''Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know'' is a book written by cognitive scientist, Alexandra Horowitz. Horowitz walks the reader through the cognitive process of

dogs The dog (''Canis familiaris'' or ''Canis lupus familiaris'') is a domesticated descendant of the wolf. Also called the domestic dog, it is derived from the extinct Pleistocene wolf, and the modern wolf is the dog's nearest living relative. Do ...

in relation to how they perceive their day-to-day activities. The author explains the animal's cognitive abilities, and allows the reader insight into what it might be like to be a dog. The book also contains a brief interview with the author. Horowitz' approach is based on

biosemiotic Biosemiotics (from the Greek βίος ''bios'', "life" and σημειωτικός ''sēmeiōtikos'', "observant of signs") is a field of semiotics and biology that studies the prelinguistic meaning-making, biological interpretation processes, pr ...

theory of

Jakob von Uexküll Jakob may refer to: People * Jakob (given name), including a list of people with the name * Jakob (surname), including a list of people with the name Other * Jakob (band), a New Zealand band, and the title of their 1999 EP * Max Jakob Memorial Aw ...

umwelt In the semiotic theories of Jakob von Uexküll and Thomas A. Sebeok, ''umwelt'' (plural: umwelten; from the German '' Umwelt'' meaning "environment" or "surroundings") is the "biological foundations that lie at the very epicenter of the stu ...

en or the subjective worlds of animals. She writes about revolutionary impact of Uexküll to animal behaviour studies: "anyone who wants to understand the life of an animal must begin by considering what he called their umwelt: their subjective or 'self-world'" (Horowitz 2010, p. 20).

Author

Alexandra Horowitz lives in New York with her husband and son. She has a B.A. in philosophy from the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

and a Ph.D. in cognitive science from the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...

. Before her scientific career, Horowitz worked as a lexicographer at Merrian-Webster and served on the staff of ''The New Yorker''. Horowitz presently teaches psychology at

Barnard College, Columbia University Barnard College of Columbia University is a private women's liberal arts college in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a group of women led by young student activist Annie Nathan Meyer, who petitioned Columbi ...

. Since ''Inside of a Dog'' was published in 2009, she has written three additional books for general readers.

Honors

''Inside of a Dog'' has been extensively reviewed, was Number 1 on the ''New York Times'' bestseller list, and remained on the list for 64 weeks.

References

{{reflist Zoology books Dogs