This is going to be a very close match to several of the versions posted above, but this is the actual Woody Guthrie version. It has six verses and a chorus - looks like some of the others are shorter.
-Joe Offer-

---

Lay Down, Little Dogies
(Words and Music by Woody Guthrie)

CHORUS
Lay down, little dogies, lay down.
We've both got to sleep on this cold, cold ground.
The wind's blowin' colder and the sun's goin' down.
So lay yourselves down, little dogies, lay down.

We hit this old beef trail just two months ago.
We blistered in the sun and we froze in the snow.
In ten days we'll come into packing house town,
So lay yourselves down, little dogies, lay down.
CHORUS

This Dodge City trail, she's a hard road to go,
Up these Texas flat plains from old Mexico;
I've got dust in my eyes, I got mud in my nose,
So lay yourselves down, little dogies, lay down.
CHORUS

We had not been gone out from Mexico long.
Till I took a left turn in the trail and went wrong:
You've hoofed the wrong road till a week's gone around,
So lay yourselves down, little dogies, lay down.
CHORUS

We'd not left that wrong road more'n three days behind
Till a windburnt cow gal caused me to go blind;
I lost a week showin' her those alkali grounds,
So lay yourselves down, little dogies, lay down.
CHORUS

That bad hole of water we drunk and got sick,
Curled up all our hairs, tied our tails up in kinks;
We got lost in a blind canyon tip—toeing around,
So lay yourselves down, little dogies. lay down.
CHORUS

It's here now we come to the end of our trail;
Your hair hide and carcass to the stockyard I sell;
I'll see you in a tin can when you get shipped around.
So lay yourselves down, little dogies, lay down.
CHORUS

from The [Nearly] Complete Collection of Woody Guthrie Folk Songs, Ludlow Music, 1963

---

Click to play

---

Here's the entry on the song from the Traditional Ballad Index:

Night Herding Song

DESCRIPTION: The tired cowboy advises the herd, "O slow up, dogies, quit your roving around, You've wandered and trampled all over the ground." He tells how, whatever method he uses, he can never keep the cattle still. He again urges the cattle to relax
AUTHOR: Harry Stephens
EARLIEST DATE: 1910 (Lomax)
KEYWORDS: cowboy work animal request
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Lomax-FSNA 193, "Night Herding Song" (1 text, 1 tune)
Fife-Cowboy/West 82, "Night-Herding Song" (1 text, 1 tune)
Saffel-CowboyP, p. 214, "Night-Herding Song" (1 text)
DT, NITEHERD*
Roud #4444
RECORDINGS:
Pete Seeger, "Little Dogies" (on PeteSeeger09, PeteSeegerCD02)
Marc Williams, "Night Herding Song" (Brunswick 497, c. 1931; on MakeMe)
File: LoF193

---

Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Instructions

The Ballad Index Copyright 2004 by Robert B. Waltz and David G. Engle.