How Dogs Love Us

A Neuroscientist and His Adopted Dog Decode the Canine Brain

By: Gregory Berns

Narrated by: LJ Ganser

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.

An Audible for Dogs Pick: Make your dog's day. Cesar Millan shares how audiobooks can make dogs happier and calmer. Learn more.©2013 2013 by (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

“This book’s abundant appeal and value come from following Berns through the challenges of constructing the experiment and especially of training his dog to participate. ‘Like a catcher and pitcher,’ he writes, he and his dog ‘became a team.’ The satisfaction of that relationship perhaps explains why our two species have lived together so long and happily.” ( The Boston Globe)

"A neuroscientist wonders what goes on in the minds of our pet dogs: Do we delude ourselves when we believe that they love us? [ How Dogs Love Us is] a solid introduction to an appealing new area of research." ( Kirkus)

"The book is as much a scientific exploration of how the canine brain might function as it is a deeply personal story about Berns's relationship with dogs as pets and colleagues. Ultimately that connection is what makes the book compelling." ( Scientific American MIND)

Best dog book in years!

Would you consider the audio edition of How Dogs Love Us to be better than the print version?

Finally, someone who realizes a dog is not a wolf in dog's clothing! Excellent in every way, and makes me appreciate my dogs all the more. Thank you, Dr. Berns!

Theory proven

The researcher used modern medical technology (fMRI) to determine a dog's brain reactions to hand signals associated with treats. I find it very interesting that a dog could be trained to hold still enough to allow for good images. I am a retired physician who used MRI as a wonderful tool that made evaluation for acoustic tumors very easy for the patient compared to the previous studies that had been used before MRI became available.

The relationships between man and dog has been around for a very long time. I am a life long dog person and would not want to live without a dog. The researcher tried to find proof that the dog's love for man is confirmed scientifically. I think he accomplished the goal. In our home it certainly is a reciprocal feeling.

Most enjoyable book

Loved it. My husband was always eager to listen to it
I would tell others

es genial

me resulto interesante, motivador y un despertar a nuevos entendimientos para mi y mis dos pequeñas mascotas

Interesting and Informative for Any Dog Lover

Was really informative but had to skip over some of the technical stuff. I have a short attention span and wanted to hear the results.

Would you like to know what you dog is thinking?

What a fascinating book! That is if you love dogs. It is a very scientific approach, very detailed, and carried out by a group willing to go where no on else had even thought of. What a huge victory for them and the rest of us dog lovers.

Loved it! Cried at start and end.

Absolutely loved listening to this. If you have any medical inclinations and also love your pets, this is for you. Waiting for a follow up book!

The Dog Project

As a Veterinarian and a dog lover, I enjoyed this book a lot. Gregory Berns is a neuroscientist who studies the brain and how it functions. When he decides to study dog's brains, he ventures into uncharted territory. Conducing an MRI on a canine brain while the dog is awake is no easy task and Dr. Berns soon discovered how hard the task would be to complete.

The book goes into a great deal of detail about how an MRI machine works, the behavioral training of dogs, and the many obstacles of training a dog to do something completely unnatural to them. As a person with a scientific background, I enjoyed this part of the book, but I could see that it might be boring to a lot of readers.

I also liked the way that the author interspersed the discussion of the Project and the scientific method with his own family and dog stories. This made the people and dogs more real to me and added a lot to the book.

I agree with a lot of the other reviewers that the title of this book was misleading. I think that a more appropriate name would be "The Dog Project" since that is essentially what the book was all about. The author never really reveals an answer to the question posed by the title and I really didn't learn much about how dogs think.

The narrator did a good job and added the right amount of pacing and emotion to the story. I would definitely listen to more books that he has narrated.

A must-listen for dog lovers!

I thoroughly enjoyed this audiobook! As a dog lover, it was extremely educational, and fascinating, to learn details about a dog's brain. LJ Ganser's narration was excellent and I look forward to hearing more from both author and narrator!

They Love Us...We Just Have No Idea How

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

It was interesting to hear the planning, development, and implementation of the dog MRI experiment, so I would not say that the time was wasted.

Would you recommend How Dogs Love Us to your friends? Why or why not?

It was interesting and if one is a dog lover, it's nice to know there are some indications that dogs love us back.

What aspect of LJ Ganser’s performance would you have changed?

Some of the audio was 'shaky'...it sounded like when he was saying the name of one of the dogs, Lyra, that it was recorded once and superimposed over another name or something, because each time it was said, it sounded the same, but sounded quite out of place in the sentence, having different inflection, speed, sound, than the surrounding words.

Was How Dogs Love Us worth the listening time?

Yes. It makes me hopeful that others will develop further studies and perform greater experiments to help us understand that the other animal species, who share this planet with the homo sapiens animal, are thoughtful, sentient beings who deserve to be treated well, free from abuse, being used as food, etc.