[.ca] Dogs: A Startling New Understanding of Canine Origin, ... (ISBN 0684855305)

From Amazon.co.uk:
Dogs: A Startling New Understanding of Canine Origin, Behaviour, and Evolution was written by behavioural scientists Raymond and Lorna Coppinger who have raised hundreds of different dogs of various breeds, raced sled teams, and published professional and popular works on canine behaviour. This book, their manifesto, covers their views of canine evolution and treatment by humans and offers deep insight, provoking theories, and controversial ideas regarding our relationship with them. Though some of the material is most appropriate for readers with some zoological background, much of it is written for a general audience--one that cares about dogs not just for what they offer humans, but for their own sake. Arguing that much of current thinking about dogs' evolutionary history is misguided, they share their own rather complex story of wolf-like animals coevolving with permanent human settlements and only recently being subject to directed breeding and artificial selection. This is interesting enough, but they go on to take issue with the use and treatment of dogs, some of which they claim is bad for dog and human alike. Pure breeding, making companion animals of inappropriate breeds, and even some uses of disability assistance are assailed for neglecting genetic and other hardwired aspects of canine life. Surprisingly little is known for sure about dogs' lives and behaviour, so the Coppingers' contribution is a welcome, if occasionally unsettling, eye-opener. --Rob Lightner

Opinions, facts, and some other things:
This book is basically a mash of opinions, facts, hypocrisy, and some good reading. I generally enjoyed reading most of this book. It really helped me see how dogs did evolve from wolf-like ancestor and how they think. But Coppinger is a stereotypical scientist and goes about everything unanthropomorphically. He does have some obvious points, that AKC inbreeding does not benefit dogs, but he also makes it out that we should not own pet dogs, only working dogs. He describes herding dogs, flock guarding dogs, bird dogs and sled dogs, but not working dogs, like Dobermans. He did not go into topics like police dogs, who are trained to aprehend criminals, or personal protection dogs. Which I was hoping would be covered. This is a somewhat pleasant read, and I do recommend it, but take some of it with caution. It's not all fact, it's highly opinionated. But a lot of books are. The authors owned several hundred dogs all at once. Which is horrible. That type of upkeep does not allow dogs to have any emotional attachments to people, and they are more like moving objects, not living things.

Good in its main points:
The Coppingers in "Dogs" try to say a few different things. The main topics are how wolves became selected as dogs, what this implies for their behavior and training, and the ethics of pure-breeding and using working dogs as pets. In these core topics, this book is generally well argued and supported in the main, but suffers from hiccups of poor reasoning. In one example, when arguing why bigger dogs are better for the transhumance, the authors state "to cover the distance with half the steps means a longer lasting dog." Well, the bigger dog also takes heavier steps and big dogs are notorious for structural problems. However, these hiccups are minor distractions. The first core topic that dogs evolved first as scavengers of human waste dumps is interesting. While still largely a speculative hypothesis, this idea is shown fairly well in the book to be more reasonable than the idea that humans got a hold of enough wolves to domesticate them by selecting the tamest ones and tossing the others. This has implications for training in that essentially sedentary dogs foraging at a dump are not going to have wolf behaviors, particularly the widely assumed pack hierarchy. Another major topic is the discussion on why working dogs, with strongly ingrained motor patterns of behavior, are not going to be well suited for living in a house - unless you like being herded by your border collie. This too is well done and promoting the option of a more "generic" dog as a better household companion will do much good. There is also a section on how assistance dogs suffer by being bred and developed in manners inconstant with what makes for a good working dog. While this has been criticized as an argument against assistance dogs, a careful reading will show that it is a valid critique of how the system can be improved. The Coppingers' critique of the profound wrong that is breeding for show will upset the most people. But it is also the best and most important argument in the book. And no, breeding for work, for behavior, which doesn't involve closing a stud book, is not just as bad or the same thing as breeding for appearance from a closed stud book. Throughout the book, the Coppingers also try to discuss what canine evolution implies for Darwinian theories of evolution, but do so in a confused manner by misunderstanding gradualism in the modern sense as being slow, constant changes in morphology (they also use the word "saltation" in a broad and confused way) rather than the actual meaning of continuous, though possibly quite fast, change at the genetic level. They themselves argue that canids have not changed much genetically and that their diversity of form is due to developmental reasons with the needed genetic variation provided by hybridization within the species. Fortunately, these discussions are not central to enjoying the book. The Coppingers write with a bit of wit, which I enjoyed. But most importantly, this book is unique to my knowledge in trying to be rational, rather than sentimentally anthropomorphic, towards dogs. As such should be read by anyone with an interest in them and their true well-being.

