00:00:01 Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, welcome to the Houndation's podcast. I'm your host, Tony Peterson. It's still the dog days of May here at Meat Eater, and I'm going to talk to a dog trainer named Bob Owens today. Bob hosts a podcast called Loan Duck's gun Dog Chronicles, and he is a master of figuring out how to get dogs to level up, which is what we are going to dive pretty deep into right now. This episode of Houndations is brought to you by Shields, an employee owned outdoor powerhouse where you can get a new set of golf clubs, a high end fishing rod, and of course dog training supplies. You know, whether you're in the market for a new crate, maybe an e caller, or maybe just a fresh set of training bumpers, Shields has you covered. Check out their offerings at shiels dot com. I met Bob Owens down in South Carolina a few months back at the Southeast and Wildlife Expo in Charleston, and predictably, we almost instantly started talking about dogs. Bob is the host of a podcast dedicated to all things related to training dogs, but he's also just one hell of a dog trainer. Himself, who has molded some of the best bird dogs and field trial dogs in the country. He's an absolute expert at getting the most out of dogs, and that's what we're going to talk about on this show right now. Bob. It is good to see your smiling face, buddy. 00:01:31 Speaker 2: I'm glad to be here. Thanks for having me. 00:01:33 Speaker 1: So you spent all day to day training, huh I did? 00:01:37 Speaker 2: I just got back and dogs are fed and cooling down and chilling out and hop on a podcast. 00:01:43 Speaker 1: How many dogs did you work with today? 00:01:45 Speaker 2: We have twenty twenty one right now, and this is like the window of you know, I go south in the winter and come home and summer's kicking off. So by middle of May, we'll be up to about thirty dogs. And that's kind of mine. 00:02:00 Speaker 1: So how many of those do you actually get your hands on a day, all of. 00:02:03 Speaker 2: Them, all of them multiple times today? 00:02:05 Speaker 1: How do you manage that? 00:02:10 Speaker 2: It's a great question. Really, it's being motivated and disciplined with your time. So, you know, I eat lunch in three minutes, you know, I bring my lunch and you know, today it was a rotisserie chicken that I just wolfed down as fast as I could with a Seltzer water and I'm onto the next dog. So really making the most out of your time from the minute you wake up to the minute they're done. I do have a couple of employees, and so I can say, like, you guys, take this crew over here and do that while I run blinds and then we come back together. But typically dogs are getting two to three setups or sessions, you know, could be collar conditioning and obedience and then go out and get their marks, or they're doing force fetch and dogs stand work while I'm running teapath stuff like that, so we it's not just me touching all thirty but yeah we're rolling. 00:03:06 Speaker 1: Yeah, so you have to plan. You have to kind of meticulously plan your day out and know that you have a you know, twenty minutes for this dog or a half hour for this dog or whatever, and you got to get the most out of them in that timeframe because you can't see something and decide, well, we're going to go an extra hour with this dog because it's just not a possibility. 00:03:26 Speaker 2: Well, actually that's I would argue that that's even too much time. So we do know an obedient session might be five to eight minutes. You know, you start them out, bringing them up, getting them high, having fun. Let's go loosen them up, and then we get into whatever they're working on with their obedience session, jumping on a dog stand, getting in the ground blind, doing a little heel work, jumping on the dog stand, get a bumper heel work, get them going, and then end on a high note. If you were in that'll be my first piece of advice. I guess for the show is a lot of folks will overdo their one session a day. I'd rather break it up into smaller mini sessions so that dog comes out hot, because what you would end up doing is you've got that dog for ten or fifteen minutes, it's doing really well, and that last fifteen minutes you may be losing steam and they start making mistakes, They're getting hot, they're getting mentally exhausted. I'd rather end on a high note and get back into it, you know, an hour later, a half hour later, put them up, have a you know, swig of water, chill out, listen to a couple songs, pull them back out and do it again. 00:04:31 Speaker 1: So I'm glad you. I'm glad you clarified that because that's a really it's a poignant thing to point out. Is I think that a lot of times people think about a professional trainer and you've got all of these different drills set up, and you're putting in a ton of time each day to these dugs. But really what you've done is you managed to figure out how to be really efficient with them, utilize that attention span, you know, for however long it is, and you're talking when you're talking ten to fifteen minutes of training, I mean, that's half a Simpsons episode. Man Like, when when people are like, I don't I don't have the time, it's it's not that it's like you don't you don't know what to do in that little time frame to get the most out of them. And that's really one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you. When we were chatting out at Seaweed down in Charleston where we met, you were talking about a lot of the dogs that you've trained to like a really high level. You know, these these dogs that are field trial dogs and they've got you know, amazing blood in them, and there's like a that's like a whole different kind of world that's not you know, generally probably not that interesting too, like the average dog owner, but the lessons are like huge, and so that's that's kind of where I wanted to go with you, is how does the average person recognize the ways in which they can sort of level up their dog? And you know, the average guy's not dealing with a field trial champion or anybody who's going to be in contention, but he's dealing with a dog that probably has more potential than he things. 00:05:56 Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that there's a lot of things that we could dive in to to take. You know, a puppy that they get from their buddy who he hunts with the dad, and the dad's a good duck dog, and you know it got bred to the neighbor's other lab and he gets his free puppy from his butt. You know, that dog still could level up and have like a pretty high glass ceiling that hand thrown bumpers in your backyard, fenced in backyard, and it can sit still and go and get that thirty yard throw. That's not challenging the dog at all. You're just exercising the dog. And so the main thing that you know, a short answer to this would be what are we working on, what are our goals? What is the end goal look like to you as the dog owner? And then in each session you're pushing the dog within reason to accomplish these goals. So the example I just gave of hand throwing bumpers in your backyard, that's you know, fifty foot long by fifty foot wide. That's not challenging them. You're just you're feeling good about dogs having a good time, but you're not advancing it and reaching its potential. So go to the soccer field down the road, go to your state land or or you know, BLM, whatever I mean. There's plenty of public land that you can take that dog and challenge them in new environments. There's plenty of training tools that are relatively inexpensive compared to the cost of a dog's life. You know, the handheld shooters. Right, I can throw a bumper probably thirty five forty yards, and due to my profession, I'm pretty accurate. Okay, But if I only throw thirty five yards every day of that dog's life. When you knock a duck down and it sails off, you know, crippled and kind of cuts its wings and sails off seventy That dog is going to one hundred and ten percent. Stop at thirty five yards and begin hunting. We need to get those dogs stretched out, is the term we would do. We stretch them out and get them confident on land and water, going further than you even think they're capable of. Now. So we've got a ten month old puppy hit from New Jersey. His owners came and saw him after our winter trip and he did one hundred and seventy five yard single in my backfield and they were like, holy cow, Now it's cool, right, That's why I was And he's he is nice, he's special, but he's not that special. He's just a was taught how to have confidence and see where that thing fell, run to where he saw it fell, establish a good hunt, and pick it up. 00:08:32 Speaker 1: So do you like what percentage of dogs that you get in because that's a really common thing, right, Conditioning them to the length in which we can throw or the distance which we can throw a bumper, never using the dummy launcher, never getting a buddy out or a partner to help you do these long range deals, or even just having a dog that's trained to sit and stay and walking out fifty yards and then throwing it the next thirty five yards. 