So, Jeff (Link) and I talk a lot about training, our dogs, and dog psychology and had an interesting conversation last night. I wanted to share it and see what others thought. :)Here is the mostly unedited version (only took out totally unrelated tangents).

Jen: Tell me what you think about this, "Unstructured affection is the quickest way to alienate a dog, as it creates the canine equivalent to contempt."

Jeff: Well, I would need to know what is meant by "unstructured affection" as that isn't at all obvious or makes sense. I've never thought of affection as structured or unstructured.

Jen: It was in the context of someone loving all over their dog and then withholding it if the dog misbehaves. I'm a little confused by it too.

Jeff: Ah, so in other words inconsistency and the exaggerated use of affection towards dogs is bad for them? That I agree with fully. If we look at the ratio or the prominence of the things that we in the US offer dogs, affection is way too high and way too central. I would say the most important things our dogs need are exercise and consistent leadership/companionship. Affection makes sense to us with our psychology but I subscribe to the idea that it is far less important to dogs. They withstand it from us yes, but they don't need it. To the great extent that we give it to them.

Jen: I think we give it to them because we need it. Not because we think they need it.

Jeff: Correct. They aren't emotionally motivated like we are. They can have emotions and compassion, I'm convinced, but those don't motivate them to do things. I realize that when Link licks my beard that he is licking flavors and smells, but for me "he's being sweet." When you and I tell newbies to not make a big deal out of nothing, we are telling them to not react emotionally to a non-emotional situation for the dog and to stay consistent and calm (non-emotional) for the dog. The primary reason most people have for getting and keeping dogs is emotional. Hence why so many people have an extraordinarily difficult time meeting and providing for them in a way that is best for the dog. Which results in lack of nutririon, lack of exercise, obesity, aggression, timidity, guarding, fear, neurosis, destruction, etc. This is a very sticky ethical question that you and I have flirted with over the past several months. Many people say that dogs perceive emotions and weakness and that they allow dogs too easily control them. Despite the fact that there's some sexism in that idea that rubs me the wrong way, I'm not too sure I entirely disagree, but of course, I think about it in terms of respect and trust as opposed to dominance and control.

Jen: I think they are emotionally motivated, but not in the traditional sense. I'm kinda starting to think actually that they are extremely emotionally motivated, but more on a level of contentment or feeling good. Like we feel good after a great meal, or great conversation. When the prey drive is activated, chasing, biting, shaking, will make them feel good. When that's denied without an outlet, they get stressed, anxious, fearful, aggressive and problem behaviors pop up. It's just suppressing their nature and creating an unstable animal. This new stuff I'm reading is really interesting. It frames dominance/control as survival instincts, but that they are way less important than group harmony. So, if the group is unbalanced, then the dominance thing might kick in to resolve a situation, but that the overall group dynamic is harmonic. So in terms of trust and respect, essentially it boils down to you creating the niche for your dog to fulfill in the group so he feels secure. The reason people feel like the dog is trying to "take over" is because they are constantly shifting and changing and the dog is just anxiously reacting and trying to find his place. By extension, we feel good when they feel good, so we try to do things that make them feel good (food, walks, etc.), but we are missing the mark because what really makes them feel good is fitting into the social group and having a secure role but we are just trying to fill up physical needs. The key is fulfilling the physical needs in a social way and being the most positive/stable force.

Jeff: Well said, exactly. In terms of cause-effect, I don't think emotions are the cause of their behaviors as they often are for us. Emotions in the sense you've described are in fact the effect, which makes perfect sense and I agree. Typically we mean a motivation to be the cause, not the effect. I don't think they are motivated -caused by- emotions.

Jen: What do you think they are motivated by? And what is the difference between energy and emotions?

Jeff: Well the obvious drives and instincts to survive, like all animals. But in a case by case it depends: when Link licks my beard, then flavors and smells. When they pull sleds, then their ingrained working design and the commands of the person. When they destroy things, frustration from a lack of outlet for their natural need for exercise. They are also heavily social and thus they are driven by a sociobiological morality like all social animals, so because they aren't solitary, they are motivated by social harmony and coexistence which we largely teach and train them by using their motivation for food and pleasing us. They are relational animal largely motivated by theory relationships to other dogs and humans. Energy as in physical zoomies or as in the energy in the room?

