Chapter two

I soon found that Duke was a catch dog. He would catch a small pig by the cheek with his very front teeth, not the canines and hold him until I took the pig away.  We had two litters of pigs at a time purposely so that if one gilt had too many pigs and the other less, then we could even the litters for each gilt.  One time we had 22 little pigs in the wooden weaning pen.

The pigs learned to become escape artists and would be outside acting as coyote bait when we came to do the chores.  I would point out a pig for Duke and tell him to catch that one and point it out which he did right away.  I would go catch the pigs back legs, tell Duke to let go and  put the pig back in the pen.

This was an almost regular everyday event. I would call “Come here Duke” and right away the pigs were going through the same ordeal again until all the pigs were safely back in the pen and repairs made. But they had little bluish bruises that matched Duke’s front teeth on their cheeks.

One morning I had watched Duke as he left to go Jackrabbit hunting “Up Top” in the sage brush flat. Upon arriving “down bottom, “I saw that the pigs were out again.  They were approaching about 60 lbs. now. Well I knew two things, one being that Duke was nowhere around and two, that it was going to be a real tussle to get all those pigs back in the pen all by myself. So, all of a sudden an idea hit me and I yelled, as usual, “Come Here Duke” and the pigs all ran to get back in the pen all by themselves grunting wulf, wulf, wulf all the way.  What caused me to think to do that was the time before some of the pigs got in the pen before Duke got’em.  Neat trick. Huh? All I had to do then was to repair the fence and wait for the next episode. The pigs seemed to have had heard enough of “Come Here Duke” and getting chewed on!!

One day a huge sow got out through a gate left unlatched.  I began to chase the sow back and forth past the open gate. She would pass the gate with her snout high as if she didn’t see it.  Duke was watching eagerly and I gave him the command, “Git’em Duke” and he went into action. First he would bite her back hocks and get her moving and when she passed the gate, he ran to the front and grabbed her cheek and shoved hard and she got her snout caught in the stock panel, which stopped her on the spot! Then he turned loose and she headed past the gate again, but to no avail because Duke grabbed her neck turning her into the pen and then bit her on the behind and in she went. He made it look so easy.

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Chapter three

We were up top one day and as soon as duke got out of the pickup he got “birdie”, ran out about 40 yards and went on point. We had scaled quail there and he had found some. My estimation of him shot up a few points at that!  His sire was a registered Weimeramer and Butterball, the mother a cur that had some whippet blood. Then he was six months old.

Down bottom we had Gambrel’s Quail and they sometimes overlapped the scaled quail territory.  After the first season of hunting Duke had learned a lot.

One pheasant season, which was four days in duration, two guys with some registered Brittany Spaniels had permission to hunt.  They hunted one field and went on to another and then left because they found no birds.  The first field was a nearly failed milo crop that was only 14 inches high.  We had about six inches of snow that bent the milo heads over almost to the ground making about an eight inch high clearing underneath.  I had been hunting along the drain ditch with no good luck and couldn’t believe there were no birds in the milo. We started across and Duke got birdie and began to plow under the snow and then went on point. It was a rooster. Then he found another and we went to the house with two fine cock pheasants.

He learned to retrieve game and to find my arrows.  I had to watch closely as Duke went out to check on my shot. If the arrow had blood, he would stop and smell of it and then take off on the trail. If it didn’t have blood, then he would hesitate long enough to look at the arrow. Most of the hits were instant kills or the rabbit didn't go far.  When he would hesitate at the arrow, I had to mark it down, then go get it myself. At least I knew where it was.

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Chapter four

 Duke soon became Top Dog at the Ranch. Another family had visions of raising Saint Bernard’s with their registered female.  Try as we might, every litter that was born was half-Dukes and so were any other female dogs puppies at the Ranch.  I saw him climb a tall cyclone fence and made it look easy. He would jump as high as he could and grab a foot hold in the fence, then climb on over to the point where he could jump down. There was one of his Saint Bernard offspring named Muggsy that sort of teamed up with Duke and they made quite a pair of hunters. We had mesquite covered sand dunes with the mesquite being only about thirty inches high and impenetrable for big dogs such as Duke and Muggsy.  Duke would be on point on one side of the bush and Muggsy would circle back and forth on the other side, making sudden three foot charges at the rabbit until it would bolt out of there and Duke would usually catch it. He knew just when to make his move.

