Mariam Motamedi Fraser, <i>Dog Politics: Species Stories and the Animal Sciences</i> Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2024. Pp. 288. ISBN 978-1-5261-7480-2. £85.00 (hardcover).

My dog, Laszlo, hates leashes.He loves people and enjoys running with friends.But in a city with strict leash laws, Laszlo's opportunities to frolic are limited.Sometimes, on a leash, he snaps when dogs get close.Laszlo is 'leash-reactive': he refuses to comport with human expectations about his behaviour.Then again, I too would hate being leashed.Mariam Motamedi Fraser suggests that Laszlo's challenges highlight the profound difficulty for any dog to become 'socialised "enough" to cope with the demands that are placed upon them' (p.29).Dog Politics focuses on the grand scientific story about domestic dogs: that they are defined by their relationship with and responsiveness to humans.The story has three parts: dogs were the first domesticates, their speciation and domestication were virtually simultaneous, and evolution with humans established a special bond.Fraser calls this the canine 'species story' (p.2).She argues that it is far less coherent than is widely assumed and has deadly consequences for dogs.There is no such thing as 'the dog', we might say, and this is a book about it.Fraser assails the 'species story' in systematic fashion.Chapter 1 draws on animal training and behaviour literature to argue that the 'natural' dog-human bond is the product of significant labour.The bond is not a givenit fails, or is failed by, many dogs (p.36).Chapter 2 turns to the species story, where Fraser rejects dog-human co-evolution.Like others, including Michael Worboys, Julie-Marie Strange and Neil Pemberton, Fraser emphasizes the role of dogs in Charles Darwin's thinking.The chapter then turns to contemporary debates about canine speciation.Covering significant ground in a short space, Dog Politics cannot give all competing theories adequate room, but its caution about universal claims about dogs is welcome.Fraser encourages wariness about scientizing the human-dog relationship but misses an opportunity to engage Edmund Russell's attempt in Greyhound Nation (2018) to rethink human-dog history through scientific concepts.For Russell, hewing to 'species' and a capacious understanding of evolution allows us to denaturalize the idea of a singular dog and perceive alternative ways in which humans and dogs shaped each other's development.Because Fraser also seeks a path to considering individual animals, this conversation could have been extremely productive.Chapter 3 detours into the history of animal behaviour, describing how individual animals become 'generic species representatives' (p.100).Many behaviour studies are not, Fraser insists, truly representative.Chapter 4 returns to the human-dog bond, analysing two popular books depicting dogs as, 'inherently, creatures of "the bond"' (p.137).