How the Dog Became the Dog: From Wolves to Our Best Friends - Hardcover

Mark Derr

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0715643010 ISBN 13: 9780715643013

Publisher: Gerald Duckworth & Co Ltd, 2012

Synopsis

That the dog evolved from the wolf is an accepted fact of evolution and history, but the question of how wolf became dog has remained a mystery, obscured by myth and legend. How the Dog Became the Dog illustrates how the dog was an evolutionary inevitability in the nature of the wolf and its human soul mate. How the Dog Became the Dog presents the 'domestication' of the dog as a biological and cultural process that began in mutual cooperation and has taken a number of radical turns. At the end of the last Ice Age the first dogs emerged with their humans from refuges against the cold. In the eighteenth century, humans began the drive to exercise full control of dog reproduction, life, and death to complete the domestication of the wolf begun so long ago.

About this title

Review:

'Derr's real affinity for canines comes through strongly, and the book should appeal to dog lovers with a curiosity about the origins of their favourite companion.' --Publishers Weekly

'The most important book written on the subject since Konrad Lorenz wrote Man Meets Dog in 1949. This book will fascinate anyone who has ever loved a dog' --Scottie Westfall, author of the Retrieverman blog

'In his latest book, renowned author and dog expert, Mark Derr, shows that one can be scientifically rigorous and still write a highly engaging and accessible account of how the dog became the dog... If you have to decide which dog book to read among the many that are available, this clearly is the one to choose because of its scientific accuracy and easy-to-read style.' Marc Bekoff, author of The Emotional Lives of Animals. -- 'A particularly ambitious and detailed version of how the wandering wolf became the drifting dog ... Derr isn't just a dog fancier, one realizes, but a kind of dog nationalist ... Dogs began as allies, not pets and friends, not dependents.' --Adam Gopnik, The NewYorker

About the Author:

Mark Derr is the author of Dog's Best Friend and A Dog's History of America. He writes regularly for Atlantic Monthly, Natural History, Smithsonian and the New York Times. He lives in Miami Beach, Florida.

About this edition

• Publisher: Gerald Duckworth & Co Ltd
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0715643010
• ISBN 13: 9780715643013
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 288