Investigations of a Dog: Franz Kafka
If a dog were to speak – this is how I imagine them to sound:
“Wet everything as well as you can. And doesn’t that indeed say pretty much everything?……this rule will endure pretty much as long as dogs are dogs”
Kafka nails it with this short but sweet tale from a dog.
“For what is there apart from dogs? To whom else can one appeal in an otherwise empty world? All science, the totality of all questions and answers, lives with us dogs.”
From a dog’s point of view, this is true. There is nothing more, there are no questions that cannot be answered and no answers that require more questions.
“a kindly hearing, friendly touches, respectful snuffling, intimate embraces, my and thy howls commingle – everything tends to make you feel oblivion in delight”
Oblivion in delight? What a feeling! And I challenge anyone that has tickled a dog’s belly or ears or whatever their fancy to deny that feeling in the dog and sometimes in the tickler too!
Franz Kafka’s little book is small but mighty. Somehow, the idea that a dog has written it is powerful and the dog author is utterly believable.
I would strongly recommend any dog lover to enjoy Kafka’s portrayal of how an older and experienced dog feels about his life as he enters his senior years. Pay attention to the “air dogs” – as relevant today as in 1922.
Enjoy this read.
When Pigs Fly! Training Success With Impossible Dogs: Jane Killion
For Jane Killion, the ‘impossible’ dog is of course the dog closest to her heart – the bull terrier. BUT, this dog training book has something for every dog. Even the ‘possible to train’ ones. In her words:
“Your dog, no matter what his breed or type, loves to learn, and that is what this book is all about.”
She does make the distinction between the ‘biddable’ dog (that is, the ones selectively breed to work closely with humans, such as the gundog or sheepdog) and the ‘not so biddable’ dog (the ones that need to think on their own to outsmart and kill vermin, like…..well, terriers).
This book throughout is recognisable. I know the dog she means, he’s determined and eager and too easily distracted. He is intent and will not be easily swayed from what he considers his job (no matter how inappropriate it may seem to us). He is though completely trainable with the right methods and Jane Killion gives us these methods.
Yes, the usual hoops are jumped through, shaping, reinforcers, playing and so on. However, they are jumped through in relation to our less biddable dogs. What makes them tick? How can they be motivated to work with their human rather than go solo? Can they do what their biddable counterparts find easy? A formidable yes in the answer! You just need a different hoop to jump through. The hoop is still positive. The hoop is still something the dog wants to do, no, chooses to do.
“If we can train wild killer whales without coercion, we can train dogs without coercion.”
It’s a no-brainer really. From training an operant dog to piggy pointers to cheese ball recall, this book is stacked with ‘out of the box’ thinking for training success with ‘pigs fly’ dogs. and , of course, works well into training plans for all dogs. I am disappointed I missed this book until recently. I think I would call it a fundamental go-to for training dogs. No matter how much you know, how much you’ve trained or how many dogs you’ve had, ‘Pigs Fly’ will give you more.
Bones Would Rain from the Sky: Suzanne Clothier
Written over 20 years ago, this book is like a breath of fresh air. Suzanne Clothier stubbornly challenges the reader to look at dogs (indeed animals) in a different light. There is nothing revelatory here about how to train, no new method that works better than others. No, here in these pages is emotion, communication and understanding. In fact, it is from these places that training begins. Suzanne Clothier wouldn’t even call it training, she would say working with, responding to and having empathy for your dog. Within a relationship built on these things comes training and a bucket load of respect.
Coming from a training ideology where it’s about connecting dots, lure and reward, capture the behaviour, positive reinforcement. All these mechanical representations, it is easy to forget the importance of play, emotion and the canine – human bond. This book is a reminder. She writes:
“Pulling on the lead is, for me, a fundamental issue that both reflects on and affects the dog/human relationship on many levels……I do not know anyone that enjoys being pulled around by a dog. While dogs do pull, I doubt that they find the experience enjoyable……..
It takes two to tango and it takes two to pull….”
Of course it does. This book makes sure we are attentive to the part we play in our dog’s behaviour. It calls into focus our relationship with our dog and reminds us that it is a relationship. And, if that relationship is good, we communicate well, we understand each other and fundamentally, we trust each other.
The book is written using wonderful examples from Susanne’s direct experience with a fabulous array of animals. She is humble, she knows she is always learning and may get it wrong sometimes (one of her pigs bears witness to this). But, she has a quiet patience that gently hammers through puzzles and finds a solution that works and respects the animal she is with on the journey.
Bones would Rain From the Sky, I think, is a must read for any dog owner. It is fun, enjoyable and innovative. Even now 20 years on it has a lot to say. Enjoy.
Dominance in Dogs: Fact or Fiction? Barry Eaton
This tiny book packs a mighty punch. A necessary punch. People are still talking about rank reduction programmes and alpha males. Trainers are still talking about rank reduction programmes and alpha males! Despite the fact that countless experts have debunked this kind of thinking, it is still out there and our dogs are still subjected to it.
