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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

When I deal with dogs afflicted with what other trainers term “resource guarding” (which in actuality is an instinctive “excuse” to vent held back energy, i.e. unresolved emotion) my method is to turn the object of friction, into an object of flow. I do this through Push-of-War. Whereas I’ve seen on the web some trainers […]

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 […]

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 […]

From the New York Times “Why We Like Sad Music”   http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/22/opinion/sunday/why-we-like-sad-music.html?ref=opinion   The emotional experience of listening to music is an excellent way to separate thoughts from feelings and emotion from instinct because as a pure wave form music is principally apprehended and processed by the heart. Understanding how the heart works is vital […]

During the NDT Conference many questions came up which begged further explanations but time was short and everything couldn’t be pursued to its logical conclusion. So in order to tie up some loose ends, and because it can prove difficult to correlate the hands on practical work with the schematics of the model, I offer […]

“Movement is the only way we have of interacting with the world, whether foraging for food or attracting a waiter’s attention. Indeed, all communication, including speech, sign language, gestures and writing, is mediated via the motor system. Taking this viewpoint, the purpose of the human brain is to use sensory signals to determine future actions.” […]

Leah asks if the video below of synchronizing metronomes is akin to the trampoline analogy I offered recently. To repeat, a trampoline is analogous to consciousness as both are a displaceable medium, i.e. when stimulated an organism is induced into sensations of disequilibrium. So two people standing and especially moving on a trampoline displace the […]

  <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 […]

“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 […]

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 […]

“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 […]

Design In Nature: “As we have seen time and again, the constructal law was just waiting to be discovered. Its manifestations are so obvious and ubiquitous that we have danced around it for centuries—the hunches of scientists, the metaphors of poets and mystics, and everyday language (for example, “the tree of life,” “go with the […]

Barbara King is writing a scholarly treatment on the question of whether animals experience grief and her findings are being previewed on a NPR discussion forum at the link below. http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2011/10/20/141452847/do-animals-grieve?sc=emaf King argues that “from a combination of observation, evolutionary logic, reading the peer-reviewed science literature, and talking to insightful animal people, I’m convinced that […]

If a dog doesn’t love to bite, then it needs to bite and a dog that guards something (food/resting place/body region/owner’s attention) is how that dog gets the opportunity to express that last .01%. It’s not that it wants the food/toy/resting place/attention etc., but that it needs these things in order to be granted instinctual […]

On a recent radio interview I was asked by the host; What do dogs want?  I answered, “To resolve their owner’s unresolved emotion.” However I hadn’t achieved enough context for that remark by that point in the interview so my answer felt a little flat to me. Thus, I’m grateful to Sang for the following […]

BURL: OK, next, what is the difference between a feeling and an emotion?  I submit it is much akin to that between color and ‘particular colors.’  As I recently explained using a quote from LCK, a physical feeling has a datum (what it is) and a subjective form (HOW it is), and I stated that […]

Some of my definitions are scattered across this site and mostly in terms of why-dogs-do-what-they-do, but what follows is a more concise summary. ENERGY: An action potential, a differential of force between two poles. Energy in animals builds up by virtue of a bipolar, two-brain makeup each with its own divergent agenda just as if […]

A discussion as to whether dogs apprehend reality in terms of a virtual rather than an actual field of energy may not seem particularly relevant to training a dog to stay in the yard and staying off the furniture, but it is. Because dogs are social by nature, they do everything in terms of a […]

In the early eighties I found myself describing certain behaviors as “electric,” as for example when a dog is defensive, fearful or hyper, bristling, tense, taut and touchy, while other behaviors I intuitively would call “magnetic,” as for example when a dog is rolling on the ground, body contacting with others, supple to the touch, […]

Evolution is the story of overcoming resistance. Things must be broken down in order to exploit their energy. Concentrating and storing energy in order to overcome resistance is the organizing principle of every species’ anatomy, physiology and behavior. Inside your dog is a battery, an emotional reservoir filled with “unresolved emotion”. Unresolved emotion is created […]