One Nation Under Dog

What's with the sniffing? Why do they bark? Oh, and do they actually like us? Those are some of the questions Barnard psychologist Alexandra Horowitz explores in her new book, "Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell and Know." In a review of the book in The Washington Post, you'll find some interesting tidbits, like the fact that 56% of Americans now report buying Christmas gifts for their animals-- and why dogs hate it when you bathe them in coconut-lavender shampoo.

Americans this year will spend $45 billion on veterinary antidepressants, canine hip replacements and doggie spa days. Pet spending has nearly tripled in 15 years, with dogs taking up the lion's share. As the animals have made the physical move from backyard doghouses to ergonomic indoor puppy beds, they've undergone an even more significant philosophical evolution: Man's best friend has become what marketing types now call America's "fur baby."

[Horowitz's book] is a work long on insight and short on jargon. An early chapter on smell nicely explains how dogs' supercharged noses -- they can detect a spoonful of sugar dissolved in two Olympic pools' worth of water -- make smell their most important sense. One real-world implication: Many of the things humans do in the name of sanitation make a dog's world significantly less interesting. "We deprive dogs of an important part of their identity, temporarily, to bathe them in coconut-lavender shampoo," she writes.

More interesting is Horowitz's description of what dogs take in through their other senses. Dogs, she writes, "are the anthropologists among us," making up in close observation what they couldn't otherwise know. For instance, time: They can't read clocks, of course, but these "consummate eavesdroppers and peeping Toms" watch us closely enough to be able to tell, from something as obscure as the speed with which we get up from our desks, whether it's afternoon-walk time. Human observers would find such watching endlessly boring. The fact that pet dogs do not, she says, helps explains our affection for them.