Dogs: A Startling New Understanding of Canine Origin, Behavior & Evolution [Englisch] [Gebundene Ausgabe]

I found the second half of the book, however, to be a bit preachy, pessimistic, and overstated. One main premise seemed to be that keeping dogs as household pets (as opposed to working dogs) is a lose-lose situation for the dog and the owner. Humans lose because pet dogs take valuable resources, time and money, away from our species, resources we should be investing in our offspring. Pet dogs rarely give back to us in terms of affection or whatever enough to make up for what they take from us. Dogs lose because they are slaves to our every whim, often subjected to inadequate care and boredom, and purebreds are being bred for appearance at the expense of their own health and genetic vitality. The author lashed out at showdog breeders.

Point taken, but I think the authors overstated their case, throwing the baby out with the bath water. I don't believe dogs tap us out of resources to an unhealthy degree. If anything the huge dog industry (food, supplies, vet care...etc.) benefits our economy. I know many families who find great joy in owning a dog as a pet, and I think dogs add to a parent-child relationship rather than detract.

I also thought it quite hypocritcal, given the author's use of dogs for sled racing, when the author ripped on the use of dogs to assist people with special needs, such as people bound to a wheelchair. The author argued that it is unhealthy and unnatural for the dog, but that sled dog racing was somehow exempt from the criticism.

This book undertakes a topic of tremendous interest to almost every dog owner -- no matter what breed! It is written in a readable fashion while seeming to be based on the years of experience that the Coppingers have had. Thus, while I own Ray Coppinger's non-serious book on "fishing dogs," I was hoping that this book would be as insightful as "The Domestic Dog," edited by James Serpell (which includes a chapter by Ray Coppinger and Richard Schneider -- carefully edited I now suspect) or as informative as "Genetics and the Behavior of Domestic Animals" edited by Grandin or even the small volume "A Concise Survey of Animal Behavior" by Honore and Klopfer.

It isn't.

The Coppingers have evidently spent years with dogs; they are often cited in work with livestock guard dogs and have a confessed love of sled dogs.

Interesting topic - some real experience -- all that is lacking is an editor or someone to point out the serious lacks in logic that the Coppingers blythely sprinkle throughout this book.

Because the authors knew a border collie ("with papers" p. 174) that they describe as a "superb sled dog," they make the leap that "any dog will do for any job if raised and trained properly" (p. 154). In fact, attempts to support this theory have failed miserably.

A prime example that I am familiar with as a livestock producer and one that is within the Coppingers area of expertise was the attempt to use retrievers (Chesapeake?) as livestock guardians in western sheep flocks. That unsuccessful endeavor has been deleted from memory -- and the pages of this text.

Instead, this text published in 2001 quotes 1985 initial observations about training and guard dogs and omits almost two more decades of real study on that topic -- some by the same source -- research which does not support the authors' premise.

How many other topics in this book are as slanted in coverage?

A readable, fun book which must be read much like any work of fiction -- it's up to the reader to pick out the eternal truths and to simply puzzle over the rest.