Sirius is a 1944 fantasy novel by the British philosopher and author Olaf Stapledon, whose title character is a dog named Sirius with humanlike intelligence. A sense of existential questioning suffuses the book, as the author delves into aspects of Sirius’s psyche. The novel deals with many human issues through Sirius and his experiences, his unusual nature, his ideas and his relationships with humans. The characters go to great lengths to prevent Sirius from becoming a circus-type wonderdog, and instead, they seek to develop Sirius’s character much like a family would create and foster that of a human child.