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The Dog: A Natural History
As one of the oldest domesticated species, selectively bred over millennia to possess specific behaviors and physical characteristics, the dog enjoys a unique relationship with humans. More than any other animal, dogs are attuned to human behavior and emotions, and accordingly play a range of roles in society, from police and military work to sensory and emotional support. Selective breeding has led to the development of more than three hundred breeds that, despite vast differences, still belong to a single species, Canis familiaris.
The Dog is an accessible, richly illustrated, and comprehensive introduction to the fascinating natural history and scientific understanding of this beloved species. Ádám Miklósi, a leading authority on dogs, provides an appealing overview of dogs' evolution and ecology; anatomy and biology; behavior and society; sensing, thinking, and personality; and connections to humans.
Illustrated with some 250 color photographs, The Dog begins with an introductory overview followed by an exploration of the dog's prehistoric origins, including current research about where and when canine domestication first began. The book proceeds to examine dogs' biology and behavior, paying particular attention to the physiological and psychological aspects of the ways dogs see, hear, and smell, and how they communicate with other dogs and with humans. The book also describes how dogs learn about their physical and social environments and the ways they form attachments to humans. The book ends with a section showcasing a select number of dog breeds to illustrate their amazing physical variety.
Beautifully designed and filled with surprising facts and insights, this book will delight anyone who loves dogs and wants to understand them better.
224 pages, Hardcover
Published March 6, 2018
13 people are currently reading
675 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
May 1, 2018
Do you like dogs? Are you interested in learning about them? This book covers almost everything there is about the origin of the dogs from their ancestry, information about their role in the modern day as well as some interesting tidbits about life expectancy and more. There were parts that I found less interesting but overall this was an excellently put together nonfiction book.
August 18, 2021
A lot of good information, but I noticed there was sometimes contradictory information in the main body of the text versus the figures and captions. Also tended to be a little preachy about how modern people interact with their dogs, saying cell phones are making us less attached to them and at one point, saying that dogs feel bad about being laughed at. Oof.
Otherwise, a good broad-spectrum source of info about dogs, with a breed directory in the back.
Otherwise, a good broad-spectrum source of info about dogs, with a breed directory in the back.
June 11, 2018
First of all, this book is absolutely beautifully laid out. It is full of color photographs, charts, maps, and graphs that compliment the text. I didn't think they made books like this anymore so I was thrilled to see that this one was so beautiful. This book would make a wonderful gift for any new dog owner just because it is so nice to look at and look through.
The rest of the book is good too though. The first chapter deals with the evolutionary history of dogs. The information in this chapter on pariah dogs was especially interesting and informative. I learned that in many places around the world pariah dogs live off of human garbage and are comfortable with humans, but that they pretty much fend for themselves. I also learned that dingoes are not a separate species of wild canines like wolves, foxes, or coyotes but were instead the domestic dogs of the Aboriginal people of Australia and that many of them have simply become increasingly wild over time.
The second chapter explores the anatomy and biology of dogs. I learned in this chapter that dogs prefer cooked meat over raw meat. I also learned that while most puppies in the womb are fraternal twins, but that identical twin puppies have been known to exist as well.
The third chapter is entitled "Behavior and Society." In this chapter I learned that wolves tend to have a family organization such that there is one female dog in a pack that is a sort of leader and she is the only female dog in that pack that gets pregnant. I started thinking about how growing up, we had lots of dogs both male and female but the only one that ever had puppies was Lady. I think this is because our dogs were allowed to live in a semi-wild manner and Lady was the dominant female leader of that group of dogs. I also learned that male dogs are not good fathers because humans tend to keep male dogs away from their puppies whereas wolves help take care of their puppies. I think a lot of that is changing now in terms of how people who breed their dogs organize things so that is probably for the best.
This chapter dealt a lot with the developmental stages of puppies. One thing that stuck out to me in my reading was learning that after they are still puppies but are taken from their mothers and litter mates to live with new human families, many puppies do not get important socialization experiences with other dogs during this key period of development. Reading this made me realize that it is important to enroll my puppy in some sort of puppy classes once I get her. This chapter also says quite a bit about the function that play serves for dogs. Much like humans, dogs can tell the difference between play aggression and real aggression and I thought that was interesting. Much as only fools think that human youth are going to shoot up their schools because they played violent video games, playing tug of war with your dog will not make him aggressive and hostile towards you even if he wins.
