Modern Love

[Jaylen Brit 0]

The 'no reaction' thing works very well on kids having tantrums..its a proven behavioural trick; and i can tell you form experience it works very well indeed (Tho I gotta say..its pretty hard to 'not react' to a whining yelling kid..but it IS possible!)

[Elizabethnhenry 0]

The 'no reaction' thing works very well on kids having tantrums..its a proven behavioural trick; and i can tell you form experience it works very well indeed (Tho I gotta say..its pretty hard to 'not react' to a whining yelling kid..but it IS possible!)

wonder if it works on bosses????

[Bunnyqr 0]

This is exactly what I need right now, EXACTLY!!!

My fiance has now become an exoctic Greek male species. I am totally going to do this and try it out.

I am actually excited to start the process and see his responses to this. I am not telling him a thing about this article, it's my little science project.

I too don't want to be a nagging wife. And already he has done things that get my going, and I actually cringe when I hear my voice starting to nag or repeat the same things over with him. Ugh!!

I would ignore me too if I had to listen to that. I don't want him to do things just to shut me up. I want him to do things for the reward, the affection and the compliment.

Thanks Again!

[Ban Hammer 13,276]

After all, you don't get a sea lion to balance a ball on the end of its nose by nagging. The same goes for the American husband.

if we do, do we get a beer?

[Elizabethnhenry 0]

After all, you don't get a sea lion to balance a ball on the end of its nose by nagging. The same goes for the American husband.

if we do, do we get a beer?

you get TWO beers!!! (or in Henry's case 2 Maltas....ugh! pewww!)

This is exactly what I need right now, EXACTLY!!!

My fiance has now become an exoctic Greek male species. I am totally going to do this and try it out.

I am actually excited to start the process and see his responses to this. I am not telling him a thing about this article, it's my little science project.

I too don't want to be a nagging wife. And already he has done things that get my going, and I actually cringe when I hear my voice starting to nag or repeat the same things over with him. Ugh!!

I would ignore me too if I had to listen to that. I don't want him to do things just to shut me up. I want him to do things for the reward, the affection and the compliment.

Thanks Again!

I just replaced the half melted ice tray he left on the counter and wiped up the accompanying puddle of water. I put the soy milk back in the refrigerator. I could see him out of the corner of eye approaching the kitchen, but then he turned around quickly and ran back to Dateline. He knows he's the absent-minded professor. This is gonna be gooooood.

I don't want him to do things just to shut me up. I want him to do things for the reward, the affection and the compliment.

Thanks Again!

Ditto!! and for just knowing that he is a good PARTNER. I go out of my way to give credit and love when I come home and dinner is done and I hear the washer. Then I don't mind drying and ironing and washing up the dishes.....an whatever else I can think to do. tee hee I throw around the word TEAM a lot!

By nature, my lil martian doesn't seem to believe in this paradigm...when I cook, wash and iron his uniform he does not say anything. But lately he does pop his head back into the house and say thanks. He is trying.

Edited June 26, 2006 by Elizabethnhenry

[Fandango 1,439]

omG am I the only one that was horrified reading this?

[Elizabethnhenry 0]

omG am I the only one that was horrified reading this?

horrified in what sense?

[Fandango 1,439]

my comments in blue,

red flags in red, lolz

This article cracked me up! Ladies: Try to read to the end.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

June 25, 2006

Modern Love

What Shamu Taught Me About a Happy Marriage

By AMY SUTHERLAND

AS I wash dishes at the kitchen sink, my husband paces behind me, irritated. "Have you seen my keys?" he snarls, then huffs out a loud sigh and stomps from the room with our dog, Dixie, at his heels, anxious over her favorite human's upset.

In the past I would have been right behind Dixie. I would have turned off the faucet and joined the hunt while trying to soothe my husband with bromides like, "Don't worry, they'll turn up." But that only made him angrier, and a simple case of missing keys soon would become a full-blown angst-ridden drama starring the two of us and our poor nervous dog.

