Alexandra Horowitz

The author of the best-selling Inside of a Dog counsels readers on how to rediscover everyday joys in typically overlooked areas of life, sharing guidelines for focusing attention on the senses and engaging in simple activities to reconnect with the real world.

Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes

On Looking

The bestselling book that asks what dogs know and how they think. The answers will surprise and delight you as Alexandra Horowitz, a cognitive scientist, explains how dogs perceive their daily worlds, each other, and that other quirky animal, the human. Temple Grandin meets Stephen Pinker in this engaging and informative look at what goes on inside the minds of dogs—from a cognitive scientist with a background at The New Yorker. With more than 52 million pet dogs in America today, it’s clear we are a nation of unabashed dog-lovers. Yet the relationship between dogs and humans remains a fascinating mystery, as no one really knows what goes on in the canine mind. Now, in Inside of a Dog, Alexandra Horowitz fuses her perspectives as both scientist and dog-owner to deliver a fresh look at the world of dogs—as seen from the animal’s point of view. Inspired by her years of living with her own dog, Pumpernickel, who was a constant source of delight and mystery, Horowitz’s mind became filled with questions and ideas. In crisp, clear prose, she draws on her research in the field of dog cognition to give readers a sense of a dog’s perceptual and cognitive abilities—and paints a picture of what the canine experience is like. Horowitz’s own scientific journey, and the insights she uncovered, allowed her to understand her dog better and appreciate her more. Containing up-to-the minute research and providing many moments of dog-behavior recognition, this lively and absorbing book helps dog owners to see their best friend’s behavior in a different, and revealing light, allowing them to understand their pets and enjoy their company even more.

What Dogs See, Smell, and Know

Inside of a Dog

Subtitle in pre-publication: Following the dog's nose into a world of smell.

Following the Dog Into a World of Smell

Being a Dog

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Inside of a Dog, an eye-opening, informative, “entertaining, and enlightening” (BookPage) celebration of the human-canine relationship for the curious dog owner and science-lover alike. We keep dogs and are kept by them. We love dogs and (we assume) we are loved by them. We buy them sweaters, toys, shoes; we are concerned with their social lives, their food, and their health. The story of humans and dogs is thousands of years old but is far from understood. In Our Dogs, Ourselves, Alexandra Horowitz explores all aspects of this unique and complex relationship that “dog lovers will savor and absorb” (Shelf Awareness). As Horowitz considers the current culture of dogdom, she reveals the odd, surprising, and contradictory ways we live with dogs. We celebrate their individuality but breed them for sameness. Despite our deep emotional relationships with dogs, legally they are property to be bought, sold, abandoned, or euthanized as we wish. Even the way we speak to our dogs is at once perplexing and delightful. In thirteen thoughtful and charming chapters, Our Dogs, Ourselves affirms our profound affection for this most charismatic of animals—and makes us “see canine companions in new ways” (Science News).

The Story of a Singular Bond

Our Dogs, Ourselves

Karen White

Als Erstes sieht man den K opf. Hinter dem Hügel - scheint eine speichelfeuchte Schnauze. Noch ist nicht zu erkennen, wozu sie gehört, doch dann kommt ein Bein zum Vorschein, ein zweites, ein drittes und ein viertes. - rüber ein Körper von 70 Kilogramm: ein Wolfshund mit 90 Zentimetern Schulterhöhe, bis zur Schwanzspitze 150 Zentimeter lang. Er beobachtet die winzige langhaarige Chihuahuahündin, die sich im Gras zwischen den Füßen ihres Besitzers versteckt. Sie wiegt vielleicht drei Pfund, und jedes Gramm davon zittert. Mit einem trägen Satz ist der Wolfshund vor ihr, die Ohren gespitzt. Die Kleine sieht schüchtern beiseite. Der Große beugt sich zu ihr - nab und stupst sie in die Flanke. Nun sieht der Chihuahua den Wolfshund an, dieser streckt das Hinterteil mit - porgerecktem Schwanz sprungbereit nach oben. Doch der Chihuahua ieht nicht vor der vermeintlichen Gefahr, s- dern nimmt dieselbe Haltung ein und springt dem Wol- hund ins Gesicht, wobei er dessen Nase mit den kleinen Pfoten umfasst. Sie beginnen zu spielen. Fünf Minuten lang tollen die beiden Hunde umher, - cken sich, beißen sich, stürzen sich aufeinander. Der Wolfshund wirft sich auf die Seite, und die Kleine qu- tiert dies mit Attacken auf sein Gesicht, seinen Bauch und seine Pfoten. Nach einem Schlag des Großen weicht der 2 Was denkt der Hund? Chihuahua ängstlich aus seiner Reichweite zurück. Der Große bellt, springt auf und landet mit einem Plumps auf den Füßen.

