Bear Grease - Ep. 248: This Country Life - Dog and Man: A Love Story

Episode Date: September 6, 2024

According to the archaeological record, the relationship between humans and dogs goes back thousands of years. Brent can only testify to the last fifty-eight and it's this span of time that he's talking about today. From lost dogs, hot biscuits, and frozen horses, it's time for this week's episode of MeatEater's "This Country Life" podcast. Subscribe to the MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube Connect with Brent and MeatEater MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube Shop This Country Life Merch Shop Bear Grease MerchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

First Lights fieldwear collection is made for the work that happens long before opening day and continues when the season ends. Products built for early mornings, full days in real use. Hard wearing where they need to be versatile where it matters. No shortcuts. Just gear designed for the work that earns the season. Built to perform, built to last. Check out. First Light's new fieldwear gear at firstlight.

Welcome to this country life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves. From coon hunting to trot lining and just general country living, I want you to stay a while as I share my experiences and life lessons. This country life is presented by Case Knives on Meat Eat Eater's Podcast Network, bringing you the best outdoor podcasts that airways have to offer. All right, friends, grab a chair or drop that tailgate. I've got some stories to share. Dogs and man.

Love story. Dogs and man have been rambling around the planet for a long time now. Me, like I'm sure a lot of you, are never without one. There has never been a time in my life when I didn't have at least one dog. And it's to that end that I'm here today talking about these animals that we all love so much. But why? That's my question. And I'm going to talk all about it.

But first, I'm going to tell you a story. John Carl Deckleman, budded to his friends and booed to his grandchildren. He was a tradesman, adept in agriculture-related work from cattle to lumber production. He had several jobs associated with farming that was a natural progression in his life being from the Mississippi River Delta Town of Elaine, Arkansas. Rabbit hunting was his pastime, and beagles were his passion. The small beagles, the 13-inch beagles, the ones that look like little Walker puppies, even when they're full grown.

And they're my favorites, too. But Buddy and his hunting pals, one being the store owner, kept a pin full of beagles out behind Sibley's supply store in West Helena, a small town on the bank of the Mississippi River in Arkansas. The dogs were carried for daily by someone in the group, and on weekends, they'd all meet, load the dogs, and off to the rabbit woods they'd go. A lot of trips were to Jackson Point Hunting Club, a famed piece of land along the river that boasts trophy deer and world-class duck hunting. And according to Buddy, a whole bunch of rabbits.

The group of men were also big into field-trialing their dogs, and Buddy's favorite was his blanket-backed red-eared beagle named Nancy Ann. Nancy Ann was his pride and joy, and the leader of the pack of dogs, he called his own. The honorable mentions were funny face and pretty girl, both puppies of Nancy Ann, but she was number one. A buddy had an opportunity to cross Nancy Ann with another champion Beagle in Clarksdale, Mississippi. And he carried her across the river only a 30-minute ride away,

and he left her in hopes of a successful union that would add more little Nancy Ann's to his pack. And with their mother and Buddy to show them the ropes, they had any desire at all. It would be a simple task. But first, we had to have puppies. But that wouldn't happen. She got out of the pen and Clarksdale not long after Buddy left her, and she was gone. And with her disappearance, the hope for a new generation of top-notch rabbit chasers left with her. And Buddy was devastated.

His granddaughters told me that they remember how distraught booed was. There was no dogs in Buddy's house, but his connection with Nancy Ann was obvious to everyone that knew him. She was his hunting partner as much as either of his friends whose dogs were kept in the same kennel. But if either one of his friends were busy and unable to go, Nancy Ann was still there. She was always ready and hunted just as hard at the end of the day. she did at the beginning. Like Buddy, her life was simple and she worked hard. Maybe that's why they were so close.

Each having a similar philosophy, you see a job and you do a job, and you work hard while doing it. Days went by of him crossing the river and searching for her until it seemed all hope was lost. Dole of a basket full of puppies from Nancy Ann, a faint reminder of why she was out of Buddy's direct care to begin with. Now, no number of puppies could replace what Buddy had lost.

Nancy Ann was gone. The house phone in Tyler, Texas rang, and whoever answered it, announced joyfully to everyone that Nancy Ann had been found and was now home with Buddy. Or booed, as Alexis called him. And in 2001, when Bood passed, passed away, Nancy Ann would spend the rest of her days in Texas being loved on by Buddy's daughter, his son-in-law, and his granddaughters, one of which just happens to be my wife.