disappointing hypocrisy in a promising book:
I am a former musher who is now disabled and has a service dog. When I was a musher, I was attacked for being "cruel" to let my dogs pull a sled, now I am attacked verbally by the public on the average of several times a month for being "cruel" to have a service dog to help me. When I read this book I was fairly astonished to see the author use exactly the same arguments used by the anti mushing agenda to attack the use of service dogs, while defending the use of sled dogs! This is illogical to the extreme, and real hypocrisy. Oddly, the anti service dog folks ( who are usually also rabidly anti mushing if you ask them) seem very ready to refer to this book to defend their "service dogs are slaves" point, but pointedly avoid any of the book's many references to the fact ( and it is a fact ) that dogs like to pull sleds when treated kindly and fairly. Back when I was a musher, people also called my sled dogs "slaves". As the old saying goes, what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Just because Mr. Coppinger likes mushing and does not need a service dog seems to be his main motivation in this argument- not very scientific. Also, he implies ( as the anti mushing folks do about sled dogs) that service dogs are abused and trained cruelly. My sled dogs mostly trained themselves with a bit of guiding from me, and my service dog was trained using a clicker and treats- he's never worn a choke chain in his life. Many service dog training groups and schools use positive reinforcement. I got the strong impression, from other statements in the book ( such as the one about old people being a waste of time and money) that the author probably feels that people like me should just go away and die somewhere and that would be beter from an evolutionary standpoint. Maybe if he were to suffer a serious accident or illness, he might develop some compassion for other people less fortunate them himself. He certainly does not seem to be able to see the contradiction in his own statements. What a disappointing book.

I don't care!:
I don't care what the rest of you guys say - except for the others who gave this book 5 stars - it's a great, wonderful read. If you love dogs and especially if you have wondered a lot about how wolves turned into dogs, read it, you'll like it. True, it's probably an exaggeration on the part of the authors to say that they have had close relationships with all those dogs - what do they claim, 3,000 or so? And then they just sold off all their sled dogs and went on to something else. But the research they've done is never-endingly-fascinating. I feel I understand my dogs better than before, and what more could you ask? Review by Janet Knori, author of Awakening in God

A totally stupid book:
The alarms went off on page one, when the authors state "within four decades, we had owned, named, and worked with on the order of three thousand dogs." In my profession as a veterinarian, we call such people 'collectors.' Collectors have no appreciation of the value of animal companionship. They view animals as replaceable commodities rather than the unique individuals they are. The authors believe that pet dogs are a waste of resources: "If we took the fifteen thousand square miles of prime farmland and turned it into national park, we could have the greatest wildlife sanctuary in the world. Imagine the number of wild things and wild habitat that are displaced by the necessity of growing dog food." This is how they think of animal companionship for the elderly: "Old people living longer in a nursing home may perhaps be competing for their grandchildren's funds and their children's time. Spending time taking care of an aging parent past reproductive age at the expense of children at the beginning of theirs may not be to the species' biological benefit." And finally "...the modern household dog is bred to satisfy human psychological needs, with little or no consideration of the consequences for the dog. These dogs fill the court-jester model of pet ownership." This is value-laden, pseudoscience at it's worse.