From the author of the #1 "New York Times" bestseller "Inside of a Dog," this "elegant and entertaining" ("The Boston Globe") explanation of how humans perceive their environments "does more than open our eyes...opens our hearts and minds, too, gently awakening us to a world--in fact, many worlds--we've been missing" ("USA TODAY").
Alexandra Horowitz" "shows us how to see the spectacle of the ordinary--to practice, as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle put it, "the observation of trifles." Structured around a series of eleven walks the author takes, mostly in her Manhattan neighborhood, "On Looking" features experts on a diverse range of subjects, including an urban sociologist, the well-known artist Maira Kalman, a geologist, a physician, and a sound designer. Horowitz also walks with a child and a dog to see the world as they perceive it. "What "they see, "how "they see it, and why most of us do "not "see the same things reveal the startling power of human attention and the cognitive aspects of what it means to be an expert observer.
Page by page, Horowitz shows how much more there is to see--if only we would really look. Trained as a cognitive scientist, she discovers a feast of fascinating detail, all explained with her generous humor and self-deprecating tone. So turn off the phone and other electronic devices and "be "in the real world--where strangers communicate by geometry as they walk toward one another, where sounds reveal shadows, where posture can display humility, and the underside of a leaf unveils a Lilliputian universe--where, indeed, there are worlds within worlds within worlds.

Want to know what dogs are thinking? What they feel, and what they can smell with that great big nose of theirs? Here's your chance to experience the world nose first, from two feet off the ground. What do dogs know, and how do they think? The answers will surprise and delight you as dog owner and scientist Alexandra Horowitz explains how our four-legged friends perceive their daily worlds, each other, and us! This book is as close as you can get to knowing about dogs without being a dog yourself.

This book highlights the state of the field in the new, provocative line of research into the cognition and behavior of the domestic dog. Eleven chapters from leading researchers describe innovative methods from comparative psychology, ethology and behavioral biology, which are combined to create a more comprehensive picture of the behavior of Canis familiaris than ever before. Each of the book's three parts highlights one of the perspectives relevant to providing a full understanding of the dog. Part I covers the perceptual abilities of dogs and the effect of interbreeding. Part II includes observational and experimental results from studies of social cognition - such as learning and social referencing - and physical cognition in canids, while Part III summarizes the work in the field to date, reviewing various conceptual and methodological approaches and testing anthropomorphisms with regard to dogs. The final chapter discusses the practical application of behavioral and cognitive results to promote animal welfare. This volume reflects a modern shift in science toward considering and studying domestic dogs for their own sake, not only insofar as they reflect back on human beings.

The bestselling book that asks what dogs know and how they think, now in paperback.
The answers will surprise and delight you as Alexandra Horowitz, a cognitive scientist, explains how dogs perceive their daily worlds, each other, and that other quirky animal, the human.
Horowitz introduces the reader to dogs' perceptual and cognitive abilities and then draws a picture of what it might be like to "be "a dog. What's it like to be able to smell not just every bit of open food in the house but also to smell sadness in humans, or even the passage of time? How does a tiny dog manage to play successfully with a Great Dane? What is it like to hear the bodily vibrations of insects or the hum of a fluorescent light? Why must a person on a bicycle be chased? What's it like to use your mouth as a hand? In short, what is it like for a dog to experience life from two feet off the ground, amidst the smells of the sidewalk, gazing at our ankles or knees?
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Inside of a Dog "explains these things and much more. The answers can be surprising--once we set aside our natural inclination to anthropomorphize dogs. "Inside of a Dog "also contains up-to-the-minute research--on dogs' detection of disease, the secrets of their tails, and their skill at reading our attention--that Horowitz puts into useful context. Although not a formal training guide, "Inside of a Dog "has practical application for dog lovers interested in understanding why their dogs do what they do. With a light touch and the weight of science behind her, Alexandra Horowitz examines the animal we think we know best but may actually understand the least. This book is as close as you can get to knowing about dogs without being a dog yourself.

In this book Alexandra Horowitz examines what's called the 'dog-human bond': examining all aspects of the complexity of this unique interspecies pairing. From her position as a dog scientist, she uses the science of dogs and dog-human interaction to ground a consideration of the various ways that dogs, as a species, reflect us, and how they reflect (sometimes badly, sometimes well) on us. And she goes beyond the cognitive science to consider the culture, laws, and human dynamics that reveal and restrict this bond between two disparate species. Horowitz shows that when each person makes the decision to breed, own, or adopt a dog, we enter into a relationship that will change us. It changes the course of our days: dogs need to be walked, fed, attended to. It can change the course of our lives: dogs weave their way into our lives with their constant silent presence by our sides. There are still many (often non-'scientific') questions that remain unanswered about dogs: about their minds, yes, but especially about living with dogs in our society, and how we can best treat them now and in the future. This books addresses those questions. It is intended for the curious dog owner and science-lover alike, who wants to read good, intelligent thinking on dogs, not overly sentimental but not without heart.

Alexandra Horowitz's runaway bestseller Inside of a Dog began a movement among dog owners to not just quietly accept and enjoy the presence of the pooch at their sides, but to wonder at that dog, and let him show us how he sees the world, and what he knows. What the dog sees and knows comes mostly through his nose, and the information that every dog has about the world based on smell is unthinkably rich. It is rich in a way we humans once knew something about, once even acted on, but have since neglected. By smelling, tapping into this sensory resource that we have but that we largely ignore, the dog has become an informant. To a dog, there is no such thing as 'fresh air.' Every gulp of air is full of information. In Being a Dog, Horowitz, a research scientist in the field of dog cognition, explores what the nose knows as never done before by taking an imaginative leap into what it is like to be a dog. Under the tutelage of her family dogs, Finnegan and Upton, Horowitz sets off on a quest to make sense of scents, combining a personal journey of smelling with a tour through the cutting edge and improbable science behind the olfactory abilities of the dog. From revealing the spectacular biology of the dog nose, to following a tracking dog being put through his paces and trying herself to become a better smeller, Horowitz covers the topic of noses - both canine and human - from surprising, novel, and always fascinating angles. As we come to understand how rich, complex, and exciting the world around us appears to the canine nose, Horowitz changes our perspective on dogs forever. Readers will finish this book feeling that they have glimpsed or sensed or smelled into the fourth dimension, literally breaking free of their human constraints and understanding smell as never before; that they have, for however fleetingly, been a dog.

This book highlights the state of the field in the new, provocative line of research into the cognition and behavior of the domestic dog. Eleven chapters from leading researchers describe innovative methods from comparative psychology, ethology and behavioral biology, which are combined to create a more comprehensive picture of the behavior of Canis familiaris than ever before. Each of the book’s three parts highlights one of the perspectives relevant to providing a full understanding of the dog. Part I covers the perceptual abilities of dogs and the effect of interbreeding. Part II includes observational and experimental results from studies of social cognition – such as learning and social referencing – and physical cognition in canids, while Part III summarizes the work in the field to date, reviewing various conceptual and methodological approaches and testing anthropomorphisms with regard to dogs. The final chapter discusses the practical application of behavioral and cognitive results to promote animal welfare. This volume reflects a modern shift in science toward considering and studying domestic dogs for their own sake, not only insofar as they reflect back on human beings.