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What is a dog?
Of the world’s dogs, less than two hundred million are pets, living with humans who provide food, shelter, squeaky toys, and fashionable sweaters. But roaming the planet are five times as many dogs who are their own masters—neighborhood dogs, dump dogs, mountain dogs. They are dogs, not companions, and these dogs, like pigeons or squirrels, are highly adapted scavengers who have evolved to fit particular niches in the vicinity of humans. In What Is a Dog? experts on dog behavior Raymond and Lorna Coppinger present an eye-opening analysis of the evolution and adaptations of these unleashed dogs and what they can reveal about the species as a whole.
Exploring the natural history of these animals, the Coppingers explain how the village dogs of Vietnam, India, Africa, and Mexico are strikingly similar. These feral dogs, argue the Coppingers, are in fact the truly archetypal dogs, nearly uniform in size and shape and incredibly self-sufficient. Drawing on nearly five decades of research, they show how dogs actually domesticated themselves in order to become such efficient scavengers of human refuse. The Coppingers also examine the behavioral characteristics that enable dogs to live successfully and to reproduce, unconstrained by humans, in environments that we ordinarily do not think of as dog friendly.
Providing a fascinating exploration of what it actually means—genetically and behaviorally—to be a dog, What Is a Dog? will undoubtedly change the way any beagle or bulldog owner will reflect on their four-legged friend.
Exploring the natural history of these animals, the Coppingers explain how the village dogs of Vietnam, India, Africa, and Mexico are strikingly similar. These feral dogs, argue the Coppingers, are in fact the truly archetypal dogs, nearly uniform in size and shape and incredibly self-sufficient. Drawing on nearly five decades of research, they show how dogs actually domesticated themselves in order to become such efficient scavengers of human refuse. The Coppingers also examine the behavioral characteristics that enable dogs to live successfully and to reproduce, unconstrained by humans, in environments that we ordinarily do not think of as dog friendly.
Providing a fascinating exploration of what it actually means—genetically and behaviorally—to be a dog, What Is a Dog? will undoubtedly change the way any beagle or bulldog owner will reflect on their four-legged friend.
272 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 25, 2016
101 people are currently reading
474 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
August 4, 2016
Fascinating study of genetics and evolution and how animals thrive in particular niches. Dogs are not descended from wolves. Feral dogs are a distinct species of canine. The feral or village dog found all over the world is not a hybrid of established breeds as many people think. Breeds are established by human intervention, isolating and inbreeding to a particular type. The feral dog survives in its niche which demands interdependence on humans consisting of human provision of waste which is the dogs food supply. Such dogs have a similar appearance, are of medium size and color variations appear by what is called the “founder effect” a natural mutation that is enabled by circumstance, and which may or may not become dominant. Overall, the book is a very interesting scientific examination of the development and survival of species.
May 1, 2016
This is not going to be a popular book among dog lovers. It reduces our beloved companions to behavior sets and caloric usage equations, there is not a romantic word in the book and its conclusion about the way to handle street dog populations decrying the efforts of international dog rescue is maddening. All that said, I was captivated by the science and it has given me much to ponder about the so-called purebreds, my own former Bahamian street dog, and the evolutionary marvels that are dogs.
February 28, 2020
Fascinating read that looks at the life that stray (or ‘free’) dogs lead. I tend to think of dogs as being mostly the pets we keep in our homes but this book made me realize that the vast majority of dogs on this planet live very different lives, and for those that survive into adulthood the case could be made that its not that bad of a life.
March 23, 2017
What is a dog? You might think the question is straight forward and easily answerable. For many of us, that answer is at this moment curled up at our feet. But as with many basic questions, the true answer is quite different, and more intriguing, than what we assume.
I live in Tbilisi, Georgia, a medium-sized city in the Caucasus region. Formally part of the Soviet Union, the country has had a troubled past few decades, but has nonetheless secured for itself some tenuous prosperity. If you walk the streets of Tbilisi, you will often encounter dogs. However, these are not the dogs we’re accustomed to in the Western world. These dogs are not on leashes and they are not pets.
Street dogs, neighbourhood dogs, courtyard dogs, feral dogs, strays, mixed breeds, mongrels - people apply many names, pronounced with varying degrees of either affection or disdain - but these dogs are something more complex and fundamental than our labels imply: in reality these are dogs in their essential evolutionary condition. If the word dog refers to an ideal form, then that form is best represented by these dogs, living in villages and on the city streets, surviving on the pickings of human scraps and waste.
