I am trying to keep my blog from sucking.
So I do two things:
I keep my blog topics diverse.
I don’t jump onto bandwagons.
And those two issues make it very hard for me to have a blog network the way that some bloggers have.
For example, I don’t buy into Cesar Millan.
I saw that show in the 1990s. That was Uncle Matty Margolis. Blah.
(And now I will be defamed in the comments for disparaging someone’s favorite dog training guru. LOL. You people need to get lives, think for yourselves,and not believe everything you see on TV. And don’t believe every word I say either. Please look up what I say. Please challenge me. I don’t have a monopoly on truth. No one does.)
I also don’t buy into Raymond Coppinger’s theory on dog domestication. I find it very simplistic.
But the ones who critique Millan often resort to using Coppinger’s theory, which posits that dogs are a unique species derived from some sort of degenerate scavenging canid that is not a wolf. If it’s not a wolf, then all that Millan says about pack hierarchy is wrong.
But dogs are wolves. Or rather they are as part of a very diverse species that has historically produced chihuahuas and giant wolves with bone crushing jaws. (That is what fascinates me more than anything about dogs and wolves–this great diversity in phenotype and behavior that can be found in just a single species.)
Wolves do not always form packs. They are also quite capable of learning different ways of relating toward each other and toward other species.
And not all relations between wolves and between dogs can be reduced to hierarchy.
Which is exactly what we’re getting with Cesar Millan.
I don’t buy into two major camps of the dog world.
Both groups are using what I think are empirically quite nebulous and scientifically dubious theories to position what a dog exactly is in our society and in the grand scheme.
I should mention that this is really what all of these fights come down to:
What is a dog?
Is it a degenerate, garbage eating canid that is related to the wolf?
Is it a Machiavellian animal that seeks to rule the world?
Or is it both something far more simple and something far more complex?
Nobody yet has answered that question about the dog’s identity.
I am trying very hard.
But it is like an onion. Each time a bit is peeled away, another layer is revealed.
Anyone who thinks he or she has all the answers about dogs is full of crap and should be avoided at all costs.
The truth is we’re dealing with a higher nonprimate mammal.
We’re also dealing with an animal that bonds very strongly to both people and its own species.
And in that way, it become entangled in the vagaries of our culture, our society, our economic and political systems, and our own views of ourselves.
It is almost impossible to look at dogs objectively.
Same goes with wolves.
Our connection to these animals is so deeply ingrained in our culture.
It may even be beyond culture.
It may be so deeply ingrained in our evolutionary past that we cannot help but relate to these animals in any way but culturally.
We cannot look objectively at them.
For example, I can easily defend lion hunting to promote revenue for conservation, but it is cognitively harder for me to do the same for wolves– even though the economic and ecological advantages would be the same.
I find that puzzling.
I don’t think I could in good conscience shoot a wolf or a coyote.
But biologically they can be culled without making them extinct.
And because I have to consider all of these things in order to write credible nonfiction, I am not about to jump onto any one theory about the dog.
I’ll keep my topics diverse. I know that some of my readers don’t want the wildlife or prehistoric animal posts. And others want more breed histories.
And others want more about dog domestication and behavior.
But I’m doing okay with keeping things diverse.
I keep my comment moderation fairly open.
This blog is about dialog.
But one should be skeptical of those who have grand unified theories about dogs and have not included any careful analysis about how dogs are distorted through our human lenses.
It is not just that people “spoil” dogs.
That is part of the equation.
But the other part is that we have decided that we must force our will over dogs, never let them be dogs, and never let the have off-leash exercise.
Spoiling dogs can make them neurotic.
But the denying them some liberties in life can’t be good for them.
I’m not being anthropomorphic here, but the dogs where I grew up were fairly well-behaved.
And they had plenty a lot of freedom to socialize and walk off-leash.
Humans love to be bosses. We are hierarchical.
Our egos revel in hierarchy.
Any half-assed theory that says we must have more power is going to be very popular with us.
It may not be the real world, but it sounds good to us.
Because of all of these reasons, we need to be careful what think about dogs.
We need to be skeptical of bandwagons and crap you see on TV.
Read books.
Talk to real experts (Hint: I’m not one.)
My goals on this blog are not to spoon-feed you bromides.
Think for yourself.
Think for your dog.
And try to give it the best life you can.
Don’t assume that because someone is on TV that they know what the hell they are talking about.
That’s a big problem in this country.
I don’t carry water for anyone. I defend those who talk sense, as near as I can tell.
So while I am trying to keep this blog from sucking, I’m not going to reduce myself to bandwagons.
It’s just not me.
And I do nuance. Dogs do nuance, too– but it’s less nuanced than ours would be.
Dogs will bend to fit us. And we’ll congratulate ourselves for their effort.
