Also on Dog Star Daily is an article by Roger Abrantes on how to resolve the controversies about training methods. http://www.dogstardaily.com/blogs/dog-training—lets-end-fighting Abrantes divides the debate into the moralistic, the naturalistic, and the scientific camps. However what’s missing is an understanding of flow, a serious omission given that flow is the organizing principle of  nature. I suggest we […]

On Dog Star Daily Rachel Friedman has posted a video in order to explain calming signals. The dogs are really cute so it’s fun to watch.   http://youtu.be/oPg_zGr6Qfg First of all, there is no intention in a dog to calm another dog. Watch the video and see if you can see the universal “force” of […]

Adrian Bejan has just published an important article in a scholarly journal. He’s resolved the question in biology as to why large animals tend to live longer than small ones. It’s for the same reason that they are able to move more mass farther. http://www.nature.com/srep/2012/120821/srep00594/full/srep00594.html Thanks to Russell below is an article that explains the […]

Eric Brad in his excellent blog has recently written about a phenomenon he thinks is a mysterious and yet a normal part of obedience training: the randomly disobedient dog. I would argue that it’s not mysterious and it’s not “normal” as in, to be expected in the natural course of living with a dog. In […]

“On this day of July 7, 2012, a prominent international group of cognitive neuroscientists, neuropharmacologists, neurophysiologists, neuroanatomists and computational neuroscientists gathered at The University of Cambridge to reassess the neurobiological substrates of consciousness.”   “We declare the following: “The absence of a neocortex does not appear to preclude an organism from experiencing affective states. Convergent […]

“Empathy & Evolution: How Dogs Convert Stress Into Flow” Guest Blogger Kevin Behan Explains the Evolution of “Empathy” in Dogs Published on August 6, 2012 by Lee Charles Kelley in My Puppy, My Self “I’m proud to present this guest post by my mentor and colleague, Kevin Behan, originator of Natural Dog Training, which views […]

An unknown scientist has a website with an article entitled, “Kevin Behan: A Legend In His Own Mind.” http://dogbehaviorscience.wordpress.com The Unknown Scientist (US) purports to be a researcher and a competitive dog trainer, and I’ll take them at their word since he/she is indeed very intelligent as he/she is able to take complex research and […]

Olympic athletes do it, lovers do it, and now we know even Hermit Crabs do it. What is it they all do? Emotional projection, i.e. extending a sense-of-self beyond the limits of their body. “Abstract A flexible body image is required by animals if they are to adapt to body changes and move effectively within […]

Thanks to Russell for the following: http://phys.org/news/2012-07-herding-sheep-selfish.html Emotion is a calculus of motion, feelings are the capacity to apprehend the midpoint of a flow system. Calculating the motion of individual prey animals renders the center mass of the herd and/or defensive formation. The midpoint is place of maximum vulnerability, thus, the young are concentrated at […]

What is body language? http://www.coffscoastadvocate.com.au/story/2012/07/13/horse-training-methods-questioned/ This article demonstrates how interpreting behavior in the absence of a model leads to a defective conclusion. I’m not speaking here about what is the right way to train a horse, the researchers might be right that one shouldn’t scare a horse with a plastic bag, drive it around a […]

More evidence that hunting is the basis for the most enduring relationships between human beings and animals. http://www.arkinspace.com/2012/07/fishing-with-cormorants.html  

Cliff (of Lenny fame) and Eric Brad has an interesting exchange on Eric’s site, linked below, and this gives me the opportunity to emphasize again the fundamental distinctions between NDT and Learning Theory. And even though I’ve probably said these things many times on this site before, perhaps in this interweaving of a number of […]

This is another tragedy akin to what happened at Sea World, so first and foremost my heartfelt condolences to the bereaved friends and family of the victim. But from watching videos of folks interacting with captive wolves, http://www.godvine.com/Woman-Reunites-with-the-Wolves-She-Socialized-Awesome-1334.html I believe they are misinterpreting “friendliness” with true sociability. The social impulse comes from the hunt, from […]

I think I was very nicely voted off the island and not wanting to persist over time if it doesn’t increase the flow, I will post my follow up remarks here.  My main point is that disagreeing with Operant Conditioning and using a term such as energy is not necessarily unscientific, which is how Eric […]

