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Beat this one Jim!

Horrie the Wog Dog.

Today, the day I started to write this story is the 25th April and is ANZAC day. ANZAC being the acronym for Australian and New Zealand Army Corp. It is a national holiday and remembrance day for those who fought and those who died at Gallipoli in 1915. It has been extended to remember those who fought and died in all wars including early wars against the Maori’s in New Zealand and the Boar War in South Africa. Today the TV shows old war footage and commemoration services and tells of historical and personal stories of that time. End of Chapter 1.

Sometimes the story of a dog is told. A dog that adopted an Australian army regiment in Libya and accompanied the battalion throughout the middle east and Create. Its ability to hear enemy aeroplanes a minute before the troops did made him invaluable. This dog was named Horrie the Wog Dog and was smuggled back to Australia by a soldier name Moody, who was Horrie the Wog Dog’s adoptive dad. This held up the troop ship off Fremantle for several days whilst government quarantine agents, Department of Health, searched onboard to find him. However he made it ashore in a modified nap sack and in time became a national symbol. End Chapter 2.

It was in 1945 he came to national attention in a book published by an early and popular writer; Ion Idriess. This of course came to the attention of quarantine officials and they demanded Horrie the Wog Dog be surrendered and destroyed. That became a dilemma for Moody and it was said he acquired a similar looking hound, due to be destroyed, from the local pound. And Horrie the Wog dog lived it’s life out near Corryong which is in the upper reaches of the Murray River. End chapter 3.

Canberra is the Australian National capital, (the location of Federal Parliament and where one finds the headquarters of government agencies including the Dept of Quarantine and Inspection Services - new name), and is situated midway between the major capitals of 2 states. Midway to stop the competitive bickering of which city should wear the national capital crown (yuck). (It is said this selected site was the destruction of a quality sheep station.) It is a place where good elected citizens meet and form government. It is the place where their egos blow out and they become quite silly. Its finances come from a bottomless pit and where parliament house and other elaborate and extravagant buildings are found. Staffed with overpaid people who really do nothing else but create red tape.

It was the previous story of Peggy and Molly plus ANZAC day which prompted my memory of Horrie the Wog Dog and government’s stupidity. In the case of Peggy and Molly it was Queensland State Government (located in Brisbane) and they are just as silly as the Feds in Canberra. Yes it can be rightly said the law is an ass but those who administrate it can be real donkeys.

Like the memory of the ANZAC’s the memory of Horrie the Wog dog will not fade.

Pictures of Horrie the Wog Dog on duty during war time, in his Corporals uniform and the statue of him at Corryong Victoria. pictures from internet.