According to a legend of the Tehuelche Indians, after the sun god had created the first man and woman, the deity immediately created a dog to keep them company. Emotionally, dogs seem akin to human beings. Some people believe that dogs are the only animals apart from humans that can feel guilt. Others dismiss that perception as an anthropomorphic illusion or even hypocrisy. People often regard dogs as icons of either the faithful companion or the sycophant. In much the same way that the dog joins the realms of culture and nature, the mythic dog serves as a mediator between life and death.

In ancient Egypt, dogs and cats were the most beloved of pets. According to Herodotus, when the family dog died every person in the household would shave his or her entire body, including the head, in mourning. Many Egyptian pictures have been preserved through the ages of people caressing dogs, as well as using them in the hunt. While cats were associated with the sun god Ra, dogs were associated with the underworld and with death. The appearance of the Dog Star, Sirius, was a sign to people that they should prepare for the rising of the Nile River. Plutarch, however, reported in his essay “Isis and Osiris” that when the blasphemous conqueror from Persia, Cambyses, had slain the sacred bull Apis, only dogs would eat the body, and so the dog lost its status as the most honored animal among Egyptians. Throughout the ancient world, owners were interred with their dogs. Tombs with canine effigies or canine corpses alongside human bodies have been found throughout Eurasia and in parts of Africa as well as in pre-Columbian America. Just as dogs led hunters tracking game through the wilderness, they were expected to guide people through the next world. In Egypt, dogs were associated with Anubis, god of the dead, who is most often depicted with a human body and the head of a jackal or dog.

Lady Wilde has written of dogs in Ireland: “The peasants believe that the domestic animals know all about us, especially the dog and the cat. They listen to everything that is said; they watch the expression of the face and can even read the thoughts. The Irish say it is not safe to ask a question of a dog, for he may answer, and should he do so the questioner will surely die” (p. 146). The dog certainly shares the life of human society more intimately than any other animal. This, of itself, can make people feel uneasy. Human beings view dogs with a strange combination of affection and contempt, of domination and fear.

Though dogs are occasionally seen as solar animals, they are usually associated with the moon. Perhaps this is because they howl at the moon, as do their relatives, wolves, coyotes, and jackals. By extension, dogs are also associated with night and with death. In Greek mythology, they are companions of the lunar goddesses Artemis and Hecate. The association of dogs with the star Sirius reaches all the way from Mexico to China.

Their sense of smell gave dogs an ability to guide people in the hunt. A dog would know the location of game that was not even remotely visible. After the hunt, a dog guided people through the woods back to their settlement. We should remember that this was long before the use of the compass or of even remotely accurate maps. This ability must have impressed people as miraculous. It is small wonder that a vast range of cultures on every continent has regarded dogs as guides to the world after death.

Many cultures view the howling of dogs as an omen of death. According to Jewish tradition, dogs can see the angel of death. In Virgil’s Aeneid, dogs howl at the approach of the goddess Hecate. Several traditions also make dogs the guardians of the underworld. The best known of such sentries is Cerberus, who keeps watch at the entrance to Hades in Greco-Roman mythology. According to Hesiod, this dog had fifty heads, though later writers reduced the number to three. In Norse mythology, the abode of the dead is watched over by the dog Garm. When the final battle at the end of the world comes, Garm will swallow the moon. This monstrous dog will finally do battle with the god Tyr, and both will be slain. In Hinduism and Buddhism, two dogs accompany Yama, the lord of the dead. They each have four eyes and serve their master by searching out those who are about to die. In Aztec mythology, the departed soul descended to the underworld and came to a river guarded by a yellow dog. In European folklore, demonic dogs accompanied the Wild Huntsman across the sky in his search for lost souls. To even hear the hounds meant that you would die soon. A black dog was a frequent omen of doom. In the lore of western England, the devil’s Dandy Dogs passed over the moors during storms. They breathed fire and tore hapless strangers to pieces. The name of Cúchulainn, the popular hero of Celtic myth, literally means “hound of Ulster.” When he killed the ferocious hound of a smith, Cúchulainn had to take on the role of the creature he had killed. When roused to battle, his appearance changed. His eyes bulged or contracted. His jaw opened from ear to ear, like that of a dog, while a light like the moon rose in his head. When three witches in the form of crows tricked him into eating the flesh of a dog as well as violating other taboos, Cúchulainn was killed.

