Friday, November 13, 2009

Dog Whisperer

The Dog Whisperer is a talented man who understands inside of a dogs mind. The explicit example in this essay is how to be fluent with your posture and your gestures towards the dog, to help it understand exactly what you mean, and to get exactly the reaction that you're looking for. It's all about your movements, and communicating with the animal. It has to feel you, see you, understand you and it uses what you give it to figure you out. You can't be general, or vague with the dog, you have to be purposeful and have meaning in every thing you do and say and how you say and do it.
Human-human interaction is similar in its forms of communication. Humans don't rely as much on body language, however we do subconsciously take notice of important movements. How your body is positioned does set the tone for how you will be reacted to. The triad of exercise, discipline, and affection comes into play because you need to be balanced. Whether with a dog, or a human, this process is key in communicating. Like raising a child, or making a marriage work- its a work in progress that needs training, time, and routine.
In this article, the Dog Whisperer lacks the talent that he has with dogs, when it translates to humans. He doesn't relate, understand, or try to make his own wife happy. She only forces him to change his ways in order to save their marriage. A councilor had to change his way of thinking towards what a marriage, and what a relationship is. Humans are not as easily persuaded as dogs, and you can't control a human with your body language. Or can you? Some people may be easily influenced by another person's body language- scared when the other is showing anger etc. but in the case of a wife, she needs him to understand her, and to participate in their relationship. The powers he has with dogs do not translate onto humans.

1 comment:

  1. I think an important element of the article was left out of this post, and that was how the dog whisperer, though amazing with dogs, lacks the same touch with humans. He cannot relate to even his own wife. I found this portion of the article one of the most fascinating because it makes me so curious as to what necissarily is the physcology behind this. Other than that, I think you've done a great job at juxtaposing humans to dogs and showing how our behavior is not actually that far apart.

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