Would appreciate your views on this

I would be very interested in hearing your views / assessment of the information and video's below......my dog is the West Highland Terrier....thanks....


These dogs are proper working dogs and they live outside, they are used in Pheasant / Partridge shoots to drive the birds through the woods to the shooting party, retrieve shot birds and to pick up any injured birds after the whistle blows to indicate the shoot is over for that area...

They are not allowed indoors as this will ruin there coats which protects them, the smaller black dog (Spaniel) lost an eye when hit by a train chasing a Pheasant, the black Lab will lick his eye occasionally to keep it clean....the spaniel has a lovely friendly temperament and seems such a happy dog despite the loss of an eye, he would come over to my dog and rest his head on my dogs neck, not sure is this is dominance or not, or was a way of calming my dog down being in a new environment and with dogs he didn't know....it seemed the later too me.....

They are both males and not neutered....

The black Lab is very similar in character to my dog and they had a few 'words' with each other and a squabble to start with, but things soon calmed down and we spent about two hours with them and they seemed to bond more with each passing minute....this was of course kept an eye on by me and the owner who is a very experienced gun dog person / trainer.....with less experienced people or nervous / tense types in my opinion could have escalated into a full scale fight.....95% of it though it was all sorted by the dogs themselves.....

Here is a couple of videos below, the owner is having a game of stick with the dogs, most of the time the Lab gets the stick as he is quicker, notice though it seems that whoever gets the stick first 'owns' it and when my dog has the stick he growls once when the lab approaches (in the first video) and the Lab gives up 'ownership' and even with the owners command to retrieve you can see the Lab wants to retrieve it for his owner but won't take it from my dog or even try to......

It was a very enjoyable couple of hours and I could have spent all day with them, I would like to say thanks to the owner Dave for his time....

Hope you enjoy the video's.......

Video #1 The prey animal controls the predator animal, and I want to be more precise with the way that I use these terms because I can see how it can be confusing. Every animal be it a prey species or a predator species, nevertheless has both a preyful aspect and a predatory aspect. The ratio of predatory aspect relative to preyful aspect determines whether it is a prey animal or a predatory animal. A rabbit has a lot of prey value relative to a little predatory value, a horse a large predatory aspect relative to a much larger preyful aspect (so overall a prey animal), a wolf more predatory aspect than preyful, human, mostly predatory with slight preyful.
In the natural scheme of things, the prey animal controls the predatory animal, if it can sense its leverage and to do that, it must be able to feel its preyful aspect, i.e. its body, which then infuses its predatory aspect with much confidence. Therefore, if a prey animal can feel its body, it is able to reflect the energy that’s been projected onto it (predator animal’s desire for its body) right back at the predator animal and it is therefore safe. If the prey animal can feel its body then it feels emotional leverage as the object of attraction. If it can’t feel its body then it feels as if it is the object-of-attention and therefore its physical memories of stress begin to take over its mind and it becomes vulnerable to predation.
In the video, which ever dog has the stick, has the strongest feeling for the stick because they can taste, touch, feel weight, smell the stick the most, and so it’s very easy for them to feel their preyful aspect because the stick as a prey object completes their emotional circuit thereby connecting their predatory aspect to their preyful aspect, i.e. their body.
A small dog, and a white dog, is much more preyful relative to a large and/or black dog. And, being this different, makes it easy for dogs to differentiate into complementary polarities. So while the Westy is strongly focused on the stick, this energy bounces back on the lab, and because the lab is referencing its hunger for stick, it becomes very soft, not focused expression, it has a tail wagging slowly and fluidly, and with a diffused expression looking off to another angle for a path of lesser resistance. The Westy has total control over the lab’s nervous system so that the lab can’t bear to sustain eye contact when the Westy is over the stick.
The lab increases the size of the bubble around the Westy so that it can express a stronger desire for the stick and not be as near to the Westy, and it also looks to owner as path of less resistance especially given that its intense drive for stick has been channeled many times in that direction. In other words, it’s trying to connect its desire for the stick with a feeling for its owner since that is its ingrained pattern, but the way is blocked by the Westy in possession of the stick. Another function of being supple is that the lab is very easily deflected onto another pathway that might prove more accommodating given the circumstances.
Meanwhile the Spaniel is orbiting lab just like an electron around the nucleus of an atom, which is really highlighted by the Spaniel intermittently coming in and out of frame along an arc. The Westy is luxuriating in the stick because its preyfulness means that it is the object of attraction, which triggers positive physical memories and thus it has emotional leverage and feels safe, rather than being object-of-attention which would trigger stress memories. It chews the stick to maintain the feeling of being object-of-attraction rather than object-of-attention. Occasionally the lab presses in out of its desire for stick and Westy stiffens up and reflects attention right back to lab, and then lab is again readily deflected back to owner. Spaniel coming in and out of scene is also readily deflected in mirror image of lab.

