Culture Clash Essay
Jaclyn Dignan
Culture Clash Paper
2/1/07
The one thing that humans have a hard time understanding is that animals do not think like humans at all. Their mentality is living off of food, shelter, and sex. Culture Clash really helped me realize just how confusing an animal's behavior really is. It's not impossible to get to an animal's level of behavior using Pavlov's operant and classical conditioning, which is fascinating. A few of the more confusing things that I have come across are how to actually understand how the animal, in certain situations, is feeling. It's hard to have an animal cooperate with what you're trying to achieve when you yourself cannot understand the behavior that that animal is showing. When brainstorming for this book report I decided to focus mainly on one subject from Culture Clash which was the discussion on aggressive behavior in dogs. Aggression in dogs is very confusing as to where it comes from and why. I really wanted to figure out where the clash between humans and dogs really is when the dog is the aggressor. After reading Culture Clash it definitely made it more clear. Aggressive Behavior in Dogs and Cats by Peter L. Borchelt and Victoria L. Voith and Culture Clash had a lot of the same view on aggressive behavior in dogs, but also a lot of differing views. Culture Clash definitely went more in depth as far as reasons for aggression and how to solve such aggression in dogs especially. One of the subjects that the two do not agree so much on is the fact that aggression is hard to define. Culture Clash labels aggression as biting, growling, snarling, injury etc. In Aggressive Behavior in Dogs and Cats by Borchelt, aggression is rarely used in those terms. Most of the time the dog is being aggressive because it is frightened. Humans can overpower an animal and make it feel inferior. When this happens an animal, such as a dog, may growl or snarl only because it feels vulnerable. The cowering sign that dogs do when the owner may
Culture Clash Paper
2/1/07
The one thing that humans have a hard time understanding is that animals do not think like humans at all. Their mentality is living off of food, shelter, and sex. Culture Clash really helped me realize just how confusing an animal's behavior really is. It's not impossible to get to an animal's level of behavior using Pavlov's operant and classical conditioning, which is fascinating. A few of the more confusing things that I have come across are how to actually understand how the animal, in certain situations, is feeling. It's hard to have an animal cooperate with what you're trying to achieve when you yourself cannot understand the behavior that that animal is showing. When brainstorming for this book report I decided to focus mainly on one subject from Culture Clash which was the discussion on aggressive behavior in dogs. Aggression in dogs is very confusing as to where it comes from and why. I really wanted to figure out where the clash between humans and dogs really is when the dog is the aggressor. After reading Culture Clash it definitely made it more clear. Aggressive Behavior in Dogs and Cats by Peter L. Borchelt and Victoria L. Voith and Culture Clash had a lot of the same view on aggressive behavior in dogs, but also a lot of differing views. Culture Clash definitely went more in depth as far as reasons for aggression and how to solve such aggression in dogs especially. One of the subjects that the two do not agree so much on is the fact that aggression is hard to define. Culture Clash labels aggression as biting, growling, snarling, injury etc. In Aggressive Behavior in Dogs and Cats by Borchelt, aggression is rarely used in those terms. Most of the time the dog is being aggressive because it is frightened. Humans can overpower an animal and make it feel inferior. When this happens an animal, such as a dog, may growl or snarl only because it feels vulnerable. The cowering sign that dogs do when the owner may