Yes, your dog really does understand you
The numbers make one thing staggeringly clear: People love their dogs. Americans own around 77 million dogs, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association, and 48% of U.S. households have one dog or more. The American Pet Products Association says that pet owners spent a combined $72 billion on their beloved animals in 2018. And dog ownership tops that of other pets, including cats, which number about 58 million.聽
Unsurprisingly, the publishing industry has taken note, turning out a steady flow of books aimed at besotted dog owners.聽
Two of the best recent dog books aren鈥檛 content merely to join the general tail-
wagging but rather seek to dig deeper into the subject of humanity鈥檚 oldest animal friendship. Alexandra Horowitz, a cognitive scientist and author of the 2009 bestseller 鈥淚nside of a Dog,鈥� follows up that earlier book with 鈥淥ur Dogs, Ourselves: The Story of a Singular Bond.鈥� And that bond is likewise the focus of dog behavioral scientist (and director of the Canine Science Collaboratory at Arizona State University in Tempe) Clive D.L. Wynne in his new book, 鈥淒og Is Love: The Science of Why and How Your Dog Loves You.鈥澛�
Fans of Horowitz鈥檚 earlier book will recognize the incredibly effective way she writes about dogs, adroitly mixing her own personal experiences, whether happy or heartbreaking, with broader questions about the bond at the heart of her book. 鈥淸T]he ultimate question about dogs for me was, and still is, What is it like to be a dog?鈥� she writes. 鈥淔or many others, though, the key question was more like: What do we know about what my dog thinks about me?鈥�
Horowitz鈥檚 answers delve into the nature of the categories into which humans tend to fit their dogs, however deficient those categories might be. 鈥淚f dogs are anything but reflections of ourselves 鈥� and of course they are 鈥� our way of thinking about them is woefully inadequate,鈥� she writes. 鈥淎s dogs were walked into comparative-psychology research because we were taken by how they remind us of ourselves, their place in the public consciousness has wound up being as small, furry humanlike animals.鈥� Horowitz advocates easing up on the anthropomorphism: 鈥淎llow dogs to be the beautiful, impressive, unknown foreigners they are.鈥� Her empathetic examination unfolds with the same natural narrative grace that made 鈥淚nside of a Dog鈥� such wonderful reading.
Wynne鈥檚 book 鈥淒og Is Love鈥� is animated by the same questions, with the central idea of dogness being put through a battery of scientific testing.
Wynne draws on a wide range of research, both his own and that of many others past and present, angling always to understand the 鈥渟ingular bond鈥� mentioned in Horowitz鈥檚 title. The deeper dogs are examined on a cellular and evolutionary basis, the more remarkable they turn out to be: animals whose long partnership with humans has made them virtual symbionts. 鈥淸D]ogs have a genetic predisposition, bred into them over the thousands of years they have lived among people, to understand people鈥檚 communicative intentions and comprehend something of human social intelligence,鈥� he writes. 鈥淥nly dogs are born understanding people in this way 鈥� the crucial difference between them and every other nonhuman animal on the planet.鈥澛�
In both books, the inquiry comes down eventually to simple affection as the key, although Horowitz sees more to it as well. 鈥淭he joy of dogs is that they free us of our own undignified existence,鈥� she writes, 鈥渙ur self-consciousness and inhibitions; our self-imposed hindrances to pleasure; our unwillingness to be embarrassed, exposed, or vulnerable.鈥澛�
And whether you think that鈥檚 nature or nurture, if you have a dog sleeping next to you in your favorite reading spot, you鈥檒l be nodding and smiling through both these books. I read them with a certain bossy miniature schnauzer reading along with me. She approved of both.
