How Dogs Think: Understanding the Canine Mind [Hardcover]

Stanley Coren (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 3, 2004

It's been said that dogs personify all the virtues of humans without the vices. Henry James wrote that his dog was "most reasonable and well-mannered" and Plato that "a dog has the soul of a philosopher." Over the years, dogs have taught us many things: loyalty, courage, and to turn around three times before lying down. Yet even in the face of millennia of evidence of thoughtful dogs, there has been little systematic scientific study until recently of what is actually going on in the dog's mind, and some people even question whether dogs have the capacity for that which we call mind. In this long-anticipated new book, written in the vein of his enormously popular "The Intelligence of Dogs" and "How to Speak Dog," Dr. Stanley Coren looks at both the heights of intellect and the depth of our misunderstanding of what goes on in a dog's mind.

A bestselling author, psychologist, and world-renowned expert on dog behavior and training, Dr. Coren is always at the forefront of discoveries about dogs. With his ever-entertaining, erudite style, he provides a fascinating picture of the way dogs interpret their world and their owners, how they solve problems, learn, and take in new information. Dr. Coren lets you see through a dog's eyes, hear through his ears, and even sense the world through a dog's nose, giving 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 occasionally display. Along the way, "How Dogs Think" will answer the questions about which you have always wondered, including: Can dogs count? Do they have an appreciation of art or music?Can a dog learn how to do something by just watching another dog or even a person do it? Do dogs dream? What is the nature of dog personality? Which behaviors are prewired into your dog and which can you actually change? And, can dogs sense future earthquakes or detect cancer?

With information not widely known to lay people, this lively guide also provides practical advice and wisdom that allows owners to discover the best ways to teach dogs new things, why punishment doesn't work, how a dog can actually learn to love or to fear, and how to turn that new puppy into a "perfect," emotionally sound, inquisitive, happy, and obedient dog.

Combining solid science with numerous funny, informative anecdotes and firsthand observations -- all characterized by Dr. Coren's own searching intelligence and his (and sometimes his dogs') irrepressible sense of humor -- "How Dogs Think" shatters many common myths and misconceptions about our four-legged friends and reveals a wealth of surprises about their mental abilities and intellectual potential.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Friendly, authoritative and firmly grounded in scientific evidence, Coren’s survey of canine biology and psychology will give readers a new appreciation of humankind’s best animal friend. A psychologist and dog expert, Coren has an amused sort of enthusiasm for all things doggish; he likes both funny stories about pooches and serious research that logically explains their behavior. The combination will be familiar to fans of his previous bestsellers, The Intelligence of Dogs and How to Speak Dog, and it works just as well in this new volume. Chapters like "I Sniff, Therefore I Am" and "The Wrinkled Mind" teach readers what makes the canine nose so incredibly sensitive, why dogs have special taste buds that are sensitized to water, what’s the difference between long and short growls, and why dogs like to sniff people in embarrassing spots. Dogs feel pain in similar ways to humans, Coren explains, but most cases of "dog ESP" or telepathy can be traced to sensitive hearing—or to humans’ desire to believe in doggy ESP. In a chapter on genetics, he shows how anxiety disorder can be passed from mom to litter. Other chapters cover breeding and training, and the book concludes with a complex examination of the science and philosophy of canine consciousness. Coren doesn’t dumb anything down but manages to make scientific information easy to understand—and he scatters practical tips for handling dogs at home throughout the text. This entertaining, well-researched book will please dog lovers of every stripe.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Dogs are the oldest domesticated animal and our most common household pet. With all this time and intimacy, what have we learned about how our closest companion animal thinks? Coren, a professor of psychology and recognized dog expert (How to Speak Dog [2000] and The Intelligence of Dogs [1995]) examines what is known about how the canine mind works. He investigates the effects of both genetics and learning on the behavior of dogs and the consequences of breeding for specific traits in purebreds and how this has changed their personalities. He is also the host of a weekly Canadian television show on dog behavior, and from this background he enlivens the text with human-dog anecdotes that illustrate his more scientific points. It is this combination of research (backed up with an extensive bibliography) and applicability, brought together with Coren's eminently readable style, that makes for a valuable book. Nancy Bent
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Free Press; 1st edition (August 3, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743222326
• ISBN-13: 978-0743222327
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #710,663 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #59 in Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Biological Sciences > Zoology > Animal Psychology

More About the Author

Stanley Coren, PhD, a professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia, is a recognized expert on dog-human interaction who has appeared on Dateline; The Oprah Winfrey Show; Good Morning, America; 20/20; Larry King Live; and many other TV and radio programs. He lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, with a beagle, a Cavalier King Charles spaniel, and a Nova Scotia duck-tolling retriever, as well as his wife and her cat.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thinking About Dogs Thinking Like Dogs Think, December 19, 2004

