Dog Sense: How the New Science of Dog Behavior Can Make You A Better Friend to Your Pet by John Bradshaw

Jan 02, 2013 Elaine rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: ebooks

Since I'm writing a book about dogs, I reread this in the light of reams of scholarly articles and books, not to mention documentaries featuring the leading dog researchers in the world today--as well as my own thinking about all matters dog. I am amazed that I originally rated this as highly as I did. Yes,i t is repetitious as I noted before, but now I see also how fallacious it is. Bradshaw seems to have forgotten Occam's Razor: the simplest explanation that accounts for all the data is the o...more Since I'm writing a book about dogs, I reread this in the light of reams of scholarly articles and books, not to mention documentaries featuring the leading dog researchers in the world today--as well as my own thinking about all matters dog. I am amazed that I originally rated this as highly as I did. Yes,i t is repetitious as I noted before, but now I see also how fallacious it is. Bradshaw seems to have forgotten Occam's Razor: the simplest explanation that accounts for all the data is the one to accept. In other instances, he seems to have forgotten the implications of his own previous statements.

For instance, he mentions Rico, the Border Collie who has demonstrated that he knew 50 words, each the name of a toy. The 250 toys are kept in a separate room, and Rico is =told to go get Blinkie or whatever name has been given to each toy. With no problem, Rico goes to the pile of toys in another room and picks out the one asked for. Then, one day, Rico was asked to get a toy with a name he had never heard before. Still he ran to the toy room and searched for a new toy. He figured that must be the one with the unfamiliar toy. He was right.

Bradshaw decided to "refute" this well-known and well-received study. He says that Rico just took the toy that had a "different scent." Differen tfromthe scents of 250 other toys? There is no evidence that Rico selected other toys on any basis except for their names. He never was told to go find the toy with Binke's scent. In fact, such a command could not be given. The dog wouldn't be able to understand it. I don't doubt that, given dogs' incredible noses, that each toy might have a different scent. However, he was always told to fetch one by its name. No matter how you look at it, Rico discriminated among the toys by human verbally given names. Now, in fact, there is a Border Collie who can choose among 1,000 toys, each with a different name. Bradshaw would have us believe that Rico knows the names for 250 toys, but, when a new name is given to him, he resorts to his sense of smell. Bradshaw offers no explanation for how or even if the toys each had a particular scent. Even if they did, which is unproven and probably unproveable, he responded in each instance, solely to the names of the toys. The simples explanation that fits the data is that Rico figured if there was a toy he had not seen before, it must be the one that had the name he hadn't learned before. Bradshaw's interpretation is over complex, based upon an unproven assumption. That is, it is bad science. And, Bradshaw is a scientist.

Another example of bad science is that Bradshaw claims that aggression is not inborn in certain dog breeds. They become aggressive because of their owners' training. However, previously he noted correctly that the complex behaviors of herding dogs are not a result of training, but of their genetic inheritance, which is a generally accepted view. Nobody could teach a herding dog to do what it does when it herds. Now, if a complex set of behaviors is inborn in certain dogs, on what basis can one then say that aggression is not inborn? Bradshaw gives no rationale. I had a very aggressive mongrel years ago. Nobody taught him to be aggressive. He just was. That was evident by the time he was three months old. He actually chased my neighbor back into his house, growling and with bared fangs. Unfortunately, he was so dangerous, he had to be put down. We got him from a litter of pups from a bitch who had mated with feral canids, possibly a coyote.

I gave Bradshaw a one star demerit because of his constant repetitions of every point he makes, 2, 3, or more times, and his preachy tone. I love dogs and am very concerned for their welfare, but I found his preaching tiresome.

On the other hand, I laud Bradshaw's rebuttal of the "dog whisperer" nonsense: all that stuff about alphas and the human family as a wolf pack.

My rebuttal to Bradshaw's other claims will appear in my book How Dogs Civilized Humans, but first they will appear in my blog http://dogsandwolves-smartoldlady.blo...
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Jul 03, 2011 Laura rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Laura by: NPR

Shelves: dogs, being-human

This is in the class of books that I really enjoyed and don’t have the background to critically evaluate. It is also loosely in the category of books exploring the thesis of “yeah, that thing you were taught? That’s wrong.” Unlike many of those books (I’m lookin’ at you, Malcolm Gladwell), it also has a positive thesis. And it’s very positive. “Train dogs with positive feedback. Not just because it’s human. Because it works, bitches.” Okay, he didn’t put it quite that way. He is English.

