The Bower Theatre in London's Stangate Street, Lambeth, formerly known as the Bower Saloon, was originally attached to the Duke's Tavern and operated as a place of entertainment from 1837 until 1878. During the 1850s when owned by Victor Hazleton, it made its name for the production of melodramas starring dogs. This poster features woodcut images which were particularly good for attracting the attention of passers-by, especially those who couldn't read, when they saw them on the streets. The clientele of the Bower Theatre, which advertised itself in the 1860s as 'the only theatre for the working classes', would have included many of those, attracted by for low ticket prices, action-packed presentations including melodrama, farce and nautical drama, and the availability of alcohol, the sale of which was a popular feature of 19th century theatres like the Bower that styled themselves as saloons.

Stage plays starring dogs had been successful 19th century fare since December 1803, when Frederick Reynolds' play The Caravan, or the Driver and His Dog opened at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. The scene when Carlo the Newfoundland dog leapt into an artificial lake on stage to rescue a child from drowning caused a sensation, and spawned specially written dog dramas, the most famous of which, Le Chien de Montargis, ou la Forêt de Bondy, based on an old French legend, premiered in Paris in 1814. Translated as The Dog of Montargis, or the Forest of Bondy, the play became one of the staple dog dramas presented at the Bower Saloon. The name of the dog in this 1872 production of Poor Dog Tray would have been a deliberate echo of the famous Carlo of Drury Lane seventy years earlier.