# Earl Tudor



## Saint Francis (Jun 2, 2010)

Why would Earl Tudor not consider himself a breeder?


----------



## Saint Francis (Jun 2, 2010)

Maybe he didn't care for the label of breeder, like it limited him in some way?


----------



## Saint Francis (Jun 2, 2010)

You may be right Christian, but there were alot of dogs with his name on them


----------



## k8nkane (Jul 9, 2010)

lol. If I had anything to add, I would help you with this conversation to yourself.


----------



## Saint Francis (Jun 2, 2010)

k8nkane said:


> lol. If I had anything to add, I would help you with this conversation to yourself.


Thanks Caitlin The silence was just too deafening (dead thread alert!)


----------



## Sadie (Jun 18, 2008)

According to Floyd Tudor was more of a conditioner than he was a breeder


----------



## Sadie (Jun 18, 2008)

Interview with legendary dogman Floyd Boudreaux:

How many of us can say that his daddy had bulldogs for more than 40 years? How many of us can say without exaggeration that he played an important roll in developing a line of dogs that have stood the test of time and become the backbone of some of the best performing bloodlines around these days. One of the very few that can answer these questions with a positive “Yes” is Floyd Boudreaux from Louisiana. We sat down and talked to Mr. Boudreaux about his most famous dogs. Like the BLIND BILLY dog, BOZE, ELI, OX and many more. For the first time Mr. Boudreaux tells about his friendship and relations with dogmen like Leo Kinard, George Saddler, Joe Corvino, Maurice Carver and others. 

Floyd Boudreaux is without any doubt a very knowledgeable dogman and has bred, raised and handled some of the best ever to cross a pit. Stay with us and read about the living legend from Louisiana, Mr. Floyd Boudreaux. 

What was your first dog and when was the first time for you to leave Louisiana with these dogs to fight into something other than local competition? I remember my first dog was a brindle female, her name was FLOSSIE. I started at a very young age but the first time for me to fight a dog in the fast –lane must have been when I took STAGGER LEE to San Antonio to one of Maurice Carver’s shows. I went into a guy named Steven and he had a dog called ROHO. We had that dog beat but he kept pushing his dog in the corner with his knees each time when it was his time to scratch. Maurice was the referee and I said: “Gentleman be sure not to push that dog anymore, you have pushed him for the last time.” If I wouldn’t have said anything that time, who knows what might have happened! 

How well did you know Carver? Pretty good. I saw a lot of his shows and gave him some dogs, but I never really did much business with him. He was a nice looking man and could tell a story like no other. I remember Maurice and Mr. Jolley, from south Texas, came here one time in 1955 and they were driving a red Thunderbird convertible. You had to push the car to start it and they had a black dog named BUTCH with them. He jumped out of the car and was running to highway and we had to catch him. Maurice told me he started with the dogs in 1946, one year after I fought my first dog. He and his friend Jolley went to Louisiana to fight that WINO dog that was owned by Jolley. After the fight Jolley sold the dog over here and Maurice was so angry with him that he refused to drive back to Texas with Jolley in the same car. Maurice knew a lot of good dog people and he would watch the hot young dogs in somebody’s backyard and if you had something he liked he would try and talk you out of it and then start selling them. I saw him fight a few good ones but he never did fight many dogs and a lot of times he would come in overweight. One time he was matched into Mayfield and come in overweight. But Mayfield said he would fight anyway. Carver refused and then sold his dog. That’s how he was. Maurice was always trying to make money with the dogs. How else could he survive? He wasn’t going to work for a living. 

Do you think he misrepresented those papers to keep that a secret? I’m sure he did to some degree. But in those days it was pretty much common knowledge that he did and everybody that needed to know, knew about it. I did. He bred to my BLIND BILLY dog and that’s how he got IRONHEAD, BOOMERANG and others. They came out of my stuff. He always told us that BOOMERANG was out of IRONHEAD. You see Maurice would exaggerate a lot all the time, and he was smart enough to tell you a lie. Don’t get me wrong, Maurice was a nice guy, but also a liar. He told me one time that he worked for the Mexican Government, the Border Patrol, and even told my wife he worked for the Foreign Legion. But one thing is for sure, he was a hell of a ladies man and could convince you that black was blue. He sure was a good salesman. 

What was the best dog you ever owned? They ask me that all the time. It’s tough to answer, but I think I’m partial to my BOZE dog. I probably had a few that were as good, but I always liked him a lot. He won 27 rolls for me and he was always the smaller dog, but they couldn’t beat him. He also won one contracted fight. One time Jerry Clemons and Douglas Nirider brought a dog that was 19lbs bigger than BOZE and that big dog would bite through car tires. When we put them down it was a joke. BOZE was a fast, hard mouth dog. He would fight high in the shoulder and destroy a dog quick. During the day time he would usually sleep with the puppies around the house and I always thought he was a little shy, just like BLIND BILLY. One time he won a fight in just 6 minutes, that was in New Orleans. We had 10 matches that day and he beat a dog of Jerome Hernandez. He just wrecked the dog. It was no contest. BOZE was out of SCRUB and CANDY. After that fight, they claimed that their dog wasn’t conditioned. I don’t know, but mine was ready to fight. I matched against Jerome 3 times and won twice. Jerome was a dogman and hard to beat. 

What was the last dog you matched? I guess that was the CACTUS dog from Grady Cummings about 15 years ago. This dog quit in 28 minutes. He had quit before, but I didn’t know that at the time and nobody told me about this until we were about to wash the dogs for the fight. Atlas Brewer came up to me and said, “Do you want to know something about that dog?” I said, “I appreciate that, but it is a little late.” We had our money up and I wasn’t trying to be rude, but if a man wants to help me then help me on the get go. I would never let a man start conditioning a dog if I knew the dog was a cur, but it happened. 

Mr. Boudreaux, I want you to tell me the full story on the old ELI dog. How he was bred, his parents, his pups and so on. I will tell you the true story as it is and I have witnesses that can tell you this is the truth. If this is not right, I’m the brother of Martin Luther King. Today at least 80% of the dogs that are fighting come from ELI. It makes me mad that they got the story on him and his sons BULLYSON and ELI JR., turned around. Not for myself, I know better. I lived it, but the future generation that is coming behind us doesn’t know anything about the truth and have to rely on what they are reading. That’s why I’m so glad I can do this interview in the TIMES. It takes a small man to lie and change a story. I’m telling the truth about how them dogs are bred just like I was told before. ELI was a pretty good individual and after his match against Jack Smith in Cleveland I bought him home. We doctored him up and then a sheriff from Mississippi tried to buy him, but I wouldn’t sell him. Then the next day Raymond Holt of Texas and his wife Sharon came by to buy him, but I gave ELI to my friend Jr. Bush, from Alabama. He loaned ELI to John Cotton from Chattanooga, TN. They were friends at the time and that’s where somebody stole ELI. I gave ELI to Jr. because he is a real high-class dogman, an example for a lot of other so called dogmen. When ELI got stolen, Cotton gave Jr. $1000 and told him to go and buy another dog, and said that if there was another dog he liked that cost more he would make up the difference. There is a lot of stories about what happened after this, when ELI got stolen from Chattanooga. I think he went from Chattanooga to Memphis and from there on, I just don’t know for sure, but I feel that some of that bunch in Memphis had something to do with it. I just don’t know what happened with ELI but I feel very strong about this, and I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t believe it myself. I truly believe that ELI was also the sire of that GR. CH. ZEBO dog. 

