How Dogs Work

264 Pages·2015·4.931 MB·English

by  Raymond Coppinger, Mark Feinstein

How Dogs work

How Dogs Work
raymonD Coppinger
mark Feinstein
Foreword by Gordon M. Burghardt
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS : CHICAGO AND LONDON
RAYMOND COPPINGER is professor emeritus of
biology at Hampshire College. His books include
Dogs: A New Understanding of Canine Origin, Behavior, and
Evolution, also published by the University of Chicago
Press. MARK FEINSTEIN is professor of cognitive
science at Hampshire College.
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2015 by The University of Chicago
Foreword © 2015 by Gordon M. Burghardt
All rights reserved. Published 2015.
Printed in the United States of America
24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15  1 2 3 4 5
isBn- 13: 978–0- 226–12813– 9 (cloth)
isBn- 13: 978–0- 226–32270– 4 (e- book)
Doi: 10.7208/chicago/9780226322704.001.0001
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Coppinger, Raymond, author.
 How dogs work / Raymond Coppinger and
Mark Feinstein.
  pages cm
 Includes bibliographical references and index.
isBn 978-0-226-12813-9 (cloth : alkaline paper) —
isBn 978-0-226-32270-4 (ebook) 1. Dogs—Behavior.
2. Canis—Behavior. I. Feinstein, Mark H., author.
II. Title.
 ql737.C22C64 2015
 636.7—dc23
2015015809
♾ This paper meets the requirements of ansi/niso
Z39.48–1992 (Permanence of Paper).
IN MEMORY OF ERICH KLINGHAMMER,
THE FOUNDER OF WOLF PARK

CONTENTS
FOREWORD by Gordon M. Burghardt : ix
1. WHAT ARE DOGS LIKE? : 1
2. WHAT MAKES ETHOLOGISTS TICK? : 17
3. THE SHAPE OF A DOG IS WHAT MAKES IT TICK : 37
4. THE SHAPE OF BEHAVIOR : 55
5. THE RULES OF FORAGING : 77
6. INTRINSIC BEHAVIOR : 97
7. ACCOMMODATION AND BEHAVIOR : 113
8. EMERGENT BEHAVIOR : 135
9. PLAY : 159
10. MINDING THE DOG : 185
A LAST WORD : 211
: vii
Acknowledgments : 217
References : 219
Index : 229
Plates follow page 84.
viii : CONTENTS
FOREWORD
It is a great pleasure for me to compose the foreword to this book by
Ray Coppinger and Mark Feinstein devoted to the ethology of dogs. It
is doubly a pleasure as the book is dedicated to both Wolf Park in Indi-
ana and the late Dr. Erich Klinghammer, who founded it. Erich Kling-
hammer was one of my teachers, a member of my dissertation commit-
tee at the University of Chicago and, subsequently, a long- time friend.
Although he began his career by carrying out some of the first studies
on sexual imprinting in altricial bird species, he always loved dogs,
especially German shepherds. It was his dog Gitta who, over fifty years
ago, found a pregnant garter snake on his research “farm” in north-
ern Indiana. Knowing my interest in snakes, Erich gave her to me; the
babies born to this snake led to my first snake research, resulted in my
dissertation topic, and were a key factor in my subsequent career in ser-
pentine ethology. Both Erich and Gitta were acknowledged in the first
publication (Burghardt 1966); that Gitta was a dog seemed irrelevant to
mention. So dogs and Erich greatly influenced my career. When Erich
developed serious allergies to birds, he changed his scholarly interest
to the behavior of dogs and other canids, advocated for proper captive
conditions for wolves, championed wolf conservation, and promoted
ethology by translating important books from German.
Ray Coppinger, first author of this book, I have known for almost
as long, and with great fondness, since his sense of humor broke the
tension of perhaps the most embarrassing event in my life as a scien-
tist. This occurred at an American Association for the Advancement of
: ix