00:08:53 Speaker 3: Great. 00:08:54 Speaker 1: How often do you see that all the time? That's great. 00:08:59 Speaker 2: Yeah, that's an epidemic, right, it's what people know, it's what they're comfortable with. But like you said, you've got a partner, you've got a hunt and buddy, maybe you have kids. Send them out and do we call them walking singles. So they've got a bucket full of big white bumpers and they just start walking through the field. So every mark, and a mark is a bird that that dog sees. A blind would be a dog or a bird that that dog doesn't see, and you have to kick them loose and stop them on a whistle and handle them. But a mark is one that they see. And so they're going to walk through this field and throw these bumpers or ducks, which would be great too, But again that's something that people have a harder time getting their hands on, which we can maybe talk about as we go. But get them out there, and that person who's helping you can help that dog be successful with different drills and tools to get the dog to stretch out and feel good about running seventy five yards ninety yards fifty yards. 00:09:56 Speaker 1: Right, And this is I mean, you know quite a few dog trainers, you know, Docin talks about this a lot, like this is a very common thing that pros recognize and the average dog handler or a dog owner doesn't. And what it is is, you know, I talk a lot about how professional dog trainers can see into the future, like they know what a dog's going to do, and they know the circumstances and the situations that people are going to put dogs in. That when you're training in the backyard, you don't think about that dock sailing like that that that teal that you just tickle a little bit and he makes it way down there in the slough or whatever. But you're going to run into that, like you're never going If you bird hunt even a little bit, you're gonna have birds, even roosters. Sometimes we shoot them and they do that, you know, that flutter out like one hundred and fifty yards and then they land and you're like, okay, now we got to got to get a real mark on them. Because the dogs never have a real mark on that. They're already looking at something else. And so that is like something that the lesson there anyway, is you have to think about how your training is conditioning your dog to perform and where that's going to be at odds with what that dog is going to actually be asked to do in the field, because eventually it's going to be asked to do something that you didn't train for. 00:11:06 Speaker 2: Like that exactly the thing that we say all the time is you want to over prepare so your dog is underwhelmed. Right, So if he's never seen a shackled live duck and you go duck hunting and the first bird you shoot is crippled and it's flipping and flopping and swimming and diving, and it spooks the young you know, eight to ten month old buppy on its first experience. He was not over prepared and he was overwhelmed, and it can not always screw him up, but it can make it a little bit your job a lot harder to get him to be successful the next time. So, you know, building life experiences from March first to October first is imperative in your dog's first hunting season. And then you know you had made a comment about that five your old dog, Well, once they're steady and obedient and can do you know, fifty to one hundred and fifty yard marks. What else could we do? It's fun to go out and make that dog better. You're supposed to enjoy the great outdoors. And it's a sunny, beautiful day today in central New York. Why wouldn't you want to take some bumpers and your dog and go and progress and work on some handling drills and get them running some blinds and teach them multiple marks, and you and your buddy and your two hunting dogs can go out and start honoring each other and working together like there shouldn't be a ceiling whether your dog is exceptional, okay or not great, there's always ways that we can improve them little by little. 00:12:40 Speaker 1: Right when you're when you're talking about that, one of the things that I get reminded of almost every year, Like with our with our late season feast hunting, which I talk about all the time, we do we do cattail hunts, right Like the public land has cattails on it because it's wet and they can't farm it, and that's where all the birds come in. When the weather gets shitty and it's you know, the winner's starting to kick in, and you see those dogs that don't have any experience and cat tails try to find a rooster and they are just lost, like they've never been in that habitat. And you know, I mean, and you've got a factor in the excitement level. You know, it's chaos. It's just super overwhelming tons of stimuli for them. And you think you can't you know, you can't like perfectly create that training, but you certainly can train in different types of habitat and teach those dogs to work and thick stuff and think through those problems. And if you don't, you're eventually gonna have to figure it out on the fly and it's not gonna work. 00:13:35 Speaker 2: Yeah, And or give your dog grace during huntings. Right, That's a big no note to me is losing your patients on the hunt. Like nobody likes to hunt with the guy And I've done it. I've been that guy where you lose your patience because the dog doesn't deliver what you expect of it or hope to expect of it. And so if you're hunting with a buddy and you're yelling because the dog's not coming back and it's not listening and it's chasing pheasants, you know, four hundred yards away as they continue to fly. That's not being prepared either. You know, you're not going to want to go hunting again, right right. 00:14:14 Speaker 1: And that's again, you know, it's just sort of looking into the future and going, what what how can I get my dog pretty dang comfortable with a lot of different stuff and a lot of different distractions. And when you talk about you know, you talked earlier about you know, the eight to ten month old dog that encounters that first you know, crippled greenhead or whatever. When you talk about that kind of situation with that first season, you got to give them a lot of grace because they're they're going to screw up. I mean, I'm reminded of this a lot when I watch my kids in sports and you see them, you know, you see them shooting baskets in the in the you know, driveway, and they're pretty confident and they're pretty cocky. And then they actually get in a game, which doesn't matter at all because it's like seventh grade girls basketball, right, nobody gives a shit but them. Listen to this, right right, But you see, you see just this atrophy and performance, and I think about it with myself all the time, I have missed a lot of big bucks that I could have hit. I could have hit them with a rock in some situations. Pretty capable with a bow when you put me on the range, But every once in a while, you put me in the woods and I will whiff with the best of them. And that first season with those dogs is like you're going to see that play out a lot. 00:15:29 Speaker 2: You just tell her every duck that they get during their first hunt, hunting season is life experience. So all training season we're building those life experiences little by little to prepare them right. But then that whole first season, you've got to look at it like your taking a seventh grader and showing them the ropes every little duck that every duck that they pick up, they're going to go, ah, this one landed