Blog – Page 7 – ILLIS Animal Behaviour Courses

What can we learn from Cesar Millan?

Post author By Karolina Westlund, PhD
Post date 28 July, 2016
55 Comments on What can we learn from Cesar Millan?

Revised August 2024

Are you ready for a challenge?

umbrellas — Everybody’s got some valuable knowledge – a “yellow umbrella”. Finding it can be challenging.

Find the yellow umbrella.

We can learn something from every single person.

That’s a conviction that I have.

My challenge to you is to try to find that something in every single pet owner or animal professional that you meet.

What animal-related piece of knowledge can you gain from that person?

Find the yellow umbrella. The nugget of wisdom that will change how you interact with animals.

Ignore the other, black umbrellas: the ideas, techniques and explanations that don’t fit your paradigm. And here’s the challenge: though you might find these black umbrellas appalling – the task in this exercise is to ignore them rather than allow them to flip your lid.

Rather, pick and choose that which resonates with you. What you find might be an animal-related technique, a piece of knowledge, or merely an idea that you can mold to fit your own framework.

I try to approach animal trainers from all camps with an open heart and mind, knowing that they all have some insight that will help me improve my understanding of the world in general, and animals in particular.

So, which nugget of knowledge do I find with the Dog Whisperer, Cesar Millan?

Animal Emotions

Infected situations

I’m almost done giving my first online course!

I wanted to share some of the course content here on my blog, and choosing was difficult.

So, I got some help from my students. I asked them:

“Out of the course videos you’ve seen so far, which do you like the best? One that taught you something important that you think the rest of the world of pet owners or animal professionals would benefit from?”

Several students suggested chapter 11 from the GRIEF module entitled Infected Situations. So – here it is!

Animal Emotions Ethics Weathering scepticism

Are dogs separated from mom too early?

Post author By Karolina Westlund, PhD
Post date 17 May, 2016
68 Comments on Are dogs separated from mom too early?

In the last couple of weeks, I’ve had influences from two directions that have caused me to consider the age at which dogs are separated from their litter and mom.

Animal Emotions

The SEEKING system – a fascinating core emotion

Post author By Karolina Westlund, PhD
Post date 8 April, 2016
22 Comments on The SEEKING system – a fascinating core emotion

This week’s topic takes off from last week’s post on improving animal welfare by integrating two models of emotions, and is all about the SEEKING system.

If you don’t have six minutes, here’s the major take-home message:

Animal Emotions

Two models of animal emotions: Core Affect Space and Panksepp’s Core Emotions.

Post author By Karolina Westlund, PhD
Post date 31 March, 2016
6 Comments on Two models of animal emotions: Core Affect Space and Panksepp’s Core Emotions.

Jaak Panksepp has deservedly been getting a lot of attention about his Core Emotions concept. I like to frame it in another model called the Core Affect Space.

Here is why.

Animal Emotions Ethics

The five Ps: the advantages of considering emotions

Post author By Karolina Westlund, PhD
Post date 22 March, 2016
43 Comments on The five Ps: the advantages of considering emotions

revised February 2025.

Is the dog depicted above crouching, or fearful?

Yes, I know, it’s nigh impossible to guess which emotional state an animal is in from a still picture. We need motion, and context, to be able to do that.

I guess what I’m really asking is: do you look at animals and see predominantly their behaviour, or do you take a stab at considering their emotional/mood state?

In this blog post, I hope to convince you to develop the second perspective, if you haven’t already.

In other words, I would encourage you to start using emotion labels – one of the three types of useful labels when it comes to animals and their behaviour.

The world of animal trainers is divided, and I find that some trainers avoid the subject of animal emotions altogether.

“There’s no need to factor in and understand emotions, just deal with the observable behaviour”, is the gist of what some trainers and animal professionals say.