The Dog Sits on the Tuckerbox

Happy New Year, faithful followers. After a hectic few weeks in Canberra, where nothing went to plan and every turned to custard, we're happy to be back on the road to begin part two of our epic adventure.

Today we're in Wiradjuri country, enjoying a short stay in Gundagai. On the way into town we stopped at the statue of the dog on the tuckerbox, which is almost mandatory when travelling south along the Hume Highway.

I remember stopping here as a kid on those long, hot and tedious trips from Canberra to Melbourne. My dad (as he liked to do) would recite part of the poem that gave rise to the fable of the dog sitting on the tuckerbox five miles from Gundagai. In those days the Dog on the Tuckerbox was right next to the road in a small park with a cafe for weary travellers. Now there's a four lane highway thundering past and the Dog sits under the watchful eye of Colonel Sanders. But it's still a nice place to stop.

The original poem about the hazards faced by bullock drivers ("bullockies") in the district was published in the Gundagai Times sometime in the 1830s and was written by a previously unpublished poet going by the name of Bowyang Yorke.

The last line of Yorke's poem read:

. . . for Nobby Jack has broke the yoke,

Poked out the leader's eye

and the dog shat on the tucker box,

Five miles from Gundagai.

And although the story of the dog sitting on his mater's tuckerbox became fokelore, the poem itself was considered crude and politically incorrect. Who knew political correctness was a thing way back then?

So a sanitised version of the poem was written in 1880 by Jack Mosses, with the ending changed to:

...then the dog sat on the tuckerbox nine miles from Gundagai.

It's unclear why the re-written poem moved the dog and the tuckerbox four miles further away from Gundagai, but that's where the monument was erected back in 1923.

It's also unclear what breed of dog sat upon the tuckerbox. The statue looks a bit like a kelpie, but whatever it was originally, it clearly wasn't a Labrador. Otherwise it would have found a way to break into the tuckerbox, eat its contents and meander off in search of more snacks.