I think that is exactly what they are doing..they just don't realise
that it will not work as such and is a natural instinct to do this.

Actually it is a stone that you sharpen a knife on and you don't get
blunt knives. By shucking off the dead husk they are,in a
manner,sharpening their claws. Tree bark would indeed have a
sharpening effect on Cat claws. Elephants trim their tusk by using the
rubbing action against tree's,etc. Enough rubbing would tend to
sharpen their tusk if that were the sole reason they did this. Tree
bark acts as sandpaper.

Exactly...thousands of years of natural instinct showing through.

I agree...

And your point with the diagrams is? They still don't deny any
sharpening takes place when scratching on hard opjects in the wild.

I disagree...respectfully. Just depends on what is being scratched
against.

I disagree,again respectfully. And you have absolute facts to this
conclusion?

But nevertheless..it is a _feeble attempt_ at sharpening the claws
since,as you say,it doesn't accomplish any sharpening action on a soft
sofa.

Cats have other methods of olfactory marking. They would rub against
furniture for this purpose..not scratch it.

Ditto....

While I don't claim my opinion as "facts"..over 50 years of watching
Cat behavior stands me in good stead to voice an opinion and judgement
regarding their actions.

As I said..if I'm wrong..I'm wrong. But I doubt it. And while
scratching furniture to sharpen the claws (in the absence of anything
else harder) may not be the sole purpose for scratching...I feel sure
it is part of the reason.

Have you never noticed how some Cats claws are so much sharper than
others..? One Cat can kneed against your arms with no
disconfort..while another Cat can make you jump with just a mere touch
of a claw? I would be willing to bet the Cat that has the sharper
claws indulges in frequent "scratching"....and is most likely one that
gets outdoors to scratch against hard objects.

Have a good day...And please,voice your opinion but don't try to tell
me I'm wrong unless you have absolute facts to back it up. I always
state "in my opinion"  perhaps you should  also?

Ray
WebElder
I don't "Suffer" from Insanity..I rather enjoy it!

CATTS
http://members.tripod.com/~thewebster/catts.html

Home Page
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Labyrinth/9826/meshead.html

HOWEDY doe,

Well then, doe, perhaps that's TRUE.

Pavlov Told Us So 100 Years Ago. Sam Corson, Pavlov's Last
Student Demonstrated At UofOH Oxford, That Rehabilitation
Of Hyperactive Dogs Can Easily And Readily Be Done Using TLC.
Tender Loving Care Is At The Root Of The Scientific Management
Of Doggys.  <{) ; ~ ) >

HOWEver, The Amazing Pussy Wizard is in EXXXCELLENT COMPANY:

            ALL Temperament and Behavior Problems
                     And 90% Of DIS-EASE
                 Are CAUSED BY MISHANDLING.
                       THAT'S GOOD!
                THAT MEANS We can CURE ALL
              Temperament And Behavior Problems
                     And 90% Of DIS-EASE
                      NEARLY INSTANTLY
        Simply By DOING EXXXACTLY, PRECISELY, OPPOSITE
                  Of HOWE We've Been TAUGHT
             By UNIVERSITY TRAINED Behaviorists

HOWEDY People!

ALL Temperament and Behavior Problems Are CAUSED BY MISHANDLING.

"...all the highest nervous activity, as it manifests
itself in the conditional reflex, consists of a continual
change of these three fundamental processes -- excitation,
inhibition and disinhibition."  Ivan P. Pavlov

THAT'S GOOD!

"It is NO WONDER that the marked changes in
deviant behavior of children can be achieved
through brief, simple educative routines with
their mothers which modify the mother's social
behaviors shaping the child (Whaler, 1966). Some
clinics have reported ELIMINATION ofthe need for
child THERAPY through changing the clinical emphasis
from clinical to parental HANDLING of the child
(Szrynski 1965).

A large number of cases improved sufficiently after
preliminary contact with parents that NO treatment
of children was required, and almost ALL cases
SHOWE a remarkably shortened period for therapy.
Quite severe cases of anorexia nervosa have been
treated in own to five months by simply REPLACING
the parents temporarily with EFFUSIVELY LOVING
SUBSTITUTES (Groen, 1966)."

"Despite Skinner's clear denunciation of "negative
reinforcement" (1958) NEARLY EVERY LEARNING
THEORY model involves the USE OF PUNISHMENT.
Of curse, Skinner has never to my knowledge,
demonstrated HOWE we escape the phenomenon
that an expected reward not received is experienced
as a punishment and can produce extensive and
persistent aggression (Azrin et al, 1966)."