Jen: Energy in the room, like using your own energy to influence Link. He's sensing energy and emotion from you and reflecting that.

Jeff: Right.  They are relational and reactive. So we set the tone. They are driven to coexist with us with balance of give and take. If I come home and I'm pissed and screaming then he'd fear me and would run from me. If I come home and drop to all 4s and provoke him then he'd want to wrestle and mouth me and play. If i come home and ignore him and calmly greet him, his ears go back and he calmly leans on my leg. It's very easy to change them from state to state.

Jen: Makes sense, but you don't see that as emotional?

Jeff: I believe very strongly that they feel things and sense things, the energy in the room as it were.  But emotions in the human sense are known to us through an interpretive framework.  They're not pure drives for us because we interpret them and have the rational capacity to act on them or not. I believe they feel more purely. If that is an emotional state in them then fine, but I think it is one that is different in nature than our own.  They are relational drive based animals. We are rational agents who can self-reflect and interpret.

Jen: Yeah, I totally agree, they don't think think about what they feel at all. They just are

Jeff: But it seems they absorb and react to any state we provide for them. That's not saying they are motivated by emotions but perhaps to say they feel emotions in response to their motivation to live with us and please us.  I can't imagine at this time that they deliberately seek out an emotional state like we do. Again, cause vs effect. Rational emotional feelings vs Physiological emotional states. Very different.

Jen: Yeah I think physiological emotional state is what I'm getting at.

Jeff: Sure, they have those. Social mammals by nature need them to interact and survive.  Not sure about snakes though.

Jen: I agree though, I don't think they seek out emotional states. Their emotional state is a result of the environment/group. If all social mammals have them though, then why are dogs special? I think they are more highly developed in dogs

Jeff: Are they special?? I dunno. They're special to us in that they are the most integrated and successful species we've domesticated, in the West especially we treat them extra special but I don't know if that makes them special/unique. Once again, our interpretive framework muddles the while scenario. We've humanized them. That's special/unique.

Jen: Being special to humans is what makes them special.

Jeff: Agreed. They've very dramatically integrated into lives and our psychology. Or, we were able to change them more than any other species. They're extremely relational.

Jen: Anyway, relational is a good way to put it. Huskies, to me, are even more so.

So, this is where our conversation ended last night, even though we didn't really finish. :)We were both curious to hear what others thought. I know we're both a little crazy, just remember we are psychic doppelgangers.

It's a good read friends. I think I'm a little below the bar to fully appreciate it, but then again expanding ones view is learning. Thank you for posting.

While I definitely can appreciate the conversation and follow along, I definitely don't think I quite have the means to add anything to this. It's a very interesting take on emotion in dogs and how we as humans think they are affected by it by the emotions / energy we project and the situations that fulfill certain emotions for them.

I'm going to have to reread this when I'm fully awake though. Lol.

So, what do you think Hughie? Does Maya feel and react to emotion? Can you change her behavior depending on how you approach her?

Ashleigh, I hope after some coffee and rumination you decide to add to it. I'm sure you have a lot of experiences with Mishka that would give an interesting perspective.

I've been thinking about this and it's hard to describe with words what I think about it. I guess what I think is that they sort of experience the world in a holistic way. They feel the world vs. see/experience it if that makes sense. It's not like, "Oh, my back right paw stepped in something weird, must investigate," more like they are always feeling all four paws and all parts of themselves and their close environment/group as one unit, there is not a separation of me/I and the world. This feeling the world includes the 5 senses, but also it seems like they have an emotional sense, and that does influence their behavior, kinda like the energy in the room thing.

Interesting, something like Native Americans would believe, everything is a sub-part of a bigger whole (all belong to mother earth) is that the direction you are leaning? I have to do more exploring of how Maya's behavior is influenced by my emotion, never paid enough attention to it to have an opinion.

An added thought, two of my granddaughters are in the pictures above, one works very well with dogs the other is a dogs play toy and they rule her, so there is a difference in how each of them projects there energy that dogs pick up on, I guess/think?