I also learned in this chapter that barking is a communication tool that is unique to dogs and that they may have evolved it to communicate with humans although they use it to communicate with other dogs too. Nonetheless, wolves do not bark.
The fourth chapter is entitled "Sensing, Thinking, and Personality." Dogs learn a lot and in a variety of ways from both humans and other dogs. Much like human babies, dogs learn to appreciate object permanence and to discriminate between different quantities of something.
The fifth chapter is "Dogs and People." In this chapter I learned that dogs do indeed attach to humans much like human children attach to their primary caregivers. The chapter emphasizes that humans do not need to take on an "alpha" role with their dogs as just being kind to the dog will cause most dogs to accept human leadership.
The sixth chapter is something of a sampler of different dog breeds and information about mixed breeds and crossbred dogs too. Throughout the book the notion is emphasized that spaying and neutering all companion dogs is not necessarily a good idea, because there needs to be some stock of dogs that can choose their own partners and mate with them in a more or less organic way and keep genetic diversity alive and healthy in the dog population.
On the whole this was a wonderful book and I would highly recommend that anyone looking into getting a dog or that has a dog read it. It provides a much more balanced and cosmopolitan perspective on dog issues than a lot of books out there that tend to be more US-centric. The authors are not American and so I think that helps them to present a view of dogs in a more global context than a lot of American dog book authors do.
The rest of the book is good too though. The first chapter deals with the evolutionary history of dogs. The information in this chapter on pariah dogs was especially interesting and informative. I learned that in many places around the world pariah dogs live off of human garbage and are comfortable with humans, but that they pretty much fend for themselves. I also learned that dingoes are not a separate species of wild canines like wolves, foxes, or coyotes but were instead the domestic dogs of the Aboriginal people of Australia and that many of them have simply become increasingly wild over time.
The second chapter explores the anatomy and biology of dogs. I learned in this chapter that dogs prefer cooked meat over raw meat. I also learned that while most puppies in the womb are fraternal twins, but that identical twin puppies have been known to exist as well.
The third chapter is entitled "Behavior and Society." In this chapter I learned that wolves tend to have a family organization such that there is one female dog in a pack that is a sort of leader and she is the only female dog in that pack that gets pregnant. I started thinking about how growing up, we had lots of dogs both male and female but the only one that ever had puppies was Lady. I think this is because our dogs were allowed to live in a semi-wild manner and Lady was the dominant female leader of that group of dogs. I also learned that male dogs are not good fathers because humans tend to keep male dogs away from their puppies whereas wolves help take care of their puppies. I think a lot of that is changing now in terms of how people who breed their dogs organize things so that is probably for the best.
This chapter dealt a lot with the developmental stages of puppies. One thing that stuck out to me in my reading was learning that after they are still puppies but are taken from their mothers and litter mates to live with new human families, many puppies do not get important socialization experiences with other dogs during this key period of development. Reading this made me realize that it is important to enroll my puppy in some sort of puppy classes once I get her. This chapter also says quite a bit about the function that play serves for dogs. Much like humans, dogs can tell the difference between play aggression and real aggression and I thought that was interesting. Much as only fools think that human youth are going to shoot up their schools because they played violent video games, playing tug of war with your dog will not make him aggressive and hostile towards you even if he wins.
I also learned in this chapter that barking is a communication tool that is unique to dogs and that they may have evolved it to communicate with humans although they use it to communicate with other dogs too. Nonetheless, wolves do not bark.
The fourth chapter is entitled "Sensing, Thinking, and Personality." Dogs learn a lot and in a variety of ways from both humans and other dogs. Much like human babies, dogs learn to appreciate object permanence and to discriminate between different quantities of something.
The fifth chapter is "Dogs and People." In this chapter I learned that dogs do indeed attach to humans much like human children attach to their primary caregivers. The chapter emphasizes that humans do not need to take on an "alpha" role with their dogs as just being kind to the dog will cause most dogs to accept human leadership.
The sixth chapter is something of a sampler of different dog breeds and information about mixed breeds and crossbred dogs too. Throughout the book the notion is emphasized that spaying and neutering all companion dogs is not necessarily a good idea, because there needs to be some stock of dogs that can choose their own partners and mate with them in a more or less organic way and keep genetic diversity alive and healthy in the dog population.
On the whole this was a wonderful book and I would highly recommend that anyone looking into getting a dog or that has a dog read it. It provides a much more balanced and cosmopolitan perspective on dog issues than a lot of books out there that tend to be more US-centric. The authors are not American and so I think that helps them to present a view of dogs in a more global context than a lot of American dog book authors do.
