The Year of the Puppy: How Dogs Become Themselves

by Alexandra Horowitz

“What Mr. Rogers was to children, Alexandra Horowitz is to a wise and patient observer who seeks to intimately know a creature... Her chapters, packed with close observations about canine cognition and behavior, are mini-mood lifters." —NPR, Maureen Corrigan on Fresh Air

What is it like to be a puppy? Author of the classic Inside of a Dog , Alexandra Horowitz tries to find out, spending a year scrutinizing her puppy’s daily existence and poring over the science of early dog development

Few of us meet our dogs at Day One. The dog who will, eventually, become an integral part of our family, our constant companion and best friend, is born without us into a family of her own. A puppy's critical early development into the dog we come to know is usually missed entirely. Dog researcher Alexandra Horowitz aimed to change that with her family's new pup, Quiddity (Quid). In this scientific memoir, she charts Quid's growth from wee grub to boisterous sprite, from her birth to her first birthday.

Horowitz follows Quid's first weeks with her mother and ten roly-poly littermates, and then each week after the puppy joins her household of three humans, two large dogs, and a wary cat. She documents the social and cognitive milestones that so many of us miss in our puppies' lives, when caught up in the housetraining and behavioral training that easily overwhelms the first months of a dog's life with a new family. In focusing on training a dog to behave, we mostly miss the radical development of a puppy into themselves —through the equivalent of infancy, childhood, young adolescence, and teenager-hood.

By slowing down to observe Quid from week to week, The Year of the Puppy makes new sense of a dog's behavior in a way that is missed when the focus is only on training. Horowitz keeps a lens on the puppy's point of view—how they (begin to) see and smell the world, make meaning of it, and become an individual personality. She's there when the puppies first open their eyes, first start to recognize one another and learn about cats, sheep, and people; she sees them from their first play bows to puberty. Horowitz also draws from the ample research in the fields of dog and human development to draw analogies between a dog's first year and the growing child—and to note where they diverge. The Year of the Puppy is indispensable for anyone navigating their way through the frustrating, amusing, and ultimately delightful first year of a puppy’s life.

Genres: Nonfiction, Dogs, Animals, Science, Memoir, Audiobook, Nature

320 pages, Hardcover

Published September 20, 2022

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

[Jennifer Schultz]

I've read my fair share of nonfiction about dogs, dog behavior, etc. But Alexandra Horowitz's THE YEAR OF THE PUPPY has to be the most delightful, engrossing, and compelling one I've read (I did enjoy her Inside of a Dog years ago!).

From the moment puppy Quid is born to the completion of his first year, Horowitz tracks his development, both physical and emotional. From the intense physicality of the newborn puppy pile (no social distancing here!) to learning about humans, other dogs, and even a cat (!), Quid's first year is filled with momentous occasions. As the bulk of this was written during the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, the pandemic also plays a part in Quid's socialization.

This is fascinating and an utter joy to read.

(You might want to avoid reading the parts about mating/conception while eating, though!).

Many thanks to Viking and NetGalley for a digital review copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Sharon]

An absolutely delightful book. Informative and entertaining. Some great insights about puppy life and the life of dogs in general.

[Degenerate Chemist]

I found this at my local library and picked it up because it had been written by Alexandra Horowitz.

Bascially what it says on the box- Horowitz describes the year she adopted a puppy for the first time. This book is fine. It doesn't do anything all that special. It is a decent read if you have never adopted or fostered a puppy and don't know what to expect.

[Ardys]

Audio book. Love Alexandra Horowitz’s books about dogs. This one is getting me ready for a puppy to join our family.

[Aafke]

'Wat je nodig hebt om voorbereid te zijn op je pup:
1. Verwacht dat de pup niet zal zijn wie je denkt, noch zich zal gedragen zoals je hoopt.
Dat is het. Dat is de lijst.'

[Marcia Miller]

In this illuminating new memoir/science report, renowned canine researcher Alexandra Horowitz shares the trials and tribulations, joys and surprises of raising a puppy. Her pup, Quid, was one of a large litter, whose birth she attended. Horowitz observed the litter as they developed, and about two months in, she chose one of the wee pups to become her newest "subject". She brought her "baby" home to her family--husband, son, two dogs, a cat, a large house, and nearby forest--spent the entire year discovering, recording, and analyzing the milestones a puppy must experience to become an adult (or at least adolescent) dog.

