I can't believe Sam has been with us for over six months now, has been pretty life-changing. (And with all this bloody dog-walking why can I still not fit into most of my pre-pregnancy clothes?!). He's settled down so much, he's great. And now that we have moved house and have loads of space for him he seems a very contented lad.
We've done loads of lead work practice, particularly after his castration when he wasn't allowed off the lead for a week. Lots of repetition has got him walking really nicely on either a loose lead or at worst a bit of a contact. Unless we're in company in which case we still get some manic bounding sometimes. But it's pretty rare now. With Billy coming for walks as well I must confess to not bothering with +R work and went for systematic stopping and standing still whenever Sam pulled excessively. I suppose we may have been using +R, it's one of those lovely operant conditioning brain teasers:
+R - nice walking rewarded by forward motion
-R - release of staying still reinforcing slack in lead
+P - pressure on lead to punish pulling
-P - removal of forward motion to punish pulling
I guess it's been a combination of them all, only Sam could say in what proportions. But I suspect it's mainly not that positive, just mild pressure (other than when he genuinely pulls on the lead trying to chase a squirrel) and absence of forward motion.
There's a part of me that feels I should have gone for a more positive approach but have come up against a hitch which was never a problem when I was getting to grips with +R for Jak. For effective +R you need to put the subject first. Most people make it conditional instead and so it tends not to work. eg I'll use +R unless he threatens my safety in which case I'll resort to pressure. And the minute you allow yourself that sort of caveat you end up moving up the shaping plan too quickly and resorting to pressure more and more when the horse can't cope. If you put the horse above your safety and avoid situations that are likely to become dangerous then you never need that caveat and you actually remain safer. This is how I've been with Jak for years and this is my approach with Billy, allowing him to learn about the world at his pace. The trouble with Sam is that he's not, and will never be, first. That may sound harsh but it's realistic, particularly while Billy is so little, always with me and very much my priority. If I had one-to-one time with Sam then that would be different, of course I would do a proper job then! Poor Sam has to put up with what I hope is a reasonable compromise. I guess it comes back to the rules of shaping and only training one animal at a time, although Karen Pryor doesn't mention that this is largely because you can't put more than one trainee first.
So it's a new approach for me and a challenge to be as ethical as I have always wanted to be, whilst remaining within my limitations. Sam's recall is ok, in fact sometimes impressively good if there are no competing scents, dead (or dead-to-be, sigh!, definitely not a veggie dog!) animals etc around, but on a bad day I do find myself shouting at him in a way that I just wouldn't shout at Jak or Billy. I should mention here that he is an emotionally secure, bouncy adolescent, not an abused quivering wreck who I hope I would treat very differently. What I find interesting is how limited +P is. Once you've shouted and nothing's happened you can either shout again the same, or shout again a bit louder. Compared with the power of a positively rewarded variable schedule it is soooooo feeble!
Moving house was great for reminding me of the rules of shaping and how if you change the environment you should expect a change in behaviour. Yup we got that and suddenly had the contents of the kitchen bin being spread everywhere if I forgot to lift it up. And the outside bin all around the garden. And he somehow escapes out of the garden and buggers off for a bit, barking pitifully by the fence when he can't get back into the garden (what's wrong with coming back the way you got out???). In fact there are so many things he does that piss me off sooooooo much - sometimes I feel I have an anti-social lodger living with me and I'm not even sure if I like him. Maybe I've spent 30+ years wanting a dog just to find out I'm not really a dog person afterall!! But I can't help noticing that the things he does that piss me off are all my fault - I forget to make the bin dog-proof, I need to fix the fencing, I need to be more consistent about where Sam sits when I'm feeding Billy so he can't grab food Billy's chucked on the floor, I need to slow down and look where I'm going so he doesn't keep tripping me up. And if I'd let him outside immediately when he asked he wouldn't have thrown up half-digested recently-caught rabbit everywhere. As much as I would love him to humour me and allow me to be a bit crap and human from time to time, it won't happen and he will be there to remind me of my shortcomings!
One thing that is a really interesting result of his castration is that he will act very submissively when in dog-dog situations. Previously he would tend to blunder into social situations he didn't know how to deal with and I felt it was only a matter of time before he'd get hurt. Now he still loves social situations but can extract himself safely. And he's nearly stopped trying to shag every dog he comes across!
