Dingo: The Dog Who Conquered a Continent

by Jackie French

  The dogs howled that night, the first time since he’d seen the strangers’ campfire smoke. It was almost as though they knew that it was time to call them.

  The girl’s father, brothers, uncles and grandfathers would never have heard a dog’s howl before: they’d come to investigate.

  He hoped they’d come as friends, not enemies. Had the girl explained? Had she understood?

  He thought of her smile, the way she’d giggled when she touched Little Girl. If anyone could understand it would be her.

  He put green wood on the fire the next morning, to make the most smoke to show the girl’s clan exactly where his camp was. They’d know that much smoke must be a signal, a way of saying, ‘Here I am.’ It could be an invitation — or a threat. In the fire pit the two hoppers lay cooking, hot and moist and tasty under the layer of wet leaves and soil, away from flies. Food in a fire pit kept good for days.

  He put on his necklaces of fish vertebrae and hopper teeth. He sat on the ledge by his campfire and rubbed hopper fat into his spears so they gleamed, their shafts thick and straight; they were obviously made by a hunter who knew what he was doing. His obsidian knife hung by the cord about his waist. Little Boy and Little Girl slept beside him. The dog was off somewhere, hunting perhaps, tired of eating eggs.

  Suddenly the young dogs’ ears pricked. Little Girl sat up, glancing across at Loa as though to say, ‘Can’t you hear them too?’

  At first all he could see was grass moving, as though a giant snake was coming towards them. The ripple grew nearer. It was made by people.

  The whole clan had come, not just the hunters, men who might attack a stranger. The girl had convinced her clan that he wasn’t luring them to battle. They had understood each other well that day. He could see a couple of grandmothers, some grandfathers, white hair and long white beards, women with babies slung on their backs, keeping their hands free to carry bags filled with fruits and tubers they had gathered on the way.

  Two of the hunters had long-necked birds slung over their shoulders. Loa would have grinned if he hadn’t been so nervous. The hunters didn’t know a feast waited for them.

  The girl walked behind the others. He’d hoped she’d be in the front, as eager to see him again as he was to see her, but of course the hunters would lead the clan. Then he saw that she too wore necklaces — shells and bright red seeds.

  She wore them for him.

  He stood up so she could see him, so they could all see him. He wanted to smile at the girl, but her uncles might resent a stranger smiling so openly before he’d proved his worth. Little Girl and Little Boy stood too, yawning.

  Suddenly one of the hunters raised his spear. He aimed at Little Girl …

  ‘Down!’ But even as Loa gave the order the girl ran forwards and grabbed the man’s spear arm. She spoke to him urgently. The hunter lowered his spear. The man stared as Little Girl and Little Boy sat at Loa’s feet, just as he’d planned, then rolled onto their backs.

  But where is the dog? thought Loa frantically. He needed her to be here too, so everyone would see he had three tame dogs, not just two. He bent slowly, and scratched the dogs’ tummies, listening to the mutters of wonder from the strangers.

  All at once a grandma pointed.

  The dog stood on the rock above them. It’s almost as though she’s inviting a spear, thought Loa desperately.

  ‘Dog!’ he called, hoping she’d come. Hoping they’d realise that if she did come running down it was because he’d ordered her to, not because she was attacking. He remembered how he’d thrown stones at the rubbish dogs, before he’d known that a human and an animal could be friends and partners.

  The dog vanished off the rock. Suddenly she appeared on the path, running towards them, a bird dangling from her mouth.

  The hunter raised his spear again. Loa could almost hear the man think, I’ll be the first to kill the new beast. The girl said something, quickly and firmly. But the hunter shrugged her off. This was men’s business.

  The spear was long and well made, its point sharp. At this range the hunter wouldn’t miss.

  ‘Dog!’ he cried desperately.

  The dog glanced at him as she ran down the path towards him. There was something in her look that said she knew exactly what was happening, and what she was doing now.