They were too much alike not to be true. At one time I gave a nice red puppy to Jerry Clemmons. He is a friend of mine and I still think a lot of the man. He took the pup, kept him for 6 weeks and sold the pup. He came here and I gave him another pup that I had here in the blacksmith shop. I called that pup SPOOK. She was out of a litter that killed each other when they were still very young. He kept her for about 2 months at the most when she came in season for the first time. He brought her back and I bred her to ELI. They had 4 pups, 3 black and 1 brindle. Two males and two females. 

One of the black males was BULLYSON, the other was ELI JR. The brindle was BRENDY. She bit the hardest of them all and she was the biggest. She could break a dog down in less than 3 minutes. BRENDY was awesome, a bad Bulldog. As bad as a man has ever seen. She beat a dog one time like she was having breakfast. I’ve never seen anything like her again. The other female in the litter out of ELI and SPOOK was a black named LADY. She was my kind of dog and I think the best in the litter. Both BULLYSON and his brother ELI JR. were exceptional Bulldogs. They were the cream of the crop, top-notch Bulldogs and went into some tough competition to make history. BULLYSON was a good dog, but he was not as good as ELI JR. ELI JR. was a much better producer. He was just not bred to good selected bitches, but he was definitely a better dog than BULLYSON. He didn’t care if he was getting bit because he was going to bite you. Red Walling was the owner of BULLYSON when he was matched into his son BENNY BOB. Maurice conditioned him, but he was not fit to fight. This is what happened. Maurice had BULLYSON and bred him to a bitch named BETH at his place. A few weeks after that BULLYSON got bit by a rattlesnake and his head was as big as a Texas hat. Also there was this big old dog at Maurice’s place that got off the chain and BULLYSON who was in a kennel was fighting with this dog through the fence and messed up his teeth and gums. Just before the fight with BENNY BOB we checked his blood count and it was down to 33. BENNY BOB was a brindle dog and BULLYSON a black. The match was at 52lbs, but BULLYSON was only a 48 or 49 pound dog. The fight was reported in Pete Sparks’ magazine and also in the book that Mayfield had out at the time, but it was not until Mayfield wrote that little book called ‘********’ that he came out with all that nonsense about a black dog against a white dog. I think he was confused by another match between Danny Burton, who had a black 54lb dog, and Raymond Holt, who had a white dog called LIGHTNING IV, owned by a black man named Chris. ELI JR. was sold to Douglas Nirider when he was 17 months old for $400. He won his match on a broken leg in Oklahoma. If BULLYSON would have been in shape against BENNY BOB I think that would have been a hell of a fight. One time I had a dog called NAPOLEON and I rolled him with BULLYSON when he was at my place. BULLYSON was an 18lb bigger dog, but NAPOLEON held his own for a little while. It didn’t go very long because BULLYSON was coming on hard. Later I won with NAPOLEON in the same show when BULLYSON won over that SIR dog that was handled by Bert Clouse.


----------



## Sadie (Jun 18, 2008)

I remember one incident with BULLYSON when he was at my place. Jerry Clemons brought the dog to me to be tested and one day while I was cleaning up around his chain he tried to bite me. Before he could put his mouth on me I hit him hard with a shovel and knocked him out. After this happened he never, at my place, tried to bite anyone again. If a dog is a biting dog I don’t like them and if they try to bite me or my family, it’s a dead dog. Jerry had BULLYSON when he was a young dog and his dogs were always sort of hyper. It’s easy to male them that way. 

On the subject of schooling. How do you go about this? I don’t think you can change a dog a whole lot after he is born. All you can do is sharpen his ability a little bit but you can’t make him game. Now people say that it is a risk to breed a young untested bitch. Well I bred SPOOK her first time in heat. She was never tried before, but she produced some exceptional dogs. I think it is like this. They have the genetic ability to produce good or they don’t know matter how they are themselves. There is just one Ace in every hundred or so and the rest are just mediocre dogs, that’s something you always have to keep in mind. What happens now is that all these fast-lane dogs, with hard mouths are doing away with all these old game dogs, going right through them. But I still prefer gameness more than anything else. Anybody can breed dogs that will bite and are rough, but it is more difficult to breed a dog that will stay. With a game dog you have a shot at the money and there is no monopoly. There is nobody that has corned the market on these dogs. Dogs are just like humans. I’ll explain that to you; you can have two brothers, one a gentleman and the other one that’s not even worth the powder to blow him up and still they both came from the same father and mother. So, with these dogs, it is the same. You are going to have dogs with each his own character and what we try to do is to get the good genes together. We would all like our sons to be President, but the chances are few. If a dog doesn’t perform at an early age there is nothing you can do about that. My dogs are basically late starters and as a rule of thump your late starters make you a better dog. I want a young dog to show a pretty strong interest in what we are doing before I start them out. This is how I schooled my dogs; they must be ready to understand what is going on and have a desire to do it. When they are willing I start to school them a few times and when I think he is ready I put everything on him. I’m serious. I put a big dog on a little one and most people will tell you I put 2 or 3 dogs on one if I want to test him. I have to see a dog to satisfy me, not please somebody else. I have used dogs that I rolled for only 8 or 9 minutes but if they give me a reason to take a longer look, I certainly will. No one knows if a dog will make one more scratch enough. You pick him up to your satisfaction and he goes like a bullet and stands the line the next shot. Who is smart enough to say, he is gambling. That’s why they call it gambling. One bit of advice to young men that start out in these dogs would have to be ‘learn to have patience’. Let your puppies grow up before you make a decision about them. You can’t expect a child to do a man’s job. You have to give them a shot. 

If I was to use a dog for serious money I would wait until he is 2 or 2 ½ years old at least. I would certainly not use him sooner than that. The oldest dog I used was 9 years old. But you can use them up to 6 years old easy. They can’t win them all, but they can take so much more when they are 3 years old. To me that’s being at peak. I will give an example; my daddy had a dog called NAN. He matched him into Gaboon Trahan and he was using a dog named COUNTRY BOY which was also named PETER. COUNTRY BOY was just a young dog. In 33 minutes we beat him and he jumped the pit. I will never forget this because my dog had a broken tail. He let him get some age on him and then started to school him. When this dog matured , “Hell you couldn’t stop him anymore.” So Gaboon got his dog back again and by this time COUNTRY BOY had won several fights. One of his wins was over a good winning son of DIBO called TOPPER. He beat him in a real short time. TOPPER was owned by Bob O’Neal at that time. Eventually, COUNTRY BOY was matched into a dog called BOBTAIL and that fight went something like 2 hours. BOBTAIL broke his jaw and COUNTRY BOY probably would have won, but Gaboon offered a draw because he knew that the man who owned BOBTAIL didn’t have a lot of money and a wife and some kids. He knew that if he would take the money it would come from the farm. His reason to fight these dogs was to demonstrate that he had a better dog and he had done that already, so he offered to call it a draw. The moral of this story is that we really gave COUNTRY BOY a second chance after he had quit against NAN. Most other men would have shot him, but age really helped this dog and that’s the hardest thing to explain to a young man who is coming into the game. I’m not making excuses for a dog that quits. I’m not like Mr. Mayfield, who is a fine man and a good dogman, but he will sell you a pup for $2,000 or $3,000 and tell you to wait 4 or 5 years. A lot of dogs are retired at that age, good or bad. Maybe Mayfield hopes you will wait until the dog dies of other causes in the meantime, or that the guy who owns him gets rid of him before that and won’t ask for his money back. No, I don’t make excuses, but in turn, I had some of the best that were late starters. 


