Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know

by Alexandra Horowitz

The bestselling book that asks what dogs know and how they think, now in paperback.The answers will surprise and delight you as Alexandra Horowitz, a cognitive scientist, explains how dogs perceive their daily worlds, each other, and that other quirky animal, the human. Horowitz introduces the reader to dogs’ perceptual and cognitive abilities and then draws a picture of what it might be like to be a dog. What’s it like to be able to smell not just every bit of open food in the house but also to smell sadness in humans, or even the passage of time? How does a tiny dog manage to play successfully with a Great Dane? What is it like to hear the bodily vibrations of insects or the hum of a fluorescent light? Why must a person on a bicycle be chased? What’s it like to use your mouth as a hand? In short, what is it like for a dog to experience life from two feet off the ground, amidst the smells of the sidewalk, gazing at our ankles or knees? Inside of a Dog explains these things and much more. The answers can be surprising—once we set aside our natural inclination to anthropomorphize dogs. Inside of a Dog also contains up-to-the-minute research—on dogs’ detection of disease, the secrets of their tails, and their skill at reading our attention—that Horowitz puts into useful context. Although not a formal training guide, Inside of a Dog has practical application for dog lovers interested in understanding why their dogs do what they do. With a light touch and the weight of science behind her, Alexandra Horowitz examines the animal we think we know best but may actually understand the least. This book is as close as you can get to knowing about dogs without being a dog yourself.

Genres: Nonfiction, Dogs, Animals, Science, Psychology, Audiobook, Pets

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Alexandra Horowitz is an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at Barnard College in New York, where she teaches courses on psychology and animal behavior. She is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller “Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know.” Her studies on dogs have explored their ‘guilty look,’ sense of fairness, play signaling, and olfactory abilities, among other topics. She received her M.S. and Ph.D. in Cognitive Science from the University of California, San Diego, and a B.A. in Philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania.

Reviews

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Date I finished this book" should be "Date I stopped reading this book."
I kept hoping that it would become more interesting, but, on page 180 I finally gave up.

I wanted to like this book. She sets the groundwork that while we humans spend a lot of time with dogs, we actually know very little about them. So she tackled the research to actually learn about dogs (it implied that she was doing the research since she earlier said very little research had been done on dogs).

First annoyance: it seems that she's referring to lots of other research on dogs. So, I guess there has been lots of research on dogs? Which is it-- there has been or there hasn't.

Second annoyance: blah blah blah, a little interesting info, blah blah. I was reading way too much not-interesting info to get to the interesting point. I could have been interested in the studies. I could have been interested in comparison to other studies on animals. But I found myself just getting enough information to be either left with wanting more, or feeling that the study was insufficient. As someone else said, this book could have been written in 60 pages.

Third annoyance*: too many distractingly tangential footnotes (one every second or third page?). Focus on telling a better story and less on mentioning everything you want to say about dogs or research or other amazing animals.

Bottom-line, it was too disappointing and distracting to finish.

*I have a nephew and two nieces. I've really been wanting to tell a large audience this. Thank god this review came along and I could finally tell someone. Oh wait, this has nothing to do with this book.

[Grace Tjan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Me: “Well, here’s the book I told you about, Molly, the one that will tell me everything there is to know about you.”

Molly: “Woof!”

Me: “Yes, that’s a good girl! Let’s see, this book is written by Dr. Alexandra Horowitz, a cognitive scientist specializing in animal research. She must be one smart lady. And she’s also a dog person! This should be interesting. Let’s loll on the sofa and read it.”

Molly: (jumps up and looks expectantly)

Me: “The title is a part of a joke: “Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.” Heh heh. Isn’t that funny?”

Molly: (jumps into lap and licks mouth)

Me: “Aww, stop it! I’m trying to read here. According to page 51, licking around my mouth is a manipulative behavior. You are stimulating me so that I’d vomit up some partially digested meat for you to eat. Gross. So please sit nicely and listen.”

Molly: (curls up with a sigh)

Me: “Do you know that you’re better than chimps in reading humans? They have this experiment in which dogs and chimps had to find hidden food items utilizing clues from humans. Some of the humans were made to wear blindfolds or buckets over their head, while others had unimpeded view of where the food was supposed to be hidden. Chimps begged from both kinds of humans, while dogs begged from those whose eyes were visible. See --- you’re smarter than our primate cousins!”

Molly: (snorts)

Me: “You’re right. Chimps are way overrated. How about this: a dog can detect a teaspoon of sugar diluted in a million gallons of water --- two Olympic-sized pools full. That’s your real-life super power, Krypto! That’s Superman’s dog, by the way. He flies around with this cute little cape --- ”

Molly: (snores)

Me: “Nap time, eh? Hmm…more animal research: wolves, bees, deers, ticks. Actually, all I want to read about is dogs, dogs and dogs. Some of these researches are interesting in their own right and are useful as comparison, but others seem to be barely tangential. This writer can be very long-winded.”

Molly: "Arf!"

Me: “An attention-getting bark, which is distinct from the rumble of a growl, or the ominous snarl (page 140). Do you know that your barks can be as loud as 130 decibels? That’s up there with thunderclaps and plane takeoffs. That's another super power! Why are you looking at me like that?”

Molly: (glances at the dining room, tail wagging)

Me: (looks at the clock). “It’s time for lunch! Your circadian rhythm tells you that. Okay, let’s eat.”

Molly: (snatches the book and runs away with it)

Me: “Hey stop that! I still have to find out why you Fox Terriers are such little rascals!”

[Zengardener · Rating 1 out of 5]

Incredibly dry AND pretentious ... I couldn't even finish the book. I have a dog and have fostered and volunteered for many shelters and rescues so I am always amazed and intrigued at how each dog I've met has a different personality. This book lacks what its subjects have in overflowing abundance. The author might as well have been writing a manual on understanding robots or clinical notes about mice in a cage, as nearly every sentence was cold, flat and gratuitously verbose. I'm not one who generally posts on a public forum at all, let alone contribute anything other than positive thoughts ("if you don't have anything nice to say...") but I was so bewildered to see this book listed as a NYT bestseller that I was compelled to save those of you needing a little color/flavor in your "good reads" some money that could otherwise be spent on treats for your favorite four legged-friend.

