ABSTRACT
The chapter examines the representation of a nonhuman animal that has always had a particularly strong relationship with human beings, the dog. A brief review of how dogs are represented in popular culture highlights how they are often anthropomorphized, gendered, or stereotyped, and portrayed in an unbalanced power relationship. The chapter shows how the dog ̶ human rapport, far from being based on companionship, risks being naturalized as a servant ̶ master relationship with a connection symbolized by the leash. In the dog stories considered, the relationship between nature and culture is still seen in the rigid perspective of anthropocentric binarism, with nature that must be dominated, and the human being as the dominator (the holder of the leash). Those who lead a dog on a leash may believe that they love the dog, even if in fact they dominate it. On the contrary, for those who practice vivisection, there is no doubt, as is made clear by certain dog stories that express anti-vivisectionist feelings, such as Tray (1879), A Dog’s Tale (1903), and Trixy (1904). To end with, the chapter examines three texts that differ from most dog stories because of the posthuman perspective (Flush: a Biography, 1933 by Virginia Woolf; A Dog of Flanders, 1872, by Ouida, and Animal’s People, 2007, by Indra Shina).