  She looked almost amused as she ran up to Loa. She dropped the bird at his feet and glanced up at him again, as if to say, ‘I’m doing this for you.’ Then rolled over, her legs in the air.

  It was as though she shouted to every human here: ‘Look! This man is my master! I catch food for him. We dogs are useful. Let us live.’

  The hunter put down his spear. Someone laughed. All at once they were all laughing — the grandmothers, the hunters, the girl, even the toddlers on the women’s backs. They pointed at the dogs and at Loa.

  Loa laughed too. He bent down to scratch the dogs’ tummies so the strangers wouldn’t see his tears.

  A shadow crossed his. It was the girl. She bent down beside him, then, cautiously at first, began to scratch Little Girl’s tummy too.

  Soon, he thought, when I can breathe again, I’ll show them all the fire pit and the feast I prepared. Show the girl’s uncles that he was a hunter to be respected and a spear maker, as well as the man who’d tamed the dogs. He’d show the girl too.

  He smiled, and met her eyes.

  ‘Arrunna,’ she said.

  He didn’t know if that was her name, or ‘hello’ in her language, or maybe a word for ‘strange animal that likes to be scratched’.

  It didn’t matter. They understood each other in all the ways that mattered now. There would be long happy years to find out more. Somehow he knew that from now on things would be good, for him and for the dogs too. His dogs. His friends.

  ‘Loa,’ he said, and reached over to scratch the dog, his hand next to the girl’s.

  EPILOGUE

  The Dog

  The Thunder Season

  It was hot. The ground breathed dryness into the air. Soon the winds would bring the rains again, but today the soil was too warm under her paws.

  The dog was tired. Today’s hunt had been short. Many dogs had flushed out the mob of big hoppers for the men to spear. Two of the men carried the great beasts back to the camp.

  But she was old. Too weary to walk any more just now. She lay on the grass, panting, then put her head on her paws.

  Bony Boy looked down at her. He was tall and muscular, not bony at all, but the dog still thought of him as she had when they first met. ‘You tired, old dog?’

  The dog whined softly.

  Bony Boy grinned. He kneeled in the grass and lifted her expertly, so she lay across his shoulders, front and back paws dangling each side of his neck. He strode through the grass after the other hunters, bearing her on his shoulders, his big hands gently holding her paws.

  There was no need to walk when she was tired now, not with Bony Boy to carry her.

  Tonight there’d be a feast around the fire. There’d be bones to chew, for her and the other dogs, her puppies and her children’s children too. But Bony Boy would make sure she had the best bits of all, the squishy parts she loved most. Perhaps tonight she’d hear howls from the darkness, where her wild children and their pups hunted for themselves.

  The dog let herself enjoy the rocking motion as Bony Boy walked, the smell of fresh meat, the warmth of the sun.

  It was a good day to be a dingo.

  AUTHOR’S NOTES

  Probably the first explanation I need to give here is that dingoes don’t bark — and nor would their ancestors have barked either. This is why none of the dogs bark in this book.

  This is not a true story, but it is what might have happened.

  This is a story from five to ten thousand years ago, but probably closer to five, as testing of wild dingoes’ DNA and RNA tells us that was likely when the first dingo arrived in Australia, probably from Timor or one of the islands nearby. (If dingoes had arrived much before ten tho
usand years ago they would have reached Tasmania, as Tasmania was still connected to the mainland then.)

  The earliest dingo skeleton found so far is about three and a half thousand years old, but it’s likely there were dingoes in Australia long before that.

  Dingoes are so similar genetically that it is likely that all the modern packs are descended from one pregnant female. How did she come to be here, one dog, so long ago?

  Some stories teach us our history. Others tell us what it might have been like. They’re a window on the past and say, ‘This is what could have happened.’

  This story is one of those.

  There are many other versions of how the dingo first arrived in Australia. Many of them belong to the Indigenous people of the north and all of them differ.