Thanks Kevin,

If I wanted to take the stick from my dog (or any object) I would walk up to him confident but calm and place my hand on the stick, if he was to growl I just leave my hand on the stick, after a short while he will let go of the stick, I still don't take the stick away at this stage just my hand on the stick, after another short while he will step backwards a step or two.....then I will take the stick.......

I have done this with many dogs and find it a good way to stop the item becoming 'prey' and making the dog chase it or fight you for it, tug of war for example......

I noticed you have different methods for this watching the videos on your website...

I believe what I am doing is all about 'ownership' of the stick or item, going by your theories I am thinking that doing what I do changes the preyfulness / predator aspect and I am bouncing energy to the dog and hence he backs away and gives up the stick or item.....even if he growls to protect the stick as long as I remain confident and calm in the end the dog cannot handle the energy bounced to him and has to give it up......or something along those lines?

By the way I am always facing the dog head on when doing this, ie not trying to get 'ownership' from the side.....

Yes, looking at it from an energetic interpretation, by being still and focusing on the dog, your predatory aspect is reflecting the dog's energy back at him and this is unnerving to the dog because this is experienced as an increase in internal pressure, the dog is beginning to lose its sense of flow, it's capacity to feel grounded. In this case, the bone is how the dog feels grounded to its "self." The reason dogs are interested in other beings and objects is to connect their two brains, the central and the enteric nervous systems, their front end to their hind end so that they can achieve a wholesale feel for their body and thereby a feeling of well being. By making the dog the object of intense attention, it's beginning to feel disconnected from its "self" and the intensity of this pressure activates the deepest reserves of its emotional battery which is embedded with physical memories of negative experiences. It begins to relive such an experience depending on the level of intensity of that moment, in other words, you're causing the dog to relive its own fear. Most dogs will desist from wanting the bone at this point because they can no longer feel it in terms of desire/arousal, in fact they can't look at it because it is beginning to seem noxious. However a few dogs will attack in order to maintain a sense of self if they have strong fighting drive.
In dealing with such issues I don't cast the problem in terms of a principle such as ownership, I interpret everything as a function of attraction and this animal notion of "self" which paradoxically means an animal needs the external world as a means of feeling whole. A state of being incomplete in this way thus provides for a social motive.
When a dog growls at me over an item, I interpret this to mean that the dog only feels safe, given its access or possession of a given object or of being in a certain place, like a car or crate, to express what it otherwise keeps hidden, and which is therefore behind the scenes animating its personality. I interpret this growl as more truthful then the dog's personality and deal with it in terms of an energy system, rather than as something conceptual such as ownership, or defending territory, or maintaining social status. For me it represents an opportunity to attract energy to me that the dog usually keeps hidden. This is vital in my system since this held back energy when if finally gets triggered is the basis of all acts of disobedience and problem behavior.
This deeper energy (imprinted with fear) is vital in a dog's development and so I want to be sure to attract it so that I can train it. By doing this I've found that the dog becomes more sure and doesn't have to growl. After I teach the dog the pushing exercise, I then invite the dog to push the bone/toy into me and eventually I can get to the point of feigning smacking dog with bone in mouth and the dog perceives it as a drive experience rather than a fear trigger and pushes in all the harder. I take this lengthy serpentine approach so that if a child were to innocently wander into such a dog's area the dog won't feel threatened and/or interpret the child as a "social inferior" acting out of place, which energetically means the child is perceived as a source of ungrounded energy in need of bringing-to-ground by virtue of being bitten.

