Canine NeuroPark TM

Roaming with Hounds Diary

Group structures are not Social structures to run into at speed...

Im amazed by how many dog owners have little idea about canine group structures, and think its ok for their dog to run at a group of dogs.

That's the most dangerous thing to let happen.

No matter how social dogs are, once they form a group, things moving at speed at that group can be categorized by any of the dogs in that group as threat, because brains are wired defensively.
And what follows are often behaviours of a group not just behaviour of one dog.

So no, it is not that the dogs in a group are unsociable towards your dog.
Your dog running at another group of dogs is simply dangerous to them and they will defend. If they are on a lead and cannot get to defend against the dog running at them, they may go at eachother.

It is a dog owners responsibility to scan the area your walking with your dog and anticipate the earliest point necessary to call your dog back.
That is ... before he speeds at a group of dogs, especially if that group of dogs is walked on leads in an area dogs are supposed to be on lead!!

Dogs, any animal for that matter, are not biological machines that are taught like computer programs.
They are dynamic living structures, regulating efficiently and protecting their bodies from harm to survive, mate and bring up offspring. That's the underlying nature of the variety of behaviour we observe.

Roaming with Hounds Diary

Socialization

I had a very interesting discussion with a new dog owner today about Socialization.

There are different ways people understand Socialization.
But lets first state what it isn't.
Socialization is not getting used to other beings or things. That is habituation.

Socialization is about forming social bonds with other beings. Thats sometimes also called "species recognition patterns".

Dogs can form inter-specific social bonds with other species- but the experience formed early is the key on how patterns form and adapt.

Exposure therapy, for dogs that had threat experiences during the critical period of Socialization- in those cases only works if the dogs have already formed other experiences as that of threat, to have other action pattern repertoires to build social bonding on.

Creating such environments to build other experiences - new learned action patterns grounded to environmental changes is key before engaging in any close social interactions with other dogs or other animals.

This works well at Neuropark, starting with the smell of other dogs who have been there.

Over time this can be extended to parallel walks with other dogs including circling and curving closer, followed by copying behaviour. I.e: smelling where the other dog just sniffed.
Over time they will automatically get closer.

This is how bonds form, through shared actions that are positively meaningful. Not through exposure itself.

Something to keep in mind

Roaming with Hounds Diary

Affordances....

I just walked Whitty through the forest tracking wildlife... and 4 NZ ferntails started following us- tweeting and flapping and flying around us, feeding of whatever tiny insects were being displaced by us moving through the dense forest disturbing the ground.

Now, from a behaviorist point of view I could explain these behaviour with a simple story, that the birds started associating humans with insects so food. Hence Human = Food.

Simple, easy story and very believable.

However, there is one issue: birds don't need humans to feed, they can survive quite efficiently without us moving through the forests or fields etc..

However, there is something agreeable in that behaviorist paradigm. The human / other animals factor.

Animals can use us and other animals as opportunities for more efficient food gathering!! They dont learn a memorized representation of "Humans = Food", but,-> Follow Human (animal) using us like a landmark to gain feeding opportunities and navigation information.

So the bird doesn't have to learn a representation of Human = Food.

It can just use its prepared actions and humans (other animals) as the affordance for more efficient feeding opportunities.

Birds, Dogs, any animal really, can just follow humans (and other animals) and they more than likely find resources necessary for their energy efficiency- no 1 to 1 representation needed to be stored in any brain...

Picture of ferntail Chatgtp created

Roaming with Hounds Diary

Creating dogs living alongside us...

I haven't written in the Diary in a week as I get frustrated and I sometimes question why i am even doing this. Then im out with dogs, see my hounds run in flight and cuddle up with them at home. And it suddenly makes sense.
What i dont do is live a professional live of pretending to clients that whatever I pass on in knowledge is gonna "create a dog they envisage living alongside to".
Im not in the business of "creating" dogs. Dogs are their own intelligent creations. They were perfectly prepared to evolve alongside us humans and make use of us to evolve further.
What I am in the business of is passing on how we can change our behaviour in response to the dogs behaviours. That is what "training" really is. Relational interactions moment by moment and always a tiny bit different, as no environment, even our homes, is ever exactly the same.
Communication is only as good as the meaning making ability of the messages, by the receiver.
Observing and noticing patterns is what increases the ability of understanding.

