A Cattle Dog Story

Tony Abbott called Barnaby Joyce into his office one day and said "Barnaby, I have a great idea! We are going to go all out to win over the country voters."

"Good idea boss, how will we go about it?" asked Joyce.

"Well", said Tony, "we get ourselves a couple of those Driza-Bone coats, some RM Williams boots and Akubra hats. Oh, and a Blue Heeler cattle dog. Then we'll really look the part. We'll go to a typical old outback country pub, and we'll pretend we really enjoy the bush".

"Right oh!" agreed Barnaby.

Days later, all kitted out and with the requisite Blue Heeler, they set off from Canberra in a westerly direction. Eventually they arrived at just the place they were looking for and found a typical outback pub. They walked in, with their dog, up to the bar.

"G'day cobber!", said Abbott to the bartender, "two middies of your best beer."

"Good afternoon Tony", said the bartender, "Two middies of our best coming right up."

Abbott and Joyce stood leaning on the bar sipping their beers and chatting, nodding now and again to whomever came into the bar for a drink. The dog lay quietly at their feet. Suddenly, the door to the adjacent bar swung open and in came a grizzled old stockman, complete with stock whip. He walked up to the cattle dog, lifted its tail with the whip handle, look under the tail, shrugged his shoulders and walked back to the other bar.

A few moments later in came another old stockman. He walked up to the dog, lifted its tail, looked underneath, scratched his head and went back to the other bar. Over the course of the next hour or so another four or five stockmen came in, inspected the dog's backside and went away looking puzzled. Eventually, Abbott and Joyce could stand it no longer and called the barman over.

"Tell me," asked Barnaby, "why did all those stockmen come in and look under the dog's tail like that? Is it an old outback custom?"

"Strewth no!", said the barman. "Someone told 'em there was a cattle dog in the bar with two arseholes."