A scientist, his dog and an MRI machine. In How Dogs Love Us, Gregory Berns tells the story of how he is seeking to decode the canine brain.

Neuroscientist Gregory Burns, and his off-beat team of researchers, came up with the idea of putting a dog on an MRI. If military trained dogs could help eliminate Osama bin Laden as a terrorist threat, why couldn't they be taught to lay still for an MRI? If Burns and team could just capture that data, they might be able tell us what dogs are really thinking.

Berns loves dogs and he loves his dogs. He does an amazing job of communicating what is special about our relationships with our canine companions and why we should be curious as to how dogs view that bond. This book is more the story of how they got to start collecting data, rather than one that presents hard truths about canine mentation. It is still a wonderful read. I did have a hard time, however, as one of Burns dogs is named Callie. I recently lost a Callie of my own.

I'll be looking forward to the second book, where Berns share more research. This edition was available "free" via Kindle Unlimited.

How Dogs Love Us: A Neuroscientist and His Adopted Dog Decode the Canine Brain