Now, I focus on the wet dish in my hands. I don't turn around. I don't say a word. I'm using a technique I learned from a dolphin trainer.

I love my husband. He's well read, adventurous and does a hysterical rendition of a northern Vermont accent that still cracks me up after 12 years of marriage.

But he also tends to be forgetful, and is often tardy and mercurial. He hovers around me in the kitchen asking if I read this or that piece in The New Yorker when I'm trying to concentrate on the simmering pans. He leaves wadded tissues in his wake. He suffers from serious bouts of spousal deafness but never fails to hear me when I mutter to myself on the other side of the house. "What did you say?" he'll shout.

These minor annoyances are not the stuff of separation and divorce, but in sum they began to dull my love for Scott. I wanted — needed — to nudge him a little closer to perfect, to make him into a mate who might annoy me a little less, who wouldn't keep me waiting at restaurants, a mate who would be easier to love.

So, like many wives before me, I ignored a library of advice books and set about improving him. By nagging, of course, which only made his behavior worse: he'd drive faster instead of slower; shave less frequently, not more; and leave his reeking bike garb on the bedroom floor longer than ever.

We went to a counselor to smooth the edges off our marriage. She didn't understand what we were doing there and complimented us repeatedly on how well we communicated. I gave up. I guessed she was right — our union was better than most — and resigned myself to stretches of slow-boil resentment and occasional sarcasm.

Then something magical happened. For a book I was writing about a school for exotic animal trainers, I started commuting from Maine to California, where I spent my days watching students do the seemingly impossible: teaching hyenas to pirouette on command, cougars to offer their paws for a nail clipping, and baboons to skateboard.

I listened, rapt, as professional trainers explained how they taught dolphins to flip and elephants to paint. Eventually it hit me that the same techniques might work on that stubborn but lovable species, the American husband.

The central lesson I learned from exotic animal trainers is that I should reward behavior I like and ignore behavior I don't. After all, you don't get a sea lion to balance a ball on the end of its nose by nagging. The same goes for the American husband.

Back in Maine, I began thanking Scott if he threw one dirty shirt into the hamper. If he threw in two, I'd kiss him. Meanwhile, I would step over any soiled clothes on the floor without one sharp word, though I did sometimes kick them under the bed. But as he basked in my appreciation, the piles became smaller.

I was using what trainers call "approximations," rewarding the small steps toward learning a whole new behavior. You can't expect a baboon to learn to flip on command in one session, just as you can't expect an American husband to begin regularly picking up his dirty socks by praising him once for picking up a single sock. With the baboon you first reward a hop, then a bigger hop, then an even bigger hop. With Scott the husband, I began to praise every small act every time: if he drove just a mile an hour slower, tossed one pair of shorts into the hamper, or was on time for anything.

I also began to analyze my husband the way a trainer considers an exotic animal. Enlightened trainers learn all they can about a species, from anatomy to social structure, to understand how it thinks, what it likes and dislikes, what comes easily to it and what doesn't. For example, an elephant is a herd animal, so it responds to hierarchy. It cannot jump, but can stand on its head. It is a vegetarian.

The exotic animal known as Scott is a loner, but an alpha male. So hierarchy matters, but being in a group doesn't so much. He has the balance of a gymnast, but moves slowly, especially when getting dressed. Skiing comes naturally, but being on time does not. He's an omnivore, and what a trainer would call food-driven.

Once I started thinking this way, I couldn't stop. At the school in California, I'd be scribbling notes on how to walk an emu or have a wolf accept you as a pack member, but I'd be thinking, "I can't wait to try this on Scott."

On a field trip with the students, I listened to a professional trainer describe how he had taught African crested cranes to stop landing on his head and shoulders. He did this by training the leggy birds to land on mats on the ground. This, he explained, is what is called an "incompatible behavior," a simple but brilliant concept.

Rather than teach the cranes to stop landing on him, the trainer taught the birds something else, a behavior that would make the undesirable behavior impossible. The birds couldn't alight on the mats and his head simultaneously.

