A powerful new theory of human nature suggests that our secret to success as a species is our unique friendliness. For most of the approximately 300,000 years that Homo sapiens have existed, we have shared the planet with at least four other types of humans. All of these were smart, strong, and inventive. But around 50,000 years ago, Homo sapiens made a cognitive leap that gave us an edge over other species. What happened?

Have you ever wondered what your dogs are thinking? What they're feeling? Now you can finally know! The answers will surprise and delight you as scientist and dog owner Alexandra Horowitz explains how our four-legged friends perceive their daily worlds, each other, and that other quirky animal, the human.

Cat Warren is a university professor and former journalist with an admittedly odd hobby: She and her German shepherd have spent the last seven years searching for the dead. Solo is a cadaver dog. What started as a way to harness Solo’s unruly energy and enthusiasm soon became a calling that introduced Warren to the hidden and fascinating universe of working dogs, their handlers, and their trainers.

The Other End of the Leash shares a revolutionary new perspective on our relationship with dogs, focusing on our behavior in comparison with that of dogs. An applied animal behaviorist and dog trainer with more than 20 years of experience, Dr. Patricia McConnell looks at humans as just another interesting species, and muses about why we behave the way we do around our dogs, how dogs might interpret our behavior, and how to interact with our dogs in ways that bring out the best in them.

This book explores the fascinating science of operant conditioning, where science and dog training meet. How Dogs Learn discusses the basic principles of behavior and how they can be used to teach your dog new skills, diagnose problems, and eliminate unwanted behaviors. It's for anyone who wants to better understand the learning process in dogs. Every concept is laid out clearly and precisely, and its relevance to your dog and how you train is explained.

Through abundant stories and case studies, the authors reveal how canine nature manifests itself in various behaviors, some potentially disruptive to domestic accord, and show how in addressing these behaviors you can strengthen the bond with your dog as well as keep the peace. The promise of this book is that, especially in an ever-accelerating world filled with digital distractions, you can learn from your dog's example how to live in the moment, thereby enriching your life immeasurably.

How Dogs Love Us answers the age-old question of dog lovers everywhere and offers profound new evidence that dogs should be treated as we would treat our best human friends: with love, respect, and appreciation for their social and emotional intelligence.

The Forever Dog gives us the practical, proven tools to protect our loyal four-legged companions. Rodney Habib and Karen Becker, DVM, globetrotted (pre-pandemic) to galvanize the best wisdom from top geneticists, microbiologists, and longevity researchers; they also interviewed people whose dogs have lived into their 20s and even 30s. The result is this unprecedented and comprehensive guide, filled with surprising information, invaluable advice, and inspiring stories about dogs and the people who love them.

The truth is that your dog is communicating with you all the time, but unless you know the signs, you aren't picking up on what your dog wants you to know. Louise Glazebrook is a dog behaviourist, trainer and television presenter who specialises in teaching people how to understand and connect with their dogs. In The Book Your Dog Wishes You Would Read, Louise tackles everything from bringing the right dog home, understanding body language and breed behaviour, responding to common behavioural issues, to the toys and games that you and your dog will both love.

Best-selling author, psychologist, and world-renowned expert on dog behavior and training Dr. Stanley Coren presents the most informative, in-depth, fascinating book yet on dogs. Acclaimed for its solid scientific research and entertaining, eminently accessible style, How Dogs Think gives you the insight that you need to understand the silly, quirky, and apparently irrational behaviors that dogs demonstrate, as well as those stunning flashes of brilliance and creativity that they also can display.

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 our 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.

An incredible, revolutionary true story, How Stella Learned to Talk is also a surprisingly simple guide to teaching your dog to talk from speech-language pathologist Christina Hunger, who has taught her dog, Stella, to communicate using simple paw-sized buttons associated with different words.

Renowned canine expert Patricia McConnell answers the questions of dog lovers everywhere. Do dogs have emotions like we do? More to the point, does my dog love me? Sharing riveting dog stories from her experiences, Dr. McConnell also offers accessible science that clues listeners in to what's going on behind those puppy dog eyes.

Tucked away in Siberia, there are furry, four-legged creatures with wagging tails and floppy ears that are as docile and friendly as any lapdog. But, despite appearances, these are not dogs - they are foxes. They are the result of the most astonishing experiment in breeding ever undertaken - imagine speeding up thousands of years of evolution into a few decades. In 1959, biologists Dmitri Belyaev and Lyudmila Trut set out to do just that, by starting with a few dozen silver foxes from fox farms in the USSR and attempting to recreate the evolution of wolves into dogs in real time.

