I recently came across this interesting video on YouTube. This dog appears to be either suffering from a very specific and unusual form of brain damage or suffering from a very specific and fixed perceptual position.
It reminds me of the situation faced by so many anxiety sufferers. Anxiety sufferers invariably experience anxiety as happening to them rather than being something that they are actively doing.
Thus, the anxiety, or panic attack, sufferer seeks relief from the symptoms rather than seeking to change the active behaviour that is the anxiety.
It is a bit like this dog arriving for therapy and saying, “Well, it is like this: I keep getting threatened by this leg that wants to take my bone. I want relief from this.”
When pointed out what is actually going on, the dog replies, “Don’t tell me I am doing this harm to myself. Are you saying I am imagining this? Just make it stop happening and stop blaming me for this!”
In watching the video, it is clear that the dog does not associate its output behaviours, including the leg, with the threat to the bone.
The dog is paying attention to the threat it presents, rather than to what he is doing with the leg in the first place. I can only ponder how the dog explains the additional pain caused by the bite he gives the leg.