Jessie is a collie-labrador cross. Jessie is Rod Liddle's dog. Just how were dogs domesticated? Rod Liddle traces the history of dogs starting with wolves and leading right up to the modern day with his own dog, Jessie.

Along the way he talks about Ivan Petrovich Pavlov's famous theory, the many different breeds of dog, a brief encyclopaedia of barks and dogonomics (the cost of buying and owning a dog).