When someone is part of any type of reality show, people want to know about them and their past. If the character is a high profile type of person like Dog The Bounty Hunter, even more people are going to want to know about him.

Just take one look at him and you can see that there has got to be a very interesting back story to him. His antics on his two television shows are well documented and to his credit, he doesn’t go to great lengths to hide anything from his past.

Sure, he would probably prefer that you not know a lot of things that have happened to him, like the murder conviction and associated prison time, the drug and alcohol use, or maybe his time in an evil motorcycle gang at the ripe old age of 15 years old.

One of his sons sold him out by selling a tape of his dad using the “N” word and one of his daughter’s wrote a very chilling tell all book about life in the Chapman family growing up. When you have twelve or thirteen kids you are bound to not have the greatest relationship with every one of them. There have been plenty of instances of this for the public eye to see and Dog cannot be happy about that. What dad would?

15. Dog was a crime victim

Dog and his wife Beth were recently the victims of a robbery at their Los Angeles hotel. They were staying at the swanky Luxe Hotel and when they came back to their room and opened up the safe they found that $5,000 is cash was missing. Their luggage and jewelry had not been touched, just the safe. That’s an odd crime and police are investigating.

It seems that it could be an inside job and authorities are looking at video footage of the floor along with checking the key card records. If the Bounty Hunter and his wife can’t protect their own stuff, how can they be counted on to bring in a criminal off the streets? That can’t be good for business.

14. His daughter Lyssa tells about a brutal childhood

Lyssa Chapman, Dog’s ninth kid, wrote a book that turned out to be quite popular, called “Walking on Eggshells”, and her dad can’t be too happy about.

The book states that Lyssa herself became a teen mom after a not so great upbringing. She told all kinds of never before shared stories about what life was like growing up in the Chapman household. She states in the book that her dad was addicted to crack and her mom was an alcoholic. She said that once she got out of the house she never wanted to go back to her dad. “I [falsely] accused my father of raping me when I was 11. I had been molested by a friend of his. It was a horrible life that I never wanted to go back to, living with him and Beth and the fighting and the drugs. When I got to my mother’s, although she drank, it was much more peaceful. I was in school, I had friends, I was willing to do anything to not go back.”

13. Dog’s family has a lot of problems

This was brought into the public eye with Lyssa’s book but also on camera multiple times. One of the most famous episodes on camera occurred when Dog’s son’s Leland and Duane Lee grew very angry with their father and Beth and ended up quitting the show. It was not a made for TV moment as it was very real. Both brothers said they wanted to be fired from the show but it isn’t really clear how the end came about. What is clear is that they never returned to the show.

As you would expect Dog and Beth always try to put a positive spin on things but it’s quite obvious that the family has A LOT of issues and bad blood.

12. Beth is looking worse than ever

Beth Chapman, formally Beth Smith, has seen her appearance change quite drastically since she started appearing in front of television cameras. There was a point that she didn’t actually look half bad. There are lots of rumors though that she has had numerous surgeries but if it’s true the results of them are lost in the huge weight gain she has seen over the last few years.

The way they act in public it’s obvious that they would prefer you don’t think of the old days when she was sort of good to look at. They don’t want you to remember that she was actually sort of hot at one point, a long time ago. Dog would probably prefer that she stay away from any camera she sees.

11. His 1976 murder conviction

In the 70’s Dog and a friend went to buy some weed and things did not turn out how they had hoped. Somehow a struggle ensued with the pimp and dealer, Jerry Oliver, and Dog’s friend allegedly shot and killed him. Dog is said to have been waiting in the car while this took place but in 1976 he was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to five years in prison.

While he was serving his sentence his then wife, LaFonda, divorced him and married his best friend. He only served 18 months in the Texas State Penitentiary. He does talk about the incident from time to time but he would obviously prefer that you don’t know about it.

10. Dog’s four ex-wives

Even though they do touch on the subject from time to time, Dog, and especially Beth, prefer not to carry on a conversation about the four women that Dog was previously married to.

In 1972 he married LaFonda Honeycutt but while he was in prison for murder she divorced him and married his best friend. In 1979 he married Anne Tegnell and they divorced just three years later. Lyssa Rae Brittain was next, later on in 1982 and that one lasted all the way until 1991 before ending in divorce. Then in 1992 Dog married Tawny Marie but that one ended in 1994. He finally married Beth in 2006 after being together off and on for nearly sixteen years.

There were other women as well, these are just the ones that he actually married.

9. The custody battle over his grandson

Dog won a very public custody battle over his grandson but the cost was pretty high. Once the case made local news it quickly blossomed into a national story and the press was all over it. Anytime there is a child involved you never want to have that type of exposure, especially when the child doesn’t go unnamed.

The events also once again drew the public eye toward what life is like as a member of the Chapman family, something that none of them want.

With as many kids as Dog has, you can bet there have been plenty of other battles that we just don’t know about. Yet.

