Marc Bekoff

Unleashing Your Dog doesn’t tell you a lot that is new about dogs, but it does tell you where the science is these days. Authors Marc Bekoff and Jessica Pierce are academics from Colorado—Berkoff in biology and Pierce in bioethics. Here are a couple of things I did not know before. A dog’s emotional intelligence and information processing are on different sides of the brain, so it is especially easy for it to get confused by mixed messaging if the emotional resonance for a command is show more not right. There is a lot we don’t know about tail wagging, but wagging to the left is usually happier than wagging to the right. Who knew? The basic message from Bekoff and Pierce: pay attention to the whole range of doggy behavior. We should watch them as carefully as they watch us. show less

This book forces readers to examine their compassion toward, interactions with, and impacts on animals. This is a valuable contribution that has some uncomfortable and scientifically-backed/cited truths. For example, have reptile owners ever thought of the actual lived experience of their pets? For anyone who has ever watched an iguana out in the wild with their quick movements in and outside of the water compared to someone's pet iguana standing lifeless and motionless in a cage and show more questioned why that brings joy to the pet owner, this book is for you. If you've never questioned this, this book is for you.
Many truths are incredibly difficult for us to face, and I appreciate that this book does so in a compassionate and rationale way. It's not preachy. It's not condemning. It presents information about the lives of animals across different spheres of their co-existence with us, such as captivity, lab settings, and farming.
Wish families would purchase this book the next time they think about purchasing a zoo ticket, or going to the grocery store, and before getting a pet. Highly recommend reading and using this text to reflect on our lives and our treatment of animals of all sizes and environments. show less

The second read for this year of my book club was picked by a Buddhist/vegan/animal rights activist friend of mine. I was not sure at all I would enjoy it, but I did. This thoroughly enjoyable read was informative, if a bit repetitious at times.

Anyone who lives with a dog or a cat or has grown up on a farm is well aware of the intelligence, memory, and emotions expressed by animals. Bekoff’s book is loaded with anecdotes from ethologists (researchers in animal emotions) as well as lay show more persons. As he says, “the plural of anecdote is data” (121). Many of his anecdotes closely match what we have observed with our pets at home.

Bekoff shows how animals and humans share brain structure and chemistry. He posits that our emotions have evolved along with our physical structure. To my surprise, Darwin also speculated about animal emotions, and he believed they evolved along with physical structure.

One chapter ends with, “if we try to learn more about forgiveness, fairness, trust, and cooperation in animals, maybe we’ll also learn to live more compassionately and cooperatively with one another” (109).

This read has not made me a vegetarian, but it has made me more conscious of products I buy. I simply like meat too much to give it up completely. However, I try and buy products not tested on animals, free-range chicken, and organic, hormone and antibiotic-free milk and eggs. It is a first small step.

The most interesting question Bekoff poses is, would you treat your family pet the same way you would treat the animals in your lab, on your farm, or in the wild? I suspect almost everyone would answer with a resounding, “No!”

--Jim, 10/31/08 show less

A fascinating study of animal consciousness by a scientist who has studied animals and birds of all kinds for many years. He intersperses first hand accounts of his own experiences and encounters with animals with observations of other experts in the field and explorations of various scientific theories.

As an animal lover, I've always believed their emotional lives are every bit as rich as ours, albeit in ways that are unique to each individual species. It astonishes me that there there show more should be any question around whether or not animals experience emotion, feel pain, are capable of suffering etc., but there are those who still seek to deny animals those capacities. As Bekoff reiterates many times in his book however, it is a mistake to over-anthropomorphise our conception of animals - their experiences are not ours but are none the less valid for that.

It was interesting reading this book straight after Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma" which addresses the question of animals in terms of how we use them for food, in which he remarks “whether our interest in eating animals outweighs their interest in not being eaten … ultimately turns on the vexed question of animal suffering". Pollan concludes that although there can be little doubt that animals experience suffering, it is impossible to ever know the extent or nature of it. He warns against projecting human characteristics onto non-human beings, and uses as an example the experience of watching a steer force marched up a ramp to the killing floor, suggesting we would be wrong to attribute any consciousness of impending doom to the animal, as we would if it was a man going to his execution. Animals however have a highly developed sensory nervous system as Bekoff points out and it seems to me too self-serving to conclude that they would remain oblivious to the scent of fear, blood and death that must pervade such a scene.

Bekoff's book doesn't offer any sweeping conclusions or revelations but it is a strong reminder that regardless of our views on whether or not animals have lives as meaningful to them as we do, we have a responsibility to treat them with compassion and respect. show less