AMA Friday May Edition

You ask the questions, we find the answers; It’s AMA Friday. 

Josh and Heath join Chris for this edition of AMA Friday. Josh thinks he’s a movie star, Chris breaks down some law interpretation, several questions about dog training and trends for competition coonhunting and Heath a southern born and bred Virginian talks about sugar in cornbread. 

• Rough Dogs 
• Independent dogs
• Slick treeing dogs
• Pack dogs
• Worthless dogs
• What breed of dog would Chuck Norris hunt?
• Little Debbie Special Olympics

A lot of ground is covered in the AMA Friday on the Houndsman XP Podcast.

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Joy will fuel your hounds and fight for your freedoms fueled by joy.[00:01:00]

Welcome to this edition of Ask Me Anything Friday. Thanks for tuning into the Hounds Man XP podcast. I am your host, Chris Powell. We mix it up every Friday with different content, and this week in the queue it's ask me Anything. Heath Hyatt, host of the Journey on the Hounds Man XP Podcast Network, and Josh McKayla, the host of The Truth, all come together to answer your questions.

This is how it works, folks, when you're following our social media group, it's the group. It's not the page, it's Homan XP podcast group. You will see a picture of me and Tuff sitting in my truck, and that should be your cue to start dropping those questions for an AMA Friday. We let those questions sit in the group, let you all see 'em, and then the one with the most likes, the most interests are the ones that we choose for our AMA.

Fridays [00:02:00] pretty simple. See a picture, drop your question and hope that people like it. We're gonna talk about things like. Multipurpose dogs or a jack of all trade. We're gonna talk about competition issues like dogs being too independent, where we're going in the future. We're gonna talk about other training questions that came up and of course, from our friend Derek Torman of Outer Agenda Artwork.

We are gonna talk about what dog Chuck Norris would choose. We can always depend on Derek to add some humor to this thing. And then my old Camp Cook, buddy Greg McBride, ask the magic question, do you put sugar in cornbread? The answers are gonna surprise you for sure. I need to give a shout out to Freedom Hunters and it's only fitting.

Memorial Day is Monday and Freedom Hunters is a veteran's outreach program that [00:03:00] puts returning veterans from deployment active duty, their kids, gold star family members. I've participated with all these types of people and with freedom hunters, but they put them back out in the field for hunting adventures and Hounds, man XP has been partnering with them for a long time to coordinate these adventures for our veterans.

And the reason we do that, there's, in my mind, there are plenty of places they can go deer hunt or they can Turkey hunt. But we want to include these veterans, our heroes, the people that keep our freedom free. We wanna make sure that they're exposed to hound adventures too. And the reason I'm giving them a very special shout out this week is because Seth Hall is getting ready to go to British Columbia and Rep Hounds XP and Freedom Hunters on a bear hunt up there with some veterans for freedom hunters.

So that's cool. We really appreciate Anthony Pace and all he does over there for Freedom Hunters [00:04:00] and for America's veterans. While we're on that subject, make sure Monday on Memorial Day, try to take a minute and remember what that day's all about. It's not about veterans, it's about people who've paid the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom.

And it's pretty sobering when you think that people would lay down their life for people they don't know, just so we can make sure that we continue to live the kind of life that we live here in the United States. Freedom is a precious thing and needs to be guarded, and the least we can do is take a minute on Memorial Day and remember the sacrifice that's paid for that freedom across the whole world.

This is a box shaker, folks, AMA Friday. Let's get the tailgate down. Get the doors open on the competition Extreme. It's time to dump the box.[00:05:00]

All right, so we're making a wild and crazy AMA episode here cuz everybody is busy and you heard the infamous laugh. We got Heath Hyatt. We're waiting on Josh McKayla to show up cuz we're gonna talk about some competition pon hunting stuff here shortly. Not that he's an expert, but his son is, his son's got a lot more cast wins than the last year than Josh, that's for sure.

So I'm just gonna, we got a bunch to cover, have you, but before we get there, Heath, have you been checking out our new dog box? I have. Yeah, I posted it on my stuff, on my social media platforms. I got feedback from it. Seems like everybody, like I think you. Yeah, naked, the diamond plate with the black trim.