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R. Hardy "Rob Hardy" (Columbus, Mississippi USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: How Dogs Think: Understanding the Canine Mind (Hardcover)

In titling his book _How Dogs Think: Understanding the Canine Mind_ (The Free Press), Stanley Coren has already answered the big question. Dogs do think, or at least Coren thinks they think, and so do most of us who love and keep dogs. They don't think like humans all the time, but Coren, a professor of psychology, shows that they can often be tested like humans are tested (especially the young humans), and they are certainly doing some sort of thinking. They are not, any more than we are, automata made of biochemicals. In coming down on this point, Coren is entering a longstanding philosophical dispute, with the first shot fired by the seventeenth-century French philosopher René Descartes. While Plato had thought of the dog as a "lover of learning," Descartes refused to grant that dogs had any sort of intelligence. His refusal was an outgrowth of the strict religious doctrines of the time; anything that had consciousness had to have a soul, and those with souls could get to heaven, and Descartes and the Catholic Church found it unacceptable that dogs might get to heaven. (In the possibly unlikely event that I will wind up in that vicinity someday, and find no dogs, you can count on me to start an intense letter-writing campaign to have the management change its position on the issue.) To Descartes, dogs were no more thinkers than the clockwork dolls that were in fashion at the time; dogs were but clockwork, too, but their works were flesh and bone. And they could be taken apart like clocks; distressingly, Descartes and many others did experiments on helpless and unanaesthetized dogs, and didn't have to worry that the poor creatures actually felt anything more than a clock did.

That was the view for two centuries, and though it might be a minority view now, it is still held by some philosophers. Dog lovers will never accept such reasoning, of course, and Coren tells about experiments that help clear up the issue in a practical sphere. It has been shown that dogs who have to have surgery recover from the surgery better if they have pain management afterwards; they start eating and drinking sooner than those whose vets have skimped on the postoperative analgesics. Coren's book gives lots of experimental data, starting with the basics of senses, showing that dogs count less on vision and more on smell than we do, and exactly how well they can smell and see. It is no surprise that dogs can hear more frequencies than we can, but puppies have a sensory input unlike any of our own. Their noses have special infrared sensors, and they use them to find that reliable heat source, mother, during the time when they cannot see her. As they grow up, their noses lose this capacity.

There are many wonderful examples of testing being done on dogs that is similar to that being done on infants, tests that show comparable thinking to human two years olds. Coren considers the stories about how dogs are supposed to have some sort of ESP ability, and finds the stories just that, without scientific replicablility. In the final chapter, he gives the answer to the question of whether dogs really have conscious and rational minds, and though he has not in all the previous chapters answered it directly, his affirmation will come as no surprise. Dogs can remember objects, and do primitive counting, and remember sequences. They have an ability to empathize and to predict how other creatures will act. Despite previous studies that have shown the contrary, they can watch what another dog (or human) does and learn from it. They have a sense of fun. They can deliberately trick others. Coren obviously loves dogs, and loves his dogs, of whom he tells many anecdotes, but he has been careful to avoid "the scientific sin of anthropomorphism." When he tells you, say, that dogs have an ability to know what humans are thinking, it isn't just a besotted dog-lover talking, but one who can produce the research that demonstrates the truth of the proposition. He has performed a real service for the humans who will read his book and come away with new reasons to appreciate their dogs, and in clearly showing how dogs can think, he has paid a lasting compliment to our canine friends.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect for anyone with a new dog!, April 27, 2005

By 

Patti Rein "pattirein" (Chapel Hill, NC United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: How Dogs Think: Understanding the Canine Mind (Hardcover)

A friend gave us this book when we announced we were buying a new puppy.
It is the single best gift of it's sort I have ever recieved.

I admit to skimming over some of the info regarding studies, but the insights and tips on training your dog have been invaluable. It has helped particularly with calming Lily down when she goes into frenzy mode and with her unfortunate habit of taking books off the lower shelves to chew. Not to mention the insights into how she sees her world.

I cannot recommend this book strongly enough!
Within days of finishing it and seeing how well the advice here worked when I put it to use, I ordered The Intelligence of Dogs and How to Speak Dog and cannot wait to read them as well.

Many thanks to Stanley Coren for helping us to get off on the right foot with our new addition.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars So much stuff you don't know about your dog!, November 14, 2004

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Gerald Rade "Babel Fish" (Canada) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: How Dogs Think: Understanding the Canine Mind (Hardcover)

This book is amazing. Stanley Coren has deep love for dogs and thorough knowledge of them. While reading this book I was running from person to person calling out "Did you know that ...". I have read two other of his books and I love them all. I also love his TV show "Good Dog".
When talking about dogs I start all my sentences with "Stanley says ..." If you want to know more about your best friend, Stanley's books are where you will learn it.