Dr. Bra...more This is in the class of books that I really enjoyed and don’t have the background to critically evaluate. It is also loosely in the category of books exploring the thesis of “yeah, that thing you were taught? That’s wrong.” Unlike many of those books (I’m lookin’ at you, Malcolm Gladwell), it also has a positive thesis. And it’s very positive. “Train dogs with positive feedback. Not just because it’s human. Because it works, bitches.” Okay, he didn’t put it quite that way. He is English.

Dr. Bradshaw is a professor at the University of Bristol Veterinary School. He’s a specialist in anthrozoology, and has consulted with the US military on how to train dogs. He had the good fortune to have his book published just as lots of people were going – wait, we sent a dog in with Seal Team 6? Possibly with titanium teeth? Wwwhhhaaa? He was hilarious on the Colbert Report, http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colb..., and fascinating on Fresh Air. http://www.npr.org/2011/05/26/1364970....

First, he suggests that the popular understanding of wolves at the time many dog training schools got systematized and written down was wrong, and wrong for a very good reason. It was based on observations of man made wolf packs, were unrelated adult wolves were put together and had to work it out. In the wild, he says, wolf packs are mostly family groups, made of a breeding pair and 2 or 3 litters, with the older children helping to raise their younger siblings before sexually maturing and moving on. They get along because they like each other, not because someone establishes dominance. When that sort of posturing starts, it’s time to move on.

He also points out something that I feel silly for not realizing – selection went both ways. Dogs are the descendents of wolves that could tolerate people. Wolves are the descendents of those who could not. Comparing them is a little like comparing chimps and bonobos, who are nearly alike genetically, but one settles disputes by fighting and dominance displays; the other with sex. Kinda different.

Next, dominance, he says, does not drive dogs the way we are trained to believe it does. He suggests a better model is the “resource holding potential” (RPH) (85). “According to this model, whenever a conflict of interests arise, each dog is thought to make its decision based on the answers to two questions: How much do I want this resource (food, toy, etc.) and, How likely is it that the other dog is going to beat me if we fight for it?”

Despite that, he says dogs aren’t rational the way we like to impute to them. They don’t build a model of the world and work out the causal connections. Instead, he says, their intelligence is much more associative. He doesn’t say magical thinking, but that’s what it reminds me of. That dogs remember connections between things and do what works. It’s not that they “know” they’ve done wrong when we find the poop on the carpet; it’s that they know from our body language we’re angry with them; they feel bad and/or are afraid of punishment and are expressing that fear – plus, perhaps, some behavior that seems to have deflected punishment – as a result.

He talked about a great experiment where they put a dog in a room, had the dog’s person tell the dog not to eat the treat, then leave. (219). Then in half the rooms, another person gave the dog the treat, in half the person took the treat away. Rotate 90% (so to speak) and half the people were told, incorrectly, their dog had eaten the treat; half were told a person and taken it. All the humans were asked to go back in and do what they would do if their dog had done such a thing.

There was no correlation between whether the dog had eaten the treat and how “guilty” the dog acted. And the three dogs that had been physically disciplined by their owners acted the most guilty.

I heard an interview on NPR with a guy who took in a wolf puppy, and he had an observation that really stuck with me. He said that dogs are superstitious. They don’t understand the world on a causal level; they just know that there’s these associations. But wolves aren’t superstitious. They don’t believe that humans are miracle workers. I don’t know enough to judge that, I wouldn’t mind if that was true.

He says there’s no reason we couldn’t breed dogs to be better pets; we just aren’t doing that. These days, most people who want dogs as pets neuter them; breeding is largely unplanned or designed for the show ring. That’s sad. Especially since the genetic diversity in many dog breeds is appallingly thin (like, every dog is essentially a first cousin or closer), and many of those dogs have preventable genetic ailments.

Bottom line: dogs are dogs. They aren’t wolves; they’re not people. But they’re awesome.
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Nov 03, 2012 Meghan rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: dogs, nonfic-self-help

Although I knew, going in, that this book contradicts what I personally feel about dogs, I strive to keep my eyes and ears open and was willing to give this book a shot. I have done my best to review this book on it's own merits, and not based on my own personal bias.

And.. it reminds me of listening to one of my relatives. You know the type: he's armed with a couple of real concrete scientific facts and then scrapes those along to cover his own opinions. By repeating himself several times, he th...more Although I knew, going in, that this book contradicts what I personally feel about dogs, I strive to keep my eyes and ears open and was willing to give this book a shot. I have done my best to review this book on it's own merits, and not based on my own personal bias.

And.. it reminds me of listening to one of my relatives. You know the type: he's armed with a couple of real concrete scientific facts and then scrapes those along to cover his own opinions. By repeating himself several times, he thinks you will be too stupid to figure out that everything he says (minus the actual science) is really just his own opinion dressed up with scientific jargon. But the author's repetitions of "we can assume", "it's obvious that", and "we can suppose" were a dead giveaway to how much of this was just his own views. Rather disappointing from a biologist. This book, imho, has the nearly identical issues as The Wolf in the Parlor: The Eternal Connection between Humans and Dogs: too little actual data to cover the author's premise, and therefore the claims are all questionable. Mr. Bradshaw did, however, avoid the pitfall of describing his own dogs as his main proof. Unfortunately he made another mistake: getting on a soapbox about a popular dog trainer. It became a bit much, honestly, and came across as a bitch-fest instead of an intellectual discourse.

It isn't that I think this book was entirely wrong or that I got nothing out of it. I did find the discussion on purebred dogs and having dogs bred specifically for the pet market interesting (. I found some of his dog science interesting, even if I didn't agree with his conclusions. I laughed out loud when he mentioned 'pee-mail'. I enjoyed his comments on how dogs see the world (even if I think most dog owners are aware how important smell is to our dogs), and did think this was relatively easy to listen to- the writing flowed smoothly and the sentence structure was never boring despite the scientific words. The studies he includes on puppies do give us insight into how dogs bond with humans, and there were a number of other studies included that I found interesting as well. The idea that temperament testing of puppies really tells us very little about grown dogs was new to me, and I will read more on that subject (as I have always put a lot of faith in this for choosing puppies).

I do suggest this author Never Ever Ever write about domestic cats again. Ever. He clearly hasn't lived with or observed cats at all, and cats are a crappy example for what he was trying to prove.

As always, this is only my own opinion. Clearly other readers were far more impressed than I was, and I invite you to read this book and form your own thoughts. Note: this is NOT a dog training manual. With the exception of a bit about helping dog separation anxiety (which he calls separation distress, for his own reasons that were a bit unclear to me), there is no training advice here. I'm not sure he really took much of a stand on what sort of training was best (other than that he hates dominance theory). (less)

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Oct 25, 2012 Heather rated it 3 of 5 stars

I was pretty intrigued by this title though I passed it over a few times initially at my local library before picking it up. (I'm always looking for ways to be a better friend to my pets.) Although portions of it, mainly on the evolutionary history of dogs, were interesting, I probably should have followed my gut on this one. I kept finding myself literally falling asleep after a few pages and, by a few weeks in, had only made it halfway through. Perhaps the second half is better, but I just cou...more

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Jul 30, 2011 Pam rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book will teach you a lot about where dogs came from but not much about how to enhance your friendship with your dogs.

Dog Sense offers an excellent discussion on the evolution of the dog as a domestic companion to humans and a thorough description of canine social structure. Along with Bradshaw’s thorough dissection of force-based and behavioral training approaches, the book effectively demolishes the myths that “dogs are cute wolves” and that humans must establish dominance over dogs.

But...more This book will teach you a lot about where dogs came from but not much about how to enhance your friendship with your dogs.

Dog Sense offers an excellent discussion on the evolution of the dog as a domestic companion to humans and a thorough description of canine social structure. Along with Bradshaw’s thorough dissection of force-based and behavioral training approaches, the book effectively demolishes the myths that “dogs are cute wolves” and that humans must establish dominance over dogs.

But readers could be turned off by the heavy, long scientific discussion. There are two long chapters devoted to a rehashing of how dogs and humans came to be friends, with no new information presented. Despite the marketing copy (and the subtitle), there is little about the modern-day dog-human relationship other than a convincing (if obvious) statement that force-based training could damage that relationship.

Unfortunately, and again contradicting the marketing copy, the book does not present a dog’s perspective. Instead, Bradshaw falls into the familiar anthropocentric habit of denying that dogs can feel complex emotions because they lack spoken language. This anthropocentric bias is humorously illustrated in Bradshaw’s comment that dogs never evolved the ability to see colors because it wasn’t necessary, as exemplified by his belief that carnivorous wolves wouldn’t have needed to choose the ripest berries. Wolves are opportunistic omnivores who do, indeed, eat berries. More to the point, neither dogs nor wolves need to rely on sight to choose ripe berries; they simply follow their far more sensitive noses to the choicest of fruits, as many a domestic dog has been known to do.

Despite a too-common reliance on old myths and a too-anthropocentric focus, there is much solid information in Dog Sense and it is a valuable addition to any dog professional’s library, especially for those who seek a detailed analysis of the science of the evolution, domestication, and social history of dogs.
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Feb 12, 2012 Tracey rated it 4 of 5 stars

In Dog Sense: How the New Science of Dog Behavior Can Make You a Better Friend to Your Pet, Bradshaw includes scads of information about wolves, about the evolution of the dog from the wolf and into a relationship with human society, about modern scientific studies on dog behavior, and about modern dog breeding and in-breeding, etc. He also discusses the human/dog bond, common errors humans make in understanding their dogs, and some comparisons between our species.

Bradshaw launches his book wit...more In Dog Sense: How the New Science of Dog Behavior Can Make You a Better Friend to Your Pet, Bradshaw includes scads of information about wolves, about the evolution of the dog from the wolf and into a relationship with human society, about modern scientific studies on dog behavior, and about modern dog breeding and in-breeding, etc. He also discusses the human/dog bond, common errors humans make in understanding their dogs, and some comparisons between our species.

Bradshaw launches his book with an engaging preface, describing two of the dogs of his childhood, Ginger and Alexis, the first of which he knew only from family legends that outlasted her. It's a great start, but much of the book relies on a stiffer and more formal voice, perhaps due to the scientific nature of the content.

Some of what Bradshaw includes in his book is also in Mark Derr's book, How the Dog Became the Dog: From Wolves to Our Best Friends-- a book I liked less well than Bradshaw's. A few of the studies cited have also aired in PBS or National Geographic shows. For example, those showing that dogs outperform chimpanzees in some tasks, including: interpretation of human facial expressions, responsiveness to human pointing, and the ability to use humans as resources when attempting to get to a desired object, such as a tasty bit of food. There's also the Siberian fox domestication experiment.

But much in this book is new, to me anyway. And when Bradshaw gets on a roll, his writing can be lively and pleasurable, spotted here and there with the kind of facts and ideas that one wants to read out loud to whomever is in earshot. For example, puppies begin to learn their mother's scent while they're still in the womb. Unborn pups gestating within a bitch who's had aniseed in her diet will gravitate to the scent of aniseed after they're born. And cats can hear higher frequencies than dogs. Or how about this?: after watching a scripted interaction between a "beggar" person, a "generous" person (who gives the beggar food or whatever), and a "selfish" person (who turns the beggar away), dogs prefer to interact with the "generous" person. Fascinating stuff.

However, long passages seem to exist for the purpose of refuting those who disagree with "the new science." These parts are less accessible, come across as argumentative, and are repetitive, too. For example, it seems that Chapters 1 through 3 could have been shortened considerably, in part by moving some of the more involved material to footnotes, a text box, or an appendix. The writing style and organization of these chapters, and their fit into the whole, also made me wonder if they were pulled from articles he'd previously written.

My biggest complaint about the book is that it does not, I think,fully deliver on its subtitle, neither describing "the new science of dog behavior" clearly enough nor telling the reader how to apply this science to be "a better friend" to one's pet. (One exception is an excerpt giving instructions on how to a dog of separation anxiety.) The book does explain, repeatedly, what the new science is not: it is not the old science of seeing dogs as wolves in disguise, ambitious to gain alpha status in the household. It is not about owners claiming the alpha role and keeping the dog in its beta, or omega, place. And it does not employ physical punishment.

But Dog Sense contains a lot of interesting material, is well written (if not always consistently accessible), and its author is a pleasant enough chap to spend time with --- humane, intelligent, sensible, compassionate. Knowledgeable, of course. If the reader has a little patience, this book may vastly enrich how you see the world of dogs.(less)

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Feb 06, 2012 Kirsten rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: dog lovers

Shelves: from-library, non-fiction

This is an engaging book that explains what we know about how dogs evolved, how their social structures function, how they interact with the world, and how this might be applied to the way we live with our dogs.

The biggest focus of this book is to finally put to bed the notion that 1) dogs act just like wolves, and 2) wolves have strictly hierarchical pack structures, and thus dogs do, too. The idea of the "alpha wolf" has been by and large debunked; new research into wolves shows that most pack...more This is an engaging book that explains what we know about how dogs evolved, how their social structures function, how they interact with the world, and how this might be applied to the way we live with our dogs.

The biggest focus of this book is to finally put to bed the notion that 1) dogs act just like wolves, and 2) wolves have strictly hierarchical pack structures, and thus dogs do, too. The idea of the "alpha wolf" has been by and large debunked; new research into wolves shows that most packs operate in a family structure. While there will tend to be a male and a female wolf who lead the pack, they also tend to be the mother and father to most of the animals within the pack, and the pack members' roles are more fluid. It's about time people stopped drawing conclusions based on old research.

