Speakingdog K9 Behaviour & Discussion Forum

23/06/2026

18/06/2026

09/06/2026

Roaming with Hounds Diary

The Paradigm Animal Trainers, Behaviourist and Canine Behaviour Practitioners just won't let go....

When I first started interacting with dogs, even as a young child, all we were taught we needed was to rewards behaviour we wanted and punsish behaviour we didn’t want. I remember my school friend an me, who walked a Collie and taught him to pull a sled, kept wondering, why he just wasn't always pulling it in the direction we wanted it to go, left or right. My school friend at that point even trained her rabbits to do tricks. And every now and then she was allowed to bring them to class and perform some tricks with her rabbits.

Educationally, one later learns the deeper hypothesis of classical and operant conditioning with all sort of different names for learning and reward protocols etc.
Noting , however, that Pavlovian Conditioning is a different story for a different Diary entry!

It is no wonder we come out to teach our regular pet owners the same old simplified story, because superficially it works. For a while!!

Then it slowly disintegrates into all sort of different behavioural changes, and when we are called again by the client, we try to find the problem either with the client, the environment or / and the training protocol. Nevermind, that the system just isn't a static data collector that then stores it to be recalled.

Well- the problem is- behaviorism NEVER explained learning. So why the hell are we still calling it a learning theory and selling it to clients as such!!
The more I hear "evidence-based" from all sort of animal professionals, the more I realize, do we just not want to update our knowledge oast anything of behaviorism?- or does the behaviorism paradim work just well enough to get the clients to return and spend more money on us telling them the same outdated story?

In 2022, Scientists published a paper called "In Vitro Neurons Learn and Exhibit Sentience When Embodied in a Simulated Game-World".
The neurons in a dish were not trained using reinforcement learning with rewards and punishments.
Noone knows what a dish of neurons like or do not like. No food pellet, encouragement, shouting or punishment would do anything to the neurons to feel good or bad and hot the ball with the virtual paddle.

Instead, the researchers, including Brett J. Kagan and Karl J. Friston, used a framework based on the Free Energy Principle, to teach the neurons play Pong.
The neurons were grown on a multi-electrode array that could both excite and record their activity. The Pong game was connected to the culture:
The ball's position was encoded as electrical signals delivered to the neurons.
The neurons' activity controlled the movement of the paddle.
When the paddle successfully hit the ball, the neurons received a predictable and organized sensory signal.
When the paddle missed, they received unpredictable, noisy signals.
Learning occurred because biological systems tend to organize themselves to reduce surprise and uncertainty from their sensory inputs, and favor regularity.
The researchers explained that predictable feedback after a successful hit produced less sensory uncertainty.
Missing the ball generated chaotic, unpredictable input - noisy, sensory uncertainty.

Over time, the neuronal networks changed their activity patterns to produce actions that led to more predictable sensory consequences.
In other words, the neurons were not being rewarded with something desirable. Rather, they appeared to adapt their behavior to minimize unpredictable stimulation.

The neuronal cultures gradually became better at keeping the Pong paddle aligned with the ball because successful actions produced a more predictable sensory environment than unsuccessful actions.

Im often told that when I write stuff it is hard to understand....
Well, here is a thought- how simple is it to provide more predictable interactions and engage in environments that the animals are better to resolve irregularities in??

How is that hard to understand.

Look - Feel around you- the world is full of regularities. Its not some noisy, hard to decipher place.

Point of the story- no your dog doesn't learn due to reward or punishment protocols-
It learns when it gets surprised, couldn't forsee the next best actions, but then can resolve unpredictability with changing actions or / and movements.
As simple as that

ACTION DRIVES LEARNING

Our future behaviour course will focus on thar. Starting with adoption- because, why not since 1700 greyhounds aline need new homes, not including the other thousands of dogs in NZ looking for a home.

07/06/2026

Roaming with Hounds Diary

How we move in relation to others matters!!

There is a very good reason I never go to public dog parks and why we created Neuropark Facilities-
Seems, a majority of people still don't get why these Facilities exist, and why we need to care about, how one moves in relation to Neuropark boundaries, or any space, or other being for that matter.

"My dog is friendly" is in NO way a defense for dog owners not to take responsibility to scanning the area they walk in. Your dog being "friendly", running up to a group of unknown dogs walked on leads, or a group of off lead dogs, could have serious consequences.
A well socialized dog doesn't mean that they just run at eachother if they dont know eachother. Even if the know eachother, there are "politness" protocols in any animal groups. Stopping, orienting gaze, looking away, head turning, slowly curving forward, mostly proceed the dogs meeting up close, sniffing eachother, or then chasing eachother with play bows, gaze changes and head turns as breaks, for the next chase to restart until the next pause.

In NO way is letting your dog speed up to another dog polite. Nor is running, cycling or walking at a dog, or other animal.

Walking a dog on a short leash past, right next to fencing with dogs off leash in it, is in no way defendable with: "well, my dog is on the lead"
Even a footpath let's one angle in a slight curve.

Letting a dog off leash near a fenced-in area with off leashed dogs or other animals for that matter, is in no way defendable with shouting a command at your dog, only for him to eventually follow you, because you start walking away.

If a dog orients away from you, listening to your command shouting, ain't his first priority.

All these cases, are avoided responsibilities that have real impact on other dogs, other animals, other people.

How we behave in relation to others matters.

Yes, sometimes, it's inconvenient to have to think about curving, or slowing down or crossing the road instead of going straightforward where the usual route is. But that is being social, supportive, relational to others.

If I pick up my dogs poos, im bending over, using my hands to open the bag and collect the excrement- i am in no position to move at speed to jump out of the way of a runner or a cyclist speeding at me and my dogs.
But it seems in a runners or cyclists perception, owning dogs alone gives us magical skills to move in ways otherwise impossible!!

What makes humans different from other animals is, we are often selfish as Fu #$ to suit ourselfs and then wonder why society (the group) fails on some levels.

And often, it is the other party that ends up hurt, at the vet getting the dog treatment🤷‍♂️ just saying......