Putting him onto a raw meat and bone diet has won me sooooo many favours that I reckon he would think I was mad for worrying whether I treat him nastily or not. He bounces for his food in a way he never did for kibble (didn't even bother to finish it sometimes). I give him packs of trim/offal or chicken carcass from an organic butcher (Sheepdrove Farm mail order in case anyone's interested - comes in 500g ish packs which is conveniently what he needs a day) and he is looking fab on it. And he no longer has the itchy anal glands he was forever rubbing along the floor while he was still on kibble, mmmmm, lurvely. All the walking we do has also contributed to him looking really good, completely different shape from when he arrived.
Think that's about it. Oh, I suppose I should say some nice things about him to prove we all love him really! He is absolutely great at home playing with Billy. Poor Sam hates his paws being fiddled with and Billy is fascinated by them and goes for them any opportunity. And he is highly entertaining with his toys, particularly in the new house which is long and thin and so Sam can get up lots of speed as he bounces through. And he has wonderful games with his equally bouncy labrador girlfriends. And some of you have met him now and he seems to have won you all over so he must be great. And he was an absolute star when Billy was throwing up for 4 days, I hardly had to clear up anything!!! That'll do!
HelenW - how are things with your new boy? Sleeping under the table with him is exactly the sort of "putting the dog first" that you sound as though you are doing beautifully and I'm being shamefully crap about.
"Putting him onto a raw meat and bone diet has won me sooooo many favours that I reckon he would think I was mad for worrying whether I treat him nastily or not. He bounces for his food in a way he never did for kibble (didn't even bother to finish it sometimes). I give him packs of trim/offal or chicken carcass from an organic butcher (Sheepdrove Farm mail order in case anyone's interested - comes in 500g ish packs which is conveniently what he needs a day) and he is looking fab on it. And he no longer has the itchy anal glands he was forever rubbing along the floor while he was still on kibble, mmmmm, lurvely. All the walking we do has also contributed to him looking really good, completely different shape from when he arrived. "
Told you! ;D
Never heard of Sheepdrove farm, but will look into that, thanks.
How am I getting on with my boy? Hmmm, Well everything was SLOWLY getting easier in a kind of 2 steps forward, 1 step back kind of way. But gradually over the last few weeks he has developed other behaviours which I think must be hormone related (he is 10 months now). He's started to attack other dogs (had a fight with a Jack Russell this morning in which I had to pull him off) but this has gradually been building up as he has been barking at and going for other dogs more and more. I thought it was because he was on the lead but he does it off the lead too. So he's definitely becoming more of a handful out walking.
The separation problems are just bearable. In actual fact, he is fine to be left, it's the homecomings that are the problem! And me actually getting ready to go out. He circles me, jumps up at me, barges me and as I am walking, he runs behind me and puts his front leg round my leg to trip me up....Nightmare!
He is really good at night time when I go to bed (I only slept ON the table a few times, not UNDER!) but every morning at about 5.30 he starts barking and barking and scratching the door and barking some more. I'm careful not to go down until there is a pause in the barking but obviously his anxiousness overrides his memory! There is definitely an element of him training me but unfortunately I can't wait for the extinction burst as at some point I have to go downstairs as I have to go to work etc! I guess I'm hoping he'll grow out of it.... Clicker training has worked well in getting him to get down from the baby gate to let me through to the kitchen but we still have to go through all the barking and hyper ventilating etc first.
Have to say, it's wearing me down and now he's not allowed out at my work as he led my boss' dog off for a trip down the road today and was found by a lady who came to find out where the dogs came from! Saying that, he's got a perfect recall when we are out walking but at work I call him back and he just ignores me (only separation problems when he chooses huh????)
Bearing in mind I appear to be a crap dog owner/trainer this is what I think I should do if I were in your position but not sure f I would do it......
Rather than waiting for a gap in the barking, which as you realise is not necessarily a time when he feels cheery, I think you'd be better off pre-empting it altogether. If by 5.30 he feels anxious then you should really try going down to him at 5.25 or earlier. Then he will genuinely be in a less anxious phase and more likely to be able to cope when you then head up to bed again. And of course, once you have established that sort of routine, you can use shaping to make the time you greet him later and later
Ha ha, thanks Catherine. I know there are loads of things I SHOULD do but don't!
Yes I've tried doing what you suggest..... but....as soon as Louis hears the floorboards creak, he's there tearing down the door in anticipation! It was a bit better for a while when the clocks first changed, ha that fooled him.... for a few days!
