This is a very broad question that is not too specific.
The dogs you refer to are major characters in the novel as a whole, and so you need to
specify which dog and which action you are refering to in Chapter Four to help us answer
this question.
For example, one of the interesting aspects
of Buck in this chapter is the way that he is presented as being something of a mystical
dog who is able to see the ancient past and man's relationship with dogs back then. Note
the description of what Buck sees:
He was all but naked, a ragged and firescorched
skin hanging partway down his back, but on his body there was much hair... He did not
stand erect, but with trunk inclined forward from the hips, on legs that bent at the
knees. About this body there was a peculiar springiness, or resiliency, almost catlike,
and a quick alertness as of one who lived in perpetual fear of things seen and
unseen.
Note the way in which
this vision is richly symbolic of the long relationship between man and dog, that
stretches back even unto the period in history when man was a caveman and depended on
his relationship with his canine friend to help protect him from the fears of the
night.
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