An extraordinary memoir about learning to see the world through a dog’s eyes, by a New Yorker writer and animal behaviour expert
‘A beautiful book … leaving the reader feeling enlarged and enlightened’ ELIF BATUMAN
When Anna Heyward adopted Freddie, a rescued Italian greyhound, she was thrilled to bring a dog into her life. But Freddie, she quickly realised, had separation anxiety and was unable to be left alone. Some would have given up and returned the dog to the rescue centre but Anna, instead, became obsessed with trying to help Freddie, which meant putting her relationship, social life and job at risk. As Anna observed Freddie’s behavior, she began to change – but not in the way you might expect.
Living with Freddie is a story about what it means to be bad or good, how much we can – or should – try to alter another being’s behavior, and what it is possible to know about another mind. But at its heart, this is a beautiful, heart-wrenching portrait of the relationship between a human and a dog. And at the end of Freddie’s story, you, too, may find yourself changed.
‘Compelling, vivid, and essential’ Sy Montgomery, author of The Soul of an Octopus
‘An extraordinary, beautifully written book … a stunning meditation on the bond between beasts and humans’ Marc Bekoff, Ph.D. author of Dogs Demystified: An A-to-Z Guide to All Things Canine and The Emotional Lives of Animals
‘Heyward writes with sublime curiosity, uncommon lucidity, and an open heart-about her dog Freddie, yes, but also about love, devotion, suffering, natural selection, conditioning, and humans’ relationship with the nonhuman world. I couldn’t put it down’ Carolyn Kormann
‘A beautiful book … leaving the reader feeling enlarged and enlightened’ ELIF BATUMAN
When Anna Heyward adopted Freddie, a rescued Italian greyhound, she was thrilled to bring a dog into her life. But Freddie, she quickly realised, had separation anxiety and was unable to be left alone. Some would have given up and returned the dog to the rescue centre but Anna, instead, became obsessed with trying to help Freddie, which meant putting her relationship, social life and job at risk. As Anna observed Freddie’s behavior, she began to change – but not in the way you might expect.
Living with Freddie is a story about what it means to be bad or good, how much we can – or should – try to alter another being’s behavior, and what it is possible to know about another mind. But at its heart, this is a beautiful, heart-wrenching portrait of the relationship between a human and a dog. And at the end of Freddie’s story, you, too, may find yourself changed.
‘Compelling, vivid, and essential’ Sy Montgomery, author of The Soul of an Octopus
‘An extraordinary, beautifully written book … a stunning meditation on the bond between beasts and humans’ Marc Bekoff, Ph.D. author of Dogs Demystified: An A-to-Z Guide to All Things Canine and The Emotional Lives of Animals
‘Heyward writes with sublime curiosity, uncommon lucidity, and an open heart-about her dog Freddie, yes, but also about love, devotion, suffering, natural selection, conditioning, and humans’ relationship with the nonhuman world. I couldn’t put it down’ Carolyn Kormann
Reviews
In this extraordinary, beautifully written book, Anna Heyward places the science and history of our relationship with dogs within a deeply personal story about the joy and the pain of living with, and trying to relate to, a nonhuman animal. In her careful consideration of Freddie's views of his world, Heyward challenges our assumptions and preconceived notions about dogs and other animals with whom we live. Living with Freddie is a stunning meditation on the bond between beasts and humans, and captures the full emotional range inherent to these complex relationships
Compelling, vivid, and essential, Living with Freddie confronts the mystery of love, the nature of suffering, and the heartbreaking ways in which one may be inadvertently embedded in the other. This book should be required reading for anyone contemplating adopting a pet, or even raising a child. Please read these pages. You will come away changed
What a beautiful book - at once a touching memoir about loving a "difficult" dog, and a searching inquiry into what it is to be sentient, alive, and in hierarchical relation with other sentient living beings. Heyward zooms in and out between the everyday and the cosmic with dizzying and delightful ease, leaving the reader feeling enlarged and enlightened
Anna Heyward writes with sublime curiosity, uncommon lucidity, and an open heart-about her dog Freddie, yes, but also about love, devotion, suffering, natural selection, conditioning, and humans' relationship with the nonhuman world. Philosophical, searching, brave, and deeply personal, but also thoroughly researched and scientifically serious, Living with Freddie is an incandescent debut. It had me entirely immersed from start to finish by its cinematic, perfectly-paced storytelling, as much as by its exciting, mind-altering meditations on, say, freedom, wonder, or the inner self. Although a pleasure to read, the book was unexpectedly heart-wrenching, too. I sobbed through the final third, but I couldn't put it down