Dog

Animal Series

by Susan McHugh

Dogs are perhaps our most popular pets, and certainly one of the best-loved of all animals. They are not only humanity’s best friend, they are also its burial sites dating back 12,000 years indicate that dogs moved alongside prehistoric peoples before, during and after both species settled the world. The story of the canine has been fundamentally entwined with that of humanity since the earliest times, and this ancient and fascinating story is told in Susan McHugh’s Dog .

This book unravels the debate about whether dogs are descended from wolves, and moves on to deal with canines in mythology, religion and health, dog cults in ancient and medieval civilizations as disparate as Alaska, Greece, Peru and Persia, and traces correspondences between the histories of dogs in the Far East, Europe, Africa and the Americas. Dog also examines the relatively recent phenomenon of dog breeding and the invention of species, as well as the canine’s role in science fact and fiction; from Laika, the first astronaut, and Pavlov’s famous conditioned dogs, through to science fiction novels and cult films such as A Boy and his Dog .

Susan McHugh shows how dogs today contribute to human lives in a huge number of ways, not only as pets and guide dogs but also as sources of food in Asia, entertainment workers, and scientific and religious objects. Dog reveals how we have shaped these animals over the millennia, and in turn, how dogs have shaped us.

Genres: Nonfiction, Animals, History, Science, Nature, Natural History, Dogs

224 pages, Paperback

First published August 4, 2004

Reviews

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this book up because of its title and cover image because I had run out of paper-based books while in Paris. Based solely on the title and cover, I thought it was some kind of novel. I was wrong, and lucky for me it was. This book is an in-depth and interesting look at the world that humans and dogs co-inhabit through art, literature, dog shows, movies, and science. McHugh's work is a worthy read. "The creatures [dogs] powerful enough to be man's best friends also feed our deepest fears and prejudices" (p. 203).

[Abu Hasan محمد عبيد · Rating 3 out of 5]

اختارت الكاتبة أن تتحدث عن تاريخ الكلاب الطبيعي والثقافي من خلال مساقين: مساق يتحدث عن كلاب السلالات والآخر عن الكلاب الهجينة
ثم حشدت كل ما لديها من معلومات في هذين المساقين
فجاء الكتاب دسما ومتعبا للقارئ وعسر الهضم
لو أنها اختارت عرض المعلومات في فصول لكان بالإمكان هضم الكتاب والاستمتاع به أكثر

[catalina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Desde la segunda mitad del capítulo sobre las razas y todo el capítulo sobre perros quiltros recuperó mi atención, pero después me volvió a perder con el capítulo de perros en la ciencia, especialmente por su mirada muy superficial del tema y concentrarse extensamente en la caca de perro como una crítica social (??? xd). También, me resulta extremadamente decepcionante que la autora ni siquiera le dedica un párrafo a hablar del vínculo entre perros y masculinidad, como lo hizo el libro de gatos de esta serie. En partes, la autora reproduce la misma visión masculinista patriarcal al mencionar cosas como: "dejando de lado el análisis de género, el colonialismo...", o "no puede pensarse la historia de los humanos sin los perros", cuando 1) no puede dejarse de lado la arista de género cuando estamos analizando lo que sea y 2) la historia de las mujeres fácilmente puede pensarse sin perros; es la historia de los hombres que es impensable sin estos.

Edit: me acabo de dar cuenta que la autora dice que Frankenweenie es un pitbull pero en todas sus versiones es un bull terrier.

[Karoline Kamel]

الكتاب لذيذ ومهم وكاشف بس في حاجة مش مظبوطة في الترجمة وصياغة فقرات بأكملها

[Michelle Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

McHugh’s book is remarkable for its expansive timeline, its global interest, and its equally wide-ranging use of sources. She begins by tracing the history of the dog’s origins from archaeological, genetic, etymological, and mythological/religious perspectives (though I should note that newer archaeological evidence proves that dogs existed even earlier than her sources suggest). She then moves on to discuss the relatively recent phenomenon of breeding, arguing cogently that the rise of breed dogs corresponded directly with human social changes: “The canine breed system…emerged as part of the process by which the world’s people were for the first time categorized according to race, sex, and gender. And this taxonomic process was inseparable from the imperialist politics it served” (66). Accordingly she discusses the royal and aristocratic associations of the greyhound—with its supposed breed quality of unparalleled loyalty—as well as the toy-breed lapdogs’ associations with lascivious, wealthy women. By the mid-nineteenth century, the dog show institutionalizes breed (and thus class) standards in what McHugh calls “a nostalgia for lost social orders” (104), namely for feudal society in the age characterized by the rise of the middle class, even as members of the bourgeois participated in the shows. These and similar connections between dogs and human social changes are followed by a discussion of non-breed dogs/mutts, in which McHugh argues that mutts came to represent anarchy and social protest by the twentieth century. She points to Beautiful Joe as a model: anti-cruelty novels often featured non-breed dogs as those subject to oppression, at the same time as they link stray mutts to poor or homeless humans. To this day, mutts have a special power not only of representing oppressed humans, but helping humans to “imagine new forms of identity and society” (169). Eventually, then, the “non-breed dog increasingly becomes associated with social critique and the breed dog with the status quo” (170). McHugh ends with a discussion of dogs’ role in scientific endeavors, noting that dogs are the most prominently used animals in science because of their tractability and the ease of obtaining them. But this also produces highly conflicted emotions, since the general sentiment is that “man’s best friend” should not be sacrificed in this way. This point helps reinforce the archaeological fact that dogs and humans have been associated with—and hence tangled up with—each other since the very beginning, even though it also provides a sort of justification: because of our shared history, it makes sense that we would employ canine research subjects to explore matters that bear upon our (mutual?) futures.

[BVC · Rating 1 out of 5]

Per qualità e varietà delle informazioni non-biologiche riguardanti l'animale in copertina, non alla pari di altri libri di questa collana.

[Angigames · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stelle e mezzo
Bellissimo saggio sociale e storico sul miglior amico dell'uomo. L’autrice esplora con dovizia di particolari, fonti e annedoti la storia del cane e come la relazione uomo-cane sia da sempre incredibilmente connessa.

Bellissima la divisione delle parti: nella prima parte ci si approccia all’evoluzione della storia del cane. Nella seconda alla formazione delle razze è al significato sociale di razza e nella terza, interessantissima, si parla per la prima volta della storia sociale del cane meticcio, di quel cane che non appartiene a nessuno standard, ma è il più diffuso nel mondo umano.

Questo libro richiede una conoscenza base della sociologia e una passione per la storia e per gli amici pelosi, nient’altro!

Consigliato

[Kate · Rating 2 out of 5]

A rather bizarre potted history of the dog and its relationship with humans. Some of the text is disturbing as it discusses cruelty to dogs and there is a particularly horrific image of a dog slaughterhouse in China. You have been warned.

[Kathleen O'Neal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not among the very best titles in the Reaktion Animal series (which I love), but a solid work. The book could have been improved with more pictures.