Darwin kills a rubber tennis ball
Interesting article on natural dog training and how to deal with an overly aggressive dog. I really liked his point that so much of our play is actually based on forms of hunting, and while some of us accept this with dogs, we sometimes fail to see it in ourselves.
I think much of the aggression in humans can be similarly channeled, if we re-direct people’s aggressions into more acceptable forms of play. Perhaps this is why sports are so important to us as a society…
Roxie is my only aggressive golden, way more so than most goldens I’ve seen. I’m sure she was improperly socialized, just as she was improperly fed (30 pounds overweight when I got her) and trained (she would counter surf and eat things left on the counters). But she is never aggressive while walking with us, or even in interaction with most dogs. For her it is mostly territorial. She will bark at the neighbor’s aggressive female, Rosie, through the fence, but if they are together out front where she can see Rosie, at most she will growl a little. I guess the best thing would be to get them in a situation where they could really play together.
The name of the game, is game. Once the dogs sense who, or what, the prey is, then there can be a game and at such a point, then there is no chance for violence {I think he means between the dogs, of course there could be violence against the “prey” – DW}. Games, the essence of a social nature, have indeed evolved from prey-making which is why most games involve a ball, the ball being the surrogate for a prey animal. Once every individual is in accord on what or who the prey is, they fall into phase and the game can begin. What our language clearly reveals through a multitude of expressions and word derivations is that hunting is the basis of a social nature. This is one of the most important things we can learn from dogs about our own human nature.
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