What is more important, however, is the knowledge that dogs are very far removed from wolves in their social behaviors. They are much, much more affable toward strangers than any wolf will ever be, they are domesticated, and they have the (astonishing, when you think about it) ability to easily interact both with humans and with other dogs. Bradshaw emphasizes the differences by sharing his research on feral and semi-feral dog populations in cities around the world. Many cities, particularly in India and in some African countries, have colonies of "village dogs" that live alongside humans without actually belonging to anyone. These packs of dogs interact entirely differently than wolf packs in adjacent territories would. Their packs are permeable, allowing individuals to come and go, and loosely organized. They bear much more resemblence to coyotes than to wolves, socially speaking.

All of this is to say that the popular conception of a dog as an animal in the house that wants to be "pack leader" and will fight its owners unless it is taught not to be "dominant" is based on erroneous science. The basic idea is that most dogs act in ways that are labeled "dominant" because... they want things. They do want the best spot on the couch, the food from the counter, and to win at tug-of-war. And they do need leadership to know when that's not appropriate, because otherwise they will be untrained hellions. But everything is not related to "dominance," it's related to wanting the good stuff. In a lot of cases, this is functionally not that different. The difference is in how we think about the dog's behaviors (plotting to gain control vs. "I like sleeping on the bed") and in how we react to them. People who buy into the dominance theory of training tend to also believe that dogs expect to be physically cowed. This is not always the case, and more importantly, even if physical methods often work, they are very easy to screw up. Performing an "alpha roll" or another kind of physical correction is a good way to frighten or anger a dog into biting.

By and large, Bradshaw does a good job of explaining all this. For me, the most compelling discussion was of the village dog pack structure, because that's a very clear indication that dogs, even dogs who've reverted to a feral state, do not function the way wolves do.

There's a lot of other really interesting information in this book, such as how scent expands a dog's world, and how dogs with exaggerated and/or artificial features (such as docked tails) may have trouble communicating with other dogs. Ultimately, it won't change how I interact much with my dog, because I was already pretty much doing the right thing, but it really emphasized to me how AMAZING dogs are in the way that they have adapted to people.(less)

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Jun 02, 2011 Lis Carey rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: dogs, non-fiction, popular-science

It was the best of books, it was--not the worst of books, not by a long shot, but incredibly annoying in places.

This is a serious effort at collecting in one place the current state of the science of dog behavior. Bradshaw discusses the evidence we have for how and when dogs evolved from wolves, as well as what dogs' close relationship to wolves does and doesn't mean for their behavior and needs in human households. For the last century or so, much training and dog management advice has been bas...more

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Jul 03, 2012 Araminta Matthews rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read this book hoping to learn some of my very own human tricks that would allow me to better relate to and interact with my dog. That isn't exactly what I received, though I'm enough of an amateur scientist to have gleaned, connected, and otherwise sussed out of this book what I needed to improve my whippet-rearing tactics (and before you ask, yes, my dog is a rescue; not a store-bought pedigree). This book does a great job laying out science, studies, and general observations of canine histo...more

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Apr 07, 2012 Sally rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Every dog guardian must read this book! This book revealed to me how much my treatment of my dog was influenced by flawed research on wolves that falsely described them for years in the eyes of the general public. Remember all that talk about dominance and how you have to be the leader, the top, never let the pooch win at tug of war, go through the door first, etc.? It was all based on observation of wolves who were strangers to each other and were stuck together in captivity. Wolf packs are har...more

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Jan 14, 2012 Hoss rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Lots of great findings from the latest research in canine cognition, and how those findings relate to the various dilemmas of dog companionship. Contrary to the accepted wisdom promoted by trainers like Cesar Millan, dogs are not merely domesticated wolves, and they are not inherently wired to seek "dominance". In fact, even wolves themselves aren't quite wired the way we thought. Bradshaw also touches upon some alarming findings in the lack of genetic diversity of so-called "purebred" dogs, and...more

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Aug 16, 2011 Eduardo Santiago rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone who interacts with dogs

Recommended to Eduardo by: vls

The whole “alpha dog” thing is a mistake: dogs aren't wolves, and we should really just forget that whole pack/dominance thing. (Side note: even wolves aren't wolves. The pack model is based on observations in old-time zoos; not necessarily the most natural and stress-free environment). Reward training works better than punishment. And pedigree breeding is harmful.

