Author: Paul Handover

Bighorn Sheep in the Coachella Valley Mountains

Integrity is the parent of Trust and having friends that you trust is one of life’s great riches.  (Indeed, isn’t a friend, by definition, someone you trust?)  Anyway, nearly 30 years ago I met this great Californian, Dan G., at a dealer meeting being held by Commodore Business Machines in New Jersey where their headquarters used to be.  I was giving a sales pitch extolling the virtues of my word processing program that Commodore had agreed to market through their dealer network.  I used the word “‘fortnight” which every good Englishman will know means two weeks.  Dan interrupted me by calling out, “Hey Handover, what’s a fortnight?”  The rest of the talk seemed to descend into a very funny expose of all the differences between our two versions of the English language.  George Bernard Shaw is attributed as describing the Americans and the English as ‘two nations divided by a common language‘ which seems to me a very apt observation.

Anyway, this is a complete digression to the point of this posting.  In my email box this morning is a most beautiful description of Dan coming across Bighorn Sheep.  I can do no better than to reproduce it in full.

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Parenting lessons from Dogs!

Much too late to make me realise the inadequacies of my own parenting skills, I learnt an important lesson when training my GSD (who is called Pharaoh, by the way).  That is that putting more emphasis into praise and reward for getting it right ‘trains’ the dog much quicker than telling it off.  The classic example is scolding a dog for running off when it should be lots of hugs and praise for returning home.  The scolding simply teaches the dog that returning home isn’t pleasant whereas praise reinforces that home is the place to be.  Like so many things in life, very obvious once understood!

Absolutely certain that it works with youngsters just the same way.

Despite being a very dominant dog, Pharaoh showed his teaching ability when working with other dogs.  In the UK there is an amazing woman, Angela Stockdale, who has proved that dogs (and horses) learn most effectively when being taught by other dogs (and horses).  Pharaoh was revealed to be a Beta Dog, (i.e. second in status below the Alpha Dog) and, therefore, was able to use his natural pack instinct to teach puppy dogs their social skills and to break up squabbles within a pack.

When you think about it, don’t kids learn much more (often to our chagrin!) from other kids than they do from their parents.  Still focusing on giving more praise than punishment seems like a much more effective strategy.

As was read somewhere, Catch them in the act of doing Right!

By Paul Handover.

Welcome!

Beloved Pharaoh. Born: June 3rd., 2003 – Died: June 19th., 2017. A very special dog that will never be forgotten.

Dogs live in the present – they just are!  Dogs make the best of each moment uncluttered by the sorts of complex fears and feelings that we humans have. They don’t judge, they simply take the world around them at face value.  Yet they have been part of man’s world for an unimaginable time, at least 30,000 years.  That makes the domesticated dog the longest animal companion to man, by far!

As man’s companion, protector and helper, history suggests that dogs were critically important in man achieving success as a hunter-gatherer.  Dogs ‘teaching’ man to be so successful a hunter enabled evolution, some 20,000 years later, to farming,  thence the long journey to modern man.  But in the last, say 100 years, that farming spirit has become corrupted to the point where we see the planet’s plant and mineral resources as infinite.  Mankind is close to the edge of extinction, literally and spiritually.

Dogs know better, much better!  Time again for man to learn from dogs!

Welcome to Learning from Dogs