Why Dogs Hump and Bees Get Depressed: The Fascinating Science of Animal Intelligence, Emotions, Friendship, and Conservation

by Marc Bekoff

In 2009, Marc Bekoff was asked to write on animal emotions for Psychology Today. Some 500 popular, jargon-free essays later, the field of anthrozoology — the study of human-animal relationships — has grown exponentially, as have scientific data showing how smart and emotional nonhuman animals are. Here Bekoff offers selected essays that showcase the fascinating cognitive abilities of other animals as well as their empathy, compassion, grief, humor, joy, and love. Humpback whales protect gray whales from orca attacks, combat dogs and other animals suffer from PTSD, and chickens, rats, and mice display empathy. This collection is both an updated sequel to Bekoff’s popular book The Emotional Lives of Animals and a call to begin the important work of “rewilding” ourselves and changing the way we treat other animals.

Genres: Nonfiction, Animals, Science, Dogs, Nature, Biology, Psychology

490 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 1, 2013

About the author

Please see http://www.literati.net/authors/marc-... and you can read my essays for Psychology Today here -- http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/a... --

Reviews

[Kaora · Rating 3 out of 5]

Compassion begets compassion.

The main message in this book is a powerful one. One that I have believed in for quite some time, that how a person treats their fellow humans is reflected in how they treat their fellow animals.

Many crimes against humans may well have been prevented had any animal cruelty incidents that preceded them been taken seriously.

While I expected Why Dogs Hump and Bees Get Depressed to explore more about animal intelligence, emotions and friendship, it was a collection of blog posts made by Marc Bekoff that emphasize the importance of learning about these rather than why dogs actually hump or bees get depressed. I did learn why but it wasn't the main point. So I was a little bit disappointed.

That being said he does raise a lot of good points. I feel like the study of animals has come secondary to the study on animals. We use animals to test cosmetics, or drugs, but scientists have only recently come to believe that animals feel pain and are conscious beings. Why has it taken so long?

We study animals to see what makes us uniquely human, but the findings of empathy in animals often forcea uncomfortable questions about how humans treat animals.

I remember watching Madagascar a few years ago, where Alex the lion escapes the zoo and becomes stranded on a island with some of his friends - a hippo, a giraffe and a zebra. Unable to find anything to eat without killing, he starts to see those around him as giant steaks, until some of the locals give him fish to eat. And I remember thinking he can't eat any of the animals around him because they are his friends. They are sentient. But fish are not included in this group. They are not on the same level. So it is okay to eat them. But what it is that makes them "lower"?

Bekoff explores this topic extensively. Why do we balk at eating dogs but not cows if they both feel pain? If its not the ability to feel pain, is it intelligence? Bees can solve the traveling salesman problem faster than computers but we definitely don't shed tears after a bee stings us and dies.

I think this book was a valuable read, and forced me to think about how my actions affect those that we share this world with.

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was a huge disappointment. It's really an illustration of why blog posts should not become books, generally. I have a degree in zoology, and one of my favorite topics is animal behavior. From the title and the flyleaf, I had the impression that I would have the opportunity to read fascinating science. What I got instead was the intro to the fascinating science and then Bekoff's conclusions regarding the fascinating science. But no fascinating science. So disappointing.

Just a couple of observations:

In many of his essays, Bekoff comes across as smug, arrogant and dismissive of those who disagree with him. He regularly cites his own essays in other essays. There was even an essay where he talked about a colleague who had a book idea. He shared how he let the guy down easily by explaining that he had already written a book on that very topic, but followed up by encouraging him to continue because there was always room for another point of view.

The writing was choppy and cumbersome. He insists on describing humans as "human animals" and other animals as "non-human animals". He also refers to his dog his "companion dog". While I agree, dogs are companionable animals, it makes for clunky writing. Also, I am accustomed to thinking of a "companion dog" as a highly trained individual who does complicated things for humans who need assistance.

The format is the same for every essay. There is an idea presented, there is a vague reference to some study or other, then there is a "what we should do now" section which invariably carries a strong note of self-righteousness. It's overbearing and ultimately a turn-off.

There are many ideological pretzels. Bekoff is firmly in the "animals are people too" camp, writing essay after essay on the topic of "speciesism" and how human animals should not consider themselves to be a higher order animal than non-human animals. I don't really see how this works, especially from an evolutionist standpoint. The entire point of evolution is to, you know, evolve.

My favorite pretzel was the contrast between the story of the child who fell into the African painted dog exhibit and was killed by the dogs and the story of the child who fell into the chimpanzee enclosure and was rescued by a female chimpanzee and returned to the human animals. In the first case, Bekoff deplores the idea that the dogs should be put down. He says the dogs were just following their instincts. Just doing what they do. They can't be blamed for being themselves. In the second case, Bekoff lauds the empathy and compassion of the female chimpanzee. Do not, however, make the mistake of assuming chimpanzees to be a higher order non-human animal than the African painted dogs. Speciesism!