Not a unique story, but a lesson in never relinquish and hope. That's a lesson for us all. And that's just how that happened. The bond of a man and dog has been scientifically documented to 15,000 years ago. On the eve of World War I, some dudes were digging around over in Bond, Germany, and found a dog skeleton buried alongside two humans. The DNA of that specimen, it turns out, was that of a domesticated dog like we have now, running around the yard and a house and dropping hair on the floor like a crop duster.

Now, did they dig up the first couple who owned a pet dog? Who knows, but I highly doubt it. Can you imagine the criteria to search for the first of anything and how you'd qualify it if you found it? You can only surmise that the dog meant something for them to have been buried with it, if folks now thought the way they did in some degree. Egyptian pharaohs were buried with all their goodies and sometimes their favorite folks.

That's right. The old saying of, you can't take it with you, well, that was obviously coined law. after the nose fell off the sphinx's face, because them folks thought you could. What a rotten retirement plan. I bet the anxiety ran high in the Pharaoh's house every time that rascal caught a cold.

But the dog that was found in Germany at that burial site is the closest link known to exist between wolves and old whalen, the coonhound that's currently taking up space right beside my chair. He's a member of this family, according to me, but my wife Alexis and my daughter Bailey will also attest. But why? How does an animal develop a place of such importance in a human's world of what matters? Some folks believe it's the nurturing instinct of humans to care for other beings.

There's always exception, but speaking of humanity as a whole, our species' natural behavior is to provide care for those around us, including animals. There's also the argument that we can. take care of and protect things of value, things that provide and perform a service like a herding dog, a protective dog, or in my case, a hunting dog. I've had several over the years, but just like family members and friends, there will be a select number that will stand out above the rest. That's my focus and what I'm, what I find interested. My dad was known for having good tree dogs and good running dogs, and each were cared

for totally different ways. Running dogs were kept in a big pen across the road from his house, and they were fed and watered and medicated as needed. Their pen was kept clean, and they lacked for nothing in regard to their health and welfare. Squirrel dogs on occasions were kept in there, too, but the majority of the time, they hung out in the front yard. The running dogs were tools in a means to an end, just like the squirrel dogs, but were not in as intimate

of a setting. That was the difference. Ten or 15 running Walker Hounds would be loaded in the back of his truck, and when the suitable conditions or sign was found to fresh coyote activity, some or all of them would be released at once. The rest of the event was a listening party as to what dog was leading to pack, which one had the best sounding bark and so on and so on. Outside of turning them loose and catching them,

there was no other man and dog in the dog. interaction. They responded to my dad because he was the guy they recognized that fed him. I couldn't get those dogs to do much of anything when it came to commands. There was only one alpha and it was my dad, not me. When they saw him coming, they knew they were fixing to do one of two things. They were either loading up in the truck to go hunting or they were fixing to eat. Both activities were their favorites. Those hounds were pretty standoff. is not at all friendly or how we've come to view dogs that are friendly. Now, you compare that to their hunting cousin, the tree and Walker,

like the one that's laying on his back like a dead cockroach right beside my desk right now, and you'd think they were two totally different species of animals, when, in fact, they came from the same corral of English foxhounds, brought over from England and credit to John Walker and George Washington Mopin's Cross of Hounds that became the tree and Walker Coonhound. There's some intrigue and criminality that went into that story back in the 1800s, but I'll say that for another day. It's pretty interesting.

Nonetheless, the running walkers and tree and walkers, they look basically the same, but how I interact with them is totally different, and that is where the true difference is. Waylon, my tree and walker is as much of a lap dog as he is a hunting dog, but how we interact is where it separates. I go with him when he hunts, following his every move, and when he gets a coon tree, he barks to call me to him, and he won't leave until I get there. He's trained to where I can call him back to me, but when describing the attributes of a good tree dog, it is a plus for one to be accurate, obviously, but also one that will stay until you get there. And just like my dad's running hounds and his squirrel dogs, the way he interacted with them is the exact opposite.

A running hound that came back to where we were listening to the race for no apparent reason was greeted by my dad's size 10 red wing to that hounds behind to remind him that his job was to run and bark to coyote and it was our job to listen. And just like the folks that dug up the two humans that had a dog buried with them in Germany, we were guessing. as to what was really going on out there in that cowl race and couldn't testify under oath that all those dogs were actually running a coyote. We hardly ever saw it. We were never close enough, especially hunting at night with the dogs in the middle of the woods and us sitting on the tailgate or in a lawn chair

a quarter of a mile or more away. The dogs may have cracked the code and figured out that if they all ran around in circles like they were chasing a coyote, the dab would be happy and maybe throw out a few extra scoop to feed when they all got back home. On Blood Trails, the stories don't end when the hunt is over. They just get darker.

