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.
