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Notes from "Don't Shoot the Dog"

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  1. mat
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    This article is a great summary but I have been saying for years that everyone should read Don't Shoot The Dog. Everyone who deals with any sort of living creatures in any sort of a way. Including...

    This article is a great summary but I have been saying for years that everyone should read Don't Shoot The Dog. Everyone who deals with any sort of living creatures in any sort of a way. Including - especially - humans. The book is a nice short read but it'll give you techniques which will help you for life.

    I do particularly like this quote, especially as I have done both things: "Nobody should be allowed to have a baby until they have first been required to train a chicken" but I would expand it somewhat to "nobody should be allowed to have a baby or be given any kind of management role..."

    It's weird shaping a young child's behaviour. They're both much harder and far easier than chickens. Easier because you can explain stuff to them, harder because they have all these ideas of their own and preferences and emotions and stuff. Higher brain functions and a limbic system, in one sense, just get in the way. Chickens are just a bundle of reactions. Stimulate the right bits at the right time and you can get the result you want, it's largely just a matter of timing. Children would, of course, be a lot less fun and rewarding if they were more like chickens.

    4 votes