Canines and humans have depended upon one another for tens of thousands of years. Humans took the initial steps of domesticating canines, but somewhere through the millennia, dogs began dramatically to affect the future of their masters. In A Dog's History of the World , Laura Hobgood-Oster chronicles the canine-human story. From the earliest cave paintings depicting the primitive canine-human relationship to the modern model of dogs as family members, Hobgood-Oster reveals how the relationship has been marked by both love and exploitation. Canines have aided and been heir to humankind's ever-increasing thirst for scientific advancements, empire building, and personal satisfaction. They have tested equipment for space exploration, fought beside us in war, and advanced countless industries. But Hobgood-Oster reminds us that, just as canines would not have flourished without humans, humans would not have flourished without canines. They have been our healers, licking wounds and providing therapy to the sick and troubled for countless years. Weaving together archaeology, history, and literature, Laura Hobgood-Oster conclusively shows that humans would not be what they are without the presence and influence of canines, that the human-canine relationship has never been one sided, and that humanity's temptation to exploit canines is never far away.

Analysis of animals in the history of the Christian tradition has been exclusively symbolic, but Laura Hobgood-Oster utilizes the feminist perspective in her examination of the impact of animal presence. In challenging the metaphoric reading of animals that reinforces human superiority and dominance, Holy Dogs and Asses underscores animal agency. Creatures play various active roles, which Hobgood-Oster categorizes as exemplars of piety, sources of revelation, saintly martyrs, and the primary other in an intimate relationship. Drawing from rich oral histories, legends, artwork, and popular stories of saints, this study directs our attention to the animal body--also a central concern of Christian theology and feminist criticism. Hobgood-Oster invites the reader to venture beyond the exclusive symbolic nature of animals in the Christian tradition to an awareness that we can know ourselves more fully by reference to the animal.