All animals play, especially when young, and often with objects. But when you throw something for a dog, it’s like a boomerang: with just a bit of deft management it comes right back to your hand. Why?
Because the dog wants its “self” back.
We often wonder how dogs see themselves. Do they see themselves as a person like their owner, or do they see their owner as a dog like themselves? However, because in my view dogs don’t think (my definition of thinking being the capacity to compare one thing to another thing, or one moment relative to another moment) these kinds of questions are only of relevance to the human mind. The human intellect, being primarily focused on comparing one thing relative to another thing, fixates on the forms of things and how these forms are connected through a linear chronology of one moment relative to another moment. The human intellect conceptualizes nature, and the only way to get beyond this filter is to consider nature in terms of energy. In my view, this is why modern physics – as opposed to modern biology and behaviorism – is a true science.
Dogs are ultimately attracted to the energetic essence of things, i.e. the energetic makeup within the form, with the signature of this energetic makeup being broadcast by how the form moves and carries itself. Visually, a dog divines this energetic signature by projecting its “emotional center-of-gravity” into the form and then feeling vicariously, but literally, what’s going on within the form when it moves – or even when it doesn’t move. This is quite literally a form of “emotional sonar” and is adaptive because the exact same emotional dynamic is at work within its own body/mind, as it is in all animals. So what a dog feels by virtue of this “mirror effect” is what it apprehends as its “self”. Nature is always a paradox; what all animals have in common is simultaneously the source of their unique individuality.
What is the emotional center-of-gravity? It is the cumulative physical memory of all resistance ever experienced; it serves within as a lump sum aggregate quantitative “mass” (like an entrepreneur’s net worth) that was acquired in pursuit of objects of desire. This emotional imprint is attached to sensations affiliated with its physical center-of-gravity, thus a dog’s sense of emotional well-being derives from its emotional center-of-gravity just as its sense of physical balance derives from its physical center-of-gravity. A dog has no idea of its “self” as a self separate and distinct from other selves. All it can ever know of the world (and this turns out to be quite a lot) is from what it feels within its body. In the dog’s mind, the world is in its body.
On the other hand, in those occasions when a dog can’t project its emotional center-of-gravity onto the form of a thing to thereby derive a feeling for it, then it will not be attracted to that thing and for all intents of purposes that thing will not exist in its body/mind in that moment.
This sense of self projected onto objects of attraction is always elaborating into higher and higher states of apprehension through the complexities of social interactions. Nevertheless, it is never a mental concept of “I am something relative to something else”. As a matter of fact, it’s a function of gravity rather than thoughts, which is why it is shared by all beings and therefore a universal platform for communication. So if a dog could talk (without thinking) and we were to ask a dog what it considers its “self” to be, it would say, “What I want and how I feel is who I am”.
When we throw something for a dog, it’s just as if a huge dose of essence shot out of our body, and since the dog has automatically attached its emotional-center-of-gravity to our form, the dog’s emotional center-of-gravity is proportionately displaced. The dog now feels driven to reconnect the missing essence with the form in order to return to emotional equilibrium. The dog wants its “self” back.
I have recently acquired a 6 yr old intact male GSD; he is a wonderful, responsive, affectionate guy with numerous Schutzhund 3 titles. His energy level is quite high and we’re learning to ‘ground’ it with fetch/tug (whew!)– his ‘outs’ are reliable. My question is where or if to introduce ‘pushing’ if the tug option is already in place. Thanks!
Congratulations on your new dog, sounds like you’re going to be a great team. You want to evolve the tug-of-war into push-of-war and for this it’s very helpful to do the pushing for food routine as it greases the skids so to speak. A tug toy is a very high value prey item, an intense concentration of energy, and dogs tug away from handler in order to increase their space from their handler because a pack instinct is beginning to come to the surface, especially if the dog is making any noise i.e. “vibrating,” thus tug of war can be unwittingly reinforcing a block between dog and owner at the most intense expressions of energy. The pushing in neutralizes that block and will quicken the out as well because the dog is more able to feel an attraction to the handler even while at an intense level of energy. So I recommend to Keep On Pushing.
OK… Could you go in to more detail about ‘push-of-war’? I’ve been implementing pushing for food with success and am trying to ‘push in’ more during play, but could use some more pointers 🙂
Thanks for all your insights; your concepts are challenging… a bit like winnowing through a briar patch: you REALLY need to ground yourself to navigate!
I believe that things will slowly clarify for you. Try to feel what I’m saying when you see a dog doing the things they do. Everything I’m saying you already know, it’s just that our highly developed intellects cause us to forget. Keep on pushing. You can know exactly how a dog is feeling. I am able to remember because my mind was never domesticated. More on that later.
So with “push-of-war” you can begin with a tug, but then let the dog win and run away. When your dog catches up, push him away as hard as your dog can take, but not too hard, and then run away again. You can fall down or sit down at some point and see if your dog will push the toy into you. Do a little tug and then run away again. Every time your dog makes contact, push off and keep going. I can assure you that five minutes of this is far more exhausting and satisfying to your dog than 2 hours of exercise. The benefit of Push/War over Tug/War is that your dog is learning to “fight-WITH-you” rather than fighting-against-you.
Thinking back I recall that my version of this exercise was inspired by Gottfried Dildei who developed an ingenious way to teach a dog to fetch-on-command by channeling “fight drive” into obedience work (to use Schutzhund parlance) and would run away from the dog with the dumbell in its mouth and push it away to induce it to push it into him.
As an additional tip, you may want to have your dog on a long line so that you can lunge it like a horse with you in the center and it will be easier for it to follow you indirectly by following along an arc. Also use a soft toy to make it easiest for the dog, even a tennis ball for now (and only if you must) since Henry is so channeled into it.
Hey, Kevin,
Just a note: Henry is Amanda’s dog. I don’t think Valerie has mentioned her dog’s name here; she has a 25 lb. wheaten or briard mix named Eka, who has a heart murmur. (I know b/c Valerie has been posting on Neil’s NDT forum.)
I love your description of push-of-war, and why it works better than tug. And I can’t wait to hear your mind was never domesticated!
LCK
THIS Valerie (above) has an 80# male GSD named Gabe.
Sorry, Valerie.
Now I don’t feel so bad about always using my full name!
I’ll shut up now.
LCK
That is confusing isn’t it. How about I use a different handle then? 🙂 I’m the Valerie with Eka.
My book arrived, and I’ve highlighted my way to Ch. 4 so far.
Eka will fetch when we are in the house. But outside she’ll run after it but not bring it back. Need more reliable outs too. Hmmm ok back to work.
Thank you for your fantastic posts. We added a Newfoundland to our family last summer. Happy is six months old. We have been playing the “push of war” game unknowingly, and Happy loves it. He doesn’t care much for tugging away from us, but he loves pushing toys into us, and to add some exercise to it that involved keeping him attracted to me (vs running away), I started playing the “go go” game, where I would tell him to “wait,” then start running, and tell him “go, go, go,” the signal to run after me. We had to work on “stop” when he caught me, so I didn’t get bowled over.