[Tracey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alexandra Horowitz racked up major brownie points right from the beginning with this book. The title comes from one of my favorite quotes ever, from the mouth of Groucho Marx. Also, early on she heads complaints off at the pass by stating that she is using "owner" rather than "pet parent" or some other such silly phrasing because that's the legal term, and she will use "him" and "his" when referring to dogs in general because that's the English default, and, knowing dogs as she does, "it" is not an option. That latter scored high with me: I have Issues with writers who use "it" for animals (particularly those who talk about a mare or stallion and then call the horse "it"), so this made me happy. She is a long-time dog person, so all else being equal we are kindred spirits.

And it is a fascinating look at canine life and behavior. I'm not sure it made me see my dog in a whole new light as she promised it would, except for a qualm every time I scratch her back that I might be asserting my dominance – but she loves every second of it, so if I am dominating her she's ok with it. I pretty much knew about the dominance of scent in a dog's life; I did not know about the way a dog perceives color (they're not colorblind, exactly). I knew a little about signs of dominance and submission; I didn't know about what face-licking might really mean. (Pop goes the illusion…ew.) I like the insight that the pitch of a voice, canine or human, in many ways equates to size: low and menacing indicates not only a warning but the idea "and I'm big enough to follow through, too."

Something I sort of knew but found confirmation for: wolves howl when they're lonely. So, I can attest, do beagles. Only moreso.

One valuable thing this book does is reiterate the common-sense yet somehow easily overlooked point that, just as we don't know why our dogs do some of the things they do, most of what we the people do (much less say) is utterly incomprehensible to dogs. That, very simply, they don't think the way we do. It's all very well for us to say "don't get up on the couch, no, bad!" – but there's a very simple reason it's so hard to enforce. To a dog the couch is not an expensive piece of furniture which needs to be protected from shed fur and stains – it's a nice soft elevated surface to curl up on, with a nice back to it to curl up against, and after all that's what the bipeds use it for. And how can you honestly expect a dog to ignore that pail of food scraps and wrappers under the sink when it's just sitting there at her level smelling (to her) so wonderful? Again, "no, bad!" doesn't really make sense to a dog, however often and however loudly it's repeated. It's food. It's there. It's unprotected. It's hers. Dogs don't naturally do many of the things we ask them to do; many owners, and even many trainers seem to either forget that they're not mute people but canines, and this is where dressed-up dogs doing ridiculous things on command come from. Poor things.

This book made me happy I never successfully trained any of our dogs to heel (not that I tried too strenuously).

I was simultaneously impressed with and bemused by the tales of the research studies that have been conducted on dogs; on the one hand, some of the results are fascinating – where dogs' mental processes may (or may not) function like toddlers'; on the other, I found myself marveling that well-educated grownups spend their days fooling around with dogs, all in the name of science. Some of them wore buckets on their heads.

(ETA: OK, that was very long. I hacked out the personal bits about my own beasts; it's all on my blog, though.)

Overall, this book did an admirable job of both teaching me what an umwelt is and helping me deepen my understanding of a dog's. This was a comprehensible, mostly-plain-language, often very funny and occasionally moving study which both solidified and informed my stance as a fiercely partisan dog person. While it's not intended as a training guide, there's some wonderfully common sense information, particularly toward the end, which will be valuable both with Daisy and when – hopefully years from now – I next need it. Did it change the way I see my beagle? Not much. But I do feel like I have a better handle on what's going on between those long ears. I have an even deeper appreciation for that always-busy nose.

And I'm kind of glad she's never been much of a face-licker.

[Andrew · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a disappointing book, with few insights for a dog owner or someone interested in animal behavior. Despite having an extensive collection of footnotes leading back to the scientific literature, the conclusions of the book could have been handled in 60 pages instead of 300:
• Dogs are not color blind but blues and greens stand out for them. Yellow/orange/red objects are all undifferentiated.
• Short vision is not very good (though smell can compensate for it when objects are close to the muzzle). Dogs with longer muzzles (like retrievers) have a different broader field of vision than dogs with a short muzzle, like a pug. This makes them more attuned to motion.
• Dogs don’t have a sense of self-awareness, as indicated by chimpanzees or humans when before a mirror. Humans or chimps will use the mirror to preen, while dogs largely ignore the reflection.
• Dogs have up to three times the number of rods in their retina, giving them better visibility at night but washing things out in bright light.

The author has surprisingly little about the developmental period during the first year of the life of a dog. And there are even some missed elements, such as Horowitz questioning why her dog is reluctant to enter a dark elevator after a walk (hint: it’s in the washout of the eye’s rods in bright light, something humans also experience when going from light to dark).

[Nat · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

Longwinded at times but still interesting; providing a treasure trove of insights into man’s best friend.

[Tanja Berg · Rating 3 out of 5]

The best parts of the book was the author's description of one of her own dogs. Otherwise it's a pretty standard take on the latest science on dogs. Nothing new is revealed - at least not for this reader - and it is kind of boring in places. Dogs have great noses and navigate their world mainly in odor, don't see color all that well (but some), they want a benign leader. The wolf-pack theory that states that humans should assert themselves as Alpha is wrong, particularly since a dog is, from behavior, far removed from wolf. At some point dogs probably domesticated themselves. Well worth reading to better deal with your canine friends I suppose, even though this is not a book on how to train your dog by any means.

[Carly · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."

Inside of a Dog is a valuable read for anyone seeking to learn more about our furry companions. Horowitz starts with the basics, focusing on a dog's umwelt and the ways that it differs from a human's. Dogs aren't colorblind, but their perception of color does differ from ours. Scent is far more important in the doggy world than it is to us. Most important of all, dogs and humans simply see different affordances in the objects around them. As Horowitz points out, a dog doesn't see the small matching dog bed as the appropriate place for the dog to sleep. Your bed is just as comfortable, with the added benefit that it smells like you. If you want your dog to sleep in its dog bed, you'll be far more successful if you wrap the nasty plastic-smelling thing in a well-worn blanket.

