The Dog's Mind

A psychological insight between owner and dog

On a quiet evening as you relax by the fire (or is it a radiator these days?) your dog asleep nearby, we often wonder and try to imagine what our dog thinks, why they do the things they do and quizzically ask ourselves what our dogs think of us. We think like this because of our psychological make up – so what does a dog think?
What tempted me to write on this subject was the amount of behavioural problems that beset so many owners. They bring their dogs to my practice in their hundreds each year and, as part of my work, I explain to owners what makes their particular dog tick – this is the Dogs Mind insight part of any consultation.
If you exclude the toy breeds, then it is only in recently history that dogs have been invited inside our homes. Up until then the general population was not affluent enough to consider keeping dogs unless they had some practical work purpose. That has now changed and bringing in all breeds into our home by default also invites the breed behavioural drives – like herding sheep, guarding, scenting and trailing or trying to kill every imaginary rat that moves – I reserve that for the terriers which sometimes cause conflict with their human counterparts.
Our belief system
How we perceive a dog's behaviour and mind is paramount to the quality of our relationship with it; this is what I wish to explore. I realise that dog-owner relationships can be very mixed up, resulting in canine behaviour like aggression which leaves owners perplexed as to how the situation came about. If I was to select the most common single reason why the relationships between dogs and owners break down, it would be CONFUSION. By this I mean the owner's belief system as to why dogs behave the way they do. If the owner has a belief system concerning his dog and how to control it which lacks understanding of the dog's actual instincts and capabilities then the chance of trouble lying ahead is high.
Little Humans
I accept that it is difficult not to see our dogs as little humans; they often seem to understand our lives and problems, and to provide comfort when needed. It's all too easy to imagine that they feel in the same way as we do and that they think and reason just like us. I too sometimes talk to my dogs, explaining my feelings or delivering a diatribe to him about the day's difficulties. They listen, look at me and wag their tails as if in understanding. In fact they are reactions to my body language and direct attention to them. From the dogs view something exciting may happen other than me babbling about the traffic queues today. Many of us do this and it can be beneficially therapeutic. The problem is when we stop viewing it merely as a form of release and start to believe that our dog really understands what we're saying. When owners cannot discern their dog's real limits of reasoning then they can become frustrated or feel let down by their furry friend when their dog in other circumstances appears to be difficult.
Who's Boss, leader,Alfa, in charge......
Dogs naturally as a pack animal look for leadership and if none is apparent then they will lead and certainly in circumstances that please them, again its simply what dogs do and if that means pulling on the lead at every lamp post with the owner being dragged behind they will continue until such time as we become leader and trainer.
All this reasoning you and I do is normal; normal for humans. However, it's equally normal for your dog not to understand any of your feelings because he doesn't relate to situations as humans do. He simply follows his instinctive behaviour within the environment he finds himself in. It's nothing personal; your dog is just being a dog. If you are still not convinced then the next time your dog behaves in a very bad way threaten him in good English with the dogs home; if he can reason his behaviour should improve dramatically - though I would be very surprised. And just because your dog can look guilty near the scene of a canine crime don't be fooled. This is what I describe as “ anticipatory fear” not guilt, though most owners are still convinced of the former.
Confusion
So back to the word, confusion. We often feel that our dog should or does understand; our expectations of human-like behaviour from our dog then produce difficulties. I'm not saying that dogs don't have feelings or that they can't see when someone's angry. All dogs can sense changes in our behavioural mood and when they detect we're angry they either try to be deferential or leave the immediate vicinity of the leaders anger. Whichever the dog's reaction it's as a result of our behaviour - it's not reasoned out for optimum effect. Though I must add that I do believe dogs can reason, in a very limited way, but not to the extent that we could use it effectively in our relationships.
How Dogs Learn
Dogs learn by association: that's why they react to the sound of the lead being rattled, the car keys, and the tin opener at meal times. They don't, however, relate back or forwards in time to behaviour in the way we do. A dog that has chewed your best shoes ten minutes ago won't understand if you show him the shoes and then rant on. Dogs' minds simply don't function that way. If you catch your dog while he's chewing he may associate your displeasure with the act of chewing he may equally associate chewing shoes as being wrong only if it's done in front of you; after all, if he chews when you're not around he isn't reprimanded alternative he may feel you want his possession the shoes so you can have a good chew. The dog decides what he has learnt from the incident no matter what we might want or presume. That's why most effective training methods work by teaching dogs what we wish them to learn as opposed to waiting for them to develop bad habits.
Instinctive Drive
A dog's behaviour is basically governed by instinctive drives. These inherited modes of behaviour regulate how a dog will inter-relate with humans and other dogs. Usually it doesn't take dogs and owners long to come to an amicable arrangement for a peaceful co-existence. But this process is ongoing. It's up to us - as the supposedly more intelligent species - to try to understand our dog's mind: how it functions and what we can do to accommodate its natural needs and produce a relationship which is smooth and mutually enjoyable.
Whatever you do, don't stop talking to your dog. They love it and we love it, but do bear in mind - we are different.

Off to a fine start

Colin Tennant and Ross McCarthy got the new Cambridge Institute of Dog Behaviour & Training off to a fine start in Tring, Hertfordshire on 14 April. Students were provided with a full weekend of advice and guidance from experts and professional in this field and were able to preview the excellent extracts from unique film footage of Colin Tennant advising clients and dealing with a range of canine behaviour that was causing distress for them.

This site will feature links and information about the new degree programme and where to obtain support material as well as details of other courses being provided by the Canine & Feline Behaviour Asociation and CIDBT.