My son Don shot a big Canadian Goose that sailed about three hundred yards across the field, landed and began walking to the fence and safety. Duke was still very young at this time and we were wondering about how he was going to do this job of retrieving. The goose had sailed faster then Duke could run, now he was closing fast. He grabbed the goose low on the neck and headed for us across the plowed field with the goose causing him to stumble once in a while, but he made it back seeming to be proud of himself, and of course we were praising him highly.

Bird dogs are not supposed to be rabbit hunters but when there are fifty boys involved in a dogs everyday life, he gets trained to do things he is not supposed to do. Well he was not field trial material anyway, just a good stock dog with other talents.

Duke performed pretty well as a hunter, but lost his soft mouth one night when we went rabbit hunting which was a legal activity at the time. We spotlighted a jackrabbit at about 50 yards and the two boys in the back opened fire with 22 rifles. The bullets threw up a dust cloud that enveloped the rabbit and I called for a cease fire.  At that point the rabbit emerged from the dust headed straight for the truck.  Duke got away from the kid assigned to hold him, bailed out the window and headed for the Jackrabbit! When he grabbed the rabbit, they spun in a circle and the rabbit was finished.  Ever after, Duke bit down with all his might. 

Duke was a very fast runner.  We would see a coyote in a large field (25 acres) and I would let him out of the truck and the chase was on. He would usually catch up with the coyote before it could get out of the field and run into it with his shoulder and stop him. There would be a standoff for a minute, and then Duke would come back to me.  Sometimes the coyote would then chase ol’ Duke back and give me a much closer shot.  This got to the point when we would hear coyotes begin to howl and I would send Duke out in that direction and sometimes he brought  one back for a shot. When the coyotes were in heat, ol’ Duke really acted silly and the females seemed to follow him the best. He would track a wounded coyote until he found it and then return to me with an attitude like “well I found it, now what is next?”

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Chapter five

We worked cattle in the bucking chutes at the rodeo arena. In the narrow alley leading to the chutes, we would have cows standing ready to be next in the chutes. We would stick a short two inch pipe behind the last cow through the alley in front of a vertical pipe to keep the cows from backing up.  As we needed a cow to move forward I would give Duke a signal with my finger held low beside my leg and he would nip the cows leg and they all moved up.

  One time we were moving the cattle from one pasture to another, when one old cow tried to jump a makeshift fence that I had propped up across the road between two open gates.  The gate fell down and the other two swung open and the race to the alfalfa field was on.  I yelled Git em Duke and off he went to the lead cow and grabbed her by the cheek.  Her tail went up in the air and she bellowed bloody murder,  he turned loose, she turned back, he grabbed her leg and the panic spread back  through the whole herd and they headed back though the hole they got out of.   Had there been several cowboys on horses, they couldn’t have matched that feat. The main worry was that the alfalfa had frost on it and every cow would have had to be treated for bloat and we would have lost a bunch of them.

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Chapter Six

A good watchdog is invaluable.  Duke picked up on who was OK to be at the Boys Ranch.  Parents of the boys and other visitors came and went and he would hardly lift his head, much less bark at them.  One day there was no one in our apartment on the end of the dorm. I was with the boys in the dorm when I heard Duke bark treed! Quickly, I ran to see what was wrong and a lady had knocked on the door and no one heard so she went to the kitchen window and peered in. For some reason Duke didn’t think that was right and he let her know that she was not to move until I got there, then I told him it was OK he began to wag his tail and sat in front of the lady for her to pet him, which she did.  But she was visibly shaken. She forgave him.

