Sagan’s Baloney Detection Kit on NDT philosophy

 I very much look forward to reading his book, it doesn't seem to be available for download so have to get to bookstore. But in the meantime I would say I differ from what I think he's saying in that I don't believe cognitive processes can moderate the emotional core at its very root. This is where I believe the group consciousness comes in, I believe this is what moderates it.

Burl

 PoodleO

 

What is Panksepp's best work on Dog behavior?

 

Panksepp is a generalist. His stuff on animal behaviour is almost a by product. His book Affective Neuroscience spans all mammals and is a good but very heavy read.

Stephen Lindsay quotes Panksepp heavily in i think his second book. This is of course entirely on dogs. let me get back to you on that. If you seriously want lots of references on dog behaviour you can't go past Lindsay. You should bear the wallet pain and buy all three of his books.

Temple Grandin also quotes him. It was her fault that i read him in the first place.:)

I am tempted to write a book on Emotional Dog Training, but it is in a queue. I really hope that someone else does it, but just lately i have been reading of published trainers with bios in my kind of ball park. I just don't have the background Physc wise to defend it.

I am writing a book on all breeds tracking at the moment.It is based on the way that i teach our tracking group.  Like a lot of things doggy , many people seem to believe that what works for their breed should work for all breeds. I hate to let you into a little secret....

How different am i to a "normal" positive trainer? Well i am a whole lot spookier, a bit more relaxed even, and i use a whole lot of play training geared towards the dog as well as food when i need it for various tasks. I am probably even more "let it be" than even quite permissive trainers in training. i gather that if my dog isn't interested in me, i better fix that before anything else.

 

 

 

 
KB said: “The difference between a dog and a child is that at some age the young child will ogle things and contemplate some facet or another of a things quality, entertaining this characteristic as an aspect independent of anything else. “

Burl said: "I believe this is where epistemologists make a distinction between reasoning with percepts vs reasoning with concepts.  I will do my best to say something of what I have read on this. In the reasoning with percepts, cognition is deducing and inducing ideas (including some concepts) from physically observed sense impressions  that are experienced.  The mind reasoning with percepts is mapping out reality and its contents with a built-in framework of space and time (Kant's a priori categories – the colored spectacles thru which we perceive reality).  With reasoning with concepts, cognition starts with recollections of ideas  and stays in that internal mental realm forming new ideas relationships among ideas – abstract conceptualization.

Both dogs and humans have similar emotional makeup, but of the two, probably little abstract reasoning occurs in dogs.  This is, however also the case for young children up to age (??).  

***But, you MUST [edited correction] say both dogs and humans have rational thoughts and abilities to use them to get around in their environment.*** 

 
KB: I think this does indeed bring us to a fundamental point of distinction. If one believes consciousness is independent of nature, something that is emergent without precedent, as opposed to being a part of nature (which is my position) then yes I would agree that some quotient of reason would be necessary to tie reality together into some kind of comprehensible whole and from what I can gather this is what the discussion about concepts and precepts is about. However in my view nature has an inherent order, consciousness is synonymous with this order, so that both are based on energetic principles. I see consciousness as having evolved from nature and therefore it proves adaptive because being predicated on the same principles, the physiology, anatomy and neurology of an organism is an innate calculation of where potential energy is going to be. So I don't see consciousness as an emergent phenonmenoa that is distinct from nature. Therefore I'm arguing that these laws of nature are how a dog navigates and makes sense of its surroundings and again this is adaptive because the dog's makeup because by emotionally synchronizing with other dogs (being social) this is a "triangulation" that predicts where potential energy is going to be and how to capture and exploit it. I feel this is a more consistent model for consciousness and the phenomenon of evolution, all of which is most vividly manifested in the domesticated dog. I other words, domestication is evolution on super, hyper fast track, which is what Darwin in a way was arguing as well.  
 


Burl: "Dogs are always learning from their curisoty as well."

KB: I believe that curiosity in dogs is a physical curiosity as in how does this feel? and this is synonymous with the infant child and is fundamentally a function of an urge to ingest (sensual/sexuality being an elaboration upon this oral urge as a platform). So a dog is inherently incomplete, and he is "curious" about things as a means of resolving internal tension, but this isn't at random but according to principles of emotional conductivity (energetic principles of nature). If two individuals can deflect their mutual state of attraction onto a common object of resistance, then they can connect and this is the genesis of the social impulse. Meanwhile a fundamental function of the nervous system is to objectify aspects of the environment as a means of resolving this internal tension and dogs pursue this in a state of curiousity (if they feel safe) so that they can objectify a state of arousal/desire. In this regard they perceive aspects of the environment as that which reflects emotion (predatory aspect or "the negative";) and that which can conduct emotion (preyful aspect or "the positive.";) So wolves aligning around a moose, is a social configuration that predisposed proto-dog to be able to connect and emotionally communicate with early man.

