Roberto Barata's Social Feed
Anthrozoology | Ethology | Behavioral Modification
The views expressed in this social feed are entirely the author’s own, and responsibility for them rests solely with him. Read more about the author.
A Final Statement on False Claims
A Final Statement on False Claims As you've probably realized, I've been writing a great deal this year about the current epistemic tribalism in the dog training world. And there's a reason for that. With the last book in my series launching soon, this will be a case closed for me, just as many cases have been closed with the earlier books, which has always been the real purpose of the series: to close chapters. But there are recent events I need to address, so I'm writing a long post here that you can share whenever similar situations come up. Unlike some individuals, my habitat is not on social media, and I only become aware of situations involving me when someone tells me about them. First, about assumptions. Every time I read a criticism of my work, I learn something about myself I didn't know. It's interesting how readily we...
Read MoreReflection on IACP European Conference 2026
Reflection on IACP European Conference 2026 Photo by: Jess Okon Returning home from the European IACP event last weekend, and after wondering about everything I saw there, a few reflections have stayed with me and feel important to put into words. The first was a quiet surprise. I had not expected such a diverse audience to gather in a single room, professionals from different fields, perspectives, and convictions, willing to share the same space. I found myself moved by the work of certain individuals who, for instance, foster dogs in quiet anonymity, away from social media, simply trying to make life better for everyone around them. Others arrived feeling lost in the present online tribal wars, and they were brave enough to sit and listen to speakers who would challenge them. The same plurality was visible among the speakers, myself included. We came from different traditions, experiences, and ways of...
Read MoreReflection on Changes in Dog Training
Reflection on Changes in Dog Training The dog world is definitely not ready for change, and the reason has little to do with change itself. The resistance lives somewhere more personal, in the battle with oneself that any real transformation requires, and most of the noise we hear is that confrontation being thrown outward instead of being faced. This goes far beyond methods and tools, and honestly, it stopped being about dogs a long time ago. There is a particular moral inversion at work here that rarely gets named directly. The critique of anthropocentrism was necessary, the long-overdue recognition that humans had made themselves the measure and purpose of everything, including the lives of other species. But something has turned inside out, because the individual animal in this discourse has become a cause to be carried rather than a being to be understood, a banner in a war that was...
Read MoreWhat Makes A Correction “Unfair”?
What Makes A Correction "Unfair"? I've got the following question recently: What makes a correction unfair? What's worse, an unclear correction ot an inconsistent reinforcer? Philosophically, fairness has long been understood as a property of conditions rather than of consequences, and it concerns the structure of an interaction rather than its emotional tone. A procedure is fair when the rules governing it remain consistent, apply without arbitrary exceptions, and the individuals subject to them can anticipate how their actions will be received. In training, this maps directly onto the structure of the contingency. An interaction is procedurally fair when the individual has access to clear information about which behaviors produce which consequences, when the criteria remain stable across trials, and when the individual retains genuine behavioral options. Kindness, good intent, or the avoidance of aversives do not constitute fairness in this sense, because fairness is not determined by the emotional...
Read MoreDog Pro Radio Podcast Participation
Dog Pro Radio Podcast Participation My participation on the Dog Pro Radio episode is now available. I appreciate Jason and Matt's invitation, our conversation, and the opportunity to share some thoughts and experience from my career. I feel it is necessary, in the current paradigm, to discuss some topics seriously rather than moralize them, and to encourage everyone to expand education, proactivity, and critical thinking through different channels rather than through cancellation, authority, or popularity. You can listen to it on different platforms by clicking on the following link: https://iacpdogs.org/dog-pro-radio-podcast/episode-30-roberto-barata/ Comments are not enabled on posts. To discuss an author's post, you can reply directly to the email you receive if you are subscribed, or contact the author directly by clicking here.
Read MoreDog Training “Sides”
Dog Training "Sides" Among some colleagues lately, I got knowledge about a so-called "third side" in the dog world, a position that presents itself as something beyond the familiar poles of the debate, free of allegiance and labels. The idea seems to be to occupy neutral ground, to refuse the existing camps, and to call that refusal an identity. I’m wondering, however, if you defend a position, any position, even the position of not having a position, have you not already chosen a side if, in practice, you didn’t change your modus operandi?Perhaps we are dealing with a false dilemma. The either/or structure reduces a complex field of possibilities to two poles and presents choosing between them as the only available movement. The "third side" claims to escape this structure but does so by constructing a new pole, one defined precisely by its opposition to the binary. The "non-label" is...
Read MoreBrief View on Deprivation
Brief View on Deprivation I’m posting a very condensed summary of a concept I present in my Interspecies Communication Mentoring Program that often provokes a moral reaction, maybe because, in a popular language, it can suggest harm or rejection: “Deprivation.” In behavioural biology and ethology, deprivation refers simply to a reduction in access to a resource relative to a recent baseline, resulting in a change in motivation. It describes a functional relationship between internal state and behaviour rather than an ethical judgment about the condition itself. Whether deprivation is harmful depends on its intensity, duration, and consequences for physiological stability and behavioural functioning, not on deprivation per se.Biologically, behaviour is organized around regulation, as organisms maintain balance through homeostatic systems that generate motivational signals when resources are needed. Hunger belongs to this regulatory model. It is a normal signal that prioritizes feeding behaviour and directs attention toward relevant environmental opportunities....
Read MoreReflection on Social Hate
Reflection on Social Hate I’m a bit sad and, honestly, concerned about the current level of argument coming from some places. Mocking, memeing, using AI ad infinitum, even to make a single comment, and being extremely disrespectful to their peers. Terms like “PhD clowns”, “science deniers”, and other sad terminology are being thrown around as if that proves one's point. Well, it doesn’t. It’s just a way to discredit the work, the experience, and all the sacrifices involved for anyone who doesn’t follow a script or a bubble-thinking approach in certain topics.I’m going to leave a few thoughts below that I’m writing in the last book of the current series, for you to think about in the comfort and freedom of your own brain, without fear of the present inquisition.I never imagined that some individuals who had once held commendable values and a mission would become noisy trolls on social...
Read MoreSkinner AI Memes
Skinner AI Memes I would like to bring some attention to the current memeland, an environment of AI-generated posts and comments and compulsive engagement tactics disguised as professionalism, where Skinner has now become the new scapegoat, and I can understand why. His name functions as a symbolic authority, recognizable even to people who have never read him, which makes it convenient to invoke, and this “recycling” is a familiar cycle to me.Ethology was the first casualty when reduced to a version of “dominance theory” that is still mentioned in the dog world but nowhere in the actual ethological literature. Then behaviorism became the next target as people gradually realized that, by technical definition, many of their own practices involved punishment and aversive control. The next target was neuroscience, which is now being slowly abandoned in the current narrative, once it became obvious that stress, fear, and aversiveness are treated in...
Read MoreAversives in Science
Aversives in Science Following some requests regarding my last post on punishment, asking me to talk a bit more about aversives, I’m sharing some excerpts from an ongoing project with you, giving you references for you to check, with the same request that you should not be limited to them and you must expand your research.We know that the discussion around “aversives” in the dog world has become unusually polarized, and much of that polarization comes from how the term itself is being used. “Aversive” has become, in some discussions, a synonym for violence, harm, intimidation, or abuse, although academically it is not technically accurate. The behavioral sciences treat “aversive” as a functional concept, referring to what an event does to behavior rather than to the moral character of the person delivering it.Aversiveness is a property of an interaction from the individual’s point of view because an aversive stimulus is...
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