The Year of the Puppy: How Dogs Become Themselves
What is it like to be a puppy? Author of the classic Inside of a Dog, Alexandra Horowitz tries to find out, spending a year scrutinizing her puppy’s daily existence and poring over the science of early dog development
Few of us meet our dogs at Day One. The dog who will, eventually, become an integral part of our family, our constant companion and best friend, is born without us into a family of her own. A puppy’s critical early development into the dog we come to know is usually missed entirely. Dog researcher Alexandra Horowitz aimed to change that with her family’s new pup, Quiddity (Quid). In this scientific memoir, she charts Quid’s growth from wee grub to boisterous sprite, from her birth to her first birthday.
“What Mr. Rogers was to children, Alexandra Horowitz is to dogs: a wise and patient observer who seeks to intimately know a creature… Her chapters, packed with close observations about canine cognition and behavior, are mini-mood lifters.” —NPR, Maureen Corrigan on Fresh Air
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Description
Review
Praise for The Year of the Puppy:
A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2022
“Horowitz’s goal is to think and write about dogs in a way that is distinct from usual pet-related fare about how to teach a puppy not to lunge at children and not to increase your household paper-towel budget. Instead, she aims to try to better understand a young dog, from Day One to day three hundred and sixty-five, as a being in transformation.”
—Rivka Galchen, The New Yorker
“Horowitz takes science writing to the next level in this stunning exploration of what the world looks like through the eyes of man’s best friend. It’s a blast to join her as she tracks a puppy’s development week by week for a year. Come for the heartwarming anecdotes about her pandemic pup Quiddity, stay for the constantly surprising takeaways.”
—Publishers Weekly, “Publisher’s Weekly Best Books of 2022”
“Equal parts science and doggy diary, this new charmer from the author of Inside of a Dog charts how our irresistible fur babies develop personality.”
—People
“Horowitz (Our Dogs, Ourselves), head of Barnard College’s Dog Cognition Lab, charts the first year of a puppy’s life in this splendid dog behavior explainer. . . . Animal lovers will eat this up.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Keenly observed. . . . With her characteristic sharp eye for detail and vast knowledge of canine-related scientific research, the author expertly guides us through Quid’s critical early development. . . . This book provides a science-based, honest look at the ups and downs of raising a puppy. . . . A detailed, highly illuminating portrait of puppies and our relationships with them.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“A fascinating beauty of a book that will add immensely to the world of dog research and will thrill dog owners.”
—Library Journal
About the Author
Alexandra Horowitz observes dogs for a living. Her research began more than two decades ago, studying dogs at play, and continues today at her Dog Cognition Lab at Barnard College. She is the author of Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know and three other books: On Looking; Being a Dog; and Our Dogs, Ourselves. She lives with her family of Homo sapiens, Canis familiaris, and Felis catus in New York City.
