being poised the dog is learning that the-less-I-do-the-safer-I-am, thus he can avoid conflicts by doing nothing to attract the fear of another dog for example. And the less-I-do-the-more-I-get, and so all he has to do is want something and that something eventually will come true. A dog will always choose to feel the best possible way it can feel, but it needs to feel potential energy (preyful essence) to let go of an old memory which in that dog’s mind has become its definition of safety. Thus he will choose to do nothing when confronting a troublesome situation that he can’t do anything about, because this is more efficient and emotion has an efficiency component to it. And he learns that all he has to do is want something (direct/active) to get what he wants, he doesn’t have to rely on the old indirect loading/overloading pattern that is in his emotional battery and upon which his perceptions are predicated. So since a dog has no comprehension of time and thus no understanding of cause and effect, he can master the dynamic of just feeling a want as his means of controlling an experience. In this condition, now physical memory serves as an emotional ballast and becomes a self-contained grounding influence, the dog feels the presence of a preyful aspect and thus sees it, even if it’s not there as far as a “normal” perspective might define it. And more importantly, in this poised state the dog is then able to flip polarity in order to connect with the object of his attraction by becoming its complementary polarity AND THIS CAN CHANGE THE EMOTIONAL STATE OF A DOG TRYING TO MESS WITH HIM. (This by the way has been confused as part of “calming signals.” But there cannot be a signal without the underlying dynamic, and this is what we need to see and understand otherwise we’re just imparting a human psychology to animal behavior and this error will ultimately show up in methodology.)

  20. Christine says:

    So then…there are ‘calming signals’ but they are not attached to a thought and there is not ‘intent’ in them…is that correct? Me thinks it would be a good thing to learn/understand calming signals…get to know/recognize them but with the underlying dynamics firmly in place as an interpretive tool.

  21. kbehan says:

    These aren’t signals in the way they are typically discussed, they are actually displays. And the reason one class of these are calming, is because they are manifestations of preyful aspects. At the other end of the emotional spectrum is the class of predatory aspects which reflect emotion back at the “projector” of emotion and can thereby be stressful. But I also have to immediately add, that the predatory aspects are necessary to reflect emotion back so that elaboration can occur as in a ping/ponging back and forth process. So if two parties in an interaction reflect back to the other, and simultaneously manifest preyful aspects so that each serves as an emotional ground to the other, then we see a social interaction evolve between them. None of this is intentional, it speaks to a much bigger and far more sublime truth of nature and the nature of emotion. There is a group consciousness working through two individuals to effect itself.

  22. Christine says:

    I understand the bit about there being no intention behind the signals…still they exist. They are automatic in the same way one flinches or blinks in response to an aggressive behavior. From a human standpoint it would be beneficial to be able to recognize these displays. It seems to me it would be helpful in reading and understanding what’s going on in front of our eyes. Being able to differentiate between predatory/preyful displays would enable an individual to adjust their body language accordingly. Isn’t that all part of the process of coming to understand anothers point of view, whether they be human or animal? Body language is an outward display of internal emotional states. These are things I typically am clueless about so I want to know and understand them more fully. I want my interactions with others to be effective and nonthreatening. I want to be a safe place where others can rest and restore themselves…or some such. Besides…I have an inquiring mind and I want to know! lol

  23. kbehan says:

    The point I’m driving at is that the real meaning of the “signals” comes from understanding them as a platform for elaboration, in other words, raw emotional energy needs two beings to make one consciousness (a feeling), and our very anatomy, physiology and even neurology evolved to implement this group mind. So if two individuals can play ping pong, and they do so by learning to move their body to affect how an object of attraction makes them feel, then they put a reciprocating cycle of pressure and release on each other in a synchronized way so that the raw emotional energy of attraction, induces a stronger and more refined feeling of deflection/induction. Without understanding that this underlying template is organizing these interactions, the idea of “signals” doesn’t make sense and observers are distracted from what is really going on. This is why Chapter 8 in YDIYM is critical, the first days of life imprint this template in the newborns.

  24. Christine says:

    Okay…time for a re-read of chapter 8 it is then!

  25. Joanne Frame says:

    I think I’ll re-read chapter 8 too!

