I Once Knew a Dog  

That Could Talk 

Well, ok, the dog couldn't talk like you and me, but it made noises that had significant meanings such as barking to raise an alarm or show it was happy, yelping to show it was hurt or afraid and growling to show it was angry.  It also had facial expressions to show sadness and happiness. 

Oh, I nearly forgot, he also wagged its tail.  I'm not sure why but perhaps it was trying to cool down or swat flies, but there must have been a reason. 

It was all a wonder to me as I had always been led to believe that a dog either barked at you or bit you, depending on how it felt.  But this dog was different. 

I am sure it secretly read books or listened to the radio in a closed room, or maybe even turned the television on while I was out of the house.  One thing for certain, he was intelligent and seemed to be more intelligent than many humans I have met. 

Now you could be thinking at this stage that I have lost a marble or two that I need to keep my brain inside my scull, but that would only be insulting me.  The truth is, some dogs are intelligent and many are well able to communicate with human beings. 

A long time ago in the distant past when black was black and white was white, a lot of research went in to finding out why certain animals behave as they did.   Considering, not many people were interested as long as they were not the recipient of a rather nasty bite, the effort researchers put into this was amazing. 

In Russia, a guy called Ivan 'something' Pavlov (the correct spelling of his name is 'Иван Петрович Павлов') took a particular interest in researching dog's responses. 

He was a clever guy and soon discovered that if you ring a bell and give a dog food, the dog will associate food with the sound of a bell.  I see this every day I walk past my gold fish tank and see the goldfish swimming excitedly towards me expecting, no doubt, to be fed. 

Personally I don't find anything exciting about ringing a bell and watching dogs eat, unless of course, they are eating something you have wanted to get rid of for years (I will leave your imagination to figure out what). 

However Pavlov, if I may respectfully refer to him as such, took his experimentations much further. 

He found that dogs could be conditioned in to doing almost anything, except reciting Shakespeare.   He called that conditioning, or to be more precise operant conditioning.    In simple terms, and if I don't say so in simple terms, I will not understand what I am writing, if you associate something pleasant with an action of any kind, a dog will be happy. 

Behaviourist Psychologists know all about that and they help their clients by treating them as 'animals in human form' - hey, I am not being disrespectful, we all know that we have animal instincts.  Should a client suffer with a phobia of, let us say spiders, by associating something pleasant with spiders, they gradually take away the fear. 

This is called desensitization 0 the gradual introduction to a phobic object reduces the fear in stages.  The pleasant side to it is the sense of achievement. 

A Behaviourist believes that almost any psychological illness can be cured by conditioning.  Maybe they are right - who knows? 

However, using the same principals of desensitizing is a common method of treatment by Hypnotherapy.   A Hypnotherapist simply uses Pavlov's theories by manipulating the imagination of the client at an Unconscious level.  Any self-respecting Hypnotherapist believes that is a far more effective and a much quicker route to a cure. 

Personally I think they are both right and I agree that through conditioning, after all we all respond to outside influences in either a positive or negative way, we can achieve anything in life. 

So when I said my dog could speak, I am right.   His body language and sounds all say something special.  But when he wags his tail, growls at me, lies on his back and then bites my leg, it makes me wonder who did his conditioning. 

Ah well, enough for now.  Hope you enjoyed. 

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NOTE:  The whole of this article can be reproduced providing the following Bio is included:

"Robert Shields, is the Principal of The Robert Shields College and runs a low cost Hypnotherapy Diploma Training Course that includes a money-back guarantee. Details can be found at: http://www.hypnotherapy-training.com He is also the originator of Fear Elimination Therapy that removes phobias and fears in minutes (Not N.L.P.). Details at: http://www.hypnotherapy-training.com/fet.html ."