It's Remarkable! Nothing's 'Gonna Change Your Dog's Love For You...Know This: He Und
I have a late breaking news flash!
Human beings are sentient!
Canines are sentient!
If you have not been living under a rock in the last five to ten years, and are interested in the canine-human bond you would have heard it on the TV, radio, print...in well-researched and vetted scientific journals: DOGS ARE SENTIENT BEINGS. Just as humans are sentient beings. Look it up SENTIENT.
What is sentience? It's an adjective. It's the having of the power of perception by the senses, it's having consciousness. Merriam-Websters defines it as this: being “able to feel, see, hear, smell or taste.” The full definition is “responsive to or conscious of sense impressions. AWARE. Finely sensitive in perception or feeling.” So if you are sentient you know who you are, what you are doing and also what others are doing with or to you. You are aware. Our dogs are aware. Our dogs love us. God knows why sometimes. The human-canine bond recently was pushed back to over 35,000 years! The fossil record proves it.
I know this is a different writing style than I normally write. Bear with me. I am concerned only about one questionable human being right now. It isn't you. If you have ever read me at all, it isn't you. Never you. We are folks that think along the same lines about important stuff. Love. Humanity. Our place and our bond with our 'younger brothers', our canines, and other mammals.
So what's got me so fired up? It's a concept that is as tired and old and out of vogue as the Model T car. Just like many disciplines, training dogs goes through a process of learning new things, disposing of out-dated theories of training and things we thought we knew, but have since been disproven by science. It's a good thing. It's called progress. Since Gregory Berns Phd, MD at Emory University came out with his landmark studies and books, about 2013, anyone who reads about the canine-human bond or that works with canines knows that canines are sentient. Over 2,500 studies prove it. Most ethical people in the business of training dogs are quite aware of all of this, and that the harsh abusive training methods of the past, of not trying to see things as our sentient canine brothers do is not correct.
In the 'olden days' people who called themselves trainers would force dogs to perform basic and complex obedience if the dog didn't immediately go along with it. They didn't try to figure out what the dog thought the trainer was asking them to do~ they shoved the training down the dog's throat so to speak. They used 'pinch' collars. Shock collars. Yanked them forcefully and yelled at them. This is not the way an ethical trainer works folks. They might eventually get a dog to perform tasks by rote...but they didn't 'train' them. They actually use the word “Dominate” when they discussed how to relate to a dog. To “dominate your dog or your dog will dominate you.”(that was an actual quote by one of these out of date 'trainers' yesterday on a thread here.) You can imagine my horror that someone was posting that people ought “NOT to be nice” to their dogs, to NOT form a relationship with them, to “DOMINATE your dog, or he will DOMINATE you.” They actually said that. Here. On this format. That is unacceptable.
Thaaats why I'm upset and typing this at 3am while my service dog worriedly watches over me and my hubby sleeps. My service dog who has been schooled with LOVE, hasn't ever had a harsh word hurled at him, or a harsh hand. He works because he LOVES me, and no other reason. Since I trust him with my very life, I want him to love me, not fear me. When bad things happen, I need to know my dog is there for me during a seizure. If he feared me, if he had been trained with force...dominated...he wouldn't be there for me.
The 'trainer' on the web thread right out and said that there should be no relationship with our dogs, that we should 'dominate' them. Shouldn't be 'nice' to our dogs! Stupidity that. Lack of education. Now I realize not everyone has the benefit of the fantastic education I've had. I've been blessed. So, yeah, I've gone out and done the grunt work, and below this article you will find the articles and people involved in this cutting edge research. I've included some very ponderous articles, as well as articles that most of us would be more accustomed to reading in the everyday media. The information about all of this has been out in the general public since at least 2013. The science started pointing to it very heavily around 2005. The articles I've cited will get you started, if you want to do your own research and not just take my word for it. Or God forbid, read those incorrect comments by a man who is under the misapprehension that he “knows” what he is doing.
If anyone ever tells another human being to be forceful, to dominate, to not have a relationship with another one of God's creatures....that person is incorrect. It's never right to use force to teach a dog or any other of the creatures on this earth. Human beings included in that. It's dangerous thinking.