Another instance happened one night when an older brother of one of the boys came visiting after lights out, climbed in the window and Duke treed him! Duke was inside the dorm that night and standing just outside the door when I got there and we proceeded into the room to take care of the problem and I heard the boy say “it’s OK Pop” and we both slid to a stop, averting any further tussle.

Then another night Duke charged around the house out toward the highway making low growling sounds. Knowing that he was after a human,  I hurriedly pulled on my pants, grabbed a light and went out in time to see Duke coming back sort of prancing and came up to me like he had really done well. Someone had been prowling around and he put them on their way, more likely than not, with a few holes in each leg right under their butt.

A contractor was working at the ranch one time and he threatened Duke with a board and I saw Duke do the very same thing to him. I was going to get rid of Duke for that infraction but all the staff talked me out of it.

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Chapter Seven

Since Duke was a one man dog, he was with me all the time unless he was tethered. I would take a little time and go down to the irrigation drain ditch and either fish for channel catfish or sometimes carp with a flyrod with a small trout hook with a single piece of corn for bait. Each time upon landing a carp, Duke seemed to get more excited, so when I had one hooked and Duke could see the wake the fish made, I told him “ Git’im Duke” and in he went, water only to his chest. The fish came by and he grabbed it only to slide out of his grip with a loud chomping noise.  He tried again and the same thing happened. The third time Duke stood there ready with his teeth bared, waiting and when the fish came by this time, he sunk his teeth in the fish. After that, he would always stand there with his teeth bared until he got his chance, then you could count the fish as landed.

A couple owned a Vitula pup and wanted me to let him hunt with Duke so he could learn to retrieve.  We went duck hunting and as the ducks flew as went came around a bend of the pond, I led one and fired and another teal flew into the pattern and they both fell. At the fetch command, both dogs bailed in but Duke had the lead, picked up one duck, headed for the other and did a little shift with his mouth and picked up the other and came to me. I think the pup did learn what to do alright.  Another time a wounded teal dived as Duke was about to catch up with him and lo and behold ol’ Duke dived after the duck. Well I thought to myself that he had made a gallant effort to get the duck anyway, when he came up with the duck in his mouth.

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Chapter Eight

Duke learned how to deal with mules as we had several at the Ranch. As you may know, mules will not allow a canine in their pasture, especially coyotes.  They will run them down and paw at them and kick at them until the coyote either gets to the fence and safety or worse luck comes to them.  They will try the same thing on dogs. Well Duke would sit down and face incoming trouble and the mules would slow to a walk and approach closer and closer pointing their noses at him blowing their breath at him trying to make him run until they got in range and Duke would snap them on the nose and that ended the problem with the mules.  When I had a cow roped, the other cows would try to get after Duke and he would sit right under my riding mule’s chin and she would allow it then and only then. Any other time she would warn him away with a sound you could barely hear and lay her ears back then he knew to stay away from her. Once while giving a young calf a shot that we had on a rope, I was getting the air out of the hypodermic needle and the mother cow charged me and began to hook at me and missing but snorting slobbers and mucous all over me and out of the corner of my eye saw Duke on the way(looked like the cavalry coming) and grabbed the cow, cheek fashion, the sound that was made when he hit her jaw only a couple feet from my left ear was something like the sound of  a watermelon being dropped. Then he released. We watched as she left with her tail in the air. We finished that job before she had a chance to return but she wanted no more of that treatment.

One day a fellow brought his female goat by to get her bred to our Registered Nubian Buck and she would not get out of the truck. The fellow was complaining about not being able to get the goat out of the back and I told him that Duke would be glad to dot it and assured him that no harm would come to his goat.  He said ‘OK” and I gave Duke the “Load Up” signal with my finger beside my leg which the guy did not see. Up jumped Dike in the pickup and went up to the front in his usual place, by the goat, and sat down. The goat left willingly and the man was astonished that all this took place without Duke having to be directed to do it.

We played a lot and one signal was flipping my index finger from bent to straight. Duke learned to bark once each time that I gave him the signal. I would tell Duke to count to three, which to him did not mean anything, but to an observer, everything. Giving the signal, Duke would bark on cue. If we counted to high Duke would really get into it and bark continually for a while. On rare occasions, I would reveal our “secret” to the observers.

