Kevin saw this, screamed as if it was a three metre high man eating zombie spider and ran.
Susan saw Kevin's reaction, laughed and carried on with what she was doing.
Tane picked the spider up and chased Kevin.
Karen yelled and hit Kevin with a rolled up newspaper for knocking over her cup of tea.
You can't avoid spiders, they're part of life so something is needed to stop Kevin acting the way he does. This could involve shutting Kevin in a room with spiders and expecting
him to just get over it.
When Kevin next sees a spider what will his reaction most likely be?
Kevin's reaction could become even more intense, he could shut down, he could have learned to fear the room and avoid it or even hate you for putting him there. We could guess, or we could ask Kevin.
We could also learn from professionals how to help him overcome his fear.
After he had recovered from this terrifying experience, Kevin talked to Susan, Tane and Karen. Once they understood, they apologised, came up with a plan and all lived happily ever after.
Being human means we can communicate verbally how we are feeling, how we were feeling when something happened in the past, and even how we feel about things in the future. The ability to use Captain Hindsight, Sergeant Foresight and Colonel Conversation are a powerful tools that people can use.
Dogs, are not people. Try having an in depth discussion with a dog about an event from five years ago or your wishes for three hours from now, you'll probably get more out of it than they will.
It's about time we upped our game. Modern scientifically proven methods of training work and it works with any animal. Humans can train tigers to participate in giving blood samples and dolphins to jump through hoops. The tigers and dolphins didn't learn how to speak to people, the people learned how to communicate and train.
Canines are amazingly tolerant of us humans and all the weird people things we do. Perhaps dog owners could use large advanced human brains to learn how to be the best mentors for this species we've developed.
Learn how dogs learn, learn how to teach, let's get smarter.
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