"...an admirable combination of wisdom and wit." Sunday Observer
"...this gifted and vastly experienced naturalist writes with the rational sympathy of the true animal lover. He deals, in an entertaining, anecdotal way, with serious problems of canine behaviour." The Times Educational Supplement
How, why and when did man meet dog and cat? How much are they in fact guided by instinct, and what sort of intelligence have they? What is the nature of their affection or attachment to the human race?
In Man Meets Dog, the reader will find an essential guide entirely dedicated to the animal we believe we know more than any other, yet about which we still have so much to discover—the dog. Here, Lorenz guides us first of all to the origins of the “encounter” between man and dog, when the relationship was rather with the two very different ancestors of modern dogs: the jackal and the wolf. These origins leave their traces in all the complex forms of understanding, obedience, hatred, loyalty, and neurosis that have developed over the course of history between dog and master. Often drawing on his own experiences, Lorenz quickly illuminates the entire spectrum of “canineness” in these pages with the grace of a true narrator, the precision and subtlety of a scientist who has opened new avenues in the study of these very themes, and the fertile intelligence of a thinker who, through his research on animals, has succeeded in casting human problems in a new light.
Konrad Lorenz is one of the most well-known contemporary zoologists; he was co-winner of the 1973 Nobel Prize in Medicine and considered an international expert on animal behaviour and the father of modern ethology.
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