On a lighter note, I solved the problem of him barking at the stairgate when I go upstairs.... I took the stairgate away! Sounds simple but I honestly didn't think of it before. I couldn't have done that when the cat was living upstairs obviously (unfortunately she was killed by a car a few months ago)
Talk about not seeing something that is right in front of my eyes(for 2 months) Not unusual for me though!
Would it be easier just to let Louis come up to bed with you? Then once he's a bit more settled you could use the gate to gradually move him to just outside your door (door still open though) and eventually downstairs (maybe, or just give up!).
Is your boy an only dog? Is it feasible to get him a chum?
This is my bog-standard solution to separation issues because it worked like a dream for me, and also because I wonder if it isn't just a teensy bit mean to train such a social animal to go without constant companionship. [Now putting head back down below parapet!]
No, my boy has a lovely Golden Retriever to keep him company! I daresay he would be worse without her though.
He is so much better than when I first got him. I couldn't even go to the loo without him bashing the door down. Even if I don't shut the door properly, he knows that he can only come in after the chain is flushed and he waits patiently outside till then!
Since taking the stairgate away from the bottom of the stairs, Louis can follow me round the house and he doesn't get anxious which is great for him but annoying for me. He's always under my feet and walks in front of me and circles me if he thinks I'm going to go somewhere without him, which really pisses me off when I'm in a rush (and he feels the need to worry when I'm in a rush and all flustered!) It does mean that I can go upstairs for a snooze in the middle of the afternoon now (ha ha, oh for the time to do that!)or I can just go upstairs... full stop. He'd just get so upset before when he couldn't be with me.
Unfortunately, we have bigger issues than that to deal with now as he has been becoming more and more aggressive to other dogs whilst out walking. He was attacked quite a while ago by a black dog and for a while he growled at black dogs but then it extended to other dogs as well and the growling became barking... and he had a scrap with an Irish Wolfhound yesterday.
Obviously he senses me tense up because of the situation and thinks there is something to worry about... you know the story. It's such a shame because I am surrounded by beautiful countryside and could walk for hours but now I find myself going out early in the morning or evening thus avoiding other dogs and going to the places where I hope no one else will be. It's so disappointing
If anyone knows of a 'Ben Hart' of the dog world, please let me have his number!
I've not posted before, but lurked lots, and read lots of the stuff on this site.
I wondered if you had read these books? Jean Donaldson and Patricia McDonnell have both got some good stuff on lots of doggy issues, including separation anxiety and dog-dog aggression - have a look round on amazon, or the canineconcepts website for their books and some descriptions/reviews. Some of the books are quite small and address specific issues, so are only a few pounds. Emma Parsons has written a book called 'click to calm' which is about using clicker training to overcome aggression - it may be worth having a look at that as she suggests lots of exercises that can be used to teach dogs to approach other dogs - although I'm not sure how practical her advice of training dogs to communicate in a positive way - I think anyone who tried to interrupt and redirect communications in dogs would have to be very good at understanding body language etc... Brenda Aloff has a good book on canine body language which can be good to spot the very first signs of stress, and to identify the triggers.
Emma Parson's book does also cover the 'learn to earn' programme, which is something you could possibly consider using with your dog, to try to rebalance the relationship a little bit - not that I am for one minute suggesting 'leader of the pack' approach, but learn to earn can be helpful in lots of situations.
Hope that maybe there is something here that might help.
best wishes
Tess
This message has been edited by Tess5 on Apr 21, 2009 4:12 PM This message has been edited by Tess5 on Apr 21, 2009 4:11 PM
Time clears up all problems!...........Just when you think you can't cope, along comes a change (for the better). My experience has been that all the training, gadgets etc. is not really worth the bother - dogs train themselves in the long run, or, rather, they learn how their family lives and adjust their behaviour to fit (more or less). Of course one has to do a bit of tooth-gritting, but eventually things shape up. Avoiding incidence of undesired behaviour is the key, to me - and, yes, sometimes it means not taking the walks you would like at the times you prefer or whatever it takes.
Hi Tess, welcome to the forum and thank you for your suggestions.
I've read the books you mention (not Click to Calm though). I've ordered Control Unleashed which I think is similar. All the books you mention are good. Many thanks for your advice.
Rita, you are so right. Time does clear up all problems! You see, whilst my old Golden Retriever is absolutely perfect now, sometimes I have flash backs of her pulling me along... and running off into peoples' back gardens and not coming back.... and chewing a number of remote controls out in the garden, not to mention shoes and the usual stuff... It's just that I have forgotten all that now she is 12! I still think she was not as bad as Louis though. But Louis has different problems. He would never dream of chewing anything, or running away so that's a good thing!
