TRAIN THE BRAIN
We have for some thirty years now, through the process we use to train, (which is totally unique in the field of dog training), created a phenomenon that has boosted the performance in our dogs and given us an ability to produce a quality of behavior and performance in our dogs that is dynamic. It isn't that our personal abilities to train are of a higher quality than other trainers, it is our background and education, the understanding we have developed of the brain, its' parts and processes, and how they relate with body functions, and the strategy and processes that we use to teach dogs, that makes all the difference. The knowledge and understanding of each dogs' mentality, and how to motivate them to use their intelligence dynamically, have given us a heightened ability to produce K9s that can out perform any other dog in their related field.
Two years ago, Doctor David Kelso, the Vice President of the Wyoming Chapter of the American Red Cross brought us an Akita he wanted trained as a Disaster K9, for Search and Rescue and Cadaver work. The dog was a normal Akita with medium to low drive, very sensitive to stress. We started the dog off in obedience and search work, and had to stop, wait, and restart the dog twice during his six month training course. At times we wanted to give up and just let him go home. We felt bad about keeping him in our kennel where he just didn't fit in or belong. However, at the beginning of his fourth month of training, something happened in his brain and Casper began to "own" the training and accelerated his training. When Dave came at the end of the sixth month period Casper was doing it all on a medium intermediate level. Dave took Casper home and after just a couple of days noticed immediate progression. Based on the training we had given him, Casper in his second week home was able to track, search out, and find a man at 3am in the morning, in minus 30 degree weather, eight miles from town, stranded in the mountains in five feet of snow, and saved him before the cold could either kill him, or cause serious body damage. None of the other K9s owned by Search team members, or the State Police could even begin to track him. Casper went straight to him. Nobody could figure out how Casper was able to do this. Casper started finding people on a weekly basis. A month later, Dave was called out to find an "escaped" mental patient in a large hospital. The State Troopers had been trying to find him for over eight hours with no success. Dave went into the hospital, took Casper off leash and let him go. The officers there immediately scolded him, telling him there was no way without scent or other important evidence, that Casper could do the job. It took Casper 10 minutes. He went to the elevator up to the fourth floor and indicated to stop the machine. He went to the right, down the corridor, and into a door on the left, stopping at a closed door. Dave opened the door, and Casper went into the room and sat next to a man, sitting in a chair, who was then identified as the "escaped" mentally ill patient. When asked how the dog could do it, Dave explained that USK9 trains dogs to be brainwave and body functioning sensitive. Casper was attracted to him by his abnormal brainwave activity. Though the officers couldn't believe it, they had to accept Dave's explanation because there was no other explanation available. Since then Casper has found more people than any other Search dog in America in 2006, and has been awarded "Therapy K9 of the Year" by the Delta Society, and "Search and Rescue K9 of the Year" by FEMA and The American Red Cross". Casper is a good example of the results we can produce in our dogs at USK9.
What causes this dynamic reaction in the dogs we train? We have spent years researching in numerous fields of science to find out specifically what it is we are accomplishing in the brains of the dogs we train that is allowing them to perform with such dynamic performance.
Most dogs, though their senses are far greater than those of a human being, exist in a state of consciousness that is controlled largely by their subconscious minds. Their "thought" processes, when triggered, are controlled by disabled brain activity that have been passed down to them, and keeps them from communicating dynamically, as a human does.
Often, since their brain works differently than ours, or because their genetic ancestors did not develop or use parts of their brains as we do, these parts are undeveloped and not prepared to handle the stress that it would take to work correctly, or function at a minimal level. That brain, instead, handles these experiences in a protective manner; with behaviors it creates to defend itself from external pain and abuse. It shuts down, refuses to respond, becomes in operant, and dormant.
We need to understand that at its' best, the brain is only a mechanism that works as it has been programmed and as it is taught to work. Therefore, we have found that the dogs' brain simply repeats the same processes over and over, which dictate and control its' behavior.
