When I was a child growing up on the farm in Meade County, it seemed to us that city folks were all the time taking kittens and puppies they didn’t want and dropping them off at the end of farmers’ driveways. We couldn’t imagine why city folks thought we wanted their pets if they didn’t want them, but boxes and bags of kittens and puppies showed up so often we just thought: must be how city folks’ minds work.
So, it’s not surprising that one day, when my daddy and my four brothers, Steve, Alan, David, and Jeff, were on their way in from the fields, there at the bottom of the driveway was a cardboard box. My brothers started begging right off, “Oh, Daddy, can we keep it? Can we keep it?”
Daddy said, “Boys, let’s see what’s in the box first. Then we can decide.”
On this particular day, the box held four pups. My daddy looked them over, and he could see those pups had paws that were extra large for their bodies. He knew that meant those pups were part hound dog, and that meant that at least one of them might grow up to be a halfway decent hunting dog. So he said, “All right, boys, if you can divide them up without fighting over them, they’re yours.”
My four brothers were as pleased as any four boys have ever been. Each one of them had his very own pup. Then tragedy struck. First, my oldest brother Steve’s pup disappeared without a trace. Next, Alan’s. Then David’s. Gone. My youngest brother, Jeff, was panic-stricken. He went to my folks saying, “Please, please let me bring my pup inside. I’ve got to sleep with it. I’ve got to be with it every moment of every day or something’s going to happen to it. Please? Please, let me bring it inside.”
Daddy said, “Jeff, you are growing up on a farm. And you know how it is here on the farm. Animals are not allowed inside this house. Well, maybe a sick calf or a little runt pig could move into the basement to be bottle fed until it’s well enough to go back out, but cats and dogs are not allowed inside this house.”
Jeff knew that was true, but he couldn’t give up. He started in begging and pleading, pleading and begging, begging and pleading, pleading and begging, begging and pleading, pleading and begging, begging, pleading, pleading, begging, begging, pleading, pleading, begging—are you getting tired of reading1 this? Then you know why this works on some parents. Finally, it even worked on my daddy.
“Jeff, if you are willing to take one of Mama’s throw rugs, throw it down there on the basement floor, and sleep on that rug with your pup, it can come inside. But Jeff, if that pup so much as whimpers and keeps any of the rest of us awake, back out it goes.”
Jeff was pleased. He got himself one of Mama’s throw rugs, threw it down on the basement floor, and slept on that floor with his pup. Those first few nights Jeff just patted his pup, and patted it, and patted it, until it drifted off to sleep without making a sound. Then Jeff remembered how he liked to read to help himself go to sleep, so he started reading to his pup. It didn’t take long for Jeff to figure out his pup’s favorite books were books about dogs. So Jeff started going to the library and checking out every dog story he could find. He read dog story after dog story to his pup, and when the dogs in the books were doing brave exciting things, that little pup’s tail would just wag, wag, wag, and he would drift off to sleep, dreaming all kinds of brave, puppy dog dreams.
One night, our whole family was awakened by “Arooo, aroo, aroo, aroo!”
My daddy jumped out of bed. He headed downstairs, “Jeff, I told you—” and he stopped. There on that rug was my little brother, Jeff, tears just streaming down his cheeks. Sitting right there beside him was the pup, looking equally pitiful. Daddy saw the book Jeff had been reading to his pup that night was none other than Old Yeller. He shook his head, “I tell you. That pup is going to grow up to be some dog.” Then he went on back upstairs.
Jeff said, “Pup, did you hear that? Daddy says you’re going to grow up to be some dog. I believe that’s a name you could grow into. What do you think?” The pup stuck out his tongue, licked a tear off my little brother’s cheek, and that is how Some Dog got his name.
Some Dog really was some dog. Jeff and Some Dog stayed together all day every day. One day they were playing in the tall weeds on the hill between the barn and the pond down below, when Jeff lost sight of Some Dog. And then he heard, “Aar! Aar, aar, aar!” Jeff came running, and there was Some Dog, his toenails dug into the bank of the pond trying to hold himself on shore. Hanging on to the other end of Some Dog, pulling hard on Some Dog’s tail, was a gigantic turtle.
