Rating: 
Summary: 'Startling' is the right word for it!
Review: As an avid reader of hundreds of books about dogs (since I could read), both nonfiction and fiction, I am stunned by the scientific observations made by Raymond and Lorna Coppinger. Don't misunderstand to think that I disagree with their ideas; the "stunned" I am referring to is that same kind of stunned people who thought they knew something experience when it is pointed out to them that, more than likely, what they'd always been told was wrong -- and those people realized 'well, yes, that does make more sense than what I'd been taught before.' I can't claim that I have the same level of experience with training dogs that many trainers who will disagree with this book do, but I have owned or co-owned 10 dogs, and worked for several years in vet clinics, so I have seen a lot of dog behaviors, and with the observations and theorizing provided by the Coppingers' work, many questions I've had now have answers that make much more sense to me. I do not have the time, or burning desire, to compete in obedience or agility events. Since two of the dogs I have at the present are greyhounds, that wouldn't be an option anyway. While I've heard of greyhounds successfully competing in these events, they are few and far between because it takes a truly dedicated trainer to get a dog to do behaviors it was never 'designed' to do. My other three dogs are mixes of breeds that are considered 'good' work dogs (shep/lab, shep/rott, labmix), but as I got them as rescued dogs at more than 6 months old, and only did basic work with them, they couldn't win obedience or agility trials either. That doesn't matter to me, but now I have a better understanding of why so many of my dog's behaviors seem so difficult to me. It isn't that the dog is dumb, but that it wasn't trained to do what it was 'wired best' to do. That also doesn't make me a bad dog owner, since those types of behaviors don't matter much to me. When I thought out what kind of behavior I wanted in a dog I realized that 'normal, average' hound behaviors suit my lifestyle the best. Reading about the village dogs of Pemba, it struck me that while I like to be much closer (physically and psychologically) to my dogs than the villagers, I want that to be when I want it, not when the dog does. Many dog trainers will say they can train any dog to do anything, but that's never made sense, and when one watches obedience and agility events, that is obvious. However, after reading "The Intelligence of Dogs," by Stanley Coren, I couldn't agree with his rankings of dogs, because, as he readily admits, intelligence is not simple to judge. After reading "Dogs," I have a better understanding of how to view different behaviors in the first place. I was really struck by the section about service dogs, and I am sure that the authors are causing all kinds of commotion with their observations of the breeding, raising, and training of the dogs. I agree that dog's relationships with humans are often strained on both sides, and I was very glad to read arguments that were presented in a rational way, not in a 'bunnyhugger' way. I really am a compassionate person, and I think we are indebted to animals for the lifestyle we have. We should treat animals better than we do, in general, but we need to understand how those relationships really work, and not just think of them in simplistic ways. We live on this planet with other creatures, and making assumtions about how we impact each other based solely on our emotional reactions is just not good science. Lastly, as someone who felt she really understood evolution, and the differences between natural selection and selective breeding (I work in a natural history museum where we try to explain this concept to the public), I was thrilled to be 'hit in the head' with more, and better, scientific observations of dogs and how they got to be what they are today than I had been taught to accept. I will be teaching a class about canids in the near future, and the information in this book is going to make it a lot more interesting than what I had planned.
Rating:
Summary: Illuminating long overdue look at dogs and humans
Review: I am 10 year volunteer hearing dog trainer, now up to about 18 dogs...
This is one of the few books to dare discuss the crisis in unmanaged dog breeding and the total collapse of healthy working dogs into genetic garbage.
this book was very unpopular with some of my colleagues because it punctured their breed-oriented obsessions (many are side-breeders).
Yet with our dogs we have learned time and time again the mixed breeds fit best with their new owners, and have the fewest veterinary problems. We have obtained dogs from knowledgeable and careful breeders, but regretably those breeders are getting rarer every day, and now most dogs come from shelters.
Our failure rate on the shelter dogs is so much lower then when we focussed on seeking breeder sourced dogs.
True, this book is overwrought at times, but I think it is an important contribution to the dog book library that says some new and interesting things when so many books just parrot the standard, warped AKC line. Its time for a new breed standards group that focuses on healthy dogs...
Rating: 
Summary: disappointing hypocrisy in a promising book
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: I don't care!
Review: 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
Rating:
Summary: I don't care!
