First Dog, Last Dog: New Intertextual Short Fictions about Canis lupus familiaris

• Main Author: Johnson, A. Frances
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Research Online 2019
• Subjects: Agricultural and Resource Economics; Art and Design; Art Practice; Arts and Humanities; Australian Studies; Communication; Creative Writing; Digital Humanities; Education; English Language and Literature; Feminist; Gender; and Sexuality Studies; Film and Media Studies; Fine Arts; Legal Studies; Linguistics; Philosophy; Political Science; Public Health; Race; Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies; Social and Behavioral Sciences; Sociology; Theatre and Performance Studies; Canis lupus
• Online Access: https://ro.uow.edu.au/asj/vol8/iss1/6; https://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1405&context=asj

The double short story sequence ‘First Dog, Last Dog’ explores interdependencies between domesticated animals and humans. The first story, ‘The Death of the First Dog’, re-reads and quotes from Homer’s The Odyssey and the encounter between Odysseus and his aged hunting dog Argos. Its companion piece, ‘The Carrying’, is set in a speculative future. Exploiting qualities of the Borghesian fable, both tales are interspecies tales of love and loss. This work was read at the 2018 Melbourne Writers Festival ‘Animal Church’ event curated by Dr Laura McKay.