I volunteer in an animal shelter and interact with a lot of emotionally wounded dogs, and I originally picked up this book in my continuing quest to better understand the ways to distinguish submissive behaviours from inviting ones. For example, as Horowitz notes, a dog rolling on its belly can be either inviting a tummy rub or showing submission, and it can be surprisingly challenging to determine which, especially if the dog is already showing many other signs of stress such as "whale-eyes" or tucked tail and ears. While Horowitz does detail these and other signs, I'm not sure I found an answer to this particular question. (My current solution is to make brief contact, then retract my hand and force the dogs to repeatedly re-solicit attention, which they tend to do by crawling towards me and/or pawing my hand. I'm quite sure they find it irritating, but it's kind of cute when they start batting at my hands and mumbling at me.)

I also really enjoyed the part where Horowitz talks about doggy play. I am quite familiar with the play-bow, the stance that dogs take to invite rough-and-tumble play. In fact, I've noticed that many humans--myself included--tend to do our own version of the play-bow by slapping our palms on the ground and jerking our necks forward while brandishing a squeaky toy or ball. According to Horowitz, this play etiquette is far more complex than I realized: just as a human abbreviates a joke or a greeting with old friends, dogs abbreviate the play-bows with dogs they don't know and are far more elaborate with those they don't.


I mostly enjoyed Horowitz's analysis of the procedures, perils, and pitfalls of the various tests, but there was one case where I think she was dead wrong. The study sought to ascertain whether dogs as a species have an innate drive to rescue their people. The researchers had the owners fake injury or heart attacks, then analysed the dogs' reactions. The dogs tended to be both nonplussed and unworried by their owners' apparent peril, and not a single one tried to seek assistance from the bystanders. From this, Horowitz concluded that doggy rescues are really more of a fluke caused by the dogs' tendencies to want to be near their owners. Given Horowitz's own statements in earlier chapters, I find this reaction rather ridiculous. Horowitz is very clear about dogs' heavy dependence on sound and smell. No matter how dramatically the owners were shrieking, I'm quite sure they didn't smell fearful or injured. To me, this seems like a limited and utterly useless test that tells us more about human assumptions than animal behaviour.

However, in almost every other experiment she described, Horowitz did a nice job the ways in which dog behaviour differs from our human expectations, and the reasons behind these differences. In addition to the problematic hero-dog test, Horowitz describes a large set of experiments that attempt to define doggy intelligence in areas such as object permanence or complex emotions such as jealousy or deception. Some of these were both fascinating and illuminating. For example, dogs "fail" various intelligence tests that try to invoke complex reasoning because they tend to go to the humans and ask for help. As Horowitz points out, one could argue that the dogs are performing complex reasoning and tool utilization: they know from experience how to use humans to open refrigerators and cans, so why not get their help in these tests as well?

Overall, Inside of a Dog is a great read for anyone who wants to know a bit more about the world their dog inhabits. From understanding play rituals to analysing attention-getting behaviours to dealing with doggy separation anxiety, Inside of a Dog is full of fascinating facts about the curious lives of our canine companions.

[Jennifer (formerly Eccentric Muse) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a lovely, unsentimental, fairly thorough, scientifically-grounded look at the dog-human bond: how it evolved, how the canine's sensory equipment shapes his (or her) world and relationship with us, and how a deeper understanding of that world - "the inside of a dog" (yes, from the Groucho Marx quotation) - should shape ours with them. Didn't so much change or illuminate, but anchored what I think I know about my dog and dogs in general in explanations of canine behaviour drawn from the author's own experiences and her background as a comparative psychologist.

The dog-human bond is something very special to me -- having owned dogs all my life, and currently being on a full-on tear to work towards the overturning of BSL (breed specific legislation) in Ontario which is the product of and continues to cause such cruelty to dogs and their families.

It's about more than treating other creatures with the respect they deserve; it's about how human beings can and should respectfully share the planet with other living things. That perspective in microcosm is taught, I believe, through the relationships parents encourage (or deny) when or if they bring that first puppy into the home.

Teaching a child to treat a dog with gentleness, kindness and compassion is teaching a child to love. Teaching that lesson from the deeply-informed perspective that Horowitz provides here can only enrich the both the dog's life and the family's. One of the author's points is that dogs most often give us much more than we give them. Another is that the fundamental quality of the relationship between dogs and humans - that affection, that love - is beyond the reach of science. Maybe so, but anyone who has bonded with a dog knows it to be true.

[Yalla Balagan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Alexandra Horowitz devoted years to training her scientific eye on baboons and bonobos before she turned that same eye toward the creature curled at her own feet, and Inside of a Dog serves as the record of that turn.

Horowitz studies cognition, and she adores her mutt Pumpernickel with the same intensity many memoirists reserve for family, yet she keeps affection and evidence on separate leashes throughout the book, letting one supply the questions while the other supplies the answers. A field guide for a country hidden inside our own living rooms, a country built entirely from scent.

A dog experiences the world nose first. Horowitz walks us through the mechanics of a single sniff, the way a dog draws air in through one channel while pushing used air out through slits along the side of the nose, creating a current that keeps fresh scent flowing continuously across the receptors. Beagle noses carry upward of three hundred million of these receptors, and bloodhounds add drooping ears that fan extra scent upward and a face built low to the ground, a design so complete it feels engineered on purpose.

The vomeronasal organ, tucked above the roof of the mouth, sounds like a second nose entirely, one built for reading pheromones, chemical signatures our own noses barely register, and by the time she explains how a trained dog can trace a runner's path by measuring the fading concentration in each footprint, the word "nosy" starts to feel like the highest compliment available.

Horowitz also dismantles the popular image of the household as a wolf pack with owners cast as alphas. She traces actual wolf packs to family units bound by parentage, with power struggles a rare exception, and shows that dogs, having diverged from wolves across tens of thousands of years, organize their instincts around something gentler than the dominance trainers on television keep invoking.

The Russian fox experiments of Dmitry Belyaev appear here too, breeding tame silver foxes across a few generations until wagging tails and floppy ears sprouted alongside the friendliness. Gentleness can be selected for as directly as fur color.

The book unearths a run of facts that make a dog seem like an alien with a wagging tail. A beagle's nose is estimated to work millions of times better than ours, sensitive enough to find a single teaspoon of sugar stirred into two Olympic swimming pools of water, and trained dogs can even distinguish identical twins by scent alone, a trick our own eyes rarely manage.