Wie er die Welt wahrnimmt - und uns

Was denkt der Hund?

“What Mr. Rogers was to children, Alexandra Horowitz is to dogs: a wise and patient observer who seeks to intimately know a creature... Her chapters, packed with close observations about canine cognition and behavior, are mini-mood lifters." —NPR, Maureen Corrigan on Fresh Air What is it like to be a puppy? Author of the classic Inside of a Dog, Alexandra Horowitz tries to find out, spending a year scrutinizing her puppy’s daily existence and poring over the science of early dog development Few of us meet our dogs at Day One. The dog who will, eventually, become an integral part of our family, our constant companion and best friend, is born without us into a family of her own. A puppy's critical early development into the dog we come to know is usually missed entirely. Dog researcher Alexandra Horowitz aimed to change that with her family's new pup, Quiddity (Quid). In this scientific memoir, she charts Quid's growth from wee grub to boisterous sprite, from her birth to her first birthday. Horowitz follows Quid's first weeks with her mother and ten roly-poly littermates, and then each week after the puppy joins her household of three humans, two large dogs, and a wary cat. She documents the social and cognitive milestones that so many of us miss in our puppies' lives, when caught up in the housetraining and behavioral training that easily overwhelms the first months of a dog's life with a new family. In focusing on training a dog to behave, we mostly miss the radical development of a puppy into themselves—through the equivalent of infancy, childhood, young adolescence, and teenager-hood. By slowing down to observe Quid from week to week, The Year of the Puppy makes new sense of a dog's behavior in a way that is missed when the focus is only on training. Horowitz keeps a lens on the puppy's point of view—how they (begin to) see and smell the world, make meaning of it, and become an individual personality. She's there when the puppies first open their eyes, first start to recognize one another and learn about cats, sheep, and people; she sees them from their first play bows to puberty. Horowitz also draws from the ample research in the fields of dog and human development to draw analogies between a dog's first year and the growing child—and to note where they diverge. The Year of the Puppy is indispensable for anyone navigating their way through the frustrating, amusing, and ultimately delightful first year of a puppy’s life.

How Dogs Become Themselves

The Year of the Puppy

What is it like to be a puppy? Author of the classic Inside of a Dog, Alexandra Horowitz tries to find out, spending a year scrutinizing her puppy's daily existence and poring over the science of early dog development Few of us meet our dogs at Day One. The dog who will, eventually, become an integral part of our family, our constant companion and best friend, is born without us into a family of her own. A puppy's critical early development into the dog we come to know is usually missed entirely. Dog researcher Alexandra Horowitz aimed to change that with her family's new pup, Quiddity (Quid). In this scientific memoir, she charts Quid's growth from wee grub to boisterous sprite, from her birth to her first birthday. Horowitz follows Quid's first weeks with her mother and ten roly-poly littermates, and then each week after the puppy joins her household of three humans, two large dogs, and a wary cat. She documents the social and cognitive milestones that so many of us miss in our puppies' lives, when caught up in the housetraining and behavioral training that easily overwhelms the first months of a dog's life with a new family. In focusing on training a dog to behave, we mostly miss the radical development of a puppy into themselves--through the equivalent of infancy, childhood, young adolescence, and teenager-hood. By slowing down to observe Quid from week to week, The Year of the Puppy makes new sense of a dog's behavior in a way that is missed when the focus is only on training. Horowitz keeps a lens on the puppy's point of view--how they (begin to) see and smell the world, make meaning of it, and become an individual personality. She's there when the puppies first open their eyes, first start to recognize one another and learn about cats, sheep, and people; she sees them from their first play bows to puberty. Horowitz also draws from the ample research in the fields of dog and human development to draw analogies between a dog's first year and the growing child--and to note where they diverge. The Year of the Puppy is indispensable for anyone navigating their way through the frustrating, amusing, and ultimately delightful first year of a puppy's life.

