Bear Grease - Ep. 260: This Country Life - Dog Traders

Episode Date: October 11, 2024

Dog traders can describe people who specialize in selling dogs. The group Brent's talking about deals specifically with coonhounds. There's a lot of history in how selling was done in the past, as opposed to how it's done today. Hear how one community of Arkansas hunters did it and listen to a tale of how a hound made an impact on Brent and his family. Join us for Dog Traders on 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 and 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 trotlining 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 Nives on Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best outdoor podcast that airways have to offer. All right, friends, grab a chair or drop that tailgate. I've got some stories to share. Dog Traders. Dog traders can get an undeserved bad reputation at times. Back in the day, some of them were as bad as snake oil salesmen, promising high, delivering low, and then scaddling out of town with all your money.

Modern times have all but erased them, but there's still something to be found, and if you do get caught up on the short end of the stick, retribution is a lot easier these days. I'm going to tell you some things that can help you, a little about what to look out for, and what a dog trader is. but first, I'm going to tell you a story. It was the day before the COVID catastrophe started in Arkansas. I had driven three hours through the backwoods

to the foothills of the Washington mounds to look at a coon hound that I'd only seen a video of barking at a coon in a cage on Facebook marketplace. A chihuahua will do the same thing. A dog, even a dog made for barking at coons, actually barking at a cage coon only proves one thing that the dog can bark. Now, had he not done that, it could have been a red flag, but because he did, it certainly wasn't a testament to any inheritabilities

other than to be able to produce sound. However, he did it with a lot of vigor that didn't go unnoticed by me. I've told the story of how his living conditions were not ideal and were borderline criminal. The dirt floor was inches deep and, sloppy mud due to the slope of the yard, and his only escape was on the top of a window unit air conditioning frame that doubled as his house. Looking at this six-month-old coon hound standing on top of the empty air-conditioning case, and as I walked up to the porch, I didn't know if I was there to look at a dog or to rescue one.

Struck a cord with me the way he looked at me. There are a lot of people who will roll their eyes when it comes to a person remarking that, dogs have the power of reasoning or can project anything other than contentment, fear, or anger. But I didn't get any of those when I looked into that dog's eyes as he stood there looking back at me. Through my own interpretation that could have easily been of my own manufacture, I felt connected to him immediately.

He was half grown at around 35 pounds, and outside of being muddy from legs down, he was as handsome a trillion Walker Coonhound as I was. ever seen. He appeared well-fed and looked after the best of the ability of the folks who owned him. A young lady opened the door after I knocked on it in the small mobile home that stood in line with a half a dozen that looked just like it in that trailer park in Western Arkansas. She was very young. She was very polite and holding a little baby. And looking past her through the doorway where she stood, I couldn't help but notice everything inside that 70s model house trailer looked like it was in its place and as neat and tidy as it could be.

It didn't appear to be a lot of furnishings in there, but what I could see in that brief instant of looking past her, it appeared to hold value to the folks that lived there and they took care of it as best they could. I suddenly got the same feeling that she valued this dog in the same way, and maybe my initial impression was biased toward what I'd seen before I really saw the whole picture. Maybe she was just doing the best she could, but what she had. I'd rehearse my bargaining speech for the last 10 minutes before I pulled up at her home. And after talking to her on the phone the night before and that morning,

she seemed highly motivated to sell the dog and asked several times during my questioning of her about his abilities if I was going to buy him that day and if I was bringing the money when I came to look at. What was her motivation? and my excitement bled through in our conversations was, was he sick? Did he bite? Why was she so eager to sell him? I kept asking myself these things all the way over there. Ten minutes after I got there, I knew all I needed to know about this dog and this young mother. She needed the money, and that dog needed a better life, and I had the ability to correct both of them. I gave her more than she asked for, and I watched her. crying as I backed out of the driveway.

Driving away, I was thinking, dang, lady, it's just a dog. Thirty minutes away from home, my wife Alexis called me and said, Brent, can you pick up Bailey from school? Someone at work has reported they've been exposed to this COVID stuff and we're all on lockdown until they can figure out what we're supposed to do next. Yes, just tell the school I'll be a little late. I'm just now getting into Little Rock. Oh, yeah.

I bought that dog. She didn't respond. It was just, I'll let you know what's going on when I know. I love you. And she hung up. So to the school I went, and I picked her up and I explained to Bailey what was going on and that mommy would be fine.