Unfortunately I noticed it was causing a behavior problem, which perhaps you have some ideas about–Happy loves the game a lot and will grab a toy and push it into us uninvited, demanding play time. If we don’t commence the tug/push/chase game, to make sure we understand his “command,” he jumps and nips at our arms or legs. It’s gotten to the point where just being in the yard gets him so excited he starts jumping/nipping. At 90 lbs and six months, it is a serious problem for our children and guests, and not a lot of fun for us, either.
So obviously I missed some critical steps. We have added a drag line to his buckle collar so we can tell him to knock it off when he does the jumping/nipping. We have put the toys out of sight and we are initiating all play sessions and saying “ah ah” when he pushes into us to invite play. Does this sound right? Are there other things we should be aware of?
He is mouthy in general but has good bite inhibition. I sometimes invite him to nibble my hands gently when he is very relaxed, he loves this, and he doesn’t seem to have a problem following the rules of stopping when I say so, not using his teeth on anyone but me (he might try but quickly stops and licks if I tell him to), not biting clothing (he does still sometimes grab dangly things but will drop them on command).
He would love to have more physical play, but I have not allowed it, because I am a novice and if I do anything wrong in setting or enforcing the rules, the consequences to others would be bad. He is not at all aggressive, but his size doesn’t leave him any room for misinterpretation.
Thank you for any thoughts!
Heather
I also wanted to add that when I have mentioned the pushing behavior to the obedience trainer we go to, and in other online groups that discuss dog behavior, his behavior is labeled as “dominant.”
I do think it could be called rude from my personal standpoint, but I don’t think there is any intent to take over the throne from Happy’s point of view.
In his perfect world, he would like his body to have complete contact with a person he is glad to see.
Although he is not allowed on the furniture for practical reasons (size, hair, drool, dirt), when I sit on the floor, he lies on top of me until he’s too hot to bear it anymore. It does not seem to be out of a desire to control me, he seems to just want to be close. I think that outside he also craves that connection, but the environment is overstimulating and he needs some help in grounding his energy (in a way that I can live with).
I am about an hour outside of NYC in NJ.
Hi Heather
The good news is that there’s nothing wrong with your dog, he’s simply in a conflicted state and this makes ungrounded energy. But you must take remedial measures immediately by stop doing what’s not working, because while Newfies have high thresholds making them easy to live with, they also have high/prey thresholds as well just like young puppies. Basically you have to stop putting your dog into overly stimulating situations that is beyond his capacity to deal with. What’s going on for dogs these days in the current marketplace is akin to training them into a state of manic/depression. We get our dogs all revved up and then tell them to not bite. My basic rule is no play indoors, only outdoors where there is a lot of space and naturally conductive elements so that the dog’s temperament can run the show. For now I wouldn’t play with him in the fenced yard either. Your dog’s good temperament is trying to resolve the conundrum by pushing the toy into you so that he can be both close and high in energy, but there is far too much stimulation going on with a developing temperament. When a dog gets beyond its emotional capacity, it reacts through instincts and habits.
Nature is a mirror. So if a trainer believes in dominance, then we do indeed see dominance in the dog. I ask people to substitute the word confused for “problem” behaviors. What’s going on is that there’s a kink in the works, and the dog will start volunteering behaviors (such as the pushing-exercise) to patch the hole in his psyche. The best thing you could do is relax from all the training and working so hard to fill up his day with mental stimulation. Also, if a dog is always striving for physical contact, it can be because it doesn’t feel emotionally connected. For now, just go for long walks in quiet woods (or cemeteries) so that you can just be with your dog and he doesn’t have to react to you and can innocently explore his environment safely and through his temperament. That should be your number one activity. I wouldn’t even play with him for a few weeks and simply learn to see him in his true nature. See if you can begin to draw a distinction between nerve energy, and temperament in the things he does. Learning to see your dog as it truly is the best training you could be doing. Best wishes.
Thank you very much for your thoughtful reply. I can implement your suggestions. It will be a relief actually not to have to “do” anything in particular but observe and explore the environment.
Unfortunately, there is still an issue with the walks, and I don’t know how to get around it. The worst of the jumping and biting is at the end of the driveway after we come back from a beautiful long walk, there isn’t any training on the walk to speak of, he has always naturally walked with a loose lead though he has freedom to be ahead or behind or cross back and forth. He is nervous about the cows near the spot where we turn around, and doesn’t want to walk past if they are too close to the fence, so we sometimes walk past, somtimes not. I feel that I have done something wrong, he goes from a joyful, relaxed walking companion to a completely berserk biting and jumping machine at the end of the driveway. When I restrain him he gets worse if that is possible, and it doesn’t seem like fear or nervousness in response to the restraint, it seems like fight, and it seems like he *wants* the fight. I do not want to fight with him, but I fel that I must hold him back by his collar or step on the leash so that I do not get hurt. I have tried ignoring the biting and jumping, but he persists and persists, I have bruises on my arms and back that have gone straight through both a down coat and a sweater from doing nothing but standing still to see how long he will go at it (longer than I could take it). It makes me so sad that this is happening. This dog that I love and care for is hurting me. In this area something has gone terribly wrong and I don’t know what to do *in that moment* when he jumps and bites at me.
It looks to me as though your dog is not ready to go into the house and is delaying the end of the walk/play time by trying to involve you in a game.
I have a small dog who tries to get me to chase her at the end of the walk, if I do not hold on to her very tightly, she will run off and extend the walk by another 20 minutes of me chasing after her.
If you give the dog his meal immediately after the walk, or make it a habit to give him a huge treat or a play reward immediately after going inside, that routine will make it very desirable for him to go inside and he will not want to linger.
(if going into the house is “bad stuff” for him, and) if you condition him to expect the sequence of “bad stuff” happening immediately before “good stuff”, the anticipation of good stuff will extinguish the anxiety of “bad stuff”.
and vice versa, if bad stuff happens after good stuff, the good stuff is not as effective as a reward.
in other words, in a routine sequence, for the animal, the last THING is what leaves a lasting impression, which is why the bad ending to a good walk is probably weighing so on your conscience. you feel that he feels dissatisfied.
so, you HAVE to create a good ending to the walk, one way or another, with something that he cherishes.
for example. as he walks into the door, you could throw a nice piece of sausage through, so he can eat it immediately when he is in the house.
sfter you do that a few times, if you show him the sausage when he starts to be an idiot in the driveway, he will eventually figure out that he will not get it until he goes to the house. It’s luring but you are desperate…
good luck!
chris from british columbia
After a good cry, and being comforted by a big dog in my lap, I think that I am just going to have to spend some serious time doing nothing in particular, getting to know Happy better. There is something he is trying to tell me, I have no idea what, but I think in my state of mind (fearful that I will be too permissive or not a good enough leader) I wouldn’t recognize it if it bit me in the *(s (which it is in fact doing!)
We are going to keep going on walks, so I may carry some sausage as insurance?
Hey,
….I have seen many grown men and women cry over what they are trying to do with their dogs….
we are in many ways responsible for their happiness so it is good to be emotionally engaged I think.
yeah you have to exercise your dog…you’re going to have a crazy crazy dog if you do not walk him….
He is very young so he has the MOST engery.
It 10 years it will be… oh. he is so old, he can only walk once around the block any more…
if he likes so much to sit or lie on you, you could try to lie down in the driveway and let him lie on you a bit before going in the house. maybe that calms him down…
you could also try to put a backpack with water bottles on him to make him spend more of his energy. or find a spot where he can run without leash, maybe a bike trail.