Review: 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
Rating:
Summary: One of the best dog books available
Review: I found this book to be very informative on the topic of the origin of the domestic dog. The authors were very thorough in presenting their evidence, which shows a history I not only found facinating, but seemed to make perfect sense. I was particularly delighted with the discourse on "Behavioral Conformation". It was nice to see an expert opinion on what the various breeds mean, how this makes for the differant range of dogs, and how unfortunatly most people pay little attention to its significance. One of the things I most enjoy about dogs is the range of purposes we have breeds for.Obviosly the authors can't touch on them all, so they pick a few they quite noticably have years of personal experiance with. They did not just go out and interview some expert, they are themselves the experts.This is a refreshing change from many dog books where the authors only experiance is with their own pet dogs, coupled with a lack of scientific process which makes for dull reading. A warning though. This is not a fuzzy "little furry people" type book. The author show professional objectivity presented in a true scientific manner. They might irritate some people, but will hopefully get them to think!
Rating: 
Summary: Very Interesting Book about Dogs
Review: I recommend this book to anyone interested in dog behaviour and how dogs evolved. The author offers theory and fact to present a picture very different from what I have previously seen written about dog behaviour.
Rating: 
Summary: Startlingly Shallow
Review: I should have known that a book with the words "startling new" in its subtitle would be anything but. The main thesis of the book is that dogs started out as village dogs, and were not domesticated by humans directly from wolves. The authors are perhaps correct. One way or the other, dogs developed from wolves, though, for some reason, the authors will only admit that dogs developed from "wolf-like" animals.
If you are a dog sled driver, or enter border-collies into sheep herding contests, or train seeing-eye dogs, there is a lot of information in this book of interest. Otherwise, it is repetitive, prejudiced, and unscientific. For example, they claim that it is mainly gravity that pulls the sleds, and not the dog's muscles! (I learned in school that gravity is a vertical force, and a sled needs a horizontal force to move.) And they claim that a dog with eyes closer together has a better depth perception. (If this were true, a dog with one eye would have the best depth perception of all). The authors complain that assistance dogs pull a wheel chair at an angle to the wheel chair, but I note that in the diagram they give of the harness used by sled dogs, these dogs are also attached at an angle. Of course, sled dogs feel a "pleasurable ache" while assistance dogs "hurt from the outside in". Judge for yourselves if this is prejudice or not.
I give it two stars because it is interesting to read just to see what conclusions pseudo-science can come up with. I am afraid it did not give me much information on how to understand and communicate with my dog. The authors do not like the idea of a human snarling and showing his teeth at a dog's throat to prove the human is the "alpha dog". With this I can agree, but I did not need to read this book to know this.
(I live in the Alps, have a sheep-herding dog (a Berger des Pyrenees) as a companion, and we both coexist with sheep, sheep guarding dogs, wolves and lots of other wildlife, and human hunters of the wildlife.)
Rating:
Summary: A great look at how our dogs came to be.
Review: I'm not finished with this one yet, but really, really like it! The Coppingers present clear, researched arguments about the origin of the dog and how breed plays such an important role in its behavior.
Rating: 
Summary: Is this really new?
Review: It seems anyone who would actually keep a herding breed (Jane) in a van without daily regular exercise and workouts is an uninformed dog owner at best, and since the authors are educated dog breeders (of what, Shih Tzus?), they are dog abusers. If they were uninformed dog owners who had Jane, they would have happily dumped her at animal control once they discovered they didn't "like" her because of her hardwired behavior.
I don't think anyone who trains dogs using positive and negative reinforcement actually thinks dogs ARE JUST LIKE wolves and vice versa. The fact is that positive and negative behavior modification, if used properly, IS EFFECTIVE. Gorillas aren't human, but they can be taught to use sign language. I don't think any of the people teaching sign language to gorillas think gorillas ARE JUST LIKE humans. I think the authors, like many scientists, are hard pressed to admit that humans are animals and not super organisms that are unrelated to the "lesser" species on earth. They might protest that people who recognize that humans are animals too are anthropomorphizing. I think this protest is a rationalizing defense to avoid one's culpability for the inhumane treatment of "lesser" animals which is justified by their "lesser beings" status that has become synonymous with the category of "animal." The authors could have written a much more useful book, which would have educated the general public about behavior/physical attributes of dog breeds and the fine line between hardwired behavior and individual difference and the impact of proper, effective positive and negative reinforcement obedience training on behavior (and adoption rates vs. kill rates) and the consequences of irresponsible dog ownership (where do "excess" dogs killed by the millions in animal control come from???). This book seems like a lot of hullah baloo ("startling, new") in order to create controversy, deepen factionalism, SELL BOOKS, destroy the Human-Companion Pet Bond, sabotage efforts to educate more people about responsible dog ownership and "scientifically" justify killing even millions more of unfortunate young, healthy, trainable and adoptable dogs that die in animal control because they are homeless. Thanks to the authors for obfuscating the issues in dog training and dog adoption.
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