At home, I came up with incompatible behaviors for Scott to keep him from crowding me while I cooked. To lure him away from the stove, I piled up parsley for him to chop or cheese for him to grate at the other end of the kitchen island. Or I'd set out a bowl of chips and salsa across the room. Soon I'd done it: no more Scott hovering around me while I cooked.

I followed the students to SeaWorld San Diego, where a dolphin trainer introduced me to least reinforcing syndrome (L. R. S.). When a dolphin does something wrong, the trainer doesn't respond in any way. He stands still for a few beats, careful not to look at the dolphin, and then returns to work. The idea is that any response, positive or negative, fuels a behavior. If a behavior provokes no response, it typically dies away.

In the margins of my notes I wrote, "Try on Scott!"

It was only a matter of time before he was again tearing around the house searching for his keys, at which point I said nothing and kept at what I was doing. It took a lot of discipline to maintain my calm, but results were immediate and stunning. His temper fell far shy of its usual pitch and then waned like a fast-moving storm. I felt as if I should throw him a mackerel.

Now he's at it again; I hear him banging a closet door shut, rustling through papers on a chest in the front hall and thumping upstairs. At the sink, I hold steady. Then, sure enough, all goes quiet. A moment later, he walks into the kitchen, keys in hand, and says calmly, "Found them."

Without turning, I call out, "Great, see you later." *cold much? fffs*

Off he goes with our much-calmed pup.

After two years of exotic animal training *condescending cow* , my marriage is far smoother, my husband much easier to love. *RED FLAG PPLS!!!* I used to take his faults personally; his dirty clothes on the floor were an affront, a symbol of how he didn't care enough about me. But thinking of my husband as an exotic species gave me the distance I needed to consider our differences more objectively.

I adopted the trainers' motto: "It's never the animal's fault." *condescending cow* When my training attempts failed, I didn't blame Scott. Rather, I brainstormed new strategies, thought up more incompatible behaviors and used smaller approximations. *condescending cow* I dissected my own behavior, considered how my actions might inadvertently fuel his. I also accepted that some behaviors were too entrenched, too instinctive to train away.*condescending cow* You can't stop a badger from digging, and you can't stop my husband from losing his wallet and keys.

PROFESSIONALS talk of animals that understand training so well they eventually use it back on the trainer. My animal did the same. When the training techniques worked so beautifully, I couldn't resist telling my husband what I was up to. He wasn't offended, just amused. As I explained the techniques and terminology, he soaked it up. Far more than I realized.

*condescending cow*

Last fall, firmly in middle age, I learned that I needed braces.*cc with jacked up teeth, ha ha!* They were not only humiliating, but also excruciating. For weeks my gums, teeth, jaw and sinuses throbbed. I complained frequently and loudly. Scott assured me that I would become used to all the metal in my mouth. I did not.

One morning, as I launched into yet another tirade about how uncomfortable I was, Scott just looked at me blankly. He didn't say a word or acknowledge my rant in any way, not even with a nod. *and this is what she was striving for????*

I quickly ran out of steam and started to walk away. Then I realized what was happening, , and I turned and asked, "Are you giving me an L. R. S.?" Silence. "You are, aren't you?"

He finally smiled, but his L. R. S. has already done the trick. He'd begun to train me, the American wife.

Amy Sutherland is the author of "Kicked, Bitten and Scratched: Life and Lessons at the Premier School for Exotic Animal Trainers" (Viking, June 2006). She lives in Boston and in Portland, Me.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/25/fashion/...agewanted=print

[Elizabethnhenry 0]

my comments in blue,

red flags in red, lolz

This article cracked me up! Ladies: Try to read to the end.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

June 25, 2006

Modern Love

What Shamu Taught Me About a Happy Marriage

By AMY SUTHERLAND

AS I wash dishes at the kitchen sink, my husband paces behind me, irritated. "Have you seen my keys?" he snarls, then huffs out a loud sigh and stomps from the room with our dog, Dixie, at his heels, anxious over her favorite human's upset.