I chose this book at a crucial time in my own life--the adoption of my new puppy. As any dog owner can attest, raising a puppy is a full-time job, replete with delight, frustration, messes, conundrums, laughter, sleepless nights, vet visits, and lots of little bite marks from those razor-sharp puppy teeth. Just as I was feeling overwhelmed and wondering whether I'd made a serious error, I dove into this book.

BRAVISSIMI, Dr. Horowitz, for helping me see the broader picture of puppy development, and enabling me to meet my pup where SHE is, not where I wish she might be. Any dog owner will recognize most of the habits young Quid performs--for better or worse. But Horowitz explains WHY and HOW pups must discover the world in their own ways before they can bend to the wishes of their humans.

This book is so freshy and honestly written that even cat lovers (there's a cat in the family) can understand, appreciate, and marvel at how much Horowitz reveals about dog development, behavior, and the eventual creation of the canine/human bond. I highly recommend it. WOOF!

[Sandy]

I was given this book after acquiring a puppy. The author describes a puppy's changes through the course of a year. I enjoyed her writing. The author gave me insight into how much some people are tuned in to canine actions. My favorite pages are the list of fifty things to notice about your puppy. Here are a few of them: the ratio of black whiskers to white whiskers, where she likes to be tickled, where she doesn't like to be tickled, which paw she uses first to descend the stairs, whom she looks to when she needs something, how she tells you she needs something, the ways of her ears. Most of these are details that I have never noticed about my dogs. This book and puppy training classes have opened up to me a whole new world.

[Courtney Kruzan]

A fun read about how puppies develop their personalities with some other puppy tidbits sprinkled in. The author documents her experiences with her own adopted puppy from birth to 1 year old. The author also loosely follows a litter of puppies being trained to be working dogs. I do wish we would have gotten a one year update about those puppies.

It was an easy read and I learned some valuable things.

[Bianca]

Not surprisingly, Horowitz has done a lovely job here. This is not your conventional sentimental puppy memoir, and worth reading for that reason alone. Horowitz is candid about the realities of living with a puppy, and as always does a fine job of incorporating and explaining the relevant canine science.

[Pattie Babbitt]

Obviously a 5 star book, but I do have 1 complaint...this book was entirely lacking in enough pictures. If you are going to describe your puppy one week at a time, I would like pictoral proof to the puppiness I am reading about. Please feel free to respond to this review with pictures labeled by week!

[Kim Johnson]

Having just introduced a new puppy into our household I was anxious to read this book. I had read one of her other books, Being a Dog; Following the Dog Into a World of Smell and found it captivating. This book was equally compelling and useful as well as she follows her puppy from birth up to a year old. Horowitz combines her scientific knowledge in the field of dog cognition with her obvious love of the species.

[Valentina]

This is an incredibly lovely and educational book about dogs, through the lens of the author's relationship with her puppy over its first year. I wish I'd read it before getting my own dog, but it was a wonderful experience to read around his half-birthday. Adorable, heartbreaking, funny - excellent writing on top of great content.

[Sparrow Knight]

Entertaining, and informative.

[Natalie Park]

So interesting!

[Benjamin Rubenstein]

This is a lovely ode from a woman to her new family dog full of endearing observations about the animal that I think most people would never either stop to take in or be able to put into words. The most interesting parts of the book (to me as a parent of a newborn) were the comparisons between puppies and babies. Ultimately, though, I never felt I learned enough about the author (after all, this is some version of a memoir) and just didn't care that much about the pup.

[Tanja Giljevic]

I loved this book! It should be a standard purchase when anyone thinks about getting a puppy or a shelter rescue dog.

[Chanel]

I really thought this would be more than what it was, but I enjoyed parts of it.

[Sydney]

Definitely a good read for anyone who is thinking about getting a puppy. I learned a lot about dogs. After reading this book, it made me notice different things about my own dog that I’ve never noticed before. The ending made me tear up.

[Peg Berry]

Interesting and helpful, a really good read and except for the odd and inexplicable (though interesting) digression into artificial gray wolf insemination (what exactly does this have to do with puppies?) I will use a lot of the information in my puppy interactions.

