ABSTRACT
Dogs, “man’s best friend,” as the old saying goes, have become a significant part of human experience and culture. Dogs are closely associated with children, as they become their companions and virtual siblings. There is much in the literature, predominantly by psychologists, about animals, especially dogs, in a wide variety of therapeutic roles. Animals and children are very much interrelated, and animals, especially dogs, play a significant part in child and adolescent development. Dogs have been the major fictional characters in books, notably those by Albert Payson Terhune and Jack London. Dogs are also portrayed in short stories, films, television, comic strips, and paintings. It was felt that dogman had an infantile psychotic self, which was substantially helped during the course of his treatment, even though a mutually agreed upon therapeutic termination did not take place. Dogs are anthropomorphized by their owners and are used as figures for identification and projection of unconscious impulses and wishes.