Roaming with Hounds Diary

70 meters in 30 minutes-
It sound like nothing - 70 meters.
Well it's a bit ambiguous, because if we calculate the square meters covered:
Approx 70m long x 10m wide, the dogs levy walked a 700m2 area.
No grass leaf was left un-investigsted!

We can make all sort of assumptions about the intrinsic meaning for the dog.
I'm not a dog, so can only assume that it has an overall positive effect over time.

What i can predict is, that as long as we levy walk, the Border Collie ain't herding the other dogs, or trying to mount Sammie. 😉

Why do you know that?
Well just as a rat can't be taught to rear while being shocked, a dog can't express two fundamentally different prepared behaviours like random walk and chase at the same time. They are different nehaviour sequences that lead to different consumation - end of cycles.

So ... as long as I express behaviours that impress safety and induce curiosity the dogs levy walks persist

If I even turn around and look away, the Border Collie will likely herd or mount.

Roaming with Hounds Diary

Messages like below just make may day. Firstly for the owner and their dog(s). And selfishly, also for Neuropark. It reminds me that our approach using contemporary science and applying it to modern dog behaviour & training works.

At the same times it gives me a real panic attack- because what if we can't get land to relocate to?

What then? Where will these owners go with their dogs?

We won't go anywhere as long as I breath, even in the hopefully very unlikely event that we are made to relocate before a new space is prepared and ready. We will be here virtually and with new educational online courses that will support you to go out into other spaces.

Roaming with Hounds Diary

I get it a lot that clients or trainers / behaviour practitioners claim that breed of dogs to be visual, that to be more olfactory driven etc.

It's just not accurate to make such claims these days, with so much scientific data available.

What we can say is, that certain breeds sensor's, like vision, audition, olfaction, are wired differently to other breeds a) because of their head shape and where the eyes are, the snout length and olfactory cells, or the ears shape for example. And b) the sensors sensitivity in space and time compared to another breed. Example on vision would be sighthounds ability to detect movement far ahead compared to other breeds who are good at detecting movement closer by.

The brain does not wait for one sensory modality to finish before processing another. Instead, vision, hearing, smell, touch, proprioception, vestibular input, and internal bodily signals are all processed continuously and in parallel. However, they are not treated as independent streams. They are integrated according to what the brain is currently predicting and what matters for ongoing behaviour.

Further more, the rate of respiration and heart rate can affect, if and how deeply sensory inputs are integrated and, as so often pointed out, it always comes down to energy costs and energy availability.

A dog with a high allostatic load with an increase in heart rate and respiration is more likely to proceed with state believes, -thats why the visceral changes occur in the first place,- meaning they are more likely to use behaviour schemas of defensive or offensive nature, so many categorize "aggression".

We need to start acknowledging the amazing ability of any being. And yes, share that complexity rather then generalizing it to such simple terms they become metaphoric stories rather then explanation of mechanisms that lead to behavior

If we expect pet owners to gain all these responsibilities we have to explain to them the complexity of the behaviours and their mechanisms, and why it is important to understand them.
Especially if they adopt a rehomed dog with little known history.

Roaming with Hounds Diary

Environment does not control behaviour!!
Im sorry, this is me shouting in the wind, providing everyone the expected eyeroll🤣
Im sorry but thos is killing me- how can we still claim that the environment controls behaviour and call that evidence based info?!

Yes the environment influences everything, including behaviour, but so does everything of oneself and our own behaviour shape the environment - its an interaction. Its bidirectional.

Atomic sniffed through the grasses thos morning and affected the environment for at least one animal greatly, but did it control that animals behaviour. No it influences the possibilities of its immediate / future behaviours. Can you tell how he did that?

Let me make it generic for everyone:

🧠 Why Your Surroundings Don't Control What Animals Do

Forget "stimulus → response." Modern neuroscience shows brains don't just react—they predict. Here's why environment ≠ behavior controller:

✨ Active Inference
Animals actively seek sensory input that confirms their expectations and avoid surprise. They don't passively receive the world—animals use action to attend to, where to look, when to move, to ground / match their expectation parts of the environment. Same environment → different sampling strategies → different behaviors.

💭 Brain From Inside Out
Behavior emerges from internal predictions first, not external triggers second. Your body's needs, past experiences, and anticipation drive action—not the scene itself. Two animals in identical settings behave differently because their internal states differ.

🔬 Bottom line: Organisms are architects of their experience, not prisoners of circumstance. Environment matters—but it speaks through the lens of prediction, not decree.