on handedness in dogs:
P. McGreevy, personal communication.
on training:
See McGreevy and Boakes, 2007, for some ideas.
on preference for the new:
Kaulfuss and Mills, 2008.
on dog gaits:
Brown, 1986.
"colors one"s thinking about it forever afterwards": So said George Schaller, whose many books are full of named animals. Quoted in Lehner, P. 1996. Handbook of ethological methods, Handbook of ethological methods, 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 231. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 231.
on zebra-finch leg-band preferences:
Burley, N. 1988. Wild zebra finches have band colour preferences. Animal Animal Behaviour, 36, Behaviour, 36, 12351237. 12351237.
Acknowledgments.
Of the following dogs:
No one who knew Pumpernickel will be surprised that my most ardent thanks go to her, for choosing us at the shelter and for allowing me the incredible pleasure of knowing her. I have thanked her many times since, with cheese taking over where words failed me. Thanks to Finnegan, for being his own dog, and for being such an utterly doggish dog. Every day is improved to have him come running madly toward me. Thanks to the dogs of yore: to Aster, who endured a lot of childhood foolishness and taught me how to be less foolish; to Chester, who could grin and growl at the same time; to Beckett and Heidi, who in death highlighted what is precious; and to Barnaby, who in catness highlighted what is dog. Of the following people: Of the following people:
One hears that books are difficult to write. If so, this is not a book, for it was a delight to write, as it is delightful to observe and be with dogs and think dog-thoughts full-time. I was even more pleased that I would be handing the book over to the people at Scribner, whom I could count on to make my bagful of chapters into an actual book. I am indebted to Colin Harrison for his tireless reading of drafts and for being open to just about anything. Had I turned a book about dogs into one about cats I suspect Colin would have acceded to it ... as long as it was still a good read. Many thanks to Susan Moldow for her enthusiasm from the very beginning.
Before I had an agent I scanned acknowledgments pages for those that included words that would send me scurrying to shine up a proposal to their agents. Sorry, Kris Dahl, in advance, for this: she is the very person you want representing you and your book; and I thank her.
My graduate school advisors and mentors, Shirley Strum and Jeff Elman, were willing to consider how an abstruse theoretical question about cognition could be addressed by observations of dogs-and they improved the theory and the practice. I was and am still appreciative. Thanks to Aaron Cicourel, who is also, as he says, one of those folks who try to saw through wood the hard way. Marc Bekoff was one of the first to treat dog play as biologically interesting. It was his writing (with the very keen Colin Allen), and later his advice, devotion, and friendship that led me to pursue my own research.
I owe thanks to Damon Horowitz, with whom I hatched the plan to write this book, and who seemed to believe that it was a sage and realistic idea. His consummate skepticism about all matters is balanced by his unfettered support of all that matters to me. I owe pretty much everything to my parents, Elizabeth and Jay. They were the first people I wanted to show the book to, for all the right reasons. As
for you, Ammon Shea: you make me better with words, you make me better with dogs, and you make me better.
Index
abstraction, 25354 adaptation, 3132, 7071 addictive behavior, 5354 adoption of dogs, 47, 65, 262n, 26667, 294, 301 adrenaline, 80 affection, dog kisses and, 2931 Afghan hound, 49, 127 age in dog years, 222n hearing decline with, 93n knowledge of death, 23537 in wolf hierarchies, 40, 5859 aggression body language showing, 10910, 112 dachshunds and, 53n designation in dogs, 5255 in domestication process, 35 eye contact and, 147, 14849 hormones and, 172 play versus, 5, 6165, 270 sounds made and, 102 touch and, 293 of wolves, 59 agility training, 288 agonistic, 102 Aibo robot dog, 276 akinetopsia, 132 Alex (parrot), 145n allelomimetic behavior, 27479 Allen, Woody, 26465 American Kennel Club, 49, 50 American Staffordshire terrier, 53n a.n.a.l sacs, 8485, 112, 117
animal cognition, 47 antic.i.p.ation in, 16672 attention in, 14459, 29091 att.i.tudes toward studying dogs, 34, 67 begging experiments, 15557 big-brain hypothesis and, 89 learned optimism and pessimism, 2728 play in, 196205 primates as subjects of, 45, 102n subjective experiences of dogs, 24158 theory of mind and, 19096 video cameras and, 56 what dogs know, 21041 see also communication; physical cognition; social cognition; training communication; physical cognition; social cognition; training animistic, 102n anosmia, 72 anthropomorphism adaptiveness of, 3132 behavior-reading versus, 1819, 2628, 3132 clothing for dogs, 1719, 29, 56 history, 15 scientific att.i.tude toward, 34 temperament and, 4748 training and, 5761 umwelt and, 1417, 23, 3132, 263n, 29496 antibiotics, 85, 86 antic.i.p.ating behavior, 16672 antidepressants, 16 ant.i.thesis, 110, 112 area centralis, 127 artificial odors, 2526, 69, 71, 72, 86, 292 artificial selection, 6, 3537, 41 a.s.sistance dogs, 43, 13435, 152, 162, 240, 274 a.s.sociative learning (a.s.sociations), 1011, 16768, 182, 225, 23233, 289 attachment of dogs, 4243, 6365 greeting and, 43, 27172 of human infants, 43
