The greatest pit dog ever?

Damon what exactly do you mean by "Mayfield's clever matchmaking"? Bart had won a very high money match in Las Vegas and was touted as the best in the world at his weight by all who had seen him. Pat Patrick called Mayfield before the match to advise him not to match into Bart as he would kill the dog due to how good he was. General's first match was into one of the best dogs around at that time, Fitzwater's Duke who himself had won a couple of matches. In the match against Bart, General litteraly bit off a chunk of meat the size of your fist from Barts chest, raise his head and swallowed it in front of around 200 people.
Who said he was the best? Of course Mayfield said he was his best dog ever. Earl Tudor said he hadn't seen a dog of that quality since Black Jack Jr. , Fitzwater said he was the best he had seen, and what Burton said about him has been posted although Burton also said he felt that Generals brother Satan was better, however he was lost in a yard accident.

It seems to me that because it was MAYFIELD who owned him and matched him people want to discredit one of the best dogs to ever wear a collar and they will go to just about any lenghts to do it, including such idiotic statemens like that it was clever matchmaking. What's also funny is that when you talk to the old dogmen, if they lost to Mayfield there was no shame because they had lost to the best but if they won against him it was one of the highlights of their carreers.

 

My opinion I rather like S.T.P's Gr Ch Buck

but that is MO

 

Well that's fine Megger you are entitled to your opinion and I respect that. But what's wrong is that you would accuse someone you don't know and who is not alive today to defend himself of setting up a match,, this is very wrong.

Those who know me know that I am not saying this just because Mayfield was my friend, and that I would defend any dog or person who is unjustly accused of something they did not do.

 

Oh shoot,, sorry Megger my bad I just noticed it was not you who said that but Damon. Please accept my appology.

 

sonny told pat patrick that freddie jones was over confident with bart and didnt know how to travel long distances with a dog. sonny said bart and general were about even in ability, but mayfield outsmarted him in every way. first freddie had to drive all over the place cos the venue kept changing. after two thousand miles of driving it turned out to be in generals backyard. bart was first in the pit, and when mayfield came in he released general into bart who was still in the corner. general got a great hold straight away which helped alot. sonny said mayfield could have won with either dog. plenty of dogmen wanted a piece of general, usually if a dog is truly an ace it is hard to get him matched. im not saying anything bad about general, he was an extra special dog, but i wouldnt say hes the greatest or one of the best.

 

all sounds like he said she said, general won , end of story. that is bunk about aces being hard to get matched, every dog that made gr ch found at least 5 opponents, hell they found 10 willing to go into tornado, 8 for the queen.8 for molly b, 7 a piece for art and zebo.in my exsperience people want to knock off the big name dogs

 

For the record, this matter was actually addressed here at GD (from Louis through me) a little more than a year ago.

Pinchers wins are legit, not a single roll was counted in his victories. He was matched often, sometimes 2-3 a day against various kennels in the New England area. Although the majority of them were all OTC none of the rolls were counted in his win total ( if it was that number would be much higher ). He was a big bruising dog, nothing lasted more than 45 minutes with him and he would put them away quick. Some of those wins were against small dogs thus skewing his numbers to some degree, but he did stop 24 dogs. That is why when discussing Colby dogs I stand firm on Bob-Tail Bob being the better of the two. His record is equally impressive and was more evenly matched with dogs his own size.

Take from that what you will, the one thing I can vouch for is the honesty of the Colby family. Everything Lou claims has written documentation to back it up, after all, who else kept better records than the late J.P. ?

 

Story of Pit General - by Don Mayfield


General started when I was at Earl's (Tudor) house and I saw Nigger with her dam when he had just stopped nursing. That day my friend Bobby and I bought Niggers sister named Candy. We wanted Nigger but Earl did not want to part with him. Almost 2 years later I took the Mert bitch of Bud's (Womack) to Earl's house to breed her to Nigger. That was the first time Earl bred Nigger. In that litter there were 8 black dogs and 2 brindle dogs. The 2 brindles were a male and a female. I took the 2 brindles to Earl as payment for the breeding and Earl sold them to Danny Burton. Danny sold the bitch to pay for the 2 and kept the male. This male was Tiger Dan.

Later, Danny Burton got Spooky as a pup from Earl. After winning one match with Tiger Dan, he bred him to Spooky and that produced Pit General. I later bought General from Danny along with 7 or 8 other dogs. That day I bought General when he was 16 months old. He was the cheapest dog I bought that day. All the dogs I bought were bred by Earl except for one named Vick. Vick had won a match and was Danny's favorite of them. He was the most expensive dog I bought that day in the package.

The first fight I had with Pit General was against Frank Fitzwater and his Duke dog. Duke was by far the best head dog I had ever seen. I had schooled Pit General and he was the type of dog that pushed and worked until he got his holt and then went into killing them with his holt and he knew the the killing holts. Duke was a head dog with a very hard mouth, much harder than the Zeke dog. He could really bite hard and hold the head keeping out the hardest dogs away from their holts. I saw him in his schoolings and he made the Eli dogs seem weak.