Yeah. Yeah. It seems like that seems to be the catcher. Yeah. Yeah. We yeah, all the, all that black on that thing is powder coated, so you got all that powder coating against that [00:06:00] naked, ultra bright diamond plate, and it just makes it pop. Yep. I'll tell you one thing I want to start to show off with, and this is an ama and it's a question that popped up and is often misunderstood, and this is strictly for the state of Indiana.

So I guess Bryce got a got a question about, yeah. Yeah. He got a message. And evidently some coon hunters have been asking him and they've been asking the conservation officers as well. They calling me out a little bit. Did you get that feeling? Yeah. They wanted to know where to come from.

I was like it's a game warden man. I don't know. You just, they're down the road, you gotta watch 'em. That's right. The law's down the road. That's right. Yeah. Now the question was, is I've said it on the podcast before, that in the state of Indiana with written permission from a landowner that you can take raccoons year round, [00:07:00] so that means Yep.

During the closed season. So I gotta lay this out a little bit and one of the complaints was, or one of the questions was, or the statements, I shouldn't say complaint. It wasn't a complaint, it was Hey. Chris has said this on the podcast a few times, I can't find it anywhere. One of the things about Phish and Game law and rules and all that stuff, I could, we, I took four years of this stuff in college, so to think that I can sum it up in one podcast is impossible.

I can't do it. So I just need to get you to what you need to know. For one thing, a lot of the thing, the nuances of the law are not gonna be in the Huntington Fishing Guide or what you can find that's published, published online. You've actually gotta go into the law and read it. Yep. And Indiana is that place is the administrative code.

The law, which is set by the legislator, simply says that the d n R has the authority [00:08:00] to set rules for, to set hunting regulations, season dates, bag limits, methods, all that different stuff. And then the Natural Resources Commission gets in there and says, okay, you can hunt deer on these days. You can hunt deer with these firearms.

You can kill this many deer. You can hunt raccoons now. And those are all called administrative coat. So about, and I don't even remember the year it's had to be almost 10 years ago now, but Fish and Wildlife and the Natural Resources Commission changed the rule, the administrative rule that applies to taking nuisance fur bears.

And the reason they did it was because the old law was so restrictive for landowners that it was almost impossible for them to take care of problems on their own property. All right, here's where the confusion comes in. And there are just, I'm gonna call out Indiana game wardens too. You guys are just as ignorant.

[00:09:00] As anybody else on this, because the administrative code clearly says in Title IX under fur bearers that you can take nuisance fur bearers as long as they don't conflict with any of the methods, the approved methods. Okay, so when we get into this, to make it real clear, there's nothing in the law that says that you can hunt your coonhound with written permission from the landowner and take raccoons you around.

It doesn't say that anywhere. It also doesn't say that you can trap 'em. It doesn't say that you can shoot 'em with a rifle. It doesn't say that it doesn't say any of that. So it just says that you cannot take nuisance fair bear fur bears with any method. That is a prohibited method in section 18 of that three 12 Title ix.

I know that's clear as mud, but the [00:10:00] whole point is they didn't say you can go out and use a coonhound. But it also says in other places in the law that using a hound is an approved method for taking fur bears. So there it is. Because the law doesn't prohibit you from doing it. You can do it. Did you?

And I know that the question was, and they said they had asked some game awards and they said you cannot do it. So never run into that. When you're getting ready to answer a question, you start freaking out on me. Here, Heath. There. You're back now. Yeah. So have you ever And I'm driving guys. I'm driving, I'm headed back from Pennsylvania, so I'm in and out a little bit.

Have you ever had to deal with that in your job? Not your coon hunting, but then your job where somebody was doing that and they were actually within the law. Absolutely. Yeah. I was still doing it. When I was still working, I was engaged in that exact activity [00:11:00] with written permission from landowners.

I was, there's some farmers around here that I had written permission from. I kept 'em in a binder. I keep those permissions in a binder. I keep it my truck and that way, boom, I've got the written permission. And people say, it, it amazes me because some of these officers out here are saying, oh, you can't do that.

And Chris is wrong. I sat in the meetings, I was in the Fish and Wildlife Council committee meetings with the staff at the time when we laid all this out. So Fish and Wildlife was there, law enforcement was there. We were all there. I specifically asked the question in front of the operations major and the director of the department and everybody, I said, to be clear, this means that guys can use COONHOUNDS to take nuisance raccoons on people's property.