Jeff ran down there, grabbed hold of Some Dog, and started pulling against that gigantic turtle, yelling, “Help! Help, help, help. Help!” David ran down and grabbed a leg of the gigantic turtle to keep it on shore. Alan ran down and he, too, grabbed a leg to keep the gigantic turtle on shore.
Steve ran down, sized up the situation, and yelled, “Hang on boys. I’ll get the tractor. We’re going to need chains.” Steve drove the tractor down to the pond. They wrapped chains around the legs of the gigantic turtle and pulled with the whole weight of the tractor to try to keep the gigantic turtle from making off with Some Dog. Now, my brothers did everything they could think of to try to make that gigantic turtle let go of Some Dog, and it is a disgusting thing to have to tell you, but finally they had to take an axe and behead the turtle. Yes, it was messy, but Some Dog was saved. Oh, his tail was a bit mangled, but he was going to be all right.
Now, I don’t know what kind of family you grew up in, but I did not grow up in a wasteful family. With that gigantic turtle we had one huge harvesting and eating problem. You might think eating up a gigantic turtle would be sort of like trying to use up all the leftover turkey after Thanksgiving, but it’s worse. It’s more like dealing with zucchini in August. But we were up to the task.
My mom, my sister, and I got out our recipe books and we started cooking and eating our way through the gigantic turtle. We ate turtle à la king, broiled turtle, turtle croquettes, turtle dip, turtle étouffée, fricasseed turtle, turtle gumbo, turtle hash, turtle ice cream. We put up about a half-dozen jars of turtle’s foot jelly. We’ve been kind of afraid to taste that jelly, but we weren’t wasteful; we’ve still got all six jars. One day, we took sticks, sharpened up the ends of them, slid on a chunk of turtle meat, green pepper, onion, turtle meat, green pepper, onion, turtle meat, green pepper, onion, and put one of those little cherry tomatoes on the end. Then we fired up the grill and grilled ourselves turtle kabobs. They were delicious. My mama made several recipes of turtle loaf, and she put them in the freezer so we could eat them come winter. We ate Mornay turtle and turtle noodle bake. Many a morning, we sat down to turtle omelets. At suppertime, we ate turtle pot pies. When company came over, we fed them all turtle quiche—they did not know the difference. We ate roast turtle, turtle soup, turtle turtles. One night we got real fancy—put tablecloths on the table, lit candles, and sat down to turtle under glass. We preceded that with some kind of cold, soupy looking stuff called turtle vichyssoise. We didn’t like it, but we tried.
My daddy, a near genius, harvested out of that turtle a lifetime supply of Turtle Wax. My mama, another near genius, harvested out of the turtle a lifetime supply of turtle extract. It’s one tiny bottle, no taller than three inches, but since we have yet to locate a recipe calling for turtle extract, we remain confident that one tiny bottle does indeed constitute a lifetime supply. On the mornings we didn’t sit down to turtle omelets, we got out the blender and whirled up turtle yogurt breakfast shakes. They were delicious. And we contributed to the demise of our second greatest harvesting problem by devising a recipe for turtle-stuffed zucchini.
The shell of the gigantic turtle was recycled into a boat. When their chores were done my four brothers and Some Dog would float on various ponds on the property in their turtle shell boat. One day, they were floating on the very pond where Some Dog almost met his maker, when all of a sudden their whole turtle shell boat started to lift up out of the water. Alan was the first to assess the gravity of the situation. He yelled, “Boys, we best abandon ship!” They all headed for shore, Jeff hanging on to Some Dog for all he was worth. They climbed out on the bank and looked back just in time to see the head of an even larger turtle grab their turtle shell boat in its mouth and pull it underneath the water.
