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Kentucky Color: Smokey, the Best Covey Dog By Billy Joe Fudge During the early 1960s, Mickey was named The Great Wooded South's Best Covey Dog! Even though he has been gone over fifty years, he still holds the title. Mickey was the son of Smokey. Smokey held the title of The Great Wooded South's Bird Dog Legend! Bird Dog Legend carries the subtitle of "Best All Around Bird Dog" and that is a story for a different day. Mickey, like his Dad, was a Lemon Spotted Pointer. That should not be confused with Yellow Spotted Pointers. Lemons have flesh-colored noses and lighter colored, more rounded eyes, while Yellows have brown noses and eyes. There is also a Black Spotted Pointer as well as a Liver (dark brown) Spotted Pointer. Mickey, like his father, was a winder as opposed to a trailer. A winder holds their head high to sniff smells in the air while trailers primarily sniff the ground to follow a scent trail to find birds. Winders are much faster hunters, and will often circle an area they are about to hunt to get downwind so the smells in the air will come toward their genetically superior noses, rather than away. The better the sense of smell and the better at positioning, the faster a dog will find the birds. Dad's nephew, Keith Jessie, hunted a lot around the Midwest back in the day. He hunted many times with a breeder who raised, hunted, and competed in field trials with his dogs. The breeder was very competitive and successful. Keith told him that his Uncle Dell had a dog that would put his best dogs to shame. The breeder told Keith that if that turned out to be true, he would own the dog! The breeder and Keith arrived one frosty November morning for one of The Great Wooded South's greatest competitive hunts. Keith's friend bought two of his best dogs. They loaded Mickey and those two dogs and off they went. The stage was set, and, to use a Gunsmoke analogy, I just could not wait to see how Mickey, the Marshal, would stack up against those two "professional gunslingers." The day passed. Milk time rolled around. I milked. I fed baby calves, I fed hay. I went to the house, ate supper and even though it was dark-thirty, they were still not home. My mind was aflutter with nervous anticipation. As is the nature of an immature teenager, I was having doubts about Mickey, was hoping he did not get smoked by those thoroughbred canines, and prepared my justification for his coming up short. After all, two against one is just not fair, and I was totally geared up to console Mickey by whispering how I was so proud of him competing against massively stacked odds. Suddenly, I was brought back to reality by slamming doors and muffled voices. I jumped up, turned the porch light on and ran out on the edge of the porch to greet Mickey while straining to gain some indication of the results of that long day of hunting. They were sauntering, so, so slowly up through the yard, when I heard the breeder say, "Ordell, I'll give you $700". Dad replied, "I appreciate it but no." The breeder, "$800!" Dad, "no." The breeder, "$1,000!" Dad said nothing. The breeder, "$1,100." Dad laughingly said "I'm sorry, but Zelma would kill me...". The breeder with no hesitation reached into his hip pocket, ripped out his checkbook, threw it down on the porch and said, "I want the dog"! No one said a word in what seemed like 5 minutes, and I don't think I breathed during that awkward silence, until Dad reached down, picked up the checkbook, handed it back to the breeder, and finally spoke. With an aura of humble satisfaction, Dad said to the breeder, "you have honored me and my family, but I can't sell Mickey. He is part of the family, and I will not sell a family member." After much back-slapping and hand-shaking, Keith, the breeder, and the two exhausted gunslingers departed. Standing on that front porch, I had a connection with Ordell Fudge that sustains me through today. I was always proud of My Dad, but that night I became proud of The Man. Finally, I looked at Dad and asked him what happened. He replied, as he opened our squeaking screen door, "We found nine coveys of birds... and Mickey found eight of'm." This story was posted on 2025-02-18 10:49:02
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More articles from topic Kentucky Color by Billy Joe Fudge:
Kentucky Color: I Challenge You Kentucky Color: Autumn's End Kentucky Color: Leatherwood Watershed Kentucky Color: Welcome Mat Kentucky Color: Sugar Maple Nursery Kentucky Color: The Blooming of the Rose Kentucky Color: Uprooted trees Kentucky Color: Nobody Home and More Preserving quotes from family Kentucky Color: Bird Dogs and Me View even more articles in topic Kentucky Color by Billy Joe Fudge |
 
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