Since the Bible instructs man to care for the other creatures on this planet, to be a good steward, it follows that to be forceful, to dominate or hurt one another or any other living creature is an abomination. There are many different translations of the Bible. I think folks get very literal with the King James Version....when in todays lingo we would use a more descriptive word for the complex thoughts an author many thousands of years ago was trying to express to us. King James does use the word “dominance” to refer to our relationship with other entities on this earth. Young's Literal Translation has a closer feel to what the author meant: “And God blesseth them, and God saith to them, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the heavens, and over every living thing that is creeping upon the earth.” God is a loving one, he was pleased by what he had made. He would never have man hurt and oppress his creation. We are to be loving stewards of the earth, the living things here, ourselves. We well know what happens when we goof that relationship up. I can think of several 'rulers' in the 20th century that decided to 'dominate'. Hitler. Mussolini. Stalin. How'd that work out for them? EH?
In times past trainers might cite back to the King James and other translations that would not use the word “rule” but instead the word “dominion”. In times past trainers would do the things described and espouse them to others as the right way to instruct a canine. But our God is a loving God. He was pleased with what he had made, why would he then make man last and make him dominate every living thing? If we are made in his image and the image is loving...well, dominion doesn't really make a lot of sense. We are stewards of the earth, and the living things here. It's a question obviously of semantics. Is not a good ruler a good steward of the lands and the living things within? We know better now. It's time to discard old dominance theories. To embrace training a canine as the loving process it should be.
So.
That's the bee in my bonnet. Someone on a thread called themselves a 'trainer' of dogs, and recommended that people NOT have a relationship with their dog. NOT be 'nice' to their dogs.
He recommended that people 'dominate' their dogs or the dog would dominate the person. Wrongheaded. Dangerous. Cruel. These are all words that immediately jumped into my mind as I read this man's words last night. I had to read them three times to actually absorb that this was what he believed. I pray that like many things on the internet, he isn't a “real” person that actually works with dogs. Because if he is that's scary. There's nothing I can do to change someone's mind that is that turned around. Perhaps if he reads the actual research, he will change his mind. And perhaps he will reach out and obtain the proper instruction if he really wants to work with animals and humans. Because his thinking is wrong. He isn't right.
Not about how to interact with people.
Or canines.
Harsh methods and dominance never ever work to teach anyone anything. Oh, you might make people do what you want, animals too. They aren't doing it because they love you, admire you, or have a relationship with you. In these ways canines are very much like humans. They reason, they care for their own, and for us...God knows why with people like the 'trainer' out there!
Anyhoo, I've said my piece. I am a recipient of a great gift that I can never repay. Nine years ago Canine Assistants GAVE my first service dog to me after two weeks of intensive training on their campus. Gave Jet to me. Jet was twenty-thousand dollars worth of dog, (priceless to me!)...'here 'ya go' and changed my life.
Forever.
Then Jet, he died. Of cancer. And Canine Assistants gave me ANOTHER dog. Another twenty-thousand dollar priceless dog. And had I not been able to feed him, or care for him with vet care, yes, they would have helped me with that as well. Because, out of all the agencies I could have stumbled upon...I stumbled upon Canine Assistants. They accepted me into their program. And changed my world for the better. Here I am today, I am alive today because of the gifts these folks gave me. That is love working amongst us. With every breath I take I am charged to pay this gift forward...
I am not in their employ. They don't remunerate me for saying these things. I've seen love working and walking with these folks. They don't just talk the talk, they walk the walk. And here is their information. After checking it out you will know beyond the shadow of a doubt that “dominating” a canine is WRONG. (As if anyone with any access to current information would think so!!!) Good grief!
Peace be with you all. And love.
Team Lisa and Frax Vaught
Canine Assistants: www.canineassistants.org
CEO Canine Assistants: Jennifer Arnold
(also trains other instructors in BBT(tm) Bond-Based Training (tm)
Canine Assistants Veterinarian: Dr. Kent Bruner (Jennifer's husband)
PBS Special/ You can find the DVD on Amazon.com: “Though A Dog's Eyes”.....the television special about Canine Assistants.