outside of the decoys. This one landed in the decoys. And I didn't break, or I did break and I got brought back and made to sit still. I learned from that. Or the crippled goose that sails over the cornfield and goes two hundred yards away, and maybe you walk that dog halfway and lock them in on it and convince them that they're right, those things are huge, or or maybe they just struggle to pick up the dang goose right. I mean, I've been around guys that are yelling at them that I just go get the goose and play with it and let them figure it out. 00:16:26 Speaker 1: You know, if you're out there and you're yelling, you've lost the plot, buddy. Yeah, and it's I mean, everybody does it right, and it's it's you know, a lesson for us is the more people you hunt with, the higher likelihood your ego is going to step in and you're gonna get you're gonna feel ashamed of your dog, and then you're gonna yell. I mean, it's one of the reasons like I preach solo hunts a lot. I mean, I know it's a little different thing with the duck world, but it doesn't doesn't necessarily have to be, especially with a young dog, But in the upland world, I'm like, man, if you want that dog to relax and work through these problems of where the rooster went or where the grouse went, there's nothing better than having no one else to think about and just going I'm gonna let this dog work that spot where that bird went. Down until it happens. And sometimes you know how it is, like sometimes it's like ten fifteen minutes and you're watching them and they keep going back to one clump of grass and you know, kind of paw a little bit and run around, and then you're like get them, and you can see them start to solve that problem. But when you have other people walking in there and everybody's getting impatient and the other dogs are coming in now, all of a sudden you think that your dog is not good at recovering wounded birds. And it's like, man, you just didn't facilitate an opportunity for that to play out where it learned. Start to finish on what that particular bird did, because will that lesson will never go away? 00:17:40 Speaker 2: That's right, I think you just hit the point inadvertently too. Don't hunt it with other dogs, right, you know that other dog coming and stealing the bird from them, that can for a softer dog, a softer personality dog that can crush them, you know, where they felt good about themselves. And then bam, the big boulder dog comes and steals it or or rams into them or whatever the case may be. And all of a sudden, that more timid animal just goes this wasn't fun. I don't know what just happened. And it's all about building. I'm all about giving a dog a correction when it's needed and when we're training, and there's this and that. But I'm also their biggest advocate and coach and team player and making sure that they have positive experiences to gain from it. You know, if they break, that's going to probably be a negative experience. But then as soon as they get back on that platform, I'm patting them on the back. Hey, good's it good? So down good? You know, you've got to be a team player, and you got to be a coach, not a dictator. 00:18:41 Speaker 1: Well that that point you made there with the two dog thing or the multiple dog thing. Man, if there's one thing we've kind of gotten wrong as dog people, like in the bird dog world, it's that idea that the old dog's going to train the young one or the seasoned dog's going to train the pup. And it's like, man, that's almost always a nut neg to have that other dog there. You know, if you want to development. I wouldn't say always, but I would say a lot. 00:19:06 Speaker 2: I would say a lot. Let's go eighty twenty because it could now. I think when you came on my show, we talked about this with my dad's dog and my old dog. My old dog was a pheasant finding fool. He was a maniac. So he'd go in the briers, he'd go in the thick, nasty, he'd go in those cattawls lows and just root them out and be all bloodied up and bat of the bone. Well, my dog, my dad's dog, learned that if I stayed out of all that stuff, one would come flying out, and he would be rewarded by not doing the hard work and getting in there and finding him. And so for a while, it took several years for him to become emboldened to go and do that because we always hunted him together. And so I think that there's some benefit to having that older dog get that range out of the younger dog, or put that younger dog in positions to find birds, and you know they get some positive But as soon as you see little light bulbs going off on that young dog, pull the old dog away and just hunt that young one and let them gain all those experiences themselves. Right. 00:20:10 Speaker 1: Yeah, we talked about this on your show with my old dog and my young dog too, because when I first started hunting Sadie her first season, I think Luna was a so Luna was, you know, aging out just a little bit, but like really rock solid, especially when you talk about recovering wounded birds, and she would recover most of them. And it never clicked in my head that Sadie could kind of had learned to just like I don't need to do that, like the other dog will find them, until I only had the young dog, and then I was like, man, there's a big hole in her game there that I didn't see because I was just blinded by the hunt, you know. And so it it's just like a it's like a situation where we kind of take it for granted. We're like, oh, well, it's always good to have that old dog there, and it's like, man, lots of times it's not, you know. But on the other side, like you said, there are some positives, right, Like I noticed when I started out Sadie and I had Luna there just the sheer amount of flushes we were going to get because of the old dog. There's like a benefit there, you know, like the bird contact and like it can go both ways, but you have to be really careful again, like what are you conditioning both dogs for? Because you're seeing you're kind of blinded by the performance of having two dogs, which is nice, like it's fun to have two dogs working and two dogs looking for wounded birds, but there might be something happening there that will will come back around and bite you in the ass eventually. 00:21:38 Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, Let's can we take like a double back on that conversation of the glass ceiling and giving people tools to maybe follow in essence, like a quick program of what I'm doing with that dog so that they can think outside of the box with themselves and their dog. So when I get a puppy myself, you know, we raise it, right, a lot of positive experiences, a lot of treat training, a little bit of just a couple retrieves a day, building retrieve drive. We're teaching them to look out via bird boy marks, jumping on a dog stand and staying there for two seconds, right, and you're just building a dog that's learning how to learn and having fun learning and building marking ability and getting them swim in and blah blah bay when I get them either, you know, client dogs that are six months old. We're going to go through a very formal obedience program. Everything is going to be on leash. We're still going to use treats. Once I know that they understand what is being asked. Sit, heal here, it's all good stuff. On lead, I'll collar condition the dog and collar conditioning, you know Layman's terms is shock collar. But if it's taught properly and overlaid with commands that they already know, then the dogs are understanding. Like if you snatch the lead and pop the lead to make a leash correction, they understand the e collar is the same thing. It's an invisible leash. So when I say sit and I lift up on the leash and their butt hits the ground, the leash relaxes. The same idea with the collar. Right, collar's turned on, but hits the ground, Collar's turned off. Good dog. So I'm going to go through very formal obedience and teach that over the course of maybe two weeks, maybe the average person who can do a little make it four weeks. Right. I also force fetch my dogs. I don't think you have to. It's just a great tool. It teaches the dog how to learn how to comprehend something uncomfortable, how to turn the pressure off and succeed. And what that ends up being is delivering to hand nicely, so going and getting something, bringing it back to me, sitting down, not chopping it, not spitting it out at my feet, not dropping it, come out of the water, et cetera. And it also leads the groundwork for like blind retrieves. 