My brothers went up to the house. They told my daddy what they had seen. Daddy studied on it a bit. “Boys, sounds to me like the turtle that grabbed your turtle shell boat must have been the mama of the turtle that almost made off with Some Dog. I reckon that mama had been looking for her child. And when you all were out there today, she must have looked up and thought: ‘There’s my child. Just got itself turned over and can’t flip back. I’ll go help it.’ And I reckon now she’s taken that child of hers down to the nest to be with its brothers and sisters.”
My four brothers thought about what Daddy had said. And if it was as true as it appeared to be, it meant that pond was the most dangerous place on our entire farm. Since they were the ones who uncovered the danger, they felt it was their responsibility to make that pond safe. They considered a wide variety of options and concluded that going head to head in combat with gigantic turtles was not one of the better ones. After much consideration, they decided the proper course of action would be to clear-cut every bit of vegetation a good distance back all the way around the circumference of that pond so those gigantic turtles wouldn’t have any cover. So that’s what they did.
Every day my brothers would take their hoes down to the pond. Three of my four brothers would be chopping back everything in sight while the fourth stood watch for gigantic turtles. One day, at noontime, when my brothers went up to the house for dinner, one of those boys left his hoe down there at the pond resting blade up. I don’t know which one because not a one of them has ever owned up to it.
Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever done any farming or gardening, but one of the first things you learn is that you ought not leave a hoe resting blade up. If you have to leave a hoe out in the open, you lean it up against the side of a building or up against a fence post—somewhere where you will remember where you left it. If there’s nothing to lean it against, you leave it resting blade down. My brothers knew that, but one of them forgot.
After they’d eaten their dinner, they headed back down to the pond to work. Some Dog was with them. He was always with them. There he was running along, intent on being the first one back down there, and before anybody could see what was going to happen, holler “stop,” or take any other preventive measure, Some Dog had run right through that upturned hoe blade. He sliced himself from the end of his nose right through to the tip of his tail, and there he was in two pieces.
Jeff was the first one to come up on him, and he started wailing, “Oh! Look what happened to my dog! Look what happened to my dog!”
David was next, “Jeff, I’m going to be an animal doctor when I grow up, and I’m going to be a good one. I just got my first patient. Alan, give me your shirt.” David slapped Some Dog back together, took Alan’s shirt, wrapped it around Some Dog, picked Some Dog up, and headed for the house. He stopped off at the tobacco barn. Old folks will tell you that tobacco on the outside cures just about anything. David took big, long tobacco leaves, wrapped them around Some Dog, and then slid him inside a burlap bag.
Next David stopped off at the kerosene barrel. Old folks will tell you the same thing about the curative powers of kerosene. He dunked Some Dog in the kerosene a few times, slid him inside another burlap bag, and then headed on into the house. “Mama, Some Dog has suffered a serious injury. He’s got to take up residence in the basement again.” And Some Dog was back downstairs.
David would sit by that burlap bundle and say, “Some Dog, I’m going to be a veterinarian when I grow up, and I’m going to be a good one. You’re my first patient. You’ve just got to get well. Come on Some Dog, you’ve got to make it.” He was sure he could hear a faint, “ouw, ouw-ouw.”
Jeff would go downstairs. He would sit by that burlap bundle and read books about brave dogs who survived tremendous hardships. And when those dogs were at their bravest, he was pretty sure he too could hear a faint, “ouw, ouw-ouw.”
At last the day dawned when David declared Some Dog was as well as Some Dog was ever going to get, so our whole family assembled for the great unveiling. Now, I need to take a moment here and tell you my brother David really did grow up to be a veterinarian. He was part of a practice in Hardinsburg. That’s in Breckinridge County, just one county over from Meade County where we grew up. He was a real good veterinarian, and folks there still do miss him. For reasons I won’t go into here, he left his veterinary practice and became a people doctor, and now he lives in E’town, where he delivers babies. Now, I’m not telling you all this to brag on my brother, even though going to both veterinary school and medical school is quite an accomplishment. Instead, I’m telling you this because I don’t want you to hold what I’m going to tell you next against him. Some Dog’s injury was serious, and David hadn’t had any medical training at the time. He actually wasn’t even in high school yet.