September 15, 2018
3.5
This one was a hard one to rate and really needed the .5 option. This is because while the writing was quite dry and therefore not engaging enough to be properly immersive, and while there were many times I wanted the writer to expand on a topic and explore it in greater and wider depth, this book also had wonderful coverage and knowledge.
In addition to laying out the technical details of concepts I have come across before the author also introduced me to entirely new aspects of canine evolution and ethology. This ranged from information that dogs mitochondrial DNA can be traced to a certain population of wolves leading to the conclusion that all dogs share a common ancestry with the wolves from the region south of the Yangtze River in China and that "domestication of dogs was initiated several times, but many protodog lineages failed to survive."p29 (There was evidence domestication 15,000 yrs in Europe, 14,000yrs in Asia then between 6,400 -14,000 the Asian group mostly replace the European group). Information that was fascinating from a purely theoretical standpoint to information that was interesting and of practical use such as the fact that it is Golden retrievers, of all breeds, that have a "..relatively widespread aggressive behaviour in some line and that "...according to surveys, dog aggression within the household is less frequent among toy and sporting breeds, and more frequent among herding breeds."
So the book in the end was a balance of dry and not enough depth in some areas that I wanted it to be but generous in scope and I definitely learnt new things, and where the ground was familiar it was good to see more of the theories that have also been covered in journal articles being covered here too and adding authoritative weight to the text as a whole.
This one was a hard one to rate and really needed the .5 option. This is because while the writing was quite dry and therefore not engaging enough to be properly immersive, and while there were many times I wanted the writer to expand on a topic and explore it in greater and wider depth, this book also had wonderful coverage and knowledge.
In addition to laying out the technical details of concepts I have come across before the author also introduced me to entirely new aspects of canine evolution and ethology. This ranged from information that dogs mitochondrial DNA can be traced to a certain population of wolves leading to the conclusion that all dogs share a common ancestry with the wolves from the region south of the Yangtze River in China and that "domestication of dogs was initiated several times, but many protodog lineages failed to survive."p29 (There was evidence domestication 15,000 yrs in Europe, 14,000yrs in Asia then between 6,400 -14,000 the Asian group mostly replace the European group). Information that was fascinating from a purely theoretical standpoint to information that was interesting and of practical use such as the fact that it is Golden retrievers, of all breeds, that have a "..relatively widespread aggressive behaviour in some line and that "...according to surveys, dog aggression within the household is less frequent among toy and sporting breeds, and more frequent among herding breeds."
So the book in the end was a balance of dry and not enough depth in some areas that I wanted it to be but generous in scope and I definitely learnt new things, and where the ground was familiar it was good to see more of the theories that have also been covered in journal articles being covered here too and adding authoritative weight to the text as a whole.
October 31, 2020
An introduction to the natural history of dogs that is also beautifully produced with eye-catching photos and illustrations. Chapters cover quite a range (as is appropriate for a natural history). Includes a list of sources. Sometimes as I was reading, I wanted a note to connect me to a source, but it's not that kind of book. Some of the sections are very informative--the opening part about dog evolution, for example, helpfully consolidates and conceptualizes for non-experts theories and arguments about this complex, ongoing discussion. But the nature of a project like this book means that other sections move very quickly through topics that are really hard to condense into the book's format where the unit of production is the 2-page spread (i.e., most times when you turn the page a new topic or sub-topic is introduced). I wonder about the purpose of the final section on dog breeds--there's no explanation of why certain breeds and not others are profiled. Each breed's "behavior and upkeep" is described. Some of the the claims in those sections seem anecdotal and anthropomorphic which seems counter to the focus on canine science demonstrated in rest of the book.
January 3, 2020
This book is beautifully designed with full colour images and graphs.
This would make a great coffee table book for devoted dog owners who want some in-depth knowledge that's all backed up by research.
This would make a great coffee table book for devoted dog owners who want some in-depth knowledge that's all backed up by research.
June 15, 2018
Makes a good coffee table book, but wouldn’t recommend reading it cover to cover.
July 3, 2018
Definitely less technical then his first book. I believe that has his English gets better so will his writing
February 12, 2019
The developmental history, biology, and development of the dog and the human interaction.
Read
June 7, 2019636.7009 M6368 2018
January 10, 2020
Interesting, easy to read, a lot of pictures and "fun facts". Gives a good introduction to dogs, both their evolution but also how they have evolved with us humans. Seems to be fact-based.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews