Thanks for collectively straining over the puzzle as to what flocks of birds cavorting aloft, Orcas porpoising alongside boats, Orcas collectively knocking a seal off an ice flow, a horse and dog playing, and in fact we could extend it to all the things that animals do, have in common. Below is a compilation of […]

Question: If wolves hunt in packs—and if hunting begat the dog—why don’t free ranging dogs live in packs? Answer: Dogs don’t form functional packs because dogs were domesticated from wolves. The fact that free ranging dogs don’t form working packs is cited by proponents of dog-as-scavenger theory and modern learning theorists as evidence that dogs […]

  <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 […]

We see them every fall; migrating hawks, one by one streaming into a rising swirl of warm air, like children hopping onto a carousel, one that operates on a vertical as well as a horizontal plane. The raptors enter at the bottom and each go round carries them higher and higher into the bright blue […]

Recently I was asked if Natural Dog Training with its use of the Prey Drive in the training of the heel, sit, down, stay and recall regime is but another way of saying the Premack Principle. Below from “Dog Star Daily” is Ian Dunbar’s discussion of the Premack principle. “The Premack principle suggests that if […]

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, […]

Cliff (of Lenny fame) and Eric Brad has an interesting exchange on Eric’s site, linked below, and this gives me the opportunity to emphasize again the fundamental distinctions between NDT and Learning Theory. And even though I’ve probably said these things many times on this site before, perhaps in this interweaving of a number of […]

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 […]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/science/03firewalker.html?_r=1 The above is an excellent story which in my view details how through emotional projection (the stronger the bond the more the individual “lets go” and releases into the vicarious experience of watching what another, with whom they’re bonded, is experiencing.) Then, the hearts become synchronized so as to establish a common beat. Emotion […]

Thank you for your great answers and I feel each response is a variant of the same underlying phenomenon. In other words, there’s no “reason” why children love seesaws and swings, rather their bodies and minds (just as it is for all living beings) evolved to feel good when (1) riding on a wave and […]

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 […]