Canine Pioneer

This superb book explores, in fascinating detail, the remarkable story of Rudolphina Menzel. In engaging and accessible prose, Susan Kahn and her fellow contributors tease out the complexities and contradictions of Menzel and her remarkable accomplishments in the mid-twentieth-century world of dog breeding and training. Always alive to the context in which she lived and worked, this book expertly weaves together animal history and Jewish history to shine a light on an overlooked aspect of human-canine relations.

This book gives a fine picture of the extraordinary career and personality of Rudolphina Menzel, an Austrian cynologist who emigrated to British Mandate Palestine in 1938, and emerged as a foremost world expert on canine psychology, development and training. Applying what she had learnt in Austria, she organized canine training for police and military uses in the newborn State of Israel, and eventually sired the development of a new breed, the indigenous Canaan dog. For decades her major theoretical and practical contributions to the field went unrecognized. This volume – beginning with Susan Kahn's well-rounded, introductory biography – goes a long way to correcting this oversight.

... a deeply contextualized account of Menzel's life, from her childhood as a thoroughly assimilated Austrian Jew, through her awakening commitment to Zionism, her training and early career as a scientist, and her career as an eminent dog trainer and breeder both in Europe and in Israel. It is a fascinating story--unusual from the perspective of Menzel's expertise, although not from the perspective of her experience of the darkening political atmosphere of Austria and Germany and of the need to become a refugee.

We have waited a long time for a heroine like Menzel. As thoughtful as she was daring, as courageous as she was kind. Driven by curiosity, Menzel straddled the different worlds of canines and humans at a time driven by violent division. Her biographer Kahn has done a masterful job providing us with a fascinating image of an important historical figure whose message resonates especially today - sometimes the characteristics that make us different are less important than the experiences we share.

Rudolphina Menzel devoted much of her life to help our four-legged companions find their place in modern society. Her pioneering effort bears fruit in the present day to improve human-dog partnership.

The book provides a fascinating
and much-needed introduction to
the monumental role that Rudolphina
played in making the field of cynology
such a respected and important field, as
well as entwining dogs into the fabric of
Israeli society...

A consistently eye-opening volume.... an outstanding academic book... If its contributors could find the right Israeli TV producer, Rudolphina Menzel’s story could be the basis for a series that would make her a household name around the world.

[Canine Pioneer] chronicles Menzel’s life and career, exploring her seminal role in the development of cynology (the scientific study of domestic dogs) and modern Jewish, European, and Middle Eastern history. . . . Kahn details how and why Menzel transformed her love of dogs into a serious professional undertaking that enabled her to investigate scientific questions and solve societal problems.