With On Talking Terms With Dogs, you can learn to recognize these signals and use them yourself to interact with your dog. Norwegian dog trainer and behaviorist Turid Rugaas has made it her life work to study canine social interaction. She coined the phrase calming signals to describe the social skills, sometimes referred to as body language, that dogs use to avoid conflict, invite play, and communicate a wide range of information to other dogs and also humans.

Dogs have been mankind's faithful companions for tens of thousands of years, yet today they are regularly treated as either pack-following wolves or furry humans. The truth is, dogs are neither - and our misunderstanding has put them in serious crisis. What dogs really need is a spokesperson, someone who will assert their specific needs.

In a conversational Q&A format, a leading dog expert answers the most commonly asked questions about how dogs think and act. Do dogs dream? Can they recognize themselves in the mirror or understand what they’re seeing on television? Are they more intelligent than cats? People have a great curiosity - and many misunderstandings - about how dogs think, act, and perceive the world. They also wonder about the social and emotional lives of dogs. Stanley Coren brings decades of scientific research on dogs to bear in his unprecedented foray into the inner lives of our canine companions, dispelling many common myths in the process.

Tucked away in Siberia, there are furry, four-legged creatures with wagging tails and floppy ears that are as docile and friendly as any lapdog. But, despite appearances, these are not dogs - they are foxes. They are the result of the most astonishing experiment in breeding ever undertaken - imagine speeding up thousands of years of evolution into a few decades. In 1959, biologists Dmitri Belyaev and Lyudmila Trut set out to do just that, by starting with a few dozen silver foxes from fox farms in the USSR and attempting to recreate the evolution of wolves into dogs in real time.

Cats have been popular household pets for thousands of years, and their numbers only continue to rise. Today there are three cats for every dog on the planet, and yet cats remain more mysterious, even to their most adoring owners. In Cat Sense, renowned anthrozoologist John Bradshaw takes us further into the mind of the domestic cat than ever before, using cutting-edge scientific research to explain the true nature - and needs - of our feline friends. Tracing the cat’s evolution from solitary hunter to domesticated companion, Bradshaw shows that cats remain independent, predatory, and wary of social contact.

Temple Grandin’s professional training as an animal scientist and her history as a person with autism have given her a perspective like that of no other expert in the field. Grandin and coauthor Catherine Johnson present their powerful theory that autistic people can often think the way animals think—putting autistic people in the perfect position to translate “animal talk.”

Dogs are the most social animals on the planet, second only to humans in their ability to read and understand emotion. Even chimps and bonobos, our closest genetic relatives, are no match for dogs when it comes to social cognition. Jennifer Arnold understands this better than anyone, having spent the past 25 years training service dogs for people with disabilities at Canine Assistants. She is a pioneer in the emerging field of "bond-based" dog training.

Imagine raising an orphaned bear cub, carefully reintroducing her to the wild, then being welcomed back, almost daily, to observe her wild world for more than 17 years. Imagine visiting her in her feeding spots, watching her with her mates and her young, peering into her den, and, over time, observing the lives of all the other wild bears in her territory and surrounding ones. That is what happened to Ben Kilham.

Steven Kotler was 40 years old, single, and facing an existential crisis when he met Lila, a woman devoted to animal rescue. "Love me, love my dogs" was her rule, and Steven took it to heart. Spurred to move by a housing crisis in Los Angeles, Steven, Lila, and their eight dogs - then 10, then 20, and then they lost count - bought a postage-stamp-size farm in Chimayo, New Mexico....

An intimate, surprising look at man's best friend and what the leading philosophies of dog training teach us about ourselves. Years back, Melissa Holbrook Pierson brought home a border collie named Mercy, without a clue of how to get her to behave. Stunned after hiring a trainer whose immediate rapport with Mercy seemed magical, Pierson began delving into the techniques of positive reinforcement.

Is it really human nature to stab one another in the back in our climb up the corporate ladder? Competitive, selfish behavior is often explained away as instinctive, thanks to evolution and "survival of the fittest", but in fact, humans are equally hard-wired for empathy. Using research from the fields of anthropology, psychology, animal behavior, and neuroscience, Frans de Waal brilliantly argues that humans are group animals.

New research indicates that crows are among the brightest animals in the world. And professor of Wildlife Science at the University of Washington John Marzluff has done some of the most extraordinary research on crows, which has been featured in the New York Times, National Geographic, and the Chicago Tribune, as well as on NPR and PBS. Now he teams up with artist and fellow naturalist Tony Angell to offer an in-depth look at these incredible creatures - in a book that is brimming with surprises.

We have long attributed man's violent, aggressive, competitive nature to his animal ancestry. But what if we are just as given to cooperation, empathy, and morality by virtue of our genes? What if our behavior actually makes us apes? What kind of apes are we?

