Neuroscientist Gregory Burns put his love for dogs, and his questions about their behaviour to work when he decided to embark on a project examining the brains of dogs under an MRI scanner to see what he could find out about how it all worked in comparison to the brains of humans.

This book looks at the driving forces behind the actions of dogs, whether it be food, love of an owner or a combination of both, as well as taking turns at looking at other animals in the natural world from sea lions, dolphins and Tasmanian Devils. Burns even gets to handle a 100-year-old brain of a creature thought to have gone extinct in the 1900s.

As a dog lover and an animal/nature lover I really enjoyed this book and I found the topic really interesting. Thanks to a glance at other reviews before I picked the book up, I knew not to expect the book to be all about dogs, though the start and end are both focused on the author's work with dogs. I think it's very unfair to review this book poorly because of the 'lack' of dogs in it - as dogs are the author's love and interest in dogs is the driving force behind the project before he begins to explore other animals. I think the book is really well written and engaging - I particularly loved learning more about sea lions, and how clever they are and the training methods used to see how they used their brains - as well as the domoic acid poisoning which I had never heard of before.

I also loved learning more about the thylacine which, while a very sad story maintains a small bit of hope that perhaps there are more out there, just hiding away from the humans who persecuted them for years.

CW at the end of this book for mentions of animal cruelty and animals being harmed for the 'benefits' of science/science experimentation. I really appreciate and respect Gregory Burns for telling the story that clearly haunts him, from when he was in medical school and as part of lab work, had to experiment different drugs on dogs before killing them. You can feel the shame, pain and regret from the author and even though the story was hard to read, I respected him for sharing it and not hiding away from the continuous cruelty of animals within the world of science. And I really loved and appreciated how he shared how they gave the dogs within the MRI training a choice on if they wanted to go into the scanner, and there were some who despite training wouldn't do it and didn't have to.

All in all, an enjoyable nature-focused non fiction that I really liked reading!

A lot of the science had my brain wandering and just went over my head.

I received a free e-galley from netgalley.com.

It was really interesting book, but I fear if someone would take it because of the blurb on the back cover, he/she would be disappointed. I do not mind reading scientific papers, and this is what it looked like to me, a series of disjointed essays, albeit interesting ones. The text wasn't always easy to follow through. I might recommend the book to a lover of animals, but would be cautious, because it really wasn't an easy-breezy kind of the book.

A fascinating look at the new research on dog cognition. Anyone with dogs will want to read this!

The principle of the book is 'is it possible to understand the experiences of another species by scanning their brains?'. The result is an overwhelming 'sort of'. Berns and his team study self-determination, logic and self discipline in dogs, along with other characteristics usually only accepted in humans.

The book also covers some really interesting areas, such as naturally occurring poisoning in sea lions (for once, it's not us poisoning the water!) and the effect it has on their brain and also the value of scanning the brains of other species.


The writing style is excellent, there's a great deal of detail about the scientific processes and experiments involved which I found fascinating but the narrative is entertaining enough to be an enjoyable read rather than just straight up science. I found this book to be an interesting introduction to a wider subject, but I don't feel that it really reached many conclusions, raising more questions than it was able to answer at this point in time.

Here's hoping for a sequel in 10 years time!

The title was probably not chosen well, as the book was as interesting look at insights into animal thinking (not just related to dogs) obtained via neurological research.

What It's Like to Be a Dog (subtitled: Adventures in Animal Neuroscience) is an enjoyable read. An expert in the field and an engaging book.

Thank you for the opportunity to read this book. I enjoyed it very much!

This book was an interesting case study on dogs, their brains and what motivates them as compared to humans and other animals like sea lions and dolphins. Berns does a research study on dogs, using a variety of medical equipment generally used to test and study humans on a group of dog "volunteers" and his findings were fascinating.

This would be a great read for anyone who is interested in books about animals that are written from a scientific approach or science/neuroscience in general. The nerd in me was very happy with this book.

*I received an advance reading copy in exchange for my honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.*

This book is an enlightening look at what motivates a dog. But it doesn't stop there. These researchers did not only depend upon observational studies but used diagnostic tools and machines currently utilized in medicine geared toward humans, to provide more answers- and not only for dogs. Other animals, dolphins, zoo animals, etc., were studied as well. The author writes in a conversational style, and does so to make the information understandable to the lay person.

