A Dog Has Died

“A Dog Has Died” plays with the concept of the master-pet relationship. With the poem’s first word, “My” (Line 1), the speaker claims ownership over the dog he will eulogize. This ownership fits the traditional narrative of master-pet relationships. However, as the poem progresses, this clear relationship of master and pet quickly dissolves into other forms of pairing. In the second stanza, Neruda replaces the assumed relation of master and pet with one of “friendship” (Lines 13, 19), companionship, and the moral superiority of the dog over the human. Again, friendship and companionship are often synonymous with master-pet relationships. Dogs are “companions,” man’s best friend,” etc. The moral superiority, however, effectively flips the relationship between master and pet by positing not only a morality inherent in a dog but a superior morality.

We see this inversion of the master-pet relationship in the suggestion that while the speaker has never needed to imagine a heaven for the people he has lost, he now needs to picture an all-dog heaven to comfort himself after the dog’s death:

I believe in a heaven I’ll never enter.

Yes, I believe in a heaven for all dogdom

where my dog waits for my arrival

waving his fan-like tail in friendship (Lines 10-13).