I think Roger Abrantes is the best expositor of the new version of dominance, and so I’ve focused on his writings in a number of articles in order to draw contrast with the model I’m promulgating. Recently a reader brought my book to his attention on his Dog Star Daily blog and so in the […]

We’re in the process of revamping our NDT site so that the theory can be segregated from the practical regards of living with a dog. Toward that end, I would like to call your attention to the address below if you’re interested in reading how the laws of physics are the organizing principle of the […]

Whelden Memorial Library Event: Your Dog Is Your Mirror Wednesday, April 18th 6:00 – 9:00 pm Whelden Memorial Library 2401 Meetinghouse Way West Barnstable, MA   Sign up is requested. Please call the library at 508-362-2262.   Join Kevin Behan and the Whelden Library April 18th at 6:00pm to hear Kevin discuss his book, Your Dog Is […]

Friday’s broadcast of Radio Lab is of note. http://www.radiolab.org/2010/aug/09/new-words-new-world/ This episode of Radio Lab is important because it indirectly sheds light on the animal mind. A linguist travelled to a South American village that housed a school for deaf children because the children had invented a new language in their unique manner of signing. The […]

Join us  for the Mark Twain Library Event: Your Dog Is Your Mirror Wednesday, April 11th 7:30 pm Mark Twain Library Redding, Connecticut marktwainlibrary.org   Join Kevin Behan and the Mark Twain Library April 11th at 7:30pm. The event is located in Redding, Connecticut, where Kevin grew up on his parent’s farm, and where his […]

Gentle Spirit Farm Presents Your Dog Is Your Mirror Seminar Saturday, April 28th 1:00 – 4:00 pm The Academy of Dog Training Newark, Delaware   Come meet Kevin Behan, one of the nation’s foremost leaders in dog rehabilitation, and author of Your Dog Is Your Mirror and Natural Dog Training. With thirty years of experience, […]

From the NY Science Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/27/science/some-ballet-spectators-truly-know-how-to-feel-the-moves.html?_r=1&ref=science# “Ballet lovers may “truly feel that they are dancing” when they watch a performance, researchers have found after measuring the brain activity of experienced spectators.” “In findings published in the current issue of the journal PLoS One, the scientists report that the spectators showed muscle-specific responses in their brain […]

Your Dog Is Your Mirror is now available in paperback! Purchase your copies via these booksellers below.   Amazon.com   |   Barnes & Noble   |   Indie Bound     Reviews   “Just finished reading Your Dog is Your Mirror, which I had picked up to find out why my pit bull barked at and […]

I can understand how the dominance concept seems reasonable because it does seem self-evident. Nature does seem to be a struggle between individuals over scarce resources with dominance seemingly a cost-effective way of keeping friction and violence to a minimum. I started out in dogs believing it myself. As an apprentice trainer and then early […]

“Design In Nature” Zane, J. Peder; Bejan, Adrian (2012-01-24). Design in Nature: How the Constructal Law Governs Evolution in Biology, Physics, Technology, and Social Organization (Kindle Locations 1560-1564). Random House, Inc.. DIN: “One of the most powerful insights born from the constructal law is that social systems are natural designs that emerge and evolve to […]

Chapter Six   “Why Hierarchy Reigns” I think chapter six will prove to be the most critical chapter as in how the constructal law intersects with animal behavior. Today we find a reinvigoration of the debate over dominance. The last several decades the positive, learning theorists have been arguing there’s no such thing as dominance […]

Design In Nature: “As we have seen time and again, the constructal law was just waiting to be discovered. Its manifestations are so obvious and ubiquitous that we have danced around it for centuries—the hunches of scientists, the metaphors of poets and mystics, and everyday language (for example, “the tree of life,” “go with the […]

Here’s a point of distinction I’d like to make about this exceptional book and the principle of emotional conductivity, by which even human thoughts serve a flow principle (as well they should given the logical extension of the book’s premise of an overarching constructal law). “The constructal law captures the broad tendency of social organizations […]

On Evolution: “Most people think that evolution is something that we can at best imagine, because it took an enormously long time to happen. This view is wrong. We can witness evolution all we want, if we look at the changes in our technology, movement, government, and standard of living.” “Forget biomimetics. No live thing […]

“To underscore this observation, let’s return to the circulatory system. It is one of the marvels of nature that this system is so exquisitely complex that no cell is far from a life-sustaining capillary. It transports blood from the heart to this vast volume by reconfiguring its design through branching. The same with the lung: […]