Frank conditioned Duke with the help of our friend Billy Perdue. It was two excellent conditioned dogs facing each other in the pit. Before the match I was getting General ready to be weighed when Frank came in. He walked up to me and said, "Donnie, how is your black dog feeling?" I looked at Frank and his right eye was staring up and his left eye was looking down and he had a big smile on his face. I pushed my straw hat to one side and said, "Jesse, I have him in the best shape I ever had a dog, even better than the Goldie dog."

I would like to explain here that Frank Fitzwater used to say he was the bastard son of the outlaw Jesse James. Don had conditioned and handled Goldie for Frank in his match and Goldie had made 24 scratches to win.

When I looked at Frank, his right eye lowered and his left eye stared me straight in the eye and he said, "you better have him ready because you are going to have to kill this one". And later Frank asked if anyone else wanted to bet some money. At that time Billy came up to me and said "I bet you 100 that Duke wins in 45 minutes and I told Billy that I would bet him that the match wouldn't last 45 minutes and Billy took the bet.

From the beginning of that match till almost 40 minutes into it General was pushing and working hard but could not get a holt on Duke, and Duke was eating up Generals head bad. Frank was in his corner laughing saying, "Donnie, he can't kill him if he can't bite him" and his eyes were moving all over. At that point General took Duke by the paw. He bit down hard and broke his paw and then moved his holt higher in his leg and bit down and broke his leg. And then General kept on moving his holt higher, biting down and breaking the bone until he reached Dukes shoulder and at that time Frank cut a big fart when he heard Dukes shoulder break. I looked at my old friend Frank and with a big smile on my face said, "we got you now!". General was starting to get hot at this point. He had been working hard for almost 45 minutes and was getting some air when Duke got up shaking Generals head. General started to walk Duke over towards me and we cornered him and General took Duke by his other leg. That was in our corner and when I looked up there was Frank saying, "you're going to have to kill him Donnie".

General did the same to that leg as he had done to the other one, biting and breaking the bone and when he reached Dukes other shoulder he broke that like he did his other one. Later General layed down on Duke and looked at me while he got some air when Frank said, "he's far from dead". While I let General catch his air it got real quiet and Frank was trying to hear what I was saying to General. Later, I got up hunched over General and said to him, "sickum!" and General stood over Duke and dove into his styfle hunching his back and biting down and broke Dukes styfle. When General started to go into Dukes belly I said to Frank, "won't be long now Frank" and Duke let out a dying cry. At that point General layed on Duke and let go of his holt looking at me, I looked at Frank's eyes and he was staring me right into my eyes and I asked Frank if he was ready to make his scratch.

We handled the dogs and the Ref said "red nose dog to scratch" and while Billy was turning Duke around he said, "I bet 100 that he will make his scratch" and before I could say anything he let go of Duke and Duke fell right to the floor trying to drag himself across the pit towards General but he couldn't get up. Billy picked Duke up and took him out of the pit and Duke died 5 minutes after that.
When I was taking General back to the truck Frank came up to me and said, "Donnie, that is the best dog I have ever seen in all my years and you had him in top condition".

Pit General's second match was when Freddy (Jones) was at my yard looking at my dogs and I told him, "see that black dog covered in mud? I'll match him against your bigger dog and raise him 2 lbs. if you fight in our next convention. The dog you won in Las Vegas with". At that point, Larry (McCall) and the Indian (Indian Sonny) came up and got real close so they could hear what was being said and Freddy seen them out of the corner of his eye.

Freddy Jones was the owner of the Black Bart dog who had won 2 big money matches in the west coast killing a dog in :21 minutes in his last match in Las Vegas. Bart was bred similar to Duke but had a different style that was more like General's in the way he was a killing dog that got real deep in his holts.
Freddy knew I was after him and he knew that he would either accept the match or never hear the end of it from Larry and the Indian. Freddy was a businessman in Bakersfield, California. I think it was Larry McCall who said, "well Freddy, what are you going to do?" and the Chief was standing there laughing softly and Freddy told me, "we'll do the match".

Pat Patrick called me the next day and said there was no way I could beat Freddy's dog, that he was a killer and he advised me not to match into him.
We put almost 2 months work into Pit General and we still had 3 weeks before the match when we got a call from Boss Hog (the police chief) telling us that we had to take the match out of Texas, so we moved it to Louisiana and I gave Pit General to Jimmy (Wimberly) so he could finish him off. Earl Tudor had schooled Jimmy real good in conditioning and handling. Almost a week after giving General to Jimmy he called me and said he couldn't find the time to finish him and if it was ok if he let Roland (Fontenot) take him. I said it was ok and Roland called me and we made arrangements for the match. For that show we were conditioning 4 or 5 dogs to match.
It was 4 days before the match when we got to the place with the dogs and the pit in a truck. There were 3 of us in the truck and we put up the pit and tended to the dogs and then we went to a hotel with the dogs. The first night we went to visit Roland and see General and the second night we all went to the hotel when 2 station wagons pulled up with 4 people in each one. It was Freddy, the Indian and his friends from the west coast. I looked on from way back as Freddy took Black Bart out of the the wagon with a long leash, let him empty out and went into his room. We had a big room to meet in and talk away from our dogs and I told the Indian to come and get together with us after they got settled into their room. An hour later Freddy came in and asked me if I wanted to see his dog and I said yes. So we walked to his room and when we went in the first thing I saw was a room full of cigarrette smoke and 4 boys from out west sitting in the room drinking and talking. I looked and laying there on the bed was Black Bart. He was laying on his stomach with his head on his paws. Bart turned his eyes to look at Freddy when Freddy told Bart to get up. At that moment Bart got up and stretched out in a way that looked like he was posing for a picture, then he shook himself out and looked at Freddy. What a body that dog had! his head was high with a great muzzle. I told Freddy what a nice dog he was and we talked for a while. I had seen what I came to see.

