Alice Texas and a leopard cur question

[mike rogers]

Hey Mike hows it going. When I read this thread a week or so ago it really made me think. I read all the different responses and it really got me interested. I do not mean to be disrespectful or demean any person who commented on this, it is not my intention at all. But I would like to share my thoughts and what I found.

So I saw the comment about Nimrod being a july/cat cross, and the more I thought about it the more it just did not make sense to me. The one thing most leopard cur guys know is how they are really natural tree dogs. I mean most real leopard curs have a lot of tree power, so much so that they have been snuck into other breeds to add it. Now whats one thing that both July's and Cats don't have on average.... Tree power, I know some will tree but on average they are not good tree dogs. Ones a running hound and ones a stock dog. And before anybody beats me up on that, I know one will from time to time but I am talking in generalizations. So these thoughts made me reach out to a couple of different men that knew Richard McDuffie really well and both hunted with him quite regularly and owned tons of dogs directly from him. They both told me the same exact story, and though these people know each other they live a few thousand miles away from each other and have no idea I asked the other one this question.

You prob know all of this already but they said he did go to see Cowboy Williams but Cowboy didn't have anything for sale but did take him and another Mexican fellow which they were using to translate down south to look at some dogs. That is when the story about him seeing those pups running to catch comes in. I believe this story not only because it comes directly from the horses mouth but also because it just makes the most sense to me. But hey who really knows.

I would love to see what else you find out, if you don't mind sharing.

Hey rednose. I have to find the letter from cowboy williams to Rex Bowers about the dogs Richard got and how he described them.  The one thing about Nimrod, Elrod and the 2 gyps, they produced like dogs. Not different looking pups in a litter, not different acting hunting pups in a litter.  they produced pups that looked like the parents and had natural treeing ability.  Hard to do consistent when you have a crossed up dog. The Kirkpatrick  name is or was put on Nimrods papers as being owner/ breeder of Nimrod. Rex thinks this was a name of some folks that ran July/birdsongs in Ga. When asked why that name and why the sire and dam along with the rest of the pedigree, I think Rex said Richard made that all up, but I think the names on his pedigree are wrote about in cowboy's letter.  There where some  and still may be some folks down in that area with that last name.  I've heard the name Alice from Rex and a couple others now, so thats telling me this could be the place they would have come from. I dont think mexico, because of what Rex told me and he knew McDuffie pretty good. I believe I've read that Cowboy Williams at one time was a pipe fitter or welder that worked down around the Corpus area. This would put him down in the area of Alice.  Makes you think maybe theres some still down there.  There's older breeds then the fox hound out there. The treeing turkey dog was originally used by Indians. They treed turkeys LOL but they looked up....  The leopard cur had it all on it's on.  Kinda like the old yeller cur dog. Not the black mouth cur, but the real yeller curs that worked and guarded the livestock for their owners and then tree squirrels and coons for them too. Cant hardly find that old cur. If you can find one at all. 

good thing about the old leopard curs is that it would run big game like lion and bear, but also would tree coons and squirrels. I bet you train them rascals to retrieve dove too LOL.  i got 5 young dogs in Utah that treed a lion by 10 months old. They been treeing coons with them all summer. Funny Travis told me that they hate a coon, but hate a cat worse. They have left a coon track to go tree a cat. He's gonna run bear on them this fall and turn around and put them on hogs later on. Travis said he's never seen such easy training, easy handling dogs, go getting dogs. I told him welcome to the leopard breed. 

I'm gonna keep on looking for the old leopards. The leopards of today are way to  slick haired , floppy eared and houndy for me. I'm sure they are out there, just gotta keep looking.

[liefalwepon]

I like the sound of those young dogs!


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[TheRednose]

Great info Mike, and its interesting what Rex said. If you don't mind I would definitely like to know what you find. As of now I still think they were some family bred dogs down from south texas/ mexico.

Sounds like those pups of yours are sure doing good. How are your dogs bred if you don't mind me asking you can PM me. Take care and happy hunting.