A wolf carries a skull roughly a fifth larger than a dog of the very same body size, and puppies lick their mother's muzzle after a hunt for the specific purpose of getting her to regurgitate a meal for them. Charles Darwin recorded his own dogs greeting him with what he called a striking display of affectionate licking, decades before anyone thought to study why a lick can double as a kiss. Salt, oddly, intensifies how sweet something tastes to a dog.

DNA testing places the basenji genetically closer to wolves than the sleek German shepherd, despite the two breeds sharing very little outward resemblance. Egyptian art from five thousand years ago already shows two separate dog types, sturdy guard mastiffs beside slender hunting hounds, and dog skeletons have turned up curled beside their owners in graves dated to ten or fourteen thousand years old.

Mitochondrial evidence hints that wolves and the ancestors of dogs diverged as long as a hundred and forty five thousand years ago, long before anyone lit a fire outside a cave. A dog's olfactory bulb takes up roughly an eighth of its entire brain, dwarfing the share our own brains hand over to vision. An ordinary rose means little to a dog until another dog has urinated on it, and it becomes far more compelling to sniff than the same rose ever is to us. Watch closely during a sniff and a dog's exhale will kick up a visible puff of dust from the ground beneath its nose.

A raincoat may unsettle a dog for reasons that have little to do with staying dry, since the pressure of fabric across its back and chest can mimic the posture of being pinned by a dominant packmate. Dog owners and their dogs behave more like a small loyal gang than a wolf pack, walking identical routes and greeting identical neighborhood dogs day after day for years.

A boxer supplied the first fully mapped dog genome, containing about nineteen thousand genes. Wolf pups open their eyes around ten days old while puppies take two weeks or longer, stretching the window puppies have to bond warmly with other species entirely. Homo sapiens needed nearly two million years to evolve from Homo habilis, while wolves turned into something recognizably doglike within a sliver of that stretch, and a socialized wolf raised from birth among people will still forget its handler completely the instant a rabbit appears, whereas a dog in the identical moment waits patiently for permission before giving chase.

Readers hoping for a training manual will find something better, a case for observing a dog's actual behavior instead of importing borrowed mythology from the forest.

An Irish wolfhound and a trembling Chihuahua tumble together despite a hundred-pound gap in size, trading bites and pounces that would look like violence between strangers and feel like affection between old friends sharing a private grammar of exaggerated bows and staged retreats.

Horowitz gives eye contact similar care, noting that dogs evolved comfort with holding a person's gaze that wolves avoided, and suggesting that this small behavioral shift may have opened the door to everything else dogs do for us, from reading our moods to anticipating our next move toward the leash hook by the door.

Horowitz is fond of small comic asides about Pumpernickel's raisin refusals and midnight sniffing rituals, and the humor lets the science underneath it breathe instead of shout. Ultimately the book asks more questions than answers by a large margin. Inside of a Dog manages to make the familiar creature at the foot of the bed newly strange and newly dear at once, a book worth chasing down for anyone eager to sniff out what their own dog already knows. Don't expect to learn too much. Do expect your thoughts as a dog owner to be eloquently and logically rearranged.





❤️ 🇮🇱

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

A 2.5

This book was a little disappointing for me. I wanted to get it as a Christmas present for some dog owner friends. Instead they are getting a bicycle pump. Although full of some interesting thoughts and research data, overall the book felt a bit dull, a bit lacking. It is neither practical enough to be an owner’s manual, nor detailed enough to satisfy my interest in the experiments behind the ideas. It seems to try to tread a middle road between pop and intellectual, and instead turned me off to both aspects.

The premise of the book is good, and I like the idea of trying to see the world as your dog does to better understand. I was challenged by the idea that smell is the most important sense to the dog, not sight or hearing. And throughout the book there were other wonderful nuggets of information to chew on. But overall there was not enough to hold my interest. And by the last 100 pages I thought the book was dragging on.

Tough to recommend though not a total waste.

[Amanda · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book did make me appreciate my dog a little more but I found it to be too dry and boring for the most part to give it a higher rating. I also found many eye-rolling moments- she seems a very permissive dog parent. For example, advocating that the dog should be allowed to wander and smell anything and roll in anything, ect, during walks; should be allowed to "smell like a dog" as long as possible; sleep in your bed with you.... I just personally am of camp that believes my dog should work around me not the other way around.

[Ron Wroblewski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book about dog research and how dogs and humans are so compatible. Also discussed research of other animals and compares that with dogs. Discusses dogs perceptual and cognitive abilities and how they depend so much on the sense of smell. Enjoyed the discussion on how dogs play with each other and the signels they give on invitation to play, and how to play. Important book for those who work with dogs in shelters and in training schools.

[✨ Kayla Lynne ✨ · Rating 2 out of 5]

300 pages later and i sadly know very little new information about the inside, outside, backside, or really any other part, of the dog 🙂‍↔️🙊

[Lisa Reads & Reviews · Rating 3 out of 5]

I normally find animal behavioral science to be a fascinating subject. Some interesting information can be found in this book, but I had to wade through a bunch of slush to get to it. The best bits were talked about on NPR when the book was first published. Too bad, really, that I could hardly keep my eyes open while reading most of it. Two stars: it was okay.

[Kellynn Wee · Rating 5 out of 5]

So: I recently got a dog. His name is Chai; he's at least part Shih Tzu, although a bit too leggy to fully qualify as such. I've read Horowitz's "On Looking", which I enjoyed, and I thought that this was probably a good time to learn what the umwelt--the universe; the way of seeing--of my dog was. I thought this would be a breezy read but found myself welling up at several points. This book has been mischaracterised as overly verbose and technical when I found it to be the exact opposite. Horowitz is a scientist: she is a precise, informative, cogent writer, unromantic and practical. But she is also a dog owner: and the portraits of Pumpernickel, her dog, which open every section, are so effulgent with love and warmth that it reveals Horowitz's own stance with every word, in that dogs are animals, and behave in animal-like ways, but they have also co-evolved with humans to be a truly remarkable example of inter-species companionship, and thus are truly, weirdly, indescribably special.

