Being a Dog: Following the Dog Into a World of Smell

From the #1 bestselling author of Inside of a Dog and The Year of the Puppy—“an incredible journey into the olfactory world of man’s best friend” (O, The Oprah Magazine), Alexandra Horowitz’s follow-up to her New York Times bestseller explains how dogs experience the world through their most spectacular organ—the nose.

In her “fascinating book…Horowitz combines the expertise of a scientist with an easy, lively writing style” (The New York Times Book Review) as she imagines what it is like to be a dog. Guided by her own dogs, Finnegan and Upton, Horowitz sets off on a quest through the cutting-edge science behind the olfactory abilities of the dog. In addition to speaking to cognitive researchers and smell experts, Horowitz visits scent detection dog trainers and training centers; she meets researchers working with dogs to detect cancerous cells and anticipate epileptic seizure or diabetic shock; and she even attempts to smell-train her own nose.

As we come to understand how rich, complex, and exciting the world around us is to the canine nose, Horowitz changes our perspective on dogs forever. Readers will finish this book feeling that they have broken free of their human constraints and understanding smell as never before; that they have, for however fleetingly, been a dog. And, as The Boston Globe says about Being a Dog, “becoming more doglike, not surprisingly, can make anyone’s life a little more vivid.”

Alexandra Horowitz is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know; On Looking: A Walker’s Guide to the Art of Observation; Being a Dog: Following the Dog into a World of Smell; Our Dogs, Ourselves: The Story of a Singular Bond; and The Year of the Puppy: How Dogs Become Themselves. She teaches at Barnard College, where she runs the Dog Cognition Lab. She lives with her family of Homo sapiens, Canis familiaris, and Felis catus in New York City.