I've seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleeping bed. And there was a full of blood. Oh, my God, he doesn't have a hit. Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors, where the terrain is unforgiving, the evidence is scarce, and the truth gets buried under brush and silence. Indications were he should be right there, but he wasn't.

This season, we're going deeper. From cold case files to whispered suspicions, from remote mountains to frozen backwoods. Each story begins in the wilderness and ends in darkness. Because out here, there are no witnesses, no cameras, just fragments and the people left behind trying to piece them back together. He's not an honest person. He's incapable of being honest.

Somebody somewhere knows something. I'm Jordan Sillers. Season 2 of Blood Trails premieres April 16th. Follow now on Apple, I Heart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Squirrel hunting, that's different. And we used different dogs, mountain curves, fives, and every combination of each that you can think of were what we used. 99% of them were bobtail. That hunt, like coon hunting, was more intimate.

We rode horses mainly, but sometimes walked behind the dogs as they criss-crossed out in front of us looking for the scent of a squirrel, and occasionally checking back in to see how close we were following them through the woods, and ideally not getting more than 300 yards or so away, before they'd make a loop back to see where we were. Now, if there were a lot of squirrels, they never made that checking-in loop because we were always with them. They were used to us being with them, and when they treed, the closer we were, we got, the more excited they got. The real action started as soon as the first shot rang out. If we didn't get the squirrel on the first shot or the squirrel took off on our approach,

the dogs would lose their minds trying to be the first one to show us what tree ran to. It was a bona fide partnership, and they knew it. They didn't get to eat the squirrel either. They were working for a pat on the head, nothing more. The significance of the relationship. is one that couldn't operate without the other, and we each saw the significant role that we both played. The dog got a subservience, and I believe love and loyalty as well. Now, if you don't think dogs have the power to reason or connect on a deeper level,

don't make me quote some Wilson Rawls on here about loving a coonhound and vice versa. I'll have y'all bawling your eyes out on the way to work this morning. Even though where the red fern grows is a work of fiction, I have witnessed that bond personally, and I'm sure a lot of you have as well. But the relationship, that's what's significant, maybe even more so than we realize. Just this past week, I accidentally left my back gate open by doing some chores in the early evening. Whaling the Wonderhound was inside in the house soaking up the AC like the rest of the family. After an evening of fun and frivolity with the girls, they drifted off to the,

bed while me and the hound watch TV. Around 11, I let him out the back door and went to bed, not realizing I'd left the gate open. When Bailey and I left for school the next morning, just like always, I'd go out back and put his food out and check his water. And then we make tracks for her school. The door leading from the garage to the backyard makes a tail-tale squeak at nine times out of ten when he hears it. He's on his way to eat his breakfast or try to scam his way inside the house.

house, not this morning. I walked over to his doghouse to see if he was inside it, and it was a real possibility, after all, as I've mentioned before, he has his own air-conditioning unit in there. I look back toward the gate, and my stomach went my knot. That's when I realized I'd forgotten to shut it. He's gotten out before it, and he's not running away. He's just doing what a socialized coonhound does. He goes hunting and visits the neighbors. He usually stops by the local Dollar General Store and goes inside for a treat. I kid you not. A couple years ago, he did that, and a lady that was working there gave him a snack

and called the number that was on his collar. Twice. A couple months later, he did the same thing, and luckily the same lady was there and hemmed him up, gave him a bite of something to eat, and called us. Now, I'm confident that clown slipped the bonds of the backyard because he was feeling on the mite peckish, so down the road he went to the Dollar General for a little snack roll. But those times were different because he'd only been gone a short while, maybe even a few minutes when someone called.

Now, this time, he'd been gone all night. There's no telling where he could be. I've seen him cover 20 miles in a night when coon hunting in three or four hours. In eight-plus hours, he could have been a long way away from home or worse yet. run over somewhere on the highway. I called Alexis, who was already at work and told her what happened, and Bailey and I made a loop through the neighborhood just in case we might see him. We didn't.

As I was turning on to the highway, I was praying we wouldn't find him laying on the shoulder along the way. And my phone rang with a number I didn't recognize. A sweet lady's voice said, are you missing a four-legged friend? Oh, yes, ma'am, I am. she told me where she lived and Bailey and I little shuck headed in that direction. As far as I knew, he'd been gone eight hours, and in that span of time, he'd managed to be found less than three-quarters of a mile from my house. When I got there, he was soaking wet, muddy from one end to the other, and had been

apparently rambling all night somewhere just doing what coon hounds do at night. Was he on his way back home when the lady called him over to her and looked at the his collar and called me. I have no idea. I'd like to think that he would come home. You hear those stories about dogs crossing the country to find their family, so I'd like to think this knucklehead would do the same. But whether he was or not is not the point of my story. The thought of not having him was beyond what I could have imagined. It made me wonder just how important this dang dog was and what my dad would have said. In my dad's work truck, he had an eight-track player and a black case that held a number of eight-track tapes.