Based on what I understood (which could be nothing XD) from the conversation my opinion on the subject would be that dogs interpret energy in a room in terms of body movement/language rather then human emotions.

We as humans place/label them with "human emotions" based on their reaction to our energy. If you as an individual don't sync up with your own emotions and body movement/language you end up placing/labeling the dog with the wrong emotion and thus you don't understand the result/output. Happens all the time. It's like looking into a body of water and when the water is calm (emotion/body is synced) you can tell what is being reflected and when its chaotic (emotions and body are not synced) then you don't know what is being reflected.

It would seem like they see the world in a much more pure/natural (<--- can't find the word lol) way then we do as humans. They react in the the now/present based on the information (energy) given to them in that moment (I'm not saying they don't have the capability to remember events or things they just don't recall that information like we do). Where we as humans seem to react based off history, passed events and specifics we are handicapped by our ego. The ego is something man has and will struggle with forever. You could say they use their gut and we use our head when presented with a situation, we are capable of using our gut but we don't rely on it to often cause we are not sure if we can trust the decision lol.

I have no clue if this makes any sense but I kind of just vomited my thoughts on the keyboard.

Jordan, that makes a lot of sense actually.  I think you are spot on.  

We have the unique ability to be self reflective, so we can be both the subject and object of our own thoughts.  

When we are angry/happy, we are angry/happy about something, it's never just pure angry/happy.  We can never be angry/happy in the sense that we can be 5'10 or 145 pounds.  Emotions for us are directed by our consciousness towards the world and the various things in it.  We can think on them, interpret them, and act on them.  

This is where I think dogs are different.  It's not that they don't or can't have them or even feel them from us in a compassionate sense because it is very clear (and easy to test) that they do.  It's just that they don't have the extra step of rational self-reflection that we do.   The relationship of cause-effect in them is a bit more direct and basic.

I also, very strongly, don't think that this means they are more primitive or natural than we are in this sense.  I am personally very opposed to thinking of it in terms of a hierarchy of advancement or complexity.  We are still products of the natural world.  We just live in it very differently.

This is where I think dogs are different. It's not that they don't or can't have them or even feel them from us in a compassionate sense because it is very clear (and easy to test) that they do. It's just that they don't have the extra step of rational self-reflection that we do. The relationship of cause-effect in them is a bit more direct and basic. wrote:

I agree with this point completely.

I also, very strongly, don't think that this means they are more primitive or natural than we are in this sense. I am personally very opposed to thinking of it in terms of a hierarchy of advancement or complexity. We are still products of the natural world. We just live in it very differently. wrote:

could you elaborate a little more on this I'm curious to see your side of things.

Sure.

It's basically just avoiding a hierarchy that implicitly contains value judgements that suggest the things that are higher are better.

For example, if we are talking about two different species' use of X, and we say A's is more primitive than B's, the word "primitive" has a value judgement attached to it, and so it is implied that B's is better because it is more advanced than A's

So let's assume, casually, that emotions have some sort of motivating factor to our behavior and a dog's behavior. Note, I'm not saying the relationship is causal, as in emotions cause behavior. But let's just say emotions are a motivating factor behind behavior.

Rather than saying that in a dog's case the relationship is more primitive (a value judgement- think classic cultural racism here), we can just say in a dog's case it is more direct because they don't possess the rational self reflection that we do with our emotions.

That's all I meant. This type of hierarchical value judging is nearly inevitable when we compare groups that are significantly different.

or in a nutshell complexity is not necessarily better.

ah makes sense.

Wonderful thread thank you for posting, it has given me so many things to mull over.
I have observed in Orion the relation between his state and mine since he was quite young and yes I have noted changes in his behavior depending on how I approach him/situations on multiple occasions. I've also recently realized that if I am in a situation with him where he is becoming overstimulated (new class etc) If I actively relax, he will also - remarkably quickly. I have to physically and mentally relax though, just talking in a calm voice does not cut the mustard.

I've always wondered if it was a reaction on his part to the altered chemical states various emotions produce. I know that a dog's sense of taste and smell are hugely superior to ours but I'm not sure if that would extend to the point of picking up the likes of an emotional change unless it was a huge spike.