From the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Inside of a Dog, this “elegant and entertaining” (The Boston Globe) explanation of how humans perceive their environments “does more than open our eyes...opens our hearts and minds, too, gently awakening us to a world—in fact, many worlds—we’ve been missing” (USA TODAY). Alexandra Horowitz shows us how to see the spectacle of the ordinary—to practice, as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle put it, “the observation of trifles.” Structured around a series of eleven walks the author takes, mostly in her Manhattan neighborhood, On Looking features experts on a diverse range of subjects, including an urban sociologist, the well-known artist Maira Kalman, a geologist, a physician, and a sound designer. Horowitz also walks with a child and a dog to see the world as they perceive it. What they see, how they see it, and why most of us do not see the same things reveal the startling power of human attention and the cognitive aspects of what it means to be an expert observer. Page by page, Horowitz shows how much more there is to see—if only we would really look. Trained as a cognitive scientist, she discovers a feast of fascinating detail, all explained with her generous humor and self-deprecating tone. So turn off the phone and other electronic devices and be in the real world—where strangers communicate by geometry as they walk toward one another, where sounds reveal shadows, where posture can display humility, and the underside of a leaf unveils a Lilliputian universe—where, indeed, there are worlds within worlds within worlds.

A Walker's Guide to the Art of Observation

You are missing at least eighty percent of what is happening around you right now. You are missing what is happening in your body, in the distance, and right in front of you. In marshalling your attention to these words, you are ignoring an unthinkably large amount of information that continues to bombard all of your senses. This ignorance is useful: indeed, we compliment it and call it concentration. It enables us to not just notice the shapes on the page, but to absorb them as intelligible words, phrases, ideas. Alas, we tend to bring this focus to every activity we do. In so doing, it is inevitable that we also bring along attention's companion: inattention to everything else. This book begins with that inattention. It is not a book about how to bring more focus to your reading of Tolstoy; it is not about how to multitask, attending to two or three or four tasks at once. It is not about how to avoid falling asleep at a public lecture, or at your grandfather's tales of boyhood misadventures. It is about attending to the joys of the unattended, the perceived 'ordinary'. Even when engaged in the simplest of activities - taking a walk around the block - we pay so little attention to most of what is right before us that we are sleepwalkers in our own lives. This book is about that walk around the block, and how to rediscover the extraordinary things that we are missing in our ordinary activities.

About Everything There is to See

This middle grade adaptation of Our Dogs, Ourselves is an eye-opening, entertaining, and beautifully illustrated look about humans’ complicated and sometimes contradictory relationship with man’s best friend by New York Times bestselling author of Inside of a Dog—Young Readers Edition. We keep dogs and are kept by them. We love dogs and (we assume) we are loved by them. Even while we see ourselves in dogs, we also treat them in surprising ways. On the one hand, we let them into our beds, we give them meaningful names, make them members of our family, and buy them the best food, toys, accessories, clothes, and more. But we also shape our dogs into something they aren’t meant to be. Purebreeding dogs has led to many unhealthy pups. Many dogs have no homes, or live out their life in shelters. How is it possible we can treat the same species in these two totally different ways? In Our Dogs, Ourselves Young Readers Edition, bestselling author of Inside of a Dog, Alexandra Horowitz reveals the odd, surprising, and contradictory ways we live with dogs.

How We Live with Dogs

Our Dogs, Ourselves -- Young Readers Edition

Do you want to know what dogs are thinking? What they're feeling, and what they can smell with that great big nose of theirs? Here's your chance to experience the world nose first, from two feet off the ground.

