Some History Of Our Dogs.
We have Melvin Hunt and Marshall Thornburg lines of Feist. Both of these lines are well known in the Piedmont area of North Carolina.
Our Thornburg dogs can be traced back to Marshall Thornburg and are as close to his old dogs as can be found today. John Little's dogs also had an influence on the Thornburg lines. Marshall and his brother Holton bred to John Little's dogs to produce their line. These dogs are well known for their grit and for how they stick to the tree.
I have been told stories as the truth, by several people about how these dogs would stick to the tree. I was told that sometimes the dogs would tree a coon late at night. Marshall would hear them treed from his house, but not feel like going to them at the time. The next morning he would grab a gun and go shoot the coon out for the dogs.
Marshall hunted his dogs on both coon and squirrel. You have to be careful with these dogs on coon, because they have too much grit and do not back down.
Our other line of Feist comes from Melvin Hunt. Our dogs go back to his foundation dog that he called his Old Happy dog. No one knows much about where Old Happy came from, but he produced some fine squirrel dogs.
Melvins dogs are known for starting early. A man told Melvin once that he had heard that you could get Feist to tree at two to three years old. Melvin told him "Well that might be true, but I would not have one."
These two lines of dogs seem to cross very well. Melvin's dogs seem to start younger and Marshall's dogs are known for their treeing power. This produces some good dogs. Many good competition dogs trace their history back to these lines.
It is hard to find these dogs as many of the older dogs are gone and people have crossed them on this and that. There are a few of us here in North Carolina trying to preserve these lines, for their ability and local history.