THAT MEANS we can CURE ALL Temperament And Behavior
Problems NEARLY INSTANTLY simply by DOING EXXXACTLY,
PRECISELY, OPPOSITE of HOWE we've been TAUGHT TO
MISHANDLE and ABUSE HOWER dogs by the UNIVERSITY
TRAINED behaviorists and PROFESSIONAL PET CARE
SPECIALISTS who MAKE THEIR LIVING off of PERPETUATING
their SHEER IDIOCY and IGNOING the works of Drs. Sam
Corson, Dra. Mary Cover Jones, Breland & Breland, and
other notable psychologists IGNORED and OVERLOOKED by
the ABUSERS who TEACH US to lock HOWER dogs in boxes,
bribe, choke, intimidate, and IGNORE HOWER dog's,
children's and SP-HOWESES cries of FEAR and NEED and
WITHHOLD attention, affection, so called "rewards"
and UNCONDITIONAL LOVE TRUST and RESPECT.

Pavlov Told Us So 100 Years Ago. Sam Corson, Pavlov's Last
Student Demonstrated At UofOH Oxford, That Rehabilitation
Of Hyperactive Dogs Can Easily And Readily Be Done Using TLC.
Tender Loving Care Is At The Root Of The Scientific Management
Of Doggys.  <{) ; ~ ) >

WE CANNOT CONTINUE TO BLAME THE DOG OR ITS BREED:

                ALL Critters Only Respond In
              PREDICTABLE INNATE NORMAL NATURAL
                 INSTINCTIVE REFLEXIVE Ways;
      To Situations And Circumstances Of Their Environment
                  Which We Create For Them.

               You GET The Critter You TRAINED

                       A DOG Is A Dog;
                      As A KAT Is A KAT;
                    As A BIRDY Is A BIRDY;
                    As A CHILD IS A CHILD;
                  As A SP-HOWES Is a SP-HOWES.

The Amazing Puppy Wizard has MUCH CASE HISTORY and PEER
REVIEWED SCIENTIFIC DATA to PROVE these "FAR FETCHED"
claims. HOWEver, for today's puporses, this will be all
that's necessary:

Here's your FREE copy of The Amazing Puppy
Wizard's FREE WWW Wits' End Dog Training
Method Manual:

http://makeashorterlink.com/?G34D2527A

Just ASK The Amazing Puppy Wizard if you
need any additional FREE heelp. There's NO
arbritrary INFORMATION in your FREE copy
of The Amazing Puppy Wizard's FREE WWW
Wits' End Dog Training Method Manual so
study it well and do and follow ALL the
EXXXERCISES AS INSTRUCTED... it's a
PRECISE SCIENCE or it COULDN'T GET 100%
CONSISTENT NEARLY INSTANT SUCCESS for all
handlers and all dogs in all fields or
utilities and behaviors all over the Whole
Wild World <{) ; ~ )  >

                ALL Critters Only Respond In
              PREDICTABLE INNATE NORMAL NATURAL
                 INSTINCTIVE REFLEXIVE Ways;
      To Situations And Circumstances Of Their Environment
                  Which We Create For Them.

               You GET The Critter You TRAINED

                       A DOG Is A Dog;
                      As A KAT Is A KAT;
                    As A BIRDY Is A BIRDY;
                    As A CHILD IS A CHILD;
                  As A SP-HOWES Is a SP-HOWES.

            In The Problem Animal Behavior BUSINESS
                      FAILURE MEANS DEATH.
                      SAME SAME SAME SAME,
           For The Problem Child Behavior BUSINESS.

         Damn The Descartean War of "Nature Vs Nurture."
              We Teach By HOWER Words And Actions
                 And GET BACK What We TAUGHT.

        ALL Behavior Problems Are CAUSED BY MISHANDLING

          Jer 21 And unto this people thou shalt say,
          Thus saith the LORD; Behold, I set before
          you The Way Of Life, And The Way Of Death.

          2Ki 19:6 And Isaiah said unto them, Thus
          shall ye say to your master, Thus saith
          the LORD, Be not afraid of the words which
          thou hast heard, with which the servants of
          the king of Assyria have blasphemed me.

                 The Puppy Prophet <{); ~ ) >

Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 09:41:01 -0500
From: "George von Hilsheimer, Ph.D."
<drv...@mindspring.com>
Subject: "time-out"

Dan, my own firm hatred of punishment has
recently been intensified by meeting The
Puppy Wizard, Jerry Howe, whose work with
dogs is marvelous.