And the lady who's in charge of it, the [00:12:00] director of this department, that was implementing this rule change, said yes. Absolutely. So here's the deal. If there's any conservation officers out there from Indiana that have any questions about this, just call me. Call me and ask me. And if you're a hunter from Indiana and you've got an officer that's telling you that it's not, then I will put the actual link to the administrative code in these show notes.

So here's your opportunity to take this to an officer and say, this is very clear in the law. So that's the first one. You can do it. And I'm to be honest with you, I'm waiting for one of the newer officers out there that I don't know yet to come across me in June or July and try and write me the ticket.

Please write me a ticket. I'd love to go the go to court and get this settled once and for all.[00:13:00]

Gonna clears that up. Yeah. Yep. Let's let Josh McKaylas in here. We just wanna let him stew a little bit. What do you think? Yeah. All right. Let's let him Hey him. If he's on time, he's late. And if he's five minutes early, he's on time. He's late. You're in law enforcement, Heath, and I've retired law enforcement and the law's written officers don't have the discretion to enforce the law the way they think that it should be or the way they feel about it.

But what you run into, and we call ours Code Virginia. All of our laws are in the code, man. It's mean. You've gotta decipher that code. Cause it's like what you said, it may be written one way, but it was intended purpose was completely an opposite of what you think it should be. And that's where you have to have conversations with your.

We call 'em our Commonwealth attorneys or the attorneys that work with us in prosecuting our cases. And like I said, it's, and all and [00:14:00] our ours is the same way. A lot of our game laws are in the administrative code, which is a 29.1 code and ours code section. And if it's not in the criminal section, which is the 18 two, you gotta go to the 29 1 to figure it out.

Exactly. And a lot of people dunno that. And they don't know that it's not as cut and dry as it says it somewhere that I can hunt raccoons with my hound during the summer. It doesn't, it's not that simple. I'm gonna lay it out. I'm gonna give you the number right here cuz I saved this on my phone.

It's three 12 for Indiana Hunters. It's three 12 Indiana Administrative code nine dash three dash 15. And that part is called Taking Beaver. Make Muskrat Long Tail Weasel. Red Fox, gray Fox, Paso Skunks, raccoons. Squirrels or mute swans on private property. The first section says, A resident landowner, a tenant may take the following species of wild animals without a permit at any time [00:15:00] if the wild animal is causing damage or th threatening to cause damage to property, or is posing a health or safety threat to persons or domestic animals.

All right, so we got that part of the law. And then the specific part that we need to be aware of in this conversation is section D, and it says, an individual may take wild animals listed in subsection A, which lists raccoons for a resident, landowner or tenant with written permission from the landowner.

Or tenant. Or tenant, and with no compensation of any kind. There it is. Raccoons are listed and all the only thing that it says you can't do is that you have to go to section 18 and look at the prohibited methods. And that's like leg hold traps with jaws in 'em, snares that [00:16:00] are over certain circumference, poison out smoking 'em out of dens, taking 'em out of, all that different stuff.

But hounds isn't listed there. So this is your deal. And I know the next thing is these officers are all saying cuz I've heard 'em say it, they say you can't, Chris, you can't prove that raccoon is the one that was causing damage or threatening to cause damage. I've got a couple answers for that One.

When is the last time that you saw a raccoon that was not at least threatening to cause damage, property damage somewhere? Yeah. So they're guilty just by walking around. I was gonna say we did old hillbilly method. If I kill it, I know it ain't gonna do no damage. That's right. That's right. But here's the main kicker for me as a p, as a citizen of the United States of America, it's not my job to prove that raccoon was getting ready to cause damage or he was [00:17:00] causing damage.

It's your job as a law enforcement officer to prove that he wasn't. Yeah. Burden of proof is on the state, not on you. You don't have to prove anything. And I would assume, cause I've hunted in Indiana that crop damage alone, anything you run out of a corner, a bean field up there would be considered a nuisance.

Yep. I, I mean that, that's pretty cut and dried I would think. Yeah. I'm not privy to this entire conversation, but what kind of fine we talking about here? Because in Missouri, if you're paying it, if you're paying it McKay, I'll get I'll get a couple of them.

Paying the fine for shooting a season isn't big enough to, I'll pay that it be, I say, what, a hundred a quarter maybe? Yeah. I think it's around 120 bucks. Allegedly. I, alleged mean Allegedly. That's right. Allegedly. Allegedly. That's what the, that's what the go fine is. You got the court costs.