We'd be home in a little bit, and she'd be back at school the next day and that I had a surprise for her. Turns out that lop-ear display of clumsiness was a surprise for us all. That day in March when I picked Bailey up from school would be the last day that she'd attend that year. Dramatic and abnormal changes in ours and everyone's lives would be the new normal as we just adjusted to our new way of life. Spring mornings and evenings were spent outside in the backyard together, Alexis, Bailey, and me and Whalen.

He was what seemed to be an exercise in futility. He knocked over everything he came close to. including tables and Bailey. Cups of coffee and glasses of tea were targets for his big old sloppy tongue that could wreck your favorite drink and startled you when he snuck up behind you to lick your hand when you least expected it. His personality is that of a mischievous child that means no harm by any of the calamities he's causing, and regardless of the scoldings he receives, his memory of being in trouble

is over quicker than you can say bad dog whaling. We couldn't imagine where. we'd be four and a half years later after that spring day when he and I brought Bailey home from school or the impact that just a dog could have on our family. We wanted normalcy and to get back to the routine of how all our lives were the day before we got it. Going through all of that over the course of the next year was made a lot easier by him being there. A fact that I don't ever take for granted or failed to realize what that silly dog is done for all of us. We wanted to go back to school.

We wanted to go back to work. We wanted to gather with our friends. We wanted a lot of things that we couldn't get. But in the form of a barrel-chested, big-footed, howl at every siren within earshot hound dog, we got what we needed. And that's just how that happened. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls

and building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called Prime Cuts. Now, I'm going to tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use. I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen. But when I run this call, I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for. I have a great turkey hunting track record. If you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods, they're not going to win calling contests, right? That's who I listen to.

I can make those sounds on my cut. I also hunt with Phelps's cut, and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts. Check out Prime Cuts at Phelpsgamecalls.com. I think you'll be glad you did, and you'll find out that the Steve Ronella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action.

Caviot Emptor. That ring bells with anyone? I'm sure it does with the majority of you. But for those that it doesn't, it's a Latin phrase that translates to buyer beware. And it was a Bezor stone that set this whole chain of events into motion many moons ago in Mary Old England. What's a Bezor stone? Well, I'm glad you asked. Simply put, it's anything that can be swallowed that gets caught up in a digestive system that can calcify over time and have the appearance.

of a round, smooth riverstone. Now, from what I found out, the ones recovered from animals were believed to hold some type of healing power. Now, I ain't much on eating guts myself, so I can only surmise that there was some chitlin folks pawing around through the gut pile and looking for the goodies

when they came upon the calcified whatever it was and decided it had some medicinal value. The Latin phrase caveat emptor became part of a common law in England, way back yonder in 1603. The phrase comes from a court case of Chandler v. Lopus, in which a goldsmith sold a bierre stone for 100 pounds. But the buyer later sued the seller after realizing the stone wasn't making him feel any better.

In fact, it was making him feel worse, being sick and thinking about all the money he lost, paying what would be 25,000 pounds in today's English currency for a remedy that didn't work. The court ruled that the seller hadn't made any warranties that that stone was healing, which established a term in the legal world. There's lots of cool sound and Latin phrases in our modern lexicon, but maybe none as important as caveat emptor. Whether you're buying a car or a cow, you have the response.

responsibility to yourself to make sure you understand all the components of the deal. But let's say you ain't buying either one of those. You're buying a dog. And not just any dog, a hunting dog. There's lots of options when it comes to hunting dogs. In the bird hunting world, you've got retrievers, pointers, flushers, and a combination of all three, along with a boxcar load of different breeds. The same as true in tree dogs.

Squirrel, coon, bear, bobcat, and lion dogs. There's bay and catch dogs for hogs, rabbit dogs, deer dogs, fox dogs, cow dogs, and even turkey dogs. That's right. I said turkey dogs. For any sport or hobby, there's a dog that's been bred to do the job of helping the hunter get his game. I talk about that partnership a lot because it's an important one in my family's legacy and relationship with nature. It's also symbiotic of the trust humans and dogs having each other, a relationship that we've been nurturing for a long, long, long time. Scientists say around 15,000 years, but who really knows? At one time, the leading

scientists of the day thought the world was flat. Anyway, the best places to look for hunting dogs are through folks you know that are seldom one or have a knowledge of being one for sale. A lot of you may have seen the Bear-Greece Roadshow film, Old Claybow and I did, called Squirrels and Coons in Arkansas. A portion of that film was dedicated to a coon hound that Clay was hunting on trial that belonged to my good friend Michael Roseman. That dog was two years old, and the plan was this. Clay and I were going to be making this film, and before we went into production, Clay's faithful old female plot, Fern, she passed away,