00:24:06 Speaker 1: Let me ask you this on force fetch, because people ask about this a lot, right, and you said, not every dog needs this, Like in your experience, what percentage of dogs do you see that You're like, what percentage are you like, yep, they absolutely need this or what percentage you see that. 00:24:20 Speaker 2: Don't all of them? 00:24:22 Speaker 1: All of them? 00:24:23 Speaker 2: Yeah? So I say you don't have to do it because, like you, we kind of talk about what are your goals for the dog. If you are totally okay with them dropping the bird at your feet and totally okay with them shaking off at the bank and dropping it and then picking up and bringing it back, and that is your seeing, like that's what your goal is for your dog is just to go and get a duck and bring it back. Then I think you're fine. I think when you really start thinking about it. What if we had a what's your if you could kill one bird this duck season, what would it be? What's your bucket list? 00:24:55 Speaker 1: Duck man? I'm a terrible duck hunter, so every greenhead I kill is awesome. Yeah, I don't have I like mallards because I live off a teal in wood ducks. 00:25:04 Speaker 2: Mostly I love mallards too. So you get this perfect layup, he's cupped up, he's coming in. You make a killer shot, dog makes a beautiful retrieve. He drops it at the shoreline, and it cripples and is swimming up and gets under a log, and now you're doing a ten minute try and find in ITBs run around game. Literally why they call it a wild goose chase? Right right? What the heck man? Just if he had just held it, you'd have had that green head that had the band on it. I mean, you name it, it could happen. So I force fatch every single dog it comes through the program because it gives me tools to teach the dog you don't have. You know, it's got a lot of negative connotations out there. There's a lot of other styles of training, right, The British style of training where they do a hold, But I would be the guy that would argue, they're still forcing the dog to hold it right, So you're just it's different, but you're still every time the dog drops it, you're putting it back in their mouth, popping them under the jaw. 00:26:06 Speaker 1: Hold hold, hold. 00:26:09 Speaker 2: So I do think that there are some dogs that have a little more natural delivery to hand, but when the going gets tough, that training is going to drop down a little bit. So you got that crippled rooster whose wings are beaten like crazy and their legs are kicking, right, you know what I'm talking about. That dog is going to drop it twenty times on the way back to you. I'll bet one hundred dollars, and they're going to regrip and regrip and regrip and regrip because it's flapping. If we have a properly force fetched dog, that stuff doesn't happen and it's just cleaner. So my answer is all of them go through the force Vetch program. They're all better for it. They learn how to learn. The end result is they delivered a hand, but they're learning how to learn, how to comply, how to work hard, how to succeed, how to do something that's stressful and difficult at times, and then they come out the other end emboldened. I can do this. You know. I was a little weird about this at first, but three days later I've got it. Light bulbs are clicking and they're learning how to learn. So that's why a forcevetch. So once I go through my collar conditioning forcetvetch, they're still getting marks in the field and in the water. So I'm teaching them how to mark. I'm teaching them decoys and all the good stuff, and we're starting some gunfire introduction and dead birds and live birds. And if they drop it, who cares. They're not done with force ftch. But I've got this process and a foundation that's solid. And I think a lot of folks have a dog that's pretty obedient, but not really when the going gets tough, right, other dogs around rooster flies away, you know, grouse flushes, and that dog's over the hill and through the woods and grandmother's house they go. So, you know, having a good recall, having at especially duck hunting a strong sit. So when me and you are in the duck blind, that dog's not breaking on our shot and we can't shoot a cripple or whatever. They need to be steady. So having that really strong foundation is imperative and that'll help make life easier. If you do the little things great, the big things are easier to do. 00:28:10 Speaker 1: And you're so, just to reiterate, you're talking about the dogs that come in that are six months old, right, and you're talking about you're you're talking about doing a lot with these dogs, right, Like I mean, you're assessing them for their what do they know? What do they need to learn? Of the basics, so you know, you can go to the collar and you're not dealing with false positives and you can go to the force fetch and you're talking gunfire intro and live bird intro. How long do you have your hands on these dogs? 00:28:36 Speaker 2: So my gun dog program is four months long? Okay, So they stay with me for four months and they're getting work five to six days a week and they're getting like we said earlier, two to four sessions a day. And you're right, it's drinking from a fire hose for them. 00:28:55 Speaker 1: What So you get these different dogs in, right, they're six months old, they're ready for this level that you're going to put them through. And you're putting them through a lot, but they're like people are going to listen to this and be like that's so much, but it's not like that's the window to do that, Like that's the window they learn and they're starting to mature enough to handle these things. What do people do wrong that they should do? So when those dogs get there, they're just easier for you to just level them up through all these different layers. 00:29:25 Speaker 2: I think the big one is being confident. That's a big one. And you can't blame folks who work forty fifty sixty hours a week, have kids in soccer and basketball, and you know, family parties and things like that, but they're always on a leash because they don't listen. That's part of why I have a job. So they're always on a leash. And they probably have a fenced in backyard and so the dog knows it's fence in the backyard, it knows it's living room, but it hasn't gone and done. Take it on hikes, Let it be a puppy and jump through a stream and clamor over a log and run through brush and fall and trip and have fun. You don't it doesn't have to be perfect. I don't care. I've got a treat full of or a pocket full of treats, and when he comes towards me, I'll I'll get him to come to me and I'll pop them some treats. But I want that dog that's super emboldened, that can you know, almost strut man, just feels good about themselves. Swimming there's a great way to do it, and there's a lot of wrong ways. The great way to do it is wait till the water's nice and warm. You go to a shallow entry place, not a sharp drop off, not waves, not a river. Those are like my no nose. Put your waiters on, or maybe your swim trunks, and go up to your knees, and that dog will follow you. You have a relationship with him. He loves you beyond belief. He's going to follow. If he doesn't follow, I'm going to you know, I'm using my bumper to tease him and coax him and just give in, and he'll start moving in. And then you give them a little bit more and he'll start moving in a little further. He'll come and he'll or she will follow you in and follow that bumper and then I stay in between the dog and the shore the first place if they do swim, the first place they want to high tell it to his land. I want him to be cool about swimming. So I'll maneuver in between them and the shoreline and then you know, coach them into me grab that bumper and flip it back out so they just spin around and head back out. And so you're just keeping them in a couple two three reps and then let them get out. But if the first thing they're thinking of is land, land land, land, land land, let them get out. I gotta get out. I gotta get out. You know, they go into like a panic mode to get out. But if you can kind of just keep them in the zone of just playing with them, they'll they'll water, will be positive. But don't ever throw them in. Don't do the old school take them on a canoe and paddle to an island and says you'll swim when you want to come back. 00:31:54 Speaker 1: Yeah, don't do that. 00:31:56 Speaker 2: I don't do that. I've heard it. 00:31:58 Speaker 1: So when you I just want to back up a second. So when you talk about these six month old dogs that come into your program and the biggest issue across the board is just confidence. Do you think that a lot of the people who have those puppies, because I would assume that when they get that puppy, they know they're coming to you. A lot of them know they're coming to you at six months old. 00:32:23 Speaker 2: Yeah right, I would say again eighty twenty. Some people, Okay, I can't handle it. I thought I had time for it. I don't know what I'm doing right. 