We have to learn to talk to our pets ourselves

– Tell us what your book is about?

– It would be a long time to tell. Maybe I will just say what it is new – the fact that we return to the old methods of interacting with the dog. We invite you to return to the language that the animal understands because it cannot open the book or to browse the computer as a person does. So how do he understand that person’s behavior?

The dog does not listen, pulls the leash and we are looking for tips on what to do, maybe a special leash to buy. The dog is barking – you need a collar from barking. The dog is attacking – we look at how to discipline it. We buy all kinds of tools and try to find a connection to the animal through those tools. However, the connection through leashes and collars will not burn. The connection to the animal is interacting with direct communication – as once, when there were no computers, special tools. In the past, a man was able to talk to animals: he went hunting, walked without leash, without collars, no delicacies, toys under his nose, and was not afraid that the dog would escape.

– But we forgot that?

– No, we didn’t forget. Specifically, we no longer know the animals to understand. Their different thinking, they cooperate differently, their communication is different from people. Animal communication remained the one that was still when we didn’t sit on computer screens. We looked at each other, communicating more than just words, not just the texts we write now, read … We use everything. We start using the concepts, means, and the dog. However, if we started communicating with the means that are understood by animals: the eyes, the body, we might restore that communication.

Everything is in us, all we have to do is use. It’s very simple. The animal reads everything from our body language: hands, voice, emotions. If we go with a dog, see another dog and scare, tense, start talking angrily, « Don’t, fu, don’t shift what you do? » If a person is afraid, what do you need to do? You need to drive out the enemy and save the host because he is afraid. If he was not afraid, he would go calm, forgiving the name or without a leash. Would go on his way with another dog.

And neither do you need something or run away from something. Every dog ​​understands it and knows how to do it. Only in the human imagination everything turned around, and many fears came.

Attachment: Mindaugas noticed every injured animal or bird from an early age; He just could, hooking up at home. This special connection has grown into the desire to professionally delve into the interaction of animals and humans. / Photo by M. Sejūnas Personal Archive

– Are today’s training schools, where puppy training is based on delicious delicacies?

– In training in schools, say: Follow the connection through the eyes with delicacies. I say too. The dog needs to show what I want from him. Well, at first you can with delicacies. Then I give up delicacies because, how to behave, the dog already understands without delicacies. Grings is not the main tool for training. They are like a steering wheel. However, if the dog is afraid, the delicacies will not help. If the dog wants to play, the delicacies may not work. If the dog does not experience the game, capture, pleasure, he will come up with other activities. Does this mean that we have a dog to attach and grind the sidewalks with delicacies?

However, this is not the problem of training schools. If a person visits there once a week, the trainer will not explain everything to him. Man himself must learn to talk to his pet.

Often, it imagines that training is what the dog listens to and is human. However, if it is forced, the animal does not bring joy. We do not pay attention to how we are with a dog: how we eat, sit, sleep. If we drive the dog all the time from the table, from the bed, from the room, he feels excluded, so let’s not be surprised that he is not invited then. If the dog in the whole body shows that we want attention, we reject or do not respond. However, the dog, however, gets the attention and realizes that it can only get it in this way, so he does this again and again.

You need to see, hear, respond – it is communication, not commanding. There must be an equivalent agreement, we have to hear each other. The training should take place every day. Every morning you wake up, open your eyes, you see a dog looking at you, and everything – you interact with him again. This is a training.

We invite you to return to the language that the animal understands because it can neither open the book nor browse your computer.

– The mistake of expecting you to go to a training school, visit ten lessons and already learned to communicate with your dog?

– Of course! In the training site, only shows communication principles, and hereinafter daily communication with the dog.

It must be understood that the team for the dog is just the position of the body it learns. Everything else is how a dog perceives the world, how he sees it. And he sees in his own way. If you are afraid, neither the team nor the delicate will work. Nothing will work.

We have to understand that the dog is thinking: it perceives the world, value, happiness, joy, love, but unlike a person. We need to understand that otherness because the dog does not understand our language. We have to try to learn that language.

