Lola: Or, The Thought and Speech of Animals

In 1922, a woman named Henny Kindermann made a startling claim: her Airedale terrier, Lola, could count, do arithmetic, and spell out words. This wasn't a party trick. It was a serious contribution to one of the most contentious debates of the early twentieth century: do animals think? Lola descends from Rolf, a famous 'thinking dog' of German experiments, and Kindermann presents her case with the careful devotion of someone who has lived with and studied her companion for years. The book blends tender observation with scientific inquiry, asking readers to consider what separates human minds from animal ones, and whether that divide is as wide as we've assumed. Kindermann writes not as a cold observer but as someone who has looked into her dog's eyes and seen something looking back. The result is a charming, slightly utopian work that refuses to accept that consciousness is humanity's exclusive domain.