Canine Assistance Service Teams
C.A.S.T.
The Mechanical
The way I’ve leash trained every dog that I’ve ever put to it begins with one very simple action, clipping/attaching the leash to myself at the waist, and going totally hands-free. This serves two/2 things: the leash can never be jerked out of my hands, and/or whatever attachment has to break before I have a loose dog on the run; dogs had been harnessed together for generations long before they needed to be walked in ‘Modernia,’ and much like horses, they have at least a bit of a natural inclination towards functioning in tandem. The benefits of being hands-free are obvious, as is an escape-proof connection. Best practices for leash usage and training will be in a different, specific piece. There is as much a psychological/neurological effect created in the human as well as the dog; trying to describe or define it properly simply is an area where the English language falls short and far be it from me to inject into the work of others who are already hard at work trying to do exactly that, so I’ll just wait their publications. Verbiage isn’t required to recognize and make use of a function, however, in lays the best of its attributes. Dogs want to participate, they want to be included, they want to ‘work’ and be a viable part of the reality they’re a part of, they want to be a packmate, a ‘team-player’. They’re as hardwired for it as wolves are, just as we humans are. It isn’t an unreasonable anthrozoological hypothesis to ask if it may not have been ‘proto-dog’ that tamed/domesticated the first H. sapiens, and that is the real difference in why we survived and all others of the genus didn’t. Whether or not such is likely ever to be determined by
empirical evidence or not from the archeological strata or genetic archeology isn’t very likely, but that isn’t relevant to the hypothesis or the drives of our canine companions that we’re harnessing and developing.