I often find myself anxious about Chai's care, particularly in light of the recent human-ification of dogs: my Instagram feed is full of Pomenarians gnawing on raw quail, of corgis heeling perfectly through busy wet markets, of barkday parties with perfectly coiffured puppers and their $45 nosework toys. What Horowitz has done is really to remind me that a dog is a dog is a dog. That they are animals but that does not mean that they are dumb or unintelligent. That they see through their noses; that they will probably pee on your carpet at some point despite your best efforts; that they are remarkable attention-payers and attention-getters and manipulators of human behaviour; that they do not know what is wrong and what is right, only what attracts anger and what attracts treats; that they enjoy the world most when they are given plenty of time to smell it and put it in their mouths and roll through it. I loved learning that Chai can see different colours than I do, that he can smell time, that, when left at home, he is probably kind of bored but exists in his own private world as his own dog; that he is a social creature who can modify his behaviour in play; that he sniffs my crotch to reconfirm that I am who I am; that he speaks through minute adjustments in his body; that he follows and directs my gaze; that he mirrors my actions to signal companionship. I loved realising that dogs and us overlap in precious and strange ways, and that is why they make such ideal companions--that their life is not too-long and not too-short, enough to span our own; that their speeds, their ways of seeing and smelling, are in temporal affinity to our own; that they respond to our touch.

Maybe it did not necessarily teach me anything absolutely shocking or brand new--considering the breadth of doggy knowledge that is online nowadays--but I found in this book a sense of reassurance. That maybe Chai will never learn to heel perfectly but that is OK. That his shivering nosy delight in an unremarkable bush will teach me a little more about the geography of smells in my neighbourhood and is more important and joyful to him than his ability to match my pace through the concrete sidewalk. That his perked ears and frozen body is seeing or smelling something preternatural, that I cannot see with my inferior flicker-fusion sight rate. That playing with other dogs is a complex dance of communication and self-awareness and joy. I think, like Horowitz puts it, I will begin to revalue the importance of mornings. Not for Chai's capacity to reshape himself into a dog that is convenient for me, but for a chance to expand both our capacities for exploration and experience and joy.

[Jim · Rating 1 out of 5]

She's very long-winded. The introduction took forever & probably was a good enough synopsis of the book. There wasn't much there even after a good 4 hours of listening - almost halfway through.

Her point about breeds being indicative of general behavior given similar upbringing was repetitious, to put it kindly. Her comparison between wolf & dog behavior was poor. I agree with her conclusion that not all behavior should be attributed to the wolf root nor the human breeding & interaction. It does fall somewhere in between, but her major premise for discounting wolf pack behavior was because the difference between wild & penned wolf packs. She mentions how penned wolf packs do resemble dog packs in some ways, so undercuts her argument.

She says feral dogs packs don't resemble wolf packs. She should spend some more time around feral packs in rural areas since several examples she provides are wrong in that environment, although they might hold true in urban & suburban settings. It might have to do with the number of dogs, too.

She really lost me when she discussed house breaking a dog by ignoring a puddle. She actually said that bringing the dog to the scene of the crime & punishing them was bullying! She also says that there's nothing to worry about when your dog goes running off after something in the woods - it will come back. She's one of these people that believes every critter has a better nature & appealing to it is all that is needed for training in every case. She's an idiot who really needs to get out of her ivory tower more.

I might have continued if the science was harder, but she watered it down & spent so much time covering her ass on every declaration. They're critters - living beings! Of course we're dealing with a bell curve of general behaviors. That's a given. She should have said that once at the beginning & left it at that, but no, she had to point it out at every point possible. Yuck.

[Jessica Blevins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great insight into the life of a dog...I highly recommend. The book is mostly scientific studies of how dogs really see, smell, hear and what they know about their human owners...but includes personal anecdotes throughout as well. I learned a lot about dogs in general and definitely look at my dog in a different light now. For example, I learned that dogs look to humans when they need help or can't figure something out...and that they pay a lot of attention to us, even when we don't realize it. I learned that my dog likes nothing better than to smell something new, so leisurely walks outside where I let him lead the way are important as are other ways of allowing him to smell new things. There's some practical advice in there as well (check out the last chapter) that I've been able to put into action, like hiding treats around the house to keep your dog from getting bored and to emphasize places that you want them to go and spend time in...and getting down on his level when you walk into the room helps to keep him from jumping on you...he just wants to look at you eye to eye.

[Daniel Solera · Rating 4 out of 5]

I saw this book on a bestsellers shelf at the Barnes and Noble by where I work. Having become a dog-owner in August, I picked this up hoping it would be insightful and entertaining. The book aptly declares that it is not a training manual and that readers shouldn't expect tips on how to raise a proper puppy. Instead, it is a psychological examination of dogs, including what they know, what their world is like and how we fit into it.

Alexandra Horowitz attempts to explain such baffling questions as "What do dogs think?" through various methods. Rather than anthropomorphize dogs, which the book routinely discourages, she relies heavily on scientific and psychological experiments performed on dogs and other animals, such as rats and monkeys. She first tackles the mind of a dog by asking readers to place themselves in a dog's world or their umwelt. By imagining our primary senses to be smell and taste, we instantly realize how radically different dogs' lives are than those of humans, who rely more heavily on sight and hearing. From that crucial departure, we go onto notice seemingly simple things: dogs are much closer to the ground, thus everything on the floor is more interesting to them; they rarely walk in a straight line because smells eminate from all directions, etc.

Bookending each section and interspersed among the scientific findings are brief anecdotes of one of Horowitz's dogs, Pumpernickel. Though she constantly asks us to avoid using human terms with dogs (such as "have fun", "get bored", "feel ashamed", etc.), these little stories are told with a fondness that breaks with this animal-only treatment. But this is natural - anyone who owns and loves a dog will find it impossible to treat it strictly like a domesticated animal in a symbiotic relationship. Yet despite this seemingly dry approach to investigating a household pet, I finished this book with a greater understanding of what makes a dog tick. Among the many tidbits: dogs don’t reflect on themselves; they understand day and night but not necessarily the abstract concept of time; they do get bored at home but are resourceful at entertaining themselves; the cadence of their play is a series of identifiable actions; they have an impressive theory of mind and can detect intentions; they use their owners as tools to achieve certain ends, and many others.

Inside of a Dog was a delightful read. I will admit that I derived much of my enjoyment from imagining my own dog, a 6-month Shih Tzu named Penny, in every situation described. Though I would recommend this to anyone regardless of their pet situation, having a dog in your house or apartment will definitely elevate this book to a new level.

