For more than 80 years the bronze dog has been sitting obediently waiting for his master to return, a monument to the drovers and early pioneers who forged the road through the area. While the memorial itself hasn't changed much since prime minister Joseph Lyons unveiled it in 1932, time has not been kind to the site it sits on, now home to a potholed road, abandoned petrol station and a dilapidated site in need of attention.

Now the Cootamundra Gundagai Regional Council thinks it's time the old dog received a facelift and advertised in November for expressions of interest in development opportunities for the site.

Mayor Abb McAlister said it was the perfect scenario: a tourist site right off one the nation's busiest highways.

"It's just come to a stage now where it really wants a revamp; you can probably see it for yourself it needs money spent on it," Mr McAlister said.

Of the 11,000 cars that pass the site on the Hume, about 3000 stop at the nearby petrol station - only about 630 stop by the dog.

"[The new site] could be anything, it could include accommodation, restaurants; just a really good upgrade," Mr McAlister said.

While there have been several iterations of the story over the years, the best known version involves Bill the Bullocky - a drover - who bogs his wagon nine miles out of Gundagai, gives up and goes to have lunch to find his dog sitting on his tuckerbox and refusing to move.

A lot of the locals will tell you though that Bill didn't find the dog sitting on his tuckerbox; he found it relieving itself in it.

An earlier monument to the dog appeared at the site in the early 1920s, a timber cutout hoisted on a tree, where locals had a donation box to collect money for the local hospital despite the council's protests.

Before long an official monument was erected where it still stands today, continuing to collect money for the Gundagai District Hospital.

The site's current leaseholder, Denny Allnutt, said she had had big plans for the site when she took it on board in 2016, but was letting the lease expire in July next year.

"You're part of Australian history and part of an internationally known icon. There's enormous good will for the dog through Australia," Ms Allnutt said.

"It's enjoyable and exhausting at the same time."

She runs the small tuckshop next to the statue but now plans to get her old art gallery running again on Gundagai's main strip once the lease is up.

Originally from Sydney, Ms Allnutt moved to Gundagai in 2004 and while she admits she was underwhelmed by the statue at first, she fell in love with it and the story behind it.

"I love the fact that it's entirely grassroots," she said.

Ms Allnutt said the site from the famous poem, where Bill gets bogged trying to cross Muttama Creek, has now been passed over by the Hume Highway.

It wasn't until the Great Depression that a group of locals came up with the idea of putting up a statue to raise money for the hospital, despite the council hating the idea.

The group decided putting the statue nine miles out of Gundagai would be too far and it needed to be closer, at the five mile mark and site of an old bullocky's camping ground, to help raise money.

Finally the council came on board.

"It's always been something that's loved by the community, has grown out of the community and is cherished and celebrated by the community. I just love that," Ms Allnutt said.

Ms Allnutt said the poem captured the country's larrikin tradition.

"It was definitely the misbehaving dog that spoiled the tucker. Only in Australia would that be celebrated," she said.

The tradition of collecting money for the hospital lives on with Gundagai local Keith Turner, who has voluntarily been collecting money from the wishing well each month since 2015.

It averages up to $350 a month with the money given to the hospital's emergency ward.

Mr Turner remembers celebrating the 50th year of the dog in 1982 and helping organise a recording by musicians The Howie Brothers to celebrate the dog's birthday.

"Y'know the dog's been sitting on that tuckerbox for over 50 years and it ain't dead yet," Mr Turner said, recalling the lyrics.

He walked the streets of Gundagai taking donations for copies of the CD, raising $3000 for the hospital's children's ward, an effort that earned Mr Turner Gundagai's Citizen of the Year.

Mr Turner said the site as it is needs looking after but everybody knew about Gundagai from Jack O'Hagan's 'Along The Road to Gundagai' and 'Where the Dog Sits on the Tuckerbox'.

Mr Turner sings it wherever he goes and remembers travelling to New Zealand for a function three years ago when he started 'Along The Road to Gundagai' to the locals.

"At the end of the night, they were thanking everyone and I walked over and said I'll have the mic thanks," Mr Turner said.

"I got on the mic and I told them where I came from and I sang Along the Road to Gundagai. Well, they all sang it.  There were twenty Americans there too, young students, half of them were singing it word for word."

The fabled tale is ready for its next chapter. The old dog is waiting.