    Separate topic that I would be interested in people’s opinions on. I have two hounds and a labrador from working stock. The lab is only 1 year old and is very hyper – Sang suggests it’s fear coming through and I can see that now. If left to his own devices, when he is in the house he grabs something in his mouth and will walk round the room for ages before he settles down. He also moults a lot, which people warned me was a reason for getting a black lab and not the yellow I have. I associate holding something in his mouth as the need to ground energy, from my NDT understanding, and I also associate heavy moulting as anxiety related. My hounds will moult temporarily if put in a stressful situation. As I understand it there is a genetic disposition for labradors to hold something in their mouth, as that is what they are bred for. Is it the case that our selective breeding is actually breeding anxiety into the breed by virtue of selecting for ‘holding something’ – or am I making too many assumptions? Just curious.

  26. kbehan says:

    We can’t rate behavior as either all good or all bad, black or white kind of thing. So yes, having the prey object in the mouth is an emotional ground and is calming, but this can also be why a dog would obsess on this as a means of calming itself down, and therefore it can indicate an underlying anxiety. And yet, the bird dogs were bred for a soft mouth and this is why they are so actively/indirect, i.e. “friendly” and have become the prototypical family dog. That capacity to perceive a preyful essence in a stressful situation is why they are reliably social, but at the same time is why they are prone to internalizing anxiety so that it continually reverberates through their mind. I believe this is also what makes these friendly breeds more susceptible to noise phobias and epileptic seizures. My argument is that we can keep the canine mind on track by helping them learn to cope with stress by overcoming resistance that is progressively calibrated to helping them overcome in successive levels of difficulty (hence the pushing and bite/carry). The more complex we make these exercises (weaving in the obedience exercises), while taking great pains to always keep the feeling of emotional momentum at every point in the process, then we are mimicking the hunting template and this helps the dog be truly social (rather than hyper-friendly) and stress resistant.

  27. Crystal says:

    Kevin,

    I imagine you are familiar with the “get in your box” training of Competitive obedience. Well it is proving challenging with my little, yes that’s all well and good what’s next, Bea. She can hardly stay still in the box. I am wondering if I could use your “box” training to get this accomplished. Do you think this would work? I have to get “in your box”, “stand”, “up/sit” and the fold “down” once she is in position. It just occurred to me today, but I don’t know if it would be beneficial or would hinder something that is coming later in the training that I don’t know about. I am using sprinkler pipe on the ground. Thx.

  28. kbehan says:

    Don’t know what you mean, but on the box as stepping stone to contact and the bite becomes a stable behavior, and then you can attach up, down, sit, stand onto that commitment to being on the box as a “midpoint” to the Drive sequence.

  29. Crystal says:

    Hmm…don’t think I can explain this as I am just learning it. No worries.

  30. Milo says:

    Kevin, the other day my wife and I were walking our 3 Siberian Huskies and GSP which, apart from the GSP who can and does go off-lead, the other three are always in harness and attached to leads, which in turn are attached to walking belts and they are always either to our side or more often in front of us. I noticed that many peoples’s dogs, especially if they were coming straight towards us, became very intense and one even started to crouch slightly, and slowly stalk towards us and emit a low level growl, especially at our male, none of our dogs were showing it any interest as they were focused on driving forward. The path we were on was at least 20 yards wide and we were to one side and yet this dog insisted on closing in rather than skirting around us. His owner seemed a little surprised at his dog’s reaction and its total lack of response to his calls. I have noticed other people who let there dogs run loose with little or no regard for other people also have an issue with dogs on lead. Even if our dogs are not showing them any interest, some dogs just don’t seem to cope with the fact that a dog is on a lead. In fact on the same walk when we arrived back at our car with 3 very tired sibes and a GSP who just can’t be worn out, who just wanted a well earned drink, three different dogs started getting very hyper just by the sight of the leads, why? I can understand when you have a dog straining on a lead trying to get at another dog but not when the dogs in question are just minding their own business or “in the zone” when walking or running in harness as a team!

    Thanks again for the fascinating insights into our canine friends!

    Milo

  31. kbehan says:

    This is a very interesting phenomenon because usually it works the other way around, dogs off/lead cause dogs to have a charge because they represent “free energy” whereas dogs on lead represent “channeled energy.” The distinction is walking into a bank and seeing stacks of money in the vault, it’s channeled and so it doesn’t make us crazy. But then on the highway a duffel bag of bills falls out of an armored car and folks go wild risking their lives to grab a couple hundred dollars. It’s “free energy.”
    So I think with this behavior, if it proves to be broad scale, means we’re entering into the realm of a judgment that has entered into the network consciousness. For example, in the nineties I first heard that neutered males were attacking whole males on sight and at first I found this hard to believe until I started witnessing it for myself. It represents the judgment against male energy that the society carries until ultimately the dogs begin acting it out. The next syndrome to escalate was separation anxiety, the judgment “I want to be taken care of by an authority figure” and this is due to the individual no longer being considered the sacred unit of society, a guilt deal. Then there was dogs stealing other dogs toys in the parks and playing keep away, the judgment, “I am entitled.” So now I would volunteer that a new judgment is entering the group mind that “I cannot abide by restraint.” People are no longer feeling autonomous and in control of their destiny (even though they are willing to give up their autonomy out of guilt) and so because on these jaunts into public spaces you’re not letting your dogs run free, this constrained energy is an insult to the vibrate-to-discharge energy syndrome and thus attracts the built up charge. When people see you having your dogs under harness, they suffer an unconscious charge. This happens to me a lot when I work dogs in public, because I’m encouraging a dog to move energy, it attracts the charge of “looking for animal abusers” that is a big component of the guilt matrix current in the public mindset. The woman who wrote the “Dog Bible” (?) campaigned against the Orvis Company that was hosting me during their dog events. I was becoming a popular draw and because I’m talking about working with a dog’s energy and encouraging a dog to move what’s stuck within, which means not judging against emotion, this triggered her denied anger (guilt) and her complaints caused the Orvis company to cave in to her as the thought police. In high level commercial activity this guilt judgment manifests as product branding over company ethos. So keep us posted with this syndrome, very fascinating.

  32. john says:

    just a quick question, how do dogs seem to be able to identify the smell of their own waste matter,it holds no interest for them in the slightest, is it not an indication of some sort of self,,thanks

  33. kbehan says:

    I’ve thought about that as well. and I would say there’s no charge with a dog’s own waste. In other words, any product of a body is a preyful essence and this allows dogs to synchronize with each other over the course of an interaction so that their respective raw energies of attraction (emotion) can elaborate onto higher and higher levels of refinement (sociability). So two dogs have a charge between each other, they are attracted to each other with a force that can’t be directly consummated. They can’t walk up to each other, shake hands and know that each are going their separate way. For a dog a moment is forever and therefore when two dogs meet, the issue is intense because they are now enjoined as far as the emotional frame of mind is concerned and so the problem becomes how to objectify their attraction toward each other so that this energy of attraction can indeed attain consummation (run to ground). If they can’t, then the charge becomes overly intense, (Note that a “waste” product of the body is actually a statement of resolution, it is a biochemical formulation of how all its energies combined to metabolize nutrients and stress). So a preyful essence fulfills this mandate of squaring up two individual’s attraction towards each other and so I call it an emotional midpoint, around which they both can orbit. We can also note that when we observe an insecure dog, then he is in fact far more attracted to his own waste because when stress it in this case is serving to objectify the energies in his mind, it is a way of grounding himself and so this is an example of another kind of charge. The charge is what draws dogs to waste products of the body,

  34. john says:

    currently trying to rehabilitate a cat killing dog, there is a old disused hay barn close to me ,full to the rafters with cats,,now the dog has on one occasion ,while offlead ran in and killed a sub adult cat,
    recently while walking the dog, a cat got up out of the hedge in front off us,and ran along the lane,,the dog who i had on the lead,responded with a strange screaming sound as if in pain,,as if the cat had actually caused inflicted pain on the dog,,
    so recently the programme is, to feed in the hay barn,through pushing ,trying to get the dog tugging with toy in the barn,and bark in same barn,,
    if we go straight into the barn from the house on lead ,,it takes a while to focus back on me and food,,
    if he gets a run round first and a titbit and a bit of play, he approach’s the barn in a different frame of mind ,,
    Am i going about this the right way ,,he’s gone from a scream at the sight of a cat to a deep bark ,which is positive i believe,,

  35. kbehan says:

    Yes the sensations of pain are affiliated with the balance circuitry and accord to the logic that output (action) doesn’t equal input (stimulation). The advanced circuitry piggybacks on the primal circuitry and so it’s just as if the cat is hurting the dog. You are on the right track, get the push, bark and bite, and then you will expose dog to cat that is confined in a wire crate. The cat’s predatory aspect has to be able to reflect the dog’s projected “self” back onto the dog and it responds with coherent behavior, push/bark/bite, which at first will be directed at you because you are the buffering agent that is allowing energy to elaborate into a feeling, but little by little the dog is giving the cat credit for helping it get to a state of grounding. At some point when the dog isn’t made unconscious by “the charge” the cat will be in control of the dog and the dog will actually feel better for it..

