The Pawprints of History: Dogs and the Course of Human Events

Rating:
Summary: Eh.
Review: Entertaining anecdotes, but not really what it promises. It's more a collection of famous people and their beloved dogs with a few notes (some of them are real stretches) about how the author believes the dogs might have affected them. Not particularly convincing, but sweet.

Rating:
Summary: My Reveiw
Review: I liked this book a lot. I have learned many things from it. It has very interesting facts.

Rating:
Summary: My Reveiw
Review: Our intensely personal feelings for our dogs often result in sincere but maudlin attempts to articulate their importance. Strangers can not share our depth of feeling, which is often individualized toward one particular dog or set of experiences.

Stanley Coren avoids sentimentality by employing the distance and perspective of history, describing the historical situations in which dogs have left their paw prints. It is Coren's contention that dogs have been a motive force in history, not merely chasing sticks into the waters of our past but actually spreading ripples of consequence throughout our lives. The cumulative effect of these historical particulars is to see in them something enduring and universal.

His proof starts at the beginning of our history. And why not? Cave markings reveal that ancient man was greeted by a wagging tail. Coren describes many memorable scenes and anecdotes from the ancient world to the present in which dogs have changed the lives of such diverse figures as Sir Walter Scott, Columbus, Washington, Lincoln, Freud, and Alexander Graham Bell. It adds to my respect for Mr. Lincoln, for example, to learn that he leaped into an icy Wabash River waist-high in order to save his fallen friend. While composing, Wagner went so far as to use his dog's responses to the use of certain musical notes.

Coren's narrative history suggests that our relationship with dogs is significantly different from our relationship with other animals. No one writes poems about pigs or cows. Dogs, on the other hand, have achieved their vaunted status by demonstrating characteristics quite different from the rest of the animal kingdom, characteristics aristocratic and anachronistic in a modern, democratic society: loyalty, honesty, trust, discrimination, and an unconditional love which humans have never been able to match.

Equally remarkable in these stories is how often dogs naturally respond in the most appropriate, admirable ways. A dog's behavior is the result of nature and habit rather than rational calculation-his or ours. It makes sense that people in turn respond to these great gifts with reverence and gratitude. In the introduction to their training manual, the monks of New Skete write that, in a modern, technological world, dogs are the only connection to nature that many of us have and consequently the only connection to something uncreated by us.

This continuity with the infinite is one reason I found Coren's introduction poignant. He imagines a scene some ten thousand years ago where early man lies in a hut, at rest with his family around a dying firelight, while the dog perks his ears toward the primitive night. "What do you hear, my dog?" he asks. "You will tell me if I should worry?" Then he proceeds to relate a brief story, handed down through generations, of how dogs became man's hunter, guardian, and friend. After the story, the alert dog yawns and rests his hands on his paws. Before the man sleeps he asks the question that Stanley Coren ponders in these pages: "What would life be like without you?"

Rating:
Summary: A charming view of some wonderful friendships
Review: This interesting book discusses the relationships between several noteable people and their dogs. At least one cynical Washington D.C. politician said that "if you want someone to love you in this town, buy a dog," and you will find he was not the first one to conjure up that thought. The author shows how people such as Florence Nightingale, Frederick the Great, Robert Burns, and Sigmund Freud were all warmly touched by the positive side of their dogs. These people, who somehow seemed so intensely boring in History class, never seemed so human as when interacting with their dogs. Dogs have served as companions for many others who needed a consistent friend, and they often served as inspirations for those who enriched our artistic and aesthetic lives (perhaps because they were so cheerful and so honest). Oh, by the way, the author gives us some pretty interesting lessons in history and the arts, too, so this story is not just about the canids. If you are looking for a good book to curl up with, and read to, your animal companions, give this one a try.

Rating:
Summary: A charming view of some wonderful friendships
Review: This interesting book discusses the relationships between several noteable people and their dogs. At least one cynical Washington D.C. politician said that "if you want someone to love you in this town, buy a dog," and you will find he was not the first one to conjure up that thought. The author shows how people such as Florence Nightingale, Frederick the Great, Robert Burns, and Sigmund Freud were all warmly touched by the positive side of their dogs. These people, who somehow seemed so intensely boring in History class, never seemed so human as when interacting with their dogs. Dogs have served as companions for many others who needed a consistent friend, and they often served as inspirations for those who enriched our artistic and aesthetic lives (perhaps because they were so cheerful and so honest). Oh, by the way, the author gives us some pretty interesting lessons in history and the arts, too, so this story is not just about the canids. If you are looking for a good book to curl up with, and read to, your animal companions, give this one a try.