Unstructured and structured affection fascinates me as a concept and really makes me think about the affection I give my dog in regards to his need for it versus mine, I've always realized it is a "learned behavior" for him but never considered what applying that behavior to him may do to him

Awesome Olivia, glad you got something from it.

Great point in bringing up the superior smell, I didn't even consider that yet in terms of how they respond to the precedent and state that we set. I am a firm believer that our example is what they follow and learn, especially if we have them from puppyhood.

Jen and I really focused on the idea that dogs are relational animals and I don't think this can be stressed enough. They literally look to us for guidance and for precedent, they can certainly feel the energy in the room or emitting from a person, and yes, of course, they can smell the energy in the room or emitting from a person! Along the same lines dogs can be trained for diabetic or epilepsy alert by learning to smell changes in our biochemistry and then acting accordingly.

Link's puppy class was at the Seattle Service Dog Academy that specializes in diabetic alert, so I got to learn a lot about it.

When I was reading and studying dog behavior and dog psychology leading up to Link I read every one of Cesar Millan's books and his ideas on energy and setting the tone and precedent for our dogs non-verbally really hit home for me and were quite influential on my thinking about how I intended to raise him. I am extremely pleased with how he turned out in light of this in terms of his overally calmness and his demeanor and personality. Like Millan or hate him for whatever reason, much of what he has published in his books is non-controversial and was, for me, profoundly useful (for the record again, I don't buy into the wolf-pack, dominance, your-dog-wants-to-sack-you-like-Rome aspects).

I think being a "pack leader", as it were, involves respect and trust and it sounds like you have earned both from Orion.

What do you think about their emotional states? Do you see them as having them similar to our own or as different from our own?

I absolutely believe in leading by example and I have to admit for me trying to do so has presented some learning curves in regards to having Orion. I felt it was incredibly important for him to be a dog, not a humanized version of a dog so I have really had to think about the way I approach things with him. I have of course made mistakes but overall like you with Link I am very pleased with how he is rounding out despite some of the issues I have had. Discussions like this one really appeal to me

The idea that they could smell the chemical aspect of an emotional change occurred to me because of Orion. It is a rather odd story though lol so I won't bore you with it, I haven't ever looked into the merit of the theory though, perhaps it is a combination of both biochemistry and heightened awareness. I have never had the pleasure of meeting someone involved in the training of such specialized service dogs, I would sure love to pick their brains though it would be fascinating.  

I have no issue with Cesar, I honestly have not read any of his books (although I might have to go source them now) and I have to admit I did not get Orion with any notions of keeping check of my emotional state for his sake. I can to the realization that my energy affected his later on through the work I was doing with him to bond. My theory was very basic, I figured you get out of a dog what you put in. I still work by that but it amazes me to what depth it is true, I think energy and state come into that as well.

I think their emotional states can be similar to ours but I also think there are some fundamental differences. I look at myself as an example - I can alter my emotional state on a basic level because I choose to, and also because many of my "needs" are perceived by me. I look at Orion and I see what Jen was talking about - His basic emotional state is more directly related to the fulfillment of his needs. For example Orion adores structured obedience, he does well in a formal setting where I am very much in charge and he knows exactly what is asked of him - he has very good working drive for this purpose. I cop a lot of flack for having him in that environment because "a sibe is not meant to be a robot" but it fulfills a need in him. He is composed, relaxed, and very receptive to me both verbally and my energy - after class he is totally at ease, I would say happy. He is the same in harness, focused, with purpose and receptive. These are things he doesn't offer me at the fulfillment of his most basic needs - food, water, walks etc. Of course I can calm him down or hype him up at any stage but I see that as physical rather than emotional - i.e hyped vs happy. It seems the more I give him that fulfill his various needs the more he takes from me in terms of being in tune with me if that makes sense. I guess I see it as he is capable of varied emotional states, he just doesn't actively seek out or chose an emotional state like we do, rather the emotional state we chose indirectly or directly affects them depending on their primal state.

