Why Martha would have been a good dog for Sigmund Freud

One of the great sadnesses of Freud's dying, apart from its natural conclusion, was that his beloved chow, Lun — who for years had fawned on him and followed him everywhere; who sat through Freud's every therapy session, sometimes to the discomfort of his patients — could suddenly not bear to go near him. By this time, the multiple cancers in Freud's mouth and jaw were allowed to thrive, because another operation would serve no purpose, except to prolong his excruciating pain. Freud was still alive, but bits of him, facial bits, bits of flesh inside his mouth, were dead. A cancerous lesion in his cheek turned into a gaping hole. He stunk. Flies gathered around his head. And Lun, his lifelong love, was suddenly afraid of him, and cowered in the corner.

This seems like odd behaviour from a dog to me. As far as Martha is concerned, if parts of me died and started to rot it would a meeting of her two greatest loves:

1. me
2. things that are dead and rotting.

If Freud's situation were mine, I'd probably die of suffocation, as Martha rolled on my face trying to wipe the scent of my decaying membranes about her neck.

Sadly, during the Melbourne heatwave, hundreds of flying foxes fell dead from their perches. At least that was the evidence I saw when we walked past the colony. Several weeks later, their decaying corpses are now at a peak desirability from a Labradorian point of view.

Sad, because even in death they're such pleasingly vampiric little critters.


If you want to know what this poor fellow smells like several weeks after this photo was taken, come round to my place and sniff Martha's neck.