“They stamp my tail with a number, Yet my heart beats to a rhythm no ledger can capture.”
Early literary depictions of dogs often cast them as (e.g., loyalty, ferocity). Scholars such as C. M. Baker (2014) argue that these representations reinforce anthropocentric hierarchies, while J. Hines (2019) demonstrates how contemporary authors employ the dog as a mirror for post‑human concerns. Animal - Dog - The Best Of Chessie Moore -Mixed Beastiality
Chessie Moore’s latest anthology, , disrupts this tradition. By assembling works that explicitly foreground mixed‑breed dogs—often referred to colloquially as “mutts”—Moore reframes mixedness not as a defect but as a source of narrative vitality. The provocative subtitle “Mixed Beast‑iality” appropriates the phonetic echo of “bestiality” while subverting its sexual connotations; instead, it signals a beastly (i.e., animal‑centric) mode of storytelling that privileges the non‑human perspective. “They stamp my tail with a number, Yet
Future research might extend this analysis to representations of mixed‑breed animals, or explore digital media adaptations that further democratize animal subjectivity. To answer these questions
To answer these questions, the analysis proceeds through three sections: a literature review situating Moore within animal studies and hybridity theory; a methodological overview of close textual reading paired with a thematic content analysis; and a discussion of findings that foreground the anthology’s contribution to humane narrative practice.