INSIDE OF A DOG: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know
Alexandra Horowitz is a cognitive scientist, and it shows. But don't let that put you off. This widely celebrated book takes one of the most familiar animals on the planet and makes it feel genuinely strange again, in the best possible way. Horowitz invites readers to consider what it actually feels like to be a dog. Not in a whimsical, anthropomorphic sense, but through the hard evidence of animal perception and cognition. What does it mean to navigate the world primarily through smell? To detect a person's emotional state, or even the slow drift of time passing, purely through scent? To hear the faint vibrations of insects while simultaneously clocking the electrical hum of a light fitting overhead? These questions sound fanciful at first. The answers, grounded in real research, are quietly astonishing. The book covers a satisfying range of territory. Why does a bicycle trigger an almost irresistible urge to give chase? How does a small dog negotiate play with one several times its size? What's it like to use your mouth the way humans use their hands? Horowitz works through each of these with both scientific rigour and a genuinely light touch. It never feels like a lecture. There's also a good deal of current research woven through the text, covering dogs' ability to detect disease, the surprisingly complex language of their tails, and their finely tuned sensitivity to human attention. None of it is presented in isolation. Horowitz always brings it back to the bigger picture of what it's like to actually inhabit a dog's body and mind. This isn't a training manual, but dog owners will find plenty here that reshapes how they interpret their pet's behaviour. It's the kind of book that makes you look at your dog differently the moment you put it down.
- Author: Alexandra Horowitz
- Publisher: Scribner
- Genre: Pet Care & Training
- ISBN: 978-1416583431
- Pages: 352 pages