‘The Loaded Dog’ explores the significant experience of mateship through the characters; Dave Regan, Jim Bently, Andy Page and their young retriever Tommy who is described with great visual imagery as an ‘overgrown pup, a big, foolish, four-footed mate, who was always slobbering round them and lashing their legs with his heavy tail that swung round like a stock-whip’.
The story starts off slow introducing the gold mines that the story takes place in, using elaborate instructions to explain the process of mining and cartridge construction through verbs including ‘sewed’, ‘bound’ and ‘pasted’ which gives the reader a distinctively visual image of how life was for the gold miners.
The author uses Australian jargon and vernacular language such as ’Don’t foller us!’ and ’no mucking around' throughout the story to give the reader a more visual image of how the men of the area communicate.
The story’s pace exponentially increases along with it’s humour as the storyline develops and as each complication arises. Dialogue and punctuation, such as ‘dashes’, carry us along with the action painting a picture in the readers mind of the events taking place. Dave who is seen as the ‘ideas man’ decides to create a cartridge to blow the local fish out of the water to eat and