Canine Neurolinguistics

[Luke GSP]

I have been reading a lot lately about neurolinguistics and how it can help communication between humans beacuse of how you pose a question or address someone depending on the dominant language that their brain works in

Tactile

Visual

Audible

So for instance I am visual dominance and hence learn best through visual presentations and watching the mechanics of a scenario where my wife is very tactile and simply cannot walk past a piece of furniture that she like (for instance) without running her had over it. The (very) basic premise is (for instance) if you spoke to my wife about something and said how does that idea look to you, although she can work out what you said it take more comprehension skills than if you said how does that idea feel to you?

My thought was to whether there was or has been a similar study of animals, ie dogs? Are some more visual, tactile whilst other olfactory dominant(for arguments sake? MAybe that is why some respond well to hand signals (visually dominant?) as opposed to voice command (audio dominance?) where otheres seem to respond really well to physical methods of training (e-collar etc) Obviously I am aware of the fact that it is true that all dogs seem different to each other but I was wondering if there had ever been a study on trying to hone down to the dominant neural language for a particular animal and work using that method?

A bit heavy for first thing monday morning but it is incredible what you think of when you cannot sleep on a Sunday night! ;)

[corvus]

Haha, but something I've thought about myself. I have long thought that Kivi is a tactile dominant dog. He seems to find excuses to get you to put your hands on him. I found in training that he learns new things more quickly if I give tactile clues, like touching the body part I want him to move. I eventually decided to target train him as a result of that and his dislike of free shaping. I don't think he's very sensitive to touch given he has such thick fur, though.

My other dog is extremely sensitive to touch. So much so that it seems counter-productive to try to use it much. He goes weak at the knees if you scratch his back. Apparently most Vallhunds are like that. I hear that many Greyhounds are as well.

[Luke GSP]

It was just one of those things that came to me at the weekend. My dogs are diametrically opposed in the fact that one of them (male) is a whatever dog. If you stroke hime (whatever!) if you don't (equally whatever) visual gestures though he really responds well to, for instance if you tell him "Down" he will do it but not with half as much urgency as a down with a had command. My female however has always responded well to touch and craves human touch all the time, out of the two of them she also responded extremely well to ecollar work and enjoyed it thouroughly always responding positively where my male was not so keen, at first I thought that the stim level might be to high but the working level that I was using was between 9-15 on a collar system that has a range of 0-128 at this level if he was in a relaxed state you would be hard pushed to see a reaction from him when stim was applied (blink, slight cocking of the head, looking around) so it is unlikely to be that. However it almost appeared as if the stim would cloud him when you tried to use it as a training aid. Food based training works wonders with the male yet the female is not so excited by the idea. She eats the food but gently where if you did not move your hand back as my male went for the food after a retrieve he would end up with just your elbow coming out of his mouth

Edited May 17, 2010 by Luke GSP

[Diva]

I have only ever formally trained two breds in obedience exercises, but a couple of dogs in each breed. Consistently I have found individuals from the herding breed to be more sensitive to hand signals than those from the sighthound breed.

[Loves Dogs]

I think it definatly applies. My old boss studied it in humans so I am very familiar with it. Its just craking the code with your dog and finding out which way they are more inclined. If we do this training will be much more rewarding. Love that you brought this up and Im keen to see what others have to say about it