While there's nothing earth-shattering here, the book makes an excellent point that in order to relate better to our canine companions we ought to invest more effort in thinking about how they perceive the world.

Perhaps that's the most surprising revelation here: how little scientific and purposeful thought we've given to how our dogs friends think and what makes them happy. While, dogs on the other hand, watch and respond sensitively to our every move and mood.

The book counters some conventional wisdom and wrong-thinking which has lead to misguided and harmful training techniques i.e. dogs do not behave like wolves. They do not need to be dominated and, in fact, this can cause them anxiety and fear.

This book is part of a growing and useful trend toward delving more into the emotional lives of animals, not in the sense of anthropormorphizing, but rather in perceiving the world in the way another species would. Dogs, for example, have a huge olfactory world available to them.

It's a helpful point of view. Bradshaw makes a strong case for the need to think about how to access and maximize the potential of the inner world of dogs to help them integrate and be our companions in modern society rather than simply breeding them to look a certain way - often to the detriment of their health and temperament.

The book ends on a pessimistic note about the fate of dogs, if their needs are not taken into consideration. As a dog lover, I have to feel more hopeful about the future of dogs. What would we do without them?

Loyal dog people will certainly read books like this and speak out to make changes (in training techniques, breeding, welfare) on the dogs' behalf. Won't they?