In the religion of the Aztecs, the canine deity Xotol was intimately associated with the world of the dead. At one point human beings died out and the gods wished to bring them back. Xotol traveled beneath the ground to obtain the bone of the departed races. The god of the dead pursued him in anger. Xotol stumbled and fell, breaking the bone into many pieces, but he recovered and brought the bones back to the surface of the earth. The gods sprinkled the bones with their blood, and the pieces became human beings of many shapes and sizes. A further reason dogs have been associated with death is that throughout the ancient world feral dogs roamed in packs in search of carrion, including the bodies of human beings. The greatest disgrace for a corpse in most cultures of the Mediterranean was to be eaten by dogs. In Homer’s The Iliad, the Trojans feared such would be the fate of Hector’s body. In Antigone by Sophocles, the heroine feared this would be her brother’s fate if he was not given a proper burial. In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Actaeon experienced an especially demeaning death: he was changed by the goddess Diana into a stag and killed by his own hounds. In the Bible, because Jezebel, wife of King Ahab of Israel, spread the worship of Baal, the prophet Elijah prophesied that dogs would devour her body (1 Kings 21:23). Jehu later ordered her thrown down from a window, and those who went to bury her found only the skull, feet, and hands (2 Kings 9:34-37).

Dogs were held in special reverence in Persia. According to legend, Cyrus, who founded the Persian Empire, was left out to die at birth but was suckled by a dog. In the religion of Zoroaster, which began in Persia, a dog had to accompany a funeral procession to ensure a peaceful journey to the next world. The Zoroastrians believed that dogs were able to see spirits and could protect families from evil powers that human beings were not even aware of. To express their gratitude for the protection, families were expected to feed hungry dogs, using ritualistically prepared food. The members of the family then said prayers as the dogs ate. Dogs guarded the Cinvat Bridge that led to the next world, protecting the righteous but leaving the unrighteous to demons. In the religion of Mithras, the major rival to Christianity in the latter part of the Roman Empire, a dog would be among the animals to accompany Mithras at the sacrifice of a great bull to rejuvenate the world. After the sacrifice, the dog would lap up the blood that had been spilled.

Just as the dog guards the home, dogs in the ancient world were also thought to guard the body from demons or disease. In Mesopotamia, the dog was sacred to Gula, the Babylonian goddess of healing. At times Gula was represented as a bitch suckling her pups. When in human form, she was accompanied by dogs. Many dog figurines have been found in her temple, and they were used to ward off illness. In Greece, a dog generally accompanied Asclepius, the legendary doctor who once raised a man from the dead. In the Middle Ages, Saint Roch, who is invoked for protection against diseases, was also depicted with a dog. The holy man worked with victims of bubonic plague. One day, however, he himself was stricken, and sores appeared on his body. Saint Roch wandered into the woods to die, when a dog came up and licked the sores. With the help of the dog, who brought him bread, Saint Roch miraculously recovered. The ancient tradition in which the dog serves as a guardian to the next world is reflected in medieval burials. The lord and lady of the house would often be buried with their dogs. Splendid sculptures and bas-reliefs on graves show the deceased stretched out with a faithful dog at his or her feet. Today, dogs are often buried in pet cemeteries and more seldom with their masters, yet many people still hope to be reunited with a beloved pet in the world beyond. Dogs were, for the most part, favorably regarded in the Greco-Roman world as well. Many people find the most touching scene in Homer’s The Odyssey to be when the hero finally returned home and was recognized only by his hound Argos. The dog wagged its tail and then died. The Greeks and Romans sometimes wrote very affectionate epitaphs for their dogs.

The philosopher Diogenes, a contemporary of Alexander the Great’s, called himself a “hound.” Members of his school were known as “cynics,” after the Greek word for “doglike.” Like dogs, they lived in the society yet did not fully belong to it. Since that time, dogs have often symbolized alienation. Diogenes not only praised the fidelity and the modest needs of dogs but also admired their lack of shame, since they would not hesitate to urinate or copulate in public. Ancient authors such as Ctesias and Pliny the Elder wrote of the cynopheli, who had human bodies and the heads of dogs. The legend probably originated in Egypt, where the creatures could have been inspired partly by baboons. Through the Middle Ages, travelers spread accounts of dog-men in distant lands. They were among the many marvels reported of the mythical kingdom of Prester John in India. Saint Christopher is often portrayed with the head of a dog. One popular legend had it that Saint Christopher was from a race of cynopheli. They were fierce and ate human flesh. They had no language beyond a bark. In answer to his prayer, God gave him human speech. To account for his strange appearance, another legend suggested that Saint Christopher was once extraordinarily handsome. He prayed to God for the head of a dog so that women would leave him in peace. The figure ultimately goes back to the jackal-headed Egyptian deity Anubis. Soldiers of Alexander of Macedonia conflated Anubis with their god Hermes, since both were guardians of the dead. They called this composite deity Hermanubis and erected a temple to him in Alexandria. His temple became one of the most popular shrines in the ancient world. In time, his cult was absorbed into Christianity. A version of this deity also entered Chinese legend. One very popular tale had a dog marrying a princess. Barbarians had invaded from the west, and the desperate emperor promised that anybody who could drive back the enemy could marry his daughter. A dog heard the pledge, crept behind enemy lines, and killed the opposing commander; he chewed off his victim’s head, brought it back, and presented it to the emperor. When they discovered what had happened, the barbarians withdrew. The dog, who could speak like a human being, then reminded the emperor of his promise. When the emperor objected that marriage between a person and an animal was impossible, the dog replied that he could be made human by being placed under a bell for 280 days, provided that nobody disturbed him in the interim. This was done, but when only one day remained, the emperor was overcome with curiosity and lifted the bell, only to see a creature with a human body and a canine head. The marriage went ahead as planned; members of the tribe known as the Fong of Fuzhou claim to be descended from the couple.

