Baxter has an extraordinary nose, the common sense of a root vegetable, and an alarming enthusiasm for eating things that were never intended to be eaten.

But beneath the chaos is something remarkable.

Dogs inhabit a sensory world almost unimaginably different from ours, shaped by millions of years of evolution, extraordinary senses, ancient instincts and a relationship with humans unlike that of any other animal.

In The Wolf That Chews Rocks, Russell Jones uses the everyday adventures of one particularly ridiculous working cocker spaniel to explore the science of why dogs behave as they do. Why do they sniff everything, roll in revolting things, bark at apparently nothing, chase anything that moves and stare at us as though we're idiots? What do they understand about us? What is going on inside their heads? And why can they be relied upon to drag their bums across the floor at precisely the worst possible moment?

Combining popular science, natural history and the realities of sharing a home with a dog who occasionally eats rocks, The Wolf That Chews Rocks is a funny, affectionate and surprising journey into the strange and extraordinary wolf at the other end of the lead.

Russell Jones is the author of the Sunday Times bestseller The Decade in Tory and the Erin Callahan thriller series, beginning with Baby's Breath. He lives in Cheshire, England, and is ageing in dog years because of that little idiot.