Elbert & Vaughn bred Blueticks

[Hoot-N-Nanny]

This is my first post but tonight I was with some old hunting friends I hadn't see for years and we began to talk about our coonhounds. For many years I owned and hunted Blueticks and our talks tonight brought back memories I wanted to share with you, for what its worth. One of my friends suggested I post this on your website.

Back in the late 60's I lived in Evergreen Colorado. Once when driving up the Bear Creek Canyon I saw some Blueticks in a fella's yard. They were beautiful and I stopped and visited. I told the guy I'd like one of his pups when they came. He was proud of these dogs and hunted cat with them. He proudly claimed they were Vaughn bred, the finest kind.

When his pups arrived I bought one and brought this long eared beautifully ticked hound back home, my young wife fell in love immediately. We named him Hoot.

A couple of years later we moved to Southeast Missouri to my fathers farm. I began to coon hunt with some old boys that lived around there. Hoot had a hot nose, had a great voice and quick to tree but was a buttercup when confronted with a coon or possum. He was a lover, not a fighter and wanted no part of a wildlife tussle. That was just fine with me. Not ashamed to say, I loved that dog.

Hoot was a big handsome easy going Bluetick and we entered a couple of local bench shows with him. He won hands down. So we decided we wanted to find him a girl. I had heard Elbert Vaughn lived down in Paragould Arkansas. My dog Hoot was a Vaughn bred so the wife and I thought we'd take a drive down to Mr. Vaughn's farm and try to pick up a female to breed if we could.

I found Mr. Vaughn's phone number from Coonhound Magazine and called him. He said he didn't have any pups for sale but to come on down if we'd like to, he'd like to see our big male dog.

It was about an hour and half drive and we found Mr. Vaughn's farm. Don't know today how we did it without GPS but we did. We pulled up in the farm yard and I knocked on the door and Mrs. Vaughn greeted us. She said, "I'm sorry but Elbert is not well, maybe you can come back some other time?" Then, in the background, I hear, "Let him in, I'm fine"

We came in the living room and Mr.Vaughn was covered up on the sofa. He was obviously not feeling well. I remember feeling uncomfortable and thanked him for seeing us and told him I'd called about a pup and he once again he said all his pups were all called for and actually had a 5 year waiting list.

I told him about our dog and he asked if we brought him with us. I told him he was in the truck. He told me to bring him in. I brought Hoot in the house and Mr. Vaughn yanked on his ears, looked in his mouth, rubbed his back and legs and grabbed him by the balls and said, "This is a fine dog."

We visited for awhile and was getting ready to leave when Mr. Vaughn said, "Son, why don't you and your wife go down to the second little white kennel building and pick out a a female you like. We thanked him many times and walked down to the kennel.

There were no pups in the free yard of the kennel so I called the pups and here comes out the cutest bunch of Blueticks rolling all over each other. All but one and she stood back observing. I got down on both knees and played with the pups when the shy one came over and took the hat off my head and went back inside the kennel house with it.

We picked her immediately. She was beautiful.

We brought the little female back to the house and Mr. Vaughn looked her over and said, "good pick" I paid $300 for the pup and we had a sandwich that Mrs. Vaughn had prepared and we went home.

We named the pup Nanny. So we had the big male Hoot and a female named Nanny. When calling the dogs during a hunt, our friends always got a kick out of me calling, "Hoot-N-Nanny!"

Our plan was to bred the two but Nanny didn't want anything to do with Hoot. Hoot was a goofus so I can't blame her. So I called Mr. Vaughn. He said bring her down. We did.

When we arrived Mr. Vaughn met us in the drive and we took Nanny out of the truck. He told my wife to stay with the truck as he and I took Nanny to the dog pins. I don't know how many Blueticks he had but there were more than a couple of dozen grown dogs.

Nanny was the bitch of bitches and would not breed on her own. Mr. Vaughn checked her out and said there wasn't a reason she couldn't and took her into a dog run with a big Blue male. He put a muzzle on her and put her waist between her knees and called the big male over. It was over in a few seconds. I don't want to say who he bred her with but her father was a grand champion and Mr. Vaughn bred her to a grand champion.