[Rae · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read." Groucho Marx
Alexandra Horowitz has taken up Groucho's challenge and given us a book that at least we can read about the inside of a dog. Clearly a dog lover she has written a valentine to man's best friend.
What makes dogs uniquely suited to that special status? What's going on behind those big brown eyes? You will find answers to these and many more questions - such as why the swich to digital TV has made it possible for you and your dog to enjoy those reruns of Lassie.

[jedbird · Rating 4 out of 5]

Decent overview of research on Dog. I was most taken with the little illustrative vignettes about the author’s beloved dog Pumpernickel.

[Mimi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I usually don’t include autobiographical information in a book review, but in this case I’ll make an exception! Like Alexandra Horowitz, I am and always will be a dog person and since the day I was born, a doggie has shared my world. It all started with Marshmallow, a lovely golden mutt who lived amongst us until I was 13-years old (she was 16 at the time). Then, to my wonderful pleasure, my parents first adopted Roxy, the quirky basset hound, and then came Maggie the English Bulldog…and this is when things really got wildly fun as my Mom and Dad entered the wonderful world of bulldog breeding and dog shows. What fun! After getting married, my husband and I went to the local animal shelter and adopted Irving…a little mutt who we think could best be called a corg-huaua (a corgi-Chihuahua mix? Perhaps…) He was with us for 12-years before the inevitably sad moment was upon us…and although our hearts were broken, we knew our lives would not be complete without a canine companion, so we adopted Moe. Moe is still with us…and so is Rudy, a funky & cute stray mutt who wandered into our lives 4 months ago. Dogs are an integral part of my consciousness, evoking important memories of the past while providing an ongoing source of companionship and love.

I share this because I think it has a great deal to do with my feelings about this book. Inside a Dog is an amazing exploration of the dog’s unwelt (or subjective reality). In other words, it’s a serious attempt to delve into the life of a dog and try to understand the world from the dog’s point of view. Through in-depth discussion of domestication, sensory awareness and canine-human connections, the author effectively elicits a greater understanding of a canine’s reality.

One thing I particularly appreciate about the way Ms. Horowitz presents this information is that while so much of it is based on very sound scientific research, she, like me and many of her readers, is a dog lover. As a result, she applies this science while not reducing our relationship with our doggie friends to science alone. Throughout her research, she provides supporting anecdotes about her sweet Pumpernickel…reminding us of the magically non-scientific, poignant aspect of our relationship with our furry, slobbery companions.

A must read for dog lovers…or anyone interested in animal research!

[Lilo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a very interestig read for true dog lovers who want to get into the brain of their dog(s). However, I found this book a bit too scientific and, thus, somewhat strenuous to read. For this reason, 4 stars might be a bit over-rated. 3 1/2 stars would be more like it.

[Amy | Foxy Blogs · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

An interesting dog book that was written 13 years ago. It seems every decade or so the dog world shifts on how they train and interact with their dogs. Some ideas in this book are still going strong today while others are not.
As always, it's fascinating getting more insight into these creatures that share our lives with us.

Audiobook source: Libby
Narrator: Karen White
Length: 10H 25M

[Clif Hostetler · Rating 3 out of 5]

Haven't we all wondered what our dogs think of us? This is the next best thing to reading a book written by a dog. I am not a current dog owner, but I grew up on a farm with multiple dogs. Over the years I had read that those dogs of my youth saw me as the leader of their pack. This book debunks that myth. This book says they considered me to be be their a meal ticket. What a come down! All these years I thought I was the "Alpha Dog."

The purpose of the book is to help people to understand what's it's like to be a dog. The main difficulty for humans trying to understand dogs is to imagine life with the ability to smell and interpret odors that's about one-hundred times better than the human nose. It's an ability to smell the world in multiple dimensions; in past, present and future tenses; distinguishing between animal, vegetable, and mineral; and do so continually, even when not inhaling. It's a concept almost unimaginable for humans.

A burning question I've had all my life was not answered by this book as explicitly as I wished. The question is: When a dog howls in accompaniment to a musical instrument such as a harmonica, is it enjoying the music or is it an indication that it hurts their ears? I have wondered about this all my life, and I know others have too. She does offer the following observation: "Adult wolves howl daily: among packs, a chorus of howling may help coordinate their travels and strengthens their attachment." From this I infer that when a dog hears me play a harmonica, it perceives that I am howling, and it is instinctual for dogs to join in with others when they hear howling taking place. So perhaps it's a dog's way of saying, "We are family!" In other words, it's a positive experience for the dog, and it's not hurting their ears.

The author discusses the propensity of dogs to roll around on dead and rotting carcasses, a behavior I always found particularly disgusting. She doesn't explain the dog's motivation as explicitly as I had wished. However, from other things said in the book I understand the dog to be using their primary sensory experience (olfactory) to say, "My what a wonderful bouquet of odors, I think I'll take some of it with me." It would be the human equivalent of using their primary sensory experience (visual) to sigh in pleasure at viewing a beautiful vista and then taking a photograph to keep with them.

Another question I have that was not addressed by the book: How do some dogs find their way home over long distances? I know a person who tried to get rid of a dog by driving 15 miles away from home, dumping the dog there and driving off in direction away from home. (I know this is a terrible thing to do to any dog.) The dog found its way home after a couple days. How did it do that? Was it by scent, or by internal sense of direction? Has anybody researched this ability?

The author advises dog owners not to give their dogs frequent baths. She says,"And no dog wants to smell like a bathtub that has a dog in it." Now I realize that the dogs of my youth were living in a paradise for dogs. The rural farm setting provided plenty of room for them to roam and smell. And more importantly, we never gave our dogs baths. The only time they got baths was when they jumped into creeks or mud puddles on there own initiative, usually to cool off.

[Beki · Rating 2 out of 5]

Though primed to love this read before ever setting eyes to type by a bone-deep interest in both the scientific (animal behavioral studies) and emotional (I'm nuts for dogs!) subject matter, I was somewhat surprisingly less than wholly engaged by either (treatments of the subject matter) and left rather profoundly unsatisfied upon the arrival of the last page turned: a failure not of writing, but rather one of content. Or perhaps I should clarify that as content unanticipated.