One of my dogs LOVES to run with me next to the car. my neigbors think I am torturing my dog !!!!! but sometimes it is the only way to burn off that extra energy
I often take my dogs skijoring and scooterjoring so they get plenty of very tiring exercise.
swimming is good, very tiring and a newfie would do it all day long. (some of my dogs are not happy in the water)
you could try to have a large toy that he can chew on when you get to the driveway, so it is not you he is chewing on, in his slightly agitated state…i am sure it HURTS!
I have two dogs in the kennel where I sometimes help out, who, when you approach them and play with them, they get super excited and start to grab a bit of clothing and pull on it. sometimes, they get get skin, if you lower your head too much, they get a nose !!!!! It is not an easy habit to break !!!! and they both have strong bite intensity ! it pinches !!!
my little mini malamute, when she wants to play with my border collie, she approaches from behind and bites her in the butt…so hopefully Border Collie big sister will turn around and chase her around the soccer field a few times ! very cute !!!!! the good thing is, she has super low bite intensity…apparently bite intensity cannot be changed after they are 3 months old…
anyway, I am SURE you will make it work…
you will be a happy dog mom soon….
Yes, carry sausage as a safety measure, in fact, don’t feed him from a bowl until this problem is resolved. Learn how to “ground his energy” via feeding him on the walks. I suggest you begin to understand the concept of an “emotional battery.” I mention the battery because you can walk/jog/run a dog from wherever you live to the Canadian Border and nevertheless the deepest layers of the battery haven’t even been touched let alone resolved. The battery is designed to hold back energy for critical moments, and so when you return to safe ground, out comes this reserve. The walks aren’t discharging his battery but are actually charging him more and you have unknowingly trained him that you are the discharge for his static electric fear energy. The reaction to the cows is very revealing. The fight he has for the cows, he is displacing onto you. Your dog has a high prey threshold that was prematurely stimulated and then you were attracting it via too much attention and early “discipline” training. One example of over stimulation for example is the idea of, “hitting the jackpot” responses during house training, also playing indoors, or even too frenzied a game of chase in a confined outdoor space, so when he gets back onto terra firma, his latent fear now has the chance to come out because he feels safe and you are his lightening rod. Currently owners think there are two options, being pack leader or being permissive, this is a false dichotomy? The principle of true “leadership” is gratifying the energy of the “followers.” This isn’t a hierarchal arrangement as is currently entertained. Other relevant questions are: do you hug and kiss your dog, does he get up on furniture/bed? How does he respond to you being on telephone, hugging someone else? These would be fruitful areas to explore. Finally, are you trying to make a “special connection” with your dog, working at building a good relationship? This would be where I suggest beginning a reexamination.
Hey Kevin, would you please clarify your reasons for concern in these areas? “Other relevant questions are: do you hug and kiss your dog, …? How does he respond to you being on telephone, hugging someone else? These would be fruitful areas to explore. Finally, are you trying to make a “special connection” with your dog, working at building a good relationship?” I get the furniture/bed restriction but am unclear as to the underlying concern for the other areas. Thanks for the input; I appreciate your insights but tend to be a little obtuse in getting a clear picture *sigh*.
Yes, that is it, I am his lightning rod. I can feel it, but am not sure what to do to ground his energy.
How do you think his prey threshold was prematurely stimulated? He does have a high desire to chase moving things. We tried redirecting some of his puppy grabbing of anything that moved on people (eg clothes and hands and feet) onto toys. It didn’t really work well, but he did grow out of that sort of behavior.
We had an indoor/outdoor cat when we first got Happy, they played chase games outside and were friendly inside (the cat was definitely in control, Happy is not a fast runner, the cat had to stop and wait for him to catch up). The cat was hit by a car in October and we have all been adjusting to that. Our other cat is inside-only, they coexist behind baby gates and just sniff each other through the gates.
Regarding the hitting the jackpot responses, we did/do have a lot of that regarding the training (I am not sure what disclipline training is – is it just regular obedience training? We have done a fair amount of that – a puppy class and a first-level class – using positive training classes, he seems to really enjoy it, especially because he does in fact get ham when we are there.) The training was a condition of getting the dog, and it has opened up lines of communication that allow us to work together (eg he can pull light things, carry a lost glove back to the house, he finds trash on the road and we pick it up and throw it away together, etc).
We haven’t played with toys in the house since he was very young just for practical reasons (except he has an assortment of chew items and we do play some find-it or hide-and-seek games with treats and/or kids), and we don’t have any problems with jumping or biting in the house at all (or even out in public or on walks, he is really a steady and go-with-the-flow kind of guy). When we are out, however, he doesn’t want social hour to end. When senses that we are leaving, more often than not he lies down and won’t get in the car without major bribes (or sometimes I just get out some reading material and make myself comfortable, because if he doesn’t want to move, it’s not happening, he’s a big boy).
It used to be that he would only eat when I fed him by hand throughout the day, then I was told it would be impossible to break that habit, what if he had to stay somewhere and eat from a bowl, etc., so now he eats from his bowl…he would be fine either way though. Although I never did feed him on walks, the whole no exercise an hour after eating thing to prevent bloat?
I do hug and kiss the dog sometimes (not a lot, but I do it), as well as groom him everyday and he likes calm petting/massages on his tummy. He doesn’t get on the furniture or bed (he would like to but we tell him “off,” it is just a household decision). If I hug my husband he often re-positions himself on my feet (between us). My husband jokes that it is like the kids. He loves everyone but he seems especially attached to me and always has an eye (or his head or pay, if I am stationary) on me. I am his main caretaker. He sleeps in the kitchen in his “pen” (a gated area with access to the dog door) at night. He mostly sleeps or chews his toys when I am on the phone or doing things in other rooms of the house, my absence or me giving attention to the kids or friends doesn’t bother him, although if it is possible to see me he will position himself to do so.
Finally, I don’t know if it matters but we live on some acreage in the country and he does sometimes get nervous about the critters that live in the nearby woods that he doesn’t have access to. There is also a 1000 acre hunting range across the street that is very active from Sept – May. It’s not visible but I imagine dogs can sense that sort of energy). I would find it very plausible that when we are outside and he hears or senses something that charges his battery, and he is unable to investigate it, that he needs to discharge and I am the target of choice. Would that make any sense? I wonder about that because I do think that the cows charge his battery and he feels safe to release it *as soon as* we get into our space.
And our neighbors do have horses and goats in the pasture that abuts our property. Those animals do charge his battery and cause a conflict. He can’t get near them, and he is unsure of what to do when they are close to the fence – he is starting to ignore them more but he does stare at them quietly sometimes.
I am really starting to wonder about the large farm animals and deer, fox, and large game at the private hunting grounds being a major source of “charge” for Happy. These things aren’t present anywhere else. He doesn’t go outside without us (except to his run, which is where the dog door leads). If that is the case, what things could I do to help him release the charge?
hey lots of wild life !!
yes it is scary to have that…
My friend Janice has 4 Bernese mountain dogs, used to be 5, but one guy decided to abscond chasing something (a deer?) and probably got chased back by a cougar…
so yeah your dog smells this wild life and wants to give chase for sure.
I really hate it when I want my dogs to really run, the fact that they could, and have on 3 separate occasions, when they were new to our household, just run off and I do not see them for an hour.
