The first time I saw Dog in my head, I imagined looking down on her through a skylight window on a frosty night. There she was, curled up in a dog bed with a coati whom I immediately recognized as Esme, my old friend from Sparkwell Wildlife Park.
I knew what Dog looked like right from the start: dusty-brown skin, thick black hair and deep, deep brown eyes set in a wide face. I knew where she came from too – somewhere in the Amazon Rainforest, in South America. Later I read more about native people from remote regions of the Amazon, and that was where I found Dog’s real name – which we find out right at the end of the story.
At the time I began writing A Girl Called Dog, I’d been reading about how slavery, especially child slavery, is still happening all over the world. I read about children stolen from their families and taken thousands of miles away to work for nothing as servants, on farms and in factories. I read about orphaned children, with no one to protect or care for them, treated like objects that could be bought, sold and thrown away. Dog grew out of all I’d learned about these powerless children exploited by adults who are supposed to know better. I imagined Dog to be a young girl stolen from her family and put to work in Uncle’s pet shop, like so many children in the world that this really happens to.
Dog grew out of something else, too. All my life I’ve been aware of how the world’s rainforests are being destroyed – cut down for their wood, and plundered for their valuable wildlife and natural resources. Some of the first stories I worked on as a young TV researcher were about the illegal trade in South American cat skins – jaguar and ocelot – and the importation of exotic parrot species for the pet trade. I saw photos of boxes stuffed with spotted skins from hundreds of rare cats, and of suitcases full of live parrots, packed in so tightly that many of them suffocated on their journey. For me, Dog’s situation – being stolen from the Amazon, that fabulous treasure of natural wonders – became a symbol for all that destruction.
There was one other thing that contributed to Dog’s character, and that’s the ability of children living in poverty, danger and deprivation to still smile and play. Dog has had a terrible start in life, and yet she can still feel lucky and positive. She has a quiet strength about her and I only found out where that came from right at the end of the book … but I won’t give that away in case you haven’t read it yet!
Of all the characters I’ve ever written about, Esme is the one closest to reality. Years ago I presented the Birthday Requests Show for West Country TV. The best thing about that job was that I had regular contact with animals from the local wildlife park, Sparkwell. One of viewers’ favourite animals – and mine too – was a ringtailed coati called Esme.
Coatis are South American relatives of racoons; they have long, turned-up noses, even longer stripy tails and dextrous paws with claws that look like elegant fingernails – well, they do to me, anyway! Coati females are very sociable and live in big bands of mothers and babies, sharing food and helping each other out. They are good climbers but mostly live on the forest floor where their snuffly noses and clever claws winkle out anything edible – insects, roots, bird eggs, lizards, mice, fruit and nuts. Coatis are often taken as pets by native people who live in the forest, and being clever and liking company, coatis settle in well with human families.
The real Esme, like the Esme in this book, was pretty old when I got to know her, with fur thinning on her stripy tail and bald patches on her body. We just took to each other immediately and whenever we met, Esme would climb onto my shoulders and push her nose under my hair. I absolutely adored her and it didn’t surprise me that she turned up here, years later, as Dog’s best friend.
I’ve always been fascinated by animals that can talk. The idea that a human could have a real conversation with an animal enthrals me.
Children’s books are full of ‘talking’ animals, but to me, they usually seem less like real animals and more like humans in animal costumes. In reality, most talking animals are really just very clever mimics, copying human sounds and gestures without understanding their meaning. However, while I was doing the research for a book about animal communication, I found some famous exceptions. One was a chimp called Washoe, who was raised by humans and learned human sign language – chimps don’t have the right vocal chords or tongues for speech. Washoe ‘talked’ to her human carers and to other chimps in the human sign language she’d learned, and even taught another chimp to sign without human help.
The other example was Alex the African grey parrot. African greys are well-known for their ability to mimic sounds, including human voices and words, but Alex wasn’t just a copycat. He used the words he learned to answer questions, showing that he understood their meaning, and even made up sentences on his own. I was very excited when I heard about Alex and the things he said to his human friend Dr Irene Pepperberg, including the last words he ever spoke to her: ‘I love you’.
Dr Pepperberg’s work with Alex showed me that it was possible for humans and animals to really talk, so I could have an animal character whose communication with humans was real, not magical. I was careful when I wrote Carlos’s speech to keep it within the bounds of what a real parrot like Alex might have managed.
I did stretch reality by making Carlos a blue and gold macaw, as they aren’t particularly good mimics; but I needed a parrot from the Amazon and, as a little girl, I’d dreamed of having a pet blue and gold macaw that would fly freely into the trees but come to me when I called. So Carlos was my dream come true!
As the story progressed, I thought more about Carlos and the life he had led among humans. Would he long to be just a normal parrot once again? I understood, in the end, that both Dog and Carlos were making a journey to discover their true selves. Esme too was going home, but for Esme, home was always going to be just where Dog was.
A Girl Called Dog is a fictional story, but its roots are in the real world, and run deep into my life and my own heart. I hope that makes it strong, and able to speak to everyone who reads it.
Nicola