You youngsters have to Google that, if you don't know what an eight-track is, I ain't going to explain it to you. Anyway, I can see that case right now in the contents, and I bet I could tell you just about in what order they were in. Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Gary Stewart, Charlie Pride, Conway Twitty, Mo Bandy, and Jim Reeves, just to name a few. Jim Reeves, he spelled his name R-E-E-E-V-E-S. That's the generic spelling, as we call it. But he had a song called The Blizzard, and it was written by the great Harlan Howard and released in 1961. In the song, the singer is trying to get home to his wife, Mary Ann. And he's describing the trials and the tribulations that he faces along the way with the blizzard

and the fact that his horse, Dan, is lame and struggling to make it. Starts out that there's still seven miles from Marianne, and he sings about the cold, blowing snow. Then, five miles from Marianne, and he sings about the hot biscuits, he figures that they're waiting on him. Then three miles from Marianne. Then a hundred yards away, old Dan can't go any further. So they bed down for the night. The cowboy not wanting to leave his horse, made both perish in the cold.

Found the next morning froze in just 100 yards. I asked my dad when I was a little boy after we listened and sang along with that song if he'd have stayed with old buck our buckskin horse like the cowboy of the song he said no and Jim Reeves wouldn't have stayed with dad and Marianne could have fixed biscuits worth of durn that's probably true but I'll tell you this I've seen my daddy cry only three times and one of them was when he told me our squirrel dog peanut it passed away hmm now I've talked about peanut up before and would usually describe him as my hairy little brother and my dad's favorite son. I've never said that to my dad because I was always scared he would agree with me.

But fast forward a generation or two, and the last squirrel dog my dad had that was as close to Peanuts' ability was named Buck. Now, like Peanut, he was a mountain cur and a heck of a squirrel dog. But my dad was from an area where dogs stayed outside, and he gave me and anyone else fits about having a dog in the house. Dogs belonged outside, period. Here was a guy who wouldn't have braved the blowing snow for his horse because of a pan of warm biscuits and had a hard and fast rule of no dogs in the house, and yet on numerous

occasions, my brother would stop by unannounced and catch them both asleep in the recliner. Dad reared back with his fingers interlaced across the belly of his overalls and buck curled up on the footstool. surprised by my brother, Dad would say, Buck, what are you doing in this house? Get out of here. My brother holding the screen door open

as Buck trotted out of the house. I tell you that story to emphasize the bond that comes from the intimacy of relationship between man and dog. There's some next level science going on here that no one can map out scientifically beyond carbon, dating, and DNA. Both are interesting documentations of origin

and history, but when it comes down to it, who cares? Not me. Interesting for sure, but I don't care if it started 15,000 years ago for 15 minutes. If it can change the outlook of my dad, you could get a hold of anyone. The joy I and my family received from my four-legged friend, as the lady down the road called him, is beyond my understanding. My question at the beginning was how, and my first of the beginning was how, and why does an animal get to play such an important role in our lives?

There's so many things to look at, and there are folks out there that have dogs that can't hunt a lick, and they love them just the same as I do mine. Coincidence? I don't think so. It is my strong belief that dogs are a gift from heaven that love us unconditionally, and they're here to set an example of how we're supposed to be. unconditional love is a chore, something we as humans have to work on every day. I know my wife loves me beyond measure.

I also know there are times when she probably wonders why. There's something to be said for love and devotion, and the living, breathing example of each is a dog. He spends his whole life just waiting. Thank you all so much for listening. Clay and I appreciate each and every one of you who do and invite you to share it with someone that you might think would enjoy it as well. Leaving reviews helps get our shows in front of others who might like them, and I thank those of you have taken the time to drop a few lines.

It really makes a difference. Don't forget if you've got a good story to share about hunting, fishing, dogs, the outdoors, or just good old country living or city living, for that matter, send them in to me at my TCL story of meat eater.com. Until next week, this is Brent Reeves. Signing off. Y'all be careful.

First Lights fieldware collection is made for the work that happens long before opening day and continues when the season ends. Products built for early mornings, full days in real use, hard wearing where they need to be versatile where it matters, no shortcuts,

Just gear designed for the work that earns the season. Built to perform, built to last. Check out. First Light's new fieldware gear at firstlight.com.