THAT makes me cry. ..because I think a cougar or bear will get them…
so, in the summer I started to take them on a downhill trail not too far from civilization, with moderate amounts of wildlife. with my scooter or bike, so I was super fast…they were super focussed on me at that speed and were running trying to stay with me.
I had to even slow down a fair bit for them.
they would sniff a bit somewhere, pee, poop, but never disappear when giving chase.
even when we occasionally saw a deer, (or a squirrel) they would chase it for 5 meters or so, then quit and come back to me.
I was REALLY happy about that.
occasionally I would stop, and have them all line up in front of me, give them a treat for coming in.
After a few times, they got into the groove and became very comfortable with this routine.
It took about 1 hour to complete the downhill trail, most of it running or trotting for the dogs. The cooler it was, the faster they were running !!!
It felt good that they could choose their own speed and give chase to Moi.
This is the same when I run my little dog with the car. She chases me as fast as she can and LOVES it !
I guess this is what Kevin is saying when he recommends the dog’s focus should be on the Owner.Handler, not all that other prey out there.
Of course it takes time and you have a VERY young dog.
So, to finish the story, my husband left a car for me at the end of the downhill, the dogs would all pile in, done deal.
that would relax them for the morning, then in the afternoon when it was really hot, I would take them to the river for a little swim. (..of course i did not get much exercise going downhill…)
It is funny, I have the same “I do not want it to end” problem with my mini-malamute sometimes. Unless she has decided that she has run enough, she is not coming into the car.
so sometimes have to run her back and forth, window open, she is on my side, I say Good Dog ! and then stop the car, open the door, OK Josie you ready ? noo,she said, more, mom !
…sometimes I open all 4 doors and chase her around the car for some fun, eventually she jumps into one of the doors.
If the other 2 dogs are in the car though, sometimes they decide to come back out so that’s a bit of a stressfull merry-go-round, if I am in a hurry. desperate moments, those..
this is only if I make the mistake of not having her on leash at the end, because if she even has a drop leash, I can usually just grab her and throw her in, she only weighs 10 lbs or so …
….on a leash she has perfect first class behaviour, off the leash she is a different dog…
…I wonder sometimes if my dogs make a lot of fun of me in their own language… I hope so, at least they should have a fun life while I am struggling trying to think ahead for them…
KB Because dogs are social by nature, and this is going to sound odd, if one is working at having a relationship with a dog, then on the deepest plane of emotion as energy, it means they don’t trust their dog, they don’t believe that their dog HAS to love them. Think about it, even a harsh dog owner that ties his dog to a tree most of the time and never plays with it, robs banks for a living and doesn’t pay alimony or child support; nonetheless his dog still loves him. The dog may be afraid of him, but it HAS to love him. So if one is working at deserving their dog’s love, then energetically it means that they don’t take their dog’s love for granted, like the gravity that holds our feet to the ground. Therefore if one is trying to do things for the dog in the hopes of building a relationship, something that is very good to do for a person, when as far as the dog is concerned they have a perfectly loving relationship, then they’re saying to the dog I don’t trust you. Not surprisingly, the dog does things to warrant one’s lack of trust.
Maybe the thing folks do most to build a relationship with dog is to give it lots of attention as an indication of how much they love their dog. What happens then is that a dog becomes addicted to their owner’s attention as their barometer of its survival. And usually the person that cares most about the dog is the one that serves as its lightning rod, the path of least resistance for its “charge.” So it’s important to look at times when the owner diverts their attention toward other things and see how unsettling that is for the dog.
why do you think the dog loves the negligent and/or cruel handler so much.
i would say, the dog feels that they are dependent on the owner for food and
stimulation
i suspect they feel deprived and depressed if they are ignored and not treated with respect.
i think the dog would love a loving owner a lot more and relax more around them.
i think it is more about the dog having to trust the owner, that they will not abuse them.
I trust my dog to be my dog, as in, display the behaviours I know them to have as a repertoire. I do not feel I need to trust them beyond that…I know my dogs pretty well, so I can predict more or less what they will do in a certain scenario.
I think that is part of an owner’s job, be able to predict behaviours and thereby avoid unpleasant scenes. running away, biting, fighting, stealing food from the countertop etc. cat dog bird rat.. .dolphin…it pretty much seems to apply to all captive animals
it is my job as an owner to provide the most ideal circumstances for the dog to thrive in,
anyway, even if an owner does everything right by the dog, another person can perhaps get a lot more adequate behaviours out of a dog, because of some indefinable chemistry. see sled dogs who perform for one owner, and not for another
see susan garrett who recently posted on her blog, that she gets the
‘love at first sight” syndrome and if she does not feel love for the dog, she finds it unpleasant to work with them day in day out. that’s the chemistry I am talking about.
of course an owner only sometimes knows that when the dog is gone… that it was such a special dog and there will never be another one like that…or that a certain dog just did not measure up and there was no chemistry…i think if you feel no chemistry with your dog, you should try to find another home for them
why do you think the dog loves the negligent and/or cruel handler so much.
KB Because dogs are unconditionally loving.
i would say, the dog feels that they are dependent on the owner for food and
stimulation
i suspect they feel deprived and depressed if they are ignored and not treated with respect.
KB: I don’t think dogs care about respect. I believe they are guided by trust and fear.
i think the dog would love a loving owner a lot more and relax more around them.
KB I agree they would relax more, but I don’t believe they would love more because there is no condition on how or why dogs love.
anyway, even if an owner does everything right by the dog, another person can perhaps get a lot more adequate behaviours out of a dog, because of some indefinable chemistry. see sled dogs who perform for one owner, and not for another
see susan garrett who recently posted on her blog, that she gets the
‘love at first sight” syndrome and if she does not feel love for the dog, she finds it unpleasant to work with them day in day out. that’s the chemistry I am talking about.
KB: I agree that there is a special chemistry, but I believe this relates to trust so that the dog can be helped to transcend its limitations. For example, a child can unconditionally love their mother, but their mother cannot help them master some challenge that a specially equipped teacher can. The child trusts the teacher in this regard, and may actually not trust the parent who may look at the challenge differently than the teacher, but the child trusts the teacher in this regard and even so, this doesn’t contravene their love for their mother.
So interesting! I love this way that you think about things. So if dogs are guided by trust (and fear), and they are inherently “trustworthy” (ie, they are true to their basic nature always, they’re not living in a complex world of thoughts and reactions to them like we are most of the time)…paradoxically, by us imposing our human view that there is something we do “for” our dogs to “earn” their affections, they learn that our energy is not that same sort of trust, and there is some problem created. So then we set about fixing a problem that would not have existed and that we are totally unaware of. All people are totally trustworthy just like all dogs (and all beings, right?) but people are mostly unaware of this. I don’t have enough time left in my dog’s lifetime to peel back the layers of my own unawareness. That is sort of depressing!
But you’re also saying that a dog loves its family in spite of it, and there is nothing special to do to, it is just a fact?
