The Truth About Dogs: The Ancestry, Social Conventions, Mental Habits and Moral Fibre of Canis familiaris - Hardcover

Stephen Budiansky holds that virtually everything previously written about dogs is either wrong or misguided. Instead he maintains that to understand the true nature of dogs we need to stop interpreting their behaviour in the human terms of loyalty and betrayal. We think we understand how our dog makes sense of the world, that we know what he feels, what he wants and why he wants it because so much of what he does is familiar. But this familiarity can fool us. The truth is far more complex and surprising. Canine behaviour has its roots in the wolf pack, so a society that places a premium on staying out of trouble. Wolves - and, by extension, dogs - know their place in the social order and give way to superiors to avoid conflict. In other words, they are very good at working out what is necessary and doing it. But there is more to canine behaviour than evolution and survival. The Dog Genome Project is currently laying the groundwork for identifying the genetic basis of why our dogs behave in the way they do. Other research investigates canine intelligence, and some remarkable experiments reveal what dogs can and cannot see. Budiansky brings together the disciplines of behavioural science, genetics, neuroscience and archaeology to show us how wrong we have been about man's best friend.

Stephen Budiansky, scientist, author, journalist and dog lover, is a correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly. He has written about science and nature for many publications, including the Economist, Science and the New York Times, and is a former Washington Editor of Nature. He lives with his wife and two children on a small farm in Virginia.