00:32:31 Speaker 1: Yes, some people just figure out they're just not cut out for it and they got to find a pro right. But a lot of people know, I'm getting this dog, and I'm not confident enough to take my dog through gunfire intro and right on down the line. So I'm going to bob whatever. But do you think that that's part of the problem with the confidence thing that people go, I don't want to do anything to screw this dog up before he gets his hands on it, and he's going to mold this dog into this perfect thing, like I think. I think one of the things that I see so much with people's relationship to professional trainers is they don't see it as a it's sort of like an invisible partnership, you know, like if you don't do what you're supposed to do with your dog. The pro can go pretty far with it. But you know, on the front end, on the back end, if you don't keep that up all that a lot of that stuff washes away. So do you see like a is a part of that. Just people are like, I'm just I don't want to mess this up, So I'm going to just play with my dog in the backyard. I'm not taking them to new environments. 00:33:29 Speaker 2: Like, yeah, I think that there. You do hear that a lot. It's like, oh, he looks good. I just didn't want to ruin him for you. It's like, it's kind of hard to ruin a dog. They're pretty multible, they're prettyly pliable, and they bounce back quickly in most circumstances as long as you don't coddle them. And you know, I guess I can digress on that if you want me to. But if if every time they get nervous, you're like, oh baby, it's okay, it's okay. What are you doing. You're patinum and you're at the he's fearful or nervous and you're just patting them and praising him. So don't do that. Just if he gets nervous or something, roll on, ignore it. So would want to do it? Make him do it ten or fifteen times until he's not nervous again. 00:34:13 Speaker 1: Right, So what would you recommend? You know, because when you when you talk about dogs not being confident coming into your program, I mean one of the things that I just go back to, like mentally is, you know, we preach about socialization a lot, and people are always like, oh, socialization, and so my dog is like a nice dog around people, and I'm like, man, there's like there's so much more to it than that, as far as just building their confidence in a variety of different situations with a bunch of distractions where they're just like, like you kind of said that strutting dog, has that been there, done that? Mentality that's a huge component of socialization and just those early months of like train them here, work with them there, walk them here, like you know, let them play in this little bit taller grass, like just let them let them just figure this stuff out. 00:34:58 Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I think that there's like a real art to it. Right. It's it's not a plus b equal see there is. I kind of talked about my foundation and how I go step by step so that I'm not jumping ahead or having to go backwards to fix things. But I think that there is this like feel to when the dog is ready to go to move on. There's a feel for how the dog is feeling in this moment, and I think, you know, you hit the now on the head, like, yeah, it should like to meet new people, but it should also feel comfortable to wander off and go sniff the grass. And you should feel comfortable that it can go further than ten feet from you and it's going to be okay. So put the dog in situations. Take it to the soccer game, take it to you know, the family party where there's kids poking and brought in it. You know, get it out and let it be a dog. Let it be a puppy. It's going to have a job if you will, for the rest of its life. And let it be a dog. Let it go wander off. And you got to call it twenty times. That doesn't bother me as much as the dog that you know, you move quick and it shoots to the end of the leash because it's spooked. 00:36:03 Speaker 1: Right, you can rein it in. 00:36:05 Speaker 2: Yeah, you canen it in. Then have to pump it up all the time. 00:36:09 Speaker 1: Yeah, I think, you know, this is gonna be a sort of a weird message to give, especially with what you've kind of mentioned about coddling dogs and stuff. My dogs are. They go everywhere with me that dogs can go. Typically, you know, we go to Cabela's to buy some swim baits to fish with or something they go with. You know, like the more that you just include that dog in your life as like a as like a partner, right, not like that baby that you're like, like you said, coddling, but actually as like a part where you're gonna go walk here, or go scout deer there, or do whatever like that stuff. I feel like it's just it's just so it's so good for them on so many different levels. And it's good for us too, because we get to start to learn to read our dog and see, you know, like, is he really hard to call back, like recall in this situation? Okay, Well that's gonna be something you got to work on. And I think that I think that people get scared, you know, including a dog that way in a lot of parts of their life, but throughout the rest of their life. That's an important thing, you know, like and of course you have to be careful, like I don't. I don't know. Have you ever been to the game fare out here? I can't remember if we talked about that before, Yeah, a couple of years ago. Yeah, so you you know, for the people listening, the game Fair is this two long weekends here in the northern suburbs of the Twin Cities. It's all about bird dogs. It is a chaotic situation. I mean, it's like fifty thousand what's that got where i'd take a puppy, right, That's where I'm going. So it is a bird dog friendly show. It's an outdoor show. Tons of booths, you know, fair food, all kinds of different kinds of like events. You can run your dog through, doc jumping and long distance retrieves and time things and it's really neat. But there's a lot of clay page and shooting going on. There's a lot of people blowing on duck calls that have no business blowing on duck calls. And it is a loud, chaotic environment with literally thousands of dogs going through every weekend. And when you think about those dogs, you're talking everything from amazingly well behaved dogs that can run quadruple blind retrieves at three hundred yards without bat and I and a lot of dogs that are on the other end of the spectrum. And so we look for situations like that because we're like, well, that is a dog friendly thing. But then you see people bring puppies to it, and there's gunshots going off constantly, and that puppy is a foot tall, and there are people and big dogs everywhere, and it is just such a bad environment for a young dog. And so when we're talking about this, be a little careful, right, Like if you take the dog of the park and it's July fourth, like, you know, let's be careful. 00:39:03 Speaker 2: Well, And I mean we met at Sewee. I didn't have a dog with me. There's other factors too that I would encourage you to think about, as like how many of those dogs are carrying some sort of kennel cough or something weird going on. I mean, they don't need to be drinking from bulls, they don't need to go to a dog parks. There's good places to socialize, and then there's stuff that's a little overwhelming and a little too much. Again, the big thing you're thinking about is how can I make this dog the most successful. If you think that's not going to be helpful, pull back if you think it could be helpful, and let's let's try it for ten or fifteen minutes, you know, and just be off to the side, and yeah, we could work that. But yeah, the gunfire stuff is spooky, the big dogs, the feet, the people, the everybody poking and prod and it can be overwhelming for certain puppies that you're hurting not helping right. 