Big, strong, fast and courageous, these dogs of many names cornered quarry for such famed frontier hunters as George Custer and Teddy Roosevelt.
Grazing buffalo moved slowly out of a draw as a procession of military wagons and soldiers approached over the vast grass- lands of southern Kansas and northern Indian Territory. It was 1868, and the shaggy beasts were not alarmed; they had seen mounted men before. Riding at the head of the column was 7th Cavalry Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer, who would soon attack a Cheyenne village on the Washita. But Indians were not on his mind at the moment. He was a hunter at heart, and a dog lover, too. He was eager to test the mettle of his two constant companions on this campaign—Blücher and Maida, a pair of Scottish deerhounds he referred to as “staghounds.”
Colonel Custer worked his mount closer to the small herd until he was able to split a young bull from the others. Then the horseman and his hounds sped after their quarry. The dogs were not new to the chase, having previously run down and dispatched deer. But a buffalo was a much larger, more aggressive animal. Each time the dogs attacked, they met a counterattack of hoof and horn. The blows they received only served to excite the tenacious dogs. Custer drew his revolver but didn’t fire for fear of hitting one of his darting hounds. The chase continued over the snow-covered prairie.
The hounds pressed on through increasingly higher snowdrifts till the buffalo, perhaps realizing it couldn’t outrun its pursuers, came to a halt. Blücher, the male dog, latched onto its throat, but this beast was not as easily subdued as a deer or even a wolf. Maida, the female dog, planted her muscular frame against the buffalo’s front shoulder, but it remained upright. Blücher, now half buried in snow, refused to release the bull’s vulnerable throat. At this point Custer stopped being a spectator. “Fearing for the safety of my dogs,” he wrote, “I leaped from my horse and ran to the assistance of the staghounds.” In European stag-hunting fashion, he used his knife to sever the buffalo’s hamstrings. The bull at last collapsed in the snow, and Custer ended the hunt by dispatching it with his revolver.
Having dogs hunt buffalo was not common practice on the frontier, but this was not the first or last time a hunter used hounds to pursue large game. Custer, who would achieve posthumous fame by losing the Battle of the Little Bighorn in Montana Territory eight years later, was one of the best-known Westerners to use hounds, although future President Theodore Roosevelt also became acquainted with hounds during his Dakota Territory ranching days in the 1880s. When Grand Duke Alexis, fourth son of Russian Emperor Alexander II, hunted out West in 1872 with Custer, Lt. Gen. Phil Sheridan and Buffalo Bill Cody, he brought along Russian wolfhounds.
The hounds used by these men and many other frontier hunters and ranchers belong to a canine group called gazehounds, or sight hounds, which hunt primarily by sight and speed rather than smell and endurance, as scent hounds do. Ranging in size from the whippet (25–40 pounds) to the Irish wolfhound (160 pounds), gazehounds share common physical traits—deep chests, long legs, strong hindquarters. Three major breeds of gazehounds accompanied their owners to the American West in the 1800s—the Scottish deerhound, the greyhound and the Russian wolfhound, or borzoi. These breeds, and the gazehound hybrids they produced, evolved into the so-called American staghound. A blend of nationalities, this truly American dog was strong, exceptionally fast and courageous, and capable of performing the hunting tasks necessary to settle the Wild West. They have gone by many names—shag dogs, Russian and Irish wolfhounds, deerhounds, long dogs, Celtic greyhounds, Highland greyhounds or wolfhounds, sight dogs, wolf dogs and shaggy greyhounds—but staghound was the general term used in the 19th century, and it remains in use today. Although American staghounds have been bred for years, the AKC (American Kennel Club) has yet to recognize the breed.
The Scottish deerhounds Custer used to hunt a young buffalo on the Washita campaign were members of one of the tallest gaze- hound breeds, resembling greyhounds but larger (more than 30 inches at the shoulder), heavier boned (about 100 pounds on a muscular frame) and with rougher, longhaired coats. The deerhound was bred to hunt red deer, or stags, in Scotland and was one of the early arrivals on the Great Plains. In his book Life on the Plains, Custer calls Blücher and Maida “two splendid specimens of the Scotch staghound, who were destined to share the dangers of an Indian campaign.” Before pursuing the buffalo, Custer had hunted with his “stags” for deer, elk, antelope, foxes, coyotes and jackrabbits. Blücher and Maida, however, were not destined to have long lives on the Plains.