Court costs alone in the state of Indiana are [00:18:00] when I retired around $132. So usually what you ended up with was a dollar, $2 fine and cost. Yeah. So you were looking at 135 bucks for it. But it could, the ju when the, when you're standing in court and the judge reads the penalty, it's just a class C misdemeanor with a fine up to $5,000 up to one year in jail probation, blah, blah, blah.

But realistically it was usually fine and costs, 50 bucks and your cost, you're outta there for 180 bucks. Yeah. Yeah. I'd pay that. Yeah. But you shouldn't have to. I agree, but I'm, but I think you got a legitimate argument. How are they gonna reading the code section? You just read, Chris.

I don't think they can find you guilty of that at all. The only reason I brought it up, and I know this is super specialized and narrow to guys hunting in Indiana, but it gives us a bigger picture of the fact that hunters need to be aware of what the [00:19:00] law actually is.

Not what it says, not what the game warden says, but what does the law say? And for me personally, I it's just Write me the ticket. I dare you. I dare you to write me the ticket because I'm bringing this law to court with me and I'm gonna show it to the judge. And the judge and the prosecutor are gonna look at this and then they're gonna look at the game warden.

They're gonna say, dude, we got child molesters and drug offenders, and all this other stuff. That's, that needs time in this court. And you don't even know the law. That's what I'd say to everybody that pulls me over and gives me a traffic ticket. I give 'em that whole big spiel never works, but I give it to that's one of those things, everybody's oh, don't you have some murderers out there?

You should be chasing. Yeah. But it's incumbent on, on us as hunters to know the law. And it's incumbent on professional law enforcement officers to know how to enforce and lemme touch on that. When you have new officers, and I don't care what realm of law [00:20:00] they're in, whether they're game wardens, police officers, deputies, whatever, like a lot of your new guys, it takes 'em a couple years to learn all that code.

They may have, oh, we talked about this in the academy and I know what it is. And in reality they don't cause they've not had to deal with it like in person. And with the new, the influx of new officers coming into this field cause of everybody retiring and the way the climate has been, you've got a huge influx of new officers.

So you're gonna run into that more until they get, some time under their belt. Yeah, for sure. For sure. So welcome aboard Josh McKaylas. Yeah. I don't even know what we were talking about and I was still chiming in. Yeah, that's not unusual. No, it's not. I agree. The only reason you're here is because you piped up on the AMA deal about knowing Chuck Norris and being invited to his [00:21:00] house and knowing what he, what kind of coon dog he would take.

I'm just saying that, if I dialed Chuck up right now, I think he would answer. That's all. Is that right? Leave it there. Yeah, number. But I did meet him. My mom was the extras casting director for Walker, Texas Ranger. Really? Yes. And I spent summers down in Dallas and that's where I would work some summers.

Cause as a paid extra, you get like $75 a day and all you could eat. And so yeah, we'd go down there and we'd hang out on set. And she was with the show for, I don't know, 10 or years probably. I remember the show. Yeah. No, I never watched it. I didn't. It was that episode where they were doing that feature on the Special Olympics and Josh was, I was the security guard.

Josh was one of the athletes. Did he get you one of those total gyms while you was there, Josh? Yeah. I need to, I, I spent all that time with him but never got roundhouse kicked to the face one. Amazing. Just [00:22:00] gotta stay outta leg distances. Derek Torman and always comes up with these off the wall questions and I love 'em cuz they're good questions.

And they're fun, but, okay, so what would Heche, his question was, would Chuck Norris choose a blue tick or a tree and walker? Oh, he'd choose a blue tick for sure. Yeah. 100%. You think so? Oh yeah. Yeah. He don't know. He don't do easy.

We ought introduce him to plots. Holy. He really wants to do tough stuff the tough way. Wow. Oh man. That's great. That's great. Now speaking of meeting famous people, I don't know, you meet people like this and everybody likes to talk about meeting famous people. I'm, I met Franco Harris at In Cleveland one time.

That's pretty cool. Man, that guy's hands were huge. Oh yeah. He's just a big dude and then shook his hand [00:23:00] and I felt like a little bitty kid. It was just like professional athletes are astounding. Yep. Physically. You just look at 'em and you're just like, oh, now I get it. Yeah.

