To Stump A Chump The video below of a “heat pack” cruising the streets of LA West, is often cited on various forums as proof that dominance exists as the controlling principle of canine social structure. But what does this video actually demonstrate?

If you hold a treat above a dog, 10 out of 10 hungry dogs will quickly learn to sit. If you then hold out  a little longer while simultaneously encouraging the dog to “Speak”, 8-to-9 out of ten dogs will quickly do so. Why? — and — How? (Note that one doesn’t have to “capture” […]

Monty Roberts in his book “The Man Who Listens to Horses” in recounting how he developed his “Join Up” method of training, writes of observing what he termed a dominant mare in a herd of wild horses on the high plains, driving a young stallion out of the herd that had been biting and kicking […]

I haven’t cared for too many horses over my years, but about ten years ago when carrying buckets of feed to my two horses, I noticed the following which brought me to an important understanding of Pavlov’s research. Guinness and Maggie would at first be milling excitedly in their paddock when they saw me emerging […]

Thank you for your great answers and I feel each response is a variant of the same underlying phenomenon. In other words, there’s no “reason” why children love seesaws and swings, rather their bodies and minds (just as it is for all living beings) evolved to feel good when (1) riding on a wave and […]

Why are there swings in playgrounds? Or in other words, what makes a good feeling feel good?

Donnie poses the following Stump A Chump question: “In one of the Quantum Canine episodes (can’t remember which) you explain a mama dog biting her young not as a correction but as “imprinting fear” so that when they see large prey they know not to go after the strong, healthy ones. Wouldn’t this imply that […]

“Suppose every mealtime consists of all 3 dogs getting their bowl of kibble. They are full, but after, I have all come round and give a milk bone to Sissy and Red, but not Peanut. At all other treat occasions throughout the day, they all 3 get a treat. If I keep this up, how […]

Scientists use the following as an example of reasoning and subterfuge in an animal. A blue jay is in a tree while its fellow blue jays are scavenging some food on the ground below. As a corvid it is capable of mimicking many sounds, such as the screech of a hawk and it emits just […]

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 […]

The physical center of gravity is the kernel of a dog’s self and a dog’s sense of it is activated by external forces and sources, specifically when dealing with other beings, it is activated by eye contact. This is because a state of attention is composed of two beams, the external focal gaze by which […]