[Elise Kind]

Alexandra Horowitz is the well known researcher and observer of dogs. In her latest book The Year of the Puppy she traces a dog's learning from birth until the dog is a year old. What are these creatures like? How do they become themselves? How does each dog in a litter develop and have their own personality? How do these little blobs grow and begin to interact with their surroundings.

Along with her own observations, Horowitz also looks at the plentiful research on dogs. There is an excellent bibliography and notes section that would be very helpful to the researcher.

If you own a dog and or breed dogs this book will be a great help in understanding these wonderful creatures.

[Laura]

Lot's of adorableness, not a lot of science. This book made me smile on every chapter. The only negative: the author likes long complicated sentences, which sometimes don't make easy sense. The Postscript took my by surprise and made me cry. Recommend for chill evening reading, if you're considering adopting a new pet or if you miss one.

[Therese Thompson]

……

…….

Probably an excellent idea to hand this anybody who is thinking of getting a puppy before they make the commitment.

I was literally exhausted after reading this.

I may understand puppies and dogs better. But even more, I understand that getting another puppy in this lifetime would be a bad choice. I’m just managing to keep up with the grandkids. And they develop so much more slowly!


…..

……

[Garrett]

Excellent overview of a puppy’s first year of life, how we humans interact with them, and what they may be thinking (and the ‘why’ behind it).

I actually recommended this to the leader of my organization at work since I knew he and his family have a 4-month-old puppy.

[Sarah McQuaid]

This was too fluffy for the dog enthusiast in me and too dull for the storybook reader in me. I like my stories and studies separate, I think.

[Mary]

This was fine, but not as interesting as I'd expected. For a book subtitled "How Dogs Become Themselves," there's very little about dogs & more about her dog (& her, & her son, & her other animals, & the pandemic, etc., etc.) That's fine -- the book wasn't bad, but I expected more of a "scholarly," non-fiction book, whereas this was more memoir (a genre I generally don't care much for). I found the first 25% or so to be more interesting than the latter portion, but when the author started recounting her time with Quid after she came home, I found myself losing interest. I really did appreciate the author's candor in discussing life with a puppy, though -- as someone who brought home a terrier puppy several years ago & had a less than...fun...experience at the time, I found it validating that someone who's studied dogs for years also struggled with that phase of dog-life. This wasn't what I was looking for but may be of interest to readers who are going through/planning/just coming out of their own puppy phase.

[Phoebe]

Horowitz writes engagingly of her puppy's first year, but the book is more than a memoir. As someone who studies dog behaviors for a living, she writes that she has little personal experience of puppy parenting. Fascinating chapters reveal what most of us never see or know, the birth and beginnings of that puppy that one selects and takes home. In Quid's case, she is one of a litter of 11 puppies. Possibly the most illuminating section of the book, nevertheless readers will appreciate Horowitz's professional insights and the inclusion of her own observations from her own household. Her willingness to appreciate dogs as dogs, as individuals with complex personalities and her statement of the idea that nothing will be as you expect it to be, ever, and that is part of the joy of dog companionship, is almost a relief, a wonderful thing after all of the books and advice on raising the "perfect" dog. The only aspect of the book I found puzzling was her use of first initials for her family members, when later in the afterword she names them. A weird distraction from an otherwise elegant book. Adult.

[Julie Stielstra]

Much more congenial than her previous Our Dogs, Ourselves: How we live with dogs now. A product of pandemic times, this one focuses tightly on a rescued litter of eleven, week by week, till one of them is selected to join Horowitz's household, and then the spotlight is on her, the winsome Quiddity. Along the way, Horowitz observes, records, and explains the pup's development from birth to the one-year mark - sensory, physical, emotional and social. Scientific studies are lightly peppered throughout, and there is ongoing comparison between what a puppy can do at what stages and what a human baby can do. She also compares the upbringing and teaching (she pleasantly prefers the term "teaching" to "training") of this litter of mixed-breed pups who will become family companions to that of a Labrador litter carefully bred to become search and rescue dogs. It's lovely to see that both goals are approached with a whole lot of treats, toys, high-pitched happy voices, games and wagging tails.