At the Battle of the Washita (in what is now Oklahoma) on November 27, 1868, Blücher heard the Cheyenne warriors yelling and apparently thought they were preparing for a hunt. Instinctively, he rushed to join in the chase, and one of the Indians shot him through with an arrow. Custer showed little remorse for the 21 soldiers killed and 13 wounded at the Washita, but Blücher’s death saddened him. Maida, his female deerhound, was felled soon after by friendly fire.
By 1870 Colonel Custer had imported other hounds from the United Kingdom. One of them, a female named Tuck, made a particularly strong impression on him.
“Did I tell you of her [Tuck] catching a full-grown antelope buck and pulling him down after a run of over a mile, in which she left the other dogs far behind?” George wrote his wife, Libbie. He went on to describe Tuck’s loving manner: “First she lays her head on my knee, as if to ask if I am too much engaged to notice her. A pat of encouragement and forefeet are thrown lightly across my lap; a few moments of this posture and she lifts her hind feet from the ground and, great overgrown dog that she is, quietly and gently disposes of herself on my lap.” On the extravagant 1874 Black Hills Expedition, Custer’s party included a number of hunting hounds.
While Custer was prominent in introducing the Scottish deerhound to the American West, he was by no means a one-dog officer. He owned a kennel of more than 40 hounds of various breeds. Some were Walker hounds or American foxhounds—dogs that pursue game by smell—but most were sight hounds, including greyhounds and even a few mighty Russian wolfhounds.
The greyhound, one of the oldest breeds known to man, might have come to the New World with Spanish adventurers in the 1500s. Certainly, the breed was in the colonies by the time of the American Revolution. A huge greyhound named Azore belonged to either George Washington or Baron von Steuben, Washington’s military adviser at Valley Forge. It was likely the species most frequently crossbred to develop the ideal dog for the Western rancher, wolfer and hunter. Streamlined (about 28–30 inches at the shoulder and weighing about 70 pounds) and the fastest of all canines (able to reach 45 mph), the greyhound was used to pursue a range of game, from rabbits to coyotes. As a bonus, this speedy animal was friendly, making it a good companion as well as hunting partner. The greyhound did have some drawbacks—its short coat couldn’t stand up to cold weather, and it was too small to handle wolves. Thus breeders crossed it with larger deerhounds and wolfhounds.
Like the deerhound, the Russian wolfhound, or borzoi, is longhaired and tall (more than 28 inches at the shoulder) with an extremely deep chest. In Russia it ran down hares and wolves, so its hunting skills were a natural fit for the American West. Grand Duke Alexis used Russian wolfhounds to hunt buffalo south of Fort McPherson, Neb., in 1872, and might have left a few behind as gifts. Later photos from that region depict dogs with the long, narrow nose of the Russian wolfhound. A big male might weigh more than 100 pounds, making it somewhat smaller than the massive Irish wolfhound. It’s possible that some strain of the Irish wolfhound also found its way to the frontier West. In his book Tales of the Frontier, Everett Dick includes an 1842 account from an emigrant party on the Oregon Trail that mentions a “stately gray hound or an Irish wolf dog, apparently proud of keeping watch and ward over his master’s wife and children.”
Among the earliest documented Plains hunting expeditions to use gazehounds came in 1854, a decade before Custer arrived on the frontier. Sir George Gore, of Sligo, Ireland, brought an elaborate entourage, including “14 staghounds and 3 dozen greyhounds,” to what would become eastern Montana (near present-day Miles City). Legendary frontiersman Jim Bridger guided the hunting party, which slaughtered so many buffalo, deer and other game that Lakota leaders complained and Indian agents wrote a letter of concern.
Custer certainly stands out for his dog-loving ways (Libbie said she and George used to share their crowded tent with a number of big staghounds), but plenty of 19th-century military men enjoyed having hunting dogs. The routine of frontier military life and abundance of game animals made hunting one of the most popular diversions among Army and post personnel. In their letters, George and Libbie often wrote about officers who owned greyhounds and staghounds.
At Fort Sill, established in Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) in 1869, barking and howling were ubiquitous. “Everyone at Fort Sill owned dogs—staghounds, wolfhounds and rabbit hounds,” wrote Colonel Wilbur Sturtevant Nye in Carbine and Lance: The Story of Old Fort Sill. The fort was home to the Kiowa-Comanche agency, and post interpreter Horace P. Jones kept staghounds as a means of entertainment on Sunday afternoons. Traveling by wagon or horseback, soldiers, their women and other post spectators would follow Jones onto the prairie to watch the hounds pursue deer, jackrabbits, coyotes and wolves. Nye described Jones as “being a widely recognized figure with his staghounds.”
