“Most people, including many scientists, believe that emotions are distinct, locatable entities inside us — but they’re not.” Lisa Feldman Barrett   Professor of Psychology Northeastern University http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/opinion/sunday/what-emotions-are-and-arent.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0 If you have been following NDT theory then you are not among the “most people” referenced above. My study of dogs through the lens of the immediate-moment […]

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 […]

A dog gains awareness of its “self” from an awareness of its body. It gains an awareness of its body by being acted on by external forces, such as gravity. This awareness is framed by a bilaterally symmetrical anatomy configured around a physical center-of-gravity. A dog’s sense of its self begins with a subliminal beam of […]

Natural Dog Training is fundamentally concerned with motive whereas Operant Conditioning is fundamentally concerned with reinforcements. All subsequent points of departure proceed from this distinction. Furthermore, this distinction reveals that two concepts integral to behavioral science 1) animals learn by reinforcement, and 2) the notion of “high value” rewards actually represent an inherent contradiction in […]