Outlaw Dog Names

While documentation during the Old West era, especially in the lawless settlements that scattered the Western United States in their earliest forms, was undoubtedly few and far between, photography was establishing itself in a meaningful fashion. With it, came images of cowboys, outlaws, and lawmen, dispersed throughout the deserts, plains and bluffs of the region. Unfortunately, without writing accompanying them, there is limited content through which to perceive the images. 

Thankfully enough, there were a limited number of people bold enough to brave these wilds, therefore leaving a wake of familiar faces captured by photography throughout the mid-to-late 1800s and into the early 1900s. With them, came both dogs and speculation as to the nature of the human-canine relationships established at the time. Most of the pictures depict dogs being kept as working types, hunting and coursing for their owners for the purposes of both food and money, generally a long shot from companionship. But if records of the time were any indicator, many men still enjoyed the company of dogs, especially if they were particularly good at either of those activities, including James “Dog” Kelley, the mayor of Dodge City, who imported and kept a pack of Russian Greyhounds for those very purposes. 

While much speculation still exists about individual dogs, there does seem to be some indication that Wyatt Earp himself owned a faithful dog companion he and his wife Josephine called Earpie, a squat and surprisingly well-fed Jack Russell mix (his breed an estimate based on one of very few photos of both Earp himself and the dog). In a famous photo, Earp is seen feeding Earpie noodles outside of his mining camp in the Whipple Mountains of California. 

While there is no indication that Earpie was the Earp’s only dog, it stands alone as the only one truly captured in photos. However, there is mention of a dog (previous or Earpie himself) in the written version of Wyatt’s brother Morgan’s death. In the account, the reporter mentions that after Morgan was ambushed outside of a bar while playing billiards, his “hound” sat nearby whining and moaning, even going so far as to follow his fallen master out when his friends, family, and doctors carried his body out. 

Regardless of which dog it happened to be, the account makes a strong statement as to the types of relationships held by those in the earliest days of America, before the country was ever truly settled. If nothing else, it says that even for those who had to suffer the lifelong struggle of getting the American West settled, they still had the heart and care to give some of their limited food to their faithful companions.