spiritdogs:And what I see is a lot of hooey designed to suggest that the members of this board couldn't possibly be as educated on the subject of dogs as yourself, simply because they don't agree with everything you say, or agree with the studies you cite.
There is growing evidence that the modern tendency, particularly in the US, to rush children and puppies into learning -- instead of letting them develop on a more natural line -- has negative effects. Meanwhile the reason I posted my article, which contained info from one study out of many on this topic, was that you acted as if my statements about the potential harmful nature of puppy classes was "ludicrous" "ridiculous" and "poppycock." So we have different views. I presented a little more evidence to back up my position, that's all.
And there's more than just one study. Ray Coppinger has said that adolescence "is the stage in which most mammals play and learn, and it is the stage in which dogs, as a species, are trapped." I think he also points out that the idea that puppies are "sponges" is a bit of a stretch, if not an outright fantasy. This depends on how you interpret the term neonate. Coppinger: "Adolescence is a period of metamorphosis – anatomical remodeling. The neonatal organism is taken apart and reconstructed into an adult. New organs are created de novo while old ones are discarded, just as the highly complex placenta and its associated behaviors are discarded at birth. Skills do not grow from the neonatal skull (the sucking skull) into an adult predatory skill. The neonatal skull is resorbed while the adult skull is being laid down."
I take this to mean that on a certain level it's kind of pointless to teach things to the pup until the morphology of his skull becomes more like that of a fully formed adult. You say a puppy IS like a sponge, but sponges not only soak up liquid they don't really retain it; if you squeeze them they lose most of it.
As for members of this board not being as educated as I am about dogs, on a certain level that's probably true. I probably AM the only one here who's versed in dominance AND Koehler AND behavioral science AND natural dog training.
spiritdogs: You have also used the same old "guilt by association" trick. I am NOT Ian Dunbar, don't have a clue whether he said what you refer to as his position, and am not married to every point of view the dear doctor espouses. I agree with a lot of what he says, and I consider some of his remarks pretty ludicrous.
So we agree on that. So if I lumped you into the "from the moment you get your puppy home the clock is ticking..." mentality, and that's not the way you see things, I apologize. Dunbar's approach is based, at least partially, on some very old data about "critical windows" for learning, which it turns out aren't that critical after all. And his zeal for getting every puppy in America into a puppy class has infected a lot of dog trainers with some of the same beliefs, several of which you DID espouse.
spiritdogs: Your "mentality" seems to be that you have found what worked for you with your own dog, and are quite happy to tell anyone who will listen that it's the "light and the way". But, you seem to want to categorize everyone else, and, frankly, your tone does come off as arrogant, rather than simply educated, which is probably why your posts elicit some of the same back at ya.
Look, there's only so much time I can devote to this, so yeah, I tend to make quick assessments of where certain posters seem to be coming from. Still, I've never attacked anybody personally, which is what you appear to be doing to me here.
And as for "my mentality," I think you're ignoring some very important facts: I studied dominance, then when I saw the negative impact it had on a dog's happiness, I dropped it and studied Koehler, where you supposedly don't care about being the pack leader. But that was also very stressful for dogs, which I didn't like. Then I read Kevin Behan's book, and thought he was nuts. So I cherry-picked some exercises that I thought made sense and ignored the rest as crazy or non-essential (kind of the way Kim did with ignoring one of the rules of the pushing exercise). And then I delved, or I should say really dove, into the study of behavioral science. I was totally bowled over by Karen Pryor's book, like many people in the dog biz were, and are. But the more I applied behavioral science techniques and taught them to my clients, the more I saw that there was something lacking there. And I mean REALLY lacking. It wasn't as if the emperor had NO clothes, but he certainly seemed to be a lot more scantily clad than I had first thought. And that's when I went back to natural dog training.
The reason I told the story about Freddie's panic attacks was that it was relevant to the discussion of using an agitated state to create lasting change in a dog's behavior, and more importantly his overall happiness, which was the topic under discussion.
It was also a pivotal moment for me. Everything I had been studying, everything I had been looking for about trying to find a way of understanding dogs that made sense across the board fell into place in that one moment, and not just in terms of Freddie's specific behavioral problem. That was just the nexus, the precipitating event. Don't forget, I've applied these techniques as a professional dog trainer in New York City, with all my clients' dogs, for the past 15 years. And they always work. And they don't create negative side effects. And sad to say I can't say the same thing for dominance, Koehler, or behavioral science. So to categorize me as just a guy who found something that worked for his own dog is "ludicrous." It's not the whole picture. My clients would all tell you, "Thank God for Freddie." In a sense I learned everything I know about dogs and training from that dog. And while it's true on a certain level that all dogs are different, on another level, all dogs are the same. As I've described it before (and I probably plagiarized this from Kevin Behan), each dog is kind of like its own unique prism. So while the energy that moves through that dog's body and psyche will reflect different wavelengths (as different behavioral and emotional tendencies), on a certain level the energy will always be the same. It's up to you to teach the dog how to use it properly.
Anyway, that's how I see it.
LCK
"Clicker training has not taught me a whole bunch, other than that people can get wrapped up in fads and catch phrases." Bob Bailey
"If a lion could talk we would not be able to understand him." Wittegenstein. "If a lion could talk we would understand him perfectly, but we would learn very little about ordinary lions from him."Daniel C. Dennett
"Dogs don't care who's alpha and who's not. Only emotionally dysfunctional owners and trainers do." Jack Field