Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know
dogs October 2nd, 2009
Product DescriptionWhat do dogs know? How do they think? The answers will surprise and delight you as Alexandra Horowitz, a cognitive scientist, explains how dogs perceive their daily worlds, each other, and that other quirky animal, the human. Inside of a Dog is a fresh look at the world of dogs — from the dog’s point of view. As a dog owner, Horowitz is naturally curious to learn what her dog thinks about and knows. And as a scientist, she is intent on understanding the minds of animals who cannot speak for themselves. In clear, crisp prose, Horowitz introduces the reader to dogs’ perceptual and cognitive abilities and then draws a picture of what it might be like to be a dog. What’s it like to be able to smell not just every bi. . . More >>
October 2nd, 2009 at 12:41 pm
Rating: 5 / 5
Most people would like to know what dogs know and how they think.
I like dogs. I like this book!
The author and readers may also like to know the following:
One of the Chinese characters for dog contains exactly the dog’s head, black nose, and 4 legs.
(The drawings appear on page 48 of the book, Learning Chinese The Easy Way: Read & Understand The Symbols of Chinese Culture or Adventures in Mandarin Chinese Two Men and The Bear: Read & Understand the symbols of CHINESE culture through great stories )
Also, once I told a friend the dog is pronounced /gou/ in Chinese.
He responded: “It’s about right! My dog barked when it heard /gou/. ”
Enjoy
October 2nd, 2009 at 2:27 pm
Rating: 5 / 5
I love my dog, and who does not love their dogs, so I came into the book and it just had to get. It really said a lot about how dogs – suck psychology, if you like – and I was what they do, surprised. I think this is a great read, something that the dog whips on TV, and should all people who read love their dogs.
October 2nd, 2009 at 3:17 pm
Rating: 4 / 5
This book addresses a very interested and relevant sections of the book is well written. Some of the information, such as biology, smell and sight, was interesting and useful. And there were some good stories of the pump, the writer's dog. But the book tries to reduce a lot of dog behavioral biology and evolution. I found this very convincing attempt. Who says a dog is not about emotions at least as deep and meaningful as a human being? I found this book really help, either in an attempt to communicate with my dog. Some of the dogs seemed to the author talking about a much more intelligent than my dog. Min hund bryr sig främst om mat, och i viss mån till fots och skäller på saker. You do not want to learn, discuss any new commands that some of the dogs. But at the same time, she is very charismatic, she is extremely good at convincing people to do something for them and also have an impact on people in general. She does all this in a way that looks easy, but it is not. You can find out how to get food, extracts from anyone, so it seems. At the same time, sometimes the writer believes that some strange behavior of my dog is not normal. Well, maybe they are, but who can say, my dog does not do this for a strange reason? For example, I think it's pretty impressive to my dog learned a few words, including "Walk" without ever explicitly taught them. Yes, she is very upset when someone says in the world. I think it's pretty impressive, although the author says, it is widespread. It depends on learning how my dog, this was particularly impressive, in my opinion, otherwise, how much care about things. In addition, the book discusses the grace of the dogs bit elliptical. I was not convinced by much of the biological argument. I think my dog is in a remarkably comfortable, and do not see how the development required. I feel like the author to take care of my dog and just see a lot of biology and development, rather than their own personality. However, seems to the author in his views from the heart, and there is information. The book design is very high quality, with a large picture of a dog on the cover.
October 2nd, 2009 at 4:55 pm
Rating: 3 / 5
“Inside of a Dog” introduces readers to the science of the dog, not anecdotal tales anthropomorphizing their pets. A good goal, but just too dry for me.
Much of the material, not surprisingly, compares dogs with wolves or human babies. We learn that wolves are better at solving physical puzzles, dogs at people skills. Dogs make eye contact, wolves avoid it. Wolves and dogs share all but one-third of 1% of their DNA.
Human noses have about 6 million sensory receptor sites, while beagle noses have over 300 million. It is estimated that their sense of smell is millions of times better than humans (I’m thinking that’s a very good thing). Trained dogs can tell identical twins apart by scent. They can also detect fear, adrenaline, various diseases and cancers (research has found trained dogs more reliable at identifying melanomas than most dermatologists – cheaper, too).
