attraction

Why Do Dogs Chew Up Squeaky Toys? Jul 18, 2009

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 […]

Why Do Dogs Do Everything in a Circle? Jun 13, 2009

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 […]

Why Are Dogs Attracted to Human Beings? Jun 11, 2009

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 […]

One Problem To Solve: An Introduction to Training Jun 10, 2009

If we could ask a dog how he felt about living in Man’s civilized world, and if he could put his feelings into our human language, he would say, “Every time I get excited or nervous, I get into trouble. What am I supposed to do with my energy?” Dogs see the world in their […]

Why Do Dogs Wag Their Tails? Jun 01, 2009

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 […]

Why We Push

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 […]

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.