The Year of the Puppy: How Dogs Become Themselves
Book by Alexandra Horowitz
DETAILS
Publisher : Viking (September 20, 2022) Language : English Hardcover : 320 pages ISBN-10 : 0593298004 ISBN-13 : 978-0593298008 Item Weight : 1.14 pounds Dimensions : 6.15 x 1.08 x 9.3 inches Best Sellers Rank: #8,461 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #8 in Dog Training (Books) #260 in Memoirs (Books) , “What Mr. Rogers was to children, Alexandra Horowitz is to dogs: 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. Read more
REVIEW
Long on sentiment. I'm a semi-retired doctor grounded in biology, behavior, and scientific observation. I have had canine companions for 70 years, including 3 litters of pups; presently with a companionable pack of five unique individuals- 3 raised from rescue puppies, one older adult rescue, and the love of my life late adolescent "raised" from birth. I foster frequent "walk-ons" to my rural property for two agencies. I've raised individual chicks who were playful with dogs and lap sat for petting. The unique historical relationship between humans and first, wolves, and later selectively bred descendants, has been an enjoyable mystery to contemplate, enjoy, and try to understand. My readings on animal behavior go back decades, and I have enjoyed the swing from fear of anthropomorphism to modern acceptance of varying degrees of a similar emotional spectrum among all species. Animal activists have sensitized us to the sentience and intelligence of our food sources (#Temple Grandin) although I somewhat shamefully enjoy veal, foie gras, and venison. This book is a welcome addition to my dog library, written in a poetic style. The first half is more observation and personal feelings than hard science. I almost abandoned it there as it gave me little new information. It did confirm my opinion that a human-puppy relationship was on the order of a human romantic one, an evolving understanding, communication efforts, and compromises, hopefully ending with at least a steady state of acceptance and even respect for differences and foibles, the best case being ever-increasing love and mutual dependence. The second half has more science, and I especially enjoyed the sections on doggy sex and adolescence. Wolf artificial insemination using an electric ejaculator- you can't make that stuff up. The adolescence material was helpful with my own adolescent two year old. The frequent comparisons between puppies and human infants seemed irrelevant considering the differing developmental biology. Don't miss the National Geographic Genius of Dogs special edition, my other dog book for this year.
DOWNLOAD PAGE
留言列表
