Dog (2020) is a redesigned excerpt from my collection Tales from the Inner City (2018). A story in verse and paintings, Dog imagines the bond between humans and dogs as ongoing cycle of death and rebirth through different places and times, from prehistory to the present and future. Originally published by Walker UK in small format, it’s also available in a larger format from Allen & Unwin Australia (November 2020).

The relationship between dogs and humans is unlike that of any other. There are perhaps few inter-species friendships so epic and transforming, spanning some 15,000 years, enduring the vagaries of history, the rise and fall of countless societies, shaping each in turn. Every time I see people walking their dogs at my local park, I never cease to be heartened by the endurance and affection of this bond, its strangeness, its apparent naturalness.
But fates are never quite aligned and our hearts so frequently broken. For many years I’ve had a news clipping on the pin-up board that overlooks my desk, a picture of a dog whose owner died in a tragic house-fire. There is something about the dog’s hard-to-read gaze that I’ve always found compelling. It reminds me of many stories such as that of the famous Hachiko, the Japanese dog that waited patiently at Shibuya train station every evening, up to nine years after his owner, a university professor, had died suddenly at work. The sheer loyalty and urgent optimism of dogs has always been a great inspiration for their human companions, who so often wander from such virtuous paths and anxiously question their place in the world. No matter what future meets our planet, no matter how transformed or tragic, even apocalyptic, it’s hard to imagine that a dog will not be there by our side, always urging us forward.