Welcome to the last day of RenChenZa® Dog Days of Summer
This Saturday August 9, 2008, is the last day of RenChenZa® Dog Days of Summer. This is the time of year for all of us to Give Thanks, enjoy the moment, plan for the future, know when enough is enough, and rejoice at the chance to serve others.
Wishing you a wonderful year of insight and success
Andrew Ledford
Caretaker of RenChenZa®
This is week 7 the last week of RenChenZa® Dog Days of Summer. A noble gesture for animal lovers and pet owners around the world is to on this one day August 9, 2008 the last day of RenChenZa®, consider not eating any animals. Making this small personal sacrifice will be even more meaningful for those who are not vegetarians and it marks the end to an important part of the year. While I’m not 100 percent vegetarian, I think there are some reasonable arguments for a vegetarian lifestyle. And on this one day when we celebrate a unity with our canine best friends, I think it would be nice to honor all animals, by not eating any.
Wishing you the best in dog training and in life
Andrew Ledford
Caretaker of RenChenZa®
This is the last week of RenChenZa® Dog Days of Summer. We end our 49 days to new behavior with a concept that can show the way to personal happiness and world peace. Acceptance is necessary for those who want to control others and for those who want to find happiness while under the control of others. Humanity seldom develops societies of acceptance, however it’s common for societies of conquest and adversity to develop. At this time in history probably the best humans can hope for is a blended approach to conflict resolution with only an emphasis on acceptance.
We began the RenChenZa® Dog Days of Summer with rules that can be expressed in rather a concrete fashion. “The Rules of a
Before we can change our behavior or the behavior of others we must often accept where we are at this moment in time. Is the system we’re using appropriate to the circumstances? What histories are we dealing with? History is a good place to begin understanding acceptance. History has already happened. We cannot change what really happened. We need to accept it.
One way many people accept history is to reframe history in a way that is compatible with their personal rules. History is bent and reinterpreted to serve the cultural ideals of a person’s belief system. Reframing is okay as long as one understands the nature of culture and historic truth. People change history by changing the historic story in their culture and their own minds, so they can accept what happened. People need to accept that histories under the control of questionable or biased verbal behavior are often faulty. While history is important there is a deeper kind of acceptance.
Understanding and experiencing acceptance has the power to move humanity in the direction of an all-pervading unity.
Acceptance has the power to unite body and soul, humans and nonhumans, and even nations. By experiencing acceptance we can better understand competing belief systems. With rational acceptance we can even blend our culturally influenced beliefs with all but the most unaccepting beliefs of others.
An example is a feral dog’s acceptance of a domestic life. If this type of dog has had some early socialization with people it can often accept humans and live comfortably as a pet. Compared to a completely wild dog that is tamed but never really accepts people and is therefore a constant threat to its owners. If the owners can accept the wild dog’s wildness there may be hope. However for the safety of society it’s behavior will need to be constantly managed. There are most likely cultures that have an emotionally intransient resistance to accepting the beliefs others. A cultural unwillingness to accept others is related in some ways to a wild dog’s inability to accept people. If these cultures cannot change, they will need to be managed, perhaps on a worldwide basis, until they become more accepting. One bit of behavior those who manager others need to guard against is not to become like the one being controlled. This is a common problem of conquering nations.
The first five rules of accomplishment encourage dominating the environment. Acceptance tempers that with a softer style of leading. The last two RenChenZa® points of reference encourage the individual and larger cultures toward a softer Taoist type of leadership. Advocating a strict regime of dominance reminds me of the Chinese saying that only thorn bushes grow where the army has passed. While I am not in complete agreement with all-positive reinforcement dog training, this is the general sentiment of positive reinforcement styles of training. It has also been my observation that in general all-positive reinforcement trainers tend to advocate a Taoist style of leadership over the Confucius based system of cultural rules and social hierarchies. I am not saying one way is best. I am saying we need to accept where we are and move in a certain direction. I would like to see that direction be away from over exploitation of the Earth and war. I want to see humanity move toward sustainable harmony with the Earth, Acceptance, and peace.
Wishing you the best in dog training and in life
Andrew Ledford
Caretaker of RenChenZa®
We can train our dogs just fine by implementing the five rules of achievement. However, if we want to move beyond domination and dog training we need to develop a deeper understanding. If we are to move the world towards sustainable peace and prosperity we need to develop higher level insight to overcome societal problems. We can begin this process by observing life with an orientation towards the historic nature of events.
