Even in the middle of a busy modern city, we're surrounded by all kinds of animals that share our space and our food, but only one of them bothers to study us. To rats, crows and cockroaches, we might be a source of tasty snacks, but we're mostly an irritation and sometimes a threat. Dogs are different. They inspect our actions, interpret our emotions and, over time, learn how to please us and control us, persuading us to provide them with food, shelter and a nice warm basket.
Alexandra Horowitz describes dogs as "anthropologists among us", and in this engaging book, her first, she studies them with the same intensity and affection that they devote to us. She has her own dogs the pages are punctuated with little snippets of a diary from her 16 years shared with Pumpernickel but she also watches dogs for a living: she's a psychologist who studies dog behaviour and was hired by Sony to make their Aibo dog-robot more cutely canine in its interactions.
Horowitz began her career observing rhinos and bonobos, which are apparently much more respectable subjects for a young graduate. Scientists aren't interested in dogs because they are "so familiar, so understood". Then she took a camera to her local park to film other people's dogs and, sitting through hours of footage, realised that she was watching "a complex dance requiring mutual cooperation, split-second communications and assessments of each other's abilities and desires. The slightest turn of a head or the point of a nose now seemed directed, meaningful."
The heart of Horowitz's work is an empathetic quest to experience the world from a dog's perspective. First, she asks us to imagine relying on smell rather than sight as our primary sense. Dogs have exceptionally sensitive nostrils: they can detect fear, anxiety or sadness, and know "if you've had sex, smoked a cigarette (done both these things in succession), just had a snack or just run a mile". Then she works through the other senses, pausing to explain how a dog's retina works differently from ours and thus why dogs don't watch TV and what barking might mean.
Horowitz reminds us of one obvious but easily forgotten difference between our perspective and a dog's: they are much closer to the ground. When we yell at dogs for jumping up at us, we're failing to understand that they're simply trying to reach our level and make eye contact.
Although this book certainly isn't a training manual, Horowitz offers all kinds of useful advice for dog owners. Let your dog dawdle and sniff, she suggests, rather than yanking him on a speedy jog around the park. Don't bathe him too often; he'd much rather smell of himself than shampoo. She neatly dismisses several of the simplistic theories that are often trotted out by trainers. Dogs aren't wolves, she reminds us, and there is no need for us to dominate them or persuade them that we are their leaders. A dog in a family has almost nothing in common with a wolf in a pack, and behaving like the "pack leader" won't make a dog respect us. More likely, it'll just feel confused and bullied. Similarly, feeding raw meat to dogs is ridiculous; they have been eating our cooked scraps for generations.
Dogs, unlike wolves, are skilled observers and interpreters of human behaviour. They take their cues from their owners, following our wishes and learning how to use us to get what they want. They use us as their tools: "We solve the puzzles of closed doors and empty water dishes."
Most interestingly, Horowitz describes how dogs also learn to confirm our prejudices about other people. Dog owners often claim that their pet is a good judge of character; in fact, when their dog greets a stranger with a wagging tail or raised hackles, he will be mimicking his owner's own unconscious signals, which he has gleaned through body language and smells. There's nothing wrong, says Horowitz, in allowing your dog to accept or veto your romantic partners; he will simply be confirming the choice that you have already made.
Horowitz occasionally lapses into the awkwardness of an academic trying to befriend ordinary readers, but Inside of a Dog mostly manages to be entertaining and jargon-free, and will fascinate anyone who wants to know more about the internal workings of a dog's mind.
Josh Lacey's Three Diamonds and a Donkey is published by Scholastic.
