BESTSELLING BOOK SHOWS US A DOG'S EYE VIEW OF LIFE

Alexandra Horowitz is a cognitive scientist, a keen observer of dogs – her own and other people's – and the author of a fascinating book: INSIDE OF A DOG: WHAT DOGS SEE, SMELL, AND KNOW (Scribner).

NCRC corresponded with Dr. Horowitz via e-mail, and she shared her thoughts about the impact of scientific research on the human-animal bond, and what she hopes her readers will take away from her book.

"A better understanding of dog behavior and cognition," she wrote to us, "seems to me to be only a good thing. While we may be disabused of some of our long-held impressions of what dogs know or feel, I think the dogs themselves will benefit from a richer comprehension of their actual abilities — whether greater, lesser, or simply more unimaginable than we had conceived."

Is all of the good work being done making its way down the information hill to the rest of us?

"The results of scientific studies on the behavior of domesticated animals require some translation in order to be best applied to the pet-owner relationship. This translator is often missing. I think the best books on dog behavior aim to serve as that translator. Without it, scholarly results may be misunderstood or misapplied, at worst; more likely, they simply will never been seen."

But we also have the problem of the quality of the translation, by the media, for example, as well as of the rigor and applicability of some of the underlying research. The human propensity to generalize – and we all do it – can be hard on a group of animals.

Dr. Horowitz writes in her book that, "It is in the nature of scientific study of non-human animals that a few individual animals who have been thoroughly poked, observed, trained, or dissected come to represent their entire species. Yet with humans we never let one person's behavior stand for all of our behavior."

So, what sort of balance do we have to strike in order to gain knowledge, and what are going to be the limitations of that knowledge?

"The scientific "sample" is a group of individuals whose performance is taken to represent all members of a class or species. It is notoriously difficult to get an ideal sample (the perfect "sample" would be all members of a group...)."

Which brings us to a frequently discussed and argued over subject: breed of dog.

Professor Adam Miklosi, whose book DOG BEHAVIOR, COGNITION AND EVOLUTION Dr. Horowitz recommends to her readers, has this to say about comparing breeds of dogs: "The most honest thing to say is that, despite many claims in the literature, breed comparisons do not exist. . . .we should be also careful in referring to 'breed difference' (in the sense of genetic difference) upon discovering some difference in behavior in two or more breeds."

To which Dr. Horowitz added, "We already talk about breed differences as though this research has been done, but this talk is impressionistic, not based on research controlling for other variables in the environment which could affect behavior."

In INSIDE OF A DOG, Dr. Horowitz wrote: ". . . dogs, like us, are more than their genome. No animal develops in a vacuum: genes interact with the environment to produce the dog you come to know. The exact formulation is difficult to specify: the genome shapes the dog's neural and physical development, which itself partially determines what will be noticed in the environment – and whatever is noticed itself further shapes continued neural and physical development. As a result, even with inherited genes, dogs aren't just carbon copies of their parents. On top of this, there is also great natural variability in the genome."

Professors Miklosi and Horowitz, of course, are referring to the difficulties of drawing scientific distinctions between groups of dogs of different, but known, genetic heritage. The problem becomes hopelessly complex in the case of mixed breed dogs.

Professor Horowitz has only one thing to say in her book about mixed breed dogs: get one. "If you don't have a dog yet, or are getting another dog, I have just the breed for you: the breedless dog, the mutt. The myth that a shelter dog, especially a mixed breed dog, will be less good or less reliable than a purebred dog is not just wrong, it is entirely backward."

The millions of dogs languishing in shelters across the country would surely agree.

Finally, we asked Dr. Horowitz to give us her homily. What does she want us to take away from INSIDE OF A DOG?

"The Importance of Mornings" is one of the last chapters of my book," she replied, "and one of my favorites. In it I try to apply some of the knowledge we have gleaned about dog behavior and cognition to give owners ideas of how to interact with their dogs with the dog's perspective and abilities in mind. This means taking into account their "dogness" in a very real way — not always asking dogs to conform to our sense of how they should act; sometimes letting them act doggily. It means appreciating that they get bored, and working to give them things to do; it means celebrating their perceptual abilities, and letting them smell the well-marked spots at length. Mostly it means spending time forgetting what we think we know about the dog and spending time observing him to start to see what he is about."

This is by no means the sum of fascinating information that Dr. Horowitz has to offer. We at NCRC hope you will take the time to read and enjoy this terrific book, which is available in print, audio and electronic editions.