When Wolf, a huge black German Shepherd, joined the Freud household at Berggasse19, Vienna IX, he had one job — to protect Anna, the youngest of the professor’s six children, who loved taking long walks through the city’s winding streets.
Wolf was Freud’s gift to Anna, but it wasn’t long before the therapist’s curiosity fixed on the dog’s instinctive and pronounced drive to protect. In therapy terms, Freud experienced ‘transference’; he saw his own protective feelings towards his child projected onto Wolf.