Red Dog (it comes with a warning)

Last week our friends kindly bought a copy of the Australian classic movie, Red Dog, for the girls to watch, because Red Dog 2 is now in the theatres and they thought our girls should see the original first. The movie is based on a novella by Louis de Bernieres who heard about the real legendary Red Dog when he was travelling in Western Australia and then wrote a book about him. Every Australian has seen this film about the spunky and independent Australian kelpie (a kind of Australian sheep dog) who travels all over Western Australia - and we were expecting a funny and heartwarming story about a great dog. It should have been exactly the girls' kind of movie. But what was really funny was by the end of the movie the girls were in FLOODS of tears, literally sobbing on each other's shoulders, and our friends were so surprised - they'd completely forgotten that Red Dog dies at the end. The girls gave them looks of such betrayal: 'how could you,' they wailed. 

Still, it is a classic of Australian storytelling and the girls are going to read the book too, which is completely charming and very funny. Hopefully we'll visit the statue of Red Dog ourselves when we pass through Dampier on our way to Broome from Exmouth in Western Australia.

(Red Dog 2 is supposedly about his early years - so we should be safe in assuming he's still alive by the end of that one...)