The world-famous Dog is located five miles (8km) north of Gundagai, just of the Hume Highway, at Five Mile Creek. It celebrates one of the best-known themes of Australian folklore: mateship between man and dog.
In pioneering days a dog accompanied each wagon and guarded the bullocky’s possessions. Verses about a dog and a tuckerbox by and unknown bush poet circulated well over a century ago, but the later poem which became famous around the world was the work of poet and traveller Jack Moses in the early 1900’s.
Gundagai has long been immortalised by such verses as The Dog on the Tuckerbox, Along the Road to Gundagai, My Mable Waits for Me and When a Boy from Alabama meets a Girl from Gundagai.
Near the monument can be seen the remains of the old Five Mile pub where bullockies, and diggers on their way to the next gold strike, gathered to drink.
