Every ranch has one of those dogs. A dog that is pretty much worthless as far as a cow-dogs go and sees his/her life purpose as that of always being in the way! On our ranch that dog was Duke. He was stepped on by a horse when he was a year old which meant he'd never be fast enough to help you bring cows through a gate but just fast enough to get to a gate, stand in the middle and prevent you from taking the cows through the gate. . When my Dad was working cows, he'd always try to leave Duke at home. Duke was so dedicated, to either my Dad, or to "helping" him that he would follow my Dad no matter how long it took his four-mile-an-hour limp/jog to get there. For example, one day, Dad left Duke at home and went to work cows in the Big Hole, an area about 40 miles from our house over two mountain passes. We have another summer pasture section on-the-way that is only 15 miles and sometimes we work cows there too. Having been to both places in the past, Duke started for the first one. He went in the long drive-way and found no one. He was coming back out the drive-way and starting to head for the one that was another 25 miles up the road, when a guy that was hauling our cows that day saw him and picked him up. True dedication.
Without a doubt, the most memorable Duke story was the day he went antelope hunting (uninvited). Opening day of antelope season typically brings many a hunter to my family ranch. Some are friends and many are employees of my grandparents' other business. As a pre-teen, unable to hunt, but knowing the ranch well, I was often allowed to go out with these hunters and help them harvest one of the many antelope that called our alfalfa fields home. From the cut they took out of our crop you'd think we left a couple flocks of sheep on the fields year-round and we were only too glad to get rid of a few.
Anyways, about mid-morning opening day of antelope season my Dad and I jumped in a truck with a lady and her husband to find them an antelope. She had the tag. We hadn't gone far when we noticed a lone buck at the base of a hill only a mile from our house. We drove a little further on a county road, before getting out of the truck, climbing under the fence and setting her up for a shot. It was a moderate distance but not over 300 yards. Her first shot hit, but it was a bad hit, debilitating the buck by hitting a back leg. He simply laid down and she shot again. That shot missed and so did her third (from what we could tell). Since he was down, we decided to move closer for a better shot and it was then we noticed that Duke had followed us. At 150 yards, he realized what the antelope was and raced across the prairie toward his prey. Despite our calls and threats, Duke continued to lope toward the antelope with purpose.
Perhaps Duke was fulfilling his dream from puppy-hood of chasing down an antelope, an animal that is too fast for most dogs and especially for Duke. Whatever the reason, once Duke got close to the buck we had a hard time convincing our hunter to shoot. The conversation went something like, "I can't shoot, I'm afraid I'll hit your dog."
"Don't worry about the dog. He's worthless and I've considered shooting him many times myself because he's always in the way."
"I would feel horrible."
Duke reached the antelope and proceeded to bite the buck in the butt. The antelope couldn't get away, but he had enough mobility to hook Duke with his horns
. The scene of Duke running to bite the buck and the buck trying to hook Duke repeated itself as we walked closer. Finally we were close enough to throw a few rocks at Duke. Duke understood the rock throwing as the universal cowboy-cowdog signal for "get the heck out of the way" all too well and reluctantly left his chance to be a victorious hunter. The kill shot was easy from there and we were back to the house in a matter of minutes.
Duke lived to a ripe old age and continued to be in-the-way until he died.