Often when we think of dogs, we default to thinking in terms of breeds; yet, despite claims of storied histories and ancient lineages, breeds are a modern curiosity, little more than a century old. For most of their history, dogs have pretty much been the scavenging ragtags you’ll see when you peak into our open Tbilisi yards. In fact, that is still true of 85% of the world’s dogs today.
It is tempting to think that these dogs have been abandoned or lost, the result of human irresponsibility or callousness, but that is not the case. While our hearts may crack at the idea of a dog living homeless and on the streets, this is their natural environment, a niche to which they’ve adapted through centuries of natural selection. Just as breeds are a modern creation, as are pets: it is only fairly recently that we’ve allowed dogs to cross the threshold of our homes.
Focusing on behavioral ecology, the Coppingers have written a clear, illuminating book about the dogs place in our societies, which both challenges assumptions and conventional wisdom, and deepens our understanding (and perhaps appreciation) of “man’s best friend”. And while their primary concern is not what, if anything, we should do about the world’s growing canine population, through the lens of their research we can at least answer the first and most basic question: What is a dog?
I live in Tbilisi, Georgia, a medium-sized city in the Caucasus region. Formally part of the Soviet Union, the country has had a troubled past few decades, but has nonetheless secured for itself some tenuous prosperity. If you walk the streets of Tbilisi, you will often encounter dogs. However, these are not the dogs we’re accustomed to in the Western world. These dogs are not on leashes and they are not pets.
Street dogs, neighbourhood dogs, courtyard dogs, feral dogs, strays, mixed breeds, mongrels - people apply many names, pronounced with varying degrees of either affection or disdain - but these dogs are something more complex and fundamental than our labels imply: in reality these are dogs in their essential evolutionary condition. If the word dog refers to an ideal form, then that form is best represented by these dogs, living in villages and on the city streets, surviving on the pickings of human scraps and waste.
Often when we think of dogs, we default to thinking in terms of breeds; yet, despite claims of storied histories and ancient lineages, breeds are a modern curiosity, little more than a century old. For most of their history, dogs have pretty much been the scavenging ragtags you’ll see when you peak into our open Tbilisi yards. In fact, that is still true of 85% of the world’s dogs today.
It is tempting to think that these dogs have been abandoned or lost, the result of human irresponsibility or callousness, but that is not the case. While our hearts may crack at the idea of a dog living homeless and on the streets, this is their natural environment, a niche to which they’ve adapted through centuries of natural selection. Just as breeds are a modern creation, as are pets: it is only fairly recently that we’ve allowed dogs to cross the threshold of our homes.
Focusing on behavioral ecology, the Coppingers have written a clear, illuminating book about the dogs place in our societies, which both challenges assumptions and conventional wisdom, and deepens our understanding (and perhaps appreciation) of “man’s best friend”. And while their primary concern is not what, if anything, we should do about the world’s growing canine population, through the lens of their research we can at least answer the first and most basic question: What is a dog?
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August 4, 2016I love and am intrigued by dogs. I've been interested in evolution for a long time and I dig a hypothesis that goes against the grain and this book had it all.
The author's main theory is that Humans didn't take a wolf and create a dog from it. Instead, the "dogs" evolved from potentially a wolf to fill a niche to live off of waste developed by humans. The author does an excellent job supporting this theory and I'm a believer.
I think most would be surprised that "mongrels" or "village dogs" make up the vast majority of the dog population. Most dogs are free to roam and do what they want in the world.
The author gets into evolutionary topics like the Founder Effect, survival, how calories come into play and much more.
This book covers how people view dogs around the world and the variance is fascinating.
The book gets into ethics towards the end and he lost me a little bit there. I liked the point brought up but the author made some jumps in ethical logic that to me, is just one way of looking at it.
Cool book, I I liked it.
The author's main theory is that Humans didn't take a wolf and create a dog from it. Instead, the "dogs" evolved from potentially a wolf to fill a niche to live off of waste developed by humans. The author does an excellent job supporting this theory and I'm a believer.
I think most would be surprised that "mongrels" or "village dogs" make up the vast majority of the dog population. Most dogs are free to roam and do what they want in the world.
The author gets into evolutionary topics like the Founder Effect, survival, how calories come into play and much more.
This book covers how people view dogs around the world and the variance is fascinating.
The book gets into ethics towards the end and he lost me a little bit there. I liked the point brought up but the author made some jumps in ethical logic that to me, is just one way of looking at it.
Cool book, I I liked it.
July 22, 2016
Not as good as Dogs, but not bad either. The second half is better than the first. The writing is a little "all over the place" and repetitive sometimes. The references are okay, though I wish they would've cited them more specifically in the text.
August 10, 2024
Interesting and nicely written but unorthodox and certainly not for beginners.