I agree with you about the gadgets as well and that dogs learn to fit in with the family and I know that will happen eventually - when he's 3! I'm just terribly impatient and want everything to happen yesterday and if I think I can't do something then I want to do it all the more! Louis and I had started running in the mornings and I even lost a bit of weight! Hmphf!
Anyway, it's not all bad because now I will do some proper clicker training with him which is what I should do but never get round to, preferring instead to potter round the countryside with my head in the clouds! So, as you say, along comes a change (for the better)! He'll be such a good dog eventually!
thanks for the 'control unleashed' title - a couple of other people have mentioned it as being really good as well - so I think I'll have to track it down. apparently there are also dvds to go with it.
Welcome to the forum - I love it when we hear from new people (big hint to all the lurkers out there). I'd not heard of Emma Parsons so will look out for her stuff - thanks.
I agree about Jean Donaldson and Patricia McDonnel, they are excellent books. Although I've read them as "horse books" because there were so few decent equine behaviour books. Now I actually have a dog I should probably reread them from more of a doggy perspective!
Catherine
This message has been edited by Brocksopp on Apr 29, 2009 2:49 PM
I know what you mean having a lot more information from the dog world than the horse world - although my intro to ct-ing with my horses was Alex Kurland's stuff, and I still think her books are very good and keep going back to them, but they don't really look at the ethology side at all. It's quite exciting that there are more books being written about using positive reinforcement now though - I think Emma Lethbridge has one coming out next month - it is called something like 'Know your horse' - which doesn't make clear what it is about, which is a bit of a shame.
At the moment I am reading 'Dogs' by Ray Coppinger - I have only just started, I think it is meant to be quite good, with some controversial bits in it. I don't know if anyone has read it here, or has any thoughts on it? Last night I read that dogs are different to whales or rats in that they don't respond to instrumental conditioning in the same way, because they have such such strong innate behaviours, like 'point' in bird dogs and 'eye' in collies; behaviours that it is impossible to train them to do. So I'm a bit baffled by that statement at the moment, but I'm hoping things will become clearer as I read the book, because surely all species have some hard-wired behaviours that affect their training and constrains what they are capable of?
Sorry, probably not making much sense - if anyone has any thoughts I would be grateful to read them.
The hard-wired versus trainable issue is interesting, and has two sides, to boot. The flip side is that humans are also animals with hard-wired behaviours, and some of them are concrete (the construction of what we see from the stimuli received, e.g.), whilst others are more abstract - self-deception (have a look at "Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me)" by Carol Tavris & Elliot Aronson, for an entertaining view of this), as an example.
So we need to know when we are applying our hard-wired behaviours and concepts to other species. This makes it a lot less absolute and a lot more interactive.
A lot of the time what we THINK we are doing or saying is not "really" (if there is a "really") what we are doing/saying, especially saying, since this takes us into the realm of abstract language (yes, still banging on about this), which is at once a handy-dandy way of getting to be top species and a method par excellence of removing our experience of the world from being direct to being mediated and subject to all the biases inherent in the language system. ("Bad dog" = inconvenient behaviour, "We are suspending this service to improve our service", "Ethnic cleansing" etc.)
I find it more fruitful to think of training ourselves, and taking on board our own biases and hard-wiring than to try and get inside other species. What are WE up to in this process?
"With great power comes great responsibility", as they say in the Spiderman films...........
bear with me on this, and I'm probably going to show my complete ignorance but....
just to try to clarify it in my mind, are you saying that the way human (animals) are hard-wired means that it is impossible for us to be objective, because we are always distorting 'reality' to fit our perceptions of what 'reality' should be. Therefore it is better (although perhaps impossible/very difficult) to suspend preconceptions about how other animals' hardwiring effects their behaviour? Maybe to do that we need to try to become as aware as we can of our preconceptions about a particular breed/species/individual - and bear that in mind as we interact with the animal in front of us and continually re-evaluate our preconceptions in the light of the behaviour we see? If I've interpreted your message in the wrong way, I apologise in advance.
Also, thinking more on the Coppinger book - I wonder if he has in mind the same sort of thing as 'the misbehaviour of organisms'?
I'm sorry I wrote in a less-than-clear way, but I'm sorting out my own thoughts at the same time.
Yes, what you say is (put more succinctly) what I was getting at. It seems to me that the great human problem is thinking: "It's happening between my ears, therefore it must be a) important and b)right", whereas science shows us more clearly daily that what happens between said ears is actually pretty dodgy stuff.
