What It's Like to Be a Dog

And Other Adventures in Animal Neuroscience

By: Gregory Berns

Narrated by: Joe Hempel

Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins

Publisher's summary

What is it like to be a dog? A bat? Or a dolphin? To find out, neuroscientist Gregory Berns and his team began with a radical step: they taught dogs to go into an MRI scanner - completely awake. They discovered what makes dogs individuals with varying capacities for self-control, different value systems, and a complex understanding of human speech. And dogs were just the beginning.

In What It's Like to Be a Dog, Berns explores the fascinating inner lives of wild animals from dolphins and sea lions to the extinct Tasmanian tiger. Much as Silent Spring transformed how we thought about the environment, so What It's Like to Be a Dog will fundamentally reshape how we think about - and treat - animals. Groundbreaking and deeply humane, it is essential listening for animal lovers of all stripes.

©2017 Gregory Berns (P)2017 Tantor

Critic reviews

"An impressive overview of modern neurology and the still-unanswered issues raised by our treatment of our fellow living creatures." ( Kirkus)

Not much about dogs

This is a good book overall but not very focused on dogs for the majority of the book.

NOT ABOUT DOG

This book is not about dogs. It is about how the brains of different animals work and how their circumstances and their environments shaped them. Different animals many different animals, air, land, and sea.

I did not feel that he actually answered the question, 'What it's like to be a dog?' or any other animal for that matter. He did find out how a given animal uses the structure of its brain to perceive its world. But not what its emotions, social structure, and value systems are, only if it has the bandwidth to have any.

This is a decent enough book if you are into esoteric science written for the laymen.

Please be advised this is
NOT A BOOK ABOUT DOGS.

If it has a brain it can feel and has emotions

What it's Like to be a Dog, And other Adventures in Neuroscience
By Gregory Berns

This book is result of research and study of animal neuroscience. If it has a brain cortex, it has a sense of self and has many other emotional experiences and feelings similar to humans. It’s an expansion of what we know about the non-human species of life on this planet. While brains may be wired differently to support different niches of life, this leads to the differences of the ability to focus and respond to different stimuli. MRI scanner resolution is getting finer and finer and is providing the data that allows us to understand the brain and what it is like to be an animal. We are learning how much consciousness and self-awareness that animals have and are close to being able to completely simulate and thus understand what it’s like to be a dog or other animal. If we find that animal brains have the same emotional and self-awareness of humans, then what do we do, and how do we change. And, what does this say for the evolution of mankind.

Spoiler: no one knows yet, but the neuroscientists are pretty close. Also dogs are people too.

interesting read.

worth listening to if you have an interest in animal behavior or neurobiology.

Quite sciencey!

I'll admit it freely; I picked this book up wanting a happy, informative, feel-good piece of nonfiction about how dogs perceive humans. I got that ... kind of. Gregory Berns clearly knows his field, and his research appears very thorough to a non-scientist. I am a non-scientist. I was able to understand the majority of Berns' experimentation with dogs and MRI scanners, and to visualize most of what was said, given having only as-seen-on-t.v. ideas of the equipment specified. However, as a non-scientist, the science didn't really *interest* me very much and I found it a bit too detailed and ... well, sciencey for me. This being said, any student of medicine or biology would eat this up with a spoon! Berns is understandable and thorough, and he not only explores dog brains, but the brains of extinct animals, dolphins, and Australian marsupials. The book was VERY informative, and although I wouldn't re-read it, I'm glad I spent the time listening to it.

The narrator was excellent. It felt as if he read the entire thing to me in one sitting, without even a bathroom break. His voice is smooth, pleasant and well-modulated, and I (a former English teacher and proofreader) did not notice any mispronunciations of words that could have in ANY way detracted from the information presented.

Lots of info on lots of animals, not so much dog

It was interesting in that I learned all brains are different. I was looking more for a dog story and dog info. Dogs have brains the size of a lemon was one fact he stated. My little terrier's brain is probably the size of a lime, he is small. It was more technical and medically oriented than I had in mind. So if you are looking for a feel good dog story this isn't it. If you want more scientific info on how your dog compares to other animals-this is it.

Limited info on dogs

More info on aquatic mammals than dogs. Interesting but not as advertised. Hoped for more hard conclusions about the experience of being a dog.

The Epilogue is a wake-up call

Chapter 9 on was extremely interesting.
We must all support this brilliant fellow
and share this book . A hell of a lifes work this man has. Good golly! we must help him
and visit his website. Brain Ark.
Passionate brilliance.

Not quite what I expected

This was well researched, well written and informative. However, I thought there would be more of a focus on dogs and their behavior, so it wasn’t what I was looking for. If you want to learn about neuroscience, this is presented in easily understandable terms.