Ol' Red

The narrator is a prisoner serving a 99-year term on a prison farm in southern Georgia for committing a crime of domestic violence after catching his wife in an affair with another man, presumably killing one or both of them. Twelve years into his sentence (two years in both the Kenny Rogers and Blake Shelton versions), he ingratiates himself with the warden and is assigned to tend Ol' Red, the warden's prized bloodhound who helps catch escapees. The warden in fact dares the prisoners to try to escape, but none have ever succeeded, as Ol' Red can smell a trail up to two days old and the prison is surrounded by quicksand and alligators.

The narrator bribes a guard to let him send a letter to a cousin in Tennessee, who brings in a female Bluetick Coonhound and pens her in a swamp just south of the prison. When the narrator takes Ol' Red for his daily exercise run, he passes by the swamp, hoping Ol' Red and the Bluetick will mate. Once they start doing so consistently, the narrator intentionally keeps the dogs apart for several days, then escapes from the prison one evening and heads north toward Tennessee. When the warden turns Ol' Red loose, though, he is so eager to mate with the Bluetick that he runs south toward her pen and completely ignores the narrator's escape. Some time later, the two dogs have bred litters of "red-haired Blueticks" all over the American South, and the narrator muses, "Love got me in here and love got me out."