So I watched a scary movie, and while the soundtrack swelled and the people around me screamed and jumped in their seats and my heart pounded, I was thinking about behavior. There’s a good chance I need professional help. (But in the meantime, I have blog posts.)
Yes, a room full of people watching a horror film can be a great example of an important behavioral concept. Let’s talk about the third of the Four F’s.
Body language is really important. When dealing with species that don’t use English, it’s really, really important.
Trainers who work with a lot of fearful, aggressive, or fear-aggressive dogs soon learn not only to read dogs’ body language, but to communicate effectively with their own. I often enter a home containing a dog who isn’t really sure he wants me there, and my first priority is to convince him that I mean no harm.
There are three ways to do this, and two of them are dangerous.
Remember a little film called Jurassic Park? It was recently re-released in 3D. I had forgotten that it first came out 20 years ago; it’s fun to re-watch it with my older, behavior-savvy eyes.
I went to the theater with Alena (also blogging regularly here), and as it was a late-night showing and we were the only patrons in the theater, we could indulge in a little chat as we watched.
Last time I shared examples of an extremely aversive experience poisoning what had once been a pleasant, rewarding behavior. So when something outside of your control goes wrong, how likely is it to destroy the behavior you’ve trained?
Last post I wrote about a classical association between a song and a happy experience. Today I’ll share the flip side – a song that makes my skin crawl, through no fault of its own.
Have you ever heard a particular piece of music, or smelled a certain scent, and had a powerful emotional response that you couldn’t quite explain? Well, it happens to everyone – even your pets – and it’s how your brain is hard-wired.
Longtime readers may remember that Laev is a weeeee bit predatory, and I have an annual springtime mission to keep her from killing my snakes as they come out of hibernation. I even wrote about one year’s “Snake Kit” and how I was handling her.
Well, a few minutes ago I was at the computer when I heard the telltale bark from outside. Laev had found and cornered a snake, the first of the year (our spring has been rather inhospitable thus far). I jumped from my chair, snatched the french fries left over from my Elevation Burger lunch — I knew I’d moderated myself for a reason — and ran out the front door.
A couple of years ago I posted a video of training in preparation for a visit to the vet, in which I taught Valenzia to hop on and off of a platform simulating an exam table. As you can observe in that video, she’s in a pretty happy zone while she’s learning the “paws up” and “off” cues.
Remember a few years ago when the “interview with a 5-year-old” meme was running about social media? People asked their little kids questions about their mothers.
Well, I don’t have kids, so I obliged with an interview with Laevatein. And after totally forgetting it, I just stumbled across it again, so here it is.
Funnily enough, dogs don’t speak English.
This is probably not news to most people, but there are a lot of things about language that dogs don’t understand.