I think the most interesting time I have had in my years of writing about animals and living with them was the year I spent at the University Of Kentucky, studying animal attachment theory as part of my research for The New Work Of Dogs, one of my favorite books. The ritual of this book was by then familiar to me, it became the pattern of my book writing life – a book out of its time, great reviews, few sales.

We all have to know and accept our true place in the world.

At the University, the psychiatrists and researchers there – they specialized in studying attachment theory, researching why we love the dogs we love and why, took me and agreed to teach me. We spent months watching people and their pets through one-way mirrors, observing them, interviewing them, drawing conclusions about them.

A dog, I learned, is much like a video of a human beings earliest emotional development. They reflect our earliest emotions, the environments in which we first came to consciousness. We treat them either as we were treated, or as we wish we had been treated. I learned how to watch a person and his or her dog and tell them almost precisely what their mother was like. I am very good at it, I have been doing it for  years and am nearly 100 per cent on the money.

Although most people rarely wish to know much about it – it makes people very squeamish to understand the reasons they love their dogs – our emotional connections to our dogs are quite often reenactments of our formative years. There is a reason why people like rescue dogs, or border collies, or big dogs or small dogs, or lap dogs or hound dogs. To understand this, we have to understand ourselves and many people would prefer to focus on the dogs, quite understandably.

Psychologists and scholars have always identified different periods of a child’s life as periods of intense unhappiness and confusion. It is not necessarily a reflection on the family, it is an integral part of childhood development, Burlingham called it the latency period, a time of great transition for children. Choosing a rescue dog is not a random act, it is not disconnected from our own experiences, it is often a clear reflection of them.

Dorothy Burlingham, the famed British author and analyst and child development specialist, wrote quite powerfully about the birth of animal fantasies in children.  The lonely and unhappy child, often disillusioned by his or her family, seeks a way out of loneliness and finds solace in daydreams and fantasies.The child takes an imaginary animal as his intimate and beloved companion. “Subsequently,” writes Burlingham, “he is never separated from his animal friend, and in this way he overcomes his loneliness and disappointment”

The animal offers the child what he – what every child at some point – is searching for: faithful love and unswerving devotion. Our familes, even the most loving ones, often fail us.

Doesn’t this talk of love and companionship sound familiar to us, aren’t these the very qualities people say they love the most about their dogs? Isn’t this the very narrative of that unconscionably sappy and selfish colored bridge?

There is nothing, writes Burlingham, that this fantasy animal cannot understand; speech is quite  unnecessary, for understanding comes without words. These animal fantasies are thus an attempt to substitute for the discarded and unloving family an  uncritical but still understanding, often dumb, but unwaveringly loving creature.

Children in the latency period often have disturbed and uncertain relationships with their mothers. It is a phase of development. The imaginary dog replaces the mother who the child can suddenly not love, and who, she feels, no longer loves her. Since children can not live without love, the dog gives the child what he or she longs for, at least in fantasy.

I have always been aware of the great conundrum of dog love. To understand the dog, I have to understand me.  It is rarely about the dog, it is almost always about me, the great lesson of dog training. i saw this clearly in Maria’s relationship with Frieda, her friend, her companion, the dog that always protected her, understood her, kept danger away. The dog she needed.

Think of my relationship with Red and the way in which I wrote about him. I was a lonely and disillusioned child, the empty holes in my life filled with fantasy and need. If you read my writings about Red, you will find many references to him as an intimate and beloved companion. I am never separated from my animal friend, he is always there, always loving, always dependable, and in this way I still work to overcome the loneliness and disappointment so deeply embedded in my neural system.

I had a very frightening relationship with my mother, she was alternately too loving and too vicious, I never knew which one to expect. I always sought refuge in animals, especially dogs. I went to sleep every night with the animal fantasies Burlingham writes about and here, today, they are, lying at my feet as I write this.

If you read what I have  written about Red, how I have come to see him and portray him, you will experience him in this way: speech is quite unnecessary, understanding comes without words. I am unconditionally loved, in my mind, I am completely understood. He will never leave me and never fail me, unlike so many of the adults in my life. I trust him completely. Sometimes, I think he sprung to life out of the pages of Burlingham’s books.

In this way, Red makes perfect sense to me. He is the dog I need him to be.

So what of Fate, a new dog, a very different dog? Why did I get her, why do I love  her as much as Red?

Because she is the other path. She is the child I wanted to be,  yearned to be, athletic, adorable, fast, strong, dominant, sure of herself, adventurous, curious, brave and daring. She never gives up, is never intimidated, is up for everything, bursting with love and energy.

We either replicate what was done to us, or what we wish was done to us.

Was there ever a creature, I wonder, who better personified the things I wasn’t but wish I was than Fate, bursting at the seams with life? In such sharp contrast to me, who hid from life as often and as completely as I possibly could. Fate never runs from life, she runs right towards it.

Our love of dogs is a fascinating thing to me, it helps me to understand who I am, helps me to heal, it is not enough for me to love them unconditionally, I don’t care to be loved unconditionally. That would have no meaning to me. Love for me is very conditional.

I want to deserve being loved, I want to earn it. I see many things when I look at Red and Fate, but quite often, I see me reflected in the mirror of love and memory, I see my life reflected before me.

I think that is why I need dogs and love them, and I hope I can always understand that and admit it.