I got a chance to witness my dog’s behavior in another dog last night…a 10 week old, 10 pound puppy whose owner had (intentionally) riled her up to the point of loss of control during play–jumping, biting, barking, vocalizing, thrashing when restrained. It put my mind at ease that it is overstimulation and that there is a way for me to help him release that charge, and correction isn’t going to be the way to do it. For the past few days I’ve been able to prevent him from “practicing” the release of his charge onto me by controlling the environment more (I drive him down the driveway to start the walk, feed him on the walk, toss a stuffed squirrel in the back upon our return for him to bite on, and have a marrow bone inside his dog door upon return).
And no toys inside or out. Just the sight of a toy (or not even a toy, just something that could be a toy–a pizza box that blew out of the recycle bin, the kids’ sled left out in the driveway) sends him over-the-top now. This may be the phase where the behavior is escalating and coming to a head. If we come across an unexpected object like that and he is able to start playing with it then pushes it into us, it is so quick that he will jump and nip, so we restrain him until he calms down if we are not right by the door where we can simply time him out by removing ourselves – not forcing him into a position, but holding the back of his collar or stepping on the leash. Are there other alternatives, should we not go into the yard at all? Other than the stray “toy” incidents, since the removal of toys and us not playing or “training” at all with him outside he is well behaved sniffing and exploring and walking around with us in a relaxed manner, and when he comes in after 30 to 45 minutes he is totally exhausted without having expended a lot of physical energy.
KB Because dogs are unconditionally loving.
cr Are you sure ? how does that manifest itself in their behaviour ? would fear not extinguish love ? if a dog is conditioned to respond with either fear (not relaxed) or trust (relaxed, isn’t that what we would call love?…
some dogs react with fear to asian people, other races are OK etc the list of examples goes on and on.
In Jean Donaldson’s book “Oh Behave”, one chapter is on “My dog is afraid of me”.
apparently, fearful introverted dogs have self confidence issues. so, can they love all that well, while those issues are not at least partially resolved ?
What about Gary Paulson’s sled dog “Devil”. According to the author, (“Winterdance” is the name of the book) the dog displays nothing but hate and aggression towards his owner, but runs in harness, like a bat out of hell, which a loving dog could not do, even if they wanted to please the owner.
so the questions are:
a) does the aggressive and hateful dog love the owner unconditionally ? If not, why does he perform so well for the owner ?
b) so, is it always IMPORTANT that the dog must love the owner unconditionally, and why do dogs have so many different ways of showing this unconditional love, if this is what they feel ?
And how do owners best deal with the fact that dogs love them unconditionally to make a relationship that both parties can easily live with ?
c) in order to get this relationship, is it important that the owner loves the dog unconditionally also ? and what is the best way to show the dog one’s love, unconditional or otherwise ?
KB: I don’t think dogs care about respect. I believe they are guided by trust and fear.
cr : by respect i mean, the fact that the owner sees and respects the nature of the dog, the way you do with your dogs… so if the owner does not do that, then there will be fear…i think a complete lack of respect for the dog would make a dog too fearful to love.
but then you have stated that that fear and love are not mutually exclusive in a dog….
…my yoga teacher has postulated that they are mutually exclusive…
i myself am not sure, but I would say fear inhibits love, and love can conquer fear. but they are antagonistic to say the least…
KB: I agree that there is a special chemistry, but I believe this relates to trust so that the dog can be helped to transcend its limitations.
cr : so you think a dog can time and time again, transcend its limitations because of unconditional love ? so if there is a special trainer coming in, does the dog love them unconditionally also ?
finally, to you, what is the ideal dog-owner relationship and how does it come about ?
Heather :
I am glad you were able to modify your walk and getting to a better place with Happy
do you ever do impulse control training with your dog ? I.e. the dog does not get the treat until they are still, not mugging the hand with the treat etc.
you might want to start that, he is old enough..I think. Kevin ? I think the video where Kevin trains the young dog to remain relatively still on that elevated rock is a bit like that…
the dog is mugging his treat pouch and hand initially, but when she does that, Kevin takes the treat away from the dog, as soon as the dog is still and on the rock, she gets the treat. the quieter she is, the closer Kevin brings the treat to her nose, until finally she is rewarded. as soon as she starts carryin on like a 2 bob watch, the treat disappears into the heavens…etc.
the other thing I wanted to recommend to you, is calming exercises. I use a plastic bottle from a hair dye kit, and fill it with 50% peanut butter, 50% olive oil. in the microwave, I melt those 2 substances together. I cut a small hole in the plastic as if i wanted to dye my hair, and let the dogs lick on this. licking is very calming for dogs. you can lie on the sofa with the dog and practice that. then, your husband can bring a toy from the far end of the room. the dog will spot it,and if agitation happens, you withdraw the bottle, as soon as the dog relaxes a bit, you give the bottle back. after many repetitions, you can start bringing the toy closer and closer, and hopefully it will cease to be a trigger for unwanted behaviour. still if you initiate play, the dog should play but that’s for later I guess….
a bottle like this is also a good thing to carry around on a walk, give the dog a very small reward occasionally, i.e. when the dog has managed to spot a trigger without going nuts.
anothr way to look at this, is to try and bring the treat out at the same time as the trigger (pizza box) appears. (I am trying to do this when dogs appear on the sidewalk, this is a trigger for my border collie to bark in the car and I DO NOT LIKE IT)
eventually the dog will see a trigger and his next action will be, instead of the unwanted overreaction, to look for a treat from you, since to them now, these triggers are a precursor for food. this is classical conditioning, like pavlov’s dog and the bell…works real good !
the bottle requires a lot less dexterity than fishing for a small treat in a treat bag!
so first the dog licks the bottle a lot, when calm and relaxed on the sofa, getting more calm and relaxed….
then you can take it on the road, and hopefully, in a more stressful environment, seeing and then licking the bottle can bring the dog to a CALMER state from an agitated state.
greetings to Happy !
Interesting! Happy’s grooming needs are quite extensive (plus he is large), and I don’t yet have a grooming table, so during grooming I set up a situation where he lies down and licks in a manner like you are describing. When I’m done grooming I tell him, he looks up for a moment and finishes off what I gave him to lick at. Good suggestions!
What I am seeing is that if left to his own devices to innocently explore, he snuffles around a lot to catch interesting scents he can follow, searches out the tiniest bit of mud or water and paws it until he is dirty and wet, then after a few minutes of that finds something to chew on and lies down near me to just hang out. He starts out with a fair amount of energy, but after about 10 minutes unless someone or something catches his eye and revs up his “prey” drive, he’s lying down surveying the world.
I do think all of the “attention” training that has been the focus of the puppy and obedience classes – getting the puppy to be more interested in its owners than all the other stuff in the world by jackpotting behaviors, exciting back-and-forth “come” games, etc…it was a bit much for Happy. He is naturally inclined to sort of stick with his owners and hang out. By hyping him up and super-charging him to do it, now whenever he experiences something new or exciting in his environment, it charges his battery, and instead of just going off to explore it in a doggy way, he runs up to his family (what we have taught him to do!) with all of this “charge” – by this time he’s forgotten what it was that charged him up but just has all of this energy to release.
I think just “hanging out” outside and doing nothing in particular is good for him. Plus he likes to just hang out, he doesn’t have a lot of excess energy brimming out.