Let’s take a moment away from the story here so you can ask yourself: Are you certified in first aid? Do you know how to put on a Band-Aid? Those of you who could only answer yes to that second question have skills approximately equal to David’s at the time of Some Dog’s injury, so I know you’ll understand how this next part of the story happened.
Some Dog’s injury was serious, and it seems David must have panicked and worked just a bit too fast. Yes, he saved Some Dog’s life and got him back together, but with two legs pointing up and two legs pointing down. Yet, this was not a tragedy.
Some Dog won the most unusual pet contest at the Meade County Fair three years in a row. That third year he was the only contestant—wouldn’t anybody else pay any entry fees to enter their pets. Some folks went to the Fair Board and complained, “That dog those Hamilton boys are entering is not unusual. That dog is unnatural, and there is a difference!”
Well, the Fair Board had to agree because they weren’t collecting any entry fees, so they presented Some Dog with a lifetime unusual pet certificate and named Some Dog the leader of the Meade County Fair Pet Parade. Some Dog proved an excellent pet parade leader. You see, previous pet parade leaders would sometimes take a notion to rest, and go sit on the curb a spell. It doesn’t take much imagination to see how that could ruin a parade. But Some Dog? He never needed to rest. If the two legs he was walking on got tired, he’d just flip himself over and keep going on the other two.
The same untiring quality that made Some Dog a superb Meade County Fair Pet Parade leader also made Some Dog an outstanding hunting dog. He could stay out on the hunt longer than any other dogs. He could stay out longer than any of my brothers really wanted to be out with him. But then they discovered that as much as Some Dog liked to hunt, he still liked stories more. All they had to do was take a book, shake it in his direction, and call, “Some Dog, come on over here. I’ll read you a story,” and Some Dog would come right in off the hunt.
About this time, the oldest of my four brothers, Steve, headed off to Meade County High School. About this same time, Meade County High School decided to upgrade its social studies curriculum by offering a class called psychology. Now Steve had always been real smart and he figured a class that ended in -ology sounded like something a smart person ought to take, so he signed up. Really early on in that psychology class, Steve learned about a person by the name of Pavlov. It seems this Pavlov fellow had himself a bunch of dogs, and every time he fed his dogs he would ring a bell. It got so Pavlov could ring that bell and his dogs would start to slobber even if there wasn’t any food there. Now Steve thought it was pitiful, pitiful, that anybody could get to be world-wide famous, the way this Pavlov fellow did, for teaching dogs how to slobber. I don’t know how dogs are where you live, but in Meade County slobbering is an inborn doggie gift—no training required. Nevertheless, Steve grasped the training principles and decided to use them to teach Some Dog.
Because Some Dog was so untiring, Steve set his first goal as teaching Some Dog how to hunt independently. Some of you may be thinking, so what, dogs hunt independently all the time. You would be correct, except the human hunter is only allowed to shoot the animal that is in season for hunting at the time. So Steve would hold up a picture of an animal, “Some Dog, you see this picture?”
Some Dog would look at the picture, “Woof.”
“This is the animal that’s in season. You go get it, and run it back by the back porch. We’ll wait for you to run it by.”
Some Dog would say, “Woof,” and then he’d run off, and he wouldn’t come back until he could run by the back porch the animal that was in season at the time.
Some Dog did so well with the pictures that Steve took to gluing the pictures on a calendar. He would hold up a calendar and say, “Some Dog, you see this square. That stands for today.”
Some Dog would say, “Woof.”
“And you see back here, this square with the picture on it. That’s the animal that is in season. It’s going to be in season until you see it on this other square with a big X over the top of it.”
“Woof.”
“So, this is today. This animal is in season. Now, you go get it. We’ll wait for you to run it by.”