With regards to your push / pull model helping a dog not see a child that enters the dogs area as a threat and stopping the dog possibly biting the child, I wonder if your model would work in this situation below.....

I have come across some dogs who were abused by children when they were puppies, not always physical abuse but sometimes a young child making an ear shattering scream when the puppy approaches and its frightened the puppy half to death......some dogs seem to carry negative experiences from being a puppy into adulthood, but some don't seem to even though the intensity of the negative experience was the same or similar.....

It seems possible for some dogs who have experienced the above that the more time they spend with young children the more they forget what happened as a puppy (if its done in a controlled way, ie teach the children first how to behave around a dog and make sure the children are protected from a dog bite) and move on, some seem to be stuck in a 'halfway house' situation and can be fine most times around children but sometimes something will trigger the old memory and some always seem to hang on to the old memory and hate being around children full stop.....

So would your push / pull method work with these types of dogs who seem to have a deep ingrained negative association with children from their time as a puppy?.....if not what would you do instead or include extra to overcome their fear?.....or is it just a fact that with some of these types its best for them to have a life without children around?...ie let them avoid them.....

Also some dogs (some without a negative experience of children) will react badly to a group of children screaming their heads off or running around full of energy and excitement or say one child who is throwing a tantrum fit....would your push / pull method stop a dog reacting to that?

Also would this work for a couple that had no children and their dog had a negative experience as a puppy and they only encountered children from time to time?

This is an area which makes me slightly nervous as you can't afford to make mistakes or the child could be seriously injured and the dog destroyed, so how would I go about using your methods to ensure that would not happen and how would I know when I could trust the dog in any given circumstance around a child no matter what the child was doing?

The dogs that hold on to negative physical memories the longest, are the most sensitive, although I'm not saying that a "hard" dog doesn't hold physical memory as long, it's just that when the latter experiences flow, this can naturally displace the negative memory in terms of recasting it as a positive. For example, many dogs come out of a police training program relatively unhinged because they have some unresolved energy in their system due to an early imprint or an overly stressful training program. They may be eager to bite fellow officers or civilians. Then after they get one or two street experiences with chasing and/or biting a criminal, they are now "tuned" to the real goal of their energy and as if by magic, they become indifferent and even pleased by the doings of what used to make them maniacal. So when a dog is afraid of children, I create a competing fear and then help the dog resolve this, and indirectly this can almost completely resolve the fear that makes the dog unstable in situations we want him calm about.

Instead of running, if a criminal just turned round and faced the charging police trained dog, remained calm, stood completely still with arms firmly by their sides, would the police dog still attack and bite?....or would it be 'stuck' as not knowing what to do in this situation, also as they are trained to grab the criminals arm, by having them firmly by their side where where would they attack / bite then?...if at all....

Exactly for this reason, the criminal standing still presents a special problem for the police dog that is much harder to solve than if the criminal flees or wants to fight since the latter both involve intense movement. In fact, in American prisons there are courses being taught in the Inmate underground educational system of crime, on dealing with police dogs in just that manner. This is why I favor the German hold-at-bay by barking style when the criminal doesn't run because it dovetails naturally with what dogs would like to do when the prey doesn't run. The problem of biting a motionless criminal however can be overcome through the overwhelming effects of physical memory on a dog's consciousness so that through conditioning, the dog can be tricked that it is seeing motion in a motionless form if the handler commands "Get Him." Because of the effects of physical memory on present perception is why a police dog hits so hard, it doesn't run up and secure a purchase with its gripping canines and then drag the prey down, but hits so hard it buries its mouth into the criminal and often with so much force the criminal goes overboard. And it hits so hard because it's actually computing its trajectory as if the criminal is running away from it even when he may be running at the dog or standing still, and this is due to the physical memory of its foundation training wherein the decoy is always running away when he gives the young dog its introductory bite work. Once the dog equates hitting hard with satisfaction, this impulse takes on a life of its own. It doesn't feel right if it doesn't hit hard.