Why We Love The Dogs We Do: How To Find The Dog That Matches Your Personality

By Stanley Coren

For anyone who has worried that being beguiled by puppy love might lead only to a short-lived dalliance, Stanley Coren provides the ultimate matchmaking service. Combining his expertise in human psychology and animal behaviour with the research of other animal experts, Coren classifies dogs according to such personality traits as friendliness, protectiveness, and steadiness. To discover which dogs will suit them best, readers take simple personality tests that reveal what they are looking for in a relationship. Extroverted men, for example, may be surprised to find that poodles make the ideal companions; shy women are likely to prefer the company of a bulldog; and men lacking trust might consider an independent Shar-Pei. Stories about people and their four-legged best friends - and a gallery of photographs - capture the special dynamics between couples ranging from Freud and his Chow-Chow to Picasso and his Afghan hound.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
• Release date: Dec 11, 2012
• ISBN: 9781471109409

Stanley Coren

Stanley Coren an international authority on sidedness, is professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia. He is the author of Born to Bark: My Adventures with an Irrepressible and Unforgettable Dog (2010), among other books.

Reviews for Why We Love The Dogs We Do

[lightkensei · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The personality test was fun and helped me think a bit more about dog personality as it relates to breed, as they both relate to me and what I need in a relationship with a dog. But the whole book is laced with weird and sometimes sexist gender assumptions. Also, I didn't need *quite* that many celebrity dog story anecdotes.

[annbury_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This book might be useful for someone who is considering acquiring a dog for the first time. For those of us who already own dogs, however, the book is at least as likely to be irritating as informative. And for those of us who own cats -- with or without dogs as well -- the book is likely to be infuriating. Before figuring out whether the book is useful, irritating, or infuriating, the reader has to chop through a good bit of underbrush. Much of the book is taken up with anecdotes about celebrities' dogs, and a long list of what famous person has had what breed of dog.The meat of the book, such as it is, adopts an approach that might be useful for those considering acquiring a dog for the first time -- if they haven't known dogs who matter to them, and if they know little about various breeds. The reader rates him/herself on a series of psychological characteristics, to come up with scores on four broad qualities. Those scores are then matched against groups of dogs that the author feels are appropriate for people with the quality in question. This might help a very quiet, retiring person avoid acquiring a demanding dog (though as the author notes, physical traits are just as important).All very well for neophyte dog owners, if those neophytes are considering getting a pure bred dog, and if the neophytes are willing to take the author's word for dog appropriateness. But for those of us who already have dogs, or have had past relationships with dogs of certain types, the book doesn't do much to explain why we love the dogs we have -- at least not based on a very small and anecdotal sample. I, for example, should definitely have a "steady" dog (mostly working dogs) or a "self-assured" dog (mostly terriers). Instead I just lost a standard poodles to whom I was passionately devoted (despite the fact that he wasn't always steady, and not invariably self-assured) and am about to acquire another standard. My friend in DC who lives with two Bouviers should have "friendly" dogs, and so on and so forth.This puts the dog owner in the position of wondering whether she/he has the "wrong dog". That is not something you should waste time thinking about once you have the dog. As to cat owners, they lose all around. This author does not seem to like cats, and does not seem to have had any contact with cats that were not very, very stupid. As a former (and I hope future) cat owner, I object.