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Marc Bekoff is one of the foremost ethologists of our time, a scientist of great curiosity and generosity and a tireless advocate for (non-human) animals of every sort, who shows through his life’s work that science and advocacy need not be at odds. For forty years he has studied non-human animals, with a special interest in coyotes, wolves, and their near cousins, domestic dogs—much to the annoyance of those of his colleagues who considered dogs “artifacts,” human creations not worthy of serious inquiry by ethologists. He stirred derision among his more hide-bound colleagues when he talked about cognition, consciousness, and emotion as qualities non-human animals shared with humans. These were not new ideas—Charles Darwin, among other 19th century (and earlier )naturalists, believed them to be true—but by the 20th century, they had had come to be seen as unsuitable for serious scientific inquiry.
The shift in scientific thought since the end of the last millennium has been nothing short of revolutionary, and one of the leaders in that revolution is Marc Bekoff. Animal cognition and consciousness are now deemed legitimate fields of inquiry, and the number of scientific publications on various aspects of dog abilities and behavior, like the number of dogs in homes, has sky-rocketed. In his new book, Canine Confidential: Why Dogs Do What They Do, Bekoff turns his considerable skill as an observer and interpreter of canid behavior to providing readers with the investigatory tools and scientific knowledge they need to understand their dog companions more fully and thereby improve the quality of their lives individually and collectively, becoming along the way citizen scientists, in the current parlance. Referring to himself as “a naturalist in a dog park” he combines often humorous anecdotes from a lifetime of watching dogs with comprehensible reports from the cutting edge of science. Bekoff, who seems to know everyone who works with dogs, also interviews researchers involved in recent studies in order to underscore important findings or call attention to the direction follow-up studies might take.
He regularly reminds readers that many studies rely on limited numbers and types of dogs, which in turn limits the value of their conclusions, although that does not stop many researchers from drawing sweeping conclusions about ’the dog.”
Much of Bekoff’s effort early in the book is aimed at exposing the “mythical dog.” In doing that, he emphasizes several overlooked truths about dogs: First, there is no template or Platonic ideal that can be used to define an animal called ’the dog.” There is too much variability among the world’s estimated one-billion dogs for that. Most of them share lives of desperation with the people among whom they live, but whatever their circumstance, each is an individual with a distinctive personality. Each is possessed of a unique combination of physical, mental, and emotional characteristics, as for that matter are all non-human animals. Individual differences occur within a broader spectrum of behaviors that are common to social canids, and Bekoff devotes considerable time to these because despite the attention paid to them, they remain subject to disagreement and misunderstanding.
Bekoff also says that he avoids labeling a dog “good” or” bad “because those characterizations are highly contextual and subjective on the part of the person making them. “I’ve seen dogs doing what dogs typically do being called both ‘good’ and ‘bad,’” he writes. “These judgments often make no sense to the dog or to me.”
Nor does he spare perhaps the most insipid myth of all about dogs—that they are all about love. He says bluntly that “dogs aren’t necessarily our best friends, nor do they give love unconditionally….they have needs and ‘conditions’ that can be a huge challenge for us, hence the burgeoning dog training or teaching industry.” That industry is often geared less to improving the quality of dogs’ lives than making them adjust to their human companions’ lifestyle, which is stressful enough for the people involved.
Dogs are sentient, feeling beings who should be treated with respect and allowed to be dogs—to run, play, snorfle, pee on things, and have a good time, Bekoff reminds his readers. They should not be treated like programmable extensions of human desire.
The bulk of this far-reaching book is spent examining what we know about dogs, much of it recently acquired knowledge, how it applies to our lives with dogs, and how much we still must learn—more than we like to imagine. Bekoff’s goal is to teach people how to read their dogs, to understand how dogs use their incredible sense of smell to navigate the world, for example, and learn about the other creatures in it. It is a testament to Bekoff’s command of his subject that even the most informed reader should be able to find something in these pages that is new and fresh, especially regarding the importance of play among social canids, as well as the structure of dominance hierarchies among dogs and wolves and how they differ from the command driven domineering methods of many dog trainers, who proclaim themselves “pack leader” while behaving nothing like a true leader of people or dogs or wolf packs.
Here too, readers will learn about the importance of play to dogs’ development, how they solicit play, and what play can tell us about whether dogs have a theory of mind, or the ability to recognize that other individuals may have thoughts and feelings that are different from their own, and whether they have a sense of fair play. Bekoff himself has conducted pioneering research into play among dogs, which makes this section read like a master class.
I recently asked Bekoff, a friend of 20 years and the keeper of the blog Animal Emotions for Psychology Today, what he considered the main thesis of his book, and he pointed to the last sentence: "We are most fortunate to have dogs in our lives, and we must work for the day when all dogs are most fortunate to have us in their lives. In the long run, we’ll all be better for it."
He elaborated in an email: “This conclusion rests on everyone who chooses to share their homes and hearts with a dog(s) to become 'fluent in dog,' appreciate each and every individual dog for who they are, and to come to realize that the best dog-human relationships emerge when there's mutual respect and tolerance—and understanding that we're asking dogs (and other animals) to adapt to our world, and this is stressful for the vast majority of dogs who share their lives with a human(s) —so let them express their dogness and let them be dogs as much as possible—let them sniff to their noses' and hearts' content and do things some people find distasteful or disgusting because that's what it is to be a dog ....”