He didn't charge us a dime. We ate lunch with Mr. and Mrs Vaughn and then drove home. The pups arrived on time and there were 5 healthy Ticks. I gave my father the big male we named Thumper and I sold the rest of the pups to my hunting friends.

We hunted those dogs for a few years and they were champs. Hoot and Nanny passed on nearly 30 years ago but are alive in my memory today.

I was a young man when I met Mr. Vaughn. I'm an old man now. But my memory of him is as fresh as it was on the day he was covered up on the sofa. He and Mrs. Vaughn were two of the nicest people I've come across in my time here. I learned more about dogs and hunting with dogs from Mr. Vaughn than I could ever explain.

I'm sorry if I got long winded and perhaps boring to some but I just wanted to share a life experience with some hunting dog people who might appreciate what I'm trying to convey. Most importantly, I wanted to recognize a sportsman, Mr. Elbert Vaughn, for his knowledge, kindness and devotion to breeding some of the best tree dogs in the world.

[JTG]

I enjoyed your writing very much. Thank you for sharing.

[Mike Leonard]

Great story!

My first really great hound also came from Elbert. I didn't get him directly myself another older man I hunted with was getting his dogs from Elbert and he had some complications in his health and due to emphysema he hadn't got to start this young male, he was out of Blue Mack and a female Elbert had that was heavy in Ark. Valley Blue breeding. This dog was 13 months old and had never been out of the pen. He went from knowing nothing to a check broke , class act, in no time at all, and really spoiled me, but it took some years to realize just how lucky I got.

Do you by chance remember the man's name you got Hoot from in Colorado?

[david]

Thank you for registering and for the great story. It brought up some deep memories.

Thanks also to the man who encouraged you to come on here and share it. He is a wise and generous man.

[Hoot-N-Nanny]

[Hoot-N-Nanny]

[Hoot-N-Nanny]

[JTG]

When you went to Mr. Vaugh's house, did you see any dogs other than bluetick hounds? Do you know what he was feeding his hounds?

[Hoot-N-Nanny]

[amiller118]

I'm way late to this conversation but I was searching some old bluetick stories and came across this thread on the internet, I had an old big female named Daisy that came to me second hand from Mr. Vaughn through a family in Okla that couldnt get her broke off of running deer, she was 5 by the time I got her, I kept her in the woods every night with my good walker gyp, Spice, Spice was a locktite treeing machine and I guess she finally wore off on Ol Daisy and they became a formidable pair, dont get me wrong Daisy was a top notch tree dog, not loose around the tree at all but if she struck a deer before we hit the creek it was a long night that sometimes stretched into days, literally, I lost her once on a deer race and my Dad eventually found her 3 weeks later 45 miles north of our home, how she ended up there Lord knows, guess she ran that deer til she couldnt any longer, gave up and hit the road in the wrong direction? One thing about Daisy that no one could ever question though was her grit, never had or saw another dog so tough on a coon or a bobcat and I've been blessed to have had a few good ones of my own and hunted with many others, Daisy was so hard on things that my hunting buddies eventually had me put her on a lead so the other dogs could have a chance, especially with bobcats, there was something about bobcats that sent her into a rage, never saw one last longer than a minute or two once she tore into em. Eventually she straightened out enough that I put her in some UKC hunts and did pretty well, even winning a few but she would still get a wild hair once in a while and catch a possum on the ground, what can you say when she brings back proof that shes junking? Pretty hard to deny it when she provides the evidence for everyone to see! The last time I competition hunted her, I had just reached down and unsnapped her when she lifted her nose up and started winding something up on a bald hill, I caught her before she had the chance to take off and scratched her right there, sure enough there were some deer up the hill, other 3 dogs in the cast acted like they wanted to run em but pretty quick came back and headed down the creek.
Not much of an Elbert Vaughan story I guess but thats the one I got!