The Human Hound Program seeks to re-center and empower humans by guiding them through an embodied experience of the dog-human relationship.

At the HHP we believe each human must transcend their own emotional habitus in order to reach full consciousness of their animality, and as such, acknowledge the indisputable relationality between all beings, forces and things; an understanding that will release us from alienation and destruction. In this process, the human-canine relationship and co-evolution is not just symbolic or metaphorical; dogs are bridges to spaces of expanded belonging, to places beyond language; a show and tell of our emotional capacities of both love and cruelty. The spiritual connection between us is undeniable; dogs, when paired with humans, can shift in size and skills, from a toddler to a whale (like a great dane to a chihuahua), all within one species. They have faced prosecution in medieval trials and today frequently undergo religious rituals such as pet baptisms and Bark Mitzvahs. Furthermore, the dog as an extension of the human body allows us to smell two weeks into the past, detect cancer, predict epileptic attacks, herd sheep, make autistic children speak, rescue skiers from avalanches, and avoid burglars (from which we can deduct taxes, as this is a completely biological alarm system).

In short, dogs give us super powers while we give dogs food and names like Boomer, Drooley and Mingy. We give them squeaky toys, irrational haircuts, a trip to the moon but not back alive. But most importantly, we at HHP know that each human has an inner dog, and each dog an inner human. Unfortunately, however, today this human-hound mirror image too often suffers from distortion. The restoration of this reflection is known as the pursuit of one’s inner dog, and this is what the HHP can offer you.

The HHP program consists of two 90 minutes sessions: The Deed of Dog & The Coming of Dog guided by the HHP’s founder and her trained assistants. Through intensive physical exercises and dog readings, we will em-bark toward tearing down our own inner lost-dog posters. Please wear comfortable clothing and do not forget to register.

The Human Hound Program was part of the 9th Inter-format Symposium on the Fluidity of Humor and Absurdity in June 2019. The project was created while in residence at Nida Art Colony

The Symposium was curated by Livia Paldi and Olav Westphalen and Vytautas Michelkevicius