I wanted to take some time to write up a more thorough answer to @burl's question, 5 things NDT offers to the discussion on dog training. However, I find myself incredibly busy at the moment and without time. I do intend to post it here in the near future. But for starters here is what I think is the number one contribution that NDT makes to dog training - no training!

The core of NDT involves understanding the dog from the perspective of the "emotional mind". Believing that dogs think, IMO, leads us into the situation where we think they are actually learning what the commands mean. But they really have only formed associations with arbitrary commands. They have no idea why sittings gets them a cookie, just that if they sit a cookie magically appears. These commands therefore, have no purpose or intrinsic value to the dog. So while they may work in controlled environments and at low energy states, they often break when a squirrel/cat/thunderstorm etc, enters the picture. When there is something else out there that is more interesting than the cookie. Dogs can't hold abstract concepts in mind as can a human.

Training the NDT way, by comparison works even better at higher energy states because the handler is the solution to the dogs problem - "what do I do with my energy?" Dogs do form associations, they just don't learn by them. This means that what you want to be doing is associating the various energy states/intensities the dog is making with a "feeling" of the handler. Commands can come later, after the dog is already looking for the handler to solve his problem when he begins to feel excited. You don't want to "block" this channel and so it's super important not to train your dog too soon,i.e., overstimulate them and correct them for silly things like biting as puppies. You want to build the foundation of trust first, that comes via an understanding of the group mind -> objects of mutual attraction that both dog and handler work together to overcome objects of resistance. This is why the pushing exercise is so important.

I think the following video is a good example of the above in practice Be The Moose

You can see that there is really no training (no commands like "leave it";) just a natural rapport between handler/dog. The dog naturally is drawn to kbehan when he's excited by the deer. From the perspective of the dog, catching the deer feels like the play session had at the end of the clip. And because the dog seeks the handler to resolve his "energy", you can provide commands and the dog will listen.

I thought I might be reaching back in the thread but really, it's all circular.

Oh my God! Dog domesticated itself? Am I one of the lucky few that's even read a primer on evolution? Creatures do not evolve to mee the environment. Evolution introduces mutations. Some mutations survive better than others. The dog-like creature that could live symbiotically with Man, eating his scraps, lived longer and had more of a chance to reproduce. It really is a crap shoot and I know that offends a large number of people. Sorry about that.

And the cat arching it's back is not a predator stance and anyone who has had a cat or knows about cats knows that. The arched back is defensive, to appear larger and ward off a threat. The same with hissing and spitting. A cat on the attack does not arch the back but darts into and on target and latches on with paws and fangs.Jeez, Louise. I am totally flabbergasted.

The  contention is still that dogs don't think but react emotionally based on FAPs. With Man as the benchmark. Two wholesale assumptions that have no basis in fact or even in strict behaviorism. Behaviorism ignores the question entirely. But neither does it disprove it. So, I think it's ironic to dispose of behaviorism while simultaneously pinning one's theory on the apparent effect of assuming that dogs don't think, just because the question wasn't asked before. Then again, Einstein said every great thinker should be able to entertain two opposing thoughts at once. However, he failed algebra twice and never really got the hang of math and borrowed his equations from his wife and Lorentz. Oops, I think I said that out loud.

 

 

NDT is garbage. You believe otherwise, so as the world’s foremost authority on this waste of time and bandwidth you should be able to design a few experiments that illustrate the main beliefs. I think you can’t do it and we’ll be subjected to the usual nonsensical gobbledygook. So prove me wrong; pick an aspect of NDT and design an experiment for it.

Kevin Behan

 The subject was the domestication of the dog and what singular feature of dog enables it to be domesticated as opposed to other species with demonstrably higher cognitive capacities. You raised the point and now you avoid the logical consequence of your untenable position. 

Actually the topic was your opinion which you dishonestly tried to pass of as a fact amd that was followed up by a lie – the misrepresentation of Budinski and Coppinger’s views. And now to your distortion of the facts, there is no such thing as higher or lower cognitive faculties. Unless you want to be specific about a particular trait, it’s a waste of my and everyone’s time. The crows show that such comparisons are meaningless without specific

what kind of experiment are you talking about/what would you like to see @themilkyway?

"The dog-like creature that could live symbiotically with Man, eating his scraps, lived longer and had more of a chance to reproduce."

In other words, in this scenario the dog domesticated itself because those that could not live symbiotically weeded themselves out.

 

 The cat arching its back is maximizing its predatory aspect. This is shocking to an emotional state of attraction and hence effective. Whereas a cat stalking a mouse is minimizing its predatory aspect, it is making itself emotionally invisible. If the mouse looks up, its predatory aspect (eyes) inhibits the cat and so it freezes into an arrested position until mouse resumes foraging. The same emotional dynamic is organizing both animals.