Interesting read about animal intelligence and emotions. I do, however have several criticisms:
For a mainstream book, it can have too much science, I recommend skimming chapter 3 instead of reading through. Some other parts as well.
Some parts just seem unnecessary. For example the entire part about the author going into the territory where the last known Tasmanian Tiger lived. Nothing was really gained from this passage, just how far the researched is willing to go.
Honestly, this book doesn't tackle much of what it is like to be a dog, hence the title is fairly misleading, I've learned some tips on how better to understand my dog, her motivations, etc but not much about what life is like from her perspective,
Despite these criticisms, I am still very interested in the topic, and was mostly vert interested while reading.

Do dogs actually think? And if they do, are their thoughts like ours? These might seem impossible questions to answer, since we can't get inside a canine's mind. Or can we?
In this fascinating book, Gregory Berns shares his research on the brains of dogs and other mammals and indicates the similarities and differences between humans and our pets.
Berns' project began when he trained his own dog to lie still inside a MRI machine, for the first time, obtaining a brain scan of an unanesthetized dog. He went on the train a number of other dogs. He then expanded the study by training the dogs to do simple tasks that required decision making.
His conclusions were that dogs and other mammals do have some limited abilities to think, make decisions and even experience regret.
Berns and his team went on to scan the brains of autopsied sea lions, dolphins, raccoons and even an extinct thylacine. They found substantial differences in the way these animal brains were wired, which depended greatly on the way they obtained food, how they moved and processed sound and light.
The most interesting section was the team's attempts to scan the brains of two thylacines, or Tasmanian tigers, an animal that became extinct in 1936. No one had ever attempted to do an MRI scan on brains over one hundred years old. Their work was made more difficult by the fact that almost no research had been done on marsupial brains of any kind. Also, no scientists had bothered to study thylacine behavior while the animal was alive. The results showed a brain that was radically different from placental mammals. Berns shows that the oft-told story that thylacines were exterminated by ranchers because they killed sheep is probably wrong because their brains had not really evolved for that type of hunting.
The book concludes with a discussion of animal rights. If dogs, apes, dolphins, cows and rats can form thoughts, then what right do we have to exploit them for scientific experiments, labor or food? Berns takes a middle-of-the-road approach on these questions.
This book is written in an accessible, nontechnical style and should be of interest to general science readers and those interested in the latest brain research. If you are looking for cute stories about dogs, this is the wrong book. Despite the title, the dog studies makes up only about one-fourth of the book.

For a book about animal neuroscience, which is admittedly a harder read than a fluffy fiction piece, I certainly enjoyed What It's Like To Be A Dog.

Although the title focuses on the dog aspect of the book, the author explores the brains of several other animals. I feel like for what he advertises, there was a reasonable ratio of dog to other animal discussed in the book. I do understand that some readers might have expected it to be mostly about dogs, though.

The author's style flows well and it's quite easy to read, for a subject that doesn't lend itself easily to narrative. There were a few times that I was tempted to skim over, though - mainly explanations about how the MRI machine worked. But I overall enjoyed the structure of he book and how he laid it out fairly chronologically.

I was moved by his thoughts on how we treat animals and inspired to make changes in my own life to better respect the creatures we share this planet with.

Enjoyable read (though if you have zero interest in science this probably isn't the book for you).

This book has an easy way to explain things, and it takes you in a comprehensive route through neurocience and the brain and different theories and opinions and facts, which may help you in grounding yourself and giving you a sense of back story knowledge. They also tell you how they did prepare some dogs and trained them to go into the MRI machine and get some results.
What I find "ironic" is that I am 50% into the book and still awaiting to know what it is like to be a dog, because we have had some snippets about it, but the book has been way off the mark of the tittle and more centered on the subtittle: so far, lots of neurocience and brain talk, sea lions and dolphins. But... where are the dogs?
Also, around 70% of the book there was some talk abkut how dogs processed words, and it seemed like after getting the results of the experiment, the author was projecting his thoughts on the matter as sciencitic evidence too.
At this point and seeing that chapter 9 again deviates from dogs and goes to the tasmanian devil I've decided to stop reading. As I've said, the author's style is fluent, offers a lot of background but, consifering the cover and main tittle, I was expecting this to be mainly about dogs, which isn't.

The subtitle should be the main title, as this book deals primarily with neuroscience, and not just dogs; a variety of other creatures, including sea mammals and Tasmanian devils, are mentioned. These are all interesting topics, but as a dog person, I probably would not have even given a book about animal brain study a second glance.