Customer Reviews

Dog Behaviour, Evolution, and Cognition (Oxford Biology)

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Excellent. Wonderful. Refreshing. Yes, I can understand how it could be described as a bit dry, but the book covers a lot of ground. Dryness versus cute stories? I think the approach taken by the author was refreshing. This was no 'I am the best trainer and do as I do' book. The book covers scientific literature on dogs and wolves. The book explains some of those studies often footnoted and referenced. The book describes area for future research. If you want to read about the current research on dogs and wolves in nearly all areas of research, buy this book. If you want to read an author's opinion and conjecture on cute doggie behavior, this is not the book for you.

Miklosi sees the big picture and recognizes that what we think we know about dog behavior is flawed and more research needs to be done. Scott- Fuller needs to be expanded upon and Pavlov needs to be looked at. Wolf behavior based training philosophy is flawed because of the way previous research was done. What is called babymorphism training philosophy needs more experiments. Miklosi calls "to develop behavioral models based on a different approach" Until this is done dog owners are on their own to devise their own ways to train and use dogs. That includes everything from using dogs as human food, in some cultures, to using dogs as child substitutes in other cultures.

The book is a wake up call to scientists around the world to accept the dog as a valid scientific research tool on behavior not as a animal behaviorally corrupted through domestication and living with humans. Living with humans dogs have found their niche.

Dog Behaviour, Evolution and Cognition is an outstanding achievement. It is primarily focused on the more recent cognitive work coming out of Hungary. The book makes an excellent compliment with Helton's Canine Ergonomics: The Science of Working Dogs. Together they'll give you immense insight into the minds of dogs. Both are scientifically rigorous, unlike many of the popular books written about the minds of dogs. No lore and legend, but real factual information.

The book is remarkably comprehensive, and up to date. For all humans interested in understanding the potential capabilities of their canine companions it is highly recommended. We've reviewed it sentnce by sentence and believe it is one of the best, if not indeed the very best currently available. Buy it and you can learn much new information!

Very interesting, scientifically sound, somewhat dry. Every time I read it I started to fall asleep.