However, through our conditioning we have found a process that breaks into the mental programming of the dogs we train and interrupts their brains' thought process. As we continue with our conditioning it allows us to motivate a higher quality of dynamic responsiveness in the brain of the dog, which allows them to continue to change the processes their brains use, raise their ability to respond, and behave with a higher quality of function ability. We have for some 20 years trained hundreds of Superior Court Certified dangerous dogs to be normal, and to function in a balanced, stable manner with society, in complete contrast to their past behavioral history. We have taken the most psychotic dogs from our society and through our conditioning produced normal behaviors. As an example we recently were retained to train two bull dogs purchased from Oklahoma, that were bred from a line of boar hunters. The dogs' complete thought process was dominated and controlled by their instinct to kill prey. When we began to train them they would become "instinct blind" (controlled by their irrational triggered programmed cranial responses) and without any rational or "intelligent" reason would simply attack and try to maul the trainers. Through our conditioning, in a matter of six weeks, we have been able to alter their instinctual drives and thought processes, and they have become well adjusted, respectful, obedient, communicable, and mentally responsive. We have done the same thing with a host of mental conditions in dogs of all breeds. But the most successful process we have found is how to stimulate the cause for mental development in the brain of these dogs.
THE PURKINGE CELL
While the brain has many parts that work together to produce the behavior we all experience, when it comes to receiving sensory stimulation and responding, Purkinge cells with their myriad of neuro-synapse anteriors act as the fiber through which the brain is stimulated, receives, and responds to external sensory stimulus.
If the Purkinge cells in the brain stop working and short out for whatever reason, (either automatically, as a part of a process dictated by the brain itself, or because they have been told to by some stimulus), it is then like somebody turned off the light switch. The brain shuts down its' ability to work, and no communication, progress, or further development occurs.
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If the Purkinge cell is under stimulated we call it retarded, and if it is over stimulated we call it hyper responsive. However, intelligence, and mental ability are definitely controlled by the qualitative workings of the Purkinge cells in the brains' Cerebellum. This process is controlled by the brains' brain, or the Hypothalamus.
The Hypothalamus collects, organizes, and orchestrates the process of communication with the body, which we call behavior. It collects material from the brain and organizes our conscious thoughts, feelings, and subsequent body actions according to the processes it is most use to. In collecting data to respond to any given external stimulus, it draws electronically and chemically from material contained within the brain, and processes that material throughout the body, which responds chemically, (through our blood system), and neurologically, (through our central nervous system). However, the Hypothalamus cannot do its' job if the Purkinge cells in the brain become overloaded and short circuit.
The primary concern here, first, is how you get the brains' myriad of Purkinge cells to open to external stimulus presented by the senses, and activate the neuro-synaps den drums that make the brain go to work. Recent scientific studies have found that 1 child in 150 is born with problems caused by this concern. These children grow up without developing their brain in many ways because of this problem.
Through our field work with dogs over the past 30 years we have found a strategy that has enabled us to do just that. We have gone beyond the operant conditioning exercises used internationally for dog training, to develop a dynamic communication with our dogs that actually stimulates their brains to develop, expanding their intelligence, raising their maturity levels, and greatly enhancing their abilities to communicate, understand, and learn. What we have been able to document with thousands of dogs is a definite cranial development and enhancement that has changed the lives of the people they live with.
What's more important is that the families owning many of these dogs have members that are disabled, and through their relationships with these dogs they have also been able to progress and develop mentally, sometimes even overcoming their specific disabilities.
The most important need we face is developing a way to stimulate and enhance better inter social communication abilities and skills between us and those people with autism that we are trying to communicate with. It is not enough for K9 trainers to conveniently hide in ignorance, stating that the cause for Autism is unknown, and the effect is unworkable.
We actually stimulate the brain in our K9s to "turn on", stop, listen, receive, and communicate, using a dynamic intelligent thought processes.
