Only the Animals: Hundstage: Soul of Dog Summary & Analysis

The narrator, the dog, asks how to even describe his “beloved” Master and his life before he was exiled to the woods. On the day the dog meets his Master, his Master is weeping over a dead canary in his office. He then gives the canary to a servant to bury, and he seems to brighten up as he plays with the dog. The dog realizes it’s a privilege to be a “companion species,” which is a term the scientists at the Society use. His Master loves how possessive the dog is. One morning, in late fall, the dog lies with his Master and listens to a man on the radio. The man says that animals shouldn’t be used for experiments, or killed without minimizing suffering. He says that to the Germans, animals are perceptive, faithful, and feel pain. The dog licks his Master’s tears.

The dog and his sister, Blondi, grew up hearing stories about their grandfather. The scientist von Stephanitz bred their grandfather to recreate the Germanic wolf-dog. Grandfather took the responsibility seriously, though he admitted once that he never knew how exactly to behave. Grandfather tried multiple attitudes to please von Stephanitz. He stopped lunging at his food and didn’t bond quickly with new people; von Stephanitz took that as a sign of disloyalty. He was only supposed to want purebred females, and so his lowest moment was getting caught with a mutt being used for medical experiments.

A few months after the dog and Blondi are born, people move them to the Society for Animal Psychology. There, the scientists keep dogs on leashes so they can follow the new law that dogs shouldn’t chase foxes. Blondi and the dog only understand the significance of this law and their masters’ compassion for animals when they meet their masters. The scientists give Blondi to the leader of the country; they give the dog to one of the leader’s close associates.

One day, as the dog’s Master is receiving a massage, the dog lies beneath the lounge. He’s starving, since his Master has recently gone vegetarian and decided that the dog should be vegetarian too. Master is also concerned for the dog’s karma and says that if the dog meditates and doesn’t eat meat, he could be reincarnated as a human. The thought is intoxicating.

Master says to his masseur, Herr Kersten, that hunting—as Herr Kersten does—is murder, as every animal has the right to live. Herr Kersten grunts. Master continues that he admires their Indo-Germanic ancestors for this point of view. He’s also intrigued that Buddhist monks wear bells in the forest so small creatures can get out of the way. The dog listens intently, as his Master likes to tell Herr Kersten about his philosophical research. Herr Kersten is a good listener. Master says that he used to be a chicken farmer until he received a copy of Hermann Hesse’s book Siddhartha. Master—Himmler—connected with Professor Wüst, his spiritual guide, and has been studying Hinduism. Now, he knows he was having bad luck before because he killed chickens. The dog thinks of the chickens he killed before he became a vegetarian. He feels both sick and hungry.

Master keeps a weekly meditation appointment with Professor Wüst, which takes place in the sacred crypt of the castle at Wewelsburg. The dog loves going there because he occasionally sees Blondi. They get to play together and often try to dig out the Black Sun in the marble floor. Sometimes, they even get to play with other dogs from the Society, most of whom are guards who oversee the slaves renovating the castle. The dogs’ favorite spot is the castle crypt—if they bark there, dozens of dogs bark back. But if Blondi isn’t there, the dog keeps watch beside his Master while he and Professor Wüst meditate and talk about their beliefs.

On the dog’s final visit to Wewelsburg, not long before his betrayal and banishment, his Master and Professor Wüst discuss how to inspire their followers to be courageous now that Germany is at war. Professor Wüst insists that the men need to focus on the “spiritual dimensions” of battle. They can remind the men that when Krishna told Arjuna to kill his family, he assured Arjuna that Arjuna would suffer no ill consequences. The dog knows who these people are—they’re vegetarians. Master suggests they compare the Führer to Krishna. He’s the reincarnation of a great figure, and the Master believes that those who merge with the Führer will be freed from everything and thus won’t be bound by their deeds.

Professor Wüst says that the only problem is explaining the connection between India and Hinduism. Aryan conquerors invaded India years ago, so Germans share a spiritual heritage with Indian people. Master seems irritated; he insists that this is why he wants to transform this castle into a sanctuary so they can educate their leaders properly. The dog growls; he doesn’t like Professor Wüst because he’s seen the man secretly eating meat. Reverently, Professor Wüst says that if the Führer is Krishna, Master is Arjuna. Master likes this.

