Someday I want to study Co-Evolving Systems formally. In the meantime, I have to satisfy myself by studying my daughter and my dog.
I have previously mentioned that our dog, Buddy, is
afraid of the trash. I must say that while we have attempted to socialize him to much of the world, we have used this small irrational fear to our advantage in at least one small way.
We have, perhaps cruelly, used cardboard boxes as convenient gates to keep him in “Time Out”.
This becomes a funny idea when you think about how the dog weighs about 95lbs, and is a good three feet tall.
For some reason he will absolutely not knock over a cardboard box that is placed in his way,
even when it does not even fill the door. We once used a two foot by one foot box
lid to keep him out of a room. So long as the cardboard is in his way he would not try to pass the doorway. He would not even jump over it.
I have also alluded to the idea that we wanted Buddy to see Alphie as being a
higher ranking member of the pack. This has actually
paid off pretty well in general, and he treats her with complete respect and loves her immensely.
Unfortunately, he sees her as a
ranking member of the pack, and sometimes looks to her for keys to how he should act. While this will pay off sometime in the near future, it presents us with a few problems for the time being.
For example, Buddy believes that Alphie can let him out of “Time Out”. We will tell him “Time Out” when he is misbehaving, and he will slink away to the laundry room to accept him punishment. In order to keep him in the laundry room without shutting him away from the world completely, we will place a cardboard box across the door. He will usually lie down and relax a bit.
But now little Alphie will come along and move the box out of the way for him. And he will gladly sidle out of his punishment and try to play with her.
And the best part? She will place the cardboard box back across the doorway where she found it before she goes and plays with him, because obviously someone put it there for a reason.
