The Black Dog

While I've touched on the subject of Black Dogs & White Wolves before but I've been evading a detailed blog on the subject. Perhaps I've been too lazy or embarrassed to explain the connections, however the recent 20th anniversary of Jeff Noons cyberpunk novel "Vurt" (with an interesting take on "dog" symbolism) and the fact I have experienced a sync flap on the subject has prompted me to rewrite this post.

I started noticing the Black Dog when I first moved to London and our local students union was visited by a stage hypnotist whose gimmick was a black Labrador "The Hypno Dog" I was studying hypnotism at the time as part of a Psychology degree so took the opportunity to be hypnotised as research.

During the long hot summer that followed more Black Dogs came my way ;Dog Town (L.A. /Skateboards), Dead Dog Mountain (UK PUNK REGGAE), Snoop Dogg (LA Hip Hop). The Black Dog (uk techno ), Bark Psychosis (uk extreme noise/ambient ) ,Dogs on Acid (UK Drum and Bass).

For a while one of my flat mates (a Jamaican guy) owned a Black Doberman. It was the first time I had ever lived with a dog in the house. Another interesting experience was when I met the black dogs owned by the boss of the temping agency that I had been working for since finishing uni. She offered me a lift home in her sports car after a Christmas party. She and her partner (who was driving ) were in the front seats. I was expected to share the back seat with two Dobermans!

I started thinking about the Egyptian symbolism of the Black Dog when I went to see the techno act "The Black Dog" play at a club called vapour space, for some reason it surprised me to see two statues of Black Dogs (Anubis) mounted on the computer.

The Egyptian God Anubis depicted with the body of a men and head of a Jackal/Wolf  is often associated with travel between the worlds and as the guardian of dreams.

Slowly courtesy of Robert Anton Wilson, Spiral Tribe, TOPY, Robert Temple & much later J.K. Rowling  (Sirius Black) it all clicked into place

The Dogon ,The Dog Star (Sirius), The Dog Days ,

Arrowsmith explains much of the symbolism well at his Blog The Black Dog Star

Click the links for more Bull Dogs, Pig Dogs or Strange Dogs