Dog here
Two letter W’s run together, reported to mean that a dog lived at the house; other marks warned of a dangerous dog.
Meaning
Dan Beard wrote in 1918 that two letter W’s joined together were sometimes used by tramps for a dog, perhaps for the way a dog jumps up and down when it barks at a stranger, and that a rectangle with a fence inside it meant a dangerous dog in the yard or house. The National Cryptologic Museum’s sample sheet draws the joined W’s for “Barking dog lives here”, and a stretch of fence with the figure 2 for “Beware of two dogs”.
Origin and history
A Boston article printed in 1908 gave yet another form: a box with two N’s run together inside it, “the high sign that there is a dog in the garden”. The three versions agree on the subject and differ in the drawing, which is the pattern of the hobo signs as a whole.
Read next
See also
Danger, Kind woman lives here, Food given here, Religious talk for a meal, Care if you are sick, Gentleman lives here.
Sources
- The American Boys’ Book of Signs, Signals and Symbols, Dan Beard, J. B. Lippincott, Philadelphia, 1918 (Cornell scan on the Internet Archive), Internet Archive, ch. IV, fig. 44; ch. X, fig. 102
- Sample of Some Hobo Signs, National Cryptologic Museum, exhibit sheet (hobo-signs-definitions.pdf), National Security Agency, page 2
- Signs of Tramp World: How They Chalk Upon Fences Advice to Their Fellow-Hobos, syndicated from Boston; Dakota Farmers’ Leader (Canton, S.D.), 13 March 1908, page 6, Library of Congress, Chronicling America
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols formed from letters and numbers or lines.
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 9, 2026. How we research
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