They could go at it for hours until they’d plop down, exhausted.ĭogs and cats have more in common than people assume. They would race up and down the stairs of a large student house, surprising each other at every turn their obvious joy was highly contagious. The two of them had played together since they were little, and kept doing so now that they were adult. About once a month, I would take Plexie on my bicycle (I lived in the Netherlands) in a bag with her little head sticking out, to go on a play date with her best friend, a short-legged puppy.
$26.Īs a college student, I had a black-and-white kitty named Plexie. THE LION IN THE LIVING ROOM How House Cats Tamed Us and Took Over the World By Abigail Tucker 241 pp. And despite Quid's habits of barking, running away, chewing unchewable things, and all the other normal puppy behaviors (at one point Horowitz lists the contraband that Quid has tried to eat, beginning with rocks), I defy you to read this book and not feel, with a pang, that you too need a puppy.BEING A DOG Following the Dog Into a World of Smell By Alexandra Horowitz 323 pp. This is a book to learn from, for sure, but it is also a book to savor Horowitz's loving descriptions of Quid sleeping, "melting into a cushion," are adorable. Why is eight weeks the optimum time to separate a pup from its mom? What is the age at which puppies are deemed (by scientists) to be at their peak cuteness and why? Why do puppies fit so well into homes with humans? Why do they bark, and what do barks mean?Īny puppy questions you might have, Horowitz has answers in real time, as Quid grows. Eleven squirming puppies later (oh, how we feel for the mother dog, Maize), we have the great joy of watching through Horowitz's eyes as they spend their first weeks sleeping, eating and growing, and then taking their first tentative steps toward exploration.Īt eight weeks, Horowitz chooses a puppy and takes her home.
Being a diligent researcher, she finds a dog about to give birth, determined to observe her new puppy from Day One. Given the sharpness of puppy teeth, that is not a bad comparison.īut then, at some point, the idea gripped her. Despite running the Dog Cognition Lab at Barnard College, she notes that raising a puppy is as unfamiliar to her as raising a snow leopard. It is astounding to realize that Alexandra Horowitz, author of so many insightful and useful books about the development of dogs, has never raised one from puppyhood.
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