You're like, I see now. Yeah. You're sitting there with a beer and your're ham watching the game. It's kick. I could have played football. The Hounds Man XP podcast network is powered by Cajun Lights. All of your lighting needs for hunting can be taken care of at Cajun Lights. They have three models of cab lights.

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when I was down in Dallas, so I worked cuz I would work three days on set. I done this my junior and senior year of high school and I was a good basketball player, but I worked two [00:25:00] days at a place called Nothing but Net Recreation Center. And it was ran by Vaughn McDade, who played in the NBA short stint in the N B A with the New Jersey net.

And I didn't know this for a long time, but then they had a camp one day in Orlando Blackman and John Starks came into his camp. And we're doing the stuff and we got to work and we got to play a little bit with them. And I was getting ready to go in and, I'm getting into my senior year of high school and I'm a good player thinking, I can, I can play with these guys.

You don't, there's so many levels to that. I was just like watching Rolando Berlin. Orlando Blackman was a big guy, and he would set out there 5, 6, 7 feet behind the three point line and just warm up and just splash splash. I was just automatic. And I thought, how does, that's not right. Yeah. They were so big and so athletic and I was just like, this is they're just, they were amazing.

You're in awe even as a good, not a good athlete, but an athlete from a town. You're still a five, nine white guy, no matter what they say. But yeah, it was [00:26:00] it's astounding. Professional athletes are amazing. Have you ever met you have, who's the man named from Texas That was a professional basketball player, a guy.

Guy Manning. Yes. Yeah. Real legend. Yeah. Yep. I read up on him. Yep. Read his background. He played, he was like a, for real. NBA player. The guy's a big guy. His, he is such a well-spoken and just a, if you ever want to sit down and visit with somebody for a long period of time, guy Manning is the guy to do it with.

He's just enjoyable to talk to, to be around. Yeah. And a real hounds man. Yeah. All right. Let's click off some questions. So there's your answer. Derek Blue. Ticks all the way, buddy. Where were we at here? I've got a, I've got these on my phone, like always. I'm gonna pick one.

Have you guys got, Heath doesn't have the questions cuz he's got, I got 'em. What do you, which ones did answer before I got here? The only thing, no, [00:27:00] none. We don't, we dove into a question that we got in, got off this side there. So pick one, Josh, that you want. Here's the one for the independent.

Josh, that was for you. Yeah. It says that was Chris Pool's question. In competition, qn, why has there been such an emphasis on a dog being so independent? To me, being so independent can be a flaw. Have a dog skull the track, grab a quick tree, et cetera. Getting two second trees beats one deep and lonely first tree any night of the week.

Yeah, that part is true, Chris, but if it was real easy and they'd have a couple seconds and go in there and do it and take all that money with dogs that are not independent, you're gonna run into some trouble. Dogs that cover coons cover slicks too. Dogs that are not struck good they need that 100 tree points to.

And yeah there's some dogs that can get around with being on the same track with the dog and win big, but they're very [00:28:00] rare. They are more rare than having old, deep and lonely. And so there's a lot of misconceptions there cuz I can count on maybe one hand the dogs in the circuit today that are actually deep and lonely type dog that are just fly through the world.

They're in their mile every time they're treated. You think of Spice Girl or you think of Venus or you think of some dogs like that, but most of 'em are not like that. They treat coons around you. They just go in a different direction and, it's not, it's way easier to get a dog to do that and have a dog consistently do that than it is to be the best track dog on out of that given night in the quickest tree dog.

It's just easier, if you got a dog that can get in the right area and hustle around and move in between trees. He's got a better chance of winning than a dog that's, there's a really good track and tree dog some night. It's just, yeah. We cater to the rules and we train to the rules and we breed to the rules.

And right now the rules are going to [00:29:00] dictate that you need an independent dog. But it's changing. I've seen dogs getting together more, especially outta the pickup. We want That's, yeah, that's one place. Yeah. We want 'em, especially in pro sport where you're walking to every single tree and dogs, there's no leash lock, there's no nothing.

You want to be the first or second dog tree. Yeah. They don't, you're by yourself or not. You want to get those points on the board and get recut before you score that third tree that is so important in that event. And yeah it's coming back around and yeah, I would love to have a dog that was just in the pack and was first and first all the time.

But those aren't easy. No kidding. Especially a dog that's gonna back a, he's gonna make some mistakes. He's gonna back a dog that is tapping a tree and gonna pack his stuff and leave. He's gonna, he's gonna back a slick, just like he will a coon. Dogs that only cover coons are more rare than just about anything out.

Yeah. Cuz they'll cover a poss and they'll cover whatever. They'll cover anything. A dog that's a born to cover is just gonna cover whatever street. Heath. So I have a question [00:30:00] and then that'll lead us to that second question. So Josh and I don't know this cause why I'm asking a serious question.

Like

breaking up on us. Are you seeing more in, ah, can you hear me? I got now. Can you hear me? Yeah. So in a competition world, Uhhuh and in the, that you guys are buying or breathing or whatever, Are those dogs coming out independent from the get go, or is that something that you are training into these? It's a little bit of both.

There are some natural independence and you can see that in a 5, 6, 7 month old pup when they're first getting out with the old dogs, if they're watching that garment and they're glued to that dog, they don't have it. I don't care if they're four months old or they're nine months old, or they're two years old.

If they're glued to the dog that you know is doing the work, if you're watching them and they're no more than 10 yards apart the whole time, they just ain't got it. That pup that you turn loose and it falls that old dog for a little [00:31:00] while and it gets sidetracked and it's over here, the old dog gets treated and maybe that pup so we don't have to be far 1500, 200 yards.

That dog's got it. Okay. That dog's got a little bit of an independent nature, so then all we do is pick that pup and we never, ever, under any circumstances reward that dog for being with another dog. Ever. I don't care if it's six months old and it's first and first with the old dog right behind it.

I'm not giving it that coon cuz it's with another dog. I'm not gonna get onto it. I'm not gonna reprimand the dog for anything, but it's not gonna get rewarded at all it's entire life until it is by itself with the coon. That's when it's, that's when it gets the reward, and then eventually the rest of it just works itself out.

I see a lot more of it. I was thinking about it's more common than I see a lot more, yes. It's the genetic aspect of independent dogs has really been a lot more prevalent in the last eight to 10 years. I'm hunting a pup right now off a jazz and crash. He's a half-brother at a big country.

And the other [00:32:00] night turned jazz loose, turned him loose. He was on the other side of the woods doing his own thing, ran a track, loaded up a tree and he didn't stick it. Yeah, but she was over here working a track and he didn't care. He already had his thing go on and he was doing his thing. So what a lot of people don't understand is how easy that is.

Whatever natural independence a pup has is so easy to take out. It's piece cake. You just, yeah. You take that pup that's doing what he was doing. You snap him up, you lead him into Jazz's tree, you get him all fired up. You let him chew on that coon, he's gonna follow jazz around. He knows that's where his reward is.

It's not hard to take it out of him. And these dogs are so smart anymore. That one or two instances where they get rewarded for doing nothing for just following the old dog around and they get set back a long time. It takes a long time to get that out. It's way easier to put or to take the independence out of 'em than it is to put it in them.

[00:33:00] He's got something. Go ahead. Yeah you're operat conditioning. You're taking something away. You're using one of the quadrants to do the training. But what and why it's so easy for 'em to go back. Because genetically programmed dogs are pack animals. Oh yeah. And they hunt as a pack.

And that's why I asked that question because if that's the case, just like us domesticating the wolf, that genetic code, the more those dogs are independent, you should start seeing over, and we may not see it in our lifetime, but there would come a day that you're basically breeding, you're raising independent dogs from the get-go.

Because this is the genetic, this is the genetics that you are catering, or, I don't wanna use the word cater, but you are tweaking to meet your needs just like we did originally with the wolf. Correct. Correct. And it's a fine line. Because yes, there are a lot of naturally independent pups, more now than [00:34:00] we're breeding natural independence, yeah. But also those pups come with their own set of challenges because they're usually quirky. They're weird. They're not social. Like Conn, for instance, I can't even get him to breed a fema. He won't, he don't care. He don't wanna be around him. He don't wanna be around any dogs.

He don't wanna be around nothing. And, but when those dogs get covered, that's a problem. Cause they're gonna fight or they're gonna run. Yeah. And if he, and if you talk, told him, if you've worked on him enough that he's not allowed to run right, then he is gonna stay there no matter what.