There is deep inconsistency in the Darwinian idea that all animals, human and non-human, are following a biological imperative, and then claiming that humans, while part of that evolutionary chain, are not a higher animal. At the same time, humans are somehow required to be more empathetic, responsible, caring and just better. That said, if we are just doing what we do, can we really be blamed for it? Either we are a higher order and we are responsible, or we are not.

I really like (non-human) animals. I've had companion dogs and companion cats, and even a companion rat or two. Even on their best days, they can't be compared to my companion children. Not in communication skills, developmental ability or future potential. I absolutely believe that human (animals) have a responsibility to care for our world and the animals in it, not because we are equal, but because we are a higher order animal.

Recommended if you are a vegetarian/vegan animal rights activist with a lower than average interest in fascinating science.

[Kris · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wish I could've enjoyed this book or found it informative, but there were just too many problems. Several of the points made by other reviewers are accurate: the author uses his own works as reference points, the science often lacks logic, and the tone is often unbearably smug, like being lectured by that one vegan acquaintance who tells you, every time you see him, what's wrong with your outlook. I wanted to like this, as someone dedicated to animal welfare, but the combination of preciousness and self-righteousness made it impossible to finish.

[W.B. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I will read anything Marc Bekoff publishes since he is an advocate for a way of being in the world I hope our species eventually adopts.

These mini, super-brief essays were culled from a microblogging series he did for an online journal. So they might not be his prose gussied-up in its best threads. But they contain so much interesting information about animal consciousness, animal survival strategies, and animal complexity that they were well worth reading. Bekoff is all about showing us the stoic dignity of animals, those other beings hurled into existence alongside us, whom we so often treat so shamelessly.

It's absolutely amazing to me that it took until 2020 for science to recognize that birds possess a complex consciousness and probably even a self-awareness. This is largely because science does not want to justify all the truly horrific things it does to animals. I have seen bird species work cooperatively to fend off predators in my own front yard. How hard is it to figure out that animals like birds are conscious? It truly boggles the mind, the bad faith with which science has approached the issue of animal consciousness for centuries. It is a continuum. Consciousness is a continuum.

Every time I remember Descartes saying that animals must be clockwork mechanisms (his philosophy led him to this conclusion) I don't know whether to laugh or cry for our benightedness. How could someone so brilliant have been so stupid? Rather, it points to an embarrassing human trait. We will do horrible things to be right, to solve the world. And we must always be the paragon of animals. Though there is no such creature.

I hope Marc continues to publish until his dying day. And I hope more people discover his wonderful way of living in the world with a new level of respect for those wonderful species all around us. So you might not want to invite them into your living room. You still can find ways in your own life to help reduce their suffering. This book might be a place to start in thinking along those lines.

[alexander shay · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title of this book is kind of misleading. The actual "science" side of things was extremely sparse. This book is actually a collection of blog posts/articles written by the author, mainly talking about other texts he has read, people he has discussed with, or his opinions on things in the news. There are a few references to research he has done and a few more references to research other scientists have done, but the science explaining animal intelligence, etc is not really included. I would say upwards of 90% of every article is the author explaining why we need to respect animals, stop eating them, and why they are intelligent and deserving of a level of care on par with humans. While I don't dispute his argument, because most of the essays are only a couple pages long, you get beat over the head repeatedly with this argument because EVERY essay says some variation there of, sometimes for most of the essay.

I don't know how edited the pieces are from blog/article to this book, but I felt like I was reading the same essay over and over again, with more opinion than fact and hardly a sprinkling at all of science. It does get you to ask yourself some hard questions, especially around how we treat animals and the eating of them, but I didn't learn anything about how animals do these things. If you read this book, prepare to be beat over the head with the following phrases: "rewild our hearts", "corridors of compassion", "compassion begets compassion", "redecorate nature", "nature's living room", "power does not mean license to do whatever we want to do because we can", "when animals die we die too", and "never say never, ever". At least one of these appears in pretty much every essay in the book.

If you're looking for a book that talks about the ethics around our relationships with non-human animals, this would be a good book for you. But if you're looking for the research and science, this is unfortunately not the book you're looking for.

[Brad Henderson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Terrible book, couldn’t stomach it, the author laid on his ideology so thick you could barely move. Don’t read it.

[Degenerate Chemist · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF

I would normally not give this book a starred review because I read so little of it, but I am infuriated with how lazy it is.

This book is a collection of blog posts. It works great if you have a 12 second attention span and no background knowledge on the subject. If you are looking for even a mediocre work of pop science you are going to be disappointed. This is was kicked out the publishing house door as quickly as possible to make a few bucks.

