Black Dogs Options

Forgive me if this is the wrong forum to post this in, but I haven’t seen anything about it yet.
Throughout my childhood I often saw a large black dog following me or walking around my yard at night. It would come and go but was mainly present during times of high stress. Anytime I asked anyone I was with about it they told me they didn’t see anything and thought I was just imagining things.
I’ve tried looking it up online and collected a few folktales about them but most seem to imply that it is a death omen of sorts. Given that I’m a live after twenty some odd years of seeing it I rather think the folktales are off a bit but I’m unsure as to why its there and what if anything I should be doing about it.
It has shown up in a few pictures I’ve taken during rituals, even though no one saw it at the time. I thought it might be some sort of familiar except that it always feels vaguely threatening. Anyone have a similar experience or advice?

Another option, just to add to the list here, is that it could be a part of you. When you are under stress, this could be the anger, or revenge, or something of that nature that you push under, and refuse to let come out. Hence, it manifests in a way you can percieve and tries to get your attention. As a magic worked you probably have above average powers of materialization and thought control, so it would be easy to 'create' something simply by your subconscious working on it enough. If it were a portion of you you did not want to integrate, it would give you a sense of fear, foreboding, and unease.

If it is a part of you, there will be a tell tale sign somewhere. Perhaps a linking cord, or similar wounds/haircuts/eye color, etc. See if you can check it out on the astral also. You could also be experiencing natural tendencies towards 'shape-shifting' and this may be an easy form for you to take. If it is truly outside of you, there will be no such links, it will be its own being. It could be part of someone else as was mentioned above. Then there would be a link of some sort back to the original creator too.

This post has been edited by Soseneda: Aug 31 2006, 08:47 AM