The first dog that I can remember was a beagle by the name of Sam. He was probably the best rabbit dog we ever had , but that is all he would do. He finally hung himself in the barn when he was getting old.

      After that there was a series of dogs came and went none of them were very outstanding and soon passed from the scene. One day my older brother brought home a little beagle bitch. She was small and very timid , she was the last thing that one would think off as hunting dog. and the few times that we tried hunting with her she showed no particular expertise as a rabbit dog. We always kept her tied in the barn when not hunting. So we were surprised when we discovered that she was going to have a litter of pups. The pups were born on my twentieth birthday. Six of them three males and three females. We soon eliminated the females. and raised the males . It was soon apparent that the father must have been the neighbor police dog. A dog that I had caught chasing the cows all over the pasture as hard as he could go. I had peppered him with bird shot to get him to stop. At this point I cannot remember what became of the mother but the pups grew fast and were very playful getting into all kinds of trouble, like pulling the clothes off the clothes line. So when a neighbor showed interest in them he was given one. Left with two we still had a problem one of them was a pretty dog with a white chest and nice markings the other was a more drab looking dog with brown chest and underbelly and darker over the back. I liked the pretty one and my dad favored the drab one. He was going to eliminate one so he made the decision. I lost. That first fall when hunting season arrived and the pup was about ten months old. We took him out with us to see what he would do. At the first shot of the gun he put his tail between his legs and headed for the house as fast as he could run. We went and brought him out again only to have him repeat the performance as soon as a gun was discharged. We gave up on him for that morning. In the afternoon I put a leash on him and took the twenty-two and headed for the woods to find a squirrel. I soon spotted one in a small oak he was headed down the tree . My shot was not the most accurate as I hit him in the front foot but it was enough to dislodge him and he came tumbling down. At the sound of the shot the dog couldn't go home because of the leash so he came running toward me and the squirrel was falling they came together with the squirrel on top of the dogs head. In the confusion that followed the squirrel got a good grip of the dogs nose making the pup very angry. that squirrel didn't last long. From that moment on we had one of the best squirrel dogs that you would want to take into the woods. He had also lost his shyness of a gunshot. My dad gave him the name of Jack. It wasn't long before he was tracking rabbits too. He didn't bark to much and wasn't what you would call a good beagle but he got the job done. It was soon apparent that he would hunt anything that you went after whether it be squirrel rabbit or pheasant. All that was necessary was to let him know what you were after and he was with you all the way. His tactic for hunting differed from one animal to the next. With pheasants his head would be upright and if one was near he would jump on the grass until the pheasant flushed. In the early nineteen forties. we had a large increase in the number of fox in our area. A fox hunter from Muskegon would bring his fox hounds out . Jack always went along he soon learned that the game of the day was fox so if he jumped one the chase was on jack would give a good account of himself although after a couple of miles he would give up the trail. One time the fox hunter came out to go hunting. I was busy for about an hour and couldn't start out with him. He headed out and of course Jack went with him. When I came later I could hear Jack barking as though he had something treed on the far side of the woods. I hurried over and came on the scene of the fox hunter swinging something around on the end of his dog chain. His actions would of made an Olympic hammer thrower proud. Every time the animal came around Jack would make a dive for it. The fox hunter yelled at me to tie up the dog or he would be a dead dog. It was then that I discovered that the animal that he was swinging was a badger and he was a big one too. What had happened, there was a hole where gravel had been mined and the badger had his den in the bank. Jack had got into the pit and positioned himself between the badger and his den. In the face-off the foxhunter had slipped up behind the badger and had lassoed him with his dog chain, it was at this time that I arrived. We killed the badger and skinned him out as the foxhunter wanted to have him mounted. Later he said the taxidermist had to put the largest skull of a black bear in to mount the head. It was the largest badger I have ever seen I left for the Army soon after so I never did see the finished mount. So you see Jack had came from a timid pup to a no nonsense hunting dog. The next four years I spent in the Army but they told me that Jack sharpened his skills as an all around hunting dog. The first summer that I was home after my discharge from the Army we did not have a tractor so much of the work was done either with horses or by hand. Jack was always with us when we went to the field. He would soon be barking treed of some animal. We would go to find him with a woodchuck up a tree. A long pole usually dislodged the chuck so that he fell out of the tree. They seldom got to the ground as they were caught in the air by Jack and you would hear the woodchucks ribs snapping. That first summer we counted twenty six woodchucks that were eliminated to Jacks prowess.

      After we bought our first tractor with narrow front wheels Jacks favorite spot to travel to and from the fields was on the right side of the tractor along side of the front wheels. It was impossible to get away from the barn without Jack in his favorite spot. As the years passed and he began to lose his hearing and he became slower of foot we had to watch him at all times so as not to hit him with a tractor wheel. But he insisted that was his place and that is where he was going to be. No amount of coaxing would get him away from there. Finally one time when we were harvesting ear corn my dad had pulled the wagon into the corn crib and shoveled the load off . He started the tractor but Jack did not hear the motor start as he had lost his hearing completely . he was laying directly in front of the wheels of the tractor where my dad could not see him. as the tractor moved forward it rolled right over him He only lived a couple of hours after that. My dad was sick but maybe it was a easy solution to a problem that would have to be dealt with sometime. I never have been a real dog person but we have had several dogs since then but none of them equaled the all around ability and devotion that Jack displayed.