Some Dog would take off, and my brothers would wait for him to run the right animal by. Some Dog did so well with the pictures on the calendar, my brothers put one of those huge wall chart calendars down on the wall inside Some Dog’s dog house. When Some Dog would come up to the house of a morning, one of my brothers would say, “Hey Some Dog, you want to hunt? Go ahead; I’ll wait for you to run something by.”
Some Dog would say, “Woof.” He’d run down to his dog house, check his calendar, see what was legal, “Woof.” He would take off and not come back until he could run the right animal by.
Everything went real well until along about November 1st or November 2nd. Some Dog came up to the house one morning. One of my brothers said, “You want to hunt? Go ahead. I’ll wait for you to run something by.”
Some Dog went down to his dog house, checked his calendar, and he took off. Several hours later we received a phone call from a farmer who lived a good distance away. “You all need to come get your dog. Now, I know it’s yours. It’s got two legs up and two legs down and nobody else around here has a dog like that. I don’t know what’s wrong with it, but I believe your dog has lost its mind. It’s out here barking at the remains of my pumpkin patch and carrying on something awful.”
We all went to get the dog, and for a while everybody sat on the back porch staring at everybody else, until somebody said, “Why don’t we go check his calendar?” Remember I told you this happened along about November 1st, November 2nd? Sure enough, back on October 31 for Halloween Day there had been a picture of some pumpkins. Some Dog was just hunting what he knew to be legal.
My brothers said, “Oh, it’s a good thing we figured this out before Thanksgiving. Turkey farmers would have been upset with us.”
“And look yonder, on Christmas Day, there’s a picture of an evergreen tree. I’d hate to think how Some Dog would have tried to herd home a tree.” My brothers took little pieces of paper, covered up all those holiday symbols, and Some Dog didn’t have any more trouble.
Some Dog was smart. He could hunt independently, in season, so Steve decided to raise his training one more notch by teaching Some Dog how to hunt by specified size. My brothers did this by leaning up against the back porch wall the pelt board that corresponded to the size of the animal Some Dog was to bring back. Smaller pelt boards for smaller animals. Larger pelt boards for larger animals.
Some Dog would come up to the house of a morning. If he saw a pelt board leaning up against the back porch wall, he’d know it was a hunting day. He’d note the size, “Woof.” Then he’d go down to his dog house, check his calendar, “Woof.” Then off he’d go, and he wouldn’t come back until he could run by the back porch the animal legally allowed to be hunted and of the size specified by the size of the pelt board leaning up against the back porch wall.
It was a superb system, and it would have been foolproof too. Except, one hot July day my mama decided it was entirely too hot to do her ironing inside the house. Now Some Dog was brilliant. I know if my mama had set her iron on the back porch first, or strung her extension cord out the kitchen window first, Some Dog would never have been confused. But the first thing my mama carried out to the back porch was her ironing board. And she didn’t set it up for ironing. No, she just leaned it up against the back porch wall in the very spot where my brothers usually set their pelt boards.
Some Dog came up to the house that morning. He saw the ironing board and thought it was a pelt board, “Woof!” He ran down to his dog house to see what was legal. Folks, in Meade County, Kentucky, in the middle of July the only animal legally allowed to be hunted are groundhogs. Some Dog said, “Woof?!?” and he took off.
Now, none of us were on the back porch to see which way he went. We managed to piece together what had happened when he turned up missing and we realized where the ironing board had been. So, far as I know, he could be all the way to where you are by now. If you should happen to see him, now he is going to be easy to spot, he’s got two legs up and two legs down, not many dogs are like that. If you should happen to see him, please call him off the hunt. Remember, all you have to do is get a book, shake it in his direction, and say, “Hey, Some Dog, come on over here. I’ll read you a story.” And if you don’t mind, we’d really appreciate it if you’d make the book you choose be something like Lassie Come-Home, so Some Dog will be reminded of us. We sure do miss him.