In the past I would have been right behind Dixie. I would have turned off the faucet and joined the hunt while trying to soothe my husband with bromides like, "Don't worry, they'll turn up." But that only made him angrier, and a simple case of missing keys soon would become a full-blown angst-ridden drama starring the two of us and our poor nervous dog.

Now, I focus on the wet dish in my hands. I don't turn around. I don't say a word. I'm using a technique I learned from a dolphin trainer.

I love my husband. He's well read, adventurous and does a hysterical rendition of a northern Vermont accent that still cracks me up after 12 years of marriage.

But he also tends to be forgetful, and is often tardy and mercurial. He hovers around me in the kitchen asking if I read this or that piece in The New Yorker when I'm trying to concentrate on the simmering pans. He leaves wadded tissues in his wake. He suffers from serious bouts of spousal deafness but never fails to hear me when I mutter to myself on the other side of the house. "What did you say?" he'll shout.

These minor annoyances are not the stuff of separation and divorce, but in sum they began to dull my love for Scott. I wanted — needed — to nudge him a little closer to perfect, to make him into a mate who might annoy me a little less, who wouldn't keep me waiting at restaurants, a mate who would be easier to love.

So, like many wives before me, I ignored a library of advice books and set about improving him. By nagging, of course, which only made his behavior worse: he'd drive faster instead of slower; shave less frequently, not more; and leave his reeking bike garb on the bedroom floor longer than ever.

We went to a counselor to smooth the edges off our marriage. She didn't understand what we were doing there and complimented us repeatedly on how well we communicated. I gave up. I guessed she was right — our union was better than most — and resigned myself to stretches of slow-boil resentment and occasional sarcasm.

Then something magical happened. For a book I was writing about a school for exotic animal trainers, I started commuting from Maine to California, where I spent my days watching students do the seemingly impossible: teaching hyenas to pirouette on command, cougars to offer their paws for a nail clipping, and baboons to skateboard.

I listened, rapt, as professional trainers explained how they taught dolphins to flip and elephants to paint. Eventually it hit me that the same techniques might work on that stubborn but lovable species, the American husband.

The central lesson I learned from exotic animal trainers is that I should reward behavior I like and ignore behavior I don't. After all, you don't get a sea lion to balance a ball on the end of its nose by nagging. The same goes for the American husband.

Back in Maine, I began thanking Scott if he threw one dirty shirt into the hamper. If he threw in two, I'd kiss him. Meanwhile, I would step over any soiled clothes on the floor without one sharp word, though I did sometimes kick them under the bed. But as he basked in my appreciation, the piles became smaller.

I was using what trainers call "approximations," rewarding the small steps toward learning a whole new behavior. You can't expect a baboon to learn to flip on command in one session, just as you can't expect an American husband to begin regularly picking up his dirty socks by praising him once for picking up a single sock. With the baboon you first reward a hop, then a bigger hop, then an even bigger hop. With Scott the husband, I began to praise every small act every time: if he drove just a mile an hour slower, tossed one pair of shorts into the hamper, or was on time for anything.

I also began to analyze my husband the way a trainer considers an exotic animal. Enlightened trainers learn all they can about a species, from anatomy to social structure, to understand how it thinks, what it likes and dislikes, what comes easily to it and what doesn't. For example, an elephant is a herd animal, so it responds to hierarchy. It cannot jump, but can stand on its head. It is a vegetarian.

The exotic animal known as Scott is a loner, but an alpha male. So hierarchy matters, but being in a group doesn't so much. He has the balance of a gymnast, but moves slowly, especially when getting dressed. Skiing comes naturally, but being on time does not. He's an omnivore, and what a trainer would call food-driven.

Once I started thinking this way, I couldn't stop. At the school in California, I'd be scribbling notes on how to walk an emu or have a wolf accept you as a pack member, but I'd be thinking, "I can't wait to try this on Scott."

