Thank You Social Media Making it easier to find this dog trainer

Wow, after wrapping up my Social Media Marketing class last night at UCSB extension with the Wild Web Women, I realized that I now have so many social media platforms, that I was starting to become a bit scatter-brained. So, since my new round of dog training classes is beginning this Sunday April 19th, I thought, what a great time to put together a list of how to find me! So, here it is! I took liberty of adding Ponchos info too...he likes to make himself available also. 

Official IC Website: http://inquisitivecanine.com/

• For information on services, schedules, events, where to contact us, FAQ’s. 
  
• A little about Joan and the Inquisitive Canine, our approach, methodology. 

Joan’s Blog: http://dogtrainingventura.blogspot.com/ 

• For dog training tips (from the human perspective)
  
• Information on upcoming events, including those outside the Inquisitive Canine
  
• Commentary on the latest and greatest social topics
  
• An all around fun place to share with the community
  
• The perfect place for friends, clients, and the general public to make comments! 
  
• A great place to send questions! 

Poncho’s Blog: http://ponchosprose.blogspot.com/ 

• Poncho’s own dog training tips (from the dogs perspective) 
  
• Information on events at the Inquisitive Canine, and those elsewhere
  
• Commentary on the latest and greatest social topics.
  
• The perfect place for friends (human and dog) to make comments or send questions. 
  

Noozhawk Advice Column: http://www.noozhawk.com/joan_mayer/

• Dog training and behavior advice column written by both Joan & Poncho the dog
  
• Another great place for you or your dog to send in questions.

Facebook: 

• Joan’s  FB homepage: the place where I’m more of a “dog mom” 
  
• The Inquisitive Canine Group page: for IC students, great place to “meet” other dog folks, have discussions, or set up doggy play dates. 
  
• Poncho the Dog Fan Page: I’m his #1 fan and want to share that. 

Twitter:

• Joan’s: http://twitter.com/joanthedogcoach 
  
• Poncho: http://twitter.com/timeline/home

Flickr:

• http://www.flickr.com/people/joanthedogcoach/ 
  

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Social Cognition and Animals

My next few posts will share some videos that pertain to non-human animal sentience, cognition, and learning. Though these videos are not specifically about dogs, I think you can appreciate them for the insights they offer into various species of "Others." 

The forces of anthropocentrism generally push peoples conversations about non-human lives into a lumped category, where "animals" are collectively cast into a framework of understanding that is solely based upon comparisons with human beings. Identifying each species without down-casting comparisons, and acknowledging each individual within a given species as a distinct "someone," affords a deeper understanding of each creature--human and non-human--as important whole parts of the collective "we"--all living beings.

This video was filmed by Amos Bouskila, equine ethologist from Israel, during a visit at Learning Horse Farm in the Netherlands. I will present it to you in this order; first watch the video, and see what you think. Then read on, below the film clip, where Ill post author and equine zooanthropologist Francesco De Giorgios explanation of what youll have just seen:

"What do we mean typically for cognition? The process or set of processes by which an organism acquires knowledge or awareness of events, of the relationship between them, of the context, of new situations and uses the data collected to understand, learning to learn and solve problems. In this video we can see the bachelors horse band of Learning Horse Farm, Education & Research Center in the Netherlands, during the first approach in preparation for saddling of the younger named Sparta, in a social learning context. The human animal, Francesco De Giorgio, moves in the bachelors dynamics without influence it. Sparta learns new sensations on the back, without linear, mechanicistic and conditioning pattern. He isnt isolated from the others, as it usually happens in the equestrian world, but rather social cognitively learned from his father and his uncles. Also notice the calmness of the horses despite the dynamics of the bachelors game and how the horses break the dynamic to prevent that the interaction becomes too reactive. They stay in a conscious, cognitive inner state, making them well aware of the human presence that they take in account in their movements. Horses have a well-defined cognitive-social instinct, with a very well developed capacity of how to interact with other horses, and human. There behaviour becomes reactive in contact with the anthropocentric activities/training conditioning methods the human world is used to. We humans can and we must preserve the cognitive and social heritage of horses. More info on www.equinezooanthropology.com and on www.thecognitivehorse.com"

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Social Media Helps Bring Dog Training Game Winners Together!

Thanks to Facebook and my inquisitive canine newsletter announcements, Poncho and I ended up receiving an inbox of winners for our Out of the Box Dog Training Game app! So many in fact we had to ask Apple iTunes for a few more codes!

And the winners are: Hailey and Nash, Nicki, Kathy and Coco, Emilia and Nellie, Nellies nanny, Sabine, Jennie, Traci, and Neal!

Thanks to all of those who responded! And yes, Poncho Gonzales Hunter Mayer is the original inquisitive canine!

For those who are interested in finding out how you can get your own copy of our Out of the Box Dog Training Game app or the hard copy of the game, check out our dog training game website page and iTunes store.

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