That's pretty much it. Bradshaw covers the latest knowledge about dog evolution and behavior, entertainingly and with helpful endnot...more

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Dec 27, 2012 Kelly rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Absolutely fascinating book. It's a little slow in some parts but seems scientifically sound (in my not-especially-informed opinion) and provides compelling evidence for why looking at modern wolf behavior tells us precious little about domesticated dogs. The science makes a strong case for basing dog training in rewards rather than punishment. The book also covers the major problems caused by breeding for looks rather than companionship traits. The most shocking statistic: pedigree dogs have lo...more

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Mar 05, 2012 Hilary rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

We don't yet have a dog. But we will. Oh yes, we will. In preparation for that wonderful day, I picked up this book. It is not a training manual. It just gives insight into what we do as humans that can confuse dogs. Why dogs are not "domesticated wolves", nor do they "have the vocabulary of a toddler". I think everyone who has a dog should read this book. Anyone who is thinking about getting a dog should read this book - BEFORE they think about how to train their pooch. If you don't like dogs,...more

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Aug 18, 2011 Alb rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Overall this book was quite a disappointment. I heard a Fresh Air interview with the author earlier this summer and I had really gotten excited about his thoughts on dogs and dog training. However, after reading the book I feel like I got more out of that interview. I know a little more about the evolution of dogs and I am very clear on the fact that dogs are not wolves but I am not sure Iearned more about how to be a better friend to my dog. He definitely had a bone to pick with Cesar Milan and...more

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Oct 16, 2011 Marcelo rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A good overview of all the scientific research that has been done on dogs, and a good way to understand that many of the things stressed by many trainers (such as the pack mentality and the "dominance" paradigm) are flat out wrong . I do agree, however, with most of the other reviews: Bradshaw can get tediously repetitive at times, especially in the first couple of chapters about the genetic inheritance of dogs and their relationship with wolves, and the book overall could have used some tighter...more

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Jun 28, 2011 Brittany rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone who has regular contact for dogs, especially dog owners

Recommended to Brittany by: NY TImes revew

Shelves: sciencewriting, anthrozoology

This was another one of those books that ought to be required reading for any dog owner, or for anyone who's just around dogs a lot. However, it's the best of the bunch. Bradshaw, a published and respected scientist who has spent years studying canine cognition walks through the common misconceptions about dog mentality, personality, and behavior. He identifies where they came from, why, and why they're wrong. He doesn't just assert they're wrong and leave it at that, though. He walks through th...more This was another one of those books that ought to be required reading for any dog owner, or for anyone who's just around dogs a lot. However, it's the best of the bunch. Bradshaw, a published and respected scientist who has spent years studying canine cognition walks through the common misconceptions about dog mentality, personality, and behavior. He identifies where they came from, why, and why they're wrong. He doesn't just assert they're wrong and leave it at that, though. He walks through the science step-by-step in a way that makes it extremely understandable even to people who don't usually read science books for fun.

He brings up some fascinating, and relevant, points I had never thought of before. Such as that, while dogs descended from wolves, they didn't descend from modern wolves. Ancient wolves were probably socially very different from our modern wolves who have been hunted. Modern wolves are probably ones that have self-selected themselves to be elusive to humans. Dogs have been selected to be compatible with humans. This alone is a huge difference that requires us to rethink everything we thought we knew about dog behavior, and what we can learn about it from wolf behavior.

The only downfall of this book is that occasionally Bradshaw gets a little sloppy with his terminology so that, at points, he seems to contradict himself with regard to whether it is or is not useful to look at wolf behavior to learn about dogs. However, this fault is so slight that it seems small-minded to bring it up.

Overall, this is a readable and stunning work that everyone should have to read before getting a dog. It explains why certain training methods work, work in spite of themselves, or are counter-productive. He addresses how dogs sense the world, and what that means for their humans, and he adds a lot of fascinating detail and data that I never knew about dogs. For instance, I know that I love the smell of Lily's ears. And it turns out that scientifically, dogs produce a lot of their smell through their ears (which is why it's generally the second place strange dogs sniff).

I cannot reccomend this book highly enough.(less)

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Jan 28, 2013 Christine rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: animals-and-nature

This book was a little hard to rate for me. The information in it is interesting, filled with many references to well-known experiments with dogs and other animals. Overall, the book is very well-rounded when it comes to scientific information. However, I felt confused about who this book was marketed to. Dog-owners? Dog-trainers? Animal lovers? Wolf enthusiasts?

