John's Reviews > Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know

"Date I finished this book" should be "Date I stopped reading this book."
I kept hoping that it would become more interesting, but, on page 180 I finally gave up.

I wanted to like this book. She sets the groundwork that while we humans spend a lot of time with dogs, we actually know very little about them. So she tackled the research to actually learn about dogs (it implied that she was doing the research since she earlier said very little research had been done on dogs).

First annoyance: it seems that she's referring to lots of other research on dogs. So, I guess there has been lots of research on dogs? Which is it-- there has been or there hasn't.

Second annoyance: blah blah blah, a little interesting info, blah blah. I was reading way too much not-interesting info to get to the interesting point. I could have been interested in the studies. I could have been interested in comparison to other studies on animals. But I found myself just getting enough information to be either left with wanting more, or feeling that the study was insufficient. As someone else said, this book could have been written in 60 pages.

Third annoyance*: too many distractingly tangential footnotes (one every second or third page?). Focus on telling a better story and less on mentioning everything you want to say about dogs or research or other amazing animals.

Bottom-line, it was too disappointing and distracting to finish.

*I have a nephew and two nieces. I've really been wanting to tell a large audience this. Thank god this review came along and I could finally tell someone. Oh wait, this has nothing to do with this book.