When Leo Kinard started to keep dogs in Mississippi was he the first one to introduce bulldogs over there? Not really, George saddler was fighting them before Leo in Mississippi. Both Leo and George put on some big shows, but Leo’s were always a little bit better. He had a real nice place, a nice building, and he kept more bulldogs than anybody else in those days. He had about 250 dogs. Leo had a friend named Frank James and this Frank was an interesting person, he was namely brother of the notorious Jesse James. Both Frank and Jesse were well-known outlaws. Jesse was killed. Frank got amnesty and later moved to Meridian, Ms. And worked in a restaurant. Leo told me that Frank Fitzwater was a son of that “Jesse James.” 

Fitzwater was a good dogman, he was a sharp man. Anyway, Leo was a special man and very good, honest dogman. His wife Sarah was sick, she had cancer and Leo took her to the best doctors in the country. They went to New York and he did anything for her, he loved her dearly. He told me he spent more than $125,000 on her without much results. When she died it broke him and then later the State bought some of his properties but they never paid him. He died broke. We sent him some money every month. I was working and he was not. The last time I saw the man he walked us to the car and shook my hand. He didn’t say much, but he was crying and so was I. He died of a heart attack. I believe he was 67 years old when he died in 1976. He left me some dogs, doghouses, some chains and etc… Leo loved to talk about dogs, from the time we got up till late at night. He was a bootlegger and always had all kinds of whiskey, champagne, cigarettes of all brands and if you were a guest, it was yours. Many times we were there and talked dogs with Jim Taylor and many others. Leo lived his life to the fullest. He had three different cars, two Cadillacs, and a truck. He would deliver the whiskey with the cars, sometimes I would go with him and often we would come home, change cars and go off again. He never had any trouble with the law until the National Guard came down on him. Leo was not a breeder as such. He bred some, but from all the good dogs he had I can’t remember one that produced something equally as good as themselves. I remember he had some pure Colby dogs that were game until the third generation, then they started to quit in the pit, but he still bred several and they were game again. Leo had full time help and that makes a difference of course, his set-up was beautiful. All fenced in and a big gate that was closed around the six bedroom house. Guard dogs were all around running loose. Leo was a great dogman. I knew him when he had $65,000 in his pocket and later when he had less than $1 to spend. It didn’t make any difference to me because he was my friend and that never changed.


----------



## Sadie (Jun 18, 2008)

From all the dogmen that you knew in those days, who was the toughest? Who was the best dogman in your time? The man I admired most was George Saddler. He too, like Leo, was from Mississippi. George taught me a great deal about conditioning. He never had many friends because he was a businessman. He had a restaurant and he never needed friends, he just went on with his business, but I thought I was his friend. One of the first things he told me was to take care of your dog and he'll do right for you. Don't come half drunk with some ladies to have fun and expect to do good. Stay with your dog and give him all the attention he needs. If you come, come to win. There is plenty of time to party. 
Did Saddler bring his dogs in fine or dried out pretty good? Yes, he brought them in keen, always sharp and prepared for the duration.

Did he fight a basically hard biting dog, a punisher? No. I remember him winning more on the distance than on the bad dogs. My REBEL dog was a rough dog and George ran him half an hour just before he fought him because he was overweight. He fought him on Tuesday night, came in overweight and took him down the road around the river until he made weight, and still won the fight in a short time. He pretty much picked his dogs and he, just like Leo, had some help to walk the dogs. He would send somebody out to walk his dog and tell them not to come back until late at night. I learned from him that hand walking a dog will help him to stand on his feet during a long hard contest. I'm sure you can do it many other ways, but that's how I learned it. George was a gambler. If he had seen your dog before, and you were matched into him, you were automatically at a loss. He would buy a good dog and gamble hard. He had a good eye for a bulldog. His son-in-law Curley Hayes also helped George a lot and he was a very competitive dogman himself.

*Did you know Joe Corvino and Earl Tudor? Oh yes.* Joe was a good man and a friend of mine. He was a short stocky man and chewed tobacco. He was a gentleman and really liked the dogs. He would come here mostly on Thursdays, a few days before the fights and he would stay here, talking dogs. He was like me, he thought that if you had gameness in your dog you had a shot, no matter what. Joe was always dressed up in a three piece suit plus watch chain. There were others that had suits on like Bob Wallace, Mr. Marshall, Leo Kinard sometimes, Cecil Collins and of course, George Saddler. Howard Heinzl always wore cowboy boots and a Texas hat. Another gentleman was Bob Hemphill, the man who had all those red nose dogs. Hemphill lived here quite a while and worked at the fire station. That was in 1927. He left from here and took two dogs with him. One was HOBO JOE, but I can't remember the other one. *Earl Tudor was more a conditioner than a breeder. He had some very good dogs like DIBO, JEFF, SPIKE, WHITE ROCK, and a dog named CRACKER. In his younger days, Earl fought a lot of dogs all the time, always looking for something to match. Back in those days, he bought a lot of dogs from other people, but later, when I knew him, he bred his own. When he was younger he had those Komosinski type dogs, not the terrier type, but more like the old Donovan type. I really don't know where he got them, but they looked a lot like the dogs that Cockney Charlie Lloyd had and later were owned by men like komosinski and Donovan. I was lucky to get BLIND BILLY and RASCAL. I put them together with good results. *

Gaboon Trahan's RASCAL? Yes, you see Trahan never owned that dog. It should be Boudreaux's RASCAL, like he is registered. I still have the papers here, but I don't care if the rest of the world thinks of him as Trahan's RASCAL. Anyway, I owned that dog and I crossed him with BLIND BILLY. Now RASCAL wouldn't start when he was a young dog and, as a matter of fact, he was stolen one time but because he wouldn't fight, they turned him loose. I saw him in 1957 when I got out of the service and he fought against a big black dog that was out of Cannon's BLACK SHINE and those dogs. At the time we were all arrested, but in those days it was just a misdemeanor, there was nothing against bulldogs really. RASCAL was owned by S.P. and I traded one of RASCAL's sons for him, a young dog called RASCAL JR. This pup only had one testicle, but S.P. took the pup and later sold him. The man that traded RASCAL to me is still alive. RASCAL produced that COUNTRY BOY dog, MARCIANO, and several other good females. As a match dog I think RASCAL was probably overrated. He was a game dog, red and white in color. He also was a bad ear dog just like COUNTRY BOY.

Is your good stock mostly Corvino? Yes. What I did&#8230;. My BLIND BILLY dog was born in 1952 and I bought him in 1953. My uncle had four Ace roosters and we traded them with Earl Tudor for BLIND BILLY. He was a son of DIBO and he wouldn't fight until he was 2 ½ years old.

Was he blind? No, not really. His eyes had always been a little weak and in his last contest he was blind, yes. I won a real good match with him in 26 or 28 minutes. Then the second time, I was very young then, they tried to fool me. It was pretty dark in the place where the pit was set up and it was my turn to scratch BILLY. Earl Tudor jumped up out of joy when BILLY was scratching towards the other dog. He was about halfway when he turned around to look at Earl and hit the pit wall. He never stopped looking for the other dog, but he was counted out and lost the fight. We didn't get the trophy that day, but BILLY was the best dog in the show and from then on they called him BLIND BILLY. Like I said before, his sire was the DIBO dog and I believe Howard Heinzl had something to do with that dog. DIBO was stolen when he was a young dog and sold to a black man who owned a restaurant, DIBO'S real name was RUNT and when he started at the age of four they picked him up again and matched him.

What about your dog named OX? OX was a very smart dog. He was a superb ear dog and also very game. When I turned him loose he never missed that ear. A long time ago we matched him in Mexico. He was matched for $16,000, which in those days was a lot of money. I was matched into the District-Attorney of Mexico City. He had a good little dog and he told me that his dog would break legs and said that that was going to happen to OX too. The only comment I had to make was that if OX would turn him loose he wasn't going to break anything. OX was smart and I am convinced that he would have stayed out of trouble, the only thing OX couldn't do was talk. That's how smart he was. But the show never came off because of a couple of punks from California who were involved in other activities and had been followed by the authorities.

This was not just another convention, but it was going to be one of the greatest get-togethers in a long time. There were 2 or 3 super dogs to be matched. The trophy alone for the winner cost $2,000 and was made by Larry McCaw from California. Plus the fact that nobody brings a dog that far when they were not satisfied with the dog at home. After that, we sold OX because we needed money to buy a new place. He went to a man from Florida, named Bob Johnson. One week after he took him, he called and told me he had put three dogs on OX. He said he stopped the first dog in 20 minutes, the next one went a little over a half hour and the third one OX fought like he just started, so they picked him up. He told me OX was a very game dog. I told him that I assumed he was game, but didn't realize he was that game. People don't seem to understand that even the very best will often quit if you stress them hard enough. It's just a matter of how much you put on them. There is no sense in killing them while testing them because there is something like a breaking point. Some dogs that have never been used because they quit at home might have been great dogs in the pit under the right circumstances. Lack of knowledge&#8230; that's what it is! OX was a polished ear dog and he could keep himself out of trouble, but most other dogs couldn't stand this kind of abuse. These dogs are just flesh and bone like anything else and most men don't even recognize an Ace dog when they see one. They try to condition a dog on a treadmill when they are half drunk and watching TV. Now that I'm back on the subject of schooling; I took the DEVIL dog of Oklahoma and rolled him no more than 9 minutes and later I used him to whip Chicken Sam with a dog that I saw fight for three hours. Sometimes when you see an all beaten up dog people say: that's a bad one! I say, No Sir! That's a bad one that passed on him. That's the way it goes.

Who was the best breeder in your days? Well, that's hard to say. Breeding dogs is a heartbreaking experience because when you have something good it will practically never reproduce the same. You can raise anything easier than bulldogs. Like chickens, horses, etc&#8230; there is so much you've got to have in an Ace dog. You get them with talent and they are curs, you get them that are game but they can't fight. Hitler tried to breed humans, but he also didn't succeed. He had them built like he wanted, but they didn't have the brains. I have never had many dogs in my life, but I did have some good ones, so I think that's not bad. I can sure understand that when a man keeps 300 dogs or more, he comes up with some good ones. It's like this&#8230; know what you see, know what the dog is and know an Ace dog when you see one. Only time will teach you that, only time. But also you have to have enough to select from. That's the key too. If you have a good female and breed her to a good male you have a chance of coming up with something good. It's that simple. Breed your best bulldog to another top-notch bulldog and if they don't produce, you breed them to something else and then if it doesn't work, you better forget about it. I had a female one time, her name was TAMMY. She was by far the smartest dog I've ever owned. She was out of that BLACK SHINE dog and she was the only dog I let into the house. She was real sharp. If she was fighting, for instance, I could call her off and let her sit down with me and send her back anytime I wanted. I bred her both to RASCAL and BLIND BILLY the same time with no more than 5 days or so in between. I did this because both males were old and I really didn't want to miss this breeding. So I first bred BILLY and then bred RASCAL 5 days later, the pups were born about 61 days after I bred BILLY, but some of the pups were spotted just like RASCAL was. She had 13 pups and every pup in that litter was good, all of them were pitworthy. Bob Wallace was here when I bred RASCAL to TAMMY, so I gave him a pup. He named the pup SOCKS and always told everybody he was out of RASCAL. I didn't really care because both BILLY and RASCAL were mine and they both were out of the same female, but people are quick to criticize. The minute they saw a spotted pup they would say he was out of RASCAL instead of BLIND BILLY. I never made a secret out of it and told everybody about it. Most people just wanted to say something, but I knew better. There are so many people making money with these dogs and all they do is deal in pedigrees. I never cared too much about that. I bred my dogs for myself and all they had to do was satisfy me and nobody else. Money is no object when you are trying to breed and raise good bulldogs. I would be rich if I had all the money other people have made by peddling these dogs, but it is against my morals to breed something just for the money if I don't believe in it. Most people that do, don't even know what they are talking about.

What would you say to a young man just starting out in these dogs? Stop. Don't do it! I would try my best to discourage him. This is a bad disease. When it gets in your blood it stays. The reason why I admire them so much is for what they are capable of doing. They are all-American dogs. I'll probably always have a few and even when I go down to 6 or 7 I will still breed a few now and then.

But if a man was going to keep bulldogs what would you tell him? I don't know&#8230; I would say be honest and give your best shot and give your puppies a chance to prove themselves. If a pup is 12 or 14 months old he will grab anything, just like a young person. When they are close to 2 years old they will show more strength and be a better dog. These dogs cost a lot of money. They take a lot, but it makes a man proud to own a good one. I had one or two good ones, but didn't always have the money to go into top competition. But once or twice we had somebody split the money and we gave it a shot. It was worth it. So many people talk about doing great things in their lives but they never do it, they wouldn't know how. When the going gets tough and the stakes are high, it takes more than just money. It takes a man with guts, a strong personality and lots of ambition plus a good bulldog to compete in the fast-lane.


