Archeological evidence from the south coast of New South Wales shows tame dingoes have been part of Aboriginal people's lives for at least a thousand years. Dingoes are deeply embedded in Indigenous knowledge systems across Australia. Butchulla, like many Aboriginal languages, has different words for camp dingoes - wat'dha or wadja - and wild dingoes - wongari or wangari.

When the British established the colony of Sydney in 1788 some dingoes were wild, living in their own cooperative, communicative social groups, and some were tame, living with Aboriginal people. Watkin Tench, a marine who came to Sydney with the First Fleet, is attributed with the first printed use of the word ‘dingo’ in 1789 when he described an incident in which a man called Melntire, Governor Phillip’s gamekeeper, shot a tame dingo belonging to local Aboriginal people:

...the only domestic animal they [the Aborigines] have is the dog, which in their language is called Dingo, and a good deal resembles the fox dog of England. These animals are equally shy of us and attached to the natives. One of them is now in possession of the Governor, and tolerably well reconciled to his new master. As the Indians see the dislike of the dogs to us, they are sometimes mischievous enough to set them on single persons whom they chance to meet in the woods. A surly fellow was one day out shooting, when the natives attempted to divert themselves in this manner at his expense. The man bore the teazing and gnawing of the dog at his heels, for some time, but apprehending at length, that his patience might embolden them to use still further liberties, he turned round and shot poor Dingo dead on the spot: the owners of him set off with the utmost Precipitation.

Source: The First Wave: Exploring early coastal contact history in Australia; Gillian Dooley, Danielle Clode; 2019.