ABSTRACT
This chapter explores human–canine interactions in eighteenthcentury Amsterdam by using depositions as manifestations of life writing. This chapter argues that dogs transformed city life just as they were shaped by it. It demonstrates this through four sets of depositions that each highlight different aspects of human–canine interactions: dogs seeking contact with each other, human and canine territoriality, dogs becoming lost, and barking. In each of these sections, it will examine dogs not just as agents of disruption, but as beings possessing their own volition. This chapter indicates the complexities of early modern Amsterdam’s understudied multi-species society and offers an introduction to the history of Amsterdam’s non-human urban lives.
