Power of the dog

Did you know:

Since 1932, money thrown by visitors into the pond that surrounds the monument is donated to the Gundagai District Hospital, currently raising about $350 a month.

YOU COULD BE excused for thinking the curious canine has sat faithfully for its entire life at the Hume Highway rest area “five miles from Gundagai”, in southeastern New South Wales. But you couldn’t be further from the truth.

The dog-on-the-tuckerbox legend dates to the mid-1800s when bullock teams – the 19th-century equivalents of semitrailers – transported supplies between Sydney and Melbourne. Depending on weather and track conditions, the trip could take weeks. The bullock team drivers, known as bullockies, established a series of camps, each separated by about a day’s travel, where they could rest