Product Description

In this beautiful account, based on thirty years of living with and observing dogs, wolves and dingoes novelist and anthropologist Elizabeth Marshall Thomas brings us a completely new understanding of dogs. We meet Misha, a friend's husky, whom Thomas followed on his daily rounds of more than 130 square miles, and who ultimately provided the simple and surprising answer to the question What do dogs want most? Not food, not sex, but other dogs. We also meet Maria, who adored Misha, bore his puppies, and clearly mourned when he moved away; Bingo, a brave asthmatic pug; and many more fascinating individuals in this unforgettable chronicle, which "brims with insight and respect" (Emily Mitchell, Time International).

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #65373 in Books
• Published on: 1996-07-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 176 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Thomas's multifaceted discussion of canine life was a 28-week PW bestseller.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
This is a recording of Thomas's much-publicized book that purports to be a scientific study of dog behavior. The author makes much of the many hours of observation and contact she has had with this least elusive of species, as if she were the only owner of multiple dogs to have watched and noted canine habits and relationships. Additionally, Thomas's assumption that the behavior of her dogs is representative of all dogs is unwarranted. She endangers her dogs by allowing them to roam free, cross highways, and violate local laws. She often uses anthropomorphic language, and many listeners will find this either annoying or endearing. Swoosie Kurtz is an absolutely marvelous narrator, but the incidental music at times intrudes upon her talented reading. While the scientific pretensions of the author are irritating, the audiobook does contain some extremely interesting anecdotes about the lives and habits of Thomas's dogs and will likely circulate well. For most popular collections.
- Stacy Pober, Manhattan Coll. Libs., New York
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
An astonishing work of ethology that asks--and answers clearly--a question about dogs that's so simple that, apparently, no one has ever tackled it before: ``What do dogs want?'' Thomas--a trained scientist and novelist who brings her storytelling skills (The Animal Wife, 1990, etc.) fully to bear in this beautifully written study--explains that, years ago, she realized that ``despite a vast array of publications on dogs, virtually nobody...had ever bothered to ask what dogs do when left to themselves.'' And so she set out to ask just that, first by unobtrusively bicycling along with a two-year-old husky, Misha, as the dog went about its daily roamings in the Cambridge, Massachusetts, area. Thomas's findings about Misha and ten other dogs (including a dingo) that followed him into her life-- supplemented by her fieldwork with wolves--cause this report to be about ``dog consciousness'' as, through an elegant recap of her observations, the author convinces us that dogs can, among other skills, create customs; adopt human mannerisms; choose between alternatives; play games; and exhibit a moral sense (this made clear through the amazing incident in which a tiny pug stops a much larger dog from terrorizing some pet parakeets and mice). Just as impressively, Thomas depicts--without anthropomorphizing--a dog world bound by rules like hierarchism but one nonetheless in which each canine is a complex individual. Particularly fascinating is her account of the ``romantic love'' between Misha and his mate, Maria, in which the female remains monogamous even while in heat, as well Thomas's story of how her dogs, left wholly to their own devices, secretly dig a wolflike den behind a woodpile. What, then, do dogs want? ``They want to belong, and they want each other.'' Popular science of the highest order: revelatory, impeccably observed, and a joy to read. A four-woof salute to Thomas and a vigorous tail-wag to boot. (Drawings--not seen) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Customer Reviews

Should be called "A portrait of the irresponsible pet owner"
Absolutely nothing new here. Really, what could you learn from someone who thinks it is fascinating to watch her supposedly beloved dog cross the Alewife Parkway in Cambridge -- repeatedly! As she revels in allowing her "dogs to be dogs" all I could think about was: imagine being her neighbor! (which she does, in fact, imply is pure hell). Maybe if she had learned something interesting from her supposed research you could argue it was worthwhile, although I personally have trouble with the idea of potentially sacrificing great dogs to senseless research. Everything she finds enlightening has already been (better) researched and basically comes straight out of wolf research. Send in the humane society (the dog catcher has already called -- several times)!

How to Make a Buck from Cruelty
This poetic little book celebrating cruelty to dogs has undoubtedly been quite profitable, but I wonder how many dogs' lives it has cost. Readers who don't know any better will be encouraged to let their dogs roam loose and to breed them without any thought of finding genuinely good homes for the puppies. The next time you see a smashed dog by the roadside, or a litter of pups dumped at the pound, think of this book, which has done all it can to make these things happen. The author also commits an additional act of incomprehensible cruelty: After her top female dog kills all of the puppies of another dog, the author deliberately breeds the victimized dog again, and lets her sweat out her pregnancy in an agony of fear. The author's training as an impartial anthropologist observer seems to have caused her to lose sight of her moral responsibilities. These are not wolves to be impartially observed without interference, but her own dogs or friends' dogs, whose well-being and happiness are her deepest moral responsibility. Little wonder that her dogs wanted almost nothing to do with her toward the end of the book. They must have understood how profoundly she had betrayed them.

Get those dogs away from this woman!
This little book is a riff of anthropomorphic nonsense about a group of dogs that have had the misfortune to pass through Ms. Thomas' hands over the years. This is a woman who acquires dogs "one for each member of the family," as though she were purchasing toothbrushes. She has no compunction about letting a dog left in her care wander at will over a large urban area, including crossing busy highways, "just to see where he went!" She does not believe in training dogs, but rather "lets them train themselves," and she apparently has not heard of spaying or neutering as the responsibility of a pet owner. I finished the book, but felt like throwing it against the wall more than once.