11 Quotes by Alexandra Horowitz

Few celebrate a dog who jumps at people as they approach--but start with the premise that it is we who keep ourselves (and our faces) unbearably far away, and we can come to a mutual understanding.

For me, walking has become less physical transit than mental transportation. It is engaging. I have become, I fear, a difficult walking companion, liable to slow down and point at things. I can turn this off, but I love to have it on: a sense of wonder that I, and we all, have a predisposition to but have forgotten to enjoy.

The air was already drunk with humidity when I stepped outside on that first morning.

He was blessed with the ability to admire the unlovely. Or, I should say, he was blessed with the inability to feel there is a difference between lovely and un-.

If we want to understand the life of any animal, we need to know what things are meaningful to it. The first way to discover this is to determine what the animal can perceive: what it can see, hear, smell, or otherwise sense. Only objects that are perceived can have meaning to the animal; the rest are not even noticed, or all look the same. The.

For any anthropomorphism we use to describe our dogs, we can ask two questions: One, is there a natural behavior this action might have evolved from? And two, what would that anthropomorphic claim amount to if we deconstructed it?

Many people’s expectations, at least in this country, are fairly similar: be friendly, loyal, pettable; find me charming and lovable – but know that I am in charge; do not pee in the house; do not jump on guests; do not chew my dress shoes; do not get into the trash. Somehow, word hasn’t gotten to the dogs.

Every dog that you name and bring home will also die.

The complement of remembering so thoroughly can be the strange inability to forget anything at all.