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From an early age, it was clear that Luffy enjoyed music. He seemed to prefer simple, dynamic sounds, particularly Krautrock bands like Cluster and Harmonia. He would sit in front of the speaker and tilt his head, a little like the dog from the HMV logo. In the car he seemed to react most positively to upbeat, syncopated dance music like the Jackson Five or the Pointer Sisters. My understanding is that dogs cannot differentiate between different pitches as well as we can, only differentiating between high, middle and low pitches within a single octave. He has never seemed to enjoy rock and roll at all, which I presume sounds like a wash of noise.

Our new dog, Toki, seems to have no interest in music at all, and doesn’t react to it. But he does seem to have a taste for literature. He is roughly four and a half months of age at the time of writing this, and his puppy teeth are still coming through. Like most teething puppies, he chews on things to alleviate the discomfort. And we found that he had started picking books off the shelves of the various bookcases in the house, to chew on.

I didn’t think much of it until I noticed that he had pulled down a copy of Aristotle’s writings on literature that I had forgotten I owned, which got me thinking. I collected up all the books with chew marks on them and piled them on top of one of the bookshelves in the hallway. When a new book takes his fancy I add that to the pile.

I was talking to Gerald Murnane on the telephone. Gerald is residing in the country for awhile. I told him about the new puppy, and how he had a taste for literature. Gerald asked me if Toki had tried any of his own books, and I told him no, that for now Gerald’s books were a little beyond him.

But funnily enough, a few days later Toki found a photo of Gerald’s country house that he had given us, and chewed the corner. I haven’t talked to Gerald since he picked up his award at the Adelaide Writers’ Festival, but I want to know if he visited the Murray Bridge bunyip on the way either there or back, as I suggested.

I suspect that Gerald will be pleased to know that Toki has given his country place his blessing.

Toki’s Recommended Reading List

1. Sadegh Hedayat, The Blind Owl
2. Norman Spinrad, Bug Jack Barron
3. Michel Tournier, Gilles & Jeanne
4. Len Deighton, Horse Under Water
5. Mark Leyner, Tooth Imprints on a Corn Dog
6. Aristotle/Horace/Longinus, Classical Literary Criticism
7. Philip K. Dick, Blade Runner