How Does Your Dog Think?
Cathy Chiara
How Does Your Dog Think? Ever wonder what your dog thinks about? or how he thinks? Maybe his thoughts are like Polaroids -separate pictures of important events both positive and negative. But your dog isn't as good as you are at linking the pictures together in cause and effect. That's because he's not human. He's a different species. Duh!!Sometimes dogs focus on the wrong variable in a sequence of events. Here's an example.
I train dogs for a living and during a meeting of trainers last year one trainer told a story of a dog who responded to commands wonderfully one week and would cower in fear the next week. Why? What was going through little Momos' mind? One of the trainers had an idea. Let's examine the person training the dog. Was everything the same week to week? Well not exactly. When Momo trained well,the trainer was wearing White tennis shoes. The next week when Momo was afraid, the trainer was wearing different shoes-Black ones. A little investigation of Momo found he was a rescue dog who had been regularly beaten by his former owner with a newspaper. And what did Momo take a picture of while he was being beaten? BLACK SHOES. End of Story. You want to train Momo? It's easy,use good techniques and don't wear Black Shoes. Being a canine and not a human being little Momo didn't realize that what he should have been afraid of was the human jerk with the newspaper and not the shoes he was wearing. But for Momo the White shoes were right in front of his face and that's what he took a picture of. If you want to train a dog or change his behavior you first have to know a little bit about how this critters mind works. As always I'm here to help you enjoy sharing your life and home with that wonderful creature- your dog.
About the author: I am a dog trainer for a pet retail chain in Denver, Colorado.