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Zoey, the Knowledge Keeper of the Pack, outside the reading room

04 · IDEA

The four layers behind a behaviour

He is an animal, then a dog, then a breed, and only then a name. Each layer has needs, and most houses feed only the name.

  • 22 min read
  • 11 figures
  • In the book
Text

A family on their sofa all tell a visitor about their dog at once, and the visitor watches the dog, who lies on the floor between them, watching him back.

When a family called me, the first thing they told me was his name. Donna. Becky. Buddy. Sheru. Then they told me what Sheru did, and how Sheru had been since, and what Sheru was like with the children, and in ten minutes I knew a great deal about Sheru and almost nothing about the dog.

I do not say this to be unkind. The name is how we love him. But a name is a human invention, made for a human's comfort. In a dog's natural habitat there are no names, and the dog you are living with has never once thought of himself as Sheru.1 When the whole relationship runs through the name, the family is connecting to the one layer of the dog that the dog did not bring with him, and they are using human psychology on an animal, and that is where most of the behaviour I was ever called about began.

This chapter is the stack underneath the name. I learned the frame from Cesar Millan, and the years of houses since have taught me what each layer asks for in an Indian home. There are four. Animal, species, breed, name, from the oldest to the newest, and every behaviour you will ever see in your dog comes up through them in that order. If you want a deep connection with him, which is what every family told me they wanted, the formula is simple and it runs the opposite way to the one you are using. Connect to the animal first. Then to the species. Then to the breed. The name comes last.

A drawn cutaway of four stacked bands. At the bottom, wild dogs drinking at a waterhole. Above, a mother dog bringing meat back to her pups, who wait at the den. Above that, a herding dog with goats and a street dog in a market lane at night. At the top, a woman on her sofa calling the dog., open the figure larger
The four layers, oldest at the bottom. The family connects at the top, to the name. A behaviour starts at the bottom, in the animal and the species, and comes up. To change it, you go down to where it started.

One growl

Here is a case that came to me again and again, in one form or another. A dog growls at the husband whenever he comes near the wife on the sofa. Sometimes he has snapped. The family reads it at the name. He is protective. He loves her so much. He is her baby. Every word of that is about Sheru, and none of it is about the dog. If yours is that dog, then for now the sofa is closed to him, and if he is already up there, call him down with a treat tossed on the floor. Nobody reaches for him.

Two drawn panels in the same living room. The dog lies against the wife on the sofa, lip lifted, growling at her husband, who stops two steps away with a cup of tea. Then the sofa is empty and the dog eats a treat tossed on the floor while she stands a step away, nobody touching him., open the figure larger
One growl. He is on the sofa against her, and her husband cannot come near. For now the sofa is closed to him. If he is already up, call him down with a treat tossed on the floor. Nobody reaches for him.

Read the same growl at the breed, then the species, then the animal, and it becomes a different story, with a different fix, and the fix is nowhere near the top. That is what this chapter is for. By the end of it you can read your own dog's worst habit the same way.

The rest of chapter 04 is in the book

Chapters 01 to 03 are free to read. The other 21 chapters cover, in order:

  • The rest of the Foundation
  • The Six Rituals
  • When Something Is Wrong

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Until then, these are free and cover the same ground: