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Thursday, January 12, 2017

Cattle Dogs

Erica here:

One thing that makes my hero Bowie Hart stand out in this collection is his sidekick, Stonewall. Stonewall is a Catahoula Cur, also known as a Catahoula Leopard, and is named after Stonewall Jackson. (Bowie named his pets after famous people, in keeping with the tradition of naming Harts after famous Americans...perhaps because he had given up on the idea of ever having children of his own to name.)


Isn't he a beauty? The Catahoula Leopard is a mixture of Native American dog, Spanish mastiff, and Greyhound. They can be brindled, spotted, or solid in color, and they are considered part of the Herding Group.

Originally bred to herd cattle and pigs in the Louisiana swamps, the Catahoula has webbed feet, is athletic, and fearless. You can go to Youtube and search for Catahoulas loading cattle and see how active and intelligent these dogs are.

Bowie acquired Stonewall when he was a puppy. He rescued him from drowning in the Sabinal River. He rarely goes anywhere without his favorite dog.

Stonewall isn't the only cow dog Bowie has. Clara, named after Clara Barton (because Bowie has a soft spot for Civil War nurses) is Stonewall's mate.


Clara is lighter in both weight and color than Stonewall, and she is more aloof than her male counterpart. She has eyes only for Bowie. In Love at Last, Clara delivers a litter of puppies that are in high demand among the boys of Hartville.

I enjoyed learning about this amazing breed, and I thought they would be fitting animals for Bowie Hart.

Every day this week, I'm giving away a copy of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, the musical!



To win the DVD, leave a comment telling me about one (or more) of the pets you've had in your lifetime. (US Only.)




a Rafflecopter giveaway

18 comments:

  1. My family has always had dogs, cats, and sometimes parakeets, but the ones I always claimed were the cats. I currently have two orange cats - Hobbes and Jethro. Hobbes is a long-haired cat who loves sleeping and eating cat treats. Jethro is a short-haired cat who loves eating and jumping on people unawares so he can sit on them. He's pretty funny.

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    1. LOL I love the personalities of your cats that come shining through...and I LOVE orange cats!

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  2. The blue eyes on them are stunning! I'm not a huge dog fan, but the one our family has loves me best. Why on earth is that?! I like lazy independent cats the best. :) The cat I grew up with would follow my hamster around the house if he got out. She wouldn't eat it or touch it, but would follow it. We always knew where he was because she was next to him!

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    1. That's a very handy trait to have in a cat! Because hamsters will get out! :)

      Catahoulas can have blue eyes, hazel eyes or 'cracked' eyes which are multicolored...they can also be heterochromatic...eyes of different colors. :)

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  3. I have had lots of cats and several dogs. Growing up, I lived in the country, so all my pets were outdoor pets. That's when I had dogs. I like dogs but wouldn't want one in the house. One of the first things Dan and I did after we bought our first house was to get a cat. Probably the most memorable cat we had was named Toby. He was psycho! Seriously! When I was pregnant with Asha everybody told me we'd have to get rid of the cat. I seriously thought we would. But, turns out he had a soft spot for the girls. He took out his aggression on me instead. We had male family members and friends who wouldn't come in the house unless we had him shut up in a room where they wouldn't come in contact with him. It was embarrassing. But, the girls loved him. He lived to the ripe old age of 16.

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    1. I should also say that now we have 2 wonderful cats that love people and are super friendly. Their names are Candy Corn and Emmy.

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    2. Which one of your cats went crazy on boxes?

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    3. That would be Emmy. She still shreds them and has even gotten Candy Corn to shred them as well, although not as much as she does. I wouldn't even want to count the number of boxes she has demolished. I have a pile of boxes downstairs that I purposely keep on hand just so that she has something to shred. If it's not boxes, it will be something else. She shredded a page out of a history book once. Good thing it wasn't a PSEO book!

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  4. I'm a converted cat person, but when I was growing up I had a Dachshund named Alex. That long, plump fellow was my buddy, and I mourned his loss during my high school years deeply.

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    1. Awww, the couple across the street from us had a pair of Dachshunds named Wiener and Schnitzel. :)

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  5. We've had a Dalmatian, a Siberian Husky, and now we have a Boxer. Our Dalmatian was the best cause he would make sure none of us kids would get hurt

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  6. I have had a few pets in my years. Growing up, we lived on a mini farm. We had your usual cats and dogs. Even though we used most of the animals for food, I still considered the rabbits, chickens, geese, ducks, turkeys and pigs as pets. I loved them all!

    Right now, we just have a dog as a pet since we live in a small apartment. Our dog Trixie was abandoned and we took her in. She is now 14 and I know we don't have much time left with her, but we are enjoying every moment we have with her. I am hoping we can find land with a house soon, because we will definitely have more pets. :)

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  7. I have two cats. Callie is a Calico/Persian and Abbie is a Bengal Tabby. Abbie is 2 and thinks that everything is sight is a toy. I also have a rabbit.

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  8. Way too many pets to tell about. We have had 2 favorites out of the almost 20 we have had/have. The first was a beagle mix we rescued from a farm. The mom had 9 puppies and I knew it would be hard to find homes for them all. She was the only one that didn't mob our girls (2 & 3) when we went out behind the barn where the mom was chained up. She was a real sweetheart. I had never housebroken a dog before and figured it would be a messy process. I kept her in the kitchen overnight and when we were gone. She never messed in the house, even once. I think she was just thankful to be rescued. She moved from NY to CO to CA to VA to TN with us. When we traveled, she would curl up on the floor of the car and never move. We lost her when she was 17. We got another rescue to replace her. We fostered a litter of lab mix puppies and their mother for the animal shelter. When they were old enough to adopt out, we kept one. She was the sweetest, 70 pound lap dog you could ever ask for. Luckily we never had to move with her. She bounced all over the car and stuck her nose out the window when we did take her anywhere. She also lived to 17. We lost her two years ago and still miss her terribly. Currently we have three - a terrier mix who is almost 16 and from the last litter we fostered. The other 2 are pit bulls with their own stories, also rescues.

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  9. My horses, Ginger, Tonya and Duchies are always in my childhood memories.
    Ginger was small and quick and just my all around buddy. Though not a Shetland, she was little and was a bay in color.
    Tonya was sweet, very fast and quite beautiful as she was solid black with long mane and tail.
    Duchess was very long, tall and quite mild mannered. She was a beautifully marked paint with chestnut, black and white all swirled through her mane and tail.
    All three hold great memories, some of my favorite are shared with you.
    To Ginger, I got her when I turned 6. She would follow me everywhere. We were always Cowboys laying in ditches, sneaking up on things and she would get me out of tight spots. Once I lowered myself by rope into an abandoned well. I had tied off my rope to my saddle. I couldn't climb back out so I just told her to go and she drug me up and I was able to get out. I brought her into my bedroom one year through the basement, Karen K was not pleased.
    So many stories flood my mind, but horses to this day bring me great joy and lots of pleasure. It literally was on their backs that the great west was won and I often say that I wish my current 4 and I were born in the 1870's of the cowboy era.

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  10. I love dogs and always had one growing up! We enjoy a menagerie of animals around our house now, including dogs, cats, chickens, goats, miniature horses, and steers.

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