00:39:53 Speaker 1: And I mean, if you screw that up in the wrong way, we get like gun shyness or something settled in, then you've then you've made a big mistake. 00:40:00 Speaker 2: You know. 00:40:01 Speaker 1: I've seen I mean this is total tangent here, but I've seen people do doc jumping drills with their dog at those events, and you know, you watch those dogs and some of them leap off and they jump eighteen feet. Some of them run up and they hit the brakes and fall off, and it's funny. But I've seen situations where dogs have run up there and done kind of that stutter step thing and sometimes jump off, sometimes not. And I've heard people say, well, he's never been in the water before. And you're like, man, you know I actually saw that one time at the why was swimming lessons. I saw a kid jump into the pool to get his test, to get his wristband, and he went straight to the bottom and the lifeguard jumped in and pulled him out, and the mom said, yeah, I didn't know if you could swim. He's never tried before. 00:40:47 Speaker 3: So anyway, that's awesome, right, Parenting bad idea when you talk about these dogs, so you have a four month program, they come in at six months, go through all this different stuff. 00:41:01 Speaker 1: How many of them get to where you're like, yep, that I'm I'm good with that progress? Is it all of them? 00:41:11 Speaker 2: I go ninety eight percent? I mean there's a couple you just can't get there. Yeah, there's a couple that just it's not in them. And it's not fair to the dog to make me make them, and it's not fair to the owner to pay, you know, the amount of money that they invest in me and that dog for at the end of four months to not be satisfied. I mean, my name's on the line too, right, So but I think overall, like I've had some dogs at month three finally swim and then they crush it. But the whole time you're being honest with them, like, man, are you sure you want me to keep going? Right? Maybe he's just a tough dog. 00:41:50 Speaker 1: Is this in your opinion? Those that two percent, that's just kind of the washout Doug, where you're like, I just he doesn't have it. Is it just a blood thing? Is it a bloodline thing? 00:41:59 Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, sometimes it's breed thing. I don't want to know. I hate knocking on different breeds because we're all dog people and everybody loves their dog, and that's what a good dog. A good dog is a good dog. I don't care what it looks like and how it walks, and it doesn't matter to me. But if it there are some breeds that you're not stacking the deck in your favor that it's going to help you make your life easier, let's let's. 00:42:27 Speaker 1: Talk about those, because I mean, can't I mean, I honestly, this is something I write about a lot where I'm like, we look at dog breeds and we go, I like the look of that one, or my buddy has this wire hair and I love it, so I want that. But we don't sit back and go how good of a trainer, am I? Like what am I bringing to the table? You know, people ask me all the time like why female labs? Like, I'm not a professional trainer. So if I get a lot of really good blood and a female lab, she's going to be soft, tons of retrieving desire and I can work with that, Like I need that for myself because it's that's the easiest kind of dog for me to reward, and you know, it just it just works for me. Like I if you handed me a chessie, it'd be a different story, right, So just like what are the breeds where you're like, man, this is just a bigger challenge for the average person, right. 00:43:25 Speaker 2: So the first one that comes to mind because someone asked me the other day if I would do it, and it is a toller a Nova Scotia duck tolling retriever and retriever's in the name. But they for you know, years and years and years and years and years, they've been bred for show, not hunting, and even hunting, they were more they were literally a toll them tolling is running up and down the bank, playing flashing their tail. Yeah, and that duck would get curious and come in for them to shoot. That's not doing. You know icy rivers of Central New York, you know one hundred yard retrieves. That that one is tough. So I've trained a few of them in my past and one of them turned out good and the others turned out fine. You know, could do it, but it wasn't fun for the dog and it wasn't fun for me. And it's just it's tough. So again we're stacking the deck in our. 00:44:24 Speaker 1: Favor, so you don't have to worry about that. I had that. I did an article on tolling and novascoes to duck tollers one time, and they came after me too, But it was like, you just have you just have to recognize, like there's a reason they're not very popular. And it's not to say that that can't be a badass dog for you. You're the average dog trainer or the average dog owner and you're like, I need a dog. It's going to retrieve some ducks and kick up a rooster. Yeah. 00:44:51 Speaker 2: I think it's also about being honest with yourself. If you hunt forty days a year and that's probably not the dog. If you hunt two or three and it's a little wood duck hole where they've got to do thirty yard swims and relatively warm water probably be fine. But if you're the guy or gale that goes out on Lake Michigan and is hunting diver ducks and it's twelve degrees out, that is the wrong dog for you. And I think I'm going to go back to like a German short hair, a German wire hair drop. Some of those breeds or some of those individuals in those breeds are great duck dogs, but they may not point as well. Or if they're great pointing dogs and they don't really retrieve it as well or have much desire for swimming at all, those are really difficult to get to love it because innately they were bred to do the other thing. So if you want one like that, if you want to be different, you got to do your research ten times more because there are breeders who might specify and really choose a real ducky watery drop verse a pointing draft. So again you look at yourself, Hey, I hunt forty days a year and I'm hunting divers, and it's probably still gonna be A short hair is not gonna do well in January in Lake Michigan. There's probably one or two or five that are going to listen to the show and send us a picture saying, my dog does it, but I'll show you five hundred that didn't. 00:46:23 Speaker 1: Right well, And that's I mean, that's a really good point there too, because the popularity thing goes both ways. Right, If you look at the tollers, they're not they're not that popular out there. They're just not. And there's reasons, right whatever, Uh, wear hairs and drafts have gotten pretty popular in the last you know, ten years, and so yeah, you can you can go find those dogs that are be they're used in duck blinds like crazy, and they perform awesome, and they can be such badass dogs, Like they can be such badass dogs. 00:46:57 Speaker 2: But several that were awesome. 00:46:59 Speaker 1: Yeah, they they really can't. But if you're like I'm a hardcore duck guy and this is what I want, Like is that the best choice? You know, Like if you're a dual purpose upland waterfall, like there's a different case to be made. And so it's again, like you said, it's just like we got to be real honest at this point, Like what's the best. 00:47:18 Speaker 2: Choice yeah, and I said it a few times. You're stacking the deck in your favor. So if you've already gotten a dog, that's your dog. But if you're listening to this podcast going boy this spring this summer, I'm thinking of adding one to my family. You need to look at the different breeds. You need to look at how you hunt. You need to look at how much time and energy you can put into a dog, because maybe a German short hair isn't the right one because they they do need a lot more energy where most labs they've got a better on off switch. I would say most, not all. So you're looking at how much you haunt, what your family lifestyle is, how much you want to train, how much you want to put into the dog. And then we're stacking the deck in our favor by choosing a good breeder that is responsible, reliable, does all the health testing has like the parents have. I compete with my dogs. Getting that little dinky ninety cent ribbon is proof that my dogs are smart team players, work hard, can mark and can can can do it. And so you know, just going down the road to the guy who has a pure bread lab, to bread to a pure bread lab, and boy, they hunt and you hunt forty days a year on Lake Michigan. Well what does it hunt? How to? You know? Has he had to throw twenty rocks to get it to go swim? I don't know, but he hunts? 