When I wrote “Your Dog Is Your Mirror” I tried to anticipate critiques and “preload” a rebuttal into my argument. Unfortunately from my point of view, but fortunately for the readers’ that would have made the book too long and have even changed its focus. It turns out one can’t write defensively, the main thing […]

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 […]

It’s often argued that because both dogs and humans are highly evolved social beings with highly evolved brains featuring similar structures, therefore they must have some degree of cognitive function in common as well. (This is true, but not in the way we think.) It’s assumed that a dog must be capable of “higher order […]

What does the emotional battery, the phenomenon of neotony, and the dog’s affinity for cars all have in common? Every debate I have with learning theorists argue that the distinction I’m drawing between dogs and other animals, for example animals such as cats and deer, are irrelevant because these distinctions can be taken into account […]

Kevin Behan talks with radio host Glenn Brooks on Vibrant Living. May take a few minutes to fully load Visit the resource here if the above player is not working Visit Glenn Brooks Vibrant Living Website

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 […]

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 […]