Some Dog is a story I developed in 1991, in preparation for potential bookings during Kentucky’s bicentennial celebrations in 1992. I knew that if I wanted to present programs that reflected the variety of Kentucky’s narrative traditions, I needed a tall tale in my repertoire. Tales of amazing dogs and incredible hunting exploits are the common Kentucky-collected tall tales, not the tall tales of human heroes like Pecos Bill and Paul Bunyan I had learned about in elementary school. Fortunately, I found the tall tales of amazing dogs especially appealing. But I struggled with the tall tale telling tradition of first-person storytelling. Although I did indeed grow up on a farm, I’ve never hunted in my life. Also, Kentucky-collected tall tales were usually told by men. One day it dawned on me that I have four brothers. The hero dog in the story could belong to them, which would allow me to tell the story in first person while talking about what happened to my brothers and their dog. That decision got me over my only major hurdle in developing this tale.
After spending time reading and thinking about many Kentucky-collected tall tales, there were two that really captured me. One was a gigantic turtle segment of a much larger tale, attributed to Ted Middleton.2 The other tale was a brief mention of a dog so smart it could hunt by specified size given the size of the pelt board set out for it. One day when an ironing board was put in the pelt board’s place, the dog ran off and was never heard from again. This was attributed to high school students in Whitesburg, Letcher County, Kentucky.3 The longer story of the big turtle first recounts the tale of a catfish so huge you could not see all of it at once, but you could know which pool of water in the creek the fish was in because the water level changed depending on where the fish was. Attempts to catch this fish, first with a high-powered rifle, then with a three-foot fishhook made from a wagon rod attached to fishing line made of bailing wire, eventually succeeded. In the story an amazing ox used to try to drag the catfish (which turns out to be the turtle) from the creek almost drowns and has to be rescued by the narrator. A second ox is brought in and before the turtle can drown both of them, the oxen manage to haul the turtle out and wedge it between two trees. Folks use logging chains to hold the turtle and a crosscut saw to behead it.
The meat from the turtle is described as follows:
“You know turtles have all kinds of meat in them, chicken, duck, fish, cow, hog, and every kind of meat there is, and make awful good eating. We had every kind of meat for weeks after that, eat chicken meat ’till we got tired of it, then have beef, then fish, then quail, just whatever we took a notion to have. We give lots of it to neighbors, everybody had every kind of meat ’round there the rest of the year.”4
The shell of the turtle becomes a boat:
“Well, you know, that turtle shell laid ’round there on the bank of the River for a long time, possums and other wild animals eat it out clean. I was down there one day and saw it would make a good boat. I got four or five of the boys who lived ’round up there to help me, and we turned it over and put it in the River. It was the best and biggest boat ever on Poor Fork. Twenty people or more could ride in it. It was really too big for Poor Fork, big as it was even in them days.”5
Later, when using the boat, the following happens:
“. . . and all of a sudden like something started pushing it up outten the water, and then it started pulling it down under the water. Me and Bill jumped outten it and swum to the bank to save our lives. When I got to the shore I looked back and saw something grab it in its teeth and pull it under the water, and it was gone. Never saw it again.”6
When one of the loafers listening to Middleton tell the story asks if he has any idea what took the shell underwater, Middleton offers this explanation. “. . . turtles hatch out early in the Spring. They don’t get their growth for a long time, and the mother turtle looks after them just like anything else ’till the young ’uns get big ’nough to look atter themselves. That was a real young turtle we caught, he wasn’t weaned, and his mother had been looking for him, and when she saw that shell turned upside down she thought the baby turtle had got over on its back and couldn’t turn back over. She straightened it out, and took it back to the nest where the other young ’uns was. Taint no way ever knowing how big its mother was, I just saw its head when it took the shell in its mouth.”7
Those were the segments from the turtle tall tale that fit my sense of humor and captured my imagination. I laughed over the idea of different kinds of meat. Then I told an early version of “Some Dog” to other storytellers at Tale Talk, a monthly storytelling group I participated in when I lived in Louisville.8 One of the listeners commented that he had always heard that different parts of a turtle taste like different other kinds of meat. I thought: “Shoot, I thought every bit of that was exaggeration, not just the quantity of meat.” So, I rejected using the different types of meat and replaced that with the turtle recipes. To come up with the various turtle dishes, I sat down with my cookbooks and poured over the indexes, until I had an A–Z list. Go back and look in the story—you’ll see that’s exactly what it is, with elaboration developed through repeated telling. By the way, this happened before the Forest Gump film came out in which one character frequently lists various shrimp dishes! I have been asked if I got the idea for the turtle recipes from the movie. No, I didn’t. Did someone from the movie get the idea from me? I seriously doubt it!
