Once You Rationalize Away That First Bad Decision…

As a caveat, please understand that this blog is not about judgement or blame. It’s just another psychological rabbit hole.

Once You Rationalize Away That First Bad Decision – the rest come easy… Someone hit me with that statement 30 years ago and I’ve never forgotten it.

Show of hands? How many owners asked themselves “Am I doing the right thing” before offering a treat for the first time, applying a prong for the first time, or pushing the shock button on that collar for the first time? Did you offer that treat? Walk the dog in that prong? Hit that shock button?

Because – you just rationalized away that first bad step – you rationalized away the doubt – now the rest will come easier. And what people have managed to normalize as a result of rationalizing? It scares me.

When I watch dog trainers – even treat trainers – I see sanctioned animal abuse against an intelligent and sentient animal called the dog. And it’s hosted – and pushed by social media companies themselves. Abuse against dogs has been normalized – face it. Cause people are cheering it on – great dog trainer! it’s been normalized.

Dogs in reality are sentient – self aware and aware of environment. Plants and insects are sentient. But humans started at some point carrying a measuring stick for life, intelligence and sentience – and we tend to be the only ones that can measure up. Our species as a whole carries a very narcissist attitude – and we are not very good advocates for the planet.

Human beings as a whole is the most dangerous animal on the planet. Because we can rationalize away doing the bad – the dog can’t – the dog isn’t capable.

Society itself now sees the dog through the lens of Edward Thorndike – he is the father of Methodlogical behaviorism. I’m going to give you a few points about Methodological behaviourism – and they will make sense to you now.

Methodological behaviourism does not allow one to compare the behaviour of human beings to that of lesser species – especially the dog.

Skinner fact – he replaced human with dogs, pigeons and rats in his lab. He did experiments on animals to understand human behaviour. Replace your dog with human – what would you do different?

Methodological behaviourism effectively beheads the dog – it sweeps everything subjective under the rug. It’s too pesky to deal with – lets just focus on the objective behaviors – not the causes. The causes are emotions/instincts, the limbic brain, fight and flight etc – but Methodological behaviourism doesn’t care. They don’t care about the cause – the reason that the dog is acting out in the first place – that is called a diagnosis. That’s subjective – they only see the objective – and they only know to suppress behaviours – shut them down – stop the behaviours. Methodological behaviourism doesn’t require a diagnosis. Dog training is a solution with a diagnosis – they are throwing spaghetti at the wall to see if anything sticks.

Skinner fact – he didn’t care about the mind – he didn’t take it away. He didn’t need the animal mind to shape behaviours – all he did was manipulate the environment and let the animal figure it out. He understood that the mind had no direct impact on your behaviours.

Methodological behaviourism allows consciousness to atrophy. If your dog is never allowed to make a choice or decision – will they eventually lose their capacity or will to do so? Methodological behaviourism creates domestication – and we live under the same domestication.

Skinner fact – he put the onus on the animal to figure out what it took to solve the puzzle. And early on – he “applied” shock to the feet of animals to motivate them. Negative reinforcements are everywhere in the environment – but they don’t exist in a sterile lab. They need to be created.

Methodological behaviourism is the primary reason that behavioural euthasia exists in the first place. Methodological behaviourism is the very reason that you ended up putting your dog down due to behaviours.

Skinner fact – once you understand what a behaviour is – then you come to realize that you cannot help the way you behave – and neither can the dog. We are killing dogs for bad behaviours? Again – see the fact that trainers don’t care to define the word behaviour. The dog is metaphorically a headless animal according to them.

With respect to its own goals, methodological behaviorism was and is successful – to this very day. It disposed of many of the problems raised by mentalism (mind) and freed itself to work on its own projects without philosophical digressions. By directing attention to genetic and environmental antecedents, it offset an unwarranted concentration on an inner life. It freed us to study the behavior of lower species, where introspection (then regarded as exclusively hum an) was not feasible, and to explore similarities and differences between man and other species. Some concepts previously associated with private events were formulated in other ways.

Fooled you – that last paragraph is a quote from B.F Skinners book “About Behaviorism”.

I always ask dog trainers, behaviourists, vets and vet behaviourists to define the very word behaviour – they can’t or they won’t because they don’t care what a behaviour is.

They focus only on shutting down the behaviour – they don’t need to define the word.