The award-winning scientist who revolutionised our understanding of dog intelligence offers amazing new insights into the interior lives of our best – and smartest – animal friends

'Entertaining, fast-moving, and filled with gee-whiz insights.' John Grogan, author of Marley & Me

The journey began with a gut reaction. When award-winning scientist Dr Brian Hare watched a chimpanzee fail to read a simple human hand gesture in an intelligence test, he blurted out, ‘My dog can do that!’ The psychologist running the test challenged him to prove it, sending Hare on an odyssey to unlock the cognitive and evolutionary mysteries of our four-legged friends.

Hare’s research over the past two decades has yielded startling discoveries about how dogs think. He has pioneered studies that have proven that dogs exhibit a brand of genius for getting along with people that is unique in the animal kingdom, and that when dogs domesticated themselves around 40,000 years ago they became far more like human infants than their wolf ancestors. These findings are transforming how we live and work with our canine friends, and how we understand them. Is your dog purposefully disobeying you? Probably, and often behind your back. Should you act like ‘top dog to maintain control? No, you’re better off displaying your friendliness – not just to your dog but to everyone around you. Which breed is cleverest? As it happens, breed doesn’t matter much, though other factors do.

These are just some of the extraordinary insights to be found in The Genius of Dogs – the seminal book on how dogs evolved their unique intelligence alongside human companions, and how you can use this groundbreaking science to build a better relationship with your own dog.

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'Every dog-lover will enjoy this book.' Mail on Sunday

'The definitive dog book of our time by the researcher who started a revolution.' Daniel Levitin

'You would be hard-pressed to find a more cheerful, optimistic and warm-hearted read.' Spectator

‘The definitive dog book of our time by the researcher who started a revolution.’ 

-- Daniel Levitin - James McGill Professor of Psychology, McGill University

'Anyone who has ever owned a dog will testify to the intelligence that shines from them and this book provides all the proof needed that owners are right and sceptical scoffers are wrong… You'll love your pet even more, if that’s possible, once you've read this.'

* Daily Mail *

‘Thoroughly researched and written in the likeable voice of a brainy scientist sitting at your kitchen table, The Genius of Dogs is a fascinating look at what goes on between the ears of the animals we share our lives with. I found it entertaining, fast-moving, and filled with insights that gave me a new appreciation for the complex social intelligence of man’s best friend.’ 

* John Grogan - author of Marley & Me *

‘A masterful account of the way science is revealing just how smart dogs can be. Fascinating and highly readable.’ 

* John Bradshaw - Foundation Director of the Anthrozoology Institute, University of Bristol, and autho *

‘Deliciously enlightening.’ 

* BBC Wildlife Magazine *

‘With the help of some wolves, Russian foxes, New Guinea singing dogs and a Labrador retriever named Oreo, Brian Hare tells us about his fascinating search for an understanding of how dogs think and communicate. This is a book that is well worth reading.’ 

* Stanley Coren - Professor of Psychology, University of British Columbia, and author of How to Speak *

'Excellent.'

* BBC Focus *

‘Based on Brian Hare’s game-changing research, The Genius of Dogs brilliantly explains the canine mind and in doing so illuminates the natural history of all intelligence. This book will captivate anyone interested in dog, ape or human mentality.’ 

* Richard Wrangham - Professor of Biological Anthropology, Harvard University, and author of Catching *

‘You would be hard-pressed to find a more cheerful, optimistic and warm-hearted read. Difficult, too, to find another book about dogs touching not only on Darwin and Skinner, but also on Stalin. Even Justin Bieber gets a mention…’ 

* Spectator *

‘This is the best book in existence, by far, for learning about the recent revolution in our understanding of the minds of dogs. And it’s fun, too.’ 

* Mike Tomasello - Co-Director, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology *

‘Every dog-lover will enjoy this book; and those who, strangely, do not love dogs might come to see them in a new and more favourable light.’

* Mail on Sunday *

‘The Genius of Dogs is fantastic. It makes it very clear that there are different kinds of intelligence. All dog lovers should read this book.’ 

* Temple Grandin - author of Animals in Translation *

Husband and wife team Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods are the cofounders of the new dog intelligence testing and training company Canines Inc (dognition.co.uk). Hare is Associate Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology at Duke University, where he founded the Duke Canine Cognition Center and his research on ‘dognition’ has been published in the leading journals. Woods is a research scientist at the Duke Canine Cognition Center as well as an award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in BBC Wildlife and New Scientist, among others. She is also author of the acclaimed memoir Bonobo Handshake, which tells the story of the scientific love affair and partnership between Hare and Woods. They live in North Carolina.