Written in an accessible, engaging style --not always an easy task with a science-based subject -- and flush with anecdotally-entertaining conversational sidebars, this very readable text sacrifices its own authority to educate and engage on the blade of an apparent failure to understand its own target demographic. By measure of marketing, scientific content and textual skew, this book is clearly designed to speak to a demographic of me: a dog lover who knows dogs, has dogs, and loves dogs ... loves them enough to spend both time and money to self educate on the subject of how such dogs might perceive the world around them differently than I would otherwise assume, in my humanness, they do.

But in speaking to this very specific demographic of me, Horowitz fails to tell me anything of note. Anything surprising. Anything I didn't already know, if not specifically and consciously, at least on a gut-level plane of experienced ownership where dog and dog-owned meet. Buttressing her thesis with little more than a resume in the field and process-oriented explanations of why her dog stories are more scientifically telling than my dog stories, or your dog stories, Horowitz doesn't fail to make her case so much as she fails to make her case as an authority on a subject with depths beyond the obvious.

A dog's world is defined by smell over sight is the primary thrust of her conversationally conveyed content. Not a thrust with which I would quibble. But seriously, has anyone in the history of ever actually loved a dog and not already known this? Yes, Horowitz validates her assertions (a bit more complex than I've made them sound) with years of scientifically sound observational methodology. But what, exactly, is that methodology, you may ask. She watches her dog play and records what happens. In a journal.

Okay. I'll grant you, I've made it all sound egregiously simplistic, but I do so not to denigrate so much as illustrate how the author, herself, sold out her own authority on the subject about which she writes. Not by failing to impart what she, a rigorously trained, animal behavioral scientist, has observed; but rather by portraying herself as "one of us" to such a conversational extent that she effectively becomes as one of us: a knowledgeable and experienced dog-lover sharing dog stories about her own dog over a trained and experienced scientist divulging scientific findings about a test subject or group.

And it is in this impingement of her own authority that Horowitz fails the audience to which she aspires to speaks. By crawling down into the audience to tell personal stories of a beloved pet, Horowitz sacrifices the podium of expertise required to effectively present her scientific observations as anything inherently more valid than anecdotal evidence as might be offered by any other knowledgeable dog owner with years of experience observing their own pet. And she compounds this impingement of her own scientific authority by presenting findings not above and beyond what her target demographic already specifically or instinctively knows, but rather by spending the lion's share of her page count doing little more than reaffirming the obvious: your dog sees the world by smell rather than sight, and my telling you as much is scientifically relevant because I've got a fancy name for it while you just call it being nosy.

As I said: an entertaining enough read for someone who loves dogs, but less than wholly engaging as anything more profound (or educational) than one dog lover talking to another. So if you take your dog to the grocery store in an emerald-studded handbag tucked under one arm or dress it up every Wednesday in a a sailor suit for a play date in the park? Then yes, this might be just the scientific expose you're looking for on how a dog perceives the world around it. But if you're the kind of dog lover who picks up a book on dog perception and consequent behavior written by a scientist to the specific purpose of self educating beyond the territory marked out by The Dog Whisperer and your own observations of a beloved, if occasionally perplexing, pet? Then this is probably not the book you're looking for. It's certainly not the one I was.

[Pam · Rating 3 out of 5]

I appreciate the fact that Ms. Horowitz is both a scientist and a dog lover. Because of her scientific background she doesn’t run wild with speculation and mushy attributions. For those who merely want to know why their dog doesn’t obey them, this isn’t the book necessarily.

[Buddhagem · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you love dogs, I really cannot imagine a better book to read. Alexandra Horowitz brings the latest and greatest scientific insights on dog behavior to us, the average dog lover, in the most grounded accessible way imaginable. While the science is fascinating and has definitely helped me better understand my pups, what I really loved was the way Horowitz discusses the limits to what science can research.

The book centers on this idea of umwelt, which according to Horowitz, "which originated with the biologist Jakob von Uexküll, is that the world of each animal is defined by how he/she perceives and acts on the world." It's the very basic idea that is so compelling because she urges us to see the world through the eyes (and really the nose) of our dogs. Understanding their perception of the world is fascinating and key to a deepening of our relationship, but it also helps us understand our dogs preoccupation with smells and sights that are meaningless to us.

As I read the book, I found myself intoxicated by every moment with my dogs as I started to understand the soft laughter of my dogs at play, their fascination with smells, and the closeness of our bond. My need to keep a pace during our walks gave way to more exploration for their little noses to explore.

Lastly, one of my favorite things about this book was the way Horowitz weaves the narrative of her pup Pumpernickel throughout the book in a way to introduce topics. The stories will resonate with any dog lover and make the book so much more enjoyable to read.

I'd write more but Tinker Bell is letting me know it's frisbee time.


Review of the Updated Version in 2025

What a joy to return to this wonderful book. Sweet Pumpernickel—Pump—lives on. The original Inside of a Dog fundamentally changed how I related to my own dogs, introducing me to the concept of umwelt. First framed by Thomas Nagel in “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?”, umwelt asks us to imagine the subjective world of another organism. If bats inhabit a universe stitched together from echoes rather than light, our dogs inhabit one shaped by scent rather than sight. Their noses, their visual systems, their evolutionary history—all of it forms a reality distinct from ours. Any attempt to picture it deepens our understanding of the animals we love.

One of the first things that stands out in this updated edition is how deftly Horowitz handles the thorny question of anthropomorphism. Seeing the world in our own image is a deeply human impulse, but it can obscure who dogs actually are. Push someone on this and defenses flare. Horowitz doesn’t scold, though. She acknowledges the pleasure and emotional value in imagining our dogs as furry people, while gently nudging us to occasionally set that instinct aside to glimpse their real perspective.

She guides us through the sensory toolkit that shapes a dog’s world, and anyone who has lived with a dog will recognize the power of that gaze. My own Lexi has perfected the evening stare that wordlessly declares, “Dinner. Now.”

Horowitz also treats science itself as an object of inquiry. If a dog fails at a puzzle, is it because the dog can’t do it, or because it knows its human sidekick eventually will? Their partnership with us—leveraging human problem-solving, treat-dispensing, and belly-rub capabilities—is never ignored. The scientist is fully present here, but so is the dog lover.

