The Happiness of Dogs by Mark Rowlands review – a masterclass in canine philosophy

This is not, however, a self-help book urging you to be more like your dog. As Rowlands makes abundantly clear, you can’t. You’ll never be able to engage with life as completely as your best friend, because you are cursed with reflection – a capacity for interior examination that splits you in two: into the self that lives your life, and the self that watches you living it and judges you for it. The human ability to reflect is both boundless and recursive: you can think about things, and then overthink them, and then think you’re overthinking them.