Last week I wrote about that ever-so-controversial word, "dominance," and how it might or might not relate to dog behavior and dog training. To refresh: In animal behavior, dominance refers only to "priority access to a limited resource," has little to do with controlling the actions of another in any other context, is highly dependent on context and the distribution of resources and is maintained by species-specific displays that act to avoid conflict rather than create it. In decades past, it was assumed that classic dominance hierarchies existed in domestic dogs. After all, drop a pork chop between two hungry dogs and in short order, one of them is going to get it more often than not. Dogs greet one other in classic "dominance/submission" displays of ears up/tail up versus ears Read More
Lambapalooza!
I'll continue on in the next weeks talking about the D word (next week intra-specifically (between dogs) and the week after inter-specifically (between dogs and people), but I thought an intermission celebrating spring and Easter would be nice. Besides, you all deserve reinforcement for such considerate and thoughtful comments (which have been fascinating by the way, thank you so much.) Three ewes have lambed so far, and I have 5 to go. Lady Godiva & Spot had twins and Rosebud, what a woman, had triplets. All are doing well. Spot's lambs had bellies so full of milk just an hour after their birth that they felt like they had bricks in their tummies. Nothing better than quiet lambs with warm mouths and full bellies (or worse than bawling lambs with cold mouths and empty ones.) I only Read More
The Concept Formerly Described as “Dominance”
Ah, here I go into the fray. Picture my loins girded. In some ways I'd love to avoid this topic altogether, because as most of you know, conversations about "the D word" can sometimes turn into arguments that make the American health care debate seem like a day at the spa. (I was going to say "like a tea party," but then . . . ) But I think the issue is important, and deserves consideration. So EEEEE HAH! here we go. This post will only be a beginning, because the topic of "dominance" and social relationships is actually a big one, and I'd like to facilitate a thoughtful, meaningful discussion about it in dogs. As you all know, some people think that just about all of our problems with dogs relate to "dominance" and advise owners to "be the alpha dog." At the other end of the spectrum, Read More
Starting from the Beginning
I'm just back from participating in grant reviews for NIH (Nat'l Institute of Health), and what a process it was. 36 people, from all over the country and a vast range of fields, were charged with reviewing a large number of grant proposals for scientific merit. The proposals were administered through the Nat'l Institute of Child Health and Development and related to Human/Animal Interactions. I can't tell you anymore about the grants themselves, or they'll shoot out my kneecaps. Well, probably not, but the absolute hardest part of the process is that we all pledged to keep virtually any information about the proposals themselves completely confidential. That means never, ever talking about them to anyone, ever, outside of our two days of meetings in Washington, D.C. As the Scientific Read More
How Much is Enough?
Some of the recent posts have brought up the question that many of us live with on a daily basis: how much training and attention do our dogs need every day? I get asked this a lot, and as I wrote in my essay in Tales of Two Species, I suspect that there's another fundamental question driving it (she says, speaking from experience). How much exercise, training and attention do our dogs need for us not to feel guilty? Fess up, don't you sometimes wonder if you are doing enough for your dog, and don't you sometimes feel guilty about not doing as much as you should? I am sure that many of the people reading this blog will say no, they don't feel guilty, and for good reason. I know that many of you take your dog out to classes several nights a week, take long walks in the country with Read More