  We know little about that time. What we do know is derived from ancient tools, the remnants of plants, middens with shells and pieces of bone and stone-lined ovens, as well as from old histories passed down through many generations. Ancient adzes tell us that Loa’s people would have had the tools to make canoes; and the lack of shards of pottery means that they probably didn’t know how to make pots.

  We also know that at that time, at the end of the last Ice Age, the sea level was about one hundred metres lower than it is now — much of the world’s water was still locked up as ice. The camp that Loa came from, and the coast where he arrived, would be underwater now, and probably very different from the land as it is now, although the seasons and many of the plants would be similar.

  Even if the sea level had been higher when the first dingoes arrived, earlier than we now think, the first dog must have come here across at least fifty-five kilometres of sea, too far for a dog to swim. Possibly, as in this book, the first dog arrived in a canoe lost in a storm. Later, thousands of years later, when sails and better canoes and then other craft had been invented, traders would regularly cross those waters, as well as fishermen. But not back then.

  Blood and guts

  Apologies, but this is a book about a dog, and set five thousand years ago. Meat and hunting was what kept life going then. They still do for a wild dog. We can pretend that what comes in a can or as dried dog food wasn’t once alive, but what you buy in a can probably came from an animal that suffered more before its death than the swift kills made by Loa and the dogs in this book.

  I wanted to write a book about the discovery of humanity’s closest friendship — the one we enjoy with domesticated dogs. But to do it I needed to write about things most of us would rather not think of.

  The dog as food

  Even in the last few hundred years, Macassan and Torres Strait fishermen would take a dog out in their boats as a way of storing food, or to throw to a shark or crocodile if a diver was threatened. I know it will be confronting to many who love dogs to know that dogs were — and still in many places are — valued more as dinner than as friends. But that too is the way things are and have been.

  The seasons

  Loa’s people would have measured time by at least four seasons, possibly five or six or more. I have limited them to four in this book.

  The Dry Season — May to late September/early October

  It does rain at this time, but the air is dry, not humid. The early Dry Season can be a season all to itself, with fat tubers and lots of fruit. Later the grass turns gold, then vanishes from the soil. In July and August there are less fruit and fewer tubers to dig and animals to hunt. What was once swamp dries out and cracks.

  The Thunder Season — October and November

  In this season there is thunder in the air and occasional storms. The grass grows green and tall, and massive tides bring new water to the mangrove swamps.

  The Rain/Wet Season — December to early March

  This is the season when monsoons, cyclones and big storms may blow in from the sea, when swamps turn to rivers and grasslands turn to swamps.

  The Season of Fruit and Flowers — March and April

  The season of grass seeds and fruit, bringing flocks of birds.

  Dingoes

  Dingoes are close to the original wolves that first formed a partnership with humans. Most other dog breeds have been deliberately bred to be small, or lovable, or fetch sticks or game. Dingoes are about as close as we have now to the original wild dog ancestor.

  Dogs were first domesticated in the Middle East and the Americas, and travelled from there to South-East Asia. Australian dingoes have Chinese or South-East Asian ancestors, although they are quite different from modern South-East Asian dogs.

  But today’s dingoes are probably not quite like the ones who arrived here, who were even closer to being wild dogs, living on the edge of human camps scavenging for food, and often becoming food themselves. (It’s worth remembering that dogs thought of humans as food too, as did many other animals nearby.)

  Dingoes don’t bark as domesticated dogs do. They breed only once a year — dogs breed twice. Only the dominant female dingo in a pack breeds, with the dominant male. The dominant female feeds first too, and then the others. All the others are uncles or aunts who help bring up the puppies. The pack also hunts together, although dingoes will hunt by themselves often too. Nearly all domestic dogs can breed with them — and will unless they are kept apart or desexed, which is one reason why dingoes are becoming an endangered species. Many of the animals we think of as ‘dingoes’ are actually part dog.

  Dingoes are far more independent than most dogs. They’ll go along with what a human wants … most of the time. But they may think about it first.

