Beating the Red Boy 'dead horse'

[EWO]

If ever there was a 'let's not beat a dead horse' conversation in the dogs then Red Boy has to be the one. But for entertainment and the occasional informational purposes I will kick that dead horse first.....

This topic will go all over the place from 'how he was bred' to 'Red Boy traits' to what different people consider a 'Red Boy' dog.

As posted before I grew up on the Red Boy train and his breeding was pretty close to 'as advertised' to me for a lot of years. Over time I moved from the heavier on the Bullet bred dogs to maybe a little more of the Hemphill type dogs. (always taking into account these dogs were way before my time and mostly it is opinion based on conversation with an occasional fact tossed in to keep things grounded, so take it with a grain of salt).

A bit of history. One of the first pit bulls I ever touched was a son of Red Boy called JR. I was maybe 10-11-12 years old. My best friend's dad was in the dogs and he had befriended Katie Marlowe and Ronnie Bass. He was the first in our area to get on what he called the "Red Boy train'. Our job was to walk his dogs around two huge tobacco/bean fields. He sat on a bucket and ran the dog on a slat mill or an electric mill and I would take a dog for a 30 minutes or so walk. Being 11-12 it was more like a 30 minute drag. When I got back the next dog came off one of the mills and his son would take off with him. It was affectionately called the '5 gallon bucket' keep.

From there I was hooked on the performance of these dogs. Hooked soon turned to obsession. (or so my wife says)

JR was a heavy dog, low 50's on the chain, upper 40's conditioned. He had a lot of bone up front, thick thru the chest area and had a well muscled rear end (naturally). The odd thing was the lower part of his rear legs looked spindly. These were big headed dogs with a thick hide, really durable. He was a deep, deep game dog but he had zero mouth. He simply could not shut it down enough to defend himself. He had littermates (Yellow John) that could bite well above average and there was female that was more freak mouthed in comparison.

These Red Boy dogs back then were what a friend of mine called 'singularly focused no matter'. Once they locked onto something, or had something in mind, they simply did not stop. He always joked he did not know if these Red Boy dogs were game or just to dumb to stop. Once focused, even if being mauled, they simply continued. No matter.

So with that history in mind I have a picture (a personal picture) in my head of what a Red Boy dog should be, should look like, should act like, etc. etc.

Over the years I have seen Red Boy dogs from a lot of different strains. I have seen some that carry a lot of the same traits and similar to that picture in my head. (I am not much into pedigrees as far as defining a dog or breeding a dog as I am the furthest thing from a breeder. I like what I like, and when I bred/breed dogs I am chasing that picture in my head vs. using a pedigree as a tool. That leaves me short a lot of the times but so it goes)

I have seen dogs where that picture in my head pushed thru when the pedigree said it should have been not the same. At the same time I have seen pure Red Boy dogs that are absolutely ZERO Red Boy dogs in my opinion. I think that is due to them being selected for different reasons and bred for different reasons. Totally different topic altogether.

I never try to offend people but I believe there are certain lines of Red Boy dog are more Red Boy than others based on papers being fake/hung before the current owners had these dogs, so much so, they own something even better than they think. This is a touchy topic because it puts some people's character in question and after 20-30-20 years there is no real purpose nor gain in going down that path. But at the same time I will offer it up as my opinion and apologize upfront and then again if called out. Maybe then someone can change my mind.

But here we go.

EWO

[EWO]

I heard stories growing up of an old black man named Mr. Calvin who had dogs in SC. The first stories was his approach to calling a dog a bulldog. He would roll a dog at night and bang him up pretty hard. He was put back on the chain for the night. The next morning he was brought out of the box and put on another dog. If he scratched after being beat up for another ten minutes or so he went from being a dog to being a bull dog. A little bit much for me, but it was a story that was told.

It was said he had a yard full of bulldogs, not dogs, but bulldogs. It was the 60's or so and the difficulties of being a black man in the rural south, in any endeavor, had its challenges. Bulldogs no different.

The story goes that some of the other bulldoggers in the area (white men) left him with the short stick in a lot of the dealings. The story says they would get dogs from him, paper them as their own, matching them and/or breeding them. Mr. Calvin never receiving credit for the work he put in his dogs. It was said he could neither read nor write so all his 'registration' was in his head.

The story was told that Mr. Calvin delivered a large catch weight dog to Mr. Teal at his restaurant. That dog was later matched into Cable's Fang. People that were there said the two dogs looked just about like twins. When the story got back to Mr. Calvin and how much Fang and Red Boy resembled one another his reply was 'where do you think those (Fang) dogs came from?".

The story also went on to talk about the Stidham dogs behind Fang and that a lot of those dogs were down from or either directly from the yard of Mr. Calvin. This was always an interesting story to me, not so much because of the breeding or the history, but how hard that game check was and how the number of 'match quality-winning type dogs' that did not get the opportunity as the test was more than I think should be asked. So I sort of filed it away.

