Going To The Dogs: Books With Bark And Bite

NPR | By Steven Barnes

Published August 18, 2008 at 12:00 AM EDT

Man's best friend. We go way back. Of all the animals on earth, only the horse has such a symbiotic relationship with people, and dogs have been with us longer.

A science-writer friend has a cocktail-party theory that canines and human beings actually co-evolved. He likes to say that we made a deal with them to protect their puppies if they would lend us their noses. They became our furry, walking olfactory lobes, freeing our forebrains to develop logic, spatial reasoning and Playstation 3.

Maybe all that ancient history explains why we're so fascinated by our four-legged friends, why we laud and demonize them, fear and love them.

I invite you to lie back in your hammock and enjoy the literature of three very different doggies.

Steven Barnes

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