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“Convincingly shows that each puppy is a unique puzzle—solve it and you will have a perfect friend.”
– Anderson Cooper, Host of Anderson Cooper 360.

“A firehose of knowledge suffused with levity and charm from the ingenious minds behind the Puppy Kindergarten at Duke University.”
– Alexandra Horowitz, author of the New York Times #1 bestseller Inside of a Dog

“Wonderful. These explanations of individual canine foibles will make raising your next best friend more fascinating, successful and joyful than ever.”
– Richard Wrangham, author of The Goodness Paradox

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“Brilliant, eye-opening, and absolutely inspiring—and a riveting read. Hare and Woods have written the perfect book for our time.”
— Cass Sunstein, author of How Change Happens and co-author of Nudge

“Powerful, insightful, accessible—this book gives me hope.”
— Megan Phelps-Roper, author of Unfollow

“How can a top predator like the wolf have evolved to become ‘man’s best friend’? Finally a book that explains in the clearest terms how friendliness and cooperation shaped dogs and humans. This book left me with a happy and optimistic view of nature.”
— Isabella Rossellini, actress and activist

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The Genius of Dogs is a fascinating look at what goes on between the ears of the animals we share our lives with. I found it entertaining, fast-moving, and filled with gee-whiz insights that gave me a new appreciation for the complex social intelligence of man’s best friend.”
— John Grogan, author of Marley & Me and The Longest Trip Home

The Genius of Dogs is a fantastic book. It makes it very clear that there are different kinds of intelligence. All dog lovers should read this book.”
— Temple Grandin, author of Animals Make Us Human and Animals in Translation

The Genius of Dogs is not just about dogs, and not just about genius. It’s an exciting detective story by two comparative biologists with amazing discoveries to report.”
— Bernd Heinrich, author of Mind of the Raven

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“This is a startling book. Page after page astonished me. A beautifully written journey into the tangled jungle of the human mind, it also brings us movingly into intimate, loving contact with our extraordinary cousins. This is a compelling story, told with striking honesty, humor, and intelligence.”
– Alan Alda, actor, director, screenwriter, comedian, and author.

“Funny, adventurous, and heartbreaking. Woods takes us with her to darkest Africa to meet our nearest relative, the nearly extinct bonobo. This must-read book illuminates extraordinary courage in both people and animals.”
– Sara Gruen, author of New York Times Bestseller Water For Elephants

“Don’t think that this is just a book about apes. It’s a love story, an adventure story, and a political education about a country that has seen more tragedy and inhumanity than you can imagine. Above all, it’s an introduction to creatures who have every claim to being more human, in the best sense of the word, than we are.”
– Adam Hochschild, author of the award winning King Leopold’s Ghost

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BIO

Vanessa Woods is the Director of the Duke Puppy Kindergarten and an award winning writer and journalist. In 2010, her book Bonobo Handshake: A memoir of Love and Adventure in Congo won the Thomas Lowell award for non fiction and her children’s book, It’s true, Space turns you into Spaghetti was named an Acclaimed Book by the Royal Society in 2007. Her books have been translated into 12 languages. Woods received the Australiasian Science award for journalism in 2004.

In 2022, Vanessa was voted a Duke icon by the Duke community and selected by a special committee at The Chronicle, an award which recognizes "kindness, passion, talent or intellect”.

Woods and Hare live together with their dog in North Carolina. Their first book together, The Genius of Dogs was a New York Times Bestseller, and their second book Survival of the Friendliest was an international bestseller and won the ‘Smart Book of the Year 2022’.

Vanessa is the Director of the Duke Puppy Kindergarten, a project funded by the National Institute of Health, with the goal of helping graduate more service dogs by studying the development of their cognition. From 8 to 20 weeks old, puppies go through their final, rapid stage of brain development. By playing problem solving games with puppies at regular intervals, we can see which cognitive skills come online at which time points. The results allow us to predict which puppies are most likely to graduate as service dogs. Through our work with Canine Companions puppies and Ears, Eyes, Nose and Paws, we have discovered that puppies have multiple intelligences, and when these intelligences emerge.

Follow the puppies on Instagram!