Worldly Wisdom Wednesday – The Positive Side of Conflict
Posted By Randy on December 5, 2012
The strongest emotion I remember from every one of those trips was the overpowering sense of freedom that came over me the moment I felt my canoe leave the shore at the start. At that instant, nothing back in the so called “civilized” world mattered. Only the real things mattered, and if you’ve ever experienced what I’m talking about, or if you ever do, you’ll know the sensation without further explanation. I was free of everything artificial and responsible only to a much higher power. ~ Being in the Wild: The Original Control/Alt/Delete
Among the problems with society is that words and the ideas they are intended to convey have become redefined over time to create problems that never existed before. Like we need that.
For example, let’s look at the word “stress”. In the 21st century lexicon, stress is a bad thing, but by Nature’s definition – the only one that matters – stress is a prime motivator in getting things done. I solve the problems of other people for a living, and have worked in what most would see as an exceptionally stressful environment for most of my professional career. By that I mean the kind of stress generated exclusively by the necessity to manage the problems created and imposed upon people by the fact that they are living, and trying to make their way, in society. These are not Natural problems of which I speak, they are, in fact, artificially generated by society, and very very toxic.
The way Nature sees it, stress is the motivator for an organism to do something to relieve it. If you’re hungry, find something to eat and eat it. Thirsty? Find water. Too cold? Seek warmth. Too hot? Seek shade or some other method of mitigation. Tired? Find a way to get some rest. Threatened? Flee or fight. Sexually aroused? If you need me to clarify the solution to that, you don’t belong here. The point is that these are real problems shared by all Nature’s creatures, and illustrate one of the reasons why your Dog doesn’t care how much money you make. Stress becomes negative when we embrace living with it in self-imposed perpetuity, permitting our action to be limited or even paralyzed completely by a belief that certain plans of attack will fly in the face of the way things are “supposed to be”, or the way others expect you to conduct your affairs. In truth, it’s not always as simple to define as that, but in far too many cases, it is. The magic lies in knowing when you’re letting yourself fall into the trap.
“Conflict” is another word that’s been handed a bum rap, and government policy makers, corporate CEO’s, and school administrators wring their hands daily over finding the best way to eliminate it from the Earth. Good luck with that.
In Nature – including the office I’m sitting in at the moment – the world is abuzz with Conflict, but for the most part with nary a raised voice, harsh word, drawn blade, nor bared fang. Conflict is inevitable when organisms in Nature compete for the same resources, but conflict and fighting are not the same thing. While fighting is an expression of conflict, not all conflict involves fighting, nor even negativity for that matter.
I’m constantly inspired by ongoing correspondence with that treasured assemblage of intimates that I regularly refer to here as Esteemed Friends – not least among them is Gary Carbone of whom I’ve spoken before. In a recent interaction that ranged from the training of Dogs to the role of fighting in Nature, I made this observation –
I always teach my Dogs to wrestle and play fight with me the way they’d do with other Dogs. Many trainers advise against this for reasons that routinely center on a supposed risk of giving the Dog the “wrong idea” about where it fits relative to you in the social order, but if you watch Dogs play fighting, you soon learn that it routinely happens between animals of uneven social status, not always between social equals. So what’s the problem? To us, it’s intimate interaction, it’s fun, it teaches the Dog to control bite pressure in a state of excitement (or else the game ends abruptly, and who likes that?), and to cease and desist the engagement immediately on command. For the human participant, it teaches the reflexes and best methods to handle a Dog who’s doing his or her best to “get” you, but in a safe, fun, positive context. Win – win from our perspective.
The more I’ve studied the application of fighting arts and delivering lethality, the more I came to eschew the posturings of “toughness” and implied violence. I always laugh at the old saying that you should never fight with an old man because if he’s too old to fight, he’ll just kill you. It carries a solid element of truth at its core methinks. Study your methods and tools, train, and don’t fight unless your predetermined limit is reached. Then it’s all in – the way animals do. Fighting is counterproductive and wasteful – NOT at one with the Way of the Wild as a point in and of itself, but as a necessary element of survival that must be learned by everything that walks, swims, slithers, or flies, each in its own way.