You can see that there would be an evolutionary advantage in being able to trust one's own judgement, but we have now left so far behind the situations where this would always be the case, especially in our relations with other species, the planet etc, that surely we must begin to see that our language-mediated, second-hand analysis of many life situations (such as relating to other species) is not necessarily leading us in the direction we want to go, (apart from shutting off many -millions- of individuals in other species from going anywhere at all). I think it would be more fruitful to examine as carefully as possible what OUR behaviour and rôle in the biosphere (sorry) should be if we wish to interact with other species in a rational, non-harmful way.
I don't mean (or do I?) that no sort of animal training should be attempted, but, yes, I do think that human interpretations of animals' mental processes (!)/behaviour are pretty much bound to be fallacious, even when they are effective in practical terms. Perhaps I mean "If a lion could speak, we could not understand what he would say" (quoted from memory,. The frames of reference are too disparate.
Thanks for sorting out my diffuse thinking! Let's keep building here!
Rita
yes, I agree with what you are saying here (I think!!). We have become so disconnected from the 'real world' - the planet/ecosystems/other species - we somehow manage to see ourselves as outside or above it all, instead of simply part of it. And our disconnected, artificial lifestyle, much of which takes place inside our own heads, or through verbal language, or via computers etc means that we stand less chance than ever of even beginning to think accurately about how other species think. Maybe (hopefully) this is not true of all humans though - maybe some people are still managing to live a life that allows a closer connection to other species - right off the top of my head here, someone like Mark Bekoff comes to mind - and maybe people like that can offer a glimpse into the worlds of others.
It is so difficult, because our preconceptions lead us to interpret behaviour in certain way - like the dominance discussion that has taken place on the other thread at the moment - and if the behaviour 'fits' the description we are trying to give it - then it seems perfectly legitimate, and acceptable (to some folk) to just label that behaviour as 'dominance' or whatever - and once a label is put on the behaviour, we have even less chance of seeing past the label to try to understand what might be going on.
But where does this leave us in terms of our interactions with other species - and particularly in terms of teaching/training them. At the end of the day we now have domesticated species such as horses and dogs, who have no earthly chance of returning to a 'natural' existence - whatever that may be - and therefore we have to take responsibility for the wellbeing of these animals - and part of that must be figuring out the most ethical, effective and enjoyable ways of teaching them to interact with human (animals) - us/me!!
Well, actually I think that it's being the species we are that gives us our problems in this respect, not just a life-style or civilisation. I don't believe, for instance, that there are lifestyles which give some people a better access to reality - just a different set of mythologies.
Science, which so far seems to be able to contribute to a connection with underlying real mechanisms, whilst far from value-free, is what there is and individuals like Marc Bekoff are able to make valuable contributions precisely because they have come the hard route.
Where does that leave us with training issues? I would want to say that really concentrating on ethology and welfare science, plus sticking to a coherent ethical line, leaves us with saying that yes, we've contracted responsibility for various animals, who need to be trained to live safely in our world (like children need training in crossing the road), but that we must have an eye to a future when we will understand our place amongst the species as one of respecting their "telos", as Bernard Rollin puts it - i.e. their unique ways of functioning and personal interests without wishing to use our power to exploit them for any trivial purpose of our own. It won't be today, or tomorrow, but surely this should be the goal, and should inform what we do with the animals that are in our realm of resposibility right now.
Just responding to Tess's first post about the Coppinger book. I thought it was great and very refreshing. I kind of agree that there is a huge blurring between which behaviours are innate and which are trained and that yes, all species have some hard-wired behaviours. But I think Coppinger's point (or at least, how I've interpreted it) is that dogs have been soooooo selectively bred that their hard-wiring is stronger, at least in the case of certain breed:behaviour pairings. I think I'm inclined to find that believable. Although having said that, there were times when I felt Coppinger took a too-scientific approach and didn't consider individual personalities. I think I'm right in saying (Suz was it Peter Neville who said this???) Coppinger was of the ilk who didn't really attribute emotions to animals and it comes across!
re 'respecting telos' - agree absolutely with this - it is the goal we should be striving for, and it should inform our interactions with the (non-human) animals around us now - and interactions with human animals too! Ethology, welfare and ethics will, I think, be the 'keys to the kingdom'.