and he was Coon Dogless for the first time and a long time. It was his idea to add the element to the story of the film and started looking for Fern's replacement. We started beating the bushes looking for dogs, and my first call was to Michael. 90% of my coon hunting is done with Michael and has been for several years. He's a good friend and a trusted source for anything, but especially when dealing with coon hounds and coon hunting. His whole livelihood depends on it. Michael and his family manufacturer's sunspot hunting lights, the coon hunting lights that I and everyone else that meat eater wears. Selling a good dog to me is like selling a pocket knife or a shotgun.

Why would you do that? Why would you get rid of something that's good? Never in my life have I ever sold a firearm, a pocket knife, or a dog. But tonight, I'll be sitting on the couch with my phone in my hand watching an online auction and bidding on pocket knives that I'll never sell or may never even poke in my pocket. I might give one away, but my thoughts on selling a case. knife as the same Atticus Finch took about killing the mockingbird. That is a sin.

Alexis looks at the knives I've sequestered all over the house and calls it a sickness. Whatever, I don't buy them to sell in the same applies to dogs. However, if someone else wasn't inclined to do so, I'd have neither dog nor knife. Pretty well know what you're getting when you buy a knife, even if it's dull, you can sharpen it. The same doesn't always apply to dog. So back to the story of Clay and Michael's two-year-old dog, it was a trial basis for a hunting dog. Something that may be new to some of you that you could take a dog out and try it out before you bought him. I remember my mama taking clothes home from Martin's department store and worn when I was just a boy and she wanted to try him on.

The one she liked she'd come back and pay for and the one she didn't, she'd just bring back. It was called taking them out on approval. There was a lot of trust between the two. My mama and the store, but Warren was a small town, and everyone knew everyone, and the thought of not bringing them back or taking advantage of the store, and anyway wasn't even a consideration. It was just how folks did that type of business. Back then, anyway.

It's not uncommon for dog owners that are selling them to take potential buyers hunting to show off the dog's abilities. For the buyer, it's a chance to see the dog in a familiar environment to the dog, to the dog where there are no distractions. During that film project, we hunted three nights in a row. In the first two nights, every time Michael unsnapped the lead off of that hound, he'd treat a coon before a cat could lick its behind. He was on fire in and every tree. There sat a big fat bandito looking back at us.

Michael kept saying, Clay, this dog ain't this good. He was tree and three and four coons to Whalings one. It was a heck of a time for a dog. dog to show out in front of the camera and equally as opportune for one to look bad, like Whalen did. Not that Michael's dog needed any help, but his two-night bandito beatdown of old Whalen was bordering on cruel and unusual punishment. That dog could absolutely do no wrong. Here's where the seller, an event like this, or a time like this, has the advantage over the buyer. He could have said, there's the proof right there, and there would have been no valid

argument made against a dog's abilities. It was the perfect storm to sell a dog, but honesty and integrity stepped in. In cases like this, it usually doesn't. Michael was adamant to Clay. This dog is good, but he ain't this good. But how could he say it? He was doing just what he was advertised to do, cut him loose and watched him Trier Coon time after time. The truth was he was hitting pitches like Bay Bruth at a t-ball game. He was in the zone and every decision or gamble that dog made was the correct one. And even though for his first two nights in February, that dog looked like a machine, the third night proved that he wasn't.

He didn't triacoon every 15 minutes like he had the previous two nights. He only wound up with two or three that night and even let old whalen slip in and get one himself, which was still a well above average outing during that time of year here in Arkansas offer the most seasoned of hounds. Now, for those of you that watch that film, you know that Clay didn't wind up buying that dog. Folks like what they like, and even though that dog would have been a bargain at any price as far as quality goes, it just didn't feel what Claybow was looking for. There's more to hunting dog than just the dog, and that's the way it is to a lot of folks.

Michael's a lot like me when it comes to good dogs. Why would you sell one? but sometimes you have more than you can handle, which is the reason he'd offer that dog to Clay in the first place. Michael had more good dogs than he could hunt, and a good dog sitting in a pen not being hunted, is way up there on the no-no list. We were talking about this just the other day,

and he got to tell him about the old dog traders from the past that he knew growing up, but that helped lay the foundation of how he handles selling a dog on the rare occasion that he does. And by laying the foundation, mean doing the exact opposite of what he saw most of them doing. These old guys were in the trading business and gathered twice a day at the local Coon Hunters Club where he grew up to swap lies, dogs, and lies about dogs.