And so ends this Worldly Wisdom Wednesday.
Very well put!
Interesting post and I agree with everything.
Stress becomes overwhelming and unhealthy to body and mind if there is no solution. I see that periodically with dogs when they are micromanaged and every movement controlled, and if their communication is not understood and properly responded to. You see dogs that feel threatened and appease, but the threat continues. Or they engage in a natural behavior and are corrected for what is deeply innate.
My feelings regarding play-fighting with dogs is mixed. I absolutely agree that interspecies physical play is possible, but in my world most laypeople don’t get it right. Often males, they initiate wrestling with often a “macho-type dog”, but they don’t have an off switch, leave the dog aroused, who is than scanning the environment for another playmate – a child or the physically weaker lady of the house. The dog is often labeled as aggressive or hyper at one point during the adolescent period and surrendered or euthanized. In addition, wrestling is often the sole way the person engages with the dog and takes the place of other bonding activities such as tracking, fetching and obedience. For that reason, I belong to the group of trainers who advice against it generally, with exceptions.
Thank you Silvia. I hear you on the subject of stress without solution. We hold with the philosophy that we like our Dogs to be Wild – not meaning uncontrolled, just in contact with the attributes of their Dogness that brought their kind and us humans together in the first place. If you want an automaton, go buy an effing robot!
We wholeheartedly agree that “play fighting” cannot be taken as a solitary activity to the exclusion of other forms of interaction or engagement, and the population of Dog owners contains a majority who would never really “get” it, so would be best counseled not to get involved with it at all. We advise over and over – NEVER miss a chance to train – and by that I don’t mean formalized training. Just that, as Musashi wrote, do nothing without a reason, With Dogs, everything should help solidify and/or maintain the bond and so enhance the overall experience of whatever’s going on.
Back in the 90’s when I first started training Cinders as a puppy, she developed an incredibly destructive and painful tendency to mouth during play. At the time she was an only Dog, so this was directed at any human who played with her for even a short interval. I knew a lot less then than I know now, but I felt that it was healthier to teach her to control her bite pressure as well as to learn where and when it was appropriate to “play bite”, So instead of correcting the activity in an effort to stop it entirely, I intentionally engaged in activity with her that would bring out the mouthing behaviour and reinforced a stop on command to divert to a fun and equally engaging secondary activity – one that varied as her experience increased. This was always rewarding for her and soon the mouthing disappeared replaced with “play fighting” – only with me through most of her life, but in her later years also with Diana – only when she was presented with cues from us that we wanted to engage, and she always stopped instantly on command. This had nothing to do with a generalized mass consumption training methodology by any means. It was a means to an end for me that fixed a problem behaviour by turning it into a life long source of fun for all concerned.
And that’s how you apply it properly, Randy.
I recently had a case – a young golden, lovely dog and typically golden-sweet, unless she has a hold on something, for example a tug toy. She instantly goes into clamp-down and very vicious shaking – and I am talking about prey kill motor pattern serious. Unfortunately she did that to her new puppy brother, and that’s why I was called in.
Because it is nearly impossible to prevent her from ever having anything in her mouth, I taught her inhibition. Some more work to do, of course, including dealing with resource guarding against that puppy and other dogs, but she clued in quickly.
By the way, sorry about the grammar mistakes in my last comment. It was early in the morning. Not really, but I use that as an excuse anyway.
What grammar mistakes Silvia? I just re-read your comment and found that, as usual, you write divinely!
[…] “The more I’ve studied the application of fighting arts and delivering lethality, the more I came to eschew the posturings of “toughness” and implied violence. I always laugh at the old saying that you should never fight with an old man because if he’s too old to fight, he’ll just kill you. It carries a solid element of truth at its core methinks. Study your methods and tools, train, and don’t fight unless your predetermined limit is reached. Then it’s all in – the way animals do. Fighting is counterproductive and wasteful – NOT at one with the Way of the Wild as a point in and of itself, but as a necessary element of survival that must be learned by everything that walks, swims, slithers, or flies, each in its own way.” ~ Worldly Wisdom Wednesday – The Positive Side of Conflict […]