00:48:44 Speaker 1: Well, that's I mean, that's a really common mistake that a lot of people make. Is like it's purebread, so it's good enough, and it's it's this breed, so it'll hunt, But like, how will it hunt? Like all of them, all of them will probably go pick up a dead bird, you know, like most of them, and you know they'll they'll do parts of it, but really it's like, what are you going to be working with in that dog? And that's that's the thing about you know, Like one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you is because the ceiling for these dogs. You know, every individual dog has its top level, right, But what you're talking about is start with a dog where the top level is going to be pretty freaking high, right, Give yourself that to work with first. Even if you maybe personally can't get there with that dog, at least it's there. 00:49:34 Speaker 2: It's going to make your life a lot easier and more enjoyable and you'll be problem solving a lot less. And the cheapest part about owning a dog is buying the dog. So if your budget is a thousand bucks, we can probably find you a decent one. If your budget's four hundred, save your money and wait for a thousand. And realistically, most puppies that are well bred and have all the health testing done and have competed and whatnot, you're in the fifteen to twenty five hundred range. 00:49:59 Speaker 1: Right when you when you talk about this too, I mean, I think there's a really good point there. When you get good blood, you know, you you have those things you want, right like you have the drive, you have the intelligence, you're going to get a problem solver, you know, health the whole thing, but that the relationship with that dog. You know, you want easier training, Like you want a dog that shows up to work, and you want a dog that will like be fun to train, and we don't we don't really talk about that a lot. But when you get your hands on one that has really good blood, it's just you're gonna train it more like it's kind of a like a it's like a snowball effect where you're like, man, I enjoy working with this dog, because this dog is leveling up fast, and it shows up and it looks me in the eyes and it's like, what are we doing today? That's so much of a different experience than getting one that will retrieve, you know, six seven times and then it's going to go off and lay down, Like there's a there's a component of that that not only is that a better hunting dog or it will be just general, but also your overall experience of just working with that dog is going to be so much more enjoyable. 00:51:05 Speaker 2: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I mean, I don't think we have to beat the dead horse on it, but I just think when you really you're stacking the deck in your favor by doing your research and finding the right breed and the right breeder to bring this family member into your home. If you're lucky, that dog's gonna live twelve to fourteen years and if you really hunt and you really want to hunt, you're going to and it doesn't you're gonna now still own it for twelve or fourteen years. So let's do it right the first time. 00:51:36 Speaker 1: Right, So when we're talking about, you know, how high up a dog can go, like what level they can achieve. What's the best dog you ever got your hands on? Like, what's the one where you were like, oh my god, Like this one is just the most special. 00:51:52 Speaker 2: Oh, that's a good question. I have a handful and for different reasons. First dog, because he's your first and we you know, I was probably twenty two twenty three. He'd go, we'd go back to college together and have a time of our lives. We hunted a ton, We trained a ton. He taught me a ton. He taught me a lot about being more patient. Remember we talked about, you know, not being that guy that dog got the worst end of the deal sometimes, and but it taught me not to be that guy and not to be that guy that hunts with you. Right. But he was a pheasant finding fool. I would send him on retrieves that I wouldn't send a dog on. Now, you know ice flow rivers of Central New York and it's one hundred and twenty yards across and that we kind of don't know where the duck is. And I'd make that sucker swim across that thing, and he'd hunt the shoreline and sure enough he'd come back with the wood duck or black duck, or you'd shoot up hooded merganza and it starts cruising downstreams, you know, down the river, and he'd be gone for ten or fifteen minutes and you're like freezing cold here he comes back with a hoodie. I'd be like, let's either get the boat or we let that one send, because that's not safe. I mean, if they're crippled, they're going downstream and it's January, not safe. And I've learned from that too, But he never quit. I had a Chesapeake that was a client that I I raised for him. He's a college buddy of mine. Ended up having kids and just you know, I can't do the puppy deal. Tried to. I got it at three months old, and she was not the highest drive dog. Some days you'd open up her dog box and she'd like wake up and be like really, dude, and you'd close and be like all right tomorrow, and then tomorrow you'd open up. She'd be like I'm ready. And I loved her. We passed the Master National twice with her. One of the years I think there was only a hint like maybe four or five female chessies that passed. She just had a lot of heart and a lot of like heart for me. And the going got tough, she would go and do it and you'd kind of look at her like, I don't know, she kind of looks like she wants to be lazy today, but she just would. She would give you her all in her own way. She was real special. The probably highest title dog I have trained. Her name is Lizzie to another client, dog very soft, very well composed, and then lives for it one hundred miles an hour. But she doesn't. She's not like jittery or anything crazy. It's very well like in her brain. She's just composed, but as giving you one hundred and ten percent every time she's she got qualified all Age QA two she passed her. She's only ran one Master National and passed it. And every day she shows up to work and gives you everything she's got and does it well. 00:54:54 Speaker 1: So the last two dogs you've talked about, that dog and that female Chessie, you've kind of said it without saying it that you could ask a lot of those dogs and they would just deliver. Yeah, that's so cool. 00:55:10 Speaker 2: It's so cool. And some of the things that we do, we kind of talked about it in the beginning of just hand throwing in your backyard. If these dogs only had that, they never would have accomplished what they've accomplished. They've done some amazing things and amazing retrieves and competitions are fun, man like for anybody who's listening to this it's never been to one with their dog, go and watch and then think about signing up. Because hunting season is sixty days long hunt tests, you could go and make new friends and be around buddies and have a little lunch on your tailgate and take your dog and have a nice Saturday with you and the family at a hunt tasting. It's not for everybody. They are ninety cent ribbons in the grand scheme of life, what ebbs. But it's a cool accomplishment and it does give you these goals to say, like, boy, we got our junior hunter. What a great accomplishment has to deliver? A hand has to be relatively well mannered, has to be relatively steady, and it has to do sixty seventy yard marks with live birds at least one being live. And you know that's a good duck dog. Well, now the next level is they've