“Hey Kevin, my name is Ben Grubbs and I’ve been (trying) to practice NDT ever since I discovered it, and I’m a frequent poster on your blog– I was hoping you had a moment to take a look at a video I shot this morning. I am dogsitting a friend’s dog named Milo who is […]
A Fractal Pattern What excites me about my energy model is that I believe I’ve discovered a constantly repeating fractal expression of behavior: a simple and easily recognizable module that constantly repeats itself to factor out more and more complex behaviors and ultimately, a social and cooperative nature. Since all of nature seems to be […]
Since my answers became lengthy I posted them as an article. Thanks for great questions. Mark’s questions are in quotes and I placed my answer after an asterisk. “I think you mentioned previously that when the moose calls the wolves always come running. Can you explain that a bit further? How does the moose call […]
It’s interesting to read the reviews and comments on Neil’s DVD as well as the assortment of critiques offered on the web in regards to how other thinkers on dogs perceive Natural Dog Training. It strikes me that our respective arguments aren’t intersecting, that we’re not actually making intellectual contact. Some seem to be saying […]
Since I’m of course interested in how the marketplace receives Neil Sattin’s DVD treatment of Natural Dog Training, below is a link to a recent review which I’m excerpting at length in this article. Here is the link to Reno Mostly Dogs Review of Natural Dog Training The purpose of this article is to review […]
Sang sent me the following email which I feel speaks powerfully to how all beings need to feel in control of what they’re experiencing and how this runs counter to the impulse we have that tries to control everything about our dogs, even in the way we praise. (From Sang) I’ve been reading this book […]
Because it’s their owner acting strange. There are three things I need to explain in regards to this phenomenon. First, in the animal mind, the form-of-a-thing, such as a human, cat, deer, etc, or sometimes even a log, is the confluence of two energies, predatory and prey. The ratio of these two energies compose a […]
Every new client asks me what I think about Cesar Millan the “Dog Whisperer.” They want to know where I might agree and where I don’t. So we had the idea that I would answer questions that were posed to Cesar in an interview he conducted and then one could draw their own distinctions. Link […]
Because they feel the ground is moving. In animal consciousness, just as in Einstein’s theory of relativity, there is no such thing as an absolute frame of reference; in other words, something is absolutely at rest while something else is in absolute motion. We now know thanks to Einstein that there is no ether permeating […]
They are resonating with a wave. An ambulance, fire truck or police car zips through a neighborhood and its wailing siren leaves all the dogs in its wake howling. Dogs hear sirens, or another dog crooning, or a person imitating a howling wolf and most can’t resist joining in the chorus. This brings us to […]
They are seeking release but are only getting relief. Every so often when I’m walking around my property and step into high grass or some leaves, I hear a little squeak underfoot. For a second I wonder if I’m crushing some small critter, but it always turns out to be nothing more than a plastic […]
Currently dog owners are presented with two competing definitions for the nature of dogs. Proponents of the dominance theory believe that the canine mind is organized around a social hierarchy of rank and therefore being a pack leader is the natural way for an owner to raise and train a dog. Meanwhile, proponents of learning […]
A dog lifts its leg or squats, and other dogs rush over to investigate. Why? To release themselves. The traditional interpretation is that dogs investigate other dogs’ eliminations because they are assaying status and relative ranks. But the real reason has to do with the nature of emotion and animal consciousness. Because animal consciousness is […]
Dr. Beckoff in his blog on Psychology Today makes an intriguing observation that people are more willing to acknowledge that an animal can be happy whereas they resist or become uncomfortable with the idea that animals can be unhappy. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/animal-emotions/200906/anthropomorphic-double-talk-can-animals-be-happy-not-unhappy-no He believes that this makes it easier for people to allow substandard or even inhumane […]