  36. Adam says:

    My sister recently gave birth to a boy and her 3.5 year old Shiba Inu watches the baby intently, whines, and has several times tried to jump up and get a closer look. What can you recommend for making the dog comfortable with the baby?

  37. kbehan says:

    Generally all it takes is time. At first a dog may not recognize the baby as “humanoid,” i.e. of the template with which it categorizes human beings. But as it gains the baby’s essences through smell, they generally soften and are able to easily accept the newborn as part of their group. The important thing is to protect the baby from the dog and vice versa, until you see that the group connection has been made.

  38. Adam says:

    Do you know of any books or materials published/available by Bernhard Mannel?

  39. john says:

    Is drive and energy inseparable ? thanks,

  40. kbehan says:

    It’s no good to have energy in and of itself. You have to have Drive to do work. So Drive is focused energy. Where does the focus come from? Stress. So when dogs are in Drive together, stress impels them toward being in sync and thus they are able to work as a team by feel.

  41. Cliff says:

    @Adam. When A’s son was an infant, she fed his dirty diapers to the dog who apparently ate the…deposit with gusto. It worked, i guess, since the dog was completely devoted to him. Disclaimer: A is very good with animals (raised on a farm), and you try this technique at your risk.

  42. john says:

    which holds more interest for the dog, grounding the energy created by the movement of a prey animal felt in the dog, or grounding the energy already in the prey animal
    thinking in particular about a dog getting charged by the sight of a rabbit(energy in the dogs body),,or grounding the energy shown by the movement of the rabbit(energy in the rabbits body)
    just trying to get my head round this point ,thanks,

  43. Adam says:

    Why do dogs appear to sometimes purposely put their paw on your foot? What’s going on in their “mind” when they do this?

  44. john says:

    im getting a bit bogged down in trying to understand, if it feels good for the dog to be in drive when energized,why does it need to ground that energy ,why would it want to shake off that feeling of harmony through grounding into an item,,

  45. kbehan says:

    The form of the rabbit and the distance as well as the ground cover standing between the dog and the rabbit is the intensity factor and this triggers physical memory or stored energy in the dog. The preyful movement of the rabbit creates “new energy” in the dog because the dog feels its own physical center-of-gravity moving within its body and this excites neuro-chemical activity, or energy. Bringing the rabbit to ground, grounds both the old energy and the new energy.

  46. kbehan says:

    Our movements are our “vibration,” in other words behavior is a vibration, a radiation of energy into action. So a dog feels disconnected from someone and puts its paws on the foot to “out-vibrate” the person, which works if it limits their mobility. It most likely traces back to physical memory and having been stepped on, and so its toes feel sensitized in the above state of feeling disconnected and now the pattern as taken on a life of its own as the dog is now trying to connect and simultaneously remain out of harm’s way.

  47. kbehan says:

    You’re right, if it were up to the dog it would stay in a harmonized state of drive and simply wallow in the pleasure of physical memory going from stress/resistance to pleasure/flow and never come in for dinner. However its consciousness is subject to deeper emotional cycles not under its control and these are not only playing out across the entire ecosystem, but across Time as well. In short, if you’re not growing, you’re dying and so at some point the state of rapture reaches a peak state and has to collapse toward an object of resistance that can be overcome in order to make new energy in a material, physical way. These deep emotional cycles keep nature evolving and are responsible for the nature of behavior, just as the deep oceanic currents are more responsible for the climate than surface patterns of the weather that more readily capture our attention.
    The deepest emotional cycle is like a wheel turning, and so feelings are interfaced (equal/opposite) so that individuals are synchronized like spokes on a wheel, and the wheel turns outside the control of individual volition until that peak state is attained and there is a collapse into a fixated action.

  48. john says:

    is it just a cycle of overcoming resistance continuously ,and returning to calm, basically could that sum up whats going on with the dog,

  49. kbehan says:

    The very feat of being conscious creates tension, and the pursuit of attraction creates resistance, and so the task is to become whole by releasing tension and to return the battery to neutral by resolving resistance, both of which are part of being calm.

  50. Adam says:

    I was watching Schutzhund demonstrations today and I have two questions. How does the act of pushing come into play in this training, because I didn’t witness anything like it…and secondly, how would you go about training a dog to be called off a “hold at bay/bark” and return to the handler’s heel. They attemped this and when the dog did not respond they gave it three major jerks on the long line until it returned to the handler’s heel. After that though the dog would jump the gun and try to return to the handler before the command was issued.

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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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