This book seemed right along with my interests- it’s about how wolves formed a partnership with ancient humans that morphed them into domestic dogs. There’s some interesting ideas in here, including criticism of what people think the fox fur-farm experiment tells us, and a repeated debunking of the idea that long-ago wolves tamed themselves by hanging around early settlement trash heaps. Unfortunately, I couldn’t finish reading this book. It speculates a lot, on very very long-ago events or circumstances, with such scant evidence even I was scratching my head. I started skimming and skipping those parts that went on and on about archaeology finds, but then found that the rest of the text really rambles in circles. It’s very repetitive, self-contradictory and confusing. I started just picking out the segments that were anecdotal examples of dog or wolf behavior, but even those parts often didn’t make much sense to me, or demonstrate what I suspect the author thought they did. I assumed it was just me, my thinking bogged down by illness, that I can’t comprehend this book right now. But then glanced at some reviews online, and found there’s a lot of readers who had a similar experience. And people with a lot more knowledge about prehistory and where extinct fauna lived at different time periods, poked a lot of holes in this text. Knocked it down completely, I’d say. So I don’t feel bad at all to just shrug and put it aside now. I’ve read much better (and more clearly written) books on this subject, though sadly can’t point directly to them at the moment. Will add links to other titles at a later date, when I can recall the other books better.
Borrowed from the public library.