spiritdogs:
This was 15 years ago before Nicholas Dodman turned too many of our dogs into another part of Prozac Nation.
If a certain number of humans suffer from organic brain dysfunction, is it so unreasonable to suggest that a certain percentage of dogs do, too? Should we be treating bipolar disorder or schizophrenia with "pushing"???
Since I live in this area, and see many of the dogs that Dodman has treated, while I'm not prepared to say that they all needed medication, what I am prepared to say is that, without it, many of them would have lost their homes
I'm somewhat sympathetic with your viewpont, SD, but I can't say I share it completely.
Implicit in my comment, quoted above, was the awareness that sometimes there actually IS a medical condition that can't be resolved in any other way. But that only accounts for a very tiny percentage of dogs. And what was also implicit in my statement was the reality that if behavioral science techniques actually worked to resolve severe behavioral problems, most of the dogs you're talking about would've been cured without the NEED for drugs.
So in my view, instead of looking to drugs for all (or too many of) the answers a true scientist would look for flaws in the paradigm they're working under. I mean, isn't that the more sensible approach? If the laws of physics or chemistry only worked 15% of the time, they wouldn't be considered "laws" for very long, would they? So while on the one hand you have even someone like Jesus Rosales-Ruiz stating that desensitization doesn't solve behavioral problems, it's still considered a valid scientific approach. Why? Is he the only behaviorist with any sense?
And while in my view Nicholas Dodman couldn't solve a severe behavioral problem in dogs to save his life, at least not without using drugs (and generally speaking that's not the same thing as solving a problem, is it?), someone like Trish McConnell has a much better track record because she not only includes but strongly recommends teaching certain obedience behaviors as part of HER protocol. Same with Jean Donaldson (maybe more so because Donaldson has been talking a lot about the importance of fixed-action patterns and the predatory sequence lately). And as we all know by now... MOST OBEDIENCE BEHAVIORS ARE ANALOGUES OF THE PREDATORY MOTOR PATTERNS FOUND IN WOLVES. Which means that hey, maybe, just maybe, the prey drive is the real key to solving severe behavioral problems in dogs. What a concept!
This brings up another point, which Ron objected to after reading my website article on how all animals DON'T learn the same way: it seems to me that as soon as more and more behavioral scientists start to realize the importance of the prey drive (which Dodman has no clue about, McConnell doesn't seem to understand fully, but Jean Donaldson almost does), and the less they believe that there's no difference in treating a cat or a dog in the same basic way -- desensitization, etc. -- the better off ALL our dogs will be. If we stick to the notion that there's no difference between cats and dogs and fish, that they all learn the same way (which is a half-truth), we'll be stuck in the dark ages forever.
But hey, maybe that's just me.
Rant over, LCK signing off...
"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