On the Symbolism of the Dog

Dog symbolism comes at us from both sides.

Experienced by man as both a treasured domestic friend and as a wild, ever-hungry wolf-like animal, the dog threads us between the opposites of internal darkness and light, life and death.

As companion of herders and hunters, the dog became a symbol of vigilance and fidelity.

As predator and scavenger in the wild, it became a symbol of greed and impurity.

In nearly every world mythology, our constant companion the dog has come to be associated with our other constant companion, death.

There are dogs that guard the gates of hell with a characteristically canine ferocity like Cerberus and Garm, the hellhound, and dogs who attend the mystery gods and goddesses of life and death: Hecate, Artemis, Osiris, Isis, Shiva, Asclepius, Hermes and others.

The leash we hold on the dog links us to the energies of life and death.

The dog is particularly responsive to human care, which brings out the best in him.

We learn from the dog to paradoxically experience the rewards of capturing a soulful relationship to the unknown on its own terms.

Bitten by the alchemical “Corascene dog,” we might fall into the mouth of depression, swallowed by the devouring dog of a personal hell, becoming gruesomely bitchy, biting, trapped and hungry.

Churchill referred to his own recurrent depressions as his “black dog.”

Sensing our despair our soul-dog may arrive and we may, if wise, finally ask the underworld dog guide, maybe the Mexican Xolotl, to bring us from our darkened state, “across the ninefold river” to a new life, a rebirth.

Or we might entreat the Egyptian dog-god Anubis to weigh our heart to assess its ability to love, as if asking that we be made more open to our companion animal soul that it may sniff out our path in the depths where we have lost our way.