I’ve had the privilege of meeting Dr. Horowitz, taking my chihuahua into her dog cognition lab, and hearing her speak multiple times. She is warm, generous, and endlessly curious. The question I’ve asked her most often is about theory of mind—not whether dogs have one (I’m convinced they do), but how we might prove it. The standard false-belief tests used for elephants and children don’t translate neatly to scent-led animals. An early dog-adapted false-belief experiment showed potential, but Horowitz notes a core problem: as tests grow more complex, they become stranger, more artificial, and more bewildering for the subject. That realization led her toward more naturalistic approaches. Science in motion.

Even as Horowitz presses us to imagine our dogs’ umwelt, she reminds us that we will not fully succeed. Sniff walks, ground-level field trips, learning where scritches land best… all of these draw us closer, but the dog’s perspective remains its own.

At its heart, this book is animated by love. Dogs reshape our daily lives and even shift our sense of the world around us. As Horowitz writes, “Pump changed my own umwelt. Walking through the world with her, watching her reactions, I began to imagine her experience.” Once you try that shift, your choices change too. A breezy trail of scents becomes far richer than a hurried loop around the block.

The book also dismantles the myth that purebreds are inherently superior. Our modern breeds are recent inventions with shallow gene pools and predictable medical issues. Mutts often carry more diverse traits and fewer genetic landmines—a reminder that dogness has always been bigger than breed.

So much of this book is about learning to see dogs as they are—and honoring it. Training methods, play, the magic of shared toys, even choosing where to walk—all become acts of respect once we ask, “What matters from their point of view?” Anthropomorphizing isn’t forbidden. Horowitz simply encourages us to do it with umwelt in mind. When we do, we’re more likely to offer our dogs richer, happier lives.

I’ve read every book Horowitz has written, followed her work in the New York Times, attended her talks, and happily volunteered my dog to science in her Barnard lab. I adore her writing. It’s grounded in research without ever being dense. Inside of a Dog glows with affection for canine familiaris and radiates curiosity about the minds beside us on the couch. These insights into dog biology, cognition, and lived experience are gifts for anyone who has ever looked into their dog’s eyes and wondered, “What are you thinking?”

It’s a marvelous moment to be a dog person, and Dr. Horowitz is a large part of why.

[Stephen Wallace · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was going to be kind and give it a 4, but as I wrote my review I talked myself down to a 3. I have had this book for a while, before I started recording my books and reviews in Goodreads. I think I read it before, but don't really remember. I have read similar books so all this type of information that is stuck in my brain doesn't really identify with one book. So, to be sure I read it I tried to read it again. By try, I mean I didn't read all of it but started skimming about a 3rd of the way in.

So much information, and a lot of it very good information, but now I just get overwhelmed. The writing style is heavy. Big long paragraphs. It seems sections don't seem to start with the main point but wade into a topic and splash main points about which takes more mental energy. So trying to read the book in solid wide blocks of time to me becomes tedious. I think there is a lot of good information in the book, but I would really recommend just to read one chapter a day instead of try to wade through it.

I believe there also is more current books on what I categorize as dog psychology, although at this moment one to recommend instead doesn't immediately come to mind. I may go back later and edit this review to include other books that I do recommend.

In this book Rico, a German dog, is mentioned that learned more than 200 words. This book was published in 2009. One of my favorite books 'Chaser' was published in 2013 about a dog that learned over a thousand words and showed how he could link words and commands together. I also seem to have read that some service dogs trained by prisoners are taught 180 words over the course of two years in preparation for service work. That is one example of how other similar books may be newer (and better organized) information.

I would also like to comment on different components of this book. She starts off the prelude and most chapters and sections with a little story of something she has observed from dogs she came across like at the park, or some behavior or action her dog has done. Most of these little passages are 'meh' and not exciting. Then there also is little simple sketches of dogs sprinkled through the book. Somewhere towards the end of the book I find it is because she likes to make sketches. They do break up the big paragraphs of text so are somewhat helpful for a break, but to me they rise only slightly above 'meh.' But there was one component I liked, the footnotes. She puts in some info from a study or clarification of something, and surprisingly I find most of them interesting. So if you do read the book, first read it a chapter a day so you are not overwhelmed, and second read the footnotes.

Anyway, if all this information is new to you from studies of dogs, you should like it a lot more than the way it strikes me today. If you have read similar books, I think if you read it a chapter a day, or whenever your get to it, you could appreciate the info. It might also make a good reference is you are looking up one topic of information, like studies on a the way a dog uses smell, or sight, or some aspect... but even then topics don't seem to be labeled in a way to perhaps easily find what you may be looking for. But still there is a lot of information in this book....

[༺Kiki༻ · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you know anything about dogs, you might not get much out of this book. The science is easy enough for a grade schooler to understand, and while accessible to the masses, it was ultimately disappointing to me. The scientific research the author discusses is her interpretation. Even worse is the lack of complete citations.

The author's opinion of what a dog's mind is capable of is cold and limited. Her fear of being accused of anthropomorphism is all too evident. She rails against anthropomorphizing to the point of undermining the intelligence of all animals. She frequently contradicts herself, dogs can/can't read emotions, dogs can/can't reason, dogs know/don't know when they misbehave.

Body language is very important to canines, but it is only briefly discussed. The authors fails to mention the varied abilities, behavior, development, intelligence, and psychology of different dog breeds. She keeps reminding us that dogs aren't 1) people 2) wolves 3) complex thinkers 4) capable of emotion. I agree with the first two, but the rest really depends on the individual dog.

I didn't find the chapter introductions with Pump very entertaining. Forced whimsy is not fun. I did enjoy the section about vision. I think anyone not already familiar with it would find it interesting, even if the science is over-simplified.

The author mentions Pump eating grapes and raisins. If you didn't read the footnotes, you may not be aware that they are toxic to dogs. Please, don't feed grapes, raisins or currants to a dog. There are other people foods that are toxic to dogs; chocolate, garlic and onions are just a few.


If you liked this book, you might also enjoy:

✱ The Genius of Dogs: How Dogs Are Smarter Than You Think
✱ Bones Would Rain from the Sky
✱ For the Love of a Dog
✱ The Other End of the Leash
✱ Through a Dog's Eyes
✱ Animals in Translation
✱ The Truth About Dogs (If you didn't like this book, skip this one)