Jordan, that's a good point about body language and your point about dogs being completely present and going off their gut makes a lot of sense.

I don't think that dogs cognitively reason through their emotions, and then decide to act, I agree it's a more direct relationship, but I do think humans can just be happy or angry. I don't think you have to be happy about something, sometimes we are just happy.

Olivia, I too love your point about smell, I think that's very interesting and could definitely work with Jordan's point about body language. I totally agree with what you are saying about not realizing you would have to keep your own emotional state in check when getting a dog lol! I'm starting to realize how deep this goes with myself and Dizzy. For a while, he was very wild and always hyped up, my first sibe was like that too, and after dealing with Dizzy's crazies, I kept telling people I always end up with the 'crazy' ones. When I started thinking more deeply about these types of things I began to realize that maybe I don't 'get' the crazy ones, maybe they 'get' me.   Out of curiosity, what work were you doing to bond with Orioin?

Since I've been thinking about and trying to practice some of these concepts, I've noticed a change in Dizzy. He is much more connected to me and listens better in more intense situations. Of course, he has his teenage moments, but he's better overall.

I also know what you mean about having him respond in your classes, but having a different response if you are out for walks, Diz is the same way, good in some situations, not in others. I'm starting to think that the reason is that I enable (for lack of a better word/description) this. As in, as a human, I think, "Walks should be fun! He should be able to sniff and play so I will relax and let him be a dog and have fun." By relax, I don't mean that I'm tense at other times, it's more like a lack of focus on his behavior, whereas with training time, or certain situations, in the best circumstance, I have a focused relaxed state. I think I need to work on being in that frame of mind more often during my time with him.

simplify wrote:

While I definitely can appreciate the conversation and follow along, I definitely don't think I quite have the means to add anything to this. It's a very interesting take on emotion in dogs and how we as humans think they are affected by it by the emotions / energy we project and the situations that fulfill certain emotions for them.

I'm going to have to reread this when I'm fully awake though. Lol.

Same here. This is a type of conversation I can be fully engaged in but only participate in a more passive way. While I like to think of myself as an intellectual person having the capacity to engage actively in such a deep conversation, I agree I wouldn't be able to think quickly enough to add anything meaningful or even coherent.   

Very interesting, though! I'm curious for more.

That said, I think in a nutshell dogs approach things in a pretty Zen way. There was talk earlier about how they have a holistic view of the world, which buffers my Zen theory, as one of the main teachings of Zen is to erase the idea of duality and focus on everything, the whole, the "everything is one" idea. One of my favorite images from what I've learned from Zen Buddhism is of a flowing stream, and you are standing still in the middle of it, letting the water flow past you. The goal of Zen is not to imagine yourself as the person standing in the middle of the stream and going against the flow but to be carried away by the stream, to be a part of it so that it is no longer you and the stream but just one, and you focus on the now, not on the past (where the stream has been) or the future (where the stream will go).

There's also the idea in Zen of viewing things as neither good nor bad; they simply are. I've tried to incorporate this attitude in my life, having come from a sheltered childhood and being an exchange student in high school, experiencing radically different lifestyles to my own at a young age and realizing that they, too, work for people and it's OK. I was taught to view situations and ideologies as neither good nor bad; just OK. It's still a challenge to see things that way with the polarized nature of our world, but I like to think that's how I live my life seeing things.

Where dogs fit into this is that I think that's how they live their lives. They respond to things not because they are good or bad; they just are to them, but, as we've been saying, some situations are more appealing than others, such as when food's involved or the "feeling" in the room or coming off of a person is particularly appealing either because of smell or body language, etc. They don't respond because it makes them happy or sad; it just is, but other situational and environmental factors motivate them. They live for the now and without an eye on the past or what's to come, and they see themselves as part of the whole, the "whole" being a pack or other kind of group or situation.

OK, there's my verbal diarrhea. I hope it makes sense and that it actually contributed something to the discussion. Thoughts/comments/criticisms are more than welcome.

Don't worry about coherence.....fire away!

Thinking aloud and vomitously writing is a great way to develop coherence and articulation. It's like a muscle, the more you work it the stronger and more shaped it gets.

Haha, right on cue