----------



## Saint Francis (Jun 2, 2010)

Thanks Tara, sounds like he was a conditioner/breeder who obviously excelled at both


----------



## dday (Oct 5, 2010)

Thanks Sadie, that was my first time reading that interview.
I found it to be a very good and entertaining read.


----------



## Sadie (Jun 18, 2008)

Your Welcome Dday .. I think Mr. Tudor bought a lot of dogs from other people to match them in his younger days .. And then later on he bred a few good ones himself. I don't like the term breeder myself LOL. I think I would prefer to just consider myself a dog man/dog woman. Although that is not a label you give yourself I believe that it's given to you through your fellow dog men/dog women but being a dog man is much more meaningful than just being a breeder. Anyone can breed dogs. But not everyone can be a dog man/dog woman. IMO Earl Tudor was a great dog man that is what I would consider him


----------



## pitbullmamanatl (Jun 1, 2010)

According to former dog fighter Randy Fox:
"Mayfield has convinced his following that Tudor dogs were the Core of all the best. Earl had no standard inbred bloodline. His dogs came from everywhere. So the core comes from everywhere. Earl stole dogs. He was involved in the theft of Dibo's sister. He ended up with a dog that was never paid for that was taken from a man near Wilson, Oklahoma. Armitage speaks about this in his book. Through the years many a stolen dog ended up at his place. He changed papers. He did all the unethical things that dogmen do. Earl told me once when you get a good dog put your papers on him and you will become famous. Well no matter how dishonest he got them, even if he changed the papers on them. He still acquired some of the best and bred them to the best. Plus he checked them hard. Earl was a little mean and crazy when he wanted to be. He was still one of the best at the dog breeding and dogfight game. He didn't think he had the perfect dogs. The way I know this is as follows. He was always acquiring dogs from peopled to cross with his Stuff. He acquired dogs from anyone that had good dogs and would let him get one of them. He ask me several times to let him breed to Alvin and I refused. If I had let him. The pups would have been good and every outlaw known to the doggame would have been crawling on their belly stealing my dogs. Alvin produced some real good dogs but I kept it low key. I still liked Earl because he treated me right. There will be lots of dogmen that do not like me telling this truth about him. There is only one God. Mayfield or Earl Tudor are not to be worshiped. They were simply humans that stood out in the pit game. Please don't fight any dogs unless you like jail. This is all history. Who said pitbull men were normal."


----------



## Sadie (Jun 18, 2008)

EARL TUDOR’S BREEDING METHOD:

It was Back years ago at a time in Texas when the Sport of Matching gamedogs was 
at a peak, a time before it became against the law to match a fighting dog. Back then 
in the 1960's and 1970's when the game was at a peak in the U.S.A, Texas was the 
state where the purest families of DIBO dogs was being bred and matched. Back then 
in Texas there where more gamedog people breeding and matching dogs than all the 
other states put together. At that time their where less then one thousand American 
Gamedogs throughout the U.S.A, near 700 of them was own by the Texas Dog men of
that time. Back then their where only a few different families of American Gamedogs, 
and those families were bred close kin to the other families. Back then the Purest 
family of the Breed was the Earl Tudor bred dogs of his DIBO family, and the other 
proven families were close kin to Tudors DIBO family, the DIBO family was the most 
matched and proven family in the breed, and was the purest bred family in the breed. 
Back then their was more DIBO bred dogs in Texas then their was in any area in the 
U.S.A, these were the dogs of number that was being schooled for the pit, and 
matched in the MAIN PITS in Texas at that time. EARL TUDOR was still alive at that 
time, and he had the purest of the DIBO family on his yard in Oklahoma, only a few 
miles from the Texas broader. Back then just as now their was only a small number of 
the purest family of DIBO dogs, most all those very pure bred ones, Earl tried to keep 
control of the way they would be bred. In the 1960's Earl controlled all of the purest 
family's of the purest DIBO dogs at that time. In those years of the 1940's to the 
1970's over 90% of the gamedogs matched in the U.S.A were close kin to EARL 
TUDORS DIBO family that he bred. Earl first got into the gamedog game
when he was born into his family in Kentucky, his daddy bred and rolled gamedogs 
before Earl was born. When Earl was a young boy his family moved to Oklahoma, it 
was then when Earl got interested in gamedogs. At that time near 1908 in Horbant, 
Oklahoma area. Their was a number of people breeding and matching their dogs for 
money, these people were breeding the purest families of American Gamedogs of that 
time, it was then when Earl became a breeder of the purest family of the DIBO family 
of American Gamedogs. Back then the different family's were bred very pure of family 
breeding, the purest families were then bred by CON FREELEY and BILL SHIPLEY, 
CON FREELEY was the breeder of the purest family's from CHARLIE LLOYD families 
BILL SHIPLEY was the breeder of the purest families of the then known IRISH bred 
families. The other purest proven families back then were the HENRY bred families. In 
those year when Earl became a breeder of the purest bred families he got some of the 
purest bred families and cross them creating the purest of his DIBO family, over his 
years of proven his breeding, his families became more pure and more pure of the most proven dogs he bred.

by Don Mayfield


----------



## Sadie (Jun 18, 2008)

.


----------



## Sadie (Jun 18, 2008)

AN INTERVIEW
WITH
LEGENDARY DOGMAN

DANNY BURTON



He looked at me while he was talking to some men who were standing around him. The conversation must have been about bulldogs as I recognized some of the guys as dogmen from the Texas, Oklahoma area. The first time I saw Danny was about 5 or 6 years ago but at the time I didn’t talk to him. This time I promised myself not to miss another chance of meeting and talking to who I consider a real top-notch dogman. When I walked up to him he just turned around and started to walk away from the small group of listeners that surrounded him. When I approached him he turned around and looked at me as if he were saying ‘What do you want?’ (For those of you that have never met Danny before and don’t know what he looks like, let me tell you that with a little suntan it would be hard to see the difference between Danny and Mike Tyson.) Danny invited me to come and talk to him at his place and so I did about four months later. Together with two friends of mine, in the middle of a hell of a snowstorm, we drove up to Duncan, Oklahoma. Danny, his wife Bernice and their two daughters Karen and Danna were all at home watching the television when we knocked on his front door. Before long we were swapping dog stories. My two companions were from England and Ireland, so here we were on a cold Sunday night discussing the qualities of good bulldogs, but mostly listening to what Danny was teaching us about his mentor, the famous Earl Tudor,
about his trip to the far east, and sharing his experience of the subject of conditioning with us. The first time I saw Danny I was impressed with his size and reputation, but when I left, I knew better. This guy wasn’t just big, but honest and knowledgeable too. On the next few pages you will find the interview I had with this man that told me before I started my tape recorder everything that I will tell you is the truth as I know it, and if I can’t tell you the truth as it really is I will tell you nothing. Turn the page and listen to Danny Burton…..

Danny, how did you get started in these dogs? When I was just a young boy I never even knew that something like a bulldog existed, not until I was about 14 years old. You have to remember that in those days you couldn’t even get a magazine on pitdogs unless a dog fancier recommended you. So back then it was real hard to get started in any way. The first picture I saw of a pitdog was Pete’s Sparks’ HUNKY dog. This is the dog he won with in Cuba. Sparks used to run an ad in the GAME **** magazines at the time and when I saw that picture I said to myself that’s it. My uncle was in the game cocks like a thousand other guys in this state because it is legal here. This uncle of mine had a friend who was also a game **** man, but also owned a bulldog. His name was Darryl Tabot and he told me one time he knew a real bulldog man that lived in Hobart, Oklahoma. He told me that if I was interested h would take me there and so he did the next Sunday afternoon. That’s how I met Earl Tudor for the first time in my life. Earl lived on something like 23 acres and Earl was… well, it’s hard to explain but Earl was very cocky, he looked just like a bad dog. When I saw Earl that first time I remember I was really scared of him. He walked around me and didn’t say a word. Earl’s place was like heaven to me. He told me he was almost out of the dogs and that he had no more than 42 dogs left at his place. His dogs were vicious, not that they would bite you, but when a stranger came along they were all excited like you turned that switch that makes them go off! When Earl was younger he used to have more than 100 game dogs and a lot of game cocks. The next time I went back alone and finally after a lot of visits I started to get closer and closer to him. It was Earl who took me to my first show and that was in San Antonio, Tx. In those days it was just a misdemeanor and if I remember right they had five fights on Saturday and another five fights the following Sunday.


----------



## Sadie (Jun 18, 2008)

What dogs did Earl keep on his yard when you met him the first time? He had SPIKE, JEFF, NIG, LUCKY and that type of dogs, plus some of those old brood bitches. SPIKE was already old and retired and he told me one time that SPIKE made him $1700 in just one month because he bred him to 17 bitches in one month and his stud fee was $100. At that time, I thought that was all the money in the world. SPIKE was considered the hardest biting dog of the twentieth century. Only one dog that was ever fought with SPIKE lived after the fight and that was Mayfield’s OLD LIGHTNING was busted up pretty good in his chest. It probably lasted something like 15 minutes or so. Earl always told me that each time you put a scar on a dog you take so much out of him and he could spot a good dog real quick. Earl never rolled a dog very long so this was good enough for him. NEVER quit! I was so excited at the time and I can’t even remember what type of fighting dog he was but TIGER DAN was on top most of the time as he was a more talented dog. But . The LUCKY dog came from Howard Heinzl just like the DIBO dog, but the NIG dog was Earl’s favorite dog. Earl really liked NIG and used him as a stud dog just like LUCKY. NIG was a solid black dog, really good looking. Earl was already 76 years old when I met him the first time and eventually traded NIG to somebody in Witchita, Tx. At that time they changed his name to SMOKEY. There is a lot of controversy about the NIG dog but there were only two other people there when I rolled TIGER DAN against his sire NIG and that was Earl Tudor himself and Don Maloney. TIGER DAN was a brindle dog and a hard, punishing bulldog. I really can’t remember how long the roll took but it was real vicious and NIGNIGNIG did never, ever quit!

Where do you believe the rumor started? I believe Don Maloney spread the rumor because he was a jealous man and couldn’t accept the fact that Earl took a liking to me, and of course, I had TIGER DAN which was a son of NIG. Don Maloney was a friend of mine and a good dogman, but he could never accept that somebody else would have dogs as good as his. I personally don’t even breed dogs to sell and you will never see me run an ad in the mags trying to sell pups or whatever but the truth is that NIG never quit! NIG was a producing dog, and the best fighting dog that ever lived was his grandson on both sides of the pedigree. This was the PIT GENERAL dog. He was by far the best and most devastating bulldog I’ve ever seen in my lifetime.

Where did Earl get his dogs from? Did he ever tell you about what bloodline or type of dogs he liked the best? Yes, he did. Earl liked the Henry dogs the best. I don’t know where they come from but they were mostly black, big headed, red eyed and crazy to work. Also, I believe that his daddy had some bulldogs before they came to Oklahoma. Originally, they were from Kentucky. Back in Earl’s time, which was around the turn of the century, there were no airplanes and etc, and he told me this himself; if somebody would send him a bitch to bred to one of his males and he liked the bitch he wouldn’t send her back, but just keep her for himself. Most people were too afraid anyway to come pick her up because in those days that part of the world was pretty much outlaw territory. I’m sure that’s how he got some of his good dogs. He also bought a lot of dogs and bred some of his own when he got older. Earl was a very smart man, but also a strange man. For instance… he had no children because he didn’t want any and he once told me that the world was getting sorrier every day, and didn’t want to bring anybody in a world like this. When Bernice got pregnant, I was scared to tell him and I didn’t. Don Maloney told him.

What made Earl so bitter, so disappointed in life? I don’t know. Everybody respected Earl as a dogman but he would say the stangest things. His philosophy was to treat everybody like a son-of-a-bitch until they proved themselves differently. I remember I was really scared of Earl when I first met him. He had been breeding and raising these dogs for so long that he picked up some of that courage. And the older he got the worse it got. One time he told me he wanted to go out guns blazing, that’s what he said, ‘I want to go out in style.’ I remember Earl and his brother Bert got into an argument once over some dog magazines and when Bert was real sick and laying on his deathbed his last request was to see his brother Earl. But Earl didn’t go and he didn’t go to his funeral as well. That was his way of life. To me Earl was a special man and he taught me so much about dogs, conditioning and that kind of stuff. For instance, he told me that heat will stop a dog quicker than anything, pain won’t stop a bulldog, but heat will. Earl most times wouldn’t roll a dog until he was 18 or 20 months old and then he would roll them for only a few minutes. To me, he was the best dogman that ever lived and it’s hard to disagree on his methods of schooling and conditioning a combat dog.

Do you believe the old time breeders were better than the modern breeders? I don’t know, but let me give you an example. Earl would usually take all the females out of a litter when they were born and kill them. He didn’t want anybody to be able to breed to his stuff and didn’t sell many dogs. Earl was never in the dogs for money. He was a true dogfighter and there are not many people like that around these days. If I have a bad bitch and a bad male I just breed them to each other. I’m not really interested in pedigrees and that stuff. I like the conditioning. Maybe someday I will get interested in the breeding, but not right now. I don’t think there is any specific bloodline or family of dogs that has got a monopoly on anything. There is good and bad in every type of breeding. I personally like the Boudreaux bred dogs. You could say that most of the dogs today come from Tudor, Maloney, Boudreaux, and Mayfield bloodlines.


----------



## Sadie (Jun 18, 2008)

Did Earl like Maurice Carver pretty good? I’m going to tell you exactly what Earl told me. He said he didn’t like Maurice. Earl could sit down with somebody for five minutes and figure somebody out pretty good. He was blessed with that gift. Earl was like a mind reader and thought Maurice was a bullshitter. I really didn’t understand the relationship they had at the time, but he never spoke too bad about him or spoke highly of him either. Maurice was the kind of man that could tell a story and you knew it was a lie, but it was so damn good that it really didn’t matter if it was true or not.