I think he is a FABULOUS dog ! mostly laid back and easy going… does he swim (they say all Newfies do but I have my doubts) my huskie loves scratching in the wet mud but NOT to swim..! or even get her belly wet in the lake…
when i got my first dog, Betdy, she was 10 months old and wanted to chase cars, trucks, semitrailers etc…she wanted to bite their tires. so that was a trigger for her…I was scared that she would be killed by a car and I spent a lot of time training her to sit somewhere and allow a car to go by without moving much…
now she is almost 4 and has evolved into a Ball Person. I can focus her energy on a ball, she never takes her eyes off it and ignores all cars, joggers, other dogs, bikes etc etc. Thank you Lord ! If I do not throw it on our walk, because I am busy with another dog, she carries it around, occasionally drops it and stares at it…totally self-entertaining…
to me this is an example of how, like Kevin says, if you send out the right energy, a lot of dogs finally get aligned with the owner’s energy and they just develop routines that the owners are also OK with. it takes time and a bit of experimenting and, as Kevin said, watching your dog, trying to find out what makes him tick…
if Happy has been accidentally trained by you to run to you (which is good, he will NOT get run over/hurt by whatever he is excited about) and then (undesirably), act overly excited as a result of the “excited puppy voice” training, it should be easy to get him off that…
if you make sure he does not get rewarded for being overstimulated and agitated, and make sure you give him another job, redirect him to do something more quiet, like, anything that he likes doing and knows how to do, chewtoy, licktoy, make him roll
over, jump into the car an sit quietly in there
…..whatever…eventually I think he will abandon the undesirable forceful behaviour.
by the way i just registered for this clicker expo. clickerexpo.com. i am going to portland because i live really near there, there is also one in kentucky..later next year…i can take my dog into all the lectures and seminars !!!!!! do you people ever do something like that ?
Good questions Christine:
KB Because dogs are unconditionally loving.
cr Are you sure ? how does that manifest itself in their behaviour ? Their unconditional love manifests in their behavior because they either do what we want, or what we need.
would fear not extinguish love ? if a dog is conditioned to respond with either fear (not relaxed) or trust (relaxed, isn’t that what we would call love?…
(KB–12/14) Love cannot be conditioned as it’s a force of nature. So dogs have to love us whereas trust on the other hand is based on the truth. Because dogs can’t think, they can’t think themselves out of love as can humans. And fear cannot destroy love since it is higher (or I should say simpler) in the sphere of consciousness than love is. Fear can destroy trust because if the dog is afraid of its owner, then that’s the truth and by being unconditionally loving, they will reflect the truth of that which they love. The owner is afraid of the feelings their dog triggers in them. What love actually is a merging of emotion so that there is but one mind, not two separate entities of intelligence that are in relationship with each other and so if one is working at having a relationship with a dog rather than taking the dog’s love for granted, then they are stepping outside the plane of unconditional love. ####
cr some dogs react with fear to asian people, other races are OK etc the list of examples goes on and on.
(KB–12/14) Dogs perceive something new the same as something moving fast, and something new can also be owner-acting-strange (see my article on “Why dogs bark at strangers.”) ###
cr In Jean Donaldson’s book “Oh Behave”, one chapter is on “My dog is afraid of me”.
apparently, fearful introverted dogs have self confidence issues. so, can they love all that well, while those issues are not at least partially resolved ?
What about Gary Paulson’s sled dog “Devil”. According to the author, (”Winterdance” is the name of the book) the dog displays nothing but hate and aggression towards his owner, but runs in harness, like a bat out of hell, which a loving dog could not do, even if they wanted to please the owner.
(KB–12/14) There’s no such thing as a desire-to-please. It actually is an oxymoron. For example if someone is doing something to please someone, then it’s not a true desire because a desire doesn’t want to please anyone. Desire knows no reason; it simply is. Dogs have a desire to be in harmony so a dog could outlet its fear through the synchronization of pulling the sled, and since fear would add intensity to behavior, it pulls very hard, but this is not the same as a desire-to-please. ///
cr so the questions are:
a) does the aggressive and hateful dog love the owner unconditionally ? If not, why does he perform so well for the owner ?
(KB–12/14) There’s no such thing as hate in the animal mind. You have to be able to think in order to be able to hate, therefore even a dog that attacks its owner loves its owner unconditionally. ###
b) so, is it always IMPORTANT that the dog must love the owner unconditionally, and why do dogs have so many different ways of showing this unconditional love, if this is what they feel ?
(KB–12/14) Temperament channels energy in a many-splendored way, but all these varieties are still the same energy, simply refracted into an infinite range of expressions. Because love is consciousness (and I believe its root source), and because consciousness is energy that reflects back on itself, each dog perfectly reflects its owner and thus the potential for a varied range of expressions is as unlimited as each human being is unique.
cr And how do owners best deal with the fact that dogs love them unconditionally to make a relationship that both parties can easily live with ?
c) in order to get this relationship, is it important that the owner loves the dog unconditionally also ? and what is the best way to show the dog one’s love, unconditional or otherwise ?
(KB–12/14) To love a dog unconditionally there is nothing that has to be shown, all one must do is WANT to know their true nature and we do this by wanting to understand what dogs want. Since we are all worthy of love without condition, there’s nothing that has to be done, therefore by being self-accepting of our own nature, and recognizing the true nature of the dog, we are in love with the dog without condition. This truth gets us past our intellectual impasse: our disconnection between our thoughts and our heart. One will feel like doing certain things with their dog but such things must come from a true desire rather than from trying to work at building a relationship. If we’re thinking that our dog should appreciate us for what we do, then we are not being unconditionally loving toward the dog.
The most loving way to raise and train a dog is to not expose them to situations their temperament has not yet evolved a capacity to handle. But it’s okay to make mistakes because you don’t have to be perfect to deserve unconditional love, and dogs are here to teach us how to be better humans, we’re not here to teach them how to be better dogs. ####
KB: I don’t think dogs care about respect. I believe they are guided by trust and fear.
cr : by respect i mean, the fact that the owner sees and respects the nature of the dog, the way you do with your dogs… so if the owner does not do that, then there will be fear…i think a complete lack of respect for the dog would make a dog too fearful to love.
but then you have stated that that fear and love are not mutually exclusive in a dog….
…my yoga teacher has postulated that they are mutually exclusive…
i myself am not sure, but I would say fear inhibits love, and love can conquer fear. but they are antagonistic to say the least…
(KB–12/14) Fear is not a single thing or even a pure energy. It is a complex construct because it results from a collapse of a state of attraction that is then attached to nervous sensations and in the case of humans, mental activity. So it is a compound thing, whereas love is elemental. Nonetheless, even fear is a function of attraction and so I believe you’re right that Love can straighten it out.
Meanwhile love is a state of attraction that cannot collapse and therefore it is reciprocal by definition since consciousness is energy reflecting back on itself. I heard a Chinese expression once that is apt in this regard. If someone loves someone who doesn’t love them back, then that can’t be love because that’s not natural. This means to me that we must learn to tell the difference between love and need and knowing the true nature of a dog is very helpful in gaining this kind of conscious awareness.
The other distinction that’s important when discussing the nature of love is the power of thought and intention. Because the human intellect is so powerful and can override (in the short term) the emotional dynamic, a person can choose to override love or to discount it and so fear can destroy love in the human mind because someone may be willfully choosing to live outside a loving way of being and when another suspects this is going on, their fear of such an intention would be good information. #####
KB: I agree that there is a special chemistry, but I believe this relates to trust so that the dog can be helped to transcend its limitations.
cr : so you think a dog can time and time again, transcend its limitations because of unconditional love ? so if there is a special trainer coming in, does the dog love them unconditionally also ?
