Posts tagged "AlexandraHorowitz"

Who hasn't looked into the soulful eyes of their furry best friend and wondered what on earth their pet was thinking? Dog lover and psychologist Alexandra Horowitz sure did.

Luckily for us (and our dogs), Horowitz, who has extensively studied dog behavior, explores what's going on in our canine companions' heads in her new book, "Inside of a Dog". Horowitz recently chatted with Paw Nation about the book, dog behavior, and her own pup.

Where did you get the idea for this book?
I was prompted to write the book by two things: my work and my relationship with my then-dog Pumpernickel. My work has been studying the mind of non-human animals, especially dogs. There has recently been a great increase in the scientific study of dogs, and I decided it was high time to summarize this for a wider audience, and to use the results to try to address the questions that I had about my own dog. Pumpernickel was a great character, and I, like many owners, spent hours admiring her and wondering about her experiences of the world.

What do you think is most important for dog owners to understand about their pets' minds?
Dogs are not less-intelligent humans. At times we treat them so, and this is doing dogs a disservice. Instead, by careful observation and consideration of dogs' behavior, we might draw a new picture of what the dog mind is like. For instance, we all know that their world is dominated by smells -- but understanding the role it plays in their social, physical and perhaps mental life should lead us to reconsider, say, pulling the dog away from a juicy smell on the side of a fire hydrant.

Your book addresses how dogs experience each of the senses in ways different from humans. How did you come to these conclusions?
I reviewed many other scientists' research into the sensory capacities of dogs -- from how they sniff, to how they see colors, to their sense of pressure and touch. They show that both quantitatively and qualitatively there are interesting differences between us and dogs (for instance, beagles have three hundred million scent receptors in their noses, compared to our six million). When these results are applied to the exercise of imaging what it might be like to be a dog, we come up with a picture that is quite distinct from the human view of the world.

Check out an excerpt from Inside of a Dog after the jump!