That’s the way it always has been.
That’s the real important thing about dogs.
They genuflect to our needs in so many ways, and we don’t really seem to marvel at that.
Maybe we should just do that.
Marvel.
And stop the BS.
Be skeptical.
You owe it to yourself and your dogs.
I was following along just fine, when I got to this: “…Coppinger’s theory, which posits that dogs are a unique species derived from some sort of degenerate scavenging canid that is not a wolf.”
“Degenerate”? I can think of a lot of other adjectives that could fit that situation, like opportunistic, omnivorous, sensible, flexible, adaptable, etc.
The assumption that scavenging behavior is degenerate just seems limited to me.
I find all the topics you blog about interesting, I rather like the diversity of subjects. =)
I saw this today and thought it strangely appropriate:
http://xkcd.com/803/
You should really blog about me more often, instead
of those coon ass stories you come up with. For
example, I was at the vet all night last night with
my jack russell maddie. Panting, wobbly, pissing all
over my mom, constantly up and down, based on
these symptons, what is the problem? and no, dad
didn’t kick her ass down the stairs.
Willie is a good example of a performance bred mongrel.
He’s a Jack Russell from very diverse lines– from South Africa and Germany.
Watch yo’ mouf, Willie, I don’t think you just said what you think you did…. ;-)
I’m very much a NON-fan of Cesar, and it doesn’t have much to do with Coppinger’s theory at all. My issues with him are myriad, but I’ll say it in the briefest way possible: I think he is abusive to dogs. And an idiot, but that’s not exclusive to dog training.
I am in the advanced stages of force fetching one of my dogs. It has been an amazing, frustrating, and actually emotional process.
Did you know FF was invented by shutzhund (sp) people, not retrievermen? I had no idea. I think a post by you someday on the history and current controversies surrounding this method would generate a lot of interest and really elevate the discussion from the current cruel vs. completely fun (and mandatory) debate we have now.
It was invented by pointing dog people.
I can’t remember if was in England or America.
Lots of setters wouldn’t pick up, so they pinched the instinct into them.
I didn’t invent that method. LOL!
If I had it my way, we’d just breed for it like they do in England.
No, all my sources are hard copy, so i dont have a link, but force fetch as we know it was established by protection dog people long before it became common for pointing dogs.
There is an old British text that refers to resorting to the “dreaded French method” that many people take to mean some sort of force fetch. But I think the ear pinch/toe hitch was definitely a protection dog thin first.
It’s nice to say just breed it in, but the technique is so effective, that it seems like nearly 100% of trial dog people are doing it to all dogs, just to have them bulletproof for that one day they decide to go rogue and quit.
Besides, do we really need another criteria to keep a good working dog’s genes out of the pool? How many characteristics can an HPR breeder select for at once?
I have mixed feelings about it. It was awful.
The best FF methods use lighter pressure. Those tend to last longer and actually do what they are required to do.
But they take a bit longer.
A lot of pro trainers use a hell month on the dogs and very soft dogs get burned out very fast.
I agree 100%. I started with teaching “hold” with treats only. Compulsion didn’t even enter the picture for months.
Anyone who has been to a training seminar by Connie Cleveland has probably seen how Connie teaches the “enforced retrieve”, and how well even the softest dogs respond. If she has a video on this, get it. Her books are good, too.
Yes, the dogs are conditioned to hold and carry an object before getting into the rest of it. It’s a logical progression.
This not a paid advertisement! I just like the way this lady understands dogs, and gets across to them. And yes, she’s the only person in this country that has owned and trained two dogs that each have championship titles in both field trials and obedience trials. One a Golden, one a Labrador.
I love the diversity in your blog. There’s always something different, and I’ve learned a ton of random stuff from it. I mean, if nothing else, you’ve got an entire pizza shop in Amanda, Ohio, singing “Christian Side Hug.”
>>>>I’m not being anthropomorphic here, but the dogs where I grew up were fairly well-behaved.
And they had plenty a lot of freedom to socialize and walk off-leash.>>>>>
I think most dog people objecting the off-leashing come from areas where they have a strict dog laws or / and lots of motor traffic. In that kinda environment it is very hard to find free space for some wolfy-time for one’s dog.
>>>Humans love to be bosses. We are hierarchical.
Our egos revel in hierarchy.
Any half-assed theory that says we must have more power is going to be very popular with us.
It may not be the real world, but it sounds good to us. >>>>>>>
Can’t buy we are more hierarchical than wolves or bees in any sense, or that most of the people in the world would buy that concept either.
Most of the us just survive and linger on in the existence and by the means we are given.
Don’t believe the “get the power in your hands” -methods sell more than more sofisticated deciplines. If they do, in USA, it just tells that many persons have lost their grip on life in the fast-changing, fragmenting world.