How Dogs Love Us

Product Description

A Wall Street Journal bestseller.

The powerful bond between humans and dogs is one that’s uniquely cherished. Loyal, obedient, and affectionate, they are truly “man’s best friend.” But do dogs love us the way we love them? Emory University neuroscientist Gregory Berns had spent decades using MRI imaging technology to study how the human brain works, but a different question still nagged at him: What is my dog thinking?

After his family adopted Callie, a shy, skinny terrier mix, Berns decided that there was only one way to answer that question—use an MRI machine to scan the dog’s brain. His colleagues dismissed the idea. Everyone knew that dogs needed to be restrained or sedated for MRI scans. But if the military could train dogs to operate calmly in some of the most challenging environments, surely there must be a way to train dogs to sit in an MRI scanner.

With this radical conviction, Berns and his dog would embark on a remarkable journey and be the first to glimpse the inner workings of the canine brain. Painstakingly, the two worked together to overcome the many technical, legal, and behavioral hurdles. Berns’s research offers surprising results on how dogs empathize with human emotions, how they love us, and why dogs and humans share one of the most remarkable friendships in the animal kingdom.

How Dogs Love Us answers the age-old question of dog lovers everywhere and offers profound new evidence that dogs should be treated as we would treat our best human friends: with love, respect, and appreciation for their social and emotional intelligence.

Top Reviews

When We Said Goodbye
by Fran Clemens (5 out of 5 stars)
November 22, 2014

At the age of 55 I began my first ever love affair with Jackson. He was a 12 week old Golden puppy and he took my heart completely into his keeping the day he rode home on my lap from the breeder. We had a good life and at the age of 12 1/2 he left for the Rainbow Bridge. That final day, in the comfort room at the vet, I sat in the floor, face to face with him looking into his eyes as he looked into mine. There I saw reflected tenderness, a little bit of fear and resignation but still the unbridled bond/love we shared. I loved him even more in that moment than I ever had, and he knew it. He laid down, head in my lap and closed his eyes and went peacefully on his way.

It's been three months since that day and I have prayed every day that he truly knew how much he meant to me.

Gregory Berns' recount of the Dog Project has given me great insight into the whole love affair I had with Jackson, and has assured me that all those moments of eye contact and caressing were truly reciprocal. The work is a great discussion of how it 'happens' with humans and their pets, especially dogs. There were times during the reading that I wanted less discussion of the science of fMRI and wanted to get to the real answer of my question, "Did Jackson love me?" In the end, however, even though it is a lengthy discussion of how the whole MRI process works and how it is applied scientifically, it was an 'easy to read and consider' recap, and it made perfect sense why the discussion was necessary.

If you love a dog, read this book and find out how to glean even more of the euphoria you experience when the love from him or her begins to show. You are not crazy. You are not imagining it. You can make it even bigger and better if you understand "why."

I thought never to have another dog. How could I surpass this past perfection? Now, I'm not so sure. What if I could do it again and make it better? I wept again in my grief. Now I rejoice in the respect and love that Berns and his family share with their pets and appreciate all the efforts, care and concern the team displayed in the whole project process.

Thanks for telling me.
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Misleading title and a boring read.
by Capricorn One (2 out of 5 stars)
October 23, 2017

I agree with the other reviewer that the title is misleading, the book is a yawner, and the conclusions drawn are simple extrapolations beyond the technical findings and expertise of the author. The title would leave you to believe that you're finally going to learn how (and understand how) dogs "think", and that they have legitimate human-like emotions. Maybe they do to some degree, but this books makes no sound case for that conclusion. 90% of the book is about training the dogs to get into the MRI machine and keep still, and the last 10% is a maudlin commentary on the death of one of the author's dogs. I am a dog owner and dog lover and I love my dog and he gives me unconditional love in return. Whether he "thinks" love in his mind is irrelevant to me - he is always happy to see me, loves to be close to me, loves my touch, and believes he should go everywhere with me (which as a therapy dog, he does). I was really hoping for some emotional and logical breakthrough in helping me to understand what goes on in his dog brain, but this book, to me, falls far short of that mark. Very disappointing.
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Dogs? Do they love us?
by Elizabeth (Dell) Jankowski (5 out of 5 stars)
November 17, 2014

I read this book but I knew the answer to the above question for years. I have no doubt that they do. I also have first hand knowledge of service dogs as I have one. Most people see my dog & doubt his capabilities. Why, you ask? Because he is a 3 1/2 pd poodle. My medical condition is such that I have attacks similar to seizures. Given enough notification I can ward off my attacks with an anti-seizure medication. I originally got my dog as a pet but when he was 5mos old he started telling me before had when I was going to have an attack. It took me a couple of months to realize a correlation between what he would & what happen to me within 30 min or so. From what I understand it is difficult to train a dog to recognize these type of symptoms because the attacks are as a result of a chemical imbalance that is different with each individual. My dog is a poodle which some people think are "yippy" dogs. My little boy is the exact opposite of that. He almost never barks but when he does I pay attention. He will start with a small yippy and get more insistent until I show him my medicine bottle and tell him I took my meds. I've had animals all my life and never doubted the connection between us but my little dog takes it to a higher dimension. And like Callie in this story he seems happier when he's on duty. He takes.his job seriously and never lets me out of his sight for more than a few minutes.