Why do dogs smell each other? When people meet and greet, they shake hands or touch in some way and they exchange pleasantries. And when dogs meet and greet, they smell each other. However people don’t reintroduce themselves periodically throughout their interaction or every time they meet especially if they know each other well, whereas […]
This article, “The Debate over Neutering” is likely to be the most controversial aspect of Natural Dog Training, but it is the inescapable conclusion of the belief that dogs are social by nature. Because if this is true, that dogs are the most cooperative animal on earth, then by definition, even their sexual makeup is […]
In the early eighties I found myself describing certain behaviors as “electric,” as for example when a dog is defensive, fearful or hyper, bristling, tense, taut and touchy, while other behaviors I intuitively would call “magnetic,” as for example when a dog is rolling on the ground, body contacting with others, supple to the touch, […]
Whether we know it or not, we all develop highly complex theories for animal behavior, most especially dogs. Even someone who doesn’t own a dog and never even thinks about why animals do what they do: nonetheless develops a highly elaborate theory for their nature and for their evolution as well, and without even knowing […]
Why do dogs (circle before lying down or eliminating, play chase games on long round curves, spin like a top before a ball is thrown or when confined in a kennel or tied to a chain, approach other beings along an arc, quarter into the wind, twirl around a scent marking to position themselves, circumnavigate […]
The purpose of this section: why dogs do what they do is to demonstrate that dog behavior is a function of a “networked-intelligence”. The system logic of this intelligence is emotion. Dogs “know” what to do by virtue of how they feel. To date explorations of why-dogs-do-what-they-do; from the days of Descartes versus Voltaire to […]
Because animals are emotional beings and human beings displace the most “emotional mass.” I’ll never forget the first litter I helped my father raise when I was a young boy. They were housed in a stall set up in the back of our boarding kennel. It was quiet there and so the mother and her […]
Question: if dogs are social by nature as Natural Dog Training claims them to be, how could a dog ever do something “anti-social?” Answer: because emotion must move. A brief primer on emotion: Emotion is energy. And as pure energy, before it becomes entangled in the higher processes of the nervous system and either elaborates […]
A recent experiment involving dogs “giving paw” has been hailed as demonstrating that dogs are endowed with an innate sense of fairness. NPR summed up the results on its website as quoted below: “Dogs have an intuitive understanding of fair play and become resentful if they feel that another dog is getting a better deal, […]
Why do dogs wag their tails? The quick answer is that a dog wags its tail for a reason which seems self-evident enough, being that it’s the tell-tale mark of a friendly dog. Indeed, anyone who’s stood near the pounding tail of a prototypical friendly breed, such as a Labrador Retriever, can take a veritable […]
For most of my thirty years as a dog trainer, I thought dog training, and in particular working with problem dogs, meant first and foremost changing the dog’s behavior; a “fix-the- dog-to-make-things-better” approach. But the more I became aware of the inner emotional dynamic that was running a dog’s behavior, and how this was also […]
We will be discussing at length the notion of Temperament and it would be helpful to consider everyday examples of it in action. Even though it is the central faculty from which all behavior springs, nevertheless it isn’t a tangible organ like the brain or the heart. The easiest way to directly appreciate it and […]
Kita, a 9 year old Akita-mix female, came to me for training because she was aggressive to other dogs. It had become impossibe for Cecille, her owner, to take Kita for a walk through the neighborhood. Kita had been in several serious brawls and she had become so violently “charged” that on sight of a […]
Evolution is the story of overcoming resistance. Things must be broken down in order to exploit their energy. Concentrating and storing energy in order to overcome resistance is the organizing principle of every species’ anatomy, physiology and behavior. Inside your dog is a battery, an emotional reservoir filled with “unresolved emotion”. Unresolved emotion is created […]
Understandably, the number one concern of puppy owners is what to do about puppy mouthy-ness since canine aggression is every owner’s number one fear. However, DO NOT TEACH YOUR PUPPY NOT TO BITE. RUN, don’t walk from such advice. Do not fall into this trap and have this fear become a self-fulfilling prophecy. First of […]