There is a literature on harms caused by time
out, and perhaps you'd like to look at
http://www.dogydoright.com
George von Hilsheimer, Ph.D., F.R.S.H.

"As Sam Corson (Pavlov's last student) demonstrated for
nearly 50 years at Ohio University (Oxford, O.) there
is no treatment more useful for dogs than tender loving
care."

George von Hilsheimer, Ph. D., F. R. S. H., Diplomate,
Academy of Behavioral Medicine

From: "George von Hilsheimer, Ph.D." <drv...@mindspring.com
To: <d...@arcane-computing.com
Sent: Tuesday, January 04, 2005 5:38 PM
Subject: Doggy advice

Scott, Jerry Howe forwarded me the letter below.
I'm glad that you referred negatively to Jerry's
habit of CAPITALIZING and HOWEING everything.

I personally hate this habit of his. I think it is his
way of diluting his authority - IME he is a very modest
fellow. However, contrary to your sneer, he is very
competent at living with dogs.

I thought I'd list a series of actions which I found
on the list, folk asking advice on what to do about
dogs doing this and that, for example:

whining,
humping, hunching,
pacing,
self mutilation - paw licking, side sucking,
spinning,
prolonged barking, barking at shadows,
overstimulated barking,
fighting, bullying other dogs,
compulsive digging,
compulsive scratching,
compulsive chewing,
frantic behavior,
chasing light, chasing shadow,
stealing food,
digging in garbage can,
loosing house (toilet) training.
inappropriate fearfulness
aggression.

The thing that is fascinating to me, as an ethologist who
graduated from college 50 years ago and has spent all of
the intervening time working with animals (including the
human animal), is that you never see any of these behaviors
in wild dingoes, jackals, coyotes or wolves, you don't even
see these behaviors in hyenas (who aren't dog related).

You see these behaviors in human managed animals, especially
animals who live with neurotic hysterical humans.

As Sam Corson (Pavlov's last student) demonstrated for
nearly 50 years at Ohio University (Oxford, O.) there
is no treatment more useful for dogs than tender loving
care.

George von Hilsheimer, Ph. D., F. R. S. H., Diplomate,
Academy of Behavioral Medicine

"The IMBECILITY of some of the claims for operant
technique simply take the breath away. Lovas et al
(1966) report a standard contingent reward/punishment
procedure developing imitative speech in two severly
disturbed non verbal schizophrenic boys. After twenty-
six days the boys are reported to have been learning
new words with alacrity. HOWEver, when REWARDS
were moved to a delayed contingency the behavior and
learning immediately deteriorated."

From: "George von Hilsheimer, Ph.D."
<drv...@mindspring.com>

To: <pdd-aspy...@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, November 19, 2004 9:31 AM
Subject: How does diagnosis shape treatment?

How does diagnosis shape treatment?

Nearly every week I have a visit from Jerry Howe, who
publicizes himself as The Puppy Wizard. Jerry is a
master at behavioral modification of dogs.

His fundamental bedrock is the work Pavlov's last student,
the late Sam Corson, Ph.D., did at the U of Ohio (at Oxford,O).

Sam always pointed out if the dog stopped working for
you in the lab, Pavlov and he always took the dog away
from the lab, and put him in a loving home and gave him
TLC for a couple of months, and then started, very carefully,
over again.

Jerry believes that reward and constraint focused training
is immoral. I've watched him in one short session calm
impossible dogs, just about to be murdered (oops "put to
sleep") because of their "incorrigibly" violent behavior.

Sam was one of the first people to apply amphetamine to
hyperactivity (he searched the Middle West for hyperactive
dogs); but he never lost sight of the fundamental reality that
a dog is not a human, but does respond, doggily, to dog love.

You might be surprised to go to B. F. Skinner's "Cumulative
Record" and read the essay by Breland and Breland, "The
Misbehavior of Organisms".

Animals cannot be successfully trained unless the trainer
attends to the evolutionary history, the individual's
developmental history, and the environmental niche of
the animal being trained.

Yep, right there in Skinner's last and summary book.
Even with behavior mod, you must know the animal.

<snip>

       Dogs or little boys, you have to know the individual
       history, and the nature of he disorder.

       Dr. Von

       PS if you are interested in dogs, then take
       a look at Jerry's work.

         Dr. George VonHilsheimer writes in

         "Is there a SCIENCE of BEHAVIOR?":

"Valette 1966 is a complete trivialization of
scientific findings. It overstates the case for
reinforcement theory. No careful resear