While gazehounds figured into the recreational hunts of officers and wealthy foreign sportsmen, they also proved a valuable check against predators. As settlers and ranchers moved onto the Great Plains, their livestock (cattle, hogs, sheep) often fell victim to wolves, coyotes, bobcats and even mountain lions. The need to curtail these costly attacks provided a livelihood for staghounds. On more than a few ranches, hunting wolves and coyotes became a primary winter job. Bloodlines and breeding didn’t matter to early ranchers. The important thing was whether a hound could hunt down and kill predators; those that could became vital ranch equipment. Once the rancher spotted a predator, he would release the hounds. The chase was “like watching a racehorse catch a pony,” according to one Nebraska coyote hunter.
The huge XIT Ranch in Texas and other spreads across the Plains increasingly sought the help of men who made a profession of killing the killers of livestock. These expert hunters, called wolfers, usually kept a pack of staghounds to control the wolves and coyotes. The business could be profitable. Some wolfers received $35 to $50 for each wolf and $3 to $5 for each coyote pelt. By the end of the 1876–77 Great Sioux War, much of the northern Plains had been transformed from buffalo range to cattle country, and the ranchers, backed by imported hounds, had declared war on the wild canines.
Long-range rifles were useful, but staghounds were the weapon of choice when dealing with speedy, elusive predators. At least one Wyoming ranch kept a kennel of Russian wolfhounds. Charlie Clement and his hounds (deerhounds and greyhounds) from the Texas Panhandle were widely known and sought after by Montana ranchers with wolf problems. Teddy Roosevelt, who pursued the profession of rancher in Dakota Territory from 1883 until 1886, had the privilege of witnessing a wolf hunt or two. “The true way to kill wolves,” he later wrote, “is to hunt them with greyhounds on the great plains. Nothing more exciting than this sport can possibly be imagined. It is not always necessary that the greyhounds should be of absolutely pure blood. Prize-winning dogs of high pedigree often prove useless for the purposes. If by careful choice, however, a ranchman can get together a pack composed both of the smooth-haired greyhound and the rough-haired Scotch deerhound, he can have excellent sport.”
During one Montana winter in the late 1890s, an unnamed wolfer and six staghounds from the Hatchet Ranch killed eight wolves and more than 60 coyotes. Noted naturalist Ernest Thompson Seton, in his 1898 classic Wild Animals I Have Known, wrote about a New Mexico wolfer named Tannerey, who kept a pack of “enormous wolfhounds” that would “hold the wolves at bay till the hunter could ride up to shoot them.” In the 1890s, British photographer and staghound owner Evelyn Cameron photographed hounds on the frontier; several appear in the retrospective Photographing Montana, 1894–1928, by Donna Lucey.
From the 1870s through the 1890s, when wolves were the primary target, the larger, more aggressive Scottish deerhounds and Russian and Irish wolfhounds and their crosses were the preferred hounds out West. They had the size and stamina to chase and fight or bay the savage wolf. But by the early 1900s, wolves were in rapid decline, leaving the smaller, faster coyote as the principal predator. Ranchers and dog breeders were quick to inject more greyhound blood into the staghound lineage to ensure greater speed and mobility.
The American staghound of today has been bred over the last century-plus from performance hounds, the top breeds for hunting, fighting and coursing prey. Speedy and courageous yet docile, staghounds remain the canine choice of many modern American farm and ranch families. The Burmeister clan, for instance, has farmed the environs of Lakefield, Minn., since the 1870s, each generation teaching the next the sport of coursing. In the Sand Hills of Nebraska back in the 1880s, rancher John Ammon used staghounds. His son Ben continued their use and became one of America’s best-known staghound breeders and a renowned expert on using staghounds to hunt coyotes. Ben’s son Frank, who died recently at age 93, stated that one of his dogs was a descendant of his grandfather’s 19th-century hounds.
Some living cowboys and ranchers resemble their counterparts of frontier days, and the same can be said of their hounds. Most of the old-time cowboys and ranchers never actually fought Indians, yet they did their part to tame the Wild West, often with the help of old-time hound dogs.
Author Rich Byerly of Creston, Iowa, a former teacher and state legislator, has raised and hunted with American staghounds for more than 50 years and has been writing articles about gazehounds for various publications since 1960. The best of those articles are now being collected for an upcoming book. “I had the privilege of hunting with Ben Ammon in the late 1950s and early 1960s and saw his dogs work,” he says. “Many of his hounds were descendants of his father’s early dogs.”
Originally published in the December 2008 issue of Wild West. To subscribe, click here.