On a field trip with the students, I listened to a professional trainer describe how he had taught African crested cranes to stop landing on his head and shoulders. He did this by training the leggy birds to land on mats on the ground. This, he explained, is what is called an "incompatible behavior," a simple but brilliant concept.

Rather than teach the cranes to stop landing on him, the trainer taught the birds something else, a behavior that would make the undesirable behavior impossible. The birds couldn't alight on the mats and his head simultaneously.

At home, I came up with incompatible behaviors for Scott to keep him from crowding me while I cooked. To lure him away from the stove, I piled up parsley for him to chop or cheese for him to grate at the other end of the kitchen island. Or I'd set out a bowl of chips and salsa across the room. Soon I'd done it: no more Scott hovering around me while I cooked.

I followed the students to SeaWorld San Diego, where a dolphin trainer introduced me to least reinforcing syndrome (L. R. S.). When a dolphin does something wrong, the trainer doesn't respond in any way. He stands still for a few beats, careful not to look at the dolphin, and then returns to work. The idea is that any response, positive or negative, fuels a behavior. If a behavior provokes no response, it typically dies away.

In the margins of my notes I wrote, "Try on Scott!"

It was only a matter of time before he was again tearing around the house searching for his keys, at which point I said nothing and kept at what I was doing. It took a lot of discipline to maintain my calm, but results were immediate and stunning. His temper fell far shy of its usual pitch and then waned like a fast-moving storm. I felt as if I should throw him a mackerel.

Now he's at it again; I hear him banging a closet door shut, rustling through papers on a chest in the front hall and thumping upstairs. At the sink, I hold steady. Then, sure enough, all goes quiet. A moment later, he walks into the kitchen, keys in hand, and says calmly, "Found them."

Without turning, I call out, "Great, see you later." *cold much? fffs*

Off he goes with our much-calmed pup.

After two years of exotic animal training *condescending cow* , my marriage is far smoother, my husband much easier to love. *RED FLAG PPLS!!!* I used to take his faults personally; his dirty clothes on the floor were an affront, a symbol of how he didn't care enough about me. But thinking of my husband as an exotic species gave me the distance I needed to consider our differences more objectively.

I adopted the trainers' motto: "It's never the animal's fault." *condescending cow* When my training attempts failed, I didn't blame Scott. Rather, I brainstormed new strategies, thought up more incompatible behaviors and used smaller approximations. *condescending cow* I dissected my own behavior, considered how my actions might inadvertently fuel his. I also accepted that some behaviors were too entrenched, too instinctive to train away.*condescending cow* You can't stop a badger from digging, and you can't stop my husband from losing his wallet and keys.

PROFESSIONALS talk of animals that understand training so well they eventually use it back on the trainer. My animal did the same. When the training techniques worked so beautifully, I couldn't resist telling my husband what I was up to. He wasn't offended, just amused. As I explained the techniques and terminology, he soaked it up. Far more than I realized.

*condescending cow*

Last fall, firmly in middle age, I learned that I needed braces.*cc with jacked up teeth, ha ha!* They were not only humiliating, but also excruciating. For weeks my gums, teeth, jaw and sinuses throbbed. I complained frequently and loudly. Scott assured me that I would become used to all the metal in my mouth. I did not.

One morning, as I launched into yet another tirade about how uncomfortable I was, Scott just looked at me blankly. He didn't say a word or acknowledge my rant in any way, not even with a nod. *and this is what she was striving for????*

I quickly ran out of steam and started to walk away. Then I realized what was happening, , and I turned and asked, "Are you giving me an L. R. S.?" Silence. "You are, aren't you?"

He finally smiled, but his L. R. S. has already done the trick. He'd begun to train me, the American wife.

Amy Sutherland is the author of "Kicked, Bitten and Scratched: Life and Lessons at the Premier School for Exotic Animal Trainers" (Viking, June 2006). She lives in Boston and in Portland, Me.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/25/fashion/...agewanted=print

I get you now.