Our histories comprise all that we are. The five rules for influencing the world can be an important part of our histories and they help us shape the future. By thinking in terms of history, we can get a glimpse of the overall nature of things. Understanding the nature of history is a holistic way of approaching and overcoming the problems of life. A historic orientation can move the human part of society towards a kind of universal understanding. When we have gained the wisdom of historical insight we can begin moving toward sustainable forms of social institutions. These institutions include governments, businesses, and the keepers of morality.
Understanding history can also help people and dogs live better lives together. Knowing about the history of people and dogs can help when trying to understand the dynamics of pet ownership. We can approach understanding history on several levels. First is the historic nature of dogs. Where did dogs come from? How did dogs come to be? What was the original dogs purpose?
Next we can investigate what happened once dogs and humans joined forces to spread across the land, multiply, and prosper. In essence, what is the dog’s genetic history? For many dog’s we can also look at the historic legacy of a family tree.
Finally, we can look at your individual dog’s environmental history. Your dog already brought a lot of behavior to the table when you acquired it. Understanding that dogs are not infinitely malleable lumps of behavioral clay can help us work with nature instead of trying to dominate a force infinitely stronger than ourselves.
The next step is back to the five previous rules, where we begin creating our dog’s future history by taking action in the present. The time to change our future histories is in the present. What you do right now, today, changes what happens tomorrow, it changes tomorrow’s history. You need to realize, what you do now has influence over what happens in the future. In dog training your present behavior determines how your dog will behave in one year. We are always living with the past but in the present. How these two combine will influence what the future holds.
Wishing you the best in dog training and in life
Andrew Ledford
Caretaker of RenChenZa®
Understanding the rhythm of progression allows us to organize our rules to maximize our chances for success.
Have a goal or target behavior. Targeted progressive achievements give us plans to follow and benchmarks to celebrate. If one’s life is oriented towards the first five rules in “Dog Training Best Friends Learning Together” goals will be the controls and checks that will guide behavior. To a large extent this is the way most of us live our lives. Even if we do not make and follow goals well, we try. Goals are ingrained into our culture. For many of us goal setting is also an ingrained part of our personal rules. Goals help us focus our resources and they move us in a desired direction. In a more than busy world, most people need goals to stay on track. Dog training goals are an important part of a successful dog training system. I imagine that even the ancient dog trainers of Rome had training goals when selecting and training dogs for various jobs.
Once you have thought through what you want to do and how you are going to do it, write your plan down. If you are following the five rules found in my book to train your dog, write down how you will accomplish you dog training goals.
There are a lot of people who are good at making lofty goals but have trouble with the follow through. A good example is the New Years Resolution. If people take the time to think though their New Years Resolution and develop a good working plan for achieving the resolution, they would be more likely to succeed at reaching their goals. The perfect time for making resolutions that will have real impact is a time period opposite of when inefficient resolutions are made. The ideal time to make yearly resolutions is during the beginning of summer. The first day of summer can even be thought of as the Summer New Years – the RenChenZa® Dog Days of Summer are meant to facilitate planning for the future and giving thanks for the past.
However, even with the best plans if there is no action, nothing will change. Don’t be like a radio, all talk and no action.
Wishing you the best in dog training and in life
Andrew Ledford
Caretaker of RenChenZa®
We are now half way thought the RenChenZa® Dog Days of Summer. If you are taking stock of your life and your dog’s life in three more weeks you will have a useful outline and a direction for the next 365 days. Perhaps you will even find your life’s mission. This is the week to examine our personal rules.
Personal rules are the means by which individuals control themselves. Personal rule control the degree that people are what is called good or what is called evil.
An individuals purpose is the first Personal Rule I cover in my book, because purpose is what gives life meaning. This is the week to determine what your purpose is. What is your purpose in society and in the lives of those you love. One thing I am finding is that my life mission, my purpose does not fit very well with having a traditional relationship. Now I need to determine what is more important, simply being happy or fulfilling my purpose and conquering many challenges. You also need to identify what your dog’s purpose is. What is your dog’s individual purpose? What is its purpose in your life, your family, and in the larger society.
Next I cover the importance of Attitude. One’s attitude determines whether we are successful at what we do, as well as if we are happy. Some important parts of attitude are focus, confidence, self-control, flexibility, and awareness. To help with awareness I have developed some tools and techniques borrowed from tie chi chuan.
Knowing you purpose will allow you to make plans and develop goals that your subconscious will help you achieve.
