http://www.whole-dog-journal.com/issues/19_6/features/A-Dogs-Theory-of-Mind_21468-1.html#.V1RHaXToVto.facebook The Whole Dog Journal in the link above provides an excellent summation of a series of experiments which purport to show that dogs are capable of adjusting their behavior by virtue of being aware of another beings’ point of view. I’ve written about this research before but the subject keeps popping up […]

One reason NDT is hard to propagate is that it requires seeing the evidence through an unfamiliar lens, what I call an immediate-moment manner of analysis. Some mistakenly think the shift required is metaphysical, others think it’s mechanical. Some say my interpretations are too simplistic, and then at another juncture they say it’s too complicated. (I […]

  Anytime a book merges canine behavior with thermodynamics (the study of how things move) it represents a milestone in Dogdom. “How Dogs Work” by Raymond Coppinger and Mark Feinstein, (University of Chicago Press) is such a book. “It’s not too far off the mark to say that, for ethologists, what evolution really “cares about” […]

Contextual Analysis versus an Immediate-Moment Analysis of the Play Bow The problem with the current consensus in behaviorism is that while the experts make very reasoned cases for a number of possible explanations for the various acts dogs perform during play, such as rolling over, bowing, grabbing and chasing, they haven’t been able to find […]

I’m the object of a regular beat-down on the site of the Unknown Scientist and I return to these “discussions” because they so clearly demonstrate the internal contradict at the heart of modern Behaviorism. {Of course these are the same theocrats who criticized me in the seventies, eighties and nineties when I argued that wolves […]

CRITICAL THINKING IN DOGDOM ”Many theories have been advanced but there is a mass of confusion about social signaling among animals,” Dr. Weldon said. ”Mimicry of age, alarm calls and other characteristics, as well as sex, often cause misperceptions among observing researchers.” http://www.nytimes.com/1985/02/19/science/guile-and-deception-the-evolution-of-animal-courtship.html?pagewanted=2   Another SPARCS conference on the canine mind is being held in […]

When some encounter an energy theory of behavior, they recast it as something it isn’t, such as telepathy, creationism, intelligent design, mysticism. You know the drill. http://dogbehaviorscience.wordpress.com/2014/02/19/dog-evolution-denier-ken-ham-i-mean-kevin-behan/ I believe that life evolves according to principles of energy, not by random. I also believe that the earth, the moon and the stars evolve according to principles […]

Here are three articles that each suggest how important energy is to every aspect of existence, most importantly cognition. My point being that the current tendency in behaviorism to read rational processes into the minds of dogs is off the mark because an energetic logic hasn’t been pursued to its logical exhaustion before ascribing rational […]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/19/science/coldblooded-does-not-mean-stupid.html?ref=science&_r=0 The Neo-Darwinian theory holds that a process of natural selection sifted through a huge genetic pool of slightly variable traits and eventually complex social behavior and the capacity to learn emerged in higher species. Driving this evolutionary process is said to be the need, or “urge” of genes to replicate. In the Neo-Darwinian model […]

I didn’t attend either the conference linked below or log onto its streamed content Society for the Promotion of Applied Research in Canine Science (SPARCS). but Eric Brad wrote a good overview of his experiences there– http://lifeasahuman.com/2013/pets/dogs-the-best-friend-we-hardly-know/ Since I’m familiar with the work of the various speakers I feel qualified to make the following comments. […]

“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 […]

Dolphins use electrosensing to locate prey: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20732-electric-dolphins-cetaceans-with-a-seventh-sense.html?full=true&print=true A Serbian boy manifests magnetism strong enough to hold onto metal objects, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1360081/Bogdan-The-seven-year-old-Serbian-boy-appears-magnetic.html   Animals of course migrate by way of earth’s magnetic field and recently it’s been discovered that humans carry a gene in their eye  http://www.bionews.org.uk/page_97703.asp that makes a protein, cryptochrome, which in insects senses the […]

Some maintain that science requires numbers, data must be quantified so that experimental results can be firmly established and replicated. Sometimes a small spike in a graph, a mere statistical blip on a graph indicates the presence of a new finding. I read recently that the Fermilab particle accelerator found a statistical anomaly, an unexpected […]

Perhaps on a drive through prime horse country you’ve found yourself taken by the view of gleaming, magnificently muscled horses grazing contentedly within fenced in fields presided over by stately barns and manor. Some of these horses are worth many hundreds of thousands of dollars as would of course befit such multi-million dollar equestrian complexes. […]

I’ve heard Jill Bolte Taylor, the author of “Stroke of Insight”, on radio interviews and she also has a lecture on TED.com. Recently my agent Farley Chase, who is reading the book, sent me the following passages and I’ve quoted his email below. Jill Bolte Taylor, a neuroscientist suffers a stroke and recovers (and) because […]

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 […]