I overheard a conversation the other day about the difference between good and great athletes. The assertion was that aggression was something that wasn’t inherent but was learned. The other part was a discussion of how much better the aggressive athletes performed. I didn’t interject because they weren’t soliciting my opinion, and I wasn’t a participant in the conversation.
Aggression is about violence. That isn’t what the conversation revolved around. Instead, the proper term would have been about drive and those factors that influence drive. Further, there was the assumption that aggression is the same between all humans, and that the only difference was a result of experience and learning.
So, what does this have to do with dogs?
I hear people toss around terminology all the time. I regularly must convert familiar conversation from students and others into proper behavioral terminology to diagnose what is going on and then to prescribe a solution. I also observe how politically correct beliefs shape popular opinions without any basis.
It is especially maddening when social media dog trainers use terminology in ways that have nothing to do with what the behavioral terminology really means or how it is to be applied. All this talk, for example, talk about “purely positive” or “balanced” training is Exhibit A of how not to discuss how to work with dogs. The same with using the term, “reactive”.
Imagine a doctor diagnosing someone using familiar terms rather than using proper methods and definitions to figure out what is going on and what treatment to apply. It would not turn out very well.
A lot of thinking has been done on these topics over the years, by experts. We don’t now need new, imprecise terminology to replace older, better, more precise terminology.
Plan accordingly.