Gift or Check

Circle C
I will do my best to explain myself and answer your question but I will apologize in advance because I don’t know how to do that in one paragraph. But you seem like a good feller and I want to give you as honest and full answer as I can, I. May get tagged as nuts with my answer but. Oh well. It’s me. lol

No I have never sold what I call a good dog, nor have I sold a sorry one, nor have I sold any of these dogs or pups for that matter. Almost did once but, decided against it.... For one thing, a dog I would call a truly good one is special and hard to come by. Decent dogs and pack dogs come along pretty often but those good ones are pretty rare in my opinion. I don’t know, call me nuts or crazy, but to me a sure nuff good dog is and should be all but priceless. By the time he reaches that status around here we have spent many many hours with him in the woods and typically built up a relationship and respect for one another that I think both the dog and I understand and in fact cherish. Yes sir, I have shed a tear more than one time when a good one got killed, but I never owned a dog to good to hunt or use. They all get used. I wouldn’t know how to put a price on that. Would I sell one if I got in a situation where I had to? Yes sir I guess I would, but it would be a sad day for me and have to be a case of " no Choice" or to feed my family.

It’s just me and how I feel about these dogs. You see, I don’t know how many folks know the history of these BMC dogs and how important they were and still are to some people who not only use them but also needed them. The East Texas Big Thicket area, Texas in general, the Spanish and Settlers trying to survive, the hunters, the ranchers working, driving and penning cattle and hogs, the history of grazing, working and gathering cattle and hogs on free range, Farmers and Ranchers all over Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma would not be the same without the BMC dog stamping their mark in that history. The better kind of BMC dogs seem to revolve around a” culture” or a type of individual and for the most part still dose today. BMC stock dogs were a key element of that “culture” which not only existed in history but lives on in the lives of many today. Our forefathers needed and we still need a stock dog who can and will do his job in a style and with characteristics that was and is necessary for the job, and one I believe is the best way. . A lot of effort was and is put into that and still is today in keeping those characteristics and style alive, It was and is no accident or just a happening... If a man hasn’t lived or understands that culture, it will make no sense to him. If a man understands, it needs no description. I do not know many good BMC stock dog breeders today who were not ranchers or cowboys who bred, used and proved their dogs and continued to do it each and every year, day after day. Breeding tree dogs into em to make tree dogs out of em ruined a many of them when it comes to the right kind of stock dogs. That’s just a fact.

We don’t even charge a board bill to our good friends to breed a good gyp to a dog or to breed a good gyp for someone if we respect them, their pedigrees and their program. Yes, I may or may not want a pup from the breeding it depends on several things and the timing. Just proud to have the opportunity to breed a litter out of a proven good gyp and dog who ever owns it. As I said, I never have sold dogs or pups. I would rather give them to someone who needs em that I think is worthy, one who will do them right or use em or cull em. We have given dogs and pups away and culled lots of em over the years. We have given some away as pups that made good dogs and I have given some dogs away that we started or hunted that were pretty dang nice dogs, some got better and eventually turned into what I would call a good dogs. But most of those typically may not be quite what we wanted to use breeding for one reason or another or we just didn’t need them in the breeding program or need them to use at that time. We enjoy giving ranchers and cowboys dogs that need them, those typically are men who live, respect and understand the culture I speak of. At some point, we don’t end up keeping dogs that we wont breed. I just never wanted to keep a whole side of a hill full of dogs.
Now I have sold some good horses, I always looked at them different than I did my dogs. I always considered that a hobby and a business. My dogs have always been something else to me. To me, Giving a man or boy the right kind of BMC dog to me is like an old man passing his pocket knife down to a grandson or his homestead to his family or his pocket watch to his son or befriending a young man, giving of his time and wisdom to a young man trying to learn or helping a friend in need. I don’t know how to price that.
So we hunt 2 or 3 times a week, work hard at keeping them as straight and solid as the day we found em 40 years ago, improving them within with like kind through selection, proving them with plenty of exposure and honest unemotional assessments, culling and breeding the best we can and working to pass them on to those that understand the culture and history or are trying to understand it. All I can say is, I didn’t pay for them and thank God for the men that came before me with the need, vision and insight to breed these dogs, keep em straight and right, and to understand and to teach me so that I understood what these dogs were, are and need to be. They get any credit deserved or earned.