  A dingo hunts quietly and swiftly, often waiting lying on its tummy for prey to arrive rather than chasing it wildly, then leaping at the throat. Dingoes are very efficient hunters and soon became a problem when white settlers brought sheep to the continent. Dingoes were used to hunting wary prey. Sheep, especially before they have been shorn and are carrying heavy woollen fleeces, are slow and nervous and most breeds aren’t very bright, making them remarkably easy for dingoes to hunt and kill.

  But even though they are efficient hunters, dingoes aren’t aggressive. They can and do fight and bite, but usually only when they — or more usually their puppies — are threatened.

  Dingoes changed Australia, possibly helping to wipe out many species like the thylacine and Tasmanian devil on the mainland and helping humans to hunt, as well as providing companionship and joy. Australia also changed the first dogs here, as they became dingoes.

  Domesticated dogs arrived with the First Fleet. They were largely accepted by many Indigenous people as, unlike dingoes, the ‘new’ dogs would bark to warn of intruders. Dogs — and dingoes — were soon adopted by the people of Tasmania, who until then had never worked with canines.

  Governor Arthur Phillip and Captain Hunter also adopted dingoes as pets, but more often the new settlers shot, trapped or poisoned them. The last wild dingoes in my area of New South Wales were killed in the early 1970s, courtesy of a government scheme that dropped poisoned baits to wipe them out. Most dingo traps were cruel — a dingo might even gnaw its own leg off to try to get free — leaving animals in pain to die slowly of thirst or blood loss.

  Now, after so long, dingoes may become a tamed species, not just because so many are killed in places where they can become a nuisance for people, but because they are breeding with feral dogs.

  Nowadays there are breeding programmes that try to bolster numbers of ‘pure’ dingoes, both the gold and the black ones, using DNA tests to make sure they are dingoes, not a dog – dingo hybrid that just looks right.

  Most ‘wild dingoes’ probably do have some dog in their ancestry — and the proportion is growing. The last large area of ‘pure’ wild dingoes was Kakadu National Park, but now even many of the dingoes tested there are hybrids. Fraser Island once had a large colony of pure dingoes, but the most recent study there showed that about a third were hybrids — and those hybrids will probably breed with the others.

  It is legal in some states to have a dingo as a pet, b
ut this is carefully regulated. I won’t give details here, as the regulations often change. Dingoes are loyal companions — once a dingo has bonded with you it may not ever regard anyone else as its partner. But never think a dingo is an easy pet. A companion dingo is beautiful, strong, wise, funny and determined. But every dingo is still, despite so many generations of association with humans, very much its own creature. Never approach a wild dingo, or try to tame one as Loa did. Dingoes may attack if stirred or threatened — but they can also see you as a threat, even if you don’t mean to be.

  Dingo life cycle

  Australian dingo puppies are generally born after a sixty-three-day gestation between March and June. There are usually about four to six in a litter. At first the puppies’ eyes are closed and they drink only milk. Later they eat meat that the mother has chewed and partly digested and vomited up for them; and after that they begin to eat the food she — or the rest of the pack — bring back for them. Slowly they learn to hunt and track, following the others as they learn their skills.

  Dingo pups are weaned at about two months of age and within a year most are independent, some staying with the pack but more moving on to make a new pack, or joining another. Male dingoes can breed once they are about a year old. So can female dingoes, but often they don’t until they are two years old.

  Young dingoes can have their first puppies slightly out of the normal season, as the one in this book did.

  The name ‘dingo’

  The Eora people who lived around Sydney Harbour called wild dogs ‘warrigal’. Tame dogs were known as ‘tingo’, and that is where we got the name ‘dingo’. Loa’s language would have been very different from any language spoken today, just as the English we speak today is utterly changed from the English spoken a thousand years ago. I haven’t tried to recreate that language, and so have used the modern word ‘dingo’. Loa uses the word ‘dog’ — the word he’d have used in his own language for the animals he knew.

  Why are there no coconuts, sails or wild millet in this story?