(KB–12/14) Understanding and trust can transcend any limit. But love in the way it’s currently entertained can’t. My reading of nature indicates that love evolved to do work, and this is where trust and understanding must come in. It’s not enough to be loving and loveable, we have to be active agents by which love can do work of turning energy into information. Right now in the marketplace guilt is masquerading as love.
It seems to me that in general, a new person doesn’t trigger as deep a physical memory in the dog as its owner and so the first person in a dog’s life isn’t going to be displaced by someone new even though it may love them and trust them even more than their owner. This is where the idea of fidelity and Fido comes in. So just because someone “better” than us shows up, our dog doesn’t lose the physical memory of that all consuming first bond and this is because each dog is meant to serve as a mirror for its person. Since consciousness is energy that reliably reflects back on itself, our dog as our mirror has no desire to be with anyone else. ####
finally, to you, what is the ideal dog-owner relationship and how does it come about ?
(KB–12/14) There isn’t an ideal we need to aspire to. Every individual has a unique “flaw” which is how new energy gets into the system. So if we accept that our unique relationship with our dog is as special as it can be, as flawed as it may be, and are then truthful about our reflection in our dog, that’s ideal. When we see people that have an amazing training rapport with their dog, it’s because the basic template of trust/understanding has evolved into more and more complex expressions of turning energy into information. It’s to be admired but it isn’t by its nature any more special than a homeless person begging on the street with their faithful dog lying nearby or a person whose dog infallibly reflects their deepest fears into so called “problem behavior.” ####
HI – the insight on respecting the pups temperament development and not exposing it things that are overwhelming to that temperament is so appreciated..
and..speaking of sledogs, I wanted to share this as it is so beautiful.
The Hunters of Greenland – http://tiny.cc/NYT774
thanks for all the great stuff.
e.
KB: Their unconditional love manifests in their behavior because they either do what we want, or what we need.
CR: so a dog never does what THEY need ? or would that coincide with what we need ? in a way that is guided by the universe, god or something like that ?
a lot of dog trainers have said that dogs are opportunists who mostly do what THEY need…
(KB–12/14) Love cannot be conditioned as it’s a force of nature.
CR : I have to admit this is confusing to me.
you are saying though – a dog’s trust is conditional…based on familiarity and being loved back and probably other factors ?
I think dogs can be spiteful, wilful and opportunistic…also creative problem-solvers and survival experts. can they hate ? I have been told they can think, and reason to a limited degree…my intuition says, dogs can hate, but I have to admit I have not seen it.
It seemed so from the owner’s description in the book, he wrote the hate was visible in the dog’s “evil” eyes. The owner did not mind too much that this dog did not relate to him in any positive way whatsoever…although he got bit a lot, when he put the dog in harness – he just let the dog be as you suggested, as dictated by this dog’s apparent nature…this seems very generous on the owner’s part, he obviously embraced his own evil aspects, if this dog is another reflection of the owner’s self.
the function of fear, I see it at its most elemental as a survival instinct,
which is why I think my 2 northern breed dogs do a lot of fearful recoiling, whereas my border collie is completely fearless, I think because the northern breeds have WILD blood in them, border collies have been “domesticated” for centuries…
…when i feel fear I can sense that it helps me survive…
love helps me stay strong inside to go on despite problems
I think dogs manifest this strength of love in a way by being indomitable, by loving life, usually almost to their dying breath, they are active and moving forward.
it is funny I always want to do something unique with my dogs, prompt them to do something according to their nature…even if it is flawed…whereas it appears most of the people in my dog class just want to complete the exercises set by the trainer to the trainer’s satisfaction…
Another great and enlightening answer Kevin. It reminds me of a saying I must have read in a dog training book a long time ago, I can’t remember which, but it has always stuck with me, “Everyone gets the dog that they deserve.” For some reason my brain wants to attribute it to the Air Force K9 motto, but I could be wrong and have it mixed with something else.
Thank you again too, for helping all the rest of us out with a few more nuggets of wisdom allowing us not to be too hard on ourselves.
I remember, after reading your book for the first time, I felt like, Wow! How many things can one possibly do wrong? I have to be perfect all the time. How is that even possible? Then, one day, after finally having purchased the new edition of the book, it fell open to the last paragraph in ‘Note to the reader’ section. For those who haven’t read it, or have the older version of the book, here are a few of my heavily underlined sentences, which I hope Kevin doesn’t mind me sharing.
“A reader is likely to take away the idea that they must never, ever stress their dog; that they must be technically perfect in how they handle and raise their pet or they will corrupt it’s capacity to perform and to be a devoted companion… What I was trying to say: is that by working with the dog’s prey instinct, we can turn stress into drive energy and, in this way, stress isn’t bad. Stress is not only unavoidable–which means that it’s pointless to worry about whether or not the dog is being stressed–but it is also necessary as a means of intensifying behavior so that energy builds up within the individual so that it’s ‘pressurized’ and capable of taking on a challenge… They need energy to channel their drive to the path of highest resistance and stress is where this energy comes from… The one question to always have in mind so as to be guided properly is whether one has built a firm foundation on which the dog can successfully turn stress into drive.”
I read, and re-read this all the time. It makes me not worry about things as much. Last night, in the blank space below and beside the above quotes, I was able to add a couple more:
“Temperament channels energy in a many-splendored way, but all these varieties are still the same energy, simply refracted into an infinite range of expressions. Because love is consciousness (and I believe its root source), and because consciousness is energy that reflects back on itself, each dog perfectly reflects its owner and thus the potential for a varied range of expressions is as unlimited as each human being is unique.”
“The most loving way to raise and train a dog is to not expose them to situations their temperament has not yet evolved a capacity to handle. But it’s okay to make mistakes because you don’t have to be perfect to deserve unconditional love, and dogs are here to teach us how to be better humans, we’re not here to teach them how to be better dogs.”
“When we see people that have an amazing training rapport with their dog, it’s because the basic template of trust/understanding has evolved into more and more complex expressions of turning energy into information. It’s to be admired but it isn’t by its nature any more special than a homeless person begging on the street with their faithful dog lying nearby or a person whose dog infallibly reflects their deepest fears into so called “problem behavior.”
“There isn’t an ideal we need to aspire to. Every individual has a unique “flaw” which is how new energy gets into the system. So if we accept that our unique relationship with our dog is as special as it can be, as flawed as it may be, and are then truthful about our reflection in our dog, that’s ideal.”
Again Kevin, I’d like to thank you for not only the wisdom you share, but, also, the time you take to help us all understand Why dogs do what they do, and how best to align with that and create a group harmony that works for us, and most importantly for our Canine companions.
Selah!
How wonderful that a dog is a mirror. I can see that this is true.
In the back of my mind I was afraid that my huge dog would be aggressive and harm my kids. But I can see that being safety-conscious is different than being fearful, and I think I can release the fear emotion (or at least notice when I am feeling it) rather than ignoring it and letting it run the show.
In the case of dogs that are rescued (change owners) that have behaviors that preexisted their current human, does that complicate things?
