Do Dogs Understand Fairness?
May 12, 2016
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 […]
Why Does NDT Use Food?
May 06, 2016
Some consider using food in training a bribe. In contrast many owners don’t, but then the vast majority never get past the Pez Dispenser phase and present a negative image to the use of food. In the seventies I don’t think I ever used food other than giving a dog a biscuit as […]
“Memory Hackers” and Network Consciousness
Feb 11, 2016
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/memory-hackers.html NOVA ran a fascinating show on memory last night which summated the history of research and the latest insights. Memories are rewritten each time they’re recalled. In one experiment by interrupting the rewriting process through a drug intervention, people with long standing phobias were instantly cured. In another experiment a mouse was inculcated with […]
More On The Play Bow
Feb 27, 2015
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 […]
Biocentrism, Light Eating Sea Slugs, and Emotion
Feb 07, 2015
Two items in the news from science are of special interest. One is about Biocentrism: http://higherperspective.com/2015/01/consciousness-death.html#26xY0kV3xLRWVu6Z.01 From Wikipedia: “Biocentric universe (from Greek: βίος, bios, “life”; and κέντρον, kentron, “center”) — also known as biocentrism — is a concept proposed in 2007 by American doctor of medicine Robert Lanza, a scientist in the fields of regenerative medicine and biology,[1][2][3] which sees biology as the central […]
Getting Under The Charge
Jan 02, 2015
Oregon Seminar October 2014 In any particular seminar some idea tends to stand out. While for me it’s all one thing, I know from my experience when learning a new system that something said once might not sink in, but then later in a different context it rings a bell so loud I can hear […]
Drug Detection Dogs and “The Charge”
Feb 07, 2014
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2552747/Dogs-lose-jobs-Fred-police-k-9-fired-getting-distracted-job-playing-soda-cans.html I highlight this story for what it can teach us about the power of “ungrounded energy” on a dog’s behavior, the deepest levels of which when abruptly summoned to the surface of awareness, I term “The Charge.” According to learning theory, this dog was trained 100% correctly and I have no doubt it graduated […]
Indiana NDT Conference Final Note
Sep 13, 2013
One of the best parts of the NDT conference was the variety and quality of the various venues we visited. The Von Liche Kennel tour took us through the greatest privately owned working dog kennel in the world, an inspiring example of a dream coming true through the power of passion. We also rode on […]
Point Four: Physical Memory
Jul 30, 2013
While I do not expect an interesting dialogue to emerge from this post/counter-post exchange with the Unknown Scientist, http://dogbehaviorscience.wordpress.com/2013/07/21/5-tall-tales-from-1-small-mind/ I nevertheless welcome the opportunity to rub my theory up against the mainstream in order to render some important distinctions that can help bring the emotional dynamic into sharper relief and hopefully make the effort worthwhile […]
George Carlin On the Nature of Intelligence
Jun 11, 2013
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/canine-corner/201208/rank-and-dominance-matter-when-trying-teach-dogs In this article Dr. Coren talks about an experiment wherein one dog watches another dog solve a problem and the observing dog copies the problem-solving dogs’ successful actions if as Dr. Coren puts it, the problem solving dog has a high social rank. Dr. Coren interprets this experiment as verification that whatever we human […]
The Drive Principle versus the Premack Principle
Jan 10, 2013
Recently I was asked if Natural Dog Training with its use of the Prey Drive in the training of the heel, sit, down, stay and recall regime is but another way of saying the Premack Principle. Below from “Dog Star Daily” is Ian Dunbar’s discussion of the Premack principle. “The Premack principle suggests that if […]
Being In Sync
Dec 19, 2012
Recently tried to present my interpretation of “calming signals” to a group on Facebook that represented that they were a forum interesting in discussing what’s going on in calming signals. There was much magical thinking going on such as: “Dogs are good at calming signals because they had to be good at calming signals since […]
Distractibility and Time
Dec 04, 2012
There’s several dog blogs I check from time to time to see how others think about dogs. I used to make comments on these various blogs but these don’t seem particularly productive. People project so much onto dogs, that they think they know what I’m saying without actually taking the time and trouble to understand […]
Recent Nova and Nature Episodes
Nov 09, 2012
It was quite an amazing night of viewing the other evening on PBS with Nature and Nova and their respective reports on animal bonding across species lines, and animal cognition. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/animal-odd-couples/full-episode/8009/ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/nature/horowitz-dogs.html What is so obvious from watching the behavior of the various animals profiled, but at the same time was abjectly missing in the […]
Barking On Command
Oct 22, 2012
Learning To Bark Is A Wave Alwynne writes an excellent blog about her dog “Cholula” which among other themes documents the trials and tribulations of teaching a dog to speak on command. http://sweetslugabed.com/blog/2012/10/09/cholula-shows-her-speak/ What’s interesting about the bark-on-command is that some dogs get it instantly whereas for some dogs it can take a long, long…………long, […]
What’s the Difference Between NDT and Lure/Reward Training?
Jun 27, 2012
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 […]
Design In Nature
Mar 04, 2012
Like Sang, I am reading “Design In Nature” and I’m going to post a series of quotes as I go through, some of which are instantly translatable into NDT terms. I don’t want to leap to a conclusion without reading and digesting the book in its entirety, but the resonance is so far pretty overwhelming. […]
The Principle of Emotional Conductivity Discovered in Sea Slugs
Jan 28, 2012
(Thanks to Russell for bringing this research to our attention.) http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-01-retreat-circuit-links-hunger-pursuit.html Emotion begins with “a want,” no matter how complex or sublime a feeling, it always crystallizes around “a want.” This is a common denominator that runs true from the most complex to the most primitive organisms. If something is perceived as conducive to a […]
Do Dogs Grieve?
Nov 11, 2011
Barbara King is writing a scholarly treatment on the question of whether animals experience grief and her findings are being previewed on a NPR discussion forum at the link below. http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2011/10/20/141452847/do-animals-grieve?sc=emaf King argues that “from a combination of observation, evolutionary logic, reading the peer-reviewed science literature, and talking to insightful animal people, I’m convinced that […]
Emotional Capacity
Oct 08, 2011
(Be advised that this a long essay on theory.) Recently there was a productive discussion (except for you know who) on Lee’s Psychology Today blog in regards to the differences between dogs and cats in terms of their respective social capacities. I would like to springboard off this discussion in order to more thoroughly develop […]
More On Emotional Projection
May 20, 2011
Adam asks: “Also, is eye contact from the object of attraction onto the dog, required for this phenomenon of emotional projection?” It’s not required as a two way deal, but the dog fixates on the eyes of what it’s attracted to because this gives it direct and instant access to its own body’s physical center […]
The Physical Center-Of-Gravity and Perception
May 06, 2011
Some Interesting Science: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110428070237.htm “Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen, Germany recently reported in the journal PLoS ONE that although the physical laws governing object stability are reasonably well represented by the brain, you are a better judge of how objects fall when you are upright than when you […]
The Hungry Mind and the Runner’s High
Feb 20, 2011
From time to time I want to point to science that while studying a different subject, can nevertheless shed light on the nature of animal consciousness. The main premise of my model for the animal mind is that the hunger/balance processes of the body and brain, do double, triple and ever-more elaborate duty in their […]
Definitions
Jan 15, 2010
Some of my definitions are scattered across this site and mostly in terms of why-dogs-do-what-they-do, but what follows is a more concise summary. ENERGY: An action potential, a differential of force between two poles. Energy in animals builds up by virtue of a bipolar, two-brain makeup each with its own divergent agenda just as if […]