Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099740613 ISBN 13: 9780099740612

Publisher: Vintage Books USA, 2007

How well do you know your dog? Did you know that dogs have dreams and fears? That they do see colour, that they smell electric storms, and feel scent as an emotion? Jeffrey Masson takes us into the world of the dog, a world created by a sense of smell one hundred million times more acute than ours, and reintroduces us to man's best friend - loyal, honest, straightforward, spontaneous and almost unbelievably forgiving. Drawing on observations of his own three dogs, as well as true stories of dogs' friendship, heroism and loyalty, Masson makes us laugh, cry and think again about our canine companions, who, unlike humans, will never lie about love.

Review:

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson was, oddly enough, pet-free when he decided to write about their key role in his life. Not to worry, though. In a trice he acquired a troika of pups (a purebred and two mongrels) and a couple of kittens. (The pussycats, alas, play only cameo roles.) In Dogs Never Lie About Love, Masson finds plenty of new things to say about canines--not that there hasn't been a plenitude of pupper reportage in the '90s. Or at least he easily articulates what some of us might already think: "Dogs feel more than I do (I am not prepared to speak for other people)," Masson asserts. "They feel more, and they feel more purely and more intensely." Often, however, he seems to be writing less about animals than humans: "In searching for why we are so inhibited compared with dogs, perhaps we can learn to be as direct, as honest, as straightforward, and especially as intense in our feelings as dogs are." But this book is not just a cozy mix of navel gazing (bestial and human) and long, leash-filled walks. Masson offers several proofs that dogs do take the high moral road--one police pooch, for instance, refused to acknowledge his handler's attack command. A good thing, too, since Masson himself would have been the victim! In more ways than one, Dogs Never Lie About Love is a Milk-Bone masterpiece.--Kerry Fried

From the Publisher:

"Masson provides us with another blockbuster about the emotional lives of animals [and] offers a thoroughly engaging discussion of what it means to think and feel as dogs do . . . he is a skilled philosopher and accomplished writer. Highly recommended."
-- Library Journal (starred review)

"Riding the wave generated by his best-selling When Elephants Weep (1995), Masson offers further clever musings on the emotional lives of animals, concentrating on that most fervent practitioner of interspecies devotion, Rover. [Masson] is a graceful, powerful, informed writer."
--Kirkus Reviews

"Here at last, a beautiful and sensitively written book on the exceedingly important subject of dogs' emotional lives. It is high time that somebody takes on the subject, and we owe a debt of gratitude to Jeffrey Masson for doing so fearlessly, thoroughly, and lovingly."
--Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, author of The Hidden Life of Dogs