[Fandango 1,439]

In order to be more clear, here's the edited version I was messing around with fonts, and by the time I was done, couldn't edit original...

my comments in blue,

red flags in red, lolz

This article cracked me up! Ladies: Try to read to the end.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

June 25, 2006

Modern Love

What Shamu Taught Me About a Happy Marriage

By AMY SUTHERLAND

AS I wash dishes at the kitchen sink, my husband paces behind me, irritated. "Have you seen my keys?" he snarls, then huffs out a loud sigh and stomps from the room with our dog, Dixie, at his heels, anxious over her favorite human's upset.

In the past I would have been right behind Dixie. I would have turned off the faucet and joined the hunt while trying to soothe my husband with bromides like, "Don't worry, they'll turn up." But that only made him angrier, and a simple case of missing keys soon would become a full-blown angst-ridden drama starring the two of us and our poor nervous dog.

Now, I focus on the wet dish in my hands. I don't turn around. I don't say a word. I'm using a technique I learned from a dolphin trainer.*condescending cow*

I love my husband. He's well read, adventurous and does a hysterical rendition of a northern Vermont accent that still cracks me up after 12 years of marriage.

But he also tends to be forgetful, and is often tardy and mercurial.*big whoop* He hovers around me in the kitchen asking if I read this or that piece in The New Yorker when I'm trying to concentrate on the simmering pans. *let's call Oprah!!!* He leaves wadded tissues in his wake. He suffers from serious bouts of spousal deafness but never fails to hear me when I mutter to myself on the other side of the house. "What did you say?" he'll shout.

These minor annoyances are not the stuff of separation and divorce, but in sum they began to dull my love for Scott. I wanted — needed — to nudge him a little closer to perfect, to make him into a mate who might annoy me a little less, who wouldn't keep me waiting at restaurants, a mate who would be easier to love.

*condescending cow*

So, like many wives before me, I ignored a library of advice books and set about improving him.*you should either accept him or leave* By nagging, of course, which only made his behavior worse: he'd drive faster instead of slower; shave less frequently, not more; and leave his reeking bike garb on the bedroom floor longer than ever.

We went to a counselor to smooth the edges off our marriage. She didn't understand what we were doing there and complimented us repeatedly on how well we communicated. I gave up. I guessed she was right — our union was better than most — and resigned myself to stretches of slow-boil resentment and occasional sarcasm.

Then something magical happened. For a book I was writing about a school for exotic animal trainers, I started commuting from Maine to California, where I spent my days watching students do the seemingly impossible: teaching hyenas to pirouette on command, cougars to offer their paws for a nail clipping, and baboons to skateboard.

I listened, rapt, as professional trainers explained how they taught dolphins to flip and elephants to paint. Eventually it hit me that the same techniques might work on that stubborn but lovable species, the American husband. *condescending cow*

The central lesson I learned from exotic animal trainers is that I should reward behavior I like and ignore behavior I don't. After all, you don't get a sea lion to balance a ball on the end of its nose by nagging. The same goes for the American husband. *condescending cow*

Back in Maine, I began thanking Scott if he threw one dirty shirt into the hamper. If he threw in two, I'd kiss him. Meanwhile, I would step over any soiled clothes on the floor without one sharp word, though I did sometimes kick them under the bed. But as he basked in my appreciation, the piles became smaller.

I was using what trainers call "approximations," rewarding the small steps toward learning a whole new behavior. You can't expect a baboon to learn to flip on command in one session, just as you can't expect an American husband to begin regularly picking up his dirty socks by praising him once for picking up a single sock. With the baboon you first reward a hop, then a bigger hop, then an even bigger hop. With Scott the husband, I began to praise every small act every time: if he drove just a mile an hour slower, tossed one pair of shorts into the hamper, or was on time for anything.