Professor Wüst says it’s time to read, so Master lies back in corpse pose to listen. Wüst reads an ancient Chinese parable. In it, a cook dismembers an ox and every movement is harmonious. The cook’s employer praises him, and the cook explains that he’s dedicated to Dao. He used to see the entire ox before him, but now, he follows his spirit and pays attention to the animal’s body. Unlike other butchers, who get new knives often, the cook has been using his cleaver for 19 years because he finds spaces between the animal’s joints to cut. The count cries that he now knows how to look after his life. The dog wonders what the parable means. It reminds him of something his Master told Herr Kersten once. He’d said that oppressed people don’t learn compassion—they just learn that next time, they need a bigger stick.

Now it’s time for the dog to tell of his exile. It’s a difficult subject, though he deserves to be punished for it. The dog is unwell, lying by his Master’s fire. A man enters the room, which angers the dog—nobody should enter his Master’s domain like this. The dog leaps at the man, knocks him over, and holds the man’s neck in his mouth. But when the man doesn’t move, the dog relaxes. The man talks to him gently, and the dog gives in. He lies down next to the man and lets the man stroke him—he pets him in the right direction, which his Master doesn’t always do.

The dog is so relaxed that he doesn’t notice his Master’s return. Master asks what the man did to his dog, and the man responds that he’s the veterinarian Master sent for. He needed to calm the dog down when it attacked him. The dog’s Master shouts that the vet has taken away the only faithful creature, and he refuses to touch the dog. The vet looks at Master with fear as the Master tells guards to arrest him. The dog licks his Master’s hand, but his Master won’t acknowledge him. His Master tells the soldiers to take the dog away and never let him return. Ashamed of his behavior, the dog runs into the woods and runs until he’s too exhausted to keep going.

That night, it snows for the first time. The dog wakes up covered in snow and sniffs around, hoping to find a plant to eat. Though he notices deer tracks, he ignores them; he’s attracted enough bad karma already. But as he watches, new tracks appear and something speaks right in front of him. It tells the dog to look closely, and the dog will be able to see it—it’s the dog’s birthright to be able to see dead souls. The dog is terrified and begs the voice to stop. He remembers something his Master said once—that Germans used to believe that dogs could see the souls of the dead in the forests. The dog concentrates and an apparition appears in front of him.

The apparition says she’s the soul of an auroch; aurochs, she explains, were ox-like creatures and went extinct centuries ago. She hasn’t been here that long. Herr Göring created her to show the Germans what the forests looked like long ago. Scientists crossed all sorts of deer and oxen, but none of the animals survived. The dog thinks of his grandfather getting caught with the mongrel and how ashamed his grandfather felt. When the dog asks why the auroch hasn’t been reincarnated, the auroch explains that her mate, the last of their kind, is dying. She won’t tell the dog where he is, though; she wants him to die in peace. The dog doesn’t explain that he’s a vegetarian.

A day and a night pass. The dog eats some bark, and late in the day, he sees a fox listening to the ice over a river. The dog comes to after eating the fox. He’s horrified—now he might never become a human. That night, the dog dreams that he’s curled up on his Master’s lap. A thunderbolt sent from Aryan gods threatens to kill him. The dog wakes up shivering and remembers how much his Master loved thunderstorms. He believed the lightning bolts were gifts of power from the ancient gods.

The next morning, the dog finds the silent forest so disturbing that he’s glad to see the outline of a ghostly pig. He asks the pig how it died; when it won’t answer, the dog asks the pig why it hasn’t been reincarnated. The pig just laughs as the dog explains that if they live good lives, they’ll be reincarnated as humans. According to the pig, this is nonsense. The dog says that his Master, a vegetarian and a follower of Hinduism, taught him everything. He’s a reincarnation of Arjuna and has compassion for animals. The pig sneers that the dog’s Master is just covering his bases and asks if he follows Zen and Tibetan Buddhism too. The dog thinks this is true.

The pig studies the dog, ascertains that he hasn’t been in the forest long, and asks who his Master is. The dog says his Master is a leader and a protector of all creatures. His master has done a lot for animals, even the fish. He passed a law dictating that aquatic creatures must be killed humanely. This means that fish must be stunned before they’re gutted, and that crustaceans have to be dropped in boiling water rather than brought to a boil. The pig responds that a friend told him that kindness can be an expression of domination, just like cruelty. To the dog, this makes no sense.

