Being a Dog - Following the dog into a world of smell

Horowitz, a leading researcher in dog cognition, unpacks the mystery of a dog's nose-view, in order to fully understand our companions.

With her family dogs, Finnegan and Upton, leading the way, Horowitz sets off on a quest to make sense of scents, combining a personal journey of smelling with a tour through the cutting edge and improbable science behind the olfactory powers of the dog. From revealing the spectacular biology of the dog snout, to speaking to other cognitive researchers and smell experts across the country, to visiting detection-dog training centres and even attempting to smell-train her own nose, Horowitz covers the topic of noses—both canine and human—from surprising, novel, and always fascinating angles.

As we come to understand how complex the world around us appears to the canine nose, Horowitz changes our perspective on dogs forever. Readers will finish this book feeling that they have smelled into a fourth dimension—breaking free of human constraints and understanding smell as never before; that they have, however fleetingly, been a dog.

Alexandra Horowitz is the author of the #1 New York Times best-selling Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know, On Looking: A Walker's Guide to the Art of Observation, and, most recently, Being a Dog: Following the Dog into a World of Smell. She teaches canine cognition and creative nonfiction at Barnard College, Columbia University, where she runs the Horowitz Dog Cognition Lab. Alexandra lives in New York City with her husband, the writer Ammon Shea, her son, and two large, highly sniffy dogs. (And a dog-friendly cat.)