of socialized wolves, 6364
attacks, in rough-and-tumble play, 12, 24, 62, 19698, 200, 202, 2056, 221 attention, 13959 of animals, 14459, 29091 avoiding, 143, 144 baited buckets and, 15051 defined, 139 to dogs, 29091 joint, 58 manipulating attention, 143, 15558 to our behavior, 14041 in play, 15253, 199205 "psychic powers" of animals, 16372 to sounds around you, 25152 stages in child development, 14144 types of, 139, 14244 see also attention-getter; eye contact attention-getter; eye contact attention-getter bark, 98, 1058, 152, 153, 154, 171 b.u.mp, 152 exaggerated retreat, 203 in-your-face, 152, 200, 203 kinds of, 15253, 199200 matching level of inattention, 203 pawing, 152 used in play, 15253, 199205 audition auditory attention, 139 changes in, 169 importance of, 122 range of hearing in dogs, 92, 9394 range of hearing in humans, 2122, 2324, 9294 in rats, 28 ultrasonic sounds, 91, 93, 24143 see also sounds made sounds made Australian shepherd, 53 autism lack of eye contact in, 140, 192
theory of mind and, 192
use of dogs to read behavior, 162 autobiographies, pet, 119, 22527
baboons animal cognition research on, 4 eyebrows raised in display, 16 baby talk, 9596 ball dogs, 12632, 154, 287 barks as communication, 98, 1058, 152, 153, 154, 171 contagious, 108 decibels of, 105 frequencies of, 1056, 1078 types of, 9899, 100, 1068 see also attention-getter; sounds made attention-getter; sounds made basenji, 50 ba.s.set hound, 7778 bathing dogs, 8586, 292 baths, 19, 86 bats echolocation of, 91, 24143 flehmen, 74 beagle, 49, 71, 72 bears, birth of, 6465 beastomorphism, 60 beds dog, 2526, 86 human, 2526 bees, 91, 215 begging in dogs, 15556 experimental trials using, 15557
behavioral science
animal cognition research in, 45, 1314, 2728, 102n operant conditioning and, 1011, 18990
Bekoff, Marc, 23738 Belgian Tervuren, 19395
belly, exposing, 110 Belyaev, Dmitry, 3537 big-brain hypothesis, 89, 44 bike-chasing, 17071 biophilia hypothesis (Wilson), 265n bird dogs, 43, 49, 54 biting games based on, 42 meanings of, 6263 muzzle biting, 1819
bitter taste, 30 bladders, 6061, 83, 115, 116
blind persons, dog companions for, 43, 13435, 152, 162, 274 bloodhound, olfaction in tracking, 7778 blue t.i.t, milk-bottle raiding of, 185 see also imitation imitation body language, 91, 10814, 118 bonding components of, 26679 cross-species, 25982 dog-human, 25982 of domesticated silver foxes, 37 greeting ritual and, 29, 3031, 26364, 27173 impact of bond effect, 27982 mutual responsiveness in, 26366, 27479 pair bond, 26061 proximate/ultimate explanations for, 26566 temporal patterns and, 27479 touch and, 26671, 293 bon.o.bos, 45, 145n border collie, 48, 9697, 98 boredom, 21617, 28889 see also time, experience of time, experience of Bouvier des Flandres, 50 boxer, 51 brain anatomy of olfaction and, 7175 anatomy of vision and, 125, 12632
big-brain hypothesis, 89, 44
breathing sounds, 103 breeds, dog, 4755 American Kennel Club, 49, 50 ancient, 4849 categories of, 4952 characteristic traits of, 40, 42n, 4752, 112, 114, 12728, 287 closed gene pool of, 5052 development of, 40, 4849 differences in development, 4748 "dog fancy" shows, 49n genomes of, 5052 modern, 4950 mutts versus, 294 physical range, 4344 purebred, 4950, 51, 71 selective breeding, 40 threshold differences between, 5255 briard, 50 bulldog, 114 bull terrier, 5 b.u.mblebees, use of time, 215 b.u.mps, 152 butyric acid, 2021, 79
caching behavior, 210n, 226, 227, 227n Cairn terrier, 50 camouflage, 123 cancer, detection of, 8182 see also olfaction olfaction Canidae family, 34, 38, 8284 family, 34, 38, 8284 cats attention in, 145 fetch and, 277 flehmen, 74 Cavalier King Charles spaniel, 114 character-reading, 16870 chasing behaviors, 16971
chatter, 103 chickadees, 185 see also imitation imitation chickens, spatial preferences of, 1617 Chihuahua, 12, 124, 2056 children attention-getting in, 152, 153, 234 autism and, 140, 162, 192 developmental stages, 43, 14144, 146, 16263 epileptic seizure prediction in, 82n fear of strange dogs and, 7980 gaze bias of, 148n guilt and, 230, 234 hearing abilities of, 93n overimitation by, 188, 188n rescue dogs and, 23739 theory of mind, 19293, 218, 23435 see also infants, human infants, human
chimpanzees
animal cognition research on, 45, 102n, 145, 147, 148, 15051, 157, 193 begging experiments with, 156 big-brain hypothesis and, 89 contagious yawns and, 280 human evolution and, 6162, 62n "mark" test of self-awareness, 21819, 220 smile of, 16 chow chow, 3, 50 cilia, smell and, 71, 74 circadian rhythms, 88, 21215, 22728 see also time, experience of time, experience of cities and city design grid-based, 8687 human visual perception and, 13637 life of urban dogs, 163, 28385 in odor control, 8687 paving, 8687 personal s.p.a.ce and, 17 sounds and, 25152
street filth and, 56, 295
Clever Hans, 16366 clicker training, 256n see also training training cloned dogs, 52 clothing anthropomorphism and, 1719, 29, 56 dog height and, 24445 odors on, 71, 7576, 77, 78, 85, 244 raincoats for dogs, 1719
coats for dogs, 1719
cognition. see see animal cognition; physical cognition; social cognition animal cognition; physical cognition; social cognition collie, 48, 9697, 98 color vision, 12829, 250, 252 see also vision vision
commands, 60, 96, 15758, 17172, 231, 231n