After her harsh criticism of the spay/neuter movement in her previous book, Horowitz now addresses this issue in a far more measured way - she neuters her dogs, while timing the procedure to allow for full physiological benefits of natural hormone levels. The best thing about this book is its closely-observed understanding of a dog's natural development, desires, and talents, and how we humans can best accommodate or allow for those things to keep our dogs healthy, happy, comfortable, and cheerful members of the human society we make them live in.

There may be a limit to how long one can listen to / read someone who goes on for pages about every single movement, facial expression, tail wag, vocalization, possible thought process, etc. of their dog, even with a serious intention of analysis and education. Even I found myself skimming sometimes. Still, this is an enjoyable, illuminating, friendly exploration of puppies, and is recommended for anyone who finds themselves in that "uh-oh, what I have done?!" place with one! And now, if someone out there has written a book with this level of detail and corroborating evidence about cats, I for one really want to read it.

[Donna DuLong]

Educational, informative, sometimes numerous and sometimes emotional - worth the read for any dog lover.

[Susan]

How in the heck did this thing let me leave a 3.75 star rating??? I didn’t try to do that. I tried to hit 4 stars, and since it’s never allowed half or quarter stars in the past, I wasn’t too careful about where in the star I put my finger. Go figure. It’s not letting me write a review either - just edit my activity, whatever that means. I have no real faith that this review will save = I’ve been burned before when Goodreads is acting weird.

I found this book at the library in a dog books display right after reading another book on raising/training puppies, and this one seemed to fit into a theme. And it was interesting to compare. Both authors say much the same thing about puppy development and what’s happening when and what humans need to do when, though in very different ways. This book is both more science (versus training tips) and philosophy (versus training tips). I started it on vacation and made reasonable progress until vacation ended, at which time my progress slowed significantly, however it was always interesting to come back to. I found it odd that the author compares puppy and human development over and over. Not so much how puppies and humans develop in the same or similar or different ways at various times. More in what each species is up to at 4 weeks. Or 4 months. Or 8 months. That’s what struck me as odd. After the first week, puppies and humans infants are on different time trajectories. I didn’t really need the reminder over and over again that human babies weren’t going to have the same coordination or motor control or mental abilities that puppies do at various ages for months or years. I already knew that. And I’m not really sure it’s a good comparison. But clearly it was of interest to the author. I enjoyed the comparison of this litter to the working dog litter better, though that stops without explanation midway through the book. I’m not sure it was completely explained at the start of the book either, for that matter.

I was extremely curious about which puppy from the litter the author was going to end up with. That question held my interest throughout the first part of the book. You do find out, but you don’t find out when you maybe think you will from chapter titles. After finding out, I ended up going back through the first however many chapters and rereading all references to that particular puppy. I don’t know that it was all that important in the end, but it interested me.

[Kiana]

I finished reading "The Year of the Puppy" on the morning of bringing my new puppy home. This moment felt full-circle since I chose this book from the library in a stack of puppy books from the in a research mission to prepare for selecting and bringing a new puppy home. As I type this review, puppy is cozy in her crate, south-mouthing her keys chew toy. It reminds me of the scenes in the book where Horowitz went meta ( I love when authors do that ,by the way) and told us what Quid, her puppy, was doing while she was typing the manuscript.

Horowitz writes with genuine curiosity, detailed observations, and research-based evidence about how puppies develop and process the world. It was so sweet to read about Maize and how she nurtured the puppies from day 1. I enjoyed reading about the exposure training the puppies experienced in their preparation to become device dogs. I liked reading about Horowitz's observations of the puppies playing in the yard because she noticed particular mannerisms about each unique pup, and this gave me a kind of basis for observing puppies at the puppy play date I was preparing for. I appreciated reading about the author bringing home Quid, the dynamics at home with her family and pets, and the way Quid was "continually replacing herself" as she grew. This book is a lovely blend of fact-based evidence and heartfelt reflections on raising a puppy.

I have so many favorite quotes, but here are a few:

"Puppy's enthusiasm takes shape as energy not just moving limbs, tails a-tocking, but also sound."

"Her attentive gaze-- eyes,ears, and nose-- tracks a woodpecker's metronome in a tree, then a quarrel with a nuthatch. The top of her head smells like the air above a river, that fresh, clean smell of water and energy. She is that energy, a rush of river made flesh."