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Dog Is Love: Why and How Your Dog Loves You Hardcover – September 24, 2019
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“Lively and fascinating... The reader comes away cheered, better informed, and with a new and deeper appreciation for our amazing canine companions and their enormous capacity for love.”—Cat Warren, New York Times best-selling author of What the Dog Knows
Does your dog love you?
Every dog lover knows the feeling. The nuzzle of a dog’s nose, the warmth of them lying at our feet, even their whining when they want to get up on the bed. It really seems like our dogs love us, too. But for years, scientists have resisted that conclusion, warning against anthropomorphizing our pets. Enter Clive Wynne, a pioneering canine behaviorist whose research is helping to usher in a new era: one in which love, not intelligence or submissiveness, is at the heart of the human-canine relationship. Drawing on cutting-edge studies from his lab and others around the world, Wynne shows that affection is the very essence of dogs, from their faces and tails to their brains, hormones, even DNA. This scientific revolution is revealing more about dogs’ unique origins, behavior, needs, and hidden depths than we ever imagined possible.
A humane, illuminating book, Dog Is Love is essential reading for anyone who has ever loved a dog—and experienced the wonder of being loved back.
- Print length272 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherMariner Books
- Publication dateSeptember 24, 2019
- Dimensions6.25 x 1 x 9.25 inches
- ISBN-10132854396X
- ISBN-13978-1328543967
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“Lively and fascinating, Dog Is Love reveals a simple and yet enormously profound insight: Dogs are unique because they love us. The reader comes away cheered, better informed, and with a new and deeper appreciation for our amazing canine companions and their enormous capacity for love.” —Cat Warren, New York Times best-selling author of What the Dog Knows “Clive Wynne is a thoughtful and clever canine cognition researcher; here, he tells the story of his, and his students’, particular journey through researching this intellectual puzzle: how are dogs so perfectly suited to our species? As a child, a dog’s love is certain; as a researcher, talking of dog ‘love’ is verboten. Clive gets through that and comes back to where he’s begun, with a dog happily rushing to greet him when he comes home.” —Alexandra Horowitz, New York Times best-selling author of Inside of a Dog and Our Dogs, Ourselves “A beautiful ode to all things canine. Clive Wynne gives us the best scientific proof that dogs really do love us.” —Gregory Berns, author of How Dogs Love Us “Riveting. Part memoir, part scientific detective story, and part call to action, this book will change the way you look at dogs.” —Hal Herzog, author of Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It’s So Hard To Think Straight About Animals “An unforgettable glimpse into the heart and soul of this cherished species, Dog Is Love shows how our emotional bond with dogs holds the key to understanding and caring for them.” —Marty Becker, “America’s Veterinarian” and founder of FearFreePets.com “How do you know if your dog loves you? Are dogs really capable of feeling love, or do they only want the food and safety you provide? Clive Wynne answers these questions and more in Dog Is Love, revealing new, compelling evidence that explains the incredible relationship we have with our dogs. If you want to better understand and build an even stronger bond with your own dog, this book is a must read.” —Victoria Stilwell, author of The Secret Language of Dogs “Science finally reveals the dog’s secret: the unique capacity for love that separates them from all other animals. Superb.” —John Bradshaw, New York Times best-selling author of Dog Sense “Entertaining . . . Dog lovers will be fascinated and the takeaway message that ‘we can do better for our dogs,’ by keeping in mind that dogs feel a meaningful emotional connection to their human owners and thus should be treated respectfully and considerately, is solidly supported.” —Publishers Weekly “For any scientifically inclined dog lover, this will be a fascinating read.” —Booklist “[A] pleasingly garrulous and jocular report from the front lines of canine research . . . A good mix of science and emotion, recommended for dog lovers everywhere.” —Kirkus Reviews "After reading this book, readers may not perceive their relationship with their dog in the same way. Engagingly written and understandable by general audiences, this is a worthy addition to any pet lover's library.” —Library Journal —
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Mariner Books; Illustrated edition (September 24, 2019)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 272 pages
- ISBN-10 : 132854396X
- ISBN-13 : 978-1328543967
- Item Weight : 1.1 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.25 x 1 x 9.25 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #102,789 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #244 in Evolution (Books)
- #345 in Dog Care
- #2,128 in Medical Psychology
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

CLIVE D.L. WYNNE, Ph.D., is the founding director of the Canine Science Collaboratory at Arizona State University. Previously, he was founding director of the Canine Cognition and Behavior Laboratory at the University of Florida, the first lab of its kind in the United States. A native of the United Kingdom, Wynne has lived and worked in Germany and Australia as well as the United States and gives frequent talks to audiences around the world. The author of several academic books and of more than 100 peer-reviewed scientific journal articles that count among the most highly cited studies on dog psychology, he has also published pieces in Psychology Today, New Scientist, and the New York Times, and has appeared in several television documentaries about dog science on National Geographic Explorer, PBS, and the BBC. He lives in Tempe, Arizona.
