https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PepZPSbvj6A It occurred to researchers that dogs trained in the “Do-As-I-Do” obedience method presented the opportunity to test whether or not a dog is endowed with episodic memory. From Wikipedia: Episodic memory is the memory of autobiographical events (times, places, associated emotions, and other contextual who, what, when, where, why knowledge) that can be […]

Because this story is so intriguing and rich with theoretical possibilities, I will indulge in speculating out loud. http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/OnCall/parkinsons-treatment-wheels/story?id=8109965 When I draw on the blackboard my model for the mind of a dog, I feature the bi-focal “vision” that I consider a prerequisite for movement. In any state of attention there is the obvious external […]

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 […]

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 […]

Roger Abrantes: “Bottom line: we need to be nuanced about stress. Events causing healthy stress responses are necessary for enhancing attention to details, formation of memory, creation of bonds, and learning—and too much stress or for too long works against it.” http://ethology.eu/bonding-and-stress/   For a nuanced treatment of stress Abrantes might be interested in my […]

(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 […]

In the video below a magician plays a sleight of hand on a number of dogs.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEQXeLjY9ak   Stanley Coren in his Psychology Today blog argues that the dog’s reaction corresponds to a child’s cognitive understanding of “object permanence.” To support this view he cites a dog still retaining interest in a ball that […]

Can the stress that an animal experiences in its lifetime be inherited by its progeny? Yes http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/09/opinion/sunday/can-children-inherit-stress.html?ref=opinion&_r=0 “What explains this pattern? Does trauma lead to suboptimal parenting, which leads to abnormal behavior in children, which later affects their own parenting style? Or can you biologically inherit the effects of your parents’ stress, after all?” “It […]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/04/goose-german-shepherd_n_4386472.html The takeaway sentence in this article is that the goose “stood up for herself.” This means that she reflected the shepherd’s emotional charge back at him, and this resistance is what triggered the dog’s physical memories of flow, i.e. its puppy mind. Then through a process of elaboration wherein both individuals generate traits on […]

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22029461.700-mouse-memory-inheritance-may-revitalise-lamarckism.html#.UqMFpBZAsas The transfer of physical memory from one individual to another is the function of DISfunction. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24677?cmpid=NLC%7CNSNS%7C2013-1205-GLOBAL&utm_medium=NLC&utm_source=NSNS&#.UqMdwBZAsas It’s why there is stress in life. Organisms are carriers of an emotional charge more than they are of genes. Lamarck was wrong about the mechanics of evolution, but he was right that evolution happens in real time. […]

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 […]

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 […]

Consciousness is energy, its interface with nature is emotion, and like energy consciousness as emotion moves as a wave. These waves are physically embodied as emotional affects (butterflies in the stomach, chill up the spine, queasy feeling, wobbly in the knees, shortness of breath, sense of weightlessness, flow, resonance, etc., etc.); affects that evolved in […]

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 […]

The body does more than carry the head around. http://theweek.com/article/index/246703/the-worm-that-regrows-its-head-and-memories-when-decapitated Also note in the article below, the bee in its relationship to the flower is described as a tuning fork, so that its body resonates with the shape of the flower and accelerates it so as to vibrate and release its essence, i.e. pollen. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/11/science/unraveling-the-pollinating-secrets-of-a-bees-buzz.html?ref=science […]

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 […]

  <http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/30/science/ may-britt-and-edvard-moser-explore-the-brains-gps.html>.             A husband and wife team of neuroscientists, May Britt and Edvard Moser, have discovered “Grid cells” in the brains of rats, and these cells undoubtedly exist in all animals. As a rat moves, these cells track its movement and create a grid like pattern as a […]

(This is a long article to demonstrate how recent science validates the theory of Natural Dog Training as first articulated in the 1980’s.) Text: Sometimes critics ask for the math that substantiates the theory that underlies Natural Dog Training (emotion=attraction—-feelings=resistance) which is a little tough given that I’m not a mathematician. And the request is […]

I started this section on body language in order to explain what’s going on in a You Tube clip of an interesting interaction between a Rhodesian Ridgeback and a Malinois. While brief, the video is rich with dynamic. In fact there’s so much going on that it’s necessary to do some theoretical backfilling before going […]

Rhodesian Ridgeback meets Malinois Part Three   This diagram refers to the first seconds of the video linked below wherein the Rhodesian Ridgeback is lowering its front end and the two dogs are engaging without exhibiting much friction at least for one or two seconds. There are two very important elements. One is that they […]

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 […]

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, […]

Calming signals or emotion as a group mind? Calming?      Yes Signal?         No The most significant thing in this video is that the brown dog at all times acts as a mirror, as the equal and opposite to the Malamute and, it also has a drive to approach the Malamute, […]

Action at a Distance, Change Over Time, the Mental Ether and Why my horses stomped the ground and bobbed their heads as I brought them their evening buckets of sweet-molasses grain.   I’m re-reading Gleick’s biography of Newton in the hopes of getting a better handle on Calculus without having to confront the math directly. […]

Friday’s broadcast of Radio Lab is of note. http://www.radiolab.org/2010/aug/09/new-words-new-world/ This episode of Radio Lab is important because it indirectly sheds light on the animal mind. A linguist travelled to a South American village that housed a school for deaf children because the children had invented a new language in their unique manner of signing. The […]

Once a dog is able to become the object of attraction then it can make a trait on demand in order to complement the object of its attraction. This is the first instance of the sable GSD being able to handle the intense pressure of a male dog of high resistance value and allowing this […]

In this video an important development occurs within the mind of the sable GSD. He can feel emotional leverage, in other words he feels grounded into the other dog and connected to his “self” and therefore because he’s in hunger circuitry, Newton’s second law of motion is enabled, i.e. every action has an equal and […]

In this video I let Huuney come in on GSD who is tethered and he has to get himself out of frenzied state in order to accommodate her arrival. What’s interesting in this video is that toward the end, the GSD begins to growl which indicates that deeper levels of physical memory are coming to […]