They had alot of work into Bart like we did on General, never stopping after his last match, letting him heal up and picking up where he had left off in his keep. Bart was conditioned on a treadmill and road work. He was not slim and tall like General but had more of a weight lifters body, General had more of a swimmers body.

When we were at pit side and it was time to weigh the dogs, Freddy hung Bart on the scale and Bart was right on weight. Then we weighed General and he was also right on weight.
When the dogs met in the center of the pit it was an all out war and both of them were eating each other up. Close to the :10 minute mark the bets were equal then at the :20 minute mark General took a holt of Barts upper chest near his shoulder, hunched his back and got deep into his holt biting down and breaking Bart's shoulder. Then he went into Bart's styfle when Bart took Generals styfle and they ate each other up for a while until Bart let go of his holt trying for General's head. General came out of his holt and they went back to fighting the front end and General went back into Bart's chest getting deeper in his holt every time, biting and shaking. Close to the :40 minute mark General put his front paws on Bart's chest and bit off a piece of Bart's chest, raising his head and swallowing it in front of 200 people. He then went back into the same spot when Freddy looked at Roland and said, "I give up". Jimmy and I went up to the dogs and took General off of Bart. Freddy then picked Bart up while stepping out of the pit with him and Bart stretched out and died in his arms.

The next day we got back home at night. We left the dogs in the truck in thier cages and decided to put them back on chain the next mornig after we had rested up. When I went out to the truck the next morning the first thing I saw was General's cage door open and General was gone

 

Damon, if you read the story or bother to research that convention you will find that it was NOT held in Mayfield's back yard, as Mayfield lived in Sunnyvale, Texas and the convention was held in Louisianna.
So, you better go back and ask some more questions because from the start the information you received is false.

I believe the rest of what you were told to also be false and if the Sonny you are talking about is Indian Sonny you may want to ask him why he stole General if he was such a common dog?

 

did i say he was a common dog? i said theres been better

 

so generals first match was against the greatest dog mayfield had ever seen? and the second one had a harder bite than zeke, a dog that killed one with a single bite. i dont believe a word sorry

 

why is that then ?
i think mayfield would know a good dog when he saw one, he saw many of the greats and rated general above them all, including his own champions, i never heard anyone say danny burton was not truthful, he said general was the best he saw too, it at least means he was an elite dog.

 

why is that then ?
i think mayfield would know a good dog when he saw one, he saw many of the greats and rated general above them all, including his own champions, i never heard anyone say danny burton was not truthful, he said general was the best he saw too, including his own champions and grand champions, it at least means he was an elite dog.

 

Damon that's fine you are perfectly entitled to your opinion and it has been duly noted.

I am not arguing what you may or may not think about General or any other dog here. What I am arguing is that you consistently have introduced false information as the truth and have attacked dogs and dogmen with lies.

You stated that the Bart match was a "set-up" match which was a complete lie. Then you stated Mayfield acted in a dirty and dishonorable way in that match, again posting information that was false,, another lie.

If you are going to accuse someone of something you MUST show some proof that what you say is true, or in the absence of proof you must do the honorable thing and keep quiet.

 

Damon you better re-read that story because you are twisting it around to suit you,, but it is very clear that even this statement is not accurate. Re-read the story carefully and you will see you did not understand it right.

BTW,, Mayfield was the one who matched Zeke into Bo,, so I think he would know who was what kind of dog,, don't you?

 

the i retract my statement i was going on stuff that other people had told me

 

i never said the bart match was a set up, i said it was to generals advantage and indian sonny said mayfield could have won with either dog seeing they had similar ability.

 

Damon think about it. What was a match for? was it not to test a dogs gameness, ability and strengths against another dog?
Pit General killed Bart in the pit dead. Now if that's not showing he had more ability than Bart then I don't know what is....

Still I have to ask once again,, if there were dogs better than Pit General then why risk stealing him? And after that why on earth would he use him to breed to?

Look, you are not going to change my opinion and I am not going to change yours so why don't we just agree to disagree and leave it at that. There is no reason everyone should think the same and it's those different opinions that make life interesting.

After all, this post was to give an opinion and various others have given theirs, being different to yours and mine, and they are just as valid as yours or mine.