Duke would work horses pretty well until one of them kicked him in the head with a glancing blow, then he decided to not get close to their heels again. Then he would run at them but they paid him no mind. 

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Chapter nine

Ol’ Duke weighed in at 65 lbs and was only lean muscle.  Some ladies were visiting one day and got all bent out of shape when they saw Duke. They considered him to be starving and were talking about animal cruelty when I came along. It turned out to be quite a job to convince them that Duke was a working dog that was in better shape than any overweight lap dog that got no exercise and to look at his food bowl full of dog food fed free choice. I called Duke and positioned him as if he were pointing a bird like they do in dog shows, then they could tell that he was OK and had a shining nose, eyes, and glistening coat with ribs and muscles that showed and eager to please.  

There was a time when a female was in heat and I had a long leash on Duke to keep him from going to visit. We had to go to the house to get something and I carelessly put the leash loop on the trailer ball of the truck.  My wife Martha did not see him, got in the truck and headed down to the kitchen 200 yards away. I came out in time to see Duke running in a long trot hitting the ground every ten of so feet.  That turned out all right that time but could have been disastrous. I sure learned a lesson from that experience! Advice: Never tie and animal to a vehicle or horse trailer that can drive away!!!  It’s also not a good idea to put anything on top of the vehicle while you are getting keys out or lay your tools on the back bumper while hooking up the trailer. You may forget and drive off.  Been there, done that. There is a small hand made axe that I carried in my pack to open the pelvic bone, lying beside some roadway I had carelessly laid on the back bumper. I hope someone found it and put it to good use, or even better, see my name imprinted on the blade and return it someday.  It was of great value to me because my grandson helped me to make it and then make one for him. Their heads were only a quarter inch thick at the widest point.

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Chapter Ten

When Duke was almost fifteen years old, we were down at the second ditch with a 20 year old Staff kid and he saw a muskrat and shot it with his 22 pistol.  Duke went for the retrieve, grabbed the muskrat and turned to bring it to me when he stopped, looked at me strangely and fell over on his side and began to drift downstream about four inches under the water. I baled in, grabbed him a flung him up on the bank.  His eyes were glazing over and the signs of life fading fast. I began to give compressions for a while to no avail, then I lifted his front leg and whacked him a good one over the heart with the heel of my hand. He coughed and began to breathe on his own then his eyes began to clear and he began to shake violently. We carried him to the van and turned the heater up high. That night he slept all covered up with the boys checking on him all night long.

Next morning, he was back to his usual self. He was losing his hearing and eyesight by now.  I would go about my duties at the Ranch and Duke would wake up to find I wasn’t there and he would cast about until he found my trail and then track me down. He had a funny greeting that consisted of slightly jumping his front feet barely off the ground and barking a couple of excited barks. He did it each time that he found me, even if it was the ninth time that day. Martha and I left the house at four AM to cook and she always tried to keep Duke from barking his welcome bark,but usually to no avail. She would be muttering something about stupid dog, no good for anything, but she didn’t really mean it.

We acquired a mixed breed dog that we named Duchess. One of our Staff couples owned a Labrador female and a Golden Retriever male. They were both from hunting pedigreed background and were excellent field trial dogs.

But to the owner, these pups were worthless to him, so he had to talk me in to getting one of the dogs. He wanted to see how it  would turn out. Reluctantly, I agreed to take one on and he gave me pick of the litter. There was one female with longer hair than the rest and she was the litter boss.  She learned very much from Duke.

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Chapter Eleven

There are many young men that came to the Ranch and when the time came for them to leave, most of them left with fond memories of experiences they shared with Ol’ Duke. My youngest son, Don was seven years old the year that we moved to the New Mexico Boys Ranch, grew up and went off to college at Wayland University. He went to Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary to earn his Masters Degree.  The seventeenth year Duke’s life ended and I had to call Don and tell him that his Old Dog Duke had died. Everyone in college including some professors were in mourning.

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