When Pets Come Between Partners; an excerpt

Dr. Joel Gavriele-Gold’s book When Pets Come Between Partners is really about relationships and what makes them tick. It discusses how each person contributes something to a relationship’s success or failure. What happens when one or both of the parties in a human relationship regards the pet as the problem instead of finding where the problem really lies? Dr. Gavriele-Gold also discusses numerous relationships in which the pet helps to keep the parties together and makes their relationship work. In understanding what each person brings to a relationship, it is interesting to learn the role animals can play by becoming entangled in our relationships: they can help us to understand our own psychological dynamics. When Pets Come Between Partners tries to explain some of the psychological mechanisms involved in the way human relationships develop.


Let’s see how Angus, an Irish setter, was threatening to ruin the relationship between a couple of recent newlyweds, Donna and Charlie. Now, it really wasn’t about the dog but about some old business from Donna’s past that was getting stirred up unconsciously within her. Although Donna had known Angus as long as she knew Charlie, it wasn’t until after they were married that she found herself actually loathing the dog.

When she came to see me she was distraught with powerful emotions about the dog that at first didn’t make sense. "I can’t stand looking at the dog," she told me. I asked why that was and she replied, "He just sits around - he doesn’t act like a dog, he’s never hungry - he doesn’t care if he goes out or not and he doesn’t play with other dogs." I asked if he had a recent physical and she continued on, "Angus hangs around the TV and he does nothing but sleep. He is like some old man that doesn’t know what to do with himself. He recently had a checkup at the vet and there’s nothing wrong with him but meanwhile, he’s driving me crazy."

Having been informed that the dog was fine after a checkup at the vet, I began to move into a more psychological mode. So I asked Donna who Angus reminded her of and suddenly she began to cry. At first, she sobbed silently and then words emerged with the tears. "My father," she said, and between tears told me that ever since he retired and her parents divorced, her father remained home in a deep depression. He refused to acknowledge he had a problem or to try to get professional help. 

As we talked Donna came to realize she was even using the same language in describing Angus and her father: I quoted her: "He doesn’t care if he goes out or not, he’s never hungry, he hangs around the TV and does nothing but watch TV and sleep." Then I gave her the clincher sentence that revealed the unconscious connection between dog and father for Donna: "He’s like some old man that doesn’t know what to do with himself."

Of course it took some time in therapy for Donna to come to terms with her anger with her father that she was not previously aware of. While Angus was a catalyst in helping Donna get to her uncomfortable feelings about her relationship with her father, Donna had to take a deeper look at some issues that were not attended to within her family long before she met Charlie and Angus.

Donna came to realize how angry she had been with her father since her parents’ divorce. He did nothing for himself, he retired and was no longer interested in his friends or activities he had been fond of before. She found that there was also a lot of sadness about their relationship that she had been previously unaware of. Once Donna got to her real issues, she returned to seeing Angus as a dog just being a dog. Angus picked up on Donna’s dog-loving vibes and once again became the adored Irish Setter of the household. It is amazing how often our pets are the catalyst for stirring up feelings about people from our past - especially from our childhood.

Adapted from When Pets Come Between Partners: How to Keep Love – and Romance – in the Human/Animal Kingdom of Your Home by Dr. Joel Gavriele-Gold (Howell Reference Books)