When I read about the mama turtle retrieving the turtle shell boat, my mind immediately went to Beowulf, and I thought: “Whoa! This is just like Grendel’s mother coming for revenge!” And I knew the “shell into boat with mother turtle retrieving it” was an idea I had to incorporate.
As mentioned earlier, I also liked the pelt board story, but how to connect it with the segments from the big turtle story? I had been aware of the split dog story for years.9 I’d heard and read many versions of it, and I could verify that it had also been collected in Kentucky.10 In most versions the dog runs fast and can bark from both ends. For a long time I resisted incorporating the split dog tale. Eventually I realized I could tie the two traditional tales I liked together if I would just allow myself to insert the split dog story in the middle. Yet, I was determined to come up with something different to say from what I’d read and heard in the past. After all, I knew the storytellers in my audiences would see the split dog segment coming from miles away, and I wanted them to have some payoff for not abandoning me during that segment. Somehow, the idea of an unusual pet contest hit me, and I was off and running with the three traditional tales woven together.
What about the rest of the “Some Dog” development? I really do have four brothers, and they act pretty much true to the personalities depicted in the story. In fact, I called each one up and told them the story as I worked on it to be sure they were okay with how they were being portrayed. During the phone call with my brother Steve (and yes, he is smart), he came up with the idea of Some Dog going after pumpkins, confused by holiday symbols on a giant wall calendar. I tried it; it worked, so I kept it. My brother David really was a veterinarian when the story was in development. He has since become an obstetrician. The setting is the farm I grew up on, so it is also real, complete with a tobacco barn and kerosene. Pets were never allowed in the house, only weak calves or runt pigs. And yes, some folks really do abandon their pets on farmers’ driveways. So many of the story details are true—in keeping with the tall tale telling tradition of lies laced with just enough truth to keep listeners coming along.
There really is a Meade County Fair,11 with a Fair Board, but no unusual pet contest or pet parade. I remember having to stop the story once and explain that there really was no such thing as either event. Why? I had an audience of school children from Meade County in front of me, and they started whispering to one another, very concerned that they had never heard of these events even though they’d been attending the Meade County Fair all their lives. After I stopped talking, acknowledged their sharp observation skills, then reminded them that the story was a tall tale, so I was supposed to lie, the telling could continue. From a teller’s standpoint, it was truly fascinating to see almost an entire audience leave the world of the story because it came a bit too close to real life!
Some Dog really got his name one night when I was driving home from another Tale Talk gathering where I had told another work in progress version of the tale. While driving I thought: “Wonder how Jeff kept that dog quiet at night? I know. He could read to it. And wouldn’t it be something if the dog liked books about dogs? Oh, and what if he cried when Jeff read Old Yeller? That would be some dog. That’s it—Some Dog is the dog’s name!”
Of course, once the idea of the dog understanding books entered the story, it was just too good to use only once. More books to call him off the hunt and Lassie Come-Home to finish out the story seemed natural fits and provided a thread to help pull the segments together.
As for Pavlov? I don’t recall the circumstances that generated the Pavlov section; however, the people I grew up around value common sense just as (if not more) highly as book learning. While I know Pavlov’s salivating dogs were actually part of an experiment he conducted that supported his observations about conditioned reflexes, it struck me that any country person worthy of claiming that title would surely see Pavlov’s work as somewhat wasted because dogs possess a natural inclination to slobber! I mean, if Pavlov’s work resulted in dogs being conditioned to do something, why not something much more worthwhile, like hunting independently?