8. His son sold him out

Something that no father ever wants to endure is a son turning on him. A perfect example of what isn’t wanted is the way Dog’s son, Tucker, turned on him back in 2007. He had a tape of his dad repeatedly using the “N” word in several conversations and he decided that it would be a good idea to sell it.

He sold the tape to The National Enquirer and they made sure that the world heard the conversation between father and son discussing Tucker’s girlfriend, who is black.

The result was obviously disastrous for Dog both professionally and personally. He was under attack for quite a while when it came out and his show on A&E was pulled temporarily. It did come back but was eventually cancelled and this incident played a major role in that decision.

7. What you see isn’t always what you get

During season 6 of their first show, Dog was allegedly shot at by Hoang Nguyen in Colorado Springs when they attempted to arrest him. He escaped on a motorcycle and Dog and his crew tracked him down six hours later. That’s what the episode showed us. However the real life events are still in question.

Nguyen was arrested and charged with attempted murder but the local DA eventually dropped the charges because of a lack of evidence. They had requested footage of the shooting that was supposedly filmed by the film crew, but it was never given to them. The DA also said that Dog and his crew gave several conflicting statements and that didn’t help matters at all.

Nguyen sued Dog and his crew but results of the suit have not been released. All that is documented is Dog’s attorney basically saying that the suit was frivolous.

6. His cast sued the network

In 2011 Bobby Brown filed a lawsuit against A&E Television Networks, Hybrid Films and D&D Television Productions, claiming that he was never paid what he was told he would be. Brown was in thirty episodes of the original show and the lawsuit claims that he was told he would become a full time cast member. The problem is, to that point he had only been paid around $6,000 for all of his appearances. The suit was filed under “the misappropriation of his publicity rights as well as claims of breach of contract and promises.” There is still no word on an outcome.

5. It’s Dog Not Duane Lee Chapman

Plain and simple, Dog would prefer that you know him as “Dog”, not Duane Lee Chapman. After all, Dog sounds much more ferocious and it gives him a presence before you even see him. What that also does is it keeps his real name out of things. That name is tied to several divorces, 12 or 13 kids depending on who you ask, countless items of bad press, several arrests and also a murder conviction. Nobody can blame him for taking on a nickname one bit.

Sure there are plenty of people who know all about his past. He’s been on television long enough now that those past poor decisions have come out. That doesn’t mean he wants to call attention to them though.

4. Dog reportedly has 13 kids

Anyone with that amount of kids clearly doesn’t believe in any type of birth control and they certainly can’t be proud of the fact that there are so many kids running around. The official number is believed to be thirteen, with one of those being a child of Beth’s that he adopted.

Since there are so many differing reports, putting together an accurate list is kind of tough. Here is a sincere attempt: Christopher Michael Hecht, Duane Lee Chapman (Jr.), Leland Chapman, Zebediah Duane Chapman (died at only one month old in 1980), Wesley Chapman, J.R. Chapman, Barbara Katie Chapman (died in a car crash in 2006), Tucker Dee Chapman (did prison time for drugs), “Baby” Lyssa Chapman, Bonnie Jo Chapman and Garry Chapman.

3. The real reason the show was cancelled

The first show was cancelled because of what was said to be a rating drop and that could very well be. The reality of the matter though is that A&E never fully got over the “N” word scandal. When the original show was temporarily shelved there was a lot of talk that it may never come back. It did but it wasn’t a forever return as we now know.

The second show was dropped because of the changes in the current bail bonds system that are being made. Serious changes are being made and will continue to be made by the government. It is completely changing the way the system works for alleged criminals and the bounty hunters are facing the fact that they may be an extinct occupation soon.

2. Dog’s use of the “N” word

During the huge scandal that erupted after his son sold a tape of Dog using the “N” word on a pretty regular basis, he stated “I thought that I was cool enough in the black world to be able to use that word as a brother to a brother. I’m not. I didn’t really know until three or four days ago what that meant to black people.”

That just shows you the level of intelligence that this guy has. It’s NEVER ok for a white person to use it in that way, even if they are part of a certain click that might not be white. You would think if he had so many “cool” friends that someone would have pointed it out to him before the world heard it on tape. If that had happened there wouldn’t have even been a tape to begin with.

1. Dog Used To Sell vacuum cleaners

Dog has had a hard life. When you join the Devil’s Disciples outlaw motorcycle club at the age of 15, you know things are going to head down a path that isn’t very good. Less than ten years later he found himself in prison after being convicted of first degree murder.

When he finally got out of prison there weren’t a lot of options for him right away. He got a job selling Kirby vacuum cleaners and then started doing bounty hunting on the side. He started doing that so he could get some extra money for beer. At that point though, it was the vacuum sales that were paying the bills for him. Did he come knocking on your door?

Sources: tmz.com, foxnews.com, dailymail.co.uk, therichest.com, intouchweekly.com