There are far better books out there that handle the topic far more thoroughly and with a greater degree of respect for the readers intelligence.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of Bekoff's essays from Psychology Today make for essential reading for anyone who calls themselves an animal lover and/or environmentalist, vegans and omnivores alike.

[Kathryn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think my biggest disappointment was that the book wasn't more of a digestible scientific summary rather than a collection of op-eds, but that's reslly on me and my understanding. I wasn't familiar with Bekoff's articles prior to this book.

Aside from that, my complaint is that the logic in Bekoff's arguments seems cherry-picked. The argument is that humans shouldn't eat "nonhuman animals" because we don't NEED to and it causes undue stress on animals that don't want to be eaten, but good on that cougar for killing that deer and eatkng "twenty pounds" of deer meat! The argument for humans is that prey animals get too stressed out when preyed upon (who wouldn't??), so we shouldn't eat them because they deserve to be happy and stress-free and we are omnivores that don't need meat. By that logic, should we prevent bears from eating fish because they, too, could survive as vegans? Do we hold all omnivores to our same meat-free standard, since the argument maintains that animals are just as conscious and complex as we are?

Bekoff also never touches on the numerous E. Coli and salmonella outbreaks occuring in leafy greens--a staple of a vegan diet, stating instead that vegan diets are "guilt free."

I'm all for protecting animals and ensuring they have the best lives possible. I agree that animals are conscious, thinking and feeling creatures with unique personalities and needs. I agree that factory farms/CAFOs are horrific and should be remediated, and that Americans need to eat far less meat for a healthier and more sustainable diet. But 327 pages of "go vegan because prey animals don't want to be eaten" didn't hold a lot of water for me.

Also, the title is misleading--the answer to both "why do dogs hump" and "why do bees get depressed" are both "we don't know" and are promptly glazed over. It was simply an eye-catching title to get you to buy thr book.

[Hilary "Fox" · Rating 3 out of 5]

Marc Bekoff can be a difficult writer to read. This isn't a bad thing, but rather a rather good one. He doesn't shy away from asking the most difficult questions and often demands the reader answers them, or at least thinks about them more deeply than perhaps they would ever wish to. We need writers like Bekoff to keep us honest with ourselves, and to challenge us to truly embody the morals that we keep and to hold others to a higher standard. This text tackles the realities of compassionate conservation, as well as the philosophical implications that acknowledging the sentience of other animals demands we address.

This book is comprised of Bekoff's articles for Psychology Today. Some are amusing, yes, but all are fairly hard hitting and relevant to anyone who finds animal thought and behavior worth their time. Which should be everyone, honestly. He makes good arguments for the importance of considering nonhuman animals, the importance of certain changes to the way we speak about them, and how to raise the next generation to be full of compassionate, thoughtful people who will treat the world and all the life within it with the respect that they deserve.

Marc Bekoff's rallying cry is that compassion begets compassion. By treating nonhuman animals with respect and understanding we then are able to extend similar care and attention to our fellow humans. There is little that we have to lose by adapting these principles into our everyday lives, and a whole world to gain. Why not give it a try?

[Alex · Rating 1 out of 5]

One of my most disappointing reads. I'm too fed up with it to even write a proper review.
It's so repetitive. It's like being lectured by someone who only has 3 arguments, keeps referring to their own work/things they've said, and never gives you any info about the science.

Who is this book even for? - It's definitely not for people looking for science (despite the title), and probably not for people who already care deeply about animals (why would they need Bekoff to tell them the same thing over and over for 400 pages?). I'm not sure it's for people who don't care about animals either, because there's a risk this book would just annoy/bore them.

Sure, it has some topics that make for really good discussions, the main message of the book is really good, and I do agree with most of what Bekoff is saying. I'll give it that. But it's not presented in an effective way, in my opinion.

[Ashley · Rating 3 out of 5]

An expansive collection of essays that Bekoff has published on Psychology Today. Honestly, the title is a bit misleading, the essay topics range all over the animal kingdom — not just bees or dogs. Essays are inherently intended to be short which means each word is precious making each essay rather dense so this is definitely more of a slow read. It also became rather redundant, since the essays are usually read as one offs as opposed to back to back in a book, so the same stories were told multiple times (they were relevant, just repetitive). Bekoff is a huge proponent of animal rights (and we love this!) but at times his writing can be off putting and accusatory. He writes about speciesism, and how we cannot rank animals, and while this is a great theory, even in his essays we see how he views the animals different based on the traits they display. It’s a complicated read, but it does give you food for thought. You just have to overlook the somewhat condescending at times tone.

[Natasha Orslene · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have always been interested in Marc Bekoff's work. He writes for Psychology Today, among other publications, and the way he makes connections between humans and animals always gets me thinking.