Only about 20% of dog urination is ‘marking’ – sometimes they just have to go, or they’re leaving behind messages.
Humans hear from 20 hertz to 20 khertz, dogs up to 45 khertz. They respond more to tone than words; one dog involved in research distinguishes between 200 toys by name, and can pick out new ones when asked.
Dogs have different barks for different situations.
Wolves are adept at noticing motion, and can see well in low light, as can dogs. Both have wider fields of vision (250 – 270 degrees) than humans (180 degrees). Only blue and greenish-yellow receptors are in dogs eyes, making them less able to discriminate among colors than humans. Dogs see via a succession of individual photos at about 70 – 80 hertz, vs. humans at about 60 or less, Thus, for older TVs with a refresh rate of eg. 60 hertz, dogs see flashes of dark in between scenes (Maybe you should upgrade your TV for your dog. )
Unfortunately, “Inside of a Dog” then progressively continues with more and more arcane detail (eg. telling us which side of a human’s face they are most likely to look at first, which person they focus on for clues in determining the bucket in which food is hidden, etc. ), telling us that having their tail down indicates fear or submission (duh!), and telling less and less (eg. bored animals pace, chew and throw things).
October 2nd, 2009 at 7:48 pm
Rating: 1 / 5
I was looking forward to this book based on the Times book section review, but found it amazingly misinformed and frustratingly biased against nature. She said it was odd that dogs came from wolves, which are carnivores and dogs were of little value too humans other that companionship. It must be hard for some people to conceive of their love bugs as helping hunter/gatherers (early humans) hunt, and protect their human family, but it’s been a tough world out there for thousands of years, kill or be killed. Cats are carnivores too. Alexandra Horowitz seems to have quite a few factoids at her disposal, though in every area where I have some experience her factoids are wrong and lead her to bizarre conclusions. Having a Ph. D. in cognitive science, you’d think she knew that people and animals can move their eyes to follow a moving object; they don’t have to move their heads, with the possible exception of certain religious sects. Also, she doesn’t know that films display 24 frames per second, regardly of how they were recorded. Television scans horizontal lines which refresh the screen every 30 seconds. Most films are not shown in digital form. I’m shocked that she doesn’t get this. Also, the fact that dogs typically have a faster flicker/refresh rate explains why they can more accurately track the flight of a frisbee in the air, and can’t make sense out of relatively slow flicker rates used in film and television – this leads her to the silly conclusion that this is because they see the object SOONER, rather than simply more often. Also, perhaps some scientists’ dogs don’t know the difference between a street and a curb as she states, but mine certainly have and I’m no expert trainer. I also don’t know who told her that domestic dogs can’t hunt and feed themselves. I had an almost crippled dog that could grab a meal any time she was in nature, in the same way many wolves do, by flipping field mouses in the air. She didn’t eat them, but if hungry she could have. Ms. Horowitz’s loathing of hunting, or helping humans hunt, prevents her from understanding the most elemental things about canines. I haven’t hunted in over 50 years and never will again, but you are too citified to understand that you can’t understand dogs. She becomes snide and uninformed on the few occasions she mentions the subject.
I don’t believe it’s enlightened to tell people their dogs eat almost all human food. She suggests carrots, celery and brocholi stems. Do I detect a VEGAN/PETA girl philosophy? More ominously, she tells readers that people should never correct their pooches. If your dog relieves herself in your apartment, don’t ‘correct’ or scold her, you might hurt her feelings. Just ‘lead by example’ and reward them when they do something right. Have her dogs used the toilet? Visitors to her apartment are at the mercy of her incontrolled dogs, who slobber on them at will. While she admitts in a single sentance that working dogs are much more animated than city dogs, she never has taken the time to understand how they work, see, and generally perceive their surroundings and communicate. Factoids about olfactory biology does not cut it. I could go on and on about the voluminous mistakes or mistatements of facts, but that would be a book in itself.
James Tugend