I guess it is too obvious, but I never knew until a few years ago that it was Festus from Gun Smoke who was one of the Sons of the Pioneers, We had a reel to reel player with many of their songs and I loved Cool Water, He evidently also produced a few B films, one called the Killer Shrews. : )
This fellow has been traveling on his fat wheel bike from Alaska to the tip of SA. I have been watching a few videos of his since Colombia but now he is in Chile. The dog was a stray that followed him on his journey after he was into Chile, while he was biking. The song was written for him.