animal rights

Dogs don’t just see the world from their own, lower-to-the-ground perspective, David Suzuki says in the opening moments of Toronto filmmakers Donna and Daniel Zuckerbrot’s charming, lighthearted The Nature of Things program A Dog’s Life.

Dogs have an innate, almost uncanny ability to read human emotions, an understanding that dates back to humankind’s origins. Oddly, A Dog’s Life tells us, we may not be as astute at reading dogs’ behaviour.
“You’ll be amazed at what they can do, and what they can’t do,” Suzuki says, early in his introduction.
That may sound obvious — a little like saying dogs get along with cats about as well as sheepherders get along with cattle ranchers — but there’s much in A Dog’s Life that will surprise and delight even the most well-informed dog lover. As University of Western Ontario PhD student and canine researcher Krista Macpherson points out in A Dog’s Life, we have learned more about dogs in the past 10 years than in the previous 100.
“How is it that we’ve lived together for so long,” Suzuki says, “and yet we know so little about them?”
Funny he should ask …