Australia Dog

Hunter. Worker. Legend. The untold story of the dog's role in building a nation. The Dogs That Made Australia pays tribute to the dogs that gave their all for our prosperity: the fearless hounds that saved fledgling colonies from famine; the courageous heelers and tireless collies that powered...

In the harsh Libyan desert in the middle of the second world war, Private Jim Moody, a signaller with the First Australian Machine Gun Battalion, found a starving puppy on a sand dune. Moody called the dog Horrie. Much more than a mascot, Horrie's exceptional hearing picked up the whine of enemy aircraft two minutes before his human counterparts and repeatedly saved the lives of the thousand-strong contingent.

Some say Australia was built on the sheep's back, but it is just as true to say our great nation was built in the dog kennel. Australians love their dogs - we collectively own more than four million pet pooches - and they love us right back. In fact, Aussie dogs' loyalty to their owners knows no...

Across the world, we are killing too many dogs needlessly. In Australia, approximately 80 percent of all dogs that end up in shelters are there due to either dog-to-dog or dog-to-human reactivity. Sadly, this is not a problem exclusive to Australia. While this is a startling statistic, the sad truth is that the vast majority of dogs facing euthanasia in these shelters are highly salvageable and the solutions are often very simple to apply.