Red Dog (film tie-in)

Louis de Bernières

Apr 2011 · Random House Australia

About this ebook

The story of the legend of Red Dog, the most famous red Kelpie in Western Australia.

Red Dog is a West Australian, a lovable friendly red kelpie who found widespread fame as a result of his habit of travelling all over Western Australia, hitching rides over thousands of kilometres, settling in places for months at a time and adopting new families before heading off again to the next destination and another family - sometimes returning to say hello years later.

While visiting Australia, Louis de Bernieres heard the legend of Red Dog and decided to do some research on this extraordinary story. After travelling to Western Australia and meeting countless people who'd known and loved Red Dog, Louis decided to spread Red Dog's fame a little further.

The result is an utterly charming tale of an amazing dog with places to go and people to see. Red Dog will delight readers and animal lovers of all ages.

This book inspired the film, Red Dog, which has gone on to become one of Australia's highest grossing films of the past few decades.

Ratings and reviews

By renowned Louis de Bernieres, Red Dog tells a wonderful story about a traveling Red Kelpie in Western Australia. Everyone seems to know him; he is heard of everywhere and can get anywhere. He is a lovable dog, treating everyone as family, although he has the impolite habit of dropping a bomb… The story itself is based on a real dog, originally named Tally Ho. The book really a semi-fictional biography of this dog, with most stories being based on real ones. The book follows quite a simple structure, each chapter being a separate anecdote about Red Dog. The language is easy to understand and doesn’t use sophisticated language, but often uses common Australian slang. It even provides a glossary of ‘Australianisms’ at the back of the book. But the chapters aren’t connected in many ways besides the fact that they contain Red Dog and a few other characters. I think that this is a wonderful book, very charming, delightful and small enough to read in one sitting. Although most of this book may not be completely true, it is much like a legend of Red Dog’s life, leaving only the best memoirs. Readers of all ages will enjoy this book, especially animal lovers.

The book reads like a number of short stories tied up into an enjoyable longer tale. Australians will probably be able to understand the setting more easily than others, but the story adequately illustrates the rugged conditions.

Hey guys I used to live In dampier and every day I went to see the iron red dog and to see his and his owners grave it is very sad but true and very sad to see the grave of the two of them next to each other

About the author

Louis de Bernières is the bestselling author of Captain Corelli's Mandolin, which won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, Best Book in 1995. His most recent books are Birds Without Wings and A Partisan's Daughter, a collection of stories Notwithstanding and a collection of poetry, Imagining Alexandria.