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What Mr Rogers was to childrenAlexandra Horowitzis to dogs a wise and patient observer who seeks to intimately know a creature Her chapters packed with close observations about canine cognition and behavior are minimood liftersNPR Maureen Corrigan on Fresh Air

What is it like to be a puppy Author of the classic Inside of a Dog Alexandra Horowitz tries to find out spending a year scrutinizing her puppys daily existence and poring over the science of early dog development

Few of us meet our dogs at Day One The dog who will eventually become an integral part of our family our constant companion and best friend is born without us into a family of her own A puppys critical early development into the dog we come to know is usually missed entirely Dog researcher Alexandra Horowitz aimed to change that with her familys new pup Quiddity Quid In this scientific memoir she charts Quids growth from wee grub to boisterous sprite from her birth to her first birthday

Horowitz follows Quids first weeks with her mother and ten rolypoly littermates and then each week after the puppy joins her household of three humans two large dogs and a wary cat She documents the social and cognitive milestones that so many of us miss in our puppies lives when caught up in the housetraining and behavioral training that easily overwhelms the first months of a dogs life with a new family In focusing on training a dog to behave we mostly miss the radical development of a puppy into themselvesthrough the equivalent of infancy childhood young adolescence and teenagerhood

By slowing down to observe Quid from week to week The Year of the Puppy makes new sense of a dogs behavior in a way that is missed when the focus is only on training Horowitz keeps a lens on the puppys point of viewhow they begin to see and smell the world make meaning of it and become an individual personality Shes there when the puppies first open their eyes first start to recognize one another and learn about cats sheep and people she sees them from their first play bows to puberty Horowitz also draws from the ample research in the fields of dog and human development to draw analogies between a dogs first year and the growing childand to note where they diverge The Year of the Puppy is indispensable for anyone navigating their way through the frustrating amusing and ultimately delightful first year of a puppys life