A Dog's World

Imagining the Lives of Dogs in a World without Humans

Jessica Pierce, Marc Bekoff

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9780691247748
  9780691196183
• eBook ISBN:
  9780691228969
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Biology
• Index: Biological Sciences

From two of the world's leading authorities on dogs, an imaginative journey into a future of dogs without people

What would happen to dogs if humans simply disappeared? Would dogs be able to survive on their own without us? A Dog's World imagines a posthuman future for dogs, revealing how dogs would survive—and possibly even thrive—and explaining how this new and revolutionary perspective can guide how we interact with dogs now.

Drawing on biology, ecology, and the latest findings on the lives and behavior of dogs and their wild relatives, Jessica Pierce and Marc Bekoff—two of today's most innovative thinkers about dogs—explore who dogs might become without direct human intervention into breeding, arranged playdates at the dog park, regular feedings, and veterinary care. Pierce and Bekoff show how dogs are quick learners who are highly adaptable and opportunistic, and they offer compelling evidence that dogs already do survive on their own—and could do so in a world without us.

Challenging the notion that dogs would be helpless without their human counterparts, A Dog's World enables us to understand these independent and remarkably intelligent animals on their own terms.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• 1. Imagining Dogs in a World without Humans
• 2. The State of Dogs
• 3. The Shape of the Future
• 4. Food and Sex
• 5. Family, Friend, and Foe
• 6. The Inner Lives of Posthuman Dogs
• 7. Doomsday Prepping
• 8. Would Dogs Be Better Off without Us?
• 9. The Future of Dogs and Dogs of the Future
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Photograph Captions
• Index