While Howard includes these moments of playful humility on behalf of earlier science, his message is profound, though he insists that it’s “straightforward”: “It is simply that the more compassionate we have become in our explorations into the minds of dogs, the more intelligent they have shown us to be.

Tail wagging, I tell her (as she climbs me like a tree upon seeing a hamster-sized bichon frise puppy approaching at our local park) is a good indicator of the friendliness of a dog.