Wishing you the best in dog training and in life,
Andrew Ledford
Social rules are the means by which groups control the behavior of individuals. Social rules create a kind of social homeostasis. Social rule help balance a society and include the laws as well as the niceties of polite behavior. Good manners and courteous behavior are important for maintaining social contact and avoiding negative emotional responses. Social rules are part of a social system that’s designed to make a society run smoothly. Social rules make interaction within a society much more predictable. When behavior is consistent and predictable systems are more efficient. When important pieces of a system are not working properly, the whole system can falter. A faulty social system will stress those who are part of that system.
Dog training is a micro social system that allows us to see how when one element of a social system is not following the rules it can cause chaos for the entire group. Dog trainers are usually called in to reestablish order by teaching the dog to display acceptable social behavior. What’s acceptable is often determined by the social rules of the family.
This week of RenChenZa® is the week to improve our social behavior as well as that of our dogs. Determine one thing you can do that will make your social system work more smoothly and practice that behavior for a week. Do the same for your dog. Is there something your dog could do that would make it fit more smoothly into society?
Wishing you the best in dog training and in life
Andrew Ledford
Caretaker of RenChenZa®
We have started the second week in the RenChenZa® Dog Days of Summer. This is the week to concentrate and think about the rules of nature. All the other rules can be found in Natures rules. While we can explain the world around us through this one all encompassing force it’s helpful to divide human endeavors into five separate rules. By dividing natures rules into how humans live we can more easily see why we do the things we do.
When beginning to think about the Rules of Nature I would like people to first consider two areas that have a profound effect on behavior. The first is the individual’s genetic endowment. The second involves the effects incentives have on behavior. As the world grows more competitive and humans develop the ability for mass destruction on a scale that seems incomprehensible, we need to learn how better to use positive reinforcement. From my observations, it appears that most people use punishment and intimidation as a default strategy and tactic for getting what they want. The second week of RenChenZa® is a time to concentrate on using positive reinforcement in areas where we would like to punish or cause adversity.
Sometime we do need to introduce aversive events for unwanted behaviors, however humans need to think of rewarding as a first response. When rewarding becomes the default response to social strife, social rule will move people towards more saintly behavior. When social rule are supportive of reinforcing as a default response to strife we will see a shift in consciousness. A shift towards using rewards to control unwanted behavior will also allow us to see when using aversives is necessary. In a competitive world not all problems can be solved with saintly behavior.
Wishing you the best in dog training and in life
Andrew Ledford
The main reason to follow an established protocol (established rules) is that at it has been tested and found to work. There may be better ways to do something, but most people need a foundation from which to start. By participating in a dog training program people are exposed to many of the rules needed to succeed at dog training.
The rules of a chosen pursuit provide structured rules to follow without the need to understand the principles behind them. Often when learning these rules we also learn the reasons they work.
As we pursue our life’s purpose we will encounter the five rules of achievement. The rules that are most important for understanding how the world works are the rules of nature. Science is the realm of nature’s rules. It has become fashionable for professional dog trainers to claim that their training is based solely on scientific rules, but that is seldom the case.
Through the years dog training has diversified into many different styles. With each style of training developing its own set of rules. Some training encourages using negative reinforcement and some don’t. some styles of training rely on control by the force of ones presents and others consider it immoral to use any kind of force. At this time we seem to have two distinct styles of training - the all positive advocates and the correction based dominance trainers. But there is a third groups that is emerging that is sometimes referred to as balanced dog training because it tries to combine the best of the other two styles.
Dogs are very adaptable so most dogs will respond to a wide range of training techniques. Any of these training styles when executed well can work for most dogs, however there are some dogs that will respond better to some methods better than others.
The rules of a chosen pursuit are the tricks we develop to make accomplishing a task quicker and more reliable.
Good rules are the secret to success, in dog training and in life
We all have responsibilities and desires. To wisely choose how best to use our resources requires deciding on a course of action. Some choices are dictated by necessity others are quite optional. A life skill we all must learn is how to apply the proper response that will move us towards a desired outcome. Our responses are made up of rules that take us to a destination. One reason people have problems is that they are using the wrong rules to pursue their goals. Another reason for trouble is that some people do not want to conform to the standard rules.
The first reason for problems with accomplishing desired goals is from being misguided. If you suffer from the second reason I mentioned your success will require more effort if it is to succeed at all. If you are a nonconformist be prepared. If you are misguided, find a good guidance. Both of these take effort and both are easier said than done.
Wishing you the best in dog training and in life
Andrew
Care taker of RenChenZa®