Personally, I feel like this book could have been split into two- one based simply on the scientific research and evolutionary history...more

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Oct 10, 2012 Jami rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is an absolutely fascinating look at everyone's best friend and how they tick. After being a firm believer of the idea that dogs live with a pack mentality, this book has forever changed my mind. From new studies of wolves and their behavior to DNA evidence showing the ever shrinking and dangerous gene pools of the world's favorite breeds, Bradshaw opens the readers eyes to new, revolutionary opinions of what works best for all dogs. I was stunned to hear how much evidence exists proving th...more

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Jun 02, 2011 Mary is currently reading it · review of another edition

Shelves: animal-behavior

This one might take awhile. Or perhaps not.

As another reviewer noted, the book is *very* repetitive. Very repetitive. As I'm sure you'll find out once reading it, the author tends to provide the same information in a different sentence format over and over again.

The good thing about this is that now that I know that there was apparently not an editor to be found within thirty miles of this text pre-publication, I can edit while reading and skip over paragraphs at a time. This will at least get m...more

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Jan 29, 2012 Nick rated it 3 of 5 stars

Dog Sense provides a valuable survey of what scientists currently know about dogs, and it illustrates how far behind lags the practice of owning and training dogs. For example, the first misconception that Bradshaw attacks is the characterization of dogs as essentially wolves always striving to achieve alpha status. Modern research into wolf packs in the wild – not those fabricated by captivity – reveals a social structure recognizable as a family unit, with younger wolves deferring naturally to...more Dog Sense provides a valuable survey of what scientists currently know about dogs, and it illustrates how far behind lags the practice of owning and training dogs. For example, the first misconception that Bradshaw attacks is the characterization of dogs as essentially wolves always striving to achieve alpha status. Modern research into wolf packs in the wild – not those fabricated by captivity – reveals a social structure recognizable as a family unit, with younger wolves deferring naturally to their parents, not to the strongest and most dominant. And Bradshaw argues convincingly that dogs have come a long way from their wolf ancestors.

Bradshaw is first and foremost a scientist. His book makes for disappointingly dry reading, as he earnestly attempts to present the facts and describe the methodology and results of individual experiments. Yet he clearly cares deeply about the welfare of dogs: his outrage at the ignorant mistreatment of dogs is palpable. When science cannot conclusively show whether dogs experience emotions as humans do, he makes a leap of faith, seeing no reason to deny that dogs experience something we would recognize as love.

Despite the book's title, Bradshaw's focus is on enlightening readers about dogs as a species. Only in passing does he occasionally instruct readers on how to be better dog owners. His book would be most valuable to those who assume wrongly that dogs must be forced to submit, or that dogs always understand why you punish them, or that dogs perceive the world in basically the same way that we do.

Like those scientists who are trying to convince people that yes, global warming is real and a real problem, Bradshaw's main goal is to raise awareness. But although many of the challenges facing dogs are societal, such as the growing expectations of canine discipline in urban areas, and the ongoing efforts of breeders to optimize for (brittle) appearances instead of suitability for companionship, this eye-opening book can revolutionize how you understand your dog. The rest is up to you.(less)

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Jun 09, 2012 Diane rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

This is a good read for dog lovers, and especially for people considering getting a dog, but it is definitely not just another book about how to train your dog. He debunks the long dependence among dog trainers on the behavioural similarities between wolves and dogs which have, for instance, insisted that dogs are bent on 'dominance'. There is lots of interesting science in this section. His other major purpose in writing the book is, I think, to encourage people to change the way dogs are bred...more

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Jul 21, 2011 Craig rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: dogs, non-fiction

John Bradshaw is determined to improve dog's lives. This well written, if repetitive, book disproves some common myths about dogs and explains how modern breeding and training are hurting the pets we love. Dog Sense isn’t meant to be a training manual: other authors would better serve someone looking to train their new puppy. Read this if you’re looking for a history of how dogs became what they are and what we can do to help them thrive.

In the first three chapters Dr. Bradshaw explains where do...more John Bradshaw is determined to improve dog's lives. This well written, if repetitive, book disproves some common myths about dogs and explains how modern breeding and training are hurting the pets we love. Dog Sense isn’t meant to be a training manual: other authors would better serve someone looking to train their new puppy. Read this if you’re looking for a history of how dogs became what they are and what we can do to help them thrive.

In the first three chapters Dr. Bradshaw explains where dogs come from and how they were domesticated. He discusses some of the myths that persist about wolves, such as packs being hierarchical with a strong alpha being the dominant leader, and explains how modern science has moved past these views. I found these to be the most repetitive chapters in the book. The author was clearly basing the rest of the book on the idea that wolf societies aren’t based on dominance and dogs and wolves are different so he felt it important to repeat this idea several dozen times. Fortunately he used different evidence each retelling taking away some of the tedium. If you consider this a controversial idea it might be appreciated, if you agreed with this premise coming into the book it is a bit tedious.