And if dogs can think, why would it think a cat with an arched back is bigger than it is, why wouldn't it just think "There is a cat with an arched back" ? 

corgidog

I think the following video is a good example of the above in practice Be The Moose

 

This stuff is hardly unique and uses techniques that many fine shutzhund and ordinairy dog trainers have used over the last while.  I think it dates back to when every boy discovered that what the dog really wanted was a chance to stretch it's legs and get something.

I can't be bothered any more. The theroy is palpable crap, The practice is very ordinairy. Some bits of it are disrespectful to the dog such as wearing gumboats while you heel it, and using a correction collar (in another clip) while you are supposed to be rewarding it. I just wish that you would be generous enough to acknowledge the hundreds of dog trainers before you that have made such a huge contribution to your practice, and the hundreds who still do.

 It has nothing to do with the moose, but everything to do with playing with a dog that has moderate prey drive. If you can't get a dog like that to sing, i will come over to wherever you are and take the dog off you. It deserves better.

 

poodleOwned

If you can't get a dog like that to sing, i will come over to wherever you are and take the dog off you. It deserves better.

 

 

 

Hey PoodleO,

 

Is 'get it to sing' just an expression meaning something else, or were yoy being literal?

Take two populations of puppies that are of diverse temperaments. One population is raised with minimal socialization, they don't live in a house, and are taken for walks in quiet woods with handler several times a day. No special emphasis is made to socialize with other dogs other than minimal interactions. No formal training is conducted other than to induce dog to play with bite toy under any and all conditions. The purpose of play is to actively mimic hunting. No bite inhibition training is done whatsoever and dog isn't put into positions where out of over excitement it would be provoked to grab things, which is why it isn't living in the house for first year. Male dogs are not neutered, female dogs possibly neutered for obvious issues of expediency but as late as possible. Second group is socialized, house trained and obedience trained according to modern standards and scientific principles of learning as per the millions of pages of behavioral/training guidance that constitute the prevailing orthodoxy. The purpose of play in this second group is exercise and the pursuit of pleasure.

I predict at 2 years of age the first population will prove to be better adjusted and more mannerly house dogs and require minimal control almost obviating the need for formal obedience training. They will prove calmer in stressful situations and will have an innate capacity to adapt to change without externally delivered system of rewards/punishments. 

@poodleowned back to square one ;0 i thought we already covered this.

it is ironic and funny how unaware you are of the meaning of your own words. nobody is asking you to believe in or use ndt. but you are participating in a forum thread whose purpose is dedicated to being disrespectful towards kbehan. reread the title of this forum in case you've forgotten (which you obviously have). kbehan is defending his position and hasn't belittled anyone else in the process. you and others have on numerous occasions. he just doesn't agree w/ the way you and others see things. but i see that this kind of thing is offensive to you.

i have many friends who have trained their dogs using either dominance and/or positive reinforcement techniques. i've seen that training fall apart first hand. you may blame this on the practitioner or the dog, however, i do not think this is the case. it's the model. on the other hand i've seen amateurs with no prior experience implementing NDT and have amazing success. success even with very 'difficult' and aggressive dogs. check out the NDT forums if you don't believe me. it's not the person or the dog, it is the operating premise on which they base their training.

this suggests that your model doesn't work as well as you'd like and this is why you find NDT offensive.

and you think that dog has a medium prey drive? your observations are way off. look at the play session at the end of the clip. that dog is wicked intense.

 Another important point of distinction to cat with arched back, hiss, spit and splayed-out-in-air front paws, versus cat stalking, is that in the former the cat is "pushing out energy" hence the dog receives an immediate input on intensity which is more than its feeling of attraction can handle and it collapses,whereas the cat on the stalk is feeling a pull toward the mouse, and the epicenter of its attention is not only on the mouse but simultaneously on its own body's physical center-of-gravity, which for an animal in motion is its forequarters. In both scenarios however, the object of attraction, be it the cat to dog, or mouse to cat, has emotional leverage over that which has projected into it. The vital distinction being that the cat has a higher emotional capacity than the mouse (i.e. it can handle more intensity/resistance via its feeling of attraction) and so is more able to learn (by feel not by cognition) how to exploit its emotional leverage it enjoys over the dog by being the object of attraction. I sum this all up by saying that the prey "controls" the predator.

Kevin Behan

(Interestingly research studying the startle reaction of infants reveal that a baby does have a fully formed apprehension of the laws of motion and gravity)

 

Another gross misrepresentation of the facts - a well known habit for you.

And this is a classic example of Behan saying nothing

Kevin Behan

I feel it apprehends the world in terms of biofeedback system,

The only other way we can can have sensory experiences is by direct electrical stimulation to the brain or hallucegenics