Our K9s perform on a much higher level of intelligence, using their brains to understand and respond to the actual intentions and needs of the handler, instead of a single word "commands". There is no comparison.
Through our conditioning our K9s are focused and "tuned in" to the thoughts, feelings, mental and physical processes of their handlers and respond dynamically and intelligently. Isn't that exactly what we are trying to achieve with our loved ones fighting an Autistic condition?
We actually are getting our K9s to open their Perkinjie brain cells and turn on the communication process in their brain. Why couldn't they help us to the same thing with their human companion? They do. We have had several DOGWISH K9 recipients who were non-speaking when they received their K9s, and are now communicating and using dynamic higher functioning skills. Their K9s were able to stimulate and motivate them to do what others couldn't.
The communication process that other dog trainers use and teach to their dogs is called "operate conditioning". What this means is that the dog is taught to receive a command word, and respond with an action. If you read books on dog psychology or training that's what it's all about. Most dog trainers brag about the number of commands their dogs will perform. These commands are taught to the dog like tricks, the same way you teach a Parrot to repeat a spoken word. All the dog is doing is mimicking what you have shown them, or repeating an action you have taught them. Our training is different.
Social Interaction
By learning to feel confident and empowered through their relationship with their K9 companion, numerous autistically affected K9 recipients have changed complete behavior patterns and processes, come out of their rooms, allowed themselves to interact with the family and friends, become much more social, and have allowed themselves to face the stresses in their lives in many ways they before would have completely either avoided, or refused to confront.
Our training has affected changes in the mental framework, capacity, ability, drive, and desire to intelligently and voluntarily perform. Our training uniquely affects and produces permanent changes in their mentality and behaviors.
The specific cause for these phenomena is the ability I have been able to create to stimulate and engineer mental growth, development, and responsiveness whereas before our training they:
Didn't have the capability for this mental development before our training
Possessed brains that to a great extent were not being used, (where their mental capacity to learn and perform lay dormant and not stimulated because the DNA in their brain cells which was not being actively used to stimulate the brain to learn, communicate, etc, (because of long term inactivity and caused by lack of development and usage in the dogs personal background of ancestry who were not trained and worked with.)
Possessed brains whose processes had partially shut down from stress and trauma
Possessed brains that were slow in developing
We teach each dog to:
control their emotional problems,
learn how to stop, focus, receive instruction, follow that instruction
learn new behaviors
transfer patterns of unacceptable behaviors to new acceptable behaviors
and literally transform their behaviors
In order to be effective and successful we work with each dog to:
learn how to enhance and use their mental capacity
to learn how to respond to our conditioning,
enhance their self image and role in the pack or family,
raise their level of intelligence and individual maturity,
change their self image and role in order to become more functional and compliant,
become a more positive part of the relationships with their human counterparts that they share and experience.
In order to be capable of responding positively in training, each dog must learn how to
Relax and then focus
Stimulate and use their brain
expand their ability to receive understand and respond appropriately to our instruction
increase their ability to use their conscious mind to respond voluntarily to our conditioning
Their success in doing this is achieved directly as a result of the conditioning exercises we teach them as we literally:
attack the conscious and subconscious mind of each dog,
forcing it to respond directly to our training,
intensely motivating and focusing each response with positive rewards, which produce mental clarity and further stimulation,
give the dog a further capability to progress.
As a result of our training these dogs have learned to:
expand their brain's potential to focus, receive, understand, follow, and perform tasks based on verbal communication, electro-magnetic stimulus, and brain wave inductive energy
Develop the ability to communicate dynamically on several levels using several dimensions of communication
Develop the ability to use their own thoughts to do intelligent complex problem solving
I realize that this is a little complex for the normal person to mentally digest, and at the same time we have had people that have asked about how we produce the dynamic quality of performance in our K9s.
This document, which has been presented to Departments of Psychology at local Colleges and was received very warmly, should serve as explanation for our efforts and success.
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