Alexandra Horowitz is keen on the mind of the dog. She has long been interested in understanding the umwelt of another animal, and her research and writing is aimed to answer the question of what it is like to be a dog. She has also written about the joys of paying attention to the ordinary (in On Looking); the pleasures of footnotes and the veracity of animal characters in childrens’ books (for The New York Times); and working dogs and show dogs (for The New Yorker).

Horowitz is a professor at Barnard College, Columbia University, where she teaches seminars in canine cognition, creative nonfiction writing, and audio storytelling. As Senior Research Fellow, she heads the Dog Cognition Lab at Barnard. She lives with her family of Homo sapiens, Canis familiaris, and Felis catus in New York City.

“Dogs can read and respond to our emotions. They’re social animals and we want to be among social animals. And most important, they’re probably less likely to eat you if you die.”