[mike rogers]

Breeding toward the cur lines down here.  The great grand dam was old hoosier bred and the great sire was Laker bred. Took the dam of this cross (lulu ) and bred to a Gary Sparks jug bred dog (Rub).  Took this gyp (Bubby) and bred her to a Meeks bred male (Ramrod) that had the same dam (lulu) as Bubby, but a different sire. This gave me what I have today. I made a mother/ son cross to get Dot the female I kept and a litter mate to two oof the pups in Utah, The other 3 are out of a cross of my stuff (Sally) with Michael Knights old Jack dog. I mainly did the mother / son cross to double up on Bubby's cur traits since Jack has a lot of the same traits it only made since to do so.  I say meeks bred and jug bred and lakers bred, but you got to look at the pedigree. Now they only have one shot of jug in them (Bubby and Ramrod) in them each, but around 9 shots of Double Tug. If you go further than that then you see a lot of Matt Dillon and hoosier Captain and older bred dogs. Most all which go back to the 60's  and to what the dogs my dad owned. The problem is we've lost a lot of the hair and I'm afraid we're loosing a lot of the old style cur traits'.  Ricky love may be the only one out there getting a lot of hair in his line.  The litters average medium hair to a few every now and then long haired dogs. Melsons Billy dog was a good long haired leopard but he's dead now.  I've tried several crosses now trying to get the longer hair, but end up with short to medium hair. Nothing consistent in the long hair. I know it's  nothing but  a visual thing, but its a big thing to me.  Got to get the consistent long haired litter with all the leopard cur traits.... LOL I'm just hung up on the old suff...

[Reuben]

Mike...you mentioned your dad...I was thinking you might of been him...he was in the full cry magazine quite often years ago if I remember correctly...he was a leopard cur man all the way...I thought his name was Mike also but can't recall...Meeks was another name that was a regular in full cry as well...

[liefalwepon]

Mike, would you mind posting some pics of your dogs that are more cur like, I'm real curious about leopard curs


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[mike rogers]

Hey Reuben my old dad took full cry, but I dont remember him being in it. He ran curs most all his life.  Liefal I'll post you some pics tonight. Heading to work now

mike

[Reuben]

Hey Reuben my old dad took full cry, but I dont remember him being in it. He ran curs most all his life.  Liefal I'll post you some pics tonight. Heading to work now

mike

Thx...his name used to be out there regular enough...always leopard curs...at one time I was considering the leopards and finally went with the mt curs...I was looking for natural hunt, tree and nose...and not too cold of nose...

[mike rogers]

here is a few pics.  The 2 black tan leopards are out of  my Jack and Bubby (mother son cross).  The 2 black brindles are out of a litter mate to Jack (sally) with a blue leopard spotted dog that Michael Knight use to own Mighty Oaks Jack. Nice medium hair leopard.








Here is a pic of my Sally, Jack and Bubby. I lost Bubby a couple months back. She was almost 9 years old.

[mike rogers]

I really liked the mother / son cross. Just wasn't hairy enough and a little too much ear.  I was hoping to get a least a couple thicker haired pups out of the Might oaks Jack / Sally cross, but the all turned out like the 2 black brindles above. Medium to short hair. 

[Reuben]

nice looking dogs Mike...

[liefalwepon]

Great lookin dogs, A buddy of mine has a couple leopard curs he uses on lion that are outstanding, they have short hair and look like Catahoulas, shorter ears and all. He got them off an old man. He tried to breed them to some Fem Plotts but they were both shooting blanks due to their age


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[mike rogers]

thanks guys.

liefalwepon did he get them from texas?

[liefalwepon]

I can't remember the whole story, the old man that had them dogs told it to me on a lion hunt, afterwards my friend who owns the dogs now tries to tell me they aren't Lep curs, I have some pics of the dogs somewhere. Short answer is I can't remember where they came from, originally, he had a female and bred it to a male that I thought he said was from Wyoming. The old mans name is Don Green, very famous lion hunter around the salinas area of central ca. Bummer no one bred those dogs before they got too old, they even had Semen samples taken and the old boys were shooting blanks, that was years ago and they still get hunted


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[liefalwepon]

The one male he has looks like bubby and the other same confirmation and look but different color. I'll try and find those pics or get new ones


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