Dog Memory Lane

    Beverly Hillbillies Duke

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Wrinkly bloodhound dog (played by Stretch) featured on the sitcom THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES/CBS/1962-71. Duke belonged to Jed Clampett (Buddy Ebsen), an Ozark hillbilly who discovered oil on his property when he was “shooting at some food.” After the Clampetts moved to Beverly Hills, Duke the family hunting dog did nothing but sit around their mansion and sleep all day. Lamenting Jed said “There’s a dog who could trail a butterfly through a rain storm. Now he couldn’t smell cabbage cooking.”

Duke - The Clampetts’ family dog. He’s an old bloodhound that Jed had bought for four bits (50 cents) when he was a puppy. In early episodes, Jethro tried to teach Duke to fetch sticks, though to Jed, it looked as if Duke taught Jethro how to do that trick. In a couple of episodes, Duke got involved with a French poodle that was brought in to mate with Mrs. Drysdale’s pampered pooch Claude. Apparently, the poodle had better taste and had Duke’s puppies instead. When Mrs. Drysdale wanted Claude to get revenge against Duke, Jed warned her that he’d seen that old hound dog hold his own against a bobcat.

Duke does not get enough credit. Did it never occur to anyone that Duke was the one that sniffed out that Texas Tea and made ol’ Jed (Buddy Ebsen) a millionaire and that maybe it wasn’t just a happy coincidence that happened while Jed was shooting at some food?

The familiar Dalmatian "dapper" black & white spotted dog of Firefighter fame