Being close to humanity has by no means necessarily worked to the advantage of dogs. We often try to judge dogs by human standards, which may not always be appropriate. We include them in human hierarchies, which means they are at or near the bottom of the scale. The epithet “dog” traditionally suggests a combination of contempt and mistrust, such as masters would feel for their slaves. We use the term “ass kisser,” taken from the greeting behavior of dogs, to describe hypocritically servile people.

Partly in reaction to other cultures, especially that of Egypt, the Hebrews developed a repugnance for the dog. Not only is the dog an “unclean” animal in the Old Testament, but a revulsion against the dog is expressed repeatedly in very graphic terms: “As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool reverts to his folly” (Prov. 26:11). The view in the New Testament is not much more generous. Revelations lists “dogs” among those who must remain outside the kingdom of Heaven, together with “fortunetellers,” “fornicators,” “murderers,” “idolaters,” and “everyone of false speech and false life” (22:15). When people vilify an animal, they are usually reacting against others who regard the creature as sacred. The Hebrews were very fastidious about the preparation of food, and they insisted that animals be slaughtered according to prescribed rituals. For other cultures of the Near East, the hunt using dogs was often sacred. The Hebrews took a dim view of the hunt in general, and they regarded meat touched by hunting dogs as unclean. This meant that dogs had little chance to display their most spectacular abilities. Dogs are often compared to the enemies of Israel in the Old Testament It took some time for dogs to be accepted as pets. In 1613, Margaret Barclay of Scotland was tried for witchcraft. With the assistance of another woman, Isobel Insh, and in the company of a black lapdog, she allegedly had made clay images of mariners and their boat one night. Then, together with the dog, she had gone down to the shore and cast these images into the waves. Immediately the water had turned red and the sea had begun to rage. At about the same time, a ship had gone down near the coast, killing all the crew except two men. The daughter of Isobel Insh, a girl of only eight, was called in to testify. She claimed to have witnessed the witchcraft and added that her mother had been present only at the making of the clay images and not when the spell was cast. The child went on to testify that the dog gave off fire from his jaws and mouth to illuminate the scene. Margaret Barclay was forced to confess under torture. Though she later retracted the confession, she was executed.

Islam as well takes a negative view of dogs, though there are noteworthy exceptions. Moslem tradition places nine animals in heaven, including two dogs. One is the dog of the apocryphal prophet Tobit. The other is Kasmir, the dog of the Seven Sleepers of Ephessus, from a Christian legend that passed over into Islam. Seven young Christians took refuge in a cave to escape persecution by the Roman soldiers during the reign of Decius. They slept for two hundred years. After waking, one of them went into town to purchase provisions. He was amazed to find that almost everyone had converted to Christianity. According to the Koran, Kasmir kept watch outside the cave for the entire time, not eating, nor drinking, nor sleeping himself. Just as many tales celebrate the fidelity of dogs, others lament the inability of human beings to reciprocate this loyalty. The most famous is the Irish tale of the thirteenth-century Welsh prince Llywelyn and his hound Gelert. The prince had gone hunting and left the dog to guard his infant son. He returned to find the boy missing and Gelert covered with blood. Horrified, Llewelyn immediately killed Gelert with his sword. Then, looking closely, he found the baby sleeping peacefully on the ground beside the body of a serpent that Gelert had killed.

Almost the same story is told of Guinefort, a greyhound on the estate of Villars near Lyons in France. After the dog had saved a baby from a snake and after being killed by the master of the house, the body of Guinefort was thrown into a well. The grave of the dog became a site of pilgrimages, where parents would bring sickly or deformed children to be healed. Monks in a nearby monastery looked on in consternation as peasant women prayed to the dog, hung swaddling clothes in nearby bushes, and practiced what seemed to be pagan rituals.

