History Main / Delusionsofdoghood

You see that guy there? They're crawling around on all fours, and... are they sniffing that guy's butt? Who do they think they are?

There's plenty of ShapeShifting tropes, but this one is different. You see, these characters don't actually change form, they just ''think'' they do. This is whenever a character believes they are a dog or any other animal without actually being it. A FreakyFridayFlip with an animal also doesn't count.

If faithful and well-behaved it might actually make a good HumanPet. AllAnimalsAreDogs might be explained if other non-dog animals are under the same delusion. If the deluded character is actually good at mimicking a dog, that may be because TheMindIsAPlaythingOfTheBody. Do not confuse with [[AGodAmI Delusion of Godhood]], which is something else.

* ''Manga/DeliciousInDungeon'': Drawing on his experience with hunting dogs, Laios flushes out a hidden monster by getting down on all fours and barking and snarling furiously at it to intimidate it into a confrontation. It works. Unfortunately, he gets too into his role and leaps at it, fully intending to attack a giant fox-monster larger than he is with just his nails and teeth.

* Happens many times in the '' ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse''.

-->''"Despite many threats, Granny Weatherwax had never turned anyone into a frog. The way she saw it, there was a technically less cruel but cheaper and much more satisfying thing you could do. You could leave them human and make them think they were a frog, which also provided much innocent entertainment for passers-by."''
-->'''Magrat:''' "I always felt sorry for Mr Wilkins... It was so sad watching him try to catch flies on his tongue."

* Several characters in Creator/EdgarAllanPoe's "The Celebrated System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether".

-->"Lie in the sun, run in the grass, see a good-looking bitch through a chain-link fence...''(singing)'' A dog is an animal with big, floppy ears...[[BigOMG Oh, God!"]]

* Zigzagged in the ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' cartoon "Hare Brush"; Elmer Fudd, a millionaire, thinks he's a rabbit. He gets put in a mental institution, where he escapes, leaving WesternAnimation/BugsBunny in his place. The psychiatrists promptly ignore Bugs' insistence that he really is a real rabbit and use hypnotherapy to convince him that ''he'' is "Elmer J. Fudd, millionaire. I own a mansion and a yacht." The real zagging comes at the end, where it turns out Elmer was ObfuscatingInsanity; he's being investigated by the [[IntimidatingRevenueService IRS]] for tax evasion, a fate that ultimately befalls Bugs.

* A gag in the ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' episode "Read It and Weep" involves barking dog noises during a chase, which turn out to be coming from a mental patient pony who escaped from the hospital.

* In ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV'' (specifically the re-release for the UsefulNotes/XboxOne and UsefulNotes/PlayStation4) there are [[MushroomSamba 27 peyote plants]] scattered across the map. Eating them will make any of the 3 protagonists hallucinate that they are various animals, including various dogs and even more specifically may make them think they are Chop the Rottweiler. The game allows you to play briefly as these animals (which also includes, cats, coyotes, sharks and other sea creatures, various birds, and even a [[BigfootSasquatchAndYeti sasquatch]]). However the game makes it pretty clear that whilst the characters think they have transformed they have not really done so (though it doesn't explain the flight as birds).

* Another involves a man who keeps thinking he's a dog going to see a psychiatrist. Upon being told to lie down on the couch, he objects: "Oh no doc, I'm not allowed on the furniture".

** In the episode "Homer and Apu", Apu reveals he once worked in the Kwik-E-Mart for 24 hours straight and ended up thinking he was a hummingbird due to lack of sleep. He even has security camera footage confirming this.

* ''Anime/PokemonTheSeries'' :

* Happens many time in the '' ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse''.

* A psychiatrist is sitting in his office, when the door opens, and a man crawls in backswards, holding a cable in his mouth.

* King Nebuchadnezzar from ''Literature/TheBible''. This was brought on as a judgment against him by God to humble the haughty king and make him realize who is truly God. And his condition may have been a rare form of mental illness called boanthropy, which made him believe that he was cattle.

* In ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV'' (specifically the re-release for the UsefulNotes/XboxOne and UsefulNotes/PlayStation4) there are [[MushroomSamba 27 peyote plants]] scattered across the map. Eating them will make any of the 3 protagonists hallucinate that they are various animals, including various dogs and even more specifically may make them think they are Chop the Rottweiler. The game allows you to play briefly as these animals (which also includes, cats, coyotes, sharks and other sea creatures, various birds, and even a sasquatch). However the game makes it pretty clear that whilst the characters think they have transformed they have not really done so (though it doesn't explain the flight as birds).

* In ''VideoGame/NancyDrew: The Curse of Blackmoor Manor'', the culprit convinces Linda that she's becoming a werewolf by leaving her [[{{Gaslighting}} ominous notes]] and switching out her moisturizer for hair-growth lotion. Which may sound unrealistic, but if ''you'' lived in a place like [[OldDarkHouse Blackmoor Manor]], you'd be feeling pretty paranoid too.

* There is a (false, fortunately) urban legend about a man who, after taking a massive amount of LSD, became convinced he was an orange. ''Permanently.'' In some tellings, he thought he was a glass of orange juice, and spent the rest of his life trying not to be spilled or drank.

* Inverted with birds that were raised by humans. There's a story about a female bird that developed a preference for tall, dark and handsome men, such as the man who had raised her. They had to get such a man to woo her with mating dances and the like, so that they could get her artificially inseminated. (It was a rare species, that's why they actually did it). While it is not known whether she thought of herself as being a human woman, this is very likely.

* In ''Film/TheKiller'', near the closing shootout of the movie, a dying Fung Sei tells Ah Jong that he doesn't know whether he's a human or a dog anymore, which may be a sign that he's close to (or has already crossed) the DespairEventHorizon as a result of the monstrously cruel NoHoldsBarredBeatdown he received at the hands of Wong Hoi, who repeatedly likened poor Sei to a dog during the beating.

* Big part of ''Film/TheAnimal''.

* French comedy movie
''Film/{{Didier}}'' is about a dog that's somehow turned into a human, but keeps a dog mind and HilarityEnsues.

* ''Manga/RanmaOneHalf'': Ranma has a severe phobia of cats, and when he gets overwhelmed by the fear, he starts behaving like a cat himself.
* ''Manga/SketDance'': Distracted by a cat while hypnotizing himself, Tsubaki started acting like a cat. [[BrainwashResidue It took some time before he stopped meowing.]]