"An attempt to understand human attachment to the canis familiaris in terms of reciprocity and empathy, Melancholia's Dog tackles such difficult subjects as our intimacy and kinship with dogs, our identification with their suffering, and the reasons for our profound mourning over their deaths. In addition to philosophy and psychology, Alice A. Kuzniar turns to the insights and images offered by the literary and visual arts - the short stories of Ivan Turgenev and Franz Kafka, the novels of J. M. Coetzee and Rebecca Brown, the photography of Sally Mann and William Wegman, the artwork of David Hockney and Sue Coe, and much more."--BOOK JACKET.