Inside of a Dog -- Young Readers Edition

Seu cachorro e você é uma obra inspiradora e informativa que examina a complexa relação entre humanos e cachorros. Da autora do best-seller A cabeça do cachorro. Considerando a conexão que compartilhamos com nossos cachorros, é possível melhorar a vida deles? A renomada cientista e escritora Alexandra Horowitz mostra que sim (e como) em seu novo livro Seu cachorro e você: A história de uma conexão única. Após o sucesso de A cabeça de cachorro, a autora examina as particularidades da relação entre humanos e seus cães, e como foi criada uma indústria que mobiliza capital e afetos, alterando nossa economia, rotina e até mesmo a linguagem. Amamos os cães e (assim presumimos) eles nos amam. Cuidamos dos cães, mas eles também cuidam de nós. Compramos roupinhas, brinquedos, sapatos, além de nos preocuparmos com sua vida social, alimentação e saúde. A história do relacionamento entre humanos e cachorros existe há milhares de anos, porém está longe de ser completamente compreendida. Em Seu cachorro e você: A história de uma conexão única, a professora de psicologia e doutora em ciência cognitiva Alexandra Horowitz explora todos os aspectos dessa relação interespécies tão singular e complexa. Ao mesmo tempo que analisa o impacto cultural canino na sociedade, Horowitz revela as curiosidades, surpresas e contradições que surgem ao se conviver com um cachorro. Celebramos sua individualidade, mas muitas vezes criamos expectativas inadequadas e esperamos que tenham comportamentos humanos. Com o olhar de cientista e de amante de cães, Horowitz reflete sobre os animais que se tornaram o exemplo do que é ser companheiro e, em contrapartida, como isso se reflete na humanidade. Em treze capítulos embasados, Seu cachorro e você afirma nossa profunda afeição por esses animais e traz um olhar diferenciado para esses companheiros: entendemos mais os cães e, no processo, nós mesmos.

A história de uma conexão única

Seu cachorro e você

What is it like to be a puppy? What's going on in their minds? In this adaptation for young readers, Alexandra Horowitz answers those questions all kids have--and more! Many people don't have the privilege of meeting their dog the day they were born. They don't know what it was like when their puppy took their first steps, or how wet their nose was, or if they got along with their siblings. Alexandra Horowitz is a dog scientist who had the lucky opportunity to be by her puppy's side on the day he was born, and was able to put her dog science skills to good use and study her dog, Quid's, every move, from birth until her first birthday. Readers will delight in observing Quid's development week to week. How she begins to see and smell the world, how she interacts with her human family of five, and when she starts to develop her own personality. Equal parts scientific and adventurous, Alexandra Horowitz's deep study of her own puppy is a enticing read for readers of all ages. Whether they're a dog person or not, Year of the Puppy will engage all readers. . . and maybe might even turn some reluctant humans into dog-lovers.

How a Puppy Becomes Your Dog

Year of the Puppy

We keep dogs and are kept by them. We love dogs and (we assume) we are loved by them. Even while we see ourselves in dogs, we also treat them in surprising ways. On the one hand, we let them into our beds, we give them meaningful names, make them members of our family, and buy them the best food, toys, accessories, clothes, and more. But we also shape our dogs into something they aren't meant to be. Purebreeding dogs has led to many unhealthy pups. Many dogs have no homes, or live out their lives in shelters. How is it possible we can treat the same species in these two totally different ways? In this book the author reveals the odd, suprising, and contradictory ways we live with dogs.

Written with the same scientific insight and engaging voice as her blockbuster Inside of a Dog, Alexandra Horowitz now explains how dogs experience the world through that spectacular organ - the nose - and how we humans can put our own under-used sense of smell to work in surprising ways.

La historia de la relación entre los humanos y los perros suma ya miles de años, pero siguen habiendo muchos aspectos que escapan a nuestra comprensión. Alexandra Horowitz, experta en cognición animal, ha explorado los entresijos de este vínculo, único y complejo, entre especies. En estas páginas, la autora desgrana las particularidades de compartir la vida con un perro, cuáles son sus necesidades, cómo vemos a nuestros compañeros caninos y, lo más sorprendente, cómo nos ven ellos a nosotros. Un libro apasionante para los amantes de los perros y de la biología en general.

Alexandra Horowitz

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