The Genius of Dogs
Discovering the Unique Intelligence of Man's Best Friend
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- 8,99 €
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- 8,99 €
Publisher Description
The award-winning scientist who started a revolution in the understanding of dog intelligence offers amazing new insights into the interior lives of our best -- and smartest -- animal friends
The journey began with a gut reaction. When award-winning scientist Dr Brian Hare watched a chimpanzee fail to read a simple human hand gesture in an intelligence test, he blurted out, ‘My dog can do that!’ The psychologist running the test challenged him to prove it, sending Hare on an odyssey to unlock the cognitive and evolutionary mysteries of our four-legged friends.
Hare’s research over the past two decades has yielded startling discoveries about how dogs think. He has pioneered studies that have proven that dogs exhibit a brand of genius for getting along with people that is unique in the animal kingdom, and that when dogs domesticated themselves around 40,000 years ago they became far more like human infants than their wolf ancestors. These findings are transforming how we live and work with our canine friends, and how we understand them. Is your dog purposefully disobeying you? Probably, and often behind your back. Should you act like ‘top dog to maintain control? No, you’re better off displaying your friendliness – not just to your dog but to everyone around you. Which breed is cleverest? As it happens, breed doesn’t matter much, though other factors do.
These are just some of the extraordinary insights to be found in The Genius of Dogs – the seminal book on how dogs evolved their unique intelligence alongside human companions, and how you can use this groundbreaking science to build a better relationship with your own dog.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Arguing against the common assumption that a domesticated animal is somehow also a weaker, less intelligent one, Hare and Woods present a scientific study that doubles as a warmhearted tribute to man's best friend. The authors evaluate animal intelligence primarily on the basis of a species' success in surviving, finding the canine intellect on that count to be closely suited to coexistence with humans. Domestication has resulted in animals "more like infants than wolves" that can make inferences about human behavior and learn human vocabulary. Dogs also read our gestures, anticipate our desires, and better the quality of our lives, receiving food, shelter, and care in return. Observing that humans do not invite many other mammals to live in our homes and even sleep in our beds, Hare and Woods suggest that dogs earned this coveted spot by being our friends a phenomenon they dub "survival of the friendliest." The pair find that the human-canine relationship is not as one-sided as it can sometimes seem, but delivers such benefits to humans as alleviating loneliness, lowering blood pressure, and relieving stress, while they also touch on their research's implications for our own species.