Yeah. And he Khan's gonna fight. Khan's been tree aggressive since he was like nine or 10 months old. See, I don't get that. Why did, why wouldn't he call? Why didn't you just, there was a day, Josh, when we called that crap, because we don't care. We actually like it. I have a problem with that man.

I, I. That goes against every fiber of Braden Coon dogs for as long as I've been in the sport. You know [00:35:00] the mean ones were called. Good point. But that's also saying, you've got these guys out here that are pleasure hunting, that never see a competition.

Coon hunt and you take their dog and you cut it into a dog tree and it goes straight in there and trees with it blind. That goes against everything too to me. But that's their game. That's their game. That's how they won it. More power to 'em. Good for them. Go ahead. But if you took Con Out and you won the World Championship with Con, you think Con would be the only mean dog that won a world championship?

I'm just saying. You admit it. Okay. You've admitted it. But you go out there and you breathe, and now people are gonna start blowing, you and Finley up to breed their females to come breed to calm. So is that a genetic trait or is that something that, that, was that something you saw early on in him?

Alpha males that you encourage independence on are gonna be mean naturally. Independent alpha males, they're gonna be rough. And these dogs that are in these hunts, now, I'm gonna say a good majority of those [00:36:00] dogs are rough. But here's the thing, they get tree possessive, they get very tree possessive.

That's the, that's why they're rough. We understand that. You turn a dog loose with con right now a kennel mate, a puppy. He's fine. Never throw an off bark, never throw his head at him. Nothing. I've trained a, I've trained just John's eight years old now. I've trained a ton of pups with him.

But you turn con loose by himself. Let him get treed. Let him sit there for about 10 minutes and then cut that same dog into him. You're gonna have problems. Tree possessive. Most of them are. Are you using OnX maps while you're out running your hounds? I know I do. There are all kinds of features within OnX in that app that allows me to mark den trees.

It allows me to mark terrain features. It keeps me from floating my hat on those deep stream crossings so I can mark those shallow places where I can cross streams. I use it all the time, whether I'm east or west. And the east [00:37:00] property is chopped up into smaller chunks. And when a dog gets through the country, I can actually look on OnX, dial it in, see who owns that property, and plan my route in and out of there to retrieve my hound.

When I'm hunting in the west, same thing. All the terrain features are included on OnX maps and I can plan my route. I don't always have a choice of where my hounds end up. But I can always depend on OnX to get me in and out of there as quickly and as easily as possible. You can save 20% on your next purchase at OnX when you go to OnX maps.com.

And at checkout, you enter the code H X P 20, you'll get 20% off of your next subscription when you go to houseman xp.com, click on the sponsor tab and join us on Patreon. You will receive a code to get 30% off of your next subscription of OnX. Know where you stand [00:38:00] with OnX. But how do y'all and I haven't competition in in 20 years and that's why I'm outta it. But how does that not, how do they not, because they're are always by theirself. They don't get in fights and don't have scratches, or how do you keep from that happen? And I guess what I'm asking. Con's never even been getting the hatch. Yeah. Con's never even, you know what I'm saying?

Yeah. Khan's never even been put up the morning, not once, never been scratched, never nothing. Yeah. But the, I've never, I bet you I've only seen at super steaks one year he had all four dogs on the same tree, but it was just a scold, hot coon out of the truck and he don't do nothing. Then he may blow a little bit or something, but he don't lay a tooth in nothing then.

Yeah. And at the level that we're hunting at, dogs don't come into it ever. Very rarely. And if they do and K turns around and slings his head and tells 'em to get the F outta there, they really don't wanna be there that bad anyway. It doesn't take a whole lot of encouragement for her to [00:39:00] leave. And the handler that's hunting that dog understands the same thing.

If Conn went into his dog, he'd get the same treat. But that's also why Khan's not gonna be at a local ukc hunt. Cause I know he is rough. I'm not gonna take him over there where some little kid's gonna get. His dog shoot up or something like that. Just know your dog. Keep it in the position where he needs to be, and you're gonna be just fine.

Josh, I think you're saying out loud what a lot of people think and know, but they don't say it. I agree with that. I think because even when I, like when I first started Pkc way back and changed completely there was a couple guys here that if your dog covered their dog, there was gonna be problems.