The next 7 chapters make up the bulk of the book and get into some more interesting topics. Bradshaw discusses the ability of dogs to understand human actions and thoughts and why this means we shouldn’t use dominance training. The chapters on which emotions dogs can feel were particularly interesting. He explains tests created to determine if dogs can feel emotions like love, guilt or jealousy and how long they can remember past events. Understanding dogs’ emotional capabilities is important since punishing a dog who doesn’t remember doing anything wrong would be counterproductive.

Bradshaw ends the book with two chapters discussing the current problems dogs face and what it means for their future. The chapter on pedigree dogs discussed how inbreeding reduces the genetic diversity and causes more disease is fascinated but disturbing. I was amazed that in only 150 or so years of dog fancying humans have been able to cause this many problems by breeding to standards. He closes the book on a cautiously optimistic note pointing out how we haven’t caused irrevocable harm to dogs (mainly due to dogs adaptability) and if we want to have them be around for another 15000 years we’ll need to change how we interact. Modern dog owners have less use for many jobs dogs were bred for such as herding, hunting and ratting. Instead we should focus less on standards and appearance and ensure pets have the temperament and physical abilities to be good pets.
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Sep 01, 2011 Ronald rated it 5 of 5 stars

A very well written book representing the evolution of the present day dog from a common ancestor with todays wolf. He points out that dogs did not evolve from the wolf. He postulates how todays canid became domesticated primarily to serve man primarily as a help in sheparding, hunting and other practical purposes. Man began breeding dogs for specific traits which enhanced these skills. Breeds have become increasingly inbred This inbreeding for physical attributes has become problematic to the h...more

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Oct 27, 2011 Alida rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is mandatory reading for everyone that deals with dogs. Owners, prospective owners, staff of rescue organizations, fostering families and government officials in charge of making and enforcing policy (city council members, animal control staff, supervisors, etc.) regarding dogs. But the people that I would force to read/listen this book are the idiots of the AKC (and others of that ilk), the commercial breeders and pet store owners that are either clueless or don't give a f!&k as long a...more

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May 14, 2013 Gsdj Dunton rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Bradshaw explores the evolution of dogs and offers an interesting alternative to the view that the mentality of dogs is similar to that of wolves studied in captivity. For the most part, he backs his ideas up with research findings. He also discusses the emotional and cognitive abilities of dogs, which was very interesting. Again, he used the results of various research studies to back up his claims.

I found his discussions of classical and operant conditioning to be a bit muddled and I think th...more

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Jul 16, 2011 Lauren rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: doggies, read-2011

Though I agree with others who state that Bradshaw was at times repetitious, esp when it came to the chapters comparing dogs to wolves, I believe this book was excellent. I wanted to stop my fellow dog-owners on the streets and say, "hey, read this! Seriously you will understand your dog so much better!" Bradshaw brings up excellent questions/ideas at the end of the book concerning the future of dogs and how we as humans can help them adjust to a rapidly changing world. For me, this book was key...more

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Feb 11, 2012 Martha Burns rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: biology/sociology fans

For those interested in biology as well as reflections on human-canine interactions. Takeaway: dogs are not mini wolves, whatever their genes say. Their adaptability and lack of hierarchical structure is what made them our perfect companions and treating them as little wolves misconstrues their nature, but does reflect our tendency to project what we want onto animals. Fascinating, thoughtful, and enjoyable to read, though our tendency to resort to cruel or pointless training techniques makes on...more

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Jan 09, 2012 Simone rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012-read, dog-books

I thought this book was really interesting, and definitely important to anyone who owns or wants to own a dog. Seriously. I love dogs, and I spend a fair amount of time around mine and other people's dogs and I learned a lot from this book. The first half of the book is dedicated to an understanding of the evolution of dogs, which sometimes gets a bit dull - but it plays into his larger point. Most of our common understandings of dogs, as mini-wolves, pack animals that need to assert their domin...more

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Nov 17, 2011 Melody rated it 2 of 5 stars

Where oh where was the editor here? There was apparently no editor, as the book was quite repetitive. The author said the same thing so many times, one wondered if there even was an editor. Sometimes after reading a chapter, I'd go back a chapter just to be sure I wasn't imagining that Bradshaw had already told me the same thing the chapter before, and then I'd wonder about why there was no editing. No, I'm not exaggerating.

Arghhh. This would have made an absolutely fascinating feature article....more

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Dog Sense: How the New Science of Dog Behavior Can Make You A Better Friend to Your Pet

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