More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
shown on TV nature shows. That’s saying a lot, given what our species does on television.
Habituation occurs when an organism (or even a single cell) begins to ignore something that occurs over and over with no relevant consequence. It’s considered a simple form of learning that virtually all animals exhibit. It
Extensive research on dog behavior found that puppies who were isolated from human contact between five and twelve weeks were never able to react normally to people later in life. Now called a “sensitive period” because it doesn’t appear to be quite as cut-and-dried as first thought, these early weeks have a profound effect on the behavior of an adult dog. During this time puppies—and their wolf cousins—are primed to take in information about who their social companions are.
Because in some dogs this cautiousness can lead to fear-related aggression, all dogs should be kept well socialized during (at least) their first year of life.
If you turn your head away from your dog, you’re saying that your interaction is over, and many dogs will seemingly understand and go away. If you keep staring at him, using words to tell him to go away, he’ll keep staring back at you, sure that you are trying to visually communicate something important and desperately trying to figure out what it is by looking at your face.)
