FMP Blog 2: The Dogless Void.
I questioned why this was a big deal for me at all. Why do I care about stray dogs in Sri Lanka, or dogs being abused? What specifically is it about dogs that grabs my attention and emotions? To explore this, I drew a rough timeline of all the dogs I had owned in my life, and noted down the kind of involvement I had in their care. I also noted how old I was, and anything else that was happening in my life at the time.
In the middle of it all I inserted the ‘Dogless Void’ — a period of 7 or 8 years where our family didn’t own any dogs. This absence had a big impact on me and at times I would find it incredibly challenging on my mental health. I had a happy home life and good friends, and I was doing well academically, but this gaping hole was ever present.
It was not the grief of losing the dogs I had previously owned. It was an ache of no longer having a dog around the house. The amount of space they take up — both physically and in terms of sound — is very noticeable when they are no longer around.
Looking into animals and their associations with mental health, there is a correlation between the prominence of a dog’s presence and the poignant emptiness of their absence. In a 2011 paper ‘Animal-assisted interventions as innovative tools for mental health’ by Cirulli et al, it is hypothesised that child patients of Autism Spectrum Disorder respond more to dogs than most other animals due to the species’ “powerful multisensory stimulus — strong and clear sounds, a vivid visual impression, a special smell and an innovation to touch,” (Cirulli 2011). It is particularly effective, the study concludes, for a child with ASD, who may typically have lower sensory levels.
If I reflect on my own experiences, I look no further than my brother Johann, who is an ASD patient and who has grown up with me around the very same dogs. He has interacted with all of them regularly and, while unable to effectively care for them or play with them due to his ASD, he will pet them in a quiet moment and every day without fail he will build effigies of them with his building blocks. When they pass away, he asks after them as often as he asks about dead relatives (which is often). So I suppose he must feel the Void too.
References
CIRULLI, Francesca et al. 2011. ‘Animal-assisted interventions as innovative tools for mental health’. Ann Ist Super Sanita. Available at: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22194067/ [accessed 4 October 2023].