Barry Eaton’s book challenges the thinking, using real-life examples and scientific literature. It is easy to read and understand, and he poses questions that are unsettling enough to challenge the idea of a strict dominance hierarchy in our relationship with our dogs.
We know the domestic dog and wolf share a common ancestor and we know they share a very similar behavioural repertoire. We know they can interbreed and we know they are highly social. But there are a couple of things that are less clear. For instance, rank reduction in wolves is virtually non-existent. Dominance in the wolf pack is only a social strategy used to dictate who gets the biggest piece of the pie, so to speak. And, if the pie is within snapping distance of the wolf closest to it, he wins. It has nothing to do with where he sits in a dominance hierarchy or whether he or she is an ‘alpha’.
In fact, the kind of thinking that led to canine hierarchies happened as a result of the study of captive non-related wolf packs. Completely artificial packs. Completely artificial surroundings. Completely artificial assumptions about wolf pack behaviour. The scientist that got it wrong is happy to acknowledge it and is still currently working to disseminate the correct knowledge from wild wolf packs. Barry Eaton’s book covers this.
The subsequent damage from rank reduction programmes and linear hierarchies to the domestic dog has been disruptive at best and distressing at worst. Many dogs have been punished, scruffed, alpha rolled and sometimes worse. Many dogs have bitten in protection and lost their lives as a result. All of this based on inaccurate evidence!
Barry Eaton does a better job than I can explaining how ridiculous these measures are and I would urge anyone involved with dogs at any level to have a peek.
Hunting Together: Harnessing Predatory Chasing in Family Dogs through Motivation-Based Training: Simone Mueller
I love Hunting Together. This book brings our dog back to his canine predator heritage and helps us understand why that is important. Buried deep in our dog’s genetic make up is a hunter, a scavenger, an opportunist. Indeed, a killer. Most (if not all) dogs will track a moving object. It is hardwired. Some will go further and chase the moving object. Fine if it is a ball and a controlled retrieve. Less so if it is a squirrel across a busy road.
Some will even catch, kill and dissect said moving object. Rarely a desirable trait and often problematic. This is at the nub of Simone Mueller’s book. She acknowledges that predatory behaviour feels good for the dog and she gives excellent predatory motor pattern pictorial representations. It is underlined how the dog feels when on a chase, how acetylcholine lowers the dog’s pain perception when in predatory mode and how the catch, kill and consume release endorphins that naturally calm the dog from predator to social companion when the hunt is over. Altogether a heady mix.
Included in the pages of this book are solutions for people who own dogs that regularly and at times dangerously engage in such predatory chases. The book contains management strategies that allow the dog to still get the rush of displaying predatory motor patterns but without the bloodshed. A practised chaser is going to take time to rehabilitate and redirect but with the right tools and training it is possible. Even for those that only stalk or sometimes chase or might ground sniff – the book has something for them.
The Domestic Dog: Its Evolution, Behavior and Interactions with People: Edited By James Serpell
Every question we have about our dog is answered somewhere within this collection of work. The book is divided into four parts. The first one, Origins and Evolution, covers archaeological evidence and genetic insights to build a case for the process of domestication. Behavior, Cognition and Training follows with the thinking dog, social behaviour, the training process and takes a look at breed differences. Part three, Dog-Human Interactions investigates where we fit in, how we fit in and touches on why we fit in. The final part and for me the most interesting Life on the Margins has contributions from scientists that have studied the feral dog population around the world.
This is a scientific book, there is no doubt. But it is accessible and divided in such a way that you only have to read the part of it that is of interest. I’ve had the book for many years and still have more of it to read. It’s the kind of book that grows with your thinking. You read a study within it that sparks an interest in another dog-related subject that will also be in there. It will take you done some rabbit holes and you may travel along paths you didn’t even know existed. But what else is a good book for?
The Dog's Mind: Bruce Fogle
First published in 1990, Bruce Fogle investigates the complexities of the dog’s mind. Particularly, as he emphasises in the introduction, it is the dog’s mind that is under scrutiny rather than the dog’s behaviour or the dog’s brain. An important distinction. Important because suggesting the dog has a mind implies a ‘thinking’ animal. The book fully explores this and provides convincing evidence that suggest thinking to be a reality.
The book is divided into two sections. The first deals with the effects of genetics, physiology and biology on the mind. The second the effects of learned and instinctive behaviour on the mind. The content is fairly scientific, however the information it provides on the dog’s sensory world and how dogs learn and perceive the world is insightful.
This book is equipped to answer seemingly unanswerable dog training questions simply by allowing the reader to take into consideration areas they would never have thought of before. For anyone seriously interested in training dogs and studying behaviour this book is a must.