The pig agrees to tell the dog how he died. The story will show the dog how confused humans can be. He says that once, a farmer and his family lived in this forest. They were modern, but someone encouraged them to reconnect with ancient traditions. One of those traditions was to adopt a pig and raise it like family member. So the pig grew up in the house, sleeping alongside the children. Time passed and one day, the pig was too big to fit through the door. The family built him a nice pen outside, but then they forgot about him. His body started to change, and he began to experience “beastly impulses.”

The family sold the pig to another farmer. There, the pig lived in a smelly shed with dozens of others, but he didn’t know how to interact with the pigs. He’d sometimes fly into a rage—and one night, he killed and ate two piglets. The humans were incensed. They decided to punish the pig according to medieval law, which they thought the new leaders would like. The old law said that a human sentenced to die should wear a pig’s skin to the scaffold, while a pig who had eaten a pig needed to be led to the gallows wearing human clothes. The son that the pig grew up with tearfully dressed the pig in his own clothes and led him to the gallows. After the pig died, he watched over his family. He saw humans arrest the son for torturing an animal.

The dog is hungry after the “ignorant” pig leaves. He digs in the dirt and finds a giant earthworm, a rare species. The dog remembers the day his Master decreed the worm should be protected. But the dog eats the worm because he’s starving and lies down to sleep. He can’t, though, and opens his eyes. There’s a swarm of bee souls above him, and they make him miss Blondi. She’d love to watch them. Though the dog doesn’t speak, the bees say that they’re mourning their keeper, the only person who understood them. He was trying to save them from the disease that’s killing German bees, but he was unsuccessful. His associates suspect him, and his life is in danger. The bees finally warn the dog that bad things are going to happen here, and that he should leave while he can.

The dog lives in the woods for a long time, maybe a year. He has only animals’ souls for company, though he sometimes sees human souls, too. They’re not interested in him; they’re too busy trying to warn living humans of something. For a while, the dog vows to keep trying to improve his karma, remembering that Buddha spent years in the forest on his way to enlightenment. But though the dog waits for the morning star to rise for him like it did for Buddha, it never does.

Further east, the dog can’t resist approaching a group of German soldiers and dogs like him. The other dogs feel sorry for him and help him blend in. They give him food. Sometimes, they get horsemeat, like humans. The dog watches as the soldiers record the horses as being shot by enemies before shooting the horses themselves. The dog now believes his soul to be beyond saving, so he eats what he’s given. He listens to the other dogs speak admiringly about Blondi and wishes they could play together in the crypt again. He hopes she’s happy serving her Master, and he thinks back to their last meeting. Blondi had told him that his Master’s female companion didn’t like her and even kicked her under the table. But Blondi vowed to endure the abuse as long as she didn’t have to leave her Master.

One day, the dog accompanies others with the “special honor” of following the soldiers into combat. None of the trained dogs give the dog instructions, so he runs in the wrong direction until an explosion causes him to lose his hearing. He keeps running until he finds a camp of enemy soldiers. Deaf and in shock, he stays in the enemy camp. But the soldiers there only feed him once. Then, they chain him in an underground cave, where there are dozens of starving dogs chained far enough apart so they can’t eat each other. The dog wakes up in the night and sees the dog next to him staring, saliva dripping from his mouth.

The men bring water for the dogs but no food. And every day, they take a dog out and attach a pouch to its back. The chosen dog never comes back. One day, a weak dog next to the dog confirms that he’s not trained. She explains that when the men attach the pouch to their backs, they must go look for food beneath German tanks. The dog says that he’s German; he knows there’s no food under the tanks. The other dog says there’s always food under the tanks and refuses to say any more. Men take her away two days later.

Finally, it’s the dog’s turn. Men take him outside and attach a heavy pouch to his back. They throw stones at him and make him run toward the German camps. The dog hopes that someone on the German side will risk everything to save him. He picks up a scent and follows it. But the dog is too weak. He can’t find their camp. Finally, he collapses and hopes to be reincarnated as a human. The pouch seems to tick as the dog tries to meditate like his Master did. He imagines he’s the wolf Fenris, the son of the Norse god of fire, who’s so strong that the gods forged a chain to hold him. Fenris will stay chained until the gods’ final battle. The dog can hear his Master reciting the story to him in front of the fire.