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Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonReviewed in the United States on October 12, 2019
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Look at this passage, which is typical:
"In June 2011 I had the good fortune to visit their research facilities. I have to confess I was quite jealous of their setup. Kikusui has a special building dedicated to dog research, with facilities not just for behavioral study but also for hormonal analysis. But what really made me envious was that they are allowed to bring their dogs from home into the lab with them. When I visited Kikusui and his colleagues in his office, we shared the room with his three standard poodles."
OK. While nothing here is egregious, it adds up when every page reads like this. It's clear that the sentences could be tightened and the paragraph shortened with no cost to meaning, personality, or tone. Over and over in the book--I almost said novel, as it sometimes reads like one, with a first-person narrator--we get Wynne's response to situations, or his own dog's, or unnecessary references like to his "good fortune." It's wearing.
The book--and its readers, who might like to go back to reference certain sections for their own interest or use--would benefit mightily from the addition of section and subsection titles within chapters. I certainly would.
I also disagree with one of the author’s conclusions. While the “love” gene may, indeed, predispose dogs to form strong loving relationships with humans, the author continually repeats that this predisposition is unique to dogs: “Their [dogs'] capacity for love distinguishes them from every other animal on the planet.” I owned a pet lovebird for 15 years that suggests this simply isn't the case.
I found my lovebird in my neighbor’s backyard when I was a teenager. The bird was a fully grown adolescent, so while young, I did not rear him. The neighbors tried to capture the bird with no success. But to their amazement, when I tried, he hopped right onto my finger and came right into the house. I fed him immediately with wild birdseed on the kitchen table, which he voraciously ate. I was on the phone trying to procure a cage and other supplies of which I was in sudden need and was resting my arm on the kitchen table. Without warning, once the bird had his fill of seed, he jumped onto my hand and began to run up my forearm. I was startled, thinking he was in attack mode heading for my head. Instead, he was in cuddle mode, heading for the crook of my elbow where he immediately nuzzled himself. It was an instant bond.
This bird was never caged during the day. But in the dark of night, he would sleep only by wedging himself between the solid plastic roof of his cage and a makeshift perch tied near the top of the cage. The cage door was never closed, and once the room lightened in the morning, he would exit the cage and fly over to me in bed, sleeping the rest of the morning nuzzled under my chin. There were only two nights of his entire life when he didn’t sleep at the top of his cage. The first was when he was very sick with a severe sinus infection, including an eye swollen nearly twice its size. I truly feared he would not make it through the night. After I put him in his open cage to sleep, he waited until I was settled in bed, then he came back out in the dark, found his way to me, and slept the entire night between my chin and pillow. The second time was when I had my four wisdom teeth pulled. The first night I was in the worst pain of my life. I put my bird to bed in his cage as usual and crawled into bed on painkillers. To my amazement, my bird came down from his secure sleeping spot and spent the entire night comforting me in bed.
These examples are just two among many in my bird’s life that mirror the many behaviors the author cites as evidence that dogs actually “love” their humans and exhibit true, caring affection for us. That being said, then it cannot be a unique quality of dogs as the only animal on earth with this ability to love us. Perhaps lovebirds have the same “love” gene as dogs. But whether they do or not, I believe so much of any animal bonding with a human is based on nurture far more than nature. So while dogs might be genetically predisposed to form loving bonds with humans, those bonds form only because of the right nurturing. And that same nurturing can be used with many other animals in the kingdom to the same effect…my lovebird included. The ability to love is not unique to dogs.
But kudos to the author for the remainder of his book, which focuses on what his research means for how we should be treating our dogs. I am so glad a credible scientist has finally and rightfully challenged so many of the questionable dog training techniques promoted by many popular trainers today. For example, slip leashes should never be used. Rules like a dog can never lead the walk or can never enter a room until invited or can never look at you while you're eating should be left for programming your Sony Chip dog and not forced upon free-thinking, intelligent animals. Thank you, Dr. Wynne, for shining a light on these inappropriate training techniques with the research to backup why they are so inappropriate.
And his suggestions for improving the lives of dogs – and especially shelter dogs – should be required reading for every dog lover, shelter owner, and shelter worker. Lots of great information in the last one-third of this book!
Top reviews from other countries
Wir sollten das Verhältnis zu unserem besten Freund schnellstens und gründlich überdenken!!!
Und es besteht ein klarer Auftrag an die Paläonto - Genetiker: Findet die Kern DNA in der Skeletten der sog. Proto Hunde aus den europäischen Ausgrabungsstätten in Belgien, Tschechien und Polen und untersucht sie auf die Williams Beuren Mutation im Chromosom 6 der Tiere. Dann haben wir den Beweis, daß es sich bereits um ECHTE Hunde handelt !!! --- oder auch nicht!!!!
Die mitochindriale DNA Forschung, die als Indiz hinweist, daß die Wölfe in Ostasien domestiziert worden sein sollten, kann man dann ad acta legen (als Forschungs - Sackgasse!!!)