Birds are highly intelligent animals, yet their intelligence is dramatically different from our own and has been little understood. As we learn more about the secrets of bird life, we are unlocking fascinating insights into memory, relationships, game theory, and the nature of intelligence itself. The Thing with Feathers explores the astonishing homing abilities of pigeons, the good deeds of fairy-wrens, the influential flocking abilities of starlings, the deft artistry of bowerbirds, the extraordinary memories of nutcrackers, and other mysteries.

When Bronwen Dickey brought her new dog home, she saw no traces of the infamous viciousness in her affectionate, timid pit bull. Which made her wonder: How had the breed - beloved by Teddy Roosevelt, Helen Keller, and TV's Little Rascals - come to be known as a brutal fighter? Her search for answers takes her from 19th-century New York City dogfighting pits - the cruelty of which drew the attention of the recently formed ASPCA - to early 20th-century movie sets where pit bulls cavorted with Fatty Arbuckle and Buster Keaton.

In Team Dog, Mike taps into fifteen years' worth of experience and shares, in accessible and direct language, the science behind the importance of gaining a dog's trust. He also offers invaluable steps for achieving any level of obedience. His unique approach incorporates entertaining examples and anecdotes from his work with dogs on and off the battlefield and tips from the Navy SEAL guidebook.

What does it take to raise a great dog? This was the question that husband-and-wife team Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods hoped to answer when they enrolled one hundred and one puppies in the Duke Puppy Kindergarten. With the help of a retired service dog named Congo, Brian, Vanessa, and their team set out to understand the secrets of the puppy mind: What factors might predict whether a puppy will grow up to change someone’s life?

A powerful new theory of human nature suggests that our secret to success as a species is our unique friendliness. For most of the approximately 300,000 years that Homo sapiens have existed, we have shared the planet with at least four other types of humans. All of these were smart, strong, and inventive. But around 50,000 years ago, Homo sapiens made a cognitive leap that gave us an edge over other species. What happened?

Have you ever wondered what your dogs are thinking? What they're feeling? Now you can finally know! The answers will surprise and delight you as scientist and dog owner Alexandra Horowitz explains how our four-legged friends perceive their daily worlds, each other, and that other quirky animal, the human.

Every dog lover knows the feeling. The nuzzle of a dog’s nose, the warmth of them lying at our feet, even their whining when they want to get up on the bed. It really seems like our dogs love us, too. But for years, scientists have resisted that conclusion, warning against anthropomorphizing our pets. Enter Clive Wynne, a pioneering canine behaviorist whose research is helping to usher in a new era: one in which love, not intelligence or submissiveness, is at the heart of the human-canine relationship.

With On Talking Terms With Dogs, you can learn to recognize these signals and use them yourself to interact with your dog. Norwegian dog trainer and behaviorist Turid Rugaas has made it her life work to study canine social interaction. She coined the phrase calming signals to describe the social skills, sometimes referred to as body language, that dogs use to avoid conflict, invite play, and communicate a wide range of information to other dogs and also humans.

This book explores the fascinating science of operant conditioning, where science and dog training meet. How Dogs Learn discusses the basic principles of behavior and how they can be used to teach your dog new skills, diagnose problems, and eliminate unwanted behaviors. It's for anyone who wants to better understand the learning process in dogs. Every concept is laid out clearly and precisely, and its relevance to your dog and how you train is explained.

Being a Dog is a scientifically rigorous book that presents cutting-edge research with literary flair. Revealing such surprising facts as panting dogs cannot smell to explaining how dogs tell time by detecting lingering smells, Horowitz covers the topic of noses - both canine and human - from curious and always fascinating angles. As we come to understand how rich, complex, and exciting the world around us appears to a dog's sense of smell, we can begin to better appreciate it through our own.

We keep dogs and are kept by them. We love dogs and (we assume) we are loved by them. We buy them sweaters, toys, shoes; we are concerned with their social lives, their food, and their health. The story of humans and dogs is thousands of years old but is far from understood. In Our Dogs, Ourselves, Alexandra Horowitz explores all aspects of this unique and complex relationship that “dog lovers will savor and absorb” (Shelf Awareness). As Horowitz considers the current culture of dogdom, she reveals the odd, surprising, and contradictory ways we live with dogs.

More than 90 percent of dog owners consider their pets to be members of their family. But often, despite our best intentions, we are letting our dogs down by not giving them the guidance and direction they need. Unwanted behavior is the number-one reason dogs are relinquished to shelters and rescue groups. The key to training dogs effectively is first to understand why our dogs do what they do. And no one can address this more authoritatively than the diplomates of the American College of Veterinary Behaviorists.

How Dogs Love Us answers the age-old question of dog lovers everywhere and offers profound new evidence that dogs should be treated as we would treat our best human friends: with love, respect, and appreciation for their social and emotional intelligence.