Don't Shoot The Dog: Karen Pryor
An oldie but a goodie! This book is a classic. I remember having my mind blown the first time I read it and really, I have never stopped using it, referring to it, nor have I returned to my older (outdated) training methods since. As Karen Pryor freely admits this book was written for dolphin and orca trainers, she never thought it would touch the dog training world in the way that it has. But it has and as a result sits neatly on the dog trainer’s shelf worldwide and it is completely applicable.
Karen Pryor introduces the topics of reinforcement schedules, shaping, clicker training, stimulus control, among others. She makes these complex topics simple. Her writing style is concise and interesting and it makes you feel like you can do what she explains easily. And, actually you can. Once you wrap your head around the logic behind the training style, you train, and it works. And what’s more, your dog enjoys it, you enjoy it and you do it more. It’s like a bug.
It is fair to say that Don’t Shoot The Dog is extremely likely to stop you shooting the dog. In fact, it will stay your hand from using any kind of punitive or aversive training methods – there is simply no need. My takeaway from reading this book is the knowledge that wild orcas are trained without coercion. It is impossible for me now to look at any training method that uses coercion to train a domestic dog. An animal that lives in our homes, bonds to us and we have a relationship with. Karen Pryor’s book is like opening Pandora’s box. It contains the tools to enhance our human-dog relationship and fundamentally have some fun with our dogs.
Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century: Lauren Slater
Opening Skinner’s Box is only going to release rats, isn’t it? No so. Lauren Slater takes us on a journey that releases more than rats. We have monkeys. We have the odd pigeon. We have a dog here and there and yes, there are rats. This book takes the reader through some of the most infamous psychological experiments ever undertaken. Notorious they are.
The relevance of this trip down psychology’s memory lane is that this book reminds us of how much we have learnt about the brain and how much we have learned about ethics. Some of the experiments would never get past an ethical committee these days and rightly so. The themes though….and the challenges the results produced have stood the test of time.
Lauren Slater is concerned with the concept of free will and uses these experiments to poke at the question of whether we (or the animal kingdom) are capable of exercising free will. Is what we do determined, not necessarily by any higher power, but more by the constraints our biological, psychological, cultural and social life places on us. We cannot do what our biology dictates impossible (become a tiger for example). We have no choice. Although we can manage, learn and thrive in adult life we cannot change our primary attachment style. We had no choice.
Even changing cultural or societal norms to reflect our individual preferences is almost impossible. If our culture dictates that we marry one spouse at a time, then that is what we do. It would be a lengthy court battle, possible change of religion and different mindset required to shake this up. How about we live in a tribal society where cannibalism is a viable means of conflict resolution and we want to move to a society where this is illegal. We have no choice. We must conform.
I love how this book knocks at the door of free will, opens the window to predetermined conscious thought and allows memory to run riot in the back garden. Our perception of ourselves, our understanding of situations, our recall of past events are all thrown under the bus. Unsettling as it is at times, it is also vibrant with the idea of regeneration and connectedness.
Behavior Adjustment Training 2.0: New Practical Techniques For Fear, Frustration, and Aggression: Grisha Stewart
Behaviour Adjustment Training (BAT) 2.0 is the go-to book for dogs experiencing stress, frustration, aggression and/or sensitivity in the presence of other dogs. This is the new and improved re-write of the original version and includes additional tips and tricks to further training as well as providing a more comprehensive training plan for dogs. Key to Grisha Stewart’s method is control. Her ethos is to give dogs the ability to make choices in situations where they feel threatened and hence gain control over their environment.
This book takes the reader on a step by step journey to a reduction in reactivity for our dogs. The journey takes time and involves work and Grisha Stewart is quick to reveal that there are no ‘quick fixes’. There is pay off in the end but the path toward there is paved with training. For anyone that owns, cares for and walks a difficult to focus and quick to react canine companion, this is the book for you. Not only does it offer understanding to both dog and owner, it has solutions.
Dogwise The Natural Way to Train Your Dog: John Fisher
If you’re in the dark about John Fisher*, Dogwise provides the perfect introduction. He has been fundamental in changing the way dogs are trained and in providing practical methods that make training using positive reinforcement methods easy. Yes, easy.
Dogwise is John Fisher’s second book and it is an experiment. He takes a 10-month-old German Shepherd Dog, Major and his handler, Robert Cox and trains both to the home office police dog standard. All training is reward based, non-punitive and contrary to the guidelines laid down by the Home Office Manual for training dogs at that time.~ Each and every training cue is explained in detail from beginning to end. It is probably unnecessary for a dog owner to train to their dog to the level described in this book, but they could. Importantly though all the basics are covered with useful titbits and insights.
This is an inspirational book, full of fun, easily read and beautifully written. There are photographs throughout to highlight points and emphasise canine body language. The methods are practical and the book encourages ‘hands on’ training. If they could I think every dog would proudly carry their own copy of Dogwise. Additionally, even if the reader takes nothing else from the book, they will come away with a deep affection for a dog called Major that they’ve never even met!
*Founder member Association of Pet Dog Trainers (APDT)
~ The Home Office Manual guidelines may have changed since time of book publication in 1996
