What I've Read: Inside of a Dog

As a big fan of dogs, my two in particular of course, it was about time that I read a book about dogs. Yes, I did read " The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time" but I thought it completely sucked, so I'm acting like that book never happened.

Instead, being the dork that I am, I decided to read this nonfiction book about dogs and how we perceive them and (perhaps, more importantly) how they may be perceiving us. The woman who wrote it is a cognitive scientist, and she approaches the subject of dogs more knowing that they rely on the five senses in a completely different way then humans do. She's a dog owner herself, which also benefits the reader because she doesn't come off as a lab coat-wearing stick-in-the-mud with no feelings whatsoever.

Inside of a Dog traces the lineage of dogs back to their days as wolves, but makes the big distinction that nothing about dogs in the 21st century should be compared to wolves, because the domestication of dogs has completely sapped most wolf-like tendencies from man's best friend. Once she breaks that down sufficiently enough, it's off to the senses, and why dogs act so differently than we think they should.

The main reason is because, obviously, we anthropomorphize dogs way, waaay too much. We expect human responses from dogs when we are nuts to think such things. On average they see the world from two feet in height (think about walking around on all fours not just in your house but in grocery stores, etc.), so their perspective is vastly different. While we humans place a priority on the sense of sight, for dogs smell is the most important. It is a myth that dogs are colorblind; they actually see with yellow-tinted view (imagine life as the drug dealer scenes from Steven Soderbergh's "Traffic", you know, without the violence). There are a ton of other great dog insights she gives, but revealing them all would be stupid when you should just read the book.

I'm not saying I know my dogs specifically better because of reading it, but Inside of a Dog did help explain a lot about why they are who they are, and how dogs interact and communicate with the world that we take for granted. Definitely a great book for anyone who wants to get to know a little bit more about our four-legged friends.