got to do a double. They've got to sit steady and watch another dog work, and they got to run a blind retrieve. That's a real duck dog. We can hunt together and if it doesn't see it fall, I can stop it on a whistle and change directions and get it there. And what a great goal to have for you and your hunt buddy, go out there and get better. Man. 00:56:43 Speaker 1: So that is a great maybe last point for us to wrap this up with, because I've been writing about this a lot lately, and I feel like, at this stage of my life, I notice, you know, the very first lesson that I really got that's like this was when I started tournament fishing when I was in college and I was fishing pro am so I was an amateur or a pro co so I was a co angler, and I got paired up with dudes who were so good at this thing that I was very passionate about. But the level that they were at, Like, there's some of the guys that I drew in those tournaments. The things I learned from them, I use them every year. 00:57:23 Speaker 2: All the time. 00:57:24 Speaker 1: I've taught so many people, and it was merely it was just like a matter of being exposed in person to somebody who had that skill set. And I think about this with dogs all the time, where you know, you think about you got to get around a guy like you, or you got to get around doc or whoever, and that's great. Like watching somebody work who really knows what they're doing. Is that that education is important. But even just like you said, going to a trial, going to hunt tests and watching what the dogs are capable of and watching you know, seeing where the wheels fall off and seeing where somebody just it's just perfect and then you realize, like what's possible, and those dogs, those are the dogs you have access to, Like if you're listening to this, you can have that dog that has that blood. Like what you do with it is a different story. But seeing that and seeing how they're handled and seeing what they can do is so important for just opening our mind to going. Man, I've been like, you know that backyard trainer, you go, there's so much more I could do with this to level up my relationship and help my dog level up. 00:58:30 Speaker 2: Yeah, there's nothing better than having a hunting buddy kind of give you the pad on the back and be like that dog was awesome. That was the coolest retree I've ever seen, or boy, what an enjoyable dog to hunt with. That that's a great compliment, and that should be everybody's goal to train, own and hunt with a dog that everybody compliments because it's an enjoyable hunting companion and brings the birds back. 00:58:57 Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it really is. And it's it's crazy how how easy it is to sort of go through life and not be exposed to that. And it's a shame, you know, but you kind of have to seek it out a little bit, and you kind of have to put yourself around people who at least know what they're doing or at least can recognize that situation. But it's just, you know, I think about this all the time with I have two buddies who run ultra marathons. One of them runs the hundred milers in the mountains. The other one does like, you know, fifty k's and like long shit, right, like real runs, right. And when I started running, you know, eight nine years ago, you know, I would be like struggling to get like a five k which is three point one miles, and I'd be talking to my buddy and he's like, yeah, I did a forty mile training run this morning, and it's like you could be discouraged by that pretty quickly, right, Like you could be discouraged if you if you hung around the wrong trainer, you watch the wrong field test or something. You could be like, it would be easy to be like, I'm never going to get there. I could never have that. But it's almost just a mindset thing to just go, Okay, maybe you will never train like Bob Owen. It's probably not. But if you take away something some part of it to just help your dog get a little better here, or to help yourself not lose your shit when your dog doesn't do what you want, it's just a net positive and so getting around those people and those dogs that are good, it's just so important. 01:00:32 Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't ever want to run fifty miles. I'm just gonna throw that. 01:00:35 Speaker 1: Out, dude. Most people don't. Most people don't, but it's it's so valuable. I mean, I had a conversation last night. We're going way off in the weeds here. But our old neighbor moved away probably like five years ago, and his daughter is still really good friends with my daughters. He's he got divorced a year ago, and he was talking about he's been going to the same gym I go to, but he's he's like very nervous about the weight room, which a lot of people are, and I was talking to him about it, and he's like, I don't know how to lift weights. I want to, Like he's kind of back in the dating game, and he's not like right right, He's like, what can I do to stack the odds in my favor here? And I'm like, dude, come lift with me. I'll teach you. And he's like, he's so nervous about that. And I told him, I said the first time that I went into the weight room after I quit drinking, and I was like, I didn't want to go in there, right, Like I was in terrible shape, but I'm like, I wanted to lift weights and get stronger. The very first dude I met is this jacked, totally jacked, sleeve tattoos, bald head. He's actually a canine police officer here in the Cities. He's a really good friend of mine. Now he's a badass. Dude runs this Belgium malanoa that is a He's a cool dog. I hear a lot of stories from him about dog work. But he was like super nice and just like totally non judgmental, just like another one of the dudes in the weight room. And I told you this old neighbor that I was like, man, nobody cares, just like, go try to get better. And I see that in all these aspects of our life, where like if you're scared to run your dog because of this or that, it's like you think that you're gonna go to that field trial and those people haven't been through that a billion times, that's right, they have. They're gonna walk up to you and be like try this, you know. Or I had a dog that was just like that and I had to do this and now this and it's like, oh, you'll be accepted in it's a different thing and it will help you so much. 01:02:37 Speaker 2: Yeah, that's super fun man. I just again, it extends your hunting season. Why wouldn't anybody want to do that with their dog. 01:02:43 Speaker 1: It's great, right, absolutely, Bob. This has been so much fun. Man. Where can everybody listen to you? Find your socials all that good stuff. 01:02:52 Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I had a great time. Thanks for having me on. Everybody who tuned in appreciate your attention. I know it's pulled in every different direction, so the fact that you listen to us to this point means a lot to us. You can find me on Instagram. That's where I'm most playful. It's at Loan Duck l O n E. Duc K. Our podcast is called Loan Ducks Gun Dog Chronicles, a lot of training tips, a lot of hunting stories, and we've just had fun with it. It's great to just talk with people like yourself and get to know your backstory and you're hunting dogs, and then you know, training tips to get you to the next level. And then YouTube. I've got a couple hundred videos on YouTube that help you get you where you want to be with your dog. So here to help, and again, Tony, thank you for having me on. 01:03:37 Speaker 1: Hey, what's the YouTube channel, Loan Duck Outfitters. Okay, perfect, Thanks Bob, Yeah, thank you. That's it for this episode. Keep tuning in every other week for regular Houndations episodes, but also keep an eye out for more of these interviews. We have a lot of big stuff playing in the dog space here at Meat Eater, and as you can probably guess, a lot of it will be produced by yours truly always thanks for listening and for all of your support. If you want some more dog content like training articles, or maybe you want to watch Sadie and I go crunch some public land roosters on film, head on over to the media dot com and you can check out our latest content. We drop new stuff every single day. There's so much good stuff there, and again, as always, thank you so much for your support.