Inside of a Dog by Alexandra Horowitz.

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."
-Groucho Marx.


This book was pretty good, but not for the reasons you'd expect. I'm not gonna say I didn't learn some stuff. But what I really enjoyed was the style. This is a woman who is passionate about her love of animals.

She narrated chapters based on the perspective of her personal dog. (Personal dog... I like the way that sounds. I'm leaving it. Just sayin'.) It gets pretty technical at times and

  she references  “anyone who wants to understand the life of an animal must begin by considering what he called their umwelt . . . : their subjective or ‘self-world.’ ”

I also really liked how she explained the technical differences between the actual perception of a human and a dog by both fairly straightforward scientifically based comparison and more poetic comparisons, like the experience of a rose to a human versus the experience of a rose to a dog. There are obviously other instances, such as the difference between our style vision and theirs, but you know. I'm not gonna go on all night.


She also refuses to accept the Cesar Milan Dog Whisperer style school of "accepted" knowledge that dogs are pack animals and therefore the way to gain their respect is to become the Alpha of all Alphas. She points out that being domesticated has separated dogs from their more wild bretheren, such as wolves, and creates unites that are more cooperative and family-like than constant competition and vying for top spot.


There were times when she tried too hard not to be overly scientific and other times where I really loved the off the wall details she threw in.


Either way. Pretty good book.