Category: Articles

Articles / Dog Behaviour / dog behaviour problems / Dog training / Heel work / Recall training / Simply Behaviour Radio / training puppies

29 Apr, 2015

Neuroscience Of Licking & Sender-Receiver Mechanisms. Are They Conflict Reducing, Disengagement Markers, Arousal Or Congruence Signals?

Why do animals, particularly canines, lick their lips? Is it a sender-receiver dance, a physiological response to changes in internal environment, a reciprocity sign or a signal of some kind of deceit? We take a look at this phenomenon from a number of (neuroscience, physiology, behaviour, psychological, medical, ethological and philosophical) perspectives. How an animal signals externally to reflect changes to his...

Articles / Dog Behaviour / dog behaviour problems / Dog training / Heel work / Recall training / Simply Behaviour Radio / training puppies

31 Mar, 2015

Why Do Dogs Yawn? The Neuroscience Of Empathy & Emotional Contagion

After a recent research project into the neuroscience of behaviour and a talk given at the ISCP, INTER Dogs and Dog Alliance (see recorded webinar) Introduction To the Science Of Behaviour (Beginners) Seminar we became interested in the concept of emotional contagion and what this means to dogs. To find out more about the neural mechanisms of this concept and what the current research is...

ABA & All Behaviour / Applied Behaviour / Articles / Dog Behaviour / dog behaviour problems / Dog training / Heel work / Recall training / training puppies

4 Mar, 2015

Self Soothing & Cry It Out Are Neurologically Damaging Here Is Why

The mechanisms that occur when ANY animal feels stress or anxiety is conserved across the way the nervous system responds. We are looking at the limbic system and basically under the hat we are all the same (according to Panksepp et al) This is why we use Rat models to draw conclusions about human behaviour. Recent work by Greg Berns showed that...

Articles / Dog Behaviour / dog behaviour problems / Dog training / Recall training / training puppies

27 Feb, 2015

Teaching A Default Recall As A Behaviour Modification Tool

Teaching your dog to come back to you is probably one of the most important tools you could train. The reasons are many! Firstly, if you have not trained a specific word (or whistle or any other cue) then it is quite likely that your dog is not trained to return to you on cue. It might be that he comes back...

Articles / Dog Behaviour / dog behaviour problems / Dog training / Recall training / training puppies

21 Feb, 2015

Attachment, Development and Emotion- A Neurobiological Perspective

Exposure to bad experiences early in life, will affect the way that animals anticipate and process sensory input. Traumatic experiences induce a complex series of (neurological and physiological) alterations in what the animal will perceive as a threat. This will be expressed in how they think, feel, behave and regulate their biologic systems. You will often hear us talk about something called...

Articles / Dog Behaviour / dog behaviour problems / Dog training / Heel work / Recall training / Simply Behaviour Radio / training puppies

29 Dec, 2014

Neuroscience & Brain Mechanisms Of Critical Periods In Puppy Development. This Should Be Started Before You Get Him Home.

The most critical period for puppy development is the age six to eight weeks (everything that happens prior to this is to do with setting the foundations of the animal & why it is essential that you have chosen a good breeder). Most puppies leave their litter around 7-12 weeks to go to their new home (in the UK this is sometimes...

Articles / training puppies

23 Nov, 2014

Attention, Perception and Emotion; it’s implication for behaviour modification protocols

A slide representation of the role that distraction, attention, perception and emotion play in attentional blindness and its potential use in behaviour modification. I will aim to keep it brief and simple. What I would like to know is, how the load theory explains the effects of learning around an object that is preferentially perceived as a high load in any eventuality?...

Articles / Dog Behaviour / dog behaviour problems / Dog training / training puppies

19 Nov, 2014

Changing Behaviour From A Neurobiological Perspective

After the phenomenal success and interest in the online seminar on the Introduction to the Neuroscience of Behaviour http://www.simplybehaviour.com/course/introduction-to-the-neuroscience-of-behaviour/) I wondered if you might like me to share some of my current thoughts on this fascinating subject. Firstly, I would like to keep this VERY simple and secondly, I would like to help people think about behaviour modification as a construct that...

Articles / Dog Behaviour / dog behaviour problems / Dog training / Heel work / Recall training / Simply Behaviour Radio / training puppies

15 Jun, 2014

The Science Behind Punishment, Learning & Reinforcement

Fear Or Pain Inducing Techniques.. The Facts. If a dog shows a behaviour which results in a perceived positive outcome, he or she is more likely to show the behaviour again on subsequent occasions – this is known as reinforcement. If a behaviour results in a perceived negative outcome, the dog is less likely to show the behaviour again – this is...

Articles / Dog Behaviour / dog behaviour problems / Dog training / Heel work / Recall training / Simply Behaviour Radio / training puppies

4 Jun, 2014

The solution to most dog behaviour problems!

The solution to most behavior problems in dogs is simple and IF you adhere to the following. The principle is simple- dogs repeat behaviors that are reinforced. That means that if your puppy or adult dog behaves badly, by say barking at you through the back door when he’s outside and you’re inside, jumping on you when you arrive home, or dragging...