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 […]

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, […]

Generally we think of a rabid animal, foaming at the mouth, sinking its fangs into  the nearest warm blooded victim, as a crazed, frenetically enraged beast, a “mad dog” on a berserk rampage. Yet if we more closely consider the behavior of a rabid animal, we observe that there is a coherent and time-deferred string […]

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. […]

What could be cozier, a dog snuggled deep into the comforter on a raw winter’s night, warming the bed, groaning and sighing with drowsy contentment while the cold winter wind bites and whips against the bedroom window? When my father and I floated the Cains River in New Brunswick, Canada during the last run of […]

The more I try to explain an energy theory of behavior to those who are genuinely interested, the more sympathetic I am to the question: “Where’s the science?” I wish I had all day to collate the science that’s available in support of an energy theory but for now I’ll just try to call the […]

We often hear in dog training circles the expression “high value reward” as in find what your dog loves best, be it food, toy, type of praise, and then begin from there. But this immediately begs the question, how is the value of any given reward tabulated in a dogs’ mind? and which we certainly […]

Apparently Lee Kelley has the temerity to question Patricia McConnell, one of the leading lights of dogdom, over her methodology, the particulars of which she posted in public, in response to two of her dogs not getting along. In my mind Lee wasn’t “attacking” her honor, virtue, honesty, compassion, intelligence or integrity, he was questioning […]