The absolute fidelity of a dog to its master is a central virtue of the feudal world. With the rise of the middle class in Victorian times, unconditional fidelity became a nostalgic remembrance of the Middle Ages. Since one could no longer demand such loyalty of men, one valued this virtue all the more in hounds. One story that was constantly retold is that of the “Dog of Montargis.” The dog belonged to a courtier of Charles V of France named Aubry, who was murdered in the wood of Montargis near Orléans in 1371. The dog was the only witness and followed the murderer, Robert Macaire, everywhere, constantly barking in an accusatory manner. Finally, a duel between the dog and man was arranged. After being badly defeated, Macaire confessed to his crime and was executed.

There are countless stories throughout the world of dogs that killed themselves after their masters had died, often by refusing all food. Pliny the Elder wrote of a dog named Hyrcanus that threw itself on the blazing funeral pyre of its master. Seldom do people pass the test of canine loyalty. One of the few who did is Yudhisthira, in Hindu myth, when he was invited to enter Heaven without his dog. There was thunder, then a great light. He could see the god Indira waiting for him in the divine chariot. Invited to enter, Yudhisthira stepped aside so the dog might go first. Indira objected, saying that the presence of a dog would defile Heaven. Yudhisthira replied that he could conceive of no greater crime than to send the faithful dog away. At that moment the dog was transformed into Dharma, the god of righ teousness. The words of Indira had been a final test, and Yudhisthira had shown his worthiness through fidelity to his companion. During the Nazi period, the dogs of Adolf Hitler became a public obsession. Hitler was fanatically possessive of his dogs and would not allow anybody to touch his puppy named “Wolf.” The regime wanted to promote unquestioning obedience, a quality that people found in dogs. Hitler once said that he trusted nobody but his girlfriend, Eva, and his dog, Blondie. Even with the fall of Nazi Germany, people’s fascination with Hitler’s dogs continued almost unabated. People wondered especially about Blondie during Hitler’s final days.

Did he really risk his life to walk her every day in spite of bombs? How did Hitler take his final leave of Blondie and her pups? Did he personally administer cyanide to her, or did he delegate the task to the SS? Author Günter Grass satirized the obsession with Hitler’s dogs in his novel Dog Years. Perhaps much of the fascination comes from the juxtaposition of great guilt and innocence-one of the worst mass murderers in history and a blameless animal.

Dogs have also served as surrogates for human beings in space. The first living creature to be sent into orbit was a Samoyed named Laika, launched in a Soviet satellite in 1957. After six days the oxygen ran out and she died, but her corpse remains in orbit to this day. For many, she has come to symbolize the fragility of all life in this age of scientific exploration. Two years later, another Soviet husky, Otvazhnaya, was sent into space, together with a rabbit, and safely returned. Dogs seem to not only reflect but also exaggerate the ideals of the society in which they are kept. In aristocratic societies they were valued according to their ancestry. Like kings and queens, the thoroughbred dogs in noble houses had recorded bloodlines that went back several generations and fabricated ones that went back to remote antiquity. As society industrialized, dogs became a nostalgic reminder of the rural past. Especially in the fifties and early sixties, dogs such as Lassie and Rin Tin Tin were enormously popular on American television. But it is not easy for most people to keep a dog humanely in increasingly urbanized communities. Today, the keeping of dogs mirrors to the point of parody the commercial values of contemporary Western culture. Dogs have special gyms, fashions, gourmet foods, therapists, beauty parlors, and almost everything that people have. But dogs, like people, pay for all of this luxury with freedom. In the last decades of the twentieth century, most urban communities have prohibited dogs from running free even in city parks. As the role of the dog in our lives is slowly reduced, the symbolic importance of dogs may even be increasing. In this age of electronic security systems, dogs are relatively inefficient at guarding the home. Nevertheless, most people have seen the cartoon dog McGruff, in a trench coat and floppy hat, who tells people on television to “take a bite out of crime.” Dogs are used to sell a vast variety of products related to security, from alarms to software programs against computer viruses.

Our commercial culture today can sometimes make fantasies so vivid that reality seems . . . well, almost irrelevant. Among the most familiar canines on television is Spuds McKenzie, who is used to advertise light beer. In 1990, Spuds made People magazine’s list of the world’s ten best-dressed men. Not only does Spuds pitch a product that is not at all for dogs, but the canine model for this distinctly masculine persona is actually a bitch.

Not everybody likes dogs, but those who do are very passionate about them. Dogs often appear helpless, yet they are usually pretty able to take care of themselves. This combination of vulnerability and strength makes dogs, for good or ill, so very “human.”