Although I had not considered it during the story’s development, the insertion of Pavlov has paid off again and again in school performances. When telling “Some Dog” to upper elementary and middle school audiences, I can say something like, “While I know most of you have never heard about Pavlov, I can assure you all your teachers have. In fact, they don’t let folks become teachers without making them learn about Pavlov.” Usually some, if not all, of the teachers are nodding at this point. The students notice their teacher’s acknowledgment of Pavlov as real, so they accept that he is indeed “world-wide famous.” The teachers generally shake their heads and laugh over my brother’s interpretation of Pavlov too. So, Pavlov became one of those points in a story where it works well to somewhat step out of the tale narrative and talk even more directly with the audience before stepping back in to continue the telling of the story.12
So “Some Dog” developed the way many of the stories I tell have. It began with a desire to add a tale to my repertoire. I identified folktales I wanted to use. Feedback from my brothers and from other storytellers helped me develop my retelling. Then ongoing feedback from audiences over the years keeps feeding into the story, helping me keep the telling fresh time after time.
Sometimes an audience can even come to a teller’s aid. In 2000, I was in Nevada telling stories for the By the Light of the Moon Storytelling Festival, sponsored by the Las Vegas–Clark County Library District, and I almost completely lost my voice. I could speak, barely. Barking was beyond my ability, yet I had been asked to tell “Some Dog.” The audience, made up of all ages of listeners, quickly caught on to my difficulty, so I asked them to bark. They did, eagerly! I soon learned all I had to do was hold up my “paws” (both side by side, or one up and one down, depending on the portion of the story) and they would bark. When a bit of suggestion for the tone of the bark was needed, all I had to insert was a single word (ex. “Some Dog was amazed” [paws gesture] and the audience provided a bark of amazement). While I felt stressed telling with little voice, the audience participation made that telling of “Some Dog” one I will always remember.
When I am teaching about the art of storytelling, “Some Dog” has also proven a good example of the need to match story with audience. I’ve learned I can tell “Some Dog” successfully to a mixed-age audience, as long as only a very few preschoolers are in the mix. The story also works well for all-adult audiences. For other homogenous age group audiences, other factors come into play—especially experience with rural life. Multiple tellings have taught me that rural audiences as young as third and fourth grade readily enjoy “Some Dog” because they pick up on the humor early. The more removed that school-aged groups are from rural life, the older I find they have to be—sometimes up to tenth grade—before really grasping that the gigantic turtles are humor, not a real-life Kentucky farm report! This is not a sign of intelligence or lack thereof on the part of different audiences, but instead relates to one of the questions tellers have to be aware of when matching stories with audiences—what must my audience know in order to understand this story? So, why does it work with mixed ages and not with homogenous groups? Because in those mixed-age audiences, the children will look to their adults for guidance on what is and is not funny during the telling and the children also know they can always ask the adults questions later for clarification.
“Some Dog” is also one of those stories that adapts well to different time segments. I can shorten the turtle recipes, leave out the excessive begging and pleading (which developed from eye-rolling feedback I received from high school students in Tennessee, so I kept it up until they were nearly squirming, then added the comment about it working on some parents—they reacted with nods and laughter, so this became another keeper), leave out the pumpkins segment, and shorten other descriptions when I have only a short time to tell.
Once in a while it can even grow. Some audiences have heard about people who have told me about how much they like my brother David—relating how they recall his saving their dog when they were little, then how much they appreciated his recent work in helping deliver their first child. An audience or two have heard about ballet classes being conducted using our combine as a mirror because the surface is so shiny from all the Turtle Wax. Responses have been mixed (some laughter; some no reaction at all), so those additions have not become keepers, but once in a while they will still crop up in a telling.
Much to my delight, I’ve even met folks who report that after hearing the story they named their very next dog Some Dog. So, while I never once had a dog by that name, I love knowing Some Dog really lives!