Why Dogs Hump and Bees Get Depressed is an anthology of his already published work on the intelligence, emotions, companionship, and behavior of animals, with a bit of conservation highlighted as well. Each piece is only a few pages long, so it makes for an interesting and easy read that spans multiple animal-related topics.

Throughout his work, Marc emphasizes the importance of learning about the human-animal bond and how it can impact our lives in really positive and lovely ways - if we pay attention to it.

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is not at all what it claims to be, a book about animal behavior. It is an assemblage of previously published pieces and they are more about why humans should care about other animal species. The author spends far too much time self promoting and not enough time presenting actual research.

[Kathleen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Made it 200 pages in, couldn't finish. Felt very repetitive, every essay felt the same with similar or exact word choices. Was excited to read this, totally on me for not realizing this was a collection of essays until I started it but the repetitiveness made this impossible for me to finish.

[Nicole · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was frustrating and I ended up skimming most of it. I thought it would be about animal behavior. And it is, but the author has an annoying bias. He says that anthromorphosizing animals is not anti-science, and then says that humans are in no way superior to any other animal species. This is contradictory. If humans are the same as any other animal then why are we anthromorphosizing and imposing our behaviors onto them? He writes about animals feeling grief. Of course they feel grief I don't disagree with him there. But then he talks about a fox that died and then another fox that had eaten part of it and covered it with dirt, calling it a 'fox funeral'. I'm sorry but no. Animals may have their own ways of expressing grief but humans have funerals. Foxes don't and even if they did I don't think they would resemble ours in any way. Whatever.

[Cheryl · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book! It is a collection of short essays that stimulate deep thoughts and conversations about our moral interactions with nonhuman animals. It is a great book for a plane ride or for times when you just want to relax and read a couple of short essays (every single essay invokes new ideas and thoughts). Since it is a collection of essays, I like that readers don't feel obligated to read the book from front to cover in just one sitting. You can put it down and come back to it weeks or months later (but you probably won't want to take that long)! I really enjoy the writings on "redecorating nature" in this book.

[Geoffrey Hazelton · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a series of mostly short essays written to support animal rights. It was very repetitive and eventually dull. The author reports over and over "research" on traits animals have which are the same as humans. Yes animals, birds, even fish think and feel pain but to equate them with humans is a stretch. He often relies on Darwin to back up his claims and some of Darwin's theory is currently suspect, especially his claim that one species morphs into another species. Also the Cambrian life explosion bothered Darwin and current research shows he had reason to suspect it did not fit his theory.

[Stevie Dunton · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book talks about whether or not animals have emotions, are intelligent, have a theory of self, etc. It doesn't contain any research of its own, which I would have liked, but rather summarizes a lot of different research in a series of short essays. It's a great introduction into the ethics of speciesiam.

[Perri]

These are a collation of short essays written for Psychology Today. Because they are so brief,usually one or two pages, the subject of the essay is more an introduction of thoughts rather than fully explored. Also the viewpoint of the author is anthropomorphic and despite the disclaimers, comes off as a bit stridently pro non-human. Did not finish

[Michele · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having read, and enjoyed, many of Marc Bekoff's books and essays, I looked forward to re-reading pieces I had read before, and discovering new pieces. Being able to access so many pieces in one book is great and I imagine that I will refer to specific essays in conversation and as I continue to study animals and advocate for animal rights.

[Pamela Kramer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Greatly enjoyed this collection of essays.

Read the whole review at: Why Dogs Hump and Bees Get Depressed

[D · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a bit like preaching to the choir for me. I've advocated the rights of animals as individuals since I was a kid. The information in this book is really, really important, but sadly it's not that well written.

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some interesting essays, can't agree with everything Bekoff has written but certainly gave me some things to think about.

[Jude Li-Berry · Rating 3 out of 5]

excellent tidbits of info related to animals if you are looking to gain exposure on a wide range of issues. don't expect depth and you may be pleasantly surprised.

[Tracey · Rating 2 out of 5]

SDMB recco JCwoman of other book by Beckoff - mixed GR reviews

[Ruthie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book and look forward to reading more by this author. The essay format was a little repetitive but still highly enlightening.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the format (separate articles) you could jump from one to another and browse through until something caught your interest.

[Benjamin · Rating 2 out of 5]

A collection of Bekoff's blog posts. Many entries cover the same topics and re-hash the same information. The book should have been edited down by half at least.

[Phoebe Phuong]

I can't finish the book hence I decide not to rate it but offer some of my comments as below
- It has a good opening and introduction: definitely an interesting topic about interrelationship, coevolution between human and animals.
- however, it did not manage to offer insights needed to support its given topic. Little persuasion was offered with most of the arguments are from some vague sources. The book seems to be personal when it offers too much author's subjective opinions about all the topics.