The Pawprints of HistoryThe Pawprints of History: Dogs and the Course of Human Events by Stanley Coren is a collection of historically-based stories centered around the lives of some of history’s most famous people’s dogs.

Coren does a commendable job as dog-historian because his research involved picking through the side notes in papers and personal correspondence between family members and friends of his subjects to find all of the dog-related information for his book. As you can imagine, dogs have not been the main subjects in writing for much of history.

The Pawprints of History tells the tales of Napoleon Bonaparte and his deep dislike of dogs, and the mastiffs used as weapons against Native Americans in pre-colonial times. Coren also touches on the idea of dogs as artistic muses, in the cases of Richard Wagner and Sir Walter Scott, and as inspirations for innovation for men of science such as Alexander Graham Bell and Sigmund Freud.

With chapters about the canine residents of the White House and the beginnings of modern animal welfare, there is something for most history buffs. Although Coren sometimes reaches far to hypothesize the ways dogs have put their pawprints on the course of history, The Pawprints of History is a collection of stories is a fun and easy read for anyone that enjoys a canine companion.