Top-selling, Time's Best Selling books written by Jennifer Arnold: “Through A Dog's Eyes” “In A Dog's Heart”:
LATEST RESEARCH INTO CANINE
SENTIENCE:
http://www.ccnl.emory.edu/greg/
http://gregoryberns.com/
How Dogs Love Us: A Neuroscientist and His Adopted Dog Decode the Canine Brain.Berns, Gregory, Phd., MD, published 2013
Satisfaction: the science of finding true fulfillment, Berns, Gregory Phd., MD, published in 2005
Iconoclast: A Neuroscientist Reveals How to Think Differently, Berns, Gregory, Phd, MD, published 2008
Berns, GS; Dayan, P; Sejnowski, TJ (1993). "A correlational model for the development of disparity selectivity in visual cortex that depends on prenatal and postnatal phases". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA
Berns, GS; Cohen, JD; Mintun, MA (1997). "Brain regions responsive to novelty in the absence of awareness". Science 276
Berns GS and Sejnowski TJ: A computational model of how the basal ganglia produce sequences. J. Cogn. Neurosci.,
Nemeroff CB, Kilts CD, Berns GS: Functional brain imaging: Twenty-first century phrenology or psychobiological advance for the millennium?
Bischoff-Grethe A, Proper SM, Mao H, Daniels KA, Berns GS: Conscious and unconscious processing of nonverbal predictability in Wernicke's area. J. Neurosci. 20(5):1975-1981, 2000. PDF.
Bischoff-Grethe, A; Martin, M; Mao, H; Berns, GS (2001). "The context of uncertainty modulates the subcortical response to predictability". J. Cogn. Neurosci
Montague, PR; Berns, GS; Cohen, JD; McClure, SM; Pagnoni, G; Dhamala, M; Wiest, M; Karpov, I; King, RD; Apple, N; Fisher, RE (2002). "Hyperscanning: Simultaneous fMRI during linked social interactions". NeuroImage 16: 1159–1164.
Berns, Gregory S.; Brooks, Andrew M.; Spivak, Mark; Neuhauss, Stephan C. F. (11 May 2012). "Functional MRI in Awake Unrestrained Dogs". PLoS ONE 7 (5): e38027. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0038027. PMC 3350478. PMID 22606363.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/06/opinion/sunday/dogs-are-people-too.html?_r=0
http://thebark.com/content/neuroscientist-gregory-berns-reveals-what-dogs-are-thinking
http://www.psychology.emory.edu/nab/nabfactbrochure2015.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Berns
http://www.adogsview.net/Sentience.html
http://www.livescience.com/39481-time-to-declare-animal-sentience.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sarah-hodgson/reclassifying-dogs-as-sen_b_8717888.html
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/animal-emotions/201306/universal-declaration-animal-sentience-no-pretending
http://psychology.emory.edu/home/graduate/nab/
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/animal-emotions/201502/animals-in-france-what-really-happened-about-sentience
http://ec.europa.eu/food/animals/welfare/index_en.htm
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?qid=1428656332117&uri=CELEX:31998L0058
http://www.30millionsdamis.fr/
http://www.science20.com/news_articles/dogs_and_humans_a_35000_year_partnership-155717
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-32691843
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/may/21/dogs-may-have-lived-with-humans-30000-years
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Love_Dalen
Article: Ancient Wolf Genome Reveals an Early Divergence of Domestic Dog Ancestors and Admixture into High-Latitude Breeds
Pontus Skoglund · Erik Ersmark · Eleftheria Palkopoulou · Love Dalén
Article: Synchronous genetic turnovers across Western Eurasia in Late Pleistocene collared lemmings
Palkopoulou E. · Baca M. · Abramson N. I. · Sablin M. · Socha P. · Nadachowski A. · Prost S. · Germonpré M. · Kosintsev P. · Smirnov N. G. · [...] · Fadeeva T. · Douka A. · Higham T. F. G. · Ersmark E. · Pitulko V. · Pavlova E. · Stewart J. R · Węgleński P. · Stankovic A. · Dalén L. ·
http://www.bustle.com/articles/85591-how-long-have-dogs-been-domesticated-humans-and-dogs-have-been-bffs-for-much-longer-than
http://www.livescience.com/31997-dogs-and-humans-evolved-together.html