My dog Happy and I (and the rest of the family) are doing very well these past few days. We did have to put a lid on the jumping/biting for a few days, but we stopped putting him in overstimulating play situations that were beyond his ability to cope with. He is more relaxed now and easier to redirect to safe outlets when he does get charged up. What he seems to do on his own when he has energy to release is to find something to tug on. So I think that tugging will be a game he will enjoy once we all relearn it together.
He’s such a smart, sweet dog. I hope I don’t screw him up!
Kevin you should have a blog and a paypal thing like Julie/Julia so people can send you money for those good tidbits of advice you are giving.
Thanks Christine, consider our Tee shirts, we’re going to put more on/line with various expressions that convey the mind of the dog and as a means of helping to put these ideas into the public’s awareness.
Christine, Good suggestion you had for after our walks – today I hid a frozen marrow bone at the end of the driveway before our walk, and he “found” it when we returned. Everything was great. It might be fun to move the location of his bone around, to give him something to find and bring back to the house with us. It IS a long walk up our driveway, and he probably doesn’t want the fun walk to end…
We also did GREAT with the cows today. They were very close, looking at us…I asked him to look at me while we walked by the cows, instead of looking at them, but we kept moving. He was surprised when we were past them! He did it on his own on the way back, so he must’ve liked it. He was very loose and relaxed on the way back, it was obvious how proud he was. The cows must also have good ability to sense energy, because on the way back they barely glanced up at us.
If a dog plays with a toy in its mouth around other dogs to be “preyful” and attract them and a dog will play fetch to return the preyful essences to complete their impression of the human form and get their “self” back, is there a point at which the dog begins to differentiate between the toy as part of the human form and its “self” and the toy as prey in its own right? I haven’t been playing tug with my Bootsy for a bit now and have been working on pushing instead but when we used to play, she would at some point usually when she was tired, go lay down and begin to chew on the toy. When I would approach her at this point she would run in a preyful way. Was this her self-soothing way of saying that I was demanding too much or becoming too predatory, both by grounding to the toy and by becoming preyful?
Yes, she was differentiating from you (becoming prey to your predator) in order to complement you, however she couldn’t be in the same bubble with you and her prey and hence doing two things at the same time, feeling connected to you by avoiding you. So we want to straighten out this kink so that she feels connected to you by driving into you. Good luck.
Wow, I had what I think is a very helpful insight today, I read this article months ago then again read it in the context of AZdogerman’s questions and light of all the observation I’ve been doing of my dog, Happy.
As background, Happy sometimes jumps and grabs at members of the family in the yard. Pushing and playing tug where he wins has been hugely helpful, but still once in a while there was a trigger and I remained confused as to what it was, it seemed to be inconsistent.
Yesterday I threw his toy and he looked at it and looked back at me with that *look* in his eye, so I knew that he was going into overload…he didn’t, I pushed a bit for a few bites of food and he was fine, but it hit me what may have triggered him–the toy (or rather, I) was going too far away too fast, and it made him nervous. In thinking back, that is something that every other instance of this happening has in common – someone (usually me, but also sometimes my husband) moving away or out of sight and he gets nervous. In some cases, he gets absorbed into something he’s doing and stops paying attention to me for a moment, and when he looks I’m either moving away or have moved out of sight to do something nearby, and he comes bolting over but is also overloaded from that nervousness of me being too far away (or being in the place he remembers, then not there?) In other cases, multiple family members are in the yard, and we disperse in different directions – specifically I go off in a different direction while he is busy with someone else, and he looks, sees me, and jump/grabs at the person next to him.
I never see this on the leash (although when I initially posted about this at the end of the driveway he would do it, but not anymore, we have an excellent time on all of our “hunting” expeditions…back then I would sometimes drop the leash in the driveway and run with him to the house, now I lead him all the way to the house where he knows a super yummy bone is waiting).
what a load of cr*p it is both dangerous and scary that people could take you seriously (in my educated view)
Feel free to “educate.”
i second that, would like to see the stats of “dangerous” situations brought by about what is on this site.
That could possibly be the most ridiculously absurd thing I’ve ever read. To paraphrase a great scene in Billy Madison, during that bit of rambling, there wasn’t one thing mentioned that even bordered on a rational thought. All of us here are slightly stupider for having read that drivel.
Dogs play fetch because dogs are derived from wolves, who hunted (ya know, chased things?), not because they’re chasing the ghost or essence of the owner or itself.
You owe me 15 minutes of my life.
Did you know that cats hunt and chase things?
well i am glad we all now know Dave’s wisdom. let’s make sure all behavioural scientists can share this so they can all retire.
couple years late..awesome article. It helped me understand the difference in wiring between the human and animal mind. I no longer even see humans as smarter than animals, just completely rewired. How did that happen in evolution is such a question
I don’t have a dog. I haven’t had one since I was a child. I’ve been feeling increasingly drawn to them though lately. I saw a trio of them eagerly waiting for their first ball throw of the day from their master in a park. So I googled the question “why do dogs like to fetch things”. I wasn’t expecting such a transcendent response as yours from the interwebs. There’s a lot more than just dog training going on here.
“I am able to remember because my mind was never domesticated. More on that later.”
Can we hear about that now?
Also, why don’t cats fetch? (Actually mine did when he was 1-2 years old, but then he stopped.)
Cats aren’t the proverbial “fetchers” ala the average dog because they can’t project their self into artificial contrivances as readily as can the dog. In other words, a cat’s prey instinct is dependent on feature detectors that are hard wired. A dog on the other hand is capable of Prey Drive wherein the triggering mechanism can find fixation on a “group trigger,” i.e. that to which others are attracted. This becomes a midpoint, an organizing kernel around which the group aligns and synchronizes their actions in order to bring the midpoint to ground and this is the source of behavioral plasticity. Put another way, because the hunger circuitry is so pronounced in dogs, they are attracted to each other with a force that cannot be consummated through simple companionship and discrete physical contact. Thus they have an innate compulsion to deflect their prey instinct onto a common object of attraction (midpoint) which renders Prey Drive. In this state they reference subliminally their body for information in real time that is specific to the moment, rather than the instincts embedded in the Central Nervous System that are related to the deep past. < <>>
In emotional projection the individual projects its sense of its physical center-of-gravity into objects of attraction, which then opens the possibility that it might be able to go by feel. If however the sensations are too intense for the emotional capacity of the individual, it will react through instincts rather than by feel. Going by feel means the capacity to spontaneously adapt to the object of attraction as if both object and subject are charged electromagnetic particles.
A domesticated mind goes by chronological rationales, a narrative of causes and effects, and thus interprets the actions of animals through a personality theory. It sees animals as self-contained entities of intelligence and finds psychologies (such as survival, territoriality, dominance, possession of resources, etc., etc.) of behavior satisfying. On the positive side a domesticated mind makes a domesticated life much easier. My mind wasn’t domesticated in that I never lost contact with an animal’s predominant mindset of fear (and which very young children are likewise endowed with) and this perspective renders an energetic interpretation of how things change over time as opposed to a personality theory which is why this perspective doesn’t find a psychology of behavior satisfying. Common-Sense for example is the animal mind triangulating a view of reality based on sensory perceptions invoking emotional responses across a commons, (like a GPS system) thereby rendering the most objective interpretation of reality.