Do Dogs Dream?

Stanley Coren is one of the world's leading dog researchers whose career spans nearly 50 years and includes seven books and countless scientific papers. The six parts focus on perception, feeling, communication, learning, puppies and a few other things that your dog might want you to know. They are hugely well-informed and each section contains many questions and answers, usually only 2 to 3 pages with a great deal of scientific information in the background as well as an extensive bibliography at the end. Among the questions answered are items on hearing, sense of smell, taste, recognition in a mirror, dogs who laugh and dream, the meaning of barks and tail wagging, intelligence and even for the number of dogs in the world, which the author estimates at 525 million – of these, over 73 million are in the US and 43 million in Europe, with the UK at 6.8 million. My only quibble was the section on dogs and ESP, where the author has swallowed the Richard Wiseman version of his so-called replication of Rupert Sheldrake's dog telepathy experiments. He makes out that Wiseman took precautions not thought of by Rupert including not leaving or returning at a familiar time bought in a familiar vehicle. He also makes out that it was only Wiseman who randomised the time of return when this is also an integral part of Rupert's own experiments. He finishes by attributing Rupert's results to confirmation bias! The facts are that Wiseman only did four replications as against over 130 by Rupert and when Rupert analysed the raw data, he found exactly the same pattern as his own research. This is the politics of knowledge. As it happens, my Labradors have written a book – see www.lookafteryourhuman.com