He said there'd be a gathering six days a week at the clubhouse of a dozen or more men that dealt in Coon House like blackjack dealers pass out cards at the casino. He told me they'd trade a good dog for a bad one just to make a trade. It was a game, and the only rule was there were no rules. They were all on an even playing service, and they knew it. Michael said he couldn't count the times when a trade was made, and the registration papers, some of the ink, barely dry on them, were handed over to the new owner,

and the question that was always asked, do these papers belong to this dog? And the response was always, I give you my word they are. I gave them to that dog this morning. During the evening gathered at the Coon Club, they'd all leave together once it got dark and cut all the hounds loose. A lot of times in one pack and just wait for one to get treated.

They'd all marched to where the dog or dogs were treeed to shine the coon. He said he was with him one night as a kid, and he heard a dog come treed way down in the bottoms, so away they all went. He said after a mile of mud and briers and swamps, they found that hound tree barking at a crawfish that was backed up against a dead log. Both pinches out like he was holding a pistol on each hand and daring anybody to come closer. Now, in dealing with a dog trader, how do you know what kind you've got? Are they like the old men that Michael told me about?

Are they more like Michael, who's not a dog trader by any means? There's a lot of folks just like Michael who sell dogs for the same reason. Believe it or not, there are a bunch of good folks who simply make it living selling good quality hunt dogs. Here's how you weed your way through to see which kind you're dealing with. You ask questions, you do research, you seek out references, you take everything with a grain of salt, and unless you're buying a robot, be prepared to be frustrated, surprised, and maybe even disappointed. Sometimes even the best of intentions and qualities end in failure. It's a gamble every time.

And one other thing, remember the phrase, hmm, that dog ain't never done that before. When and if you hear that one, when you're describing something out of character and off the wall that the dog that you just spent your hard-earned money on did to the person you bought it from, if you hear that one, don't be surprised. if he eventually trees a crawfish.

It's been known to happen. You know, it's easy to see the common denominator in what those old folks Michael told me about what we're doing. If you look past the subpar dogs, falsified registration papers, and the fruitless hunts that they were all sharing within that group, they were spending time together, and join each other's company

and competing on who could come out ahead this week, only to start it all. over the next with the majority of the same dogs. Now I'm sure there were one or two whose motives were less than honorable but those folks usually weed themselves out of a group like that. I saw that with the men who hunted and dealt dogs with my dad. New faces would come and go but there was always a core group of men that were seemingly always there until they weren't. Time is a thief and it steals us one by one from our circles. There's only a few of those men left that hunted with my dad and the old

men along with Michael's old Coon Club from his youth. They're both gone too. What once was a regular twice daily meeting of houndsmen and dog traders is now left to stories and memories that, unless told, they'll all be gone as well. Now dogs are sold more on the internet than any place else. You can watch videos of the dog you're interested in and see live feeds from the woods in real time what the dogs can. capabilities or limitations are and never leave the couch. With DNA and microchipping, it's harder for a crooked dog trader to get over on someone, and that's a good thing.

It's hard to dodge an irate person you just suckered out of all his money with the speed of social media. In the same vein, the person who makes the first post on any deal gets to tell the story, and sometimes the guilty dogs bark first. Such are the times in which we find ourselves. The absence of the gathering of the old dog traders is a sad thing to me, and regardless of the inevitable tick of the clock, I hate to see things like that go away. I realize that with progress comes change, but change doesn't come without a cost. I'm not sure that what we got in trade for those old men gathering at the Coon Club twice a day was a very good deal. Thank y'all so much for listening.

Remember and pray with me for everyone affected by the kids. the hurricanes and give if you can whatever you can to a legitimate organization. Until next week, this is Brent Reeves. Sign it all. Y'all be careful. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls in building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called prime cuts. Now, I'm going to tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use.

I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen. but when I run this call, I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for. I have a great turkey hunting track record. If you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods, they're not going to win calling contests, right? That's who I listen to.

I can make those sounds on my cut. I also hunt with Phelps's cut, and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts. Check out Prime Cuts at Phelpsgamecalls.com. I think you'll be glad you do. did and you'll find out that the Steve Ronella cut is an easy to use cut for beginning callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action.