The old posts concern just the editing of the main site and will disappear shortly!

Important editing guidance notes

There are two important editing problems:

Unwanted 'classes'

Lots of unintended 'class' codes are appearing in the code for many pages. This affects the way text appears in some browsers and can cause problems. It seems to come from editing via Dreamweaver8 which tries to be helpful by watching how text is formatted, storing that format as, say, 'class1' and then, when another bit if text is edited, offering 'class1' to the user. Now this probably looks OK and may even seem helpful but it isn't as different types of internet browser will give different priority to which formatting instruction is obeyed. The use of these 'classes' would be fine if we had one set for the whole site, which is a good idea one day but not very quick to do now! As it is each page has odd 'classes' of its own which is not good.

So, when entering any text, or editing any existing text, it is very important to watch what the text proerties window says. Choose 'none' for the box that may say 'paragraph' or something. In any box that says 'class1' 'class2' or whatever, change that to none. The required font, size and colour need to be entered and not left to either default of class-allocated. If this continues to be a problem it may be better to return to Dreamweaver MX for site management, which is simpler.

The only 'classes' that should be used are 'one', 'two' 'three' etc which I have designed for links. If a new type is required I'll create it.

Overwriting recent changes with older files

There have been many instances of files that I have updated or corrected being changed back to their original state (maybe with new entries or text). This is happening because the file being uploaded must be being based on a local, unedited copy and not the on-line, remote or server copy. Where more than one person edits a page it is absolutely vital that the remote file is the one edited. To ensure this, download (or get) the file from the remote view and overwrite your local copy. Then edit that copy and save it. That will save it to your local folder and it then needs to be uploaded.

As a check, I am now including updated on (date and time) at the foot of every page as I edit them. I shall also add this line to all the other pages eventually. This should make it easy to compare the date on the copy you are editing to that displayed on the site. If the file you are about to edit has the wrong date then it is the wrong one!

CIDBT update

cidbt-tutors
Removed all the 'classes' that had been included in the code and which made some paragraphs appear very small in some browsers. All text now consistent.

Added apostrophes as appropriate to link bars and restored Jo Clarricoates' yet again!!

cidbt-news1
Added missing link to news for the Plain English link
Adjusted telephone number font, removed 'class' code and changed link to site.

level23
Changed bare back to bear again - must be for the third time!
Corrected some alignment problems
Removed all unwanted 'class' code

CIDBT fixes

Index
page includes a sitemeter bottom left of screen.

cidbt-hotels
new page added

cidbt-news
link to courses changed

cidbt-tutors
heading left aligned
intro text put in a table to match indent with lower items
various typos corrected
link to courses corrected
consistent display of qualification letters

cidbt-courseinfo
heading left aligned
big empty space removed at foot of page
link to courses corrected

nowork
courses link corrected

cidbt-inst
accommodation correctly spelt
accreditation correctly spelt (this is the second time I've done this!)
hotel link to new page (referred to above)

level2-3
bare changed to bear !!! (I would love to have left this as it was much more fun before!!)
courses link corrected

cidbt-thankyou
courses link corrected

On various pages the footer had Institute for which I've changed to of but there are probably many more, as I haven't touched the course detail pages, which also may have the incorrect courses link too.

That's all I can manage for now.

CIDBT fixes needed

Title includes 'for' instead of 'of' on several pages linked from Institute page (ie Career . . , Benefits . . , What people to say.

may be others.
Many fixed 19/2 still need to check many course pages

Front page also has old banner which I've advised by e-mail today.
Fixed 15/2

CIDBT error report (February 2007)

Green items now OK
throughout site
all page titles should be amended to display Institute name not WWW etc
index
- link to video should be clearer

institute
- (links) Training
- (links) accreditation
tutors
- heading font shouldn't be bold and needs to be left-aligned
- 1st para should be set in same table as tutor details below
- Roger: Cats in line 2 should be cats
- Roger: query title of first book quoted, capitalisation incorrect and correct to Dogs' and Cat's
- Roger: all booktitles should have similar emphasis, suggest italic
- Roger: near the end : world's
- Derek: Expert in criminal law and the Dangerous Dogs Act
- Derek: 32 years'
- Derek: 25 years
- Derek: Derek successfully (delete has)
- Derek: Should Manchester and Chester dogs homes have capitals?
- Derek: BSc
- Derek: dog-related
- Colin: Canine & Feline
- Colin: Hypnotherapy
- Colin: change & to and in normal text other than titles
- Colin: pet film director, producer and broadcaster for video . .
- Colin: correct book title and add emphasis for all titles consistently, suggest italic, no quotes
- Colin: what is DP.?
- Charlie: been (not ben)
- Suzanne: BA(Hons)
- Suzanne: animals, particularly
- Suzanne: students' work placement
- Jo: Clarricoates (delete apostrophe)
- Jo: their clients' dogs
- Jo: hands-on
- Ross: British pet magazines and newspapers
- Ross: Dogs Monthly
- Paul: delete Herts. and wrong font
- AndrewT and Jenny: states info to be supplied before 7/2 - suggest 'coming soon'
Fonts used for detail from Charlie down are too small - need to remove several styles from page code
inst2 (why there's a need)
- missing picture
- Canine & Feline (title next to CFBA logo)
courseinfo
what's NCWBLP?? neds some explanation I think
nowork
- hands-on modules
- workshop
- Kennel
- "within 7 days" (prefer soon)
- Canine needs capital near CFBA logo
sponsors
- (heading) investing
- big space above picture
- very small font and mini links
- table of logos needs better positioning and borders removed