My Puppy, My Self

for owning up to your errors! Takes guts, you got 'em.

What a great person to write this! I have nothing but respect for you!

I am both pleased and impressed with this exchange. Lee, you got the ball rolling and have shown flexibility (neither defensiveness nor "dominance" in your recent note. Congratulations to you and to the others who have joined in to make the discussion positive.

I particularly resonate to your comment: "It all depends on one's point of view". In working on my own wolf book: LUPEY JOURNALS.... . I have been trying to get a reasoned balance between fact and interpretation, "objective" and "subjective" evaluations, etc. Its a tricky balance to be sure.

Wolves (animals) are neither mechanical robots nor funny shaped humans; they are, as Walter Heligenberg use to say, "the worlds geniuses at being whom they are". We are opening up useful discussions and sharing thoughts, which obviously is the key. Sharing perspectives is not always easy, but is essential.

Well done...and thanks.

John Fentress, PhD
Eugene, Oregon

This column exemplifies one of the reasons I respect your approach to dog training -- you are willing to listen and learn, and you do so with generosity towards others and personal humility. With your writing you stimulate debate and you make us think a little harder, at the same time setting a fine example for thoughtfulness and courtesy.
Thank you.

I think this exemplifies an important struggle many of us face now, not just in the dog world but in THE world: if you're an interested, moderately informed, thinking layperson, you want to engage with ideas, learn all you can from experts and academics, reason things out for yourself and with luck put some of it into words. But the academic world is, quite rightly, highly specialized and words and meanings are highly nuanced, there's no way "mere mortals" can avoid crashing around the china shop a bit. So we live and learn, but it's important for every level of expert and non-expert to be in there looking for a bit of truth. Otherwise people of good faith are just totally drowned out by the ignoramuses. Please keep bringing us news and ideas from the world of academia and the world of just dogs you know, keep speculating and wondering, we need to learn from you and from them. Thanks!

1. You're not the only one to have used Mech's research as a case in point against dominance techniques/theory. If Bekoff and Mech are gonna slam you for doing so they should slam all the others as well.

2. I think they missed the point of your argument (reduce stress, reduce "dominance" behaviours/tendencies). Cause and effect shouldn't be a hard concept to grasp, yet it appears that many people (here comes arrogance on my part)including experts/professionals don't quite get it.

ALways like your articles; don't care who likes them or who bitches about them. Keep 'em coming.

Thanks for your kind words of support.

I appreciate it.

LCK

Lee, you have written a handsome correction and I am pleased you felt it important to do this, never mind actually DID it. Yes, sometimes non-academics get confused by technicalities in terms where the definitions differ from the ordinary meaning any thinking, intelligent person would understand. This is NOT (repeat NOT) a reason for you or anyone else to stay away from engaging with the academic research literature. Instead of promoting an ivory-tower-either-you-are-in-it-or-out approach, I think it incumbent upon academics to be clearer in the meaning they are assigning to terms.
For too long, academics have been encouraging to speak/write only to each other. My feeling -- and one of the reasons I blog -- is that the primary researchers need to work on their communication skills, not engage in a display of dominance (oops!) over outsiders from other packs. (No, I do not mean to imply that the academics in this particular situation have done this, but it happens pretty often.)
As it turns out, there are a lot of smart people out there with observations and experience that would be useful to academic researchers if we could all learn to communicate more clearly and more openly.
It is arrogant to think that anything posted in "mere" Psychology Today could alter the discussion? I don't think so. Your post has actually clarified what is and isn't meant by dominance for a lot of people. That's not a bad contribution and I like to think Bekoff and Mech appreciate it too.

Welcome to the china shop!