We humans have come up with many new dog breeds: mushroom seekers, bird catchers, and network attractor, but in principle the dog is the same wolf or wild dog that once left the forest and came to the man. He himself came to us – it is the only animal that came himself. The man began to communicate with him, gave me meat, and they started walking together: hunting, hiding, sneaking, being together … The dog, as they say, did not lean, because if he was shaken, the man would not go to hunt with him anymore. So the dog was together. And not one – a lot of dogs were. Guarded the man. The man gave and fed his safety thanksgiving. This is how they – two different species – were communicating 30 thousand. years. Without coercion, agreeing.

Now we started to think that they are not listening, they want to scream, so they need to be disciplined, scolded. Well, such injustice towards the animal. They are definitely not formed to avoid listening. They are forced to listen, to have a person and try to do everything for us.

We tell us about all this in that book, present facts and examples.

Experience: Arg contributed to his master’s book, The Great Dog Host Manager; It describes many common experiences. / Photo by M. Sejūnas Personal Archive

– How much did your dog Arg contribute to writing a book?

– Arg has contributed a lot, with a lot of his experiences in the book. He is a so -called experimental dog. Animals are known to copy man and each other. They have mirror neurons and are able to copy human behavior, movements, each other’s movements, adapt to them, understand what is happening from body language. Argas copies me, understands what to do and does.

– If I asked you what Argas was, how could you describe it?

– He is my partner. We both work and learn together. We do internships and we will probably continue to do very serious work in canine therapy. Yes, he is a partner. And it’s not an epithet – it’s just a fact.

– Partner and friend? There is no status owner and subordinate in your relationship?

– No. Here as in a wolf family, it is called horizontal leadership. The leader is not the one who points out. The leader is the one who defends and protects.

I am sometimes asked how Argas responds to other dogs? He reacts as we agree together as I say. If we agree that we are passing, we will pass. Whether it’s a dog, a cow or an elephant. If we are attacked by someone, then I am the leader – I do not need to do it. If I am a leader, I have to take care of security.

However, we plan to expand our gang – the family, so there will be more of us. The work requires a larger gang. We are studying canit therapy in postgraduate studies and will continue to work in this field. So at least one dog will appear in our family.

– Will the gang be supplemented by another doberman?

– Probably not. It will be a smaller dog.

– I haven’t seen a doberman’s canine therapy dog ​​…

– This was probably not in Lithuania. The myth is that the doberman’s dogs are aggressive. If a dog wants to injure or destroy something, it is abnormal. A normal dog must first be a social animal.

He had to pass the exams for Argas to work with children. In Austria, he passed the European Basic Peduity Test. In Lithuania, Argas passed the LSMU Therapy Service Examination perfectly.

I have been studying LSMU for six years, studying animal and human interactions, still studying in postgraduate studies, so for me the direction of canine therapy is known professionally. We also work with Italians with canit therapy professionals who have been coming to seminars and conferences for several years. They offered Arga for this activity – here I did not come from this or it. They saw that he was very concerned with both children and adults, noticing who’s wrong, soothing, comforting or inviting to play. He lifts the mood for everyone, so it is very suitable for this activity.

Italians have 40 years of experience in animal therapy. There are many animals working there, not just dogs. We are just now starting this activity.

Animal therapy is a separate topic. The dog does not heal himself. Doctors, specialists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, psychiatrists, orally, are healing. Plans for canine therapy are made according to a particular person: a big dog is suitable for some, not for others, they need a little one, some need calm, others are more active. It all depends on the particular clinical case.

I started to become interested in canine therapy in 2015. In 2016, we have already applied for the law to regulate this activity and accelerate the emergence of both dog assistants and canine therapy dogs.

Photo by M. Sėjūnas Personal Archive

– Why did you take a look at the interaction of animals and humans, and at the age of 50 you entered LSMU?

– From a very young age, I dragged home all I found in the yard – every animal or bird injured, injured. Even a turtle, which something was too frustrated and tortured. Our apartment had such a mini zoo. Parents had to endure it. They will apparently be guilty of everything because they were encouraged and encouraged.

The neighbors of the apartment staircase did not always endure my wildlife world – at the door to picket the gathered, because one day the dog was a very mask in the hallway. One summer, two pairs of pigeons hatched pigeons, and they grew up, lived with us on the third floor balcony and, as you understand, Derge. When the neighbors held a rebellion, the balcony had to be covered.

So the animals have always been a close topic for me. I started studying LSMU six years ago because science is always good: you train the brain, you get knowledge of what you didn’t understand or know only. I would say it is a pleasure to delve deeper into what you like, what is interesting.