Freud's last dog (not the one you think)
One might think it is about Lun, but it is not. On the previous pages, we read about the last year of Freud's life, when Lun was quarantined for a few months and Freud faithfully visited him. But in the final weeks, Freud's life changed because cancer took hold and Lun already flinched from it, as he sensed the smell of decay on his master.
During research, I came across new information, as Lun was not Freud's last dog.
The "substitute" Pekingese
Anna Freud mentions him in a family video at one point:
"When Lun, the chow, went into quarantine, we got this little Pekingese dog, Jumbo, hoping that my father might need a temporary replacement for Lun."
The chosen breed is not surprising, since both the Chow and the Pekingese, which Freud loved, belong to the group of Chinese lion dogs. Freud had many valuable and exotic "Foo dog" items.
Anna adds that the new dog never won Freud's heart. "I think he remained very loyal to Lun", she says.
The mystical chows on the balcony:
The origin of the picture:
The picture was taken in 1933, Freud was staying in Potzleinsdorf, in the former palace, and he is standing on the balcony opening from one of the rooms, his loyal dogs, Jofi and Lun (the siblings) lie at the edge of the balcony.
Freud usually had only one chow at a time and had two only for a short period. Between 1931 and 1933, Jofi's sister, Lun, joined the family.
Jofi and Lun were not alike; Lun was darker than Jofi. Based on acquaintances' accounts, it turns out that Jofi had a more lion-like appearance, while Lun was more intelligent and prettier.
The timeline of the dogs:
The timeline information below comes from Gary Geneskos in 1993 from the introduction to the book Maria Bonaparte: Topsy, the golden-haired chow, translated from French to German by Anna and Sigmund Freud. It is a detailed footnote in which we can briefly see the role the dogs played in Freud's life and psychoanalysis.
1925 – Anna Freud gets a German Shepherd dog named Wolf. Her father becomes dull, jealousy follows. Anna writes poems and gives her father a picture of the dog for his birthday.
1928 – Dorothy Burlingham, a close friend of Anna, gifts Freud her own dog, the chow Lun-Yü.
August 1929 – Lun-Yü dies after about 15 months when she left the Salzburg train station on the way to Vienna and was found dead on the tracks a few days later. Freud mourns for seven months because of this.
March 1930 – Freud takes in Jofi, Lun-Yü’s sister, into his home.
February 1931 – Jofi gives birth to a litter of puppies, only one puppy survives, named Tatoun.
October 1931 – Tatoun dies of distemper.
April 1933 – Jofi gives birth to a second litter, these puppies meet a worse fate than the first. Jofi eats some of them.
1936 – Wolf, the German Shepherd dog dies.
January 11, 1937 – Jofi goes to the animal hospital to have an ovarian cyst removed. The surgery is successful, but on January 14, three days after the operation, Jofi dies of a heart attack.
January 15, 1937 – Freud buys back Lun, Jofi's sister, from Dorothy Burlingham. Lun belonged to the Freud family for a while, but since Jofi could not tolerate her rival, after a few months Lun was returned to her original owner, Dorothy.
June 1938 – The Freud family moves to London, Lun goes into quarantine for 6 months. Freud frequently visited Lun at the kennel for half a year.
September 1939 – Sigmund Freud dies, Lun survives, having avoided the master in the last weeks, probably because by then she could no longer bear Freud’s body odor.
I recommend your attention to our article series final, concluding part!
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