Maybe ten years later after a show in the mountains of NC we were hanging out, some doctoring dogs, some taking the box down and some talking dogs. There was an older gentlemen there and for the life of me I can't remember his name. He rented the farm to a young guy and the first turntable I ever saw was out back. I thought it was the neatest thing I had ever seen. The older fellow told me it was the 'greatest thing since individually wrapped cheese'. We talked dogs, working dogs on the table and the conversation steered to the Red Boy dogs.

He told me/us about an older black man from upstate SC with family in the rural mountain area of NC and how he was the real breeder of Red Boy. He told the story almost to the letter to what I had heard some 10 years before. The only difference is he called him Mr. Krebbs. I filed it away as well because being hooked on the conditioning of these dogs I kept trying to lead him back to that turntable. He kept going back to the brutal game tests that left the old man with 10-12-15 real life dead game dogs, or at least the closest thing to it and still be breathing.

Then a few years after that I was talking with a well known dog man from the 70's/80's and he told the same story all over again. This time he put the two names together as Mr. Calvin Krebbs. Same brutal game check stories. Same delivery of a catch weight dog to Mr. Teal.

The difference in this conversation is that he followed up with 'ever wonder why the Jocko-Red Boy dog threw dogs that threw dogs that threw dogs' and are still throwing dogs to the day? He then broke down pedigrees. The bottom half of the Jocko dogs are bred the same way the Stidham dogs (Rast) are bred. Those dogs were said to be Krebbs dogs. So instead of being a 50/50 dog of Red Boy and Jocko or maybe even a 50% Red Boy dogs and a split between the Jackson/Rast/Stidham dogs he said the Jocko-Red Boy dogs were actually 3/4 Krebbs dogs with a 1/4 out of the Jackson dogs.

From there I pulled up pedigrees and pictures and asked about dogs from yesteryear. In a lot of the conversations the dogs described line up with that picture I have in my head. The more and more I looked the more and more made me think Mr. Krebbs may one of the most influential breeders in the history of the dogs but never, and will never get any of the credit.

EWO

[S_B]

Great story as always EWO! Welcome back....

[brightlight168]

[EWO]

Glad to be back.

As an administrator can I get my account switched back over to EWO. Not the end of the world if not, but if I could it would be appreciated.

Thanks.

EWO

Great story as always EWO! Welcome back....

[SBCK]

Great read Ewo.

[apeman]

Excellent

[apeman]

EWO,

Redboy's sire or Redboy himself?

[EWO]

I have heard it both ways. The first time it was Red Boy himself. Then another time it was the sire of the litter that Red Boy came from but papered as Jeff.

As stated, I don't know. I was not there. This is the point where a person's character is questioned and I am not a big fan of doing so, especially putting someone on blast on the internet. LOL

I'm a Red Boy fan. I will say of the Red Boy dogs Mims Jiggs has thrown those dogs that I picture in my head from 40 years ago. The Holland dogs did not do much for me until I seen dogs down out of Cadillac II. The Cadillac II dogs are about as close to stand alone pure Red Boy dogs that has been out in a really, really long time. They flashed back to those Jocko-Hank type dogs of Mr. Jackson and Mr. Chavis. Thick hided, durable, rough ass dogs, lot of forward moving power. Go figure.

The Jocko Red Boy dogs, if theories are correct, would be 3/4 Krebbs type dogs and a 1/4 out on the Hank dog. The Jocko-Red Boy dog breed so consistently you can see one a mile away. Like take one picture and they all seem to fit the mold.

But again, pure conjecture. LOL

EWO

[EWO]

The Hank dog carried the Zeke dog in the pedigree. Mr. Young says he looked like them dogs. So when the Jocko-Red Boy dogs met the Hollingsworth-Bolio type dogs it wa snot all much that of another out cross as there were some lining of families again.

Again, for the tell tale sign is dogs that throw dogs that throw dogs that keep throwing dogs.

The next sign is when the RBJ dogs are crossed they do well for a generation or two, but then those dogs do not typically stand alone. They have to be bred back toward the RBJ or the out dog to get that train going again.

I also would add Red Boy was bred to Bullet dogs and those dogs were hit and miss, and it was the start of Red Boy dogs "not being stand alone dogs" and the tales of 'Red Boy dogs can't bite'. For me, that means there was the Red Boy litter and then the "RED BOY LITTER", both papered off Jeff. That would mean Red Boy absorbs everything from the Krebs side of the story as well as everything bred from the Teal/Jeff pedigree.

That is why the Red Boy dogs are all over the place when they are bred pure (paper pure).

But again, all conjecture.

EWO