Skip to main content

Story: Floods

Footrot Flats

Cartoonist Murray Ball created the popular newspaper cartoon series Footrot Flats, featuring the daily adventures of typical New Zealand farm characters – including Dog the sheepdog, his owner Wal Footrot, and their neighbour, Cooch Windgrass. Ball was well aware of the hazards of rural life, and incorporated storms, floods and landslides into his cartoons.

Using this item

Diogenes Designs Ltd

Reference: Murray Ball, Footrot Flats collector's edition 2. Lower Hutt: Inprint, 1989, p. 64

by Murray Ball

This item has been provided for private study purposes (such as school projects, family and local history research) and any published reproduction (print or electronic) may infringe copyright law. It is the responsibility of the user of any material to obtain clearance from the copyright holder.

All images & media in this story

How to cite this page

Eileen McSaveney, Floods – River monitoring and flood warnings, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/interactive/4908/footrot-flats (accessed 10 June 2026).

Story by Eileen McSaveney, published 2 March 2009, updated 1 February 2024.