[start: pre-review rant]
If there was one group that I always detested while studying for my psychology degree, it was the behaviorists. The followers of BF Skinner are those who reduce every interaction to types of conditioning. I intensely disliked this mechanical view of humanity, almost as much as I disliked the empirically sloppy and out-and-out lunacy of Sigmund Freud.
Take the situation of a teenager self-harming. A behavorist would be thinking of either extinguishing that behaviour or channeling it into a more “acceptable” alternative. So, just to go to extremes, a behavorist would consider the issue of self-harm “solved” if the teenager in question, say, began making daisy chains instead of cutting his/her inner forearms with a Stanley knife (i.e. box-cutter I think Americans call them). Does that solve the underlying issue? Of course it doesn’t but as behaviorists are only concerned with surface actions and reactions, it isn’t a problem for them.
The dross that passes for the “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” series of books are another in this line of fatuous reasoning and if I can ever dig out my copy of that book (then again, I probably used it as toilet paper, thus granting it some degree of utility), I’ll do a review on that one too.
[end: pre-review rant]
Which is my extraordinarily long-winded introduction to “How to Speak Dog” by Dr. Stanley Coren. May I say what an utter UTTER delight it is to come across someone in psychology who actually seems to like and respect animals! I have always regarded our history (whether economic or social) to be incredibly speciesist and unbelievably arrogant about our place on the planet. We would like to be respected but don’t consider it necessary to respect those we inhabit this world with. What a “civilised” attitude to have!
And so, again, to this book. Dr. Coren is a skilful and entertaining writer who is able to explain canine behaviour in a straightforward manner that precludes a purely mechanistic view of animals. He is all for anthropomorphism of our mammal cousins, and I couldn’t be happier. After some interesting and informative anecdotes at the beginning, Coren launches into animal (including human, for we are animals too) evolution. He even makes the provocative and delightful supposition that human speech may owe its development to dogs!
He then goes into describing extraordinarily intelligent animals (with some explanations of how they achieved this…excellent observational skills, mostly) and how dog names affect their reception by strangers. The construction of clever experiments, in this case to test canine cognition and comprehension, always fascinates me and Coren’s examples of such scenarios and the conclusions that can be drawn from them are captivating.
Different chapters of the book cover Face Talk, Ear Talk, Eye Talk, Tail Talk, Body Talk, Sex Talk, Scent Talk and I was able to watch the interactions between our mini bull terriers and our cats with much greater interest (and amusement) after reading the chapter on “Dogs Talking to Cats”. There are even illustrations that show escalated levels of fear, dominance, submission, and so on.
I won’t say that I agree with everything Dr. Coren says. Bull terriers, for example, seem to have their own sub-set of behaviours that doesn’t always appear to correspond one-to-one with the “phrasebook” Coren provides (all the physical indicators, conveniently grouped together in the back). Sausage, for example, always accompanies my husband on his nightly lock-up of the house and approaches this duty with a confident trot and her tail bent sharply up (so sharply, in fact, that it looks broken). Coren says this is a dangerous behaviour: “It is a definite sign that immediate aggression is being contemplated by the dog” (p. 126), but we interpret it to mean a watchful alertness; i.e. “On Guard!”, especially when there is no immediate sign of danger in the vicinity. When her “duty” is done and she’s safely upstairs, Sausage relaxes that sharp bend and comes looking for cuddles, preferably in someone’s lap.
But, other than a couple of niggles along those lines, I have no truck with anything in the book and, in fact, have bought two other books by Dr. Coren on dogs and dog psychology. As with this one, I’m sure the next two books will also be keepers.
Summary: Highly recommended to any caring dog (with cat!) owner. I’ll be giving this 4 stars and copying the bulk of this review to Goodreads.
HOW TO SPEAK DOG: Available from The Book Depository for US$11.00 with free shipping worldwide
Well, maybe one and a half.
That’s right, partials of all of Sandal’s 2011 releases plus a bit of our first 2012 release. All in all, that comes to 39,000 words. I’m hoping it will generate some interest, and drive paying customers to my door but, regardless, I think it a valuable annual exercise and have already started to construct the 2012 sampler to make my life easier this time next year.
, but we’ll just stick to the plan for now.