January 21, 2019
I learned a lot about dogs in general, mainly from a behavioural ecology point of view. In particular I found the information on niches fascinating. Also interesting and even eye opening in some respects, were the studies on village dogs and the rich, often well fed, happy social life those dogs not strictly cared for by humans can actually have, albiet a lot shorter life than "owned" dogs will have. Especially as I had recently been to Sri Lanka and been overwhelmed by the sheer number of street dogs. Something else I learned in the book was that Sri Lanka actually has the world's highest number of street, or village dogs; a whopping 96% of all dogs there live without human control. It also helped clarify for me why a lot of the street dogs I saw there seemed quite happy and looked rather well fed and even cared for while others broke my heart with their obvious ill health and malnourishment. Ultimately, however, I found the book was let down by it's purely clinical view of dogs. I realise that it is after all a scientific book but the authors themselves set out to answer the question of 'what is a dog?'. And as they are dog owners and presumably dog lovers, I found it strange that they didn't answer that fully. To totally overlook the ineffable qualities of devotion and unconditional love that dogs are capable of and to ignore that extra 'knowing' they seem to bring to their interactions with humans, left me feeling that the title should have been 'What is a dog, purely from a scientific point of view?'. There were also some embarrassing mix ups later in the book with the figures and plates being referenced as the wrong numbers; I guess even the University of Chicago University Press has trouble finding good proof readers!!
November 18, 2023
3★彡 This book has an intriguing premise ('only street dogs are real dogs'). But the more I read, I noticed the authors' tendency to oversimplify from given facts; it affects their ability to offer credible, well-rounded conclusions. The book also seems to take an ethological rather than scientific approach, which may be others' cup of tea, but quite disappointing for me.
May 4, 2016
A science book which offers a startling change in our way of thinking about dogs and what they really are.
May 4, 2024
This was mostly a scientific exploration of the differences between village dogs and wild canines. Lots of statistics.
May 9, 2020
Although I do not necessarily agree with all the authors' conclusions or views, this was a thought-provoking book for me personally.
The book reviews several core principles of behavioral ecology so that the layperson can understand the arguments being made. It turns out that most of the world's dogs can be considered as equivalent to a wild animal species particularly adapted to a domestic niche as a village or neighborhood dog that survives on human waste/trash. The purebreds that we commonly see in the US and other 1st-world countries are the exception, not the rule, and most of the stray dogs you will see abroad are not escaped or abandoned pets, but rather dogs that were born to that life, and are well-adapted to it. However, the lifestyle comes at a price, as only a small percentage of puppies born will make it to adulthood.
One of the key learnings of the book is that population control of unrestricted dogs cannot be achieved through neuter/spay and release, or through extermination. You have to remove the species' niche to reduce the species' population. This applies to other controversial species as well, such as feral cats.
Overall, I had a little jealousy of the authors' many travels worldwide to observe dog behavior and interview the people who interacted with the dogs. Makes you think about other roads not traveled. So it goes.
The book reviews several core principles of behavioral ecology so that the layperson can understand the arguments being made. It turns out that most of the world's dogs can be considered as equivalent to a wild animal species particularly adapted to a domestic niche as a village or neighborhood dog that survives on human waste/trash. The purebreds that we commonly see in the US and other 1st-world countries are the exception, not the rule, and most of the stray dogs you will see abroad are not escaped or abandoned pets, but rather dogs that were born to that life, and are well-adapted to it. However, the lifestyle comes at a price, as only a small percentage of puppies born will make it to adulthood.
One of the key learnings of the book is that population control of unrestricted dogs cannot be achieved through neuter/spay and release, or through extermination. You have to remove the species' niche to reduce the species' population. This applies to other controversial species as well, such as feral cats.
Overall, I had a little jealousy of the authors' many travels worldwide to observe dog behavior and interview the people who interacted with the dogs. Makes you think about other roads not traveled. So it goes.
April 30, 2019
An extremely interesting book for anyone who owns or has owned or just loves dogs, in general. Although it focuses on the millions of street and village dogs in the world, even those of us who live in the developed countries with our "restricted" canines will get a huge amount of information from this book. Beware! It is a truthful and non-emotional account about how the majority of dogs live in this world, domesticated but not owned, culled without emotion, and truer to the true canine species than our own "pets" can ever be. It is full of diagrams and measurements, and probably enjoyed more by someone who has a background in animal ecology or a geneticist but it is still written enough for the non-scientist to peruse. I guarantee you will not look at dogs in the same light, after reading this, and you will appreciate your own dogs so much more. A very good read for those of us who are animal enthusiasts.