Do you believe that it was pretty much accepted in those days to steal a dog from somebody else? Well,.....yes, maybe so! Earl told me that if you want to be good at anything the first thing you need to learn is how to cheat; because if you know that, then nobody can cheat you. He taught me how to cheat first, but I have never done anything like that in my life, my pride won’t let me.

What more can you tell me about the NIG dog? Well, NIG ended up with Don Mayfield. He paid something like $300 or $500 for the dog to Sam Kennedy and in those days that was a lot of money. NIG was a producing dog. I had the Plumber’s ALLIGATOR dog and worked him for 2 or 3 fights. He was a big black dog, and I won his champion fight with him. You could spot a NIG bred dog a mile away. Their characteristics are that when you walk up to them they would piss all over themselves, 9 out of 10 will. They were some kind of shy and would roll over on their back when you touched them. I bought my TIGER DAN from Earl and he was out of NIG and Womack’s MERT. He was a brindle. Earl gave Bernice a puppy that is registered as Mayfield’s SPOOKIE but that really is my SPOOKIE. I don’t really care because like I said before, I’m not in the business of selling dogs and Don can do that as far as I’m concerned. But anyway, Earl gave that puppy to Bernice when she was four years old, she was solid black. Later we bred her to TIGER DAN and this breeding produced the best dog to ever walk the earth. His name was PIT GENERAL. This dog was a true super dog, I have never seen anything like him again in my life after he got stolen. TIGER DAN won two fights for me but SPOOKIE would never fight. She was a cold bitch. We had two males and seven females. The females were all cold, wouldn’t hit a lick. But the males….oh boy! They were something special. PIT GENERAL had a brother that I liked better than him, his name was SATAN. One time when I was at Sam Kennedy’s place, SATAN got off the chain and killed three hogs and then jumped on a dog called KILLER that had won four fights. They killed each other. PIT GENERAL was a 42 to 44 pound dog and at this weight he was unbeatable. He was absolutely awesome, an ACE in every way. He was one of the hardest biting dogs in the history of fighting dogs. At one time, I had some good dogs. There was RANGER, a four time winner I got from Earl. This dog was a full bellymate brother to JIMMIE BOOTS. He was a 52-54 pound dog. Also I had VICK, GATLIN, and another one called BOBBYSON. I put GENERAL on all four at the same time and he just literally murdered them all as fast as I could go and get the next one. The next day Don and Phyllis Mayfield came up here and all the dogs were in the house except GENERAL. He was the only one standing on his chain. Don said “What did you do Danny?” I told him I rolled some dogs yesterday and he said, “Why did you roll them all into each other and not into this black dog?” I said I rolled them all against that black dog and he said “What! How much do you want for him?” I sold him the whole lot, and that’s how he got GENERAL.
What happened to GENERAL after Don Mayfield got him? He matched him against this guy from Oklahoma. His name was Billy or something. The dog he used was a good head dog called DUKE. GENERAL couldn’t get him for a long time, but when he did, he bit him in two. GENERAL was then matched into Freddie Jones’ BLACK BART. In fact, Pat Patrick wrote Don a letter at the time saying that this BART dog would take meat away from a bear and that he wouldn’t even roll a dog into that BART dog. Don ask me at the time what I thought about it and I told him it wouldn’t be a problem as I tried to hurt GENERAL with all I had but I couldn’t. This fight was much talked about just like the Tyson-Spinks fight, dogmen came from all over the country just to see this one. GENERAL killed BART in 52 minutes and then after the fight he was stolen. I got a letter from Roland Fontenot with some pictures of GENERAL and in the letter he said that he knew the fight was over in seven minutes, because he had broken both shoulders on BART and later on in the fight he literally took off BART’s leg. GENERAL was a freak of nature, he would eat a dog, literally rip them apart and start eating them. He was so aggressive that he wouldn’t even breed a bitch. One time while Don went to town to do some shopping, a bitch that was in heat got loose off the chain and ran up to GENERAL. He killed her while she was in full blossom. Jimmy Wimberly found the bitch and he told me he saw how GENERAL was standing over her and just tearing her muscles out of her. I know now who stole GENERAL and several told me this was true, but I don’t want to tell who it was because it would do no good now.

Was it an Oklahoma or Texas dogman? I really don’t want to say anything about this because you could pinpoint it. It’s out of respect that I don’t want to bring this out in the open. But the thing is, that GENERAL was a double bred NIG dog, and this, plus the fact that NIG never quit, makes me believe he was a good individual plus a hell of a producer!

What is the second best dog you have seen, Danny? Well, years ago I matched into Raymond Holt’s JEREMIAH, and Stinson’s ART. They were both very good dogs, but I’ve seen so many good ones that it is kind of hard to just pick one or two out. Another fight that was real interesting to me was when Ralph Greenwood matched into Jim Stinson. Stinson used a black dog called CANNON. This dog was a punishing dog that I had seen kill dogs before in 20 minutes. Greenwood used CRAZY DUGGAN, and he won the fight eventually because he was the gamest dog. A real classic match.


----------



## Sadie (Jun 18, 2008)

What about your grand champion HANK dog? HANK was a turning dog. He would give you heart failure every time you watched him, and I always tried to sell him after each fight but nobody that saw him was impressed with him enough to buy him. He won over Carver, Louis Cheeck, Fontenot and Chicken Sam. He beat some pretty good people. HANK was definitely a game dog. You had to kill every hair on the dog to stop him, but he never did. He would always turn real early in the fight, shut his mouth completely and turn away from his opponent 100%, but he always scratched. I finally sold HANK to Pat Patrick for $1500. HANK had two brothers SMITH and JESSE and they, just like HANK, were very game dogs too. I have never been good at selling dogs perhaps because I was never interested enough doing do, but I’ll tell you something about another dog I had. His name was PETERBUILT. He was out of the O’BRIAN dog and a bitch named BABE. I bred this dog myself and later Doyle Reddick ended up with him. I don’t know if it’s true about the dog quitting, but when he was at my place, he never quit. I didn’t like the dog because one time he would look outstanding, and then the next time he would look like a plug. So one time I had a bunch of dogmen at my place and we were rolling some dogs. I rolled this dog, too. He was doing pretty good and I said anybody that wants this dog can have him for free, but everybody turned around and walked away. He was about 20 months old at the time. He was no good and nobody wanted him, but what I’m saying is, that I couldn’t sell a dog if I wanted to. The same with HANK, each time I would offer him for sale nobody was interested in him. Later, I believe, I traded PETERBUILT for some other dogs, and I believe Reddick made something like $35,000 with the dog. I thought I couldn’t win with him because it’s like when I go to the rodeo they always give me the baddest horse in the bunch and every time I go to a dogfight I get the baddest dog, too. I guess it’s like what a friend told me once… “Son, you’re hard to beat and they know it, that’s why they come with the best they got.” I don’t care really, because it’s like what Earl told me, “if you’re going to be beat, be beat by a good one.” So, in other words, it’s not a disgrace to lose. It’s all part of the same game! I know I’m not going to have any easy spots and I don’t want too anyway. But it sure would help to get some bread on the table once in a while.

