Well I have been discussing the RELEVANCE of the links. Social learning is good and fine. But what application does it have with training animals?
It makes us aware of what we may be communicating to the animal about both ourselves and the environment and increases the success of the chosen training methods, especially in social environments.
For those who are good at using this philosophy, an environmental example of how a dog may percieve a new person who enters the picture as either friend or foe, can be influenced by how you greet that stranger.
Walking side-by-side with a calm dog can help another dog become calm and communicate to both dogs that we are working together.
I use both of these a lot.
Understanding which human behaviors can be misintepreted "in dog" and make a dog uncomfortable in social situations (such as staring at them) can be very helpful in knowing how to put a dog at ease. Then you can also throw in a treat to make a positive association.
It's about improving the social relationship and aiding the training proccess, not replacing.
Most of the methods used by animal people who try social learning are often go horribly wrong, are cruel, or have dangerous results.
There are always going to be folks who misunderstand and misuse a philosophy. And that goes for
all philosophies when it comes to creating anti-social and dangerous dogs.
Sometimes the danger is to the dog, sometimes it's other pets, sometimes it's the child who gets bitten in the face due to owner and/or trainer denial, and sometimes the dog ends up dead.
There are also some people who shouldn't even own dogs, or certain breeds of dogs, etc...but then we get into trying to control the choices of others, which I am against.
Education and rational discussion is preferable.
