I’m looking forward to the possibility of a “blog-a-log” that might develop between Lee Kelley and Dr. John Bradshaw at Psychology Today. Especially since these questions of why animals do what they do I believe help illustrate the distinction between attraction and intention. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/pets-and-their-people/201104/greetings/comments I also look forward to reading Bradshaw’s new book, in particular […]

Here’s some interesting research on the function of tears that shows a link between crying and a decrease in sexual arousal and is prompting a flurry of interpretation. I’d like to suggest how this might fit into my emotion-as-energy model. First of all, the animal mind creates a virtual shell of insulation, a buffer zone, […]

I tend not to get involved in discussions of behavior on other forums as it’s very difficult to keep the discussion focused like a laser beam on the salient points. The argument quickly radiates out in many different directions and the threads always seem to peter out into a debate of either who-is-the-better-dog-trainer or what-color-coat-does-your-dog-like. […]

They blast off like a heart attack. You’re walking on a woodland trail absorbed in the forest’s beauty and stillness when out of nowhere there’s an explosion from underfoot so intense you can virtually feel the slap of wings and the jet wash from a bevy of ruffed grouse bursting out from the underbrush. It’s […]

One of the reasons the energy argument I’m making on this website strikes some as stupendous is because unless one can articulate the distinction between emotion and instinct, and between a feeling and a thought, then one doesn’t know what emotion is or what a feeling is, which means the terms will be used loosely […]

At the risk of sounding like a mutual admiration society, (but if we don’t who will?) Lee has eloquently and concisely articulated virtually the breadth of the discussion of evolution, consciousness, and the phenomenon of the modern family dog in one article. Again, we’re not saying that dog’s aren’t intelligent, we’re exploring the possibility of […]

It’s true that anyone can claim to be natural and in one sense, everyone is being natural because in the final analysis, the dog responds to what the trainer does through a naturally evolved temperament and so it’s always the dog’s nature that’s being affected no matter how arbitrary the training approach. The term natural […]

BURL: OK, next, what is the difference between a feeling and an emotion?  I submit it is much akin to that between color and ‘particular colors.’  As I recently explained using a quote from LCK, a physical feeling has a datum (what it is) and a subjective form (HOW it is), and I stated that […]

The purpose of this section: why dogs do what they do is to demonstrate that dog behavior is a function of a “networked-intelligence”. The system logic of this intelligence is emotion. Dogs “know” what to do by virtue of how they feel. To date explorations of why-dogs-do-what-they-do; from the days of Descartes versus Voltaire to […]