*condescending cow*

I also began to analyze my husband the way a trainer considers an exotic animal. Enlightened trainers learn all they can about a species, from anatomy to social structure, to understand how it thinks, what it likes and dislikes, what comes easily to it and what doesn't. For example, an elephant is a herd animal, so it responds to hierarchy. It cannot jump, but can stand on its head. It is a vegetarian. *condescending cow*

The exotic animal known as Scott is a loner, but an alpha male. So hierarchy matters, but being in a group doesn't so much. He has the balance of a gymnast, but moves slowly, especially when getting dressed. Skiing comes naturally, but being on time does not. He's an omnivore, and what a trainer would call food-driven.

*condescending cow*

Once I started thinking this way, I couldn't stop. At the school in California, I'd be scribbling notes on how to walk an emu or have a wolf accept you as a pack member, but I'd be thinking, "I can't wait to try this on Scott."

*condescending cow*

On a field trip with the students, I listened to a professional trainer describe how he had taught African crested cranes to stop landing on his head and shoulders. He did this by training the leggy birds to land on mats on the ground. This, he explained, is what is called an "incompatible behavior," a simple but brilliant concept.

Rather than teach the cranes to stop landing on him, the trainer taught the birds something else, a behavior that would make the undesirable behavior impossible. The birds couldn't alight on the mats and his head simultaneously.

At home, I came up with incompatible behaviors for Scott to keep him from crowding me while I cooked. To lure him away from the stove, I piled up parsley for him to chop or cheese for him to grate at the other end of the kitchen island. Or I'd set out a bowl of chips and salsa across the room. Soon I'd done it: no more Scott hovering around me while I cooked.

*condescending cow. you'll miss him wanting to be close to you soon enough*

I followed the students to SeaWorld San Diego, where a dolphin trainer introduced me to least reinforcing syndrome (L. R. S.). When a dolphin does something wrong, the trainer doesn't respond in any way. He stands still for a few beats, careful not to look at the dolphin, and then returns to work. The idea is that any response, positive or negative, fuels a behavior. If a behavior provokes no response, it typically dies away.

In the margins of my notes I wrote, "Try on Scott!" *condescending cow*

It was only a matter of time before he was again tearing around the house searching for his keys, at which point I said nothing and kept at what I was doing. It took a lot of discipline to maintain my calm, but results were immediate and stunning. His temper fell far shy of its usual pitch and then waned like a fast-moving storm. I felt as if I should throw him a mackerel.

Now he's at it again; I hear him banging a closet door shut, rustling through papers on a chest in the front hall and thumping upstairs. At the sink, I hold steady. Then, sure enough, all goes quiet. A moment later, he walks into the kitchen, keys in hand, and says calmly, "Found them."

Without turning, I call out, "Great, see you later." *cold much? fffs*

Off he goes with our much-calmed pup.

After two years of exotic animal training *condescending cow* , my marriage is far smoother, my husband much easier to love. *RED FLAG PPLS!!!* I used to take his faults personally; his dirty clothes on the floor were an affront, a symbol of how he didn't care enough about me. But thinking of my husband as an exotic species gave me the distance I needed to consider our differences more objectively.

I adopted the trainers' motto: "It's never the animal's fault." *condescending cow* When my training attempts failed, I didn't blame Scott. Rather, I brainstormed new strategies, thought up more incompatible behaviors and used smaller approximations. *condescending cow* I dissected my own behavior, considered how my actions might inadvertently fuel his. I also accepted that some behaviors were too entrenched, too instinctive to train away.*condescending cow* You can't stop a badger from digging, and you can't stop my husband from losing his wallet and keys.*and you can't stop Amy, apparantly, from being a condescending cow*

PROFESSIONALS talk of animals that understand training so well they eventually use it back on the trainer. My animal did the same. When the training techniques worked so beautifully, I couldn't resist telling my husband what I was up to. He wasn't offended, just amused. As I explained the techniques and terminology, he soaked it up. Far more than I realized.

*condescending cow*

Last fall, firmly in middle age, I learned that I needed braces.*cc with jacked up teeth, ha ha!* They were not only humiliating, but also excruciating. For weeks my gums, teeth, jaw and sinuses throbbed. I complained frequently and loudly. Scott assured me that I would become used to all the metal in my mouth. I did not.

