Red Dog (2011) Review and the True Story of the Pilbara Wanderer

At the entrance to the Australian mining town of Dampier, a bronze statue stands tall in honour of the legendary Red Dog who acquired a cult status in the region (quite like Greyfriar’s Bobby in Scotland) for bringing the community together when such a notion hadn’t existed in the mining town.

Red Dog movie review

In the late 1990s, one tourist to the town happened to be Louis de Bernières (English author of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin) who adapted the story of Red Dog into a famous children’s book and the inspiration behind the movie Red Dog.

Kriv Stenders directed it from a script by Daniel Taplitz, and it opened in Australia on 4 August 2011. Audiences took to it the way Dampier took to the dog: it made more than A$21 million at the Australian box office and won Best Film at the first AACTA Awards, with the title role played by a kelpie.

Imagine a dog so independent and yet overtly sentimental with a strong sense of rights to stop a car and get a lift; to hitchhike through the great continent in search of his dead master. Red Dog supposedly was also given a bank account by the Bank of New South Wales, which is said to have used him as a mascot and sales tool with the slogan

“If Red banks at the Wales, then you can too”.

The movie Red Dog (2011) rolls out in set pieces like chapters of the book, each episode celebrating the life and times of the Red Dog. The plot showcases miners reminiscing their tales about the stray that changed their lives for good. From the lonely Italian worker Vanno to the suicidal Jocko, all were changed for the better by Red Dog. But it’s the Red Dog’s relationship with John (American Josh Lucas) and Nancy (Rachael Taylor) that steals the scenes without effort.

We are all running away from a story we left behind. It’s always worth finding someone worth staying for.

Red Dog, the movie has the structure and schema resembling the template of a great family film and yet nothing seems pre-ordained. Backed by a great performance by the ensemble cast and stellar cinematography, the odyssey lends the movie a deep connection with the great Australian wilderness.

Is Red Dog a true story?

Yes, and the real dog did most of what the miners in the film boast about. He was born around 1971 in Paraburdoo, a kelpie and cattle dog cross, and his first owner, Colin Cummings, called him Tally Ho. Others knew him as Bluey or the Dog of the Northwest. The man he picked for himself was John Stazzonelli, a bus driver with Hamersley Iron, and after John died in 1975 the dog kept moving, sometimes on his own and sometimes in the vehicles of people from the towns, to Perth, Broome, Roebourne, Point Samson and Port Hedland.

He was a member of the Dampier Salts Sport and Social Club and the Transport Workers’ Union, and the bank account was real. In 1979 somebody poisoned him with strychnine, and he died on 21 November. He’s buried in an unmarked grave near Roebourne; a plaque on a boulder about 3.7 km outside Cossack marks him.

What the film changed, and does Red Dog die?

Spoilers ahead. The film’s John Grant (Josh Lucas) is an American bus driver standing in for John Stazzonelli. Nancy and Thomas, the newcomer who hears the stories in the pub, are inventions. The miners stretch the legend too: in their telling, Red Dog hunts for John as far as Darwin and boards a ship to Japan.

And yes, Red Dog dies. He’s already sick when the film opens, slips out of the pub while the town is toasting him, and is found on John’s grave. Anyone who has watched Hachiko will know where that scene is going. Then the film jumps a year: Thomas drives into Dampier with a puppy for Nancy, and the statue goes up.

What breed is Red Dog, and who was Koko?

The real Red Dog was a kelpie cross, the same working breed as Gunner, the stray pup RAAF airmen found in Darwin in 1942 who could tell Japanese aircraft from their own. Koko, who played him, was a red cloud Australian kelpie born in Victoria on 9 April 2005 and owned by Nelson Woss, who also produced the film. Koko won the Golden Collar for Best Dog in a Foreign Film, a Los Angeles prize for screen dogs in the spirit of Cannes’ Palm Dog. He was diagnosed with congestive heart disease in 2012 and died in Perth that December, aged seven, and the 2016 prequel Red Dog: True Blue is dedicated to him. A documentary, Koko: A Red Dog Story, came out in 2019.

You can now visit three statues. The Dampier one is at the top of this page. Paraburdoo, where Red Dog was born, unveiled its own on 4 April 2023, after Holly Dutch, a former student of the town’s primary school, asked the Shire of Ashburton for one in 2018; Red Dog’s own vet, Dr Rick Fenny, helped shape it. Koko’s statue has stood since 11 April 2014 at the Dogs’ Refuge Home in Shenton Park, Perth, among dogs waiting for a home.

In India we’d call Red Dog a community dog. Our colonies have plenty of them, and not one has a union card. Feed the ones near you the right way, or adopt one. For the Indian version of this story, watch Ohh My Dog, about two street dogs called Bruno and Oscar.

If Red Dog stayed with you, explore more true-story dog movies.