
Science needs to catch-up with what dog trainers know - vo2maxer
https://aeon.co/essays/why-science-needs-to-catch-up-with-what-dog-trainers-know
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ergothus
> Flanery was careful not to give Kashi hints with her body language, so
> Kashi’s imitation abilities seemed credible.

I dont wish to question someone's expertise in their field, but as a reader
this is a dramatic jump without explanation or demonstration. Trusting this
assumption seems like a major need for the primary point of the article.

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vo2maxer
The article goes on to describe the skepticism in the scientific community:
“...by the academic definition of imitation, Kashi’s response of circling
Flanery after Flanery circled her would not be true imitation, because Kashi
was already familiar with circling as part of her freestyle training. In other
words, Kashi might have circled Flanery simply because, in the past, she had
been rewarded so frequently for doing exactly that, rather than truly
understanding the current task.”

The main point of the essay urges a closer collaboration between trainers and
scientists in the field.

