my biggest critique was the way that the author spent most of the book playing fast and loose with what facts she wanted to engage with and what she didn't: using very biased sources to critique responsible/purposeful breeders without ever talking to.anyone involved in preservation/stewardship of breeds but acting like the AKC is the boogieman? no thank you. It was at best poorly researched (which is shocking from someone who studies dogs for a living) and at worst misguided and biased. The result: we understand dogs as never before. This book gets inside and explains the nuances of the dog-human connection, both on an individual basis and societally. Much of what we accept as the way to live with dogs is odd, surprising, contradictory, revelatory, and sometimes disturbing. And she goes beyond the cognitive science to consider the culture, laws, and human dynamics that reveal and restrict this bond between two disparate species. From her position as a dog scientist, she uses the science of dogs and dog-human interaction to ground a consideration of the various ways that dogs, as a species, reflect us, and how they reflect (sometimes badly, sometimes well) on us. In Our Dogs, Ourselves, Horowitz examines the “dog-human bond”: examining all aspects of the complexity of this unique interspecies pairing. It has changed, too, the course of our species. Dogs can change the course of our lives: they weave their way into our lives with their constant presence by our sides. Dogs change the course of our days: they need to be walked, fed, attended to. And, too, when each person makes the decision to breed, own, or adopt a dog, we enter into a relationship that will change us. When humans unconsciously made the decision to domesticate dogs, they were changing the course of our species’ development. “Be nice! When you get tired, you get nasty,” reminded the man to his rambunctious dog.Īlexandra Horowitz is intrigued by the various ways humans are changed by our relationship with dogs. And worth money! I could marry you,” said a woman to her Goldendoodle. The bestselling author of Inside of a Dog and cognitive scientist Alexandra Horowitz takes an eye-opening, informative, and wholly entertaining examination of the dog-human relationship.

Inside of a dog horowitz