One morning, as I launched into yet another tirade about how uncomfortable I was, Scott just looked at me blankly. He didn't say a word or acknowledge my rant in any way, not even with a nod. *and this is what she was striving for????*

I quickly ran out of steam and started to walk away. Then I realized what was happening, , and I turned and asked, "Are you giving me an L. R. S.?" Silence. "You are, aren't you?"

He finally smiled, but his L. R. S. has already done the trick. He'd begun to train me, the American wife.

Amy Sutherland is the author of "Kicked, Bitten and Scratched: Life and Lessons at the Premier School for Exotic Animal Trainers" (Viking, June 2006). She lives in Boston and in Portland, Me.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/25/fashion/...agewanted=print

Edited June 26, 2006 by LisaD

[ceriserose 1]

Odd, I didn't take her to be as condescending as you're making out (different perspectives!). But I can see your point of view.

In the end, she ended up being the one trained (learning to not let that stuff bug her so much), and obviously had been open with her husband because he knew how to turn the techniques back on her. I took this to be more of a growth experience for her than for him (albeit he learned a few things that would help to meet her in the middle).

Of course communication dynamics between couples are as disparate as couples themselves, so what may work for one, won't work for another.

I told CAPS about this and we had a good laugh. We've been through too much individually and as a couple to ever let the kind of chaff she's whinging about become a priority. I could care less if socks are on the floor and the like. To each his own.

[Elizabethnhenry 0]

I could care less if socks are on the floor and the like. To each his own.

I think that's right.

I didn't see it as condescending....if you read her other stuff, that's clear that her tongue planted firmly in cheek.

I think we are all at different stages in our relationships, some have gone to hell and back, some are mere babies and we all have different skillsets.

And that is the point. SHE got schooled in the end. I just thought it was funny and you take from it what interests you.

[Fandango 1,439]

I dunno, I get the whole tongue in cheek thing, but I think an article comparing her husband to an animal is rude. I'm not downing you for posting it, Eliz, I'm just sayin that I think she comes off as a.....*EVERYBODY NOW*.....

CONDESCENDING COW! hahahah

Big whoop, he throws chit on the floor, to say chit like 'make him more perfect' or 'so I can love him more' is a bit chit. Yes, they've been together longer than me and D...not hugely so, but at the same time, I wouldn't look to compare him to training a fcuking animal. D and I have lived together for years and did have to learn to cohabitate in a manner that worked for the both of us, but it was a joint thing, not 'I'm going to train him my way'

If D wrote an article like this, I'd be pissed off. Jmo tho, and everyone has his or her own opinion and that's fine too.

but she's a cow

[Elizabethnhenry 0]

I dunno, I get the whole tongue in cheek thing, but I think an article comparing her husband to an animal is rude. I'm not downing you for posting it, Eliz, I'm just sayin that I think she comes off as a.....*EVERYBODY NOW*.....

CONDESCENDING COW! hahahah

Big whoop, he throws chit on the floor, to say chit like 'make him more perfect' or 'so I can love him more' is a bit chit. Yes, they've been together longer than me and D...not hugely so, but at the same time, I wouldn't look to compare him to training a fcuking animal. D and I have lived together for years and did have to learn to cohabitate in a manner that worked for the both of us, but it was a joint thing, not 'I'm going to train him my way'

If D wrote an article like this, I'd be pissed off. Jmo tho, and everyone has his or her own opinion and that's fine too.

but she's a cow

with bad teeth!!!

[Bunnyqr 0]

I didn't take it that way at all, man being an animal and stuff like that. It is all about COMMUNICATION.

That is why I loved it so much. It took the writer to get out of her logic and look at her relationship and communication with her husband from a different perspective. We all learn in different ways and weird things happen to me to finally get the "light bulb" turned on in my head. This was one of those obscure reads that did it. I have realized my nagging and my attitude which is triggered by the way my fiance does things. And if it takes a story about a sea lion, a turtle, a plant to help me, BRING IT ON!!!