I have been expecting that “How Dogs Work” would spur a great debate throughout Dogdom. Yet the only discussion I’ve found is a review posted by Dr. Bekoff on his Psychology Today blog. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/animal-emotions/201511/how-and-why-dogs-play-revisited-who-s-confused Beckoff challenges Coppinger and Feinstein’s thesis that play, specifically the play bow, represents a state of conflict, i.e. an emergent behavior […]

<iframe width=”560″ height=”315″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/TPpf5WBaJR0″ frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen></iframe>   https://www.facebook.com/RantPets/videos/633147973490209/ While these videos are humorous, in a way that’s too bad since the profundity of what’s being revealed gets lost. The question: why does the hind end of these dogs virtually levitate while they’re feeding? Answer: Emotional momentum. Emotional momentum is physical momentum that an animal associates […]

I excerpted the following from a dog discussion site: “I have an interesting question, which I’m not sure there is a definitive answer for, but may lead to some interesting discussion.   How do dogs learn calming signals (appeasement behaviors, etc)?   I know there are lots of terms used for these behaviors, but calming signals seem […]

(This is a very, very long post on NDT theory)   Canine body language revolves around the same question that drives much social research, what is the nature of impulse control? I propose that a primal impulse can only be held in check by an impulse of equal primacy. Otherwise an individual will be in […]

Many owners of aggressive dogs have visited my farm and done “Trolley Work;” what I also call “Maple Sugaring” wherein we burn off the stress that makes two dogs want to fight each other by running them along parallel trolley lines and thereby get down to the sweet nectar of pure attraction whereafter the dogs […]

Occasionally the Unknown Scientist puts down the pipettes, quells the bunsen burners and graciously takes the time to critique my work. Recently the US has questioned the linkage I’ve drawn between emotion and stress as an explanation for why dogs muzzle grab. The US has employed the technique of interchanging equivalencies to see if my […]

After being stimulated by something, the first step in an act of mental apprehension is the phenomenon of emotional projection. The animal projects its physical center of gravity into the form of what it’s attracted to and thus arrives at a feeling. This is the most conservative statement that can be made about the mental lives […]

At the NDT conference I often referred to the concept of “emotional momentum.” For example I mentioned that Pushing teaches the dog he can transfer emotional momentum to the owner, most especially his stress reserves, and conversely, Collecting teaches the dog he can absorb emotional momentum from others, most especially, even their stress reserves. The […]

http://www.wimp.com/throwstick/ Does this dog need its head examined, or does this video reveal something profound about the nature of information? Modern ethologists, behaviorists and many trainers argue that dogs and wolves organize into social structures according to a rational calculation relative to gaining control over resources. Supposedly dogs compute a cost/benefit analysis, while taking in […]

At the 3:00 minute mark of this video there is an excellent example of how the notion of calming signals leads to a fundamental misinterpretation of two dogs interacting. The author of the video interprets an interaction between a yellow dog and a black lab in terms of calming signals, as one self-contained entity of […]