Inside of a dog

Before I read this book, I thought I knew what a dog was. It barks, it wags its tail, it fetches sticks, it craps on the carpet. However, now that I’ve finished this learned tome, I realise there’s a bit more to it than I thought. As well as the domestic dog (Canis familiaris), the genus Canis also includes wolves, jackals, dingoes and coyotes. They all seem very different, yet domestic dogs can breed with all of them. According to Darwin, this makes them all members of the same species. Now can you see why I’m confused?

Raymond and Lorna Coppinger don’t want you to make a snap decision about what a dog is — or what it isn’t. They want to make you think about how zoologists classify things: why we decide to call an animal one thing and not another. For instance, in New England wolves are an endangered species, while coyotes are unprotected. Hence, when a new canid was discovered in New England, it was classified as a coyote, not a wolf.

A lot of Britons prefer dogs to people — a preference that becomes more rational the more dogs and people you meet — but, as the Coppingers point out, our romantic idea of man’s best friend is confined to a few rich countries, where people can afford effective vaccines against rabies and distemper. The vast majority of the world’s dogs are feral, not domestic. No wonder in poor countries they’re often regarded as filthy pests.

The Coppingers aren’t so concerned with pedigree dogs — ‘pure’ breeds created by artificial selection. They’re more interested in those dogs that live rough, out on the streets. Unlike pure breeds, which vary so dramatically, these ‘village dogs’ (as the Coppingers call them) are surprisingly similar the world over.