The archetypal motif of man and beast reappears throughout art history and in many different cultures. The human/animal bond is deep and instinctive – we are interdependent for survival and companionship. Studies have shown definite physiological health benefits may result from pet ownership. Yet we have a tendency to anthropomorphise our pets – to project onto them our own way of seeing, and being, in the world. Art may, ‘… capture the truth of things’ (Sakendo in a preface to work by Hokasai) and this truth shows the ‘otherness’ of animals – that they look out at the world with a distinct, unique and separate perspective.

Extract: Alice said softly: ‘He put his soul there. You can see the tracks of it. Bare and brisk in the soft slow sand. He put his soul there. But they couldn’t see it and they didn’t care.’ She lost herself in grief and remembrance. She wallowed in loss and saw nothing else. She was blind to the reality of the Void, what it offered her and what it took from her. Her grief was a turbulent blue gesture. It was an addition in spite of her. It crashed and splashed about her. It had a rhythm and a pattern peculiar to itself.