"Your Brain is a Border Collie”

YBBC training topics

Synopsis

  Each topic is illustrated by pet/animal or human analogies from the speaker’s 35 years of experience.  The analogies are not ‘rerun’ in this synopsis.

Topic one:  “Defining Moments” discusses the impact of nature (genetic hardwired tendencies) on behavior.  It shows the two sides of the nature vs. nurture discussions.  Our pet’s behavior is determined solely by nature unless trained out of it by us. Our “nature” behavior is only a tendency.  It deals with the fact that we can train ourselves, as we would our pet, to get what we want in life.

Topic two:  “Our Brains” is an overview of the science of brain function.  It shows the similarity and differences in the brain function of humans and pets.

Topic three:  “Border Collie brains/ One trial learners” is about how dramatic events can impact our behavior forever, if we let it and the futility of doing the same things over and over and over while expecting different results.

Topic four:  “The Joss Principle” expands on Topic three with new pet analogies and introduces proven ‘training’ techniques for our pets and how they help revolutionize our own lives.  It alludes to ‘self-talk training’ that is expanded in a later topic.

Topic five:  “Look at your dog, look in a mirror” introduces self-esteem and core values. It discusses how we can identify these issues in our lives and then modify them for today and a future of our choice.

Topic six:  “Trying to herd in all the wrong places” shows how using our hard-wired genetic strengths in the wrong settings leaves us with frustration, misery (for us and those around us) and negative behavior in our lives and relationships.

Topic seven:  “Football, baby….bring it!” is an expansion of topic 6 with emphasis on how to find the motivation to take action.

Topic eight:  “All Fired up or dying! (ssbbbb!)  deals with the fact that our pets live “all fired up” and we rarely do.  Success is related to attitude and we need the ‘spin, spin, bounce, bounce, bark, bark’ attitude in our own lives.

Topic nine:  “Joss and Hannah:  Strengths and Change” initiates the topics in Ch. 11 and lays the ground work for using our genetic hard-wired strength for success by creating change.

Topic ten:  “Bell training Joss, Hannah and Ourselves” uses a ‘bell’ in house training dogs, a practical pet training technique, with other analogies that are directly applied for our own personal behavior training.

Topic eleven:  “Doggie D-I-S-C” is about the application of DISC behavior analysis to find our genetic hard-wired strengths to create change and success in our lives.  Having observed this behavior in our pets enables us to apply it quickly and easily to ourselves.  This Topic is the core and the strength of the book.  
 

Topic twelve:  “Is it your puppy or is it you?” is about application of ‘doggie disc’ and discusses training of our brains and our pets.

Topic thirteen:  “You and the Russians” relates how a group of young Russian leaders used observation to draw some startling conclusions.  Our pets also use the power of observation to make decisions.  This topic teaches us how to observe before we act.  It also introduces “perception as reality” as a future topic.

Topic fourteen:  “Housetraining and Habits” shows how training techniques and praise principles used with puppies, when applied to us, can energize our lives.

Topic fifteen:  “Training them, training us” is an expansion of topic 14 with new analogies and introduces ‘self talk.’

Topic sixteen:  “Goooooals!” shows us that we already do successful goal planning.   We goal plan when we plan our vacations.  This topic shows how our pets use strategies to accomplish their goals.  We can incorporate these in our lives.

Topic seventeen:  “The Rabbit interlude” is a ‘fun’ little topic with good visual images of paths to success.

Topic eighteen:  “Recycling” is about evolving from old relationships into new ones. It also shows us how old behavior doesn’t apply in our new relationships.  The animal analogies are easy to relate to, understand and apply.

Topic nineteen:  “The Ooooops syndrome or why we love dogs” expands topic 18 and adds human gender behavioral differences with pets.

Topic twenty:  “Treats:  The Gender Thing” expands topic 19 and introduces ‘pet kind of love’ principles and how application can improve our view of the world around us.

Topic twenty-one:  “Love, baby.  Yes, Love!” discusses the impact of adopting non-judgmental ‘love’ as a way of life.  It helps us understand why we love our pets and should be able to love each other. 

Topic twenty-two:  “Changing the Unchangeable” shows, using a variety of analogies, the futility of worry and the positive impact of living in the ‘now.’

Topic twenty-three:  “Finding our own way…with Joss” validates that our opinions about our own life are valid…for us.  We have far greater internal resources to move our lives forward than we realize.

Topic twenty-four:  “The Post- person Syndrome” is about using our pet’s perception of life to help us understand that ‘perception is reality.’  Changing our perception changes our reality, success and future..

Topic twenty-five:  “A No-fault life?” details the depth of accepting personal responsibility using ‘dog bite’ analogies.

Topic twenty-six:  “Feelings, nothing more than feeeelings” describes the physiology of emotional control by how we move our body using ‘wild dog’ pet training analogies.

Topic twenty-seven: “Die…..t” details the author’s veterinary attitudes toward pet diets, health and weight loss.  The attitudes directly apply to us as we look at our own diets and desires for health and leanness.

Topic twenty-eight:  “Sex and the Single Dog” is about the pet population crisis.  It details how our human behavior in this area is critical to pet population control.  It is about raising awareness.  This is a veterinary/pet owner Topic.  This is the “public service announcement” of my talks.