If you like statues of horses, or sculptures of horses, or any kind of horse-related art, Scottsdale Arizona is your kind of town…
We were only there for three days…
And we were pretty busy helping Jessica and Jason get the condo set up…
And we only walked around two parts of town…















Love the statues because I love horses too!
Horse are cool.
I like horses too, but some of these statues seem to have been built as an attempt to prove that rattlesnakes aren’t the scariest things in Arizona.
You know artists, always putting their own take on things.
I love the horses…but reminds me of Rockhampton, where every other street corner, there is a bull or cow. (Being the beef capital of Queensland)
I like a nice animal work of art.
If you love animal art, the most famous in Australia would have to be the “Dog that sits on the tuckerbox”.
Even has a cafe built beside it of the same name. Its part of Australia’s outback folk lore. Nothing more loyal than a man’s best friend.
Tuckerbox is like food storage, right? I love the picture. Come on… tell us the story…
The monument of the Dog on the Tuckerbox lies about five miles (eight kilometres) north of the New South Wales town of Gundagai.
Celebrated in Australian folklore, poetry, and song, the Dog on the Tuckerbox, a monument to the pioneers of the Riverina region, has become an icon of Australia’s past.
One version of the dog’s role in pioneering times is that the dog was guarding its master’s tuckerbox and other possessions while he sought help from being bogged at a river crossing. The master, a bullocky or driver of a bullock team, never returns but the dog continues to guard the tuckerbox until its death.
Tucker is an Australian word for food, so the foodbox the dog was guarding symbolized the sustenance (which needed protecting) of the region’s pioneers.
And yes, there is a poem, which inspired the building of the statue.
As I was coming down Conroy’s Gap,
I heard a maiden cry;
‘There goes Bill the Bullocky,
He’s bound for Gundagai.
A better poor old beggar
Never earnt an honest crust,
A better poor old beggar
Never drug a whip through dust.’
His team got bogged at the nine mile creek,
Bill lashed and swore and cried;
‘If Nobby don’t get me out of this,
I’ll tattoo his bloody hide.’
But Nobby strained and broke the yoke,
And poked out the leader’s eye;
Then the dog sat on the Tucker Box
Nine miles from Gundagai.
The story of the dog and the tuckerbox was enshrined in the song Where the Dog Sits on the Tuckerbox (Five Miles from Gundagai) by Australian songwriter Jack O’Hagan who also wrote Along the Road to Gundagai and When a Boy from Alabama Meets a Girl from Gundagai. (O’Hagan had never been to Gundagai.)
The monument of the Dog on the Tuckerbox was unveiled in 1932 by the then Prime Minister of Australia, Joe Lyons, on the 103rd anniversary of Australian explorer Charles Sturt’s 1829 crossing of the Riverina’s Murrumbidgee River.
The monument was the creation of Gundagai stonemason Frank Rusconi, another of whose works, the Marble Masterpiece, is on display in town.
Gundagai, 386 kilometres from Sydney, lies along the Hume Highway which runs inland from Sydney to Melbourne.
That was bleepin’ awesome! Best comment ever. Thanks for throwing in the poem too.
You’re so welcome. I remember as a child the long drives from Melbourne to Sydney, and Dad stopping at the Dog on the Tuckerbox cafe for breakfast. So, I have seen this statue first hand. Its as Aussie as Vegemite.
I have heard of vegemite… not good things… but…
Let’s just say its fed to us as kids, so you kinda grow to like it. ❤
I need to try some before I make a judgement.
A friend of mine who lives in Washington…he tried it and his word for it was “Nasty.”
The world of food is full of nasty stuff that people still eat.
Send me my money back…..
Okay…???
Don’t give in so easily…..I’m kidding.
‘Til death do us part…..or something like that….
Well, how long can that be, really. But I like the attitude.