November 3, 2017
With an African village dog as part of my family, I was especially keen to expand my understanding of village dogs beyond what I learned in the authors' book Dogs: A New Understanding of Canine Origin, Behavior and Evolution and through my own experience and conjecture. While What Is A Dog? did not significantly help me understand the individual village dog who lives in our house, it did expand my appreciation of village dogs generally. The Coppingers, while not great writers per se, do offer a lot of insight into how evolution works, particularly as it pertains to canis lupis familiaris (dogs!) and cousins like wolves and coyotes. This biology / evolutionary science book is recommended for any dog lover who wants to go to a less familiar place intellectually and be exposed to a different perspective of humankind's "best friend."
August 12, 2017
This is a fantastic update to Ray and Lorna's first book "Dogs: A startling new understanding" This book details their thoughts on the behavioral ecology of the dog. Much like their first book, "What is a dog?" is written for anyone, not just scientists. However, it does not cater to popular tastes. It is not like so many other dog books that just tell people how wonderful and smart their dogs are. Instead this is for the person who is truly curious about what we know about dogs, how they behave, evolved, and what we still have yet to learn. And while it does not focus on the dog human bond, and in fact does not even focus on the pet dog, the information contained within these pages, could help you to better understand to Canis you share your home with, as well as the larger relationship between our two species.
June 8, 2017
An interesting account with lots of research about dogs around the world and what they have in common. Never boring like the information could be, this book is innovative and challenges the established dogma about the "origin of dogs." It's a beautifully written book about dog's niche in the world, though it was sometimes hard reading about the dogs that live in dumps around the world. A dog's place is definitely with a person.
June 19, 2025
Sometimes a bit repetitive for me, but extremely insightful. Having lived in places with village dogs for a few years, after growing up in a place with dogs who were restricted from moving and breeding freely, this helped me understand so much. So much I had seen and never quite been able to put together. And it deconstructed many myths I'd been told my whole life by folks who misunderstood how dogs became what they are. Highly recommended.
May 21, 2017
Not as much fun as some of the others I have read on this topic but very interesting in its research and ideas. Excellent read for a dog person like me who wants to understand our best friends better.
April 18, 2024
Well, I be dogged.
We are indebted to researchers. If the scientific community waited for me to do the work this book tells of, intelligence would be set back to, we would be headed for existence like troglodytes. I love our dogs.
We are indebted to researchers. If the scientific community waited for me to do the work this book tells of, intelligence would be set back to, we would be headed for existence like troglodytes. I love our dogs.
October 12, 2025
Odd book, bits of fascinating information, but lots of statistics, some hard to understand. Content includes good information on other animals, such as hummingbirds. Am glad I've had to the time to enjoy this book.
March 1, 2020
Interesting look at the semiferal/village dog (which enormously outweighs all other canids and definitely all pet breeds), though it’s sloppily written in places.
January 20, 2021
One of the few books that's quite accurate about the lives of free ranging dogs. Also one of the few books that deals with the topic of free ranging dogs with sensitivity and respect.
August 8, 2021
Informative, entertaining and occasionally repetitive after reading Dogs: A Startling New Understanding of Canine Origin, Behavior Evolution which is much more entertaining.
March 23, 2023
the writing is a little spastic and repetitive but overall a good and informative read
October 1, 2023
4,5 🌟
May 16, 2016
Rambling book but some interesting ideas and research in there for dog lovers. My fav: that children are often the way wild scavenger dogs get brought into the household and domesticated (like winning the lottery for a scavenger - free food for life !!).
After weaning, "stray" village pups are extremely vulnerable and no match for adult dogs in cornering scarce scraps of refuse. Children are really the only ones in the developing nation village that have a lot of spare time and interest ... And can put in the work to care for the pup. We're kids the way that dogs were first tamed ??
After weaning, "stray" village pups are extremely vulnerable and no match for adult dogs in cornering scarce scraps of refuse. Children are really the only ones in the developing nation village that have a lot of spare time and interest ... And can put in the work to care for the pup. We're kids the way that dogs were first tamed ??
February 5, 2017
The most fascinating and eye opening book about dogs I have read
May 21, 2016
Ecological perspective that makes sense
Fascinating look at dogs from an ecological perspective. Especially enjoyed the discussion of what makes up a species and the inevitable genetic interchange along suture lines. Very thought provoking and I am left with several questions which perhaps the authors will address in a future book. This is not a romanticized look at "man's best friend."
Fascinating look at dogs from an ecological perspective. Especially enjoyed the discussion of what makes up a species and the inevitable genetic interchange along suture lines. Very thought provoking and I am left with several questions which perhaps the authors will address in a future book. This is not a romanticized look at "man's best friend."
Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews