In “Bob Bilby,” the hand puppet is a bilby.
Bob Bilby is Bingo’s classroom puppet and kindy mascot. Each child gets a turn taking him home for a weekend, recording activities with photographs, and adding them to a scrapbook. When Bingo brings Bob home, the Heeler family tries to give him an active weekend rather than spending most of the time looking at screens.
A bilby is a real Australian marsupial, not a fictional dog character like the Heelers. Bilbies are known for their long ears, pointed snouts, and nocturnal habits. They live in burrows and are especially associated with Australia’s arid environments. Their distinctive appearance explains Bob’s oversized ears and long nose.
The episode’s title makes the answer easy to overlook because “Bob” sounds like an ordinary person’s name. The character is still explicitly a bilby, and the puppet’s animal identity is central to the scrapbook activity and the episode’s environmental and screen-time themes. “Bob Bilby” is episode 12 of Bluey’s first series.