What motivated this early interest in animals and insects? And that’s definitely imbued my work and made it possible for me to do what I do.Īs you were growing up, I understand you not only like to watch your dog and your cat, you like to observe the ants in your yard and counted the prairie dogs in the field on your way to school. I mean, he was born of this kind of East Coast generation of lawyers and doctors who really felt like they were making a change in this world, and at the same time, he was very ready to find the silliness in a situation and the playfulness in the situation. He took himself seriously, and at the same time, he didn’t take himself too seriously. Your family moved to Golden, Colorado when you were a child, and I read that your dad was the sun you circled, and you were influenced both by his work ethic as a litigator and his humor. Thanks, Debbie.Īlexandra, you were born in Philadelphia. Alexandra Horowitz, welcome to Design Matters. She’s here to talk about the relationship between humans and our canine friends, and a bit about herself as well. Her latest is the Year of the Puppy, How Dogs Become Themselves. She’s also written some of the world’s best books about dog cognition. As senior research fellow, she also runs The Dog Cognition Lab at Barnard. She is a professor at Barnard College where she teaches creative nonfiction writing and audio storytelling.

But do we really know who they are? Yes, they’re dogs, but do we know what’s going on between those two floppy ears? Alexandra Horowitz knows a lot more than most people. We feed them, we go on long walks with them, we groom them and rub their bellies. Alexandra Horowitz-a canine psychologist and authority on how dogs perceive the world-joins to talk about her latest book, ‘The Year of the Puppy,’ and share her knowledge about the relationship between humans and our canine friends.

Being a Dog by Alexandra Horowitz