What about the TONKA dog? I won him in a bet from a guy named Lou Lewis from California. Bobby Smith picked up the pup in his truck and I kept him until he was about 11 months old. Then, Ronnie Anderson bought the dog. I had a lot of dogs at the time, plus I wasn’t really sure how he was bred. He was out of TOMBSTONE and RED BABY. Ronnie made a fortune with the dog and he was a good caliber dog. I’ve seen TONKA fight and I liked the dog. Also, I’ve seen TOMBSTONE against BULLYSON JR. and that was a classic fight. Don really brought TOMBSTONE in thin. He looked like a skeleton, just like a bag of bones, but BULLY just couldn’t kill him. BULLYSON JR. was a bad dog and was all over that red nose dog. TOMBSTONE was a good one, but his gameness was the key, he just kept coming, no matter what BULLY would do to him. Don was a real good conditioner and he could pull one down to that fine line and still have them strong. Don is responsible for some of the training techniques they use today, like the drying out methods for instance. Of course, a dog needs some moisture in his system, but you don’t want him to be too wet and Mayfield really knew how to dry one out. He also introduced the catmill keep and perfected it in a way like many people are using today. Me and Don had been friends for a long time and always remained the best of friends. Don is not really the same Don Mayfield that I met when I was younger, but time changes people. Some people don’t understand and maybe these people didn’t go through what Don went through. And maybe they will do something worse when they get older. I want to remember him like I want to remember him, one of the greatest dogmen ever in my era and if he would come back in the game today, he would prove it to you people, too. He was really a good dogman.

What about that ALVIN dog? Was it really true what Earl said, that ALVIN was the gamest dog he had seen in more than 40 years? Yes. That was true. Earl was serious when he said that, he wasn’t joking. Randy Fox had a dog called ALVIN THE DOG and he was a black and white Lightning bred dog. I matched into him with a dog I found in the park one time. They had four or five fights that day and Don Maloney put that one together. I remember it was snowing that day just like now, and Don charged money for all the fights except for our fight which was the last fight as he thought me and Randy couldn’t come up with dogs that were good enough to look at. I really liked Don a lot, but he was a very jealous person and he had already given away the best dog of show trophy before our fight started. I believe we matched at 39lbs and the fight went two hours and twenty-three minutes. It was a very close fight all the way. ALVIN won the fight and mine died right on the scratchline. It was very good, even match and ALVIN produced some pretty good dogs, too.

What if you had a choice between a deadgame bulldog that would still try to scratch with all his legs broken never taking his eyes off his opponent, but short on talent; or that awesome fighting dog that would practically kill everything you would put him down with in short order and start to eat him up right there in the pit. But if you put a little pressure on him, watch out! Because he might quit! Wow…. That’s a hard question! I don’t really know. I like a fighting dog, one that can win with plenty of ability to take one out quick, but a game dog will probably be a better producer, throwing a higher percentage of game dogs. Talented dogs don’t breed true, game dogs do. But like I said I like a dog with plenty of both, gameness plus ability because you are going to need both when you are going into the good ones.

What about a particular fighting style? I like a fast, hard punishing dog that goes to the stifles and stomach. Earl always said that the best dog is a head dog, because he would keep himself out of trouble. Probably the best head fighting dog I’ve ever seen was the TORNADO bitch. But I like the bad dog best. What I mean is an offensive fighting dog that will take the initiative and never stops trying to kill his opponent.

Do you believe there is such a thing as an offensive head fighting dog? I haven’t seen too many of them. Most of these head dogs are just trying to stay out of trouble. Earl told me you can’t beat a head dog, but it has to be a good one. PIT GENERAL was a real bad gut eating dog and I can’t believe that anything could have kept him out for any length of time.


----------



## Sadie (Jun 18, 2008)

Do you believe it’s a bad sign if a dog makes a turn during a contest? No I don’t. Sometimes it’s just their style. HANK was the best proof of that. He would start turning after two minutes, yet he was extremely game. I’ve seen a few like that as long as they keep scratching I don’t care if they turn or not.

What is your experience with dogs that start at a real young age. Do you believe in the saying ‘early to start…early to quit’? Yes, I sure do and I’m going to tell you why…. Most people don’t have patience or the common sense to wait until these young starters get older. They start to roll them too hard at a young age, and most people will stop a 12 or 14 month old pup just because he wants to fight. I like early starters, don’t get me wrong, but I’m just as careful with them as with the ones that will start after they are two years old.


----------



## Sadie (Jun 18, 2008)

And this sums it up Earl Tudor was a well respected dog man and is very important to the history of our breed.


----------



## Hyde (Aug 30, 2011)

Nearly all dogs today can trace back to the name of Earl. But remember, back then, when a dog was got by dogmen, they often put they name on the pedigree. Just like Earl didn't breed Dibo. Howard Heinzl did. The man who made the most of the Dibo blood was Maurice Carver. And Dibo was not even a match dog, but became a legend in his production. But yes Earl bred, but he was a dogman first of all. Very few men could be both.


----------



## Black Rabbit (Nov 14, 2009)

Tara you freakin rock!!!! Great read!!


----------



## Elvisfink (Oct 13, 2008)

Hyde said:


> Nearly all dogs today can trace back to the name of Earl. But remember, back then, when a dog was got by dogmen, they often put they name on the pedigree. Just like Earl didn't breed Dibo. Howard Heinzl did. The man who made the most of the Dibo blood was Maurice Carver. And Dibo was not even a match dog, but became a legend in his production. But yes Earl bred, but he was a dogman first of all. Very few men could be both.


Part of an interview with Don Mayfield.

*What do you think made Tudor's Dibo so Famous? His Breeding, his performance, his production?*

The one thing that Earl highlighted to me about DIBO was one day when he was talking about him he said "Dibo could sure bite hard". Looking back in trying to understand it I don't think it was Dibo's ability in the pit that made him become so famous in the breed at that time while he was alive. I've heard some say Dido won 3 matches and some say more but Earl told me Dibo won two matches. Few people know this but Dibo was the last dog that Earl Tudor conditioned and handled in the pit. It was Dibo's first match into Bill Decordova. Dibo was famous in the game as a stud dog before the dogs Spike and Jeff. When Maurice Carver came to Earl's to breed Black Widow, Spike and Jeff were pups or not born yet. I think the one main thing that made Dibo so famous so fast in the game was the fact that he was Earl Tudor's dog on Earl's yard. What open the eyes of the game about Dibo was the first dogs in the pit out of him like White Rock. Dibo was known throughout the game as the number one Stud dog in the breed. All the game wanted to breed to him or one of his offspring's. So what made Dibo so famous? I would say it was the fact he was Earl Tudor's stud dog at the time. Here we are now 50 years for the year Dibo was born and he is without a doubt the most famous dog in the history of the breed.


----------



## Hyde (Aug 30, 2011)

DM? He was a total player in the game. Dibo produced because of the blood behind him. He was heavy in Corvino dogs. Dibo most famous dog in history of breed? Not close. And it didn't matter that Earl had him. People saw results they wanted in his offspring. That it. So it was more for the performance of his offspring, and not his own that made him famous.


----------

