What is body language? I’ve been working on an e-book concerning body language and came across this video which purportedly debunks Monty Roberts’ “Join Up” method of horse training. I’ve written about this video before but want to revisit the topic as an exercise in critical thinking. http://www.coffscoastadvocate.com.au/story/2012/07/13/horse-training-methods-questioned/ This article demonstrates how interpreting behavior in […]

I converted this to a post for two reasons. 1) b.. ‘s synthesis represents an achievement of replicability. The good news is that one can learn to understand the internal processes of the animal mind, we do all have one after all. However the bad news is you might end up thinking like me. 2) […]

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 […]

The ALS ice bucket challenge has inspired a dog training version called the “Transparency Challenge.” It consists of three questions; What happens when the dog gets it right? What happens when a dog gets it wrong? Is there a less intrusive method? Having watched a number of trainers answer these questions apparently the proper formula […]

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 […]

Answer:  Because IT can only get out the way IT went in.   Hexie and Hessian, my two German shepherds, one day suddenly started muzzle grabbing Cousy, my neighbors’ rambunctious and incessantly playful lab. I’ve never seen them do it to each other or to any other dog. In fact, you rarely see dogs do […]

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 […]

Aggression and the Nature of Fear Since in my view all expressions of anti-social aggression are manifestations of fear, it would prove fruitful to take a closer look at the nature of fear. Fear is the collapse of a state of attraction. And because a dog doesn’t discriminate between physical and emotional equilibrium, all forms […]

In regards to a discussion on stress as a form of emotional “heat” Lee found a study that seeks to objectively quantify the experience of stress. “Human Psychophysiological Stress Indices Using Thermodynamics” (ARPN Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences Vol. 7, No. 6 June 2012) My theory is that stress, or Unresolved Emotion, forms when […]

The science in support of the NDT model comes in faster than I have time to post, and while I’m still trying to catch up on emails, however thanks to Nellie and Lee, some interesting findings bear immediate mention and so I’ve decided not to add these to the queue and trust this brief treatment […]

Music, Natural Dog Training, Panksepp and the Constructal Law   http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/40285693?uid=3739664&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21102652666731 My argument is that the locomotive dynamic is the basis for our aesthetic appreciation of music, however not in the manner which is theorized in the article below, i.e. that synchronizing footfalls renders a beat of silence which then makes it easier to hear […]

“nothing besides the laws of nature are needed to explain intelligence” http://www.insidescience.org/content/physicist-proposes-new-way-think-about-intelligence/987 Excuse my caps but THE ONLY THEORY OF COGNITION THAT DOES NOT NEED TO BE REVISED…..is NDT. Emotion makes organisms feel just as if they are gravitationally and electromagnetically charged particles of consciousness (through the interplay of the Central Nervous and the Enteric […]

My profound gratitude to Joyce Miller, Scott Hamilton, Dr. Jean-Marie Thompson (and of course “Romeo”) for introducing Natural Dog Training to the academic community. Our talk was well-attended and I was gratified to see more than a few light bulbs going off in the eyes of the audience. As always, my challenge was not to […]

(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 […]

Recently tried to present my interpretation of “calming signals” to a group on Facebook that represented that they were a forum interesting in discussing what’s going on in calming signals. There was much magical thinking going on such as: “Dogs are good at calming signals because they had to be good at calming signals since […]

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, […]

I’m surprised, as a matter of fact stunned, that modern behaviorism isn’t taking notice of the Constructal law as articulated by Adrian Bejan in his book “Design In Nature.”  To me the implications of the Constructal law are overwhelming and yet no behaviorist or biologist is taking note. So about a month ago I had […]

“Empathy & Evolution: How Dogs Convert Stress Into Flow” Guest Blogger Kevin Behan Explains the Evolution of “Empathy” in Dogs Published on August 6, 2012 by Lee Charles Kelley in My Puppy, My Self “I’m proud to present this guest post by my mentor and colleague, Kevin Behan, originator of Natural Dog Training, which views […]

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. […]

I think Roger Abrantes is the best expositor of the new version of dominance, and so I’ve focused on his writings in a number of articles in order to draw contrast with the model I’m promulgating. Recently a reader brought my book to his attention on his Dog Star Daily blog and so in the […]

“Design In Nature” Zane, J. Peder; Bejan, Adrian (2012-01-24). Design in Nature: How the Constructal Law Governs Evolution in Biology, Physics, Technology, and Social Organization (Kindle Locations 1560-1564). Random House, Inc.. DIN: “One of the most powerful insights born from the constructal law is that social systems are natural designs that emerge and evolve to […]

“The verb “to design” has been monumentally unproductive in our quest to understand design in nature for three main reasons. First, it led to the common view that the things humans design are “artificial,” in contrast to the “natural” designs that surround us. This is wrong, because we are part of nature and our designs […]

“For some reason we take pleasure in synchronizing.” Steven Strogatz     The debate on Marc Bekoff’s blog on Psychology Today about the nature of “dominance” in social behavior has caused me to revisit the Ted lecture on the nature of synchronization by Steven Strogatz.   http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_strogatz_on_sync.html I fail to see how someone deeply involved […]

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 […]

I am going to offer a number of thoughts on the nature of leadership, not because there is such a thing in the nature of animals, but because this issue is generally on every dog owner’s mind and can determine the nature of their relationship with their pet. In the old days folks used to […]

On Dog Star Daily there is a self-contradicting logic loop generated by two articles, one by an unidentified author, the other by Dr. Roz. (1) “When puppies reach adolescence, food lures temporarily lose effectiveness. The owner and their food lures now have to compete for the dog’s attention with all the more interesting stimuli in […]

I’m commenting on the first Wolf Park video submitted wherein a moose head is brought from the cache TO THE CENTER as Energy wants to move! Any two heart cells when placed in a conductive medium synchronize with each others beat. The first thing to do is turn off the sound and learn to see […]

Kevin Behan and Trisha Selbach discuss dominance in dog training and Kevin Behan’s Immediate Moment theory of social organization in wolf packs.

“I don’t want to kill my dog,” the man said. He was near tears. He stood in my office telling me that this should be the happiest time in his life. His newborn son had just come home from the hospital, but his dog was aggressive toward strangers and even worse, with children, and now […]