Adams - Shaggy muses: the dogs who inspired Virginia Woolf, Emily Dickinson, Edith Wharton, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Emily Brontë

E LEVEN YEARS AGO , my curiosity about the human-dog bond was transformed into a compelling interest when Cody, my Golden Retriever, died. I am a psychologist, and I often reassure clients who are mourning the death of a dog that such emotion is normal and appropriate. However, this knowledge did not comfort me when I lost Cody. Even though he had lived a rich, full life, and I had done everything I could to make sure he had a good death, I was bereft when he died.

Cody was part of my daughter and son's childhood in Kansas City, Missouri. He was a puppy when Andrew was a toddler, and the two of them used to tumble on the lawn like littermates. First-grader Kate dressed Cody in doll clothes and took him for rides in a stroller. The three of them grew up together. When Kate was old enough to babysit for Andrew, I knew that Cody would watch over them both. That proved to be true the night some boys, intent on stealing our new television, broke into the house. While Kate huddled upstairs calling our neighbor for help, Cody shed his usual sweet Golden Retriever temperament. Growling and snapping, he chased the boys through the house and out the back door. The neighbor arrived to find the television in the yard and Cody upstairs calming Kate and Andrew.

When my husband was offered a position at a California winery, he was eager to accept, but the children and I were reluctant to leave Kansas City. For nine years, I had been teaching English at the University of Missouri, and I was fond of my students and colleagues. Kate and Andrew were happy with their school and friends. After much deliberation, we decided to make the change, and Cody became part of our family's transition from Missouri to California. Throughout the trip, he seemed to express the whole family's anxiety about moving from the Midwest. When we picked him up in the baggage claim area at the San Francisco airport, he greeted us with ringing barks of protest, which continued throughout the two-hour car ride to our new home in Sonoma. On the way, he saw his first cow, which inspired even more frantic barking. Finally at the new house, Cody saw the swimming poolanother first for himand ran around it in circles of joy, exhilarated to be free again. The children joined him, running and laughing in relief. Cody's exuberance made us all begin to feel at home.

In the next few months, Cody assumed another role. I had a difficult time adjusting to the move and became depressed. Cody would sit patiently when I cried and would stay up with me on the nights I could not sleep. Always calm, unperturbed by tears or anger, Cody would lean against me or lay his head on my lap. His solid presence demanded nothing of me: I did not have to pretend to be all right or feel guilty about being unable to overcome my unhappiness.

Eventually, thanks to a supportive family, a caring and skilled psychotherapist, and Cody, I emerged from depression. At the same time, I found a new direction for my life. I was inspired by the insights I had gained during psychotherapy, and a longtime interest in the field was rekindled. As a result, I began studying to become a psychologist.

During the next years, as I balanced family life with the demands of courses and internships, Cody moved to the background of my attention. Yet I could not ignore his growing stiffness on our morning walks or his whitening muzzle. Even though I saw these signs, his aging still seemed to happen overnight. One day, Cody was running circles around the pool; the next, he was too crippled to climb stairs.

A morning came when Cody did not get up, and he refused to eat or drink. I went for a long walk in the hills and remembered the way the white plume of his tail had shone through the tall grass as he ran ahead of me. I realized we had taken our last walk together weeks ago. I went home and called the veterinarian, who agreed to come to the house and euthanize Cody. Throughout that long day, the family took turns sitting by Cody, petting and talking to him. He appeared detached, but it comforted us to spend time with him. When the veterinarian arrived, Cody did not even look at him but continued to gaze steadily at me. I stroked his paw and kept telling him goodbye. The light in his eyes dimmed, and Cody was gone. We wrapped him in an afghan and buried him in the backyard under the redwoods.

Months later, I was still heartbroken. Cody had been so much a part of everyday life that we all experienced continual small shocks that reminded us he was gone. When we opened the back door, no high-pitched, dolphinlike cries of welcome greeted us. At dinner, there was no hovering presence under the table. In the evenings, we all walked around the place by the fire where he once slept.

Grief for Cody pushed me to examine this question: What explains our intense emotional attachment to our dogs? Determined to understand more about this powerful alliance, I undertook a serious study of the human-dog bond. All the research skills and energy I had applied to my graduate studies I now put to use learning about dogs and their connection to humans. I examined this tie from many points of view: historical, anthropological, psychological, and mythological. However, none fully explained the intense emotions I and others have felt for our dogs. For that, I turned once more to my knowledge of poetry and literature. I began with Emily Dickinson, whose poems I have loved since childhood.

One day, I discovered a note she had written to her literary mentor announcing the death of her dog: Carlo died: Would you instruct me now? I was stunned by the strong reaction I had to these few words. The spare language evoked the bleakness I had experienced after losing Cody. I kept wondering about the question Would you instruct me now? (emphasis added). Had Emily Dickinson relied on Carlo to somehow guide her poetry, to act as a muse? Rereading a collection of her letters, I made a second discovery: Emily Dickinson referred to Carlo as my mute confederate and my Shaggy Ally.

These casual terms of endearment, used by a writer so careful and deliberate with words, struck an immediate chord in me. I knew for certain that Emily Dickinson had cared about Carlo in the same way I cared about Cody.

Intrigued, I looked for other writers who wrote about their relationships with their dogs. Some were men, notably Lord Byron, Thomas Mann, and John Steinbeck. Still, I was drawn to women, especially to those who had depended on dogs for emotional support during childhood and in times of transition, because their experiences were closer to my own. Gradually, a small group seemed to fall naturally into place around Emily Dickinson and Carlo: Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Emily Bront, Edith Wharton, and Virginia Woolf. Had their dogs also acted as mute confederates and Shaggy Allies?

At first, I found it difficult to determine just how significant their dogs had been to them. With the exception of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Flush, most were either overlooked by biographers or given only slight attention. And yet, photographs and paintings in the biographies often depicted the women with their dogs. For example, almost every book about Emily Bront included at least one of her drawings of the Bront dogs. To me, these images suggested that the dogs had indeed been an integral part of each woman's daily life.

Other sources confirmed this impression. Letters, memoirs, and recollections written by the writers' friends, family members, servants, and neighbors often mention the dogs. In research libraries and archives of the women's unpublished writing, I found drawings they themselves had made of their dogssketches tucked away in notebooks and scrawled in the margins of letters. I delved into contemporary newspaper articles, Victorian pet-keeping practices, village dog-tax records, and inscriptions on tombstonesall of which helped me place these stories in the context of the times in which the writers lived. Ultimately, though, the writers' own wordstheir diaries, letters, poems, or novelstruly revealed the powerful bond each woman had with her dog.