But this is the question that keeps coming back to me - HOW? - how does science make the leap from where it is now, to becoming 'mainstream' enough to be attractive to people who do not have a sceince/welfare/ethics/ethology background - because, I guess, if it can't reach these kinds of people, then all that the good work is doing is just 'preaching to the converted'.
It seems to me that people who have horses like dominance/hierarcy/leadership theories; they like conventional, BHS style-stuff and they like to think that they can have a deep, spiritual connection with their horses, dance with their horses, do rituals with their horses; a few people seem to like all three approaches - and when you really break down what is going on with the training methods, pretty often, it doesn't seem that they are all that far apart, to me.
So where, in all of this does ethics, ethology, welfare and learning theory (the other 'biggy' for me) come in - because these appraches ask some pretty hard questions of us, as 'guardians' or however else you want to term it, of animals that we are responsible for - and sometimes, to answer them honestly, we have to take a close look at stuff that we'd rather not see. I beleive that an approach based solidly on these disciplines is vital - it is rational, humane and fair on the animals and people - but how can this be made more appealing than dancing and performing rituals with your horse - and being his leader, and understanding the 'herd dominance hierarchy'? Science may have problems, and it certainly isn't value free, but I would hope that an approach based on it would question some of the delusions that people have about their relationships with their animals now - trouble is, I don't think people want those delusions to be questioned. And yes, I agree that our own 'frame of reference' makes 'reality' meaningless - but I still think we can strive to get a grip on some sort of reality - and I don't think it is so difficult to imagine how a flight animal feels when it is kept in a stable (cage) for 22 hours a day, denied social contact, fed a restricted, unnatural diet, taken out under restraint, and trained with good dollop of negative reinforcement and positive punishement.
This week I had a conversation with Simon Mulholland - saddle chariots inventor. He has a hope that by 2020 people will look at whips and spurs and other 'weapons' (his words) that are used on horses with disgust. Sadly, I think he is living in a dream world. He wouldn't bet for money on his views!
Re the Coppinger book - yes, lack of emotion aside, I think it is a great book, thorougly enjoying it, and learning lots. Interestingly, on page 19, as previously mentioned, Coppinger said that dogs do not respond to instrumental conditioning in the same way as rats and pigeons. However, by page 49 dogs are "without peer in the animal world in responding positively to instrumental conditioning" - thanks for clearing that up Mr C.!
Tess - couldn't agree more, the 64,000 $ question is HOW to get evidence-based thinking about other species to be the lingua franca of discussions about their behavior and how we relate to them.
The only way which occurs to me is to switch the focus from outside to inside. There's a fair bit of knowledge accumulated by now on how human beings work. A lot of it goes to show that our mental processes are not what we have always taken to be the case - memory, vision, group relations, self-justifiction, language, love - all turn out to be rather hit-or-miss processes which have evolved to get us through from generation to generation, rather than to provide us with precision instruments with which to analyse the world. If this can be conveyed to people, it just might - it certainly has for me - get them thinking that humans should be working on themselves, not on other species. That almost all contacts with the latter have resulted in disasters for them and that, although we have hoisted ourselves into pole position vis-a-vis the rest of the world, this just means we have to find the least damaging way forward, not go for maximum exploitation.
There's plenty of evidence, too, that our attitude to other species, founded, as it must be, on our own fallacious take on the world, IS fallacious - it's NOT in our interest, even though we have designed and accomplished it - factory farms, "food" animals eating the bread of the poor, pigshit lagoons, "Livestock's Long Shadow", disappearing wildlife habitats, avian flu, - all this proceeds from our belief in our own thought processes: "I want it, I must have it - and I have the power to get it" - we simply cannot believe that our wants and emotions are not connected to the nature of the universe, - and they're not, at least not often.
In practical terms, where would this lead? First, those of us who care about other species have to clean up our own act - one simply can't live a life taking advantage of non-human species -i.e. giving in to one's own caprices at the expense of others, and then expect other people to excise certain behavours that they find acceptable and we don't. My own belief is that for humans to recognise their exploitative nature and try to limit the damage it causes we have to wade as far upstream as we can in recognising and sanitising the source of our own fallacious thinking/behaviour. Then at the least there will exist a line of clear reasoning to which we can refer, a chain of evidence uncontaminated by capricious human interests.
Will that ever be mainstream thinking? I won't see it in my life, but it's always worth taking a step in the right direction - apart from anything, how can one resist logic? And now we have the scientific evidence to disregard the shaky basis of human caprice and proceed to build a solid edifice on collective interests - i.e., what will keep the world and all its species, afloat.
