Essay/Term paper: The hidden life of dogs: book review

Essay, term paper, research paper:  World Literature

The Hidden Life of Dogs: Book Review


The Hidden Life Of Dogs was written by Elizabeth Thomas who is currently well
know and highly re-spected for her books. Elizabeth Thomas was born in America
and currently lives in New Hampshire. This is a book that is unlike any book
ever written as it takes the perspective from a different angle. It was first
published in the United States in 1993 by Houghton Mifflin Company.

Elizabeth has written five books, all bestsellers. It is evident that her
success is due to her intense research as she has travelled the world while
writing her books. With international success, Elizabeth plans to continue her
career that currently seems to be skyrocketing.

"The Hidden Life Of Dogs" was not just any book. Clearly there was much more
effort involved. Beginning with an introductory character, Misha who was a Husky,
began the book well. This book tried to get the idea across that humans knew
only very little about dogs and their patterns. After intense observations on
Misha, some ideas were brought up. How did the dog know how to cross a highway
on its own? How did its navigational skills work? How was it that this dog knew
exactly where it was and could travel through different cities without becoming
lost and other dogs couldn't? Continuing on to bringing in other dogs Elizabeth
was studying, she pointed out that some had skills that others did not. Misha
was clearly able to navigate himself but when with another dog, he would become
lost. After careful observation it was seen that the other dog could easily
loose track of where she was and mislead Misha. Another interesting topic
covered is how dogs behave with each other. How they achieve their social status,
why some dogs don't become accepted and how they react to each other. By
comparing the dogs with the wolves and dingoes some of the dogs' actions become
clearer, but there is one thing a dog really wants and that is to be with others,
and to love their owner. It was explained how a dog defended a bird and mouse in
a cage from another excited dog in the same house. Likely explanations for this
could be because the older dog felt that the peace was not being maintained or
perhaps he knew that the mouse and bird were his master's belongings and he
should protect them. The book goes on to explaining what occurs between the dogs
when they mate, why some dogs kill their litter and many other topics. The
conclusion is quite brief, Elizabeth explains what happens to her dogs, how a
dog feels when her best mate dies and the relationship her dogs had with the
wolves and coyotes and their interactions.

Each single chapter of this book brings up a new issue and investigates it. The
interest is maintained throughout the book purely because of the fascinating
information given about this species, information that had not been studied
before. The author also wrote in a clear cut way, giving a solid and adequate
description of everything and then moving on to new parts, not making it boring.

Very few illustrations are used in the book, only one in the beginning of each
chapter. Illustrations in this book would have little use as there is no way of
really describing every action made by the dogs. Instead of illustrating, the
book kept the text clear, not making it confusing but easy to understand and
illustrate in the mind.

In general, the book was at an excellent standard, very easy to read, not too
long and no major confusions. These small details made the book enjoyable to
read as well as being useful information. The book's purpose, to give humans
better knowledge about our close friend, did just that. It achieved to show that
the dog can be misunderstood for being stupid when really it knows much more
than we think it does. Clearly many tiring and endless hours have been put in to
make this book a success and how it was done is really amazing. Elizabeth looked
after more than twenty dogs, spent all her spare time observing them, walking
with them until she saw why they did what they did. The hidden life of dogs was
a great book that would keep any reader at any age occupied and entertained.