Occum's Razor

A well established principle in the study of animal behavior is that of parsimony.  Also known as Occum’s Razor, it mandates choosing the simplest explanation for a behavior that accounts for the facts, even if more complicated options are available. 

I need to put this in my memory bank or possibly tattoo it to my forehead.  The more you understand about dogs or people for that matter the more you need to remember this simple principle.  How often I have seen myself and others jump to a complicated explanation for the simplest thing.  So worried about what was the dogs motivation, what were the precipitating facts, etc.  While context is important,of course, it can sometimes muddy the waters.  Sometimes dogs do stuff just because they are dogs.  The same reason men do things we never understand, they are men.

This stuck me as especially poignant, given my struggles with Phalen.  Sometimes, he is just a dog, doing what dog's do.  I may not like it, it may not be what my mommy brain wants to process, but it is what it is.  He is a dog and will do dog stuff.  I tell my clients that all of the time, somehow I forgot to learn the lesson myself.  Do as I say, not as I do.  

I had gone off the deep end this week trying to figure out why Phalen had attacked the sheep.  I thought that he didn't respect me, that God forbid that jackass at the training seminar was right, that all of my hopes and dreams for Phalen and I were gone.  Yes, I have a flair for the dramatic.  But even with my dramatic tendencies, I was devastated.  My confidence had been shaken and I even considered no longer training.  I was sure I was far to unqualified to be teaching anything to anyone about dogs, when I couldn't even help my own.  I was actually considering giving up, something I don't do lightly.  My Commodore 64 brain was on major overload.

Occum's Razor would force me to know that Phalen was being a predator in a pen with prey.  Hmm, wonder what happens in that scenario.....Do I still need to take my part of the responsibility, of course.  Better management and better skills could have made for a very different scenario.  I can take care of those things and have already begun the process.  I can help Phalen with other skills by taking it slow, but always being aware that he is a predator and the sheep are prey.  

I will look at behavior differently, and stop apologizing when my behavior friends come up with a complicated explanation and I "dumb it down".  Turns out, it's not so dumb afterall.