The Beast Without

Dominance: Empathy, Cooperation, Fairness and Reciprocity in Animals?

Mike — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 23:07:04 +0000

Click here to view the embedded video.

In this recent TED talk, top primatologist Frans de Waal discusses his early years and the disquiet he felt at the prevailing obsession with aggression and dominance in defining primate social behaviour. Social interactions within many species, but particularly primates, is in reality a complex mosiac of different dynamics, most of which have nothing to do with competitiveness and dominance. Perhaps this provides some evolutionary signposts as to the origin of moral behaviour in humans?

Dominance: Top Dogs Pull Rank

Mike — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 22:15:40 +0000

“In fact, the rigid hierarchical organization researchers have ascribed to nearly all animal packs and troops over the past fifty years is based less on animal behavior than on an unconscious desire to find in nature a correlative to our hierarchical structures, be they business, the military, or the ‘traditional’ family with Dad on top.”

The Weird Reality of Cat’s Tongues

Mike — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 22:20:28 +0000

This month has been a difficult one for me, and it’s meant that I haven’t been able to publish my usual two posts. But rather than not publishing anything this month, I thought I’d provide a short but hopefully interesting post about the remarkable structure and behaviour of the domestic cat’s tongue – this is a must for all cat lovers who haven’t spent too much time reading up on their physiology, or anyone who’s ever wondered why cat’s licks can feel so rough on human skin.

Other-blaming and collateral damage

Mike — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 22:37:50 +0000

This 29^th Feb posting will be limited to a brief statement regarding a very disconcerting recent development in the local ‘Dog Whisperer’ story. So it relates to the previous series, and unfortunately breaks my resolve to avoid any direct and personal commentary on either the details surrounding these incidents, or about the individual at the centre of them. However this does demand some response from someone in the business.

Local Dog Whisperer: Rehabilitation isn’t ‘cure’ – Part 3

Mike — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 16:37:52 +0000

In the final post in this series (delayed I know), I’ll offer some thoughts on just one or two of the issues that most concern me about how some trainers and behaviour professionals approach “aggression” cases in dogs. This I’ll contrast with more established and informed methods of B-Mod (behaviour modification), as well as some of the advantages of more recent advances, incorporating an assessment of emotion and mood and its relationship to behaviour. I do this for a simple reason – since I first started working in this field I have been consistently alarmed at just how many ‘trainers’, ‘consultants’ and ‘behaviourists’ continue to ply a very lucrative trade based on claims of knowledge and expertise, or near-miraculous instinctive skills, they appear not to possess.

Instead, what I encountered over and over again in consultations were clients that had been sold a garbled rehash of obsolete ‘show-the-dog-who’s-boss’ techniques or else some collection of fable and fabricated wisdom that the seller didn’t seem to really understand. Time and time again vets would refer clients to me who had been through at least one previous attempt at professional behaviour-change, sometimes many more, which had had no effect whatever, or oftentimes had become much more unpredictable and dangerous instead.

Local Dog Whisperer: Whispering Sweet Nothings – Part 2

Mike — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 21:05:58 +0000

‘Dog Whispering’ is largely a media contrivance. It alludes to the “Whisperer” moniker made famous by Monty Roberts in his work with horses, and directly appropriates the title of Paul Owens’ 1999 book “The Dog Whisperer” – a very different kettle of fish entirely, promoting as it did an entirely positive reinforcement approach to training dogs.

Local ‘Dog Whisperer’s’ dogs bite.. again: The Incidents – Part I

Mike — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 21:32:42 +0000

Accidents do happen.. or so they say. And I guess it’s true (rhetorically, in any case), that any dog can bite under some specific set of circumstances. But when the dog that bites is owned and supposedly under the control of a controversial and opinionated young ‘dog rehabilitator/shaman/psychologist/whisperer’ with no recognizable roots in the local dog world, and no apparent industry-specific qualifications in a field already compromised by its lack of official regulation, it quickly becomes controversial.. and newsworthy. And when this sort of thing has happened twice to the same self-promoting individual, in different places and at different times, with each event posing serious questions about the human judgment in play, it just screams out for an investigation into the circumstances that led to this, and of the bona-fides of the individual implicated.

One year ends, another begins..

Mike — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 13:31:28 +0000

It’s New Year’s Eve and I’m looking back on a tumultuous year, and beginning to contemplate the onset of another. Still mid-summertime, the summer holidays linger lazily onward and everyone around me is in a characteristically relaxed and post-festive torpor. And yet life goes on with its infuriating and disdainful disregard. In retrospect, 2011 was a difficult year for many people all over the world, both financially and in so many other ways, and all realistic indications suggest that 2012 is unlikely to be a great deal easier. And of course difficult times for people usually implies a tougher time for animals; especially those that share our homes, communities and resources.

The flipside of holidays

Mike — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 09:16:17 +0000

The holiday season is upon us once again and spirits soar as we contemplate this annual break from drudgery, commitments and work. A departure from the mundanity of everyday rituals is suddenly on offer, as is the possibility of spending more quality time with friends and family.

Read more on The flipside of holidays…

Videos: Recent scientific research about dogs.. and us.

Mike — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 15:51:11 +0000

Despite their unparallelled popularity amongst humans, until the end of last century there had been very little dedicated scientific inquiry into the domestic dog. Not into its behaviour, the beguiling history of its domestication or even that ubiquitous bond they seem to have forged with our species.