This book proves what most dog owners have said for a long time. It is a fantastic book to read without to much technological jargon but it has enough, after all this was a scientific experiment. I would highly recommend this.book to all. The information it contains is very informative and well written. Try it, you won't be sorry especially if you are a dog person.
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Interesting Read
by P.Cox (5 out of 5 stars)
July 17, 2018

Ignore the low scores given by people who didn't get a definitive answer as to whether dogs love us. First, that's not the purpose of this book. Second, if you own a dog, then you already know they love us (unless you're a crappy human being that treats them badly).

The book is about the experiment to map dogs brain patterns when interacting with humans. It was the first time a dog's brain was scanned while being awake in an MRI, and gives a pretty good look at what goes on behind the scenes of science, from the first seed planted in the form of a question, to how it happens, and looking at the results.

I find this stuff fascinating to read about, and in the end, it caused me to look at my dog a little differently (albeit in a good way). I've always treated my dogs more like companions than pets, and it was nice to have that validated in a way.

I highly recommend this book!
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Must read for dog lovers and skeptics alike
by LPayne (5 out of 5 stars)
January 1, 2018

What a great read. Berns walks the reader through every detail of his experiments in a a way that demonstrates how exciting and complex science can be. For those involved in scientific experiments, much of the book reads like a familiar walk through of the scientific process from asking a questions to publishing results that are detailed in an captivating way. Dog lovers will enjoy the findings for sure (and should have some Kleenex at the ready), however, I think those who are skeptical of the power in a dog-human relationship will find this book most fascinating. Highly recommended!
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Fascinating IF you're into research
by Doc (5 out of 5 stars)
January 20, 2018

I loved this book, but I can see that it is not for everyone. The author writes in a very approachable style (if only all academics would, rather than trying to dazzle everyone with academic lingo), and tells us the long and involved process of doing brain scans on dogs to figure out what is going on in their heads. This might not interest everyone, and if you're included in the "yawn" group, you may not hang in there until the final two chapters where he gets to what many of us want to know: "What is my dog thinking?" It may be that you have to really like research and the how-to's to enjoy this book--it's probably not enough to simply be a dog lover--but if you want to know the ins and outs of training dogs to have their brains scanned, and perhaps why dogs will make such an effort, this book is worth your time.
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Well written and engaging narrative style
by JAK (5 out of 5 stars)
March 20, 2017

If you're a dog person, you will understand this book and if you're not, it may give you new appreciation for the furry friends so many of us can't live without.

This book is very light reading considering the subject matter. It could have been a scientific treatise, like I am sure the papers were that were published as a result of the research described within. Instead, it's a very readable description of why the research was done and how the many technical issues were resolved in the process. Even more appealing is the way the author described how he became closer to his dog Callie while working with her in the process.
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Misleading
by Linda T. (1 out of 5 stars)
January 17, 2019

One of the worst books I've ever read. The book concluded nothing about how dog's love us. I know more about how dog's love us than this book disclosed. It was all about an experiment to run MRIs on dog's brains and how to get a dog to go in an MRI machine, the author, his dog, his family, the tests, etc., and referenced many past experiments on dogs. I thought with all the great reviews it would have been a great read but for me it was not.
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Scientific research in detail
by Kat (3 out of 5 stars)
November 26, 2017

This book shows scientifically that dogs can think and have emotional ties to their family of people. It took the entire book of scientific specifics and details to reach that point. While I like seeing proof of how the conclusion was reached, I tired quickly of the details and details and some of what seemed to be digressions into the details. If you like digging into the nitty gritty of research, this book is for you. I like the conclusions, but after having dogs in my life from childhood, I didn't really learn anything I didn't already know - but now it is a scientific fact.
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Just Change the Title
by Nicola J. Steele (3 out of 5 stars)
June 8, 2017

Good book but I thought I'd have a definition of how dogs love us by the end of the book. Instead, the book mainly described the set up of experiments and the difficulty encountered in trying to do them. Interesting and enjoyable writing, but my expectations were set up to look for some final answers rather than centering on the process. All the book needs is a change in title to better present the true contents.

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