Yeah. That's just the way it was. And that was 20 years ago. Yeah. And we all came back and we all came back to the clubhouse and said, that sucker rough, he's mean, he shouldn't be out there. Somebody he should have called that dog. If con went and covered dogs and fought, he would never see a cat.

Never, I [00:40:00] would never, I would not hunt. Now, dollar did sometimes and Dollar was getting ready to be retired. Whenever he got sick and passed away he would cover and fight a little bit. So he was getting ready to be done. Yeah. They go when you put 'em under that pressure and you're hauling 'em up and down the road they go one way or the other, they're gonna fight or they're gonna run.

Yeah. Yeah. So that leads us to that next question. Somebody asked the question about would you rather have 'em Slick Tree or with Ale? I would get it. No. There's a, there's one before that. There's one that ties, that bounces right off of this, and then we'll get to that one. Okay. Chris, Christopher Workman asked, is the future of competition hunting going to resort back to pack style hounds duty?

Oh yeah. Decrease in available hunting ground. I thought that was an interesting question. Yeah. I don't, I, I don't see the PAC style hound coming back. I think you can have, depending on where you're hunting I think it's applicable right now with [00:41:00] the style of dog we're hunting right now, depending on where you're hunting.

If you're hunting in, Greenville, Tennessee and Appalachia, and you get turned loose in the mountains, you need to score on every coon you can. But in most of the places where the bigger hunts are held, the raccoon population is so good that even on smaller ground, they have an opportunity to be split treated.

Yeah, and I'm on mute myself and you guys take it. No, I think that, thank you, Josh. I don't have a clue. They're actually coming back a little bit more. You're seeing dogs get together a little bit more, and a lot of it is because of the rule set in pro sport. When, and Ukc, for instance, where there's no leash lock.

These dogs can get together and we want the first dog to get treated, or be treated first or second. That's your best opportunity with the cast is get them points out of the truck recut from there. And you're seeing guys that the dogs will the dogs will back a little bit and it's getting better.

And I don't think it has anything to do with available hunting conditions or property or anything like that [00:42:00] For as long as there's been competition, coonhounds guys have bred and trained towards the rule set and they're gonna just keep doing that. The minute the rule set makes it to where a covering dog or a pack style dog is gonna win more, that's gonna be what these guys pack.

They don't care what they're doing. They wanna win. Yeah, no, like I said I've been outta that world. I couldn't tell you if you asked, so I that's, I just don't want a dog. Even back then, I had a walker dog. It was out of stack. Even Steve Fielder's Roper dog that I hunted for him.

That dog didn't come back. When you turn him loosen him mountains where I hunt you better. You had to go get him off a tree and it was rough. Yeah. Some nights was not pleasurable. Yeah. So for where I hunt, the dogs did, they did, you would have a dog that get off every once in a now and get treed by itself.

But like I said, that's been 20 years ago. I have no, I haven't been in a hunt or I don't know anything about 'em nowadays no. It's where your hunting dictates a lot, what [00:43:00] your hunting dictates a lot. You hear guys that are, oh, I wouldn't have that dog or that dog all the time, or, that dog does this or does that, and that's fine.

We just gotta understand where we fit in all this. And then Taylor tailor our hounds or breed our hounds Yeah. To what fits what we want to do. Yeah. That's all there's to it, just because. The guy down the street wants to turn loose four red bones and have 'em all in the same tree and tree. One or two.

That's fine. I, that guy's having a great time. That's fine with me. That's not my style of dog, but that's his style of dog. And if that's what he likes, that's what he like. Yeah. Just like I like, I just I like mine to gut one that covers him. Oh geez. There you go. Name your next one's gotta be named hacksaw.

There you go. Yeah. You think about it though. You look at the top race horses, you know some of those old pictures, they're running down the track and the horses right beside him. Shouldering them. Yeah. They're reaching over there and biting them in the face, no, that's the hanging. [00:44:00] Took a picture here a while back of a horse biting.

Did you put that up, pal? I might have. I don't remember. I don't know. I seen it put, it was a that been Kentucky Derby. Oh yeah. Yeah I see this horses biting another horse on my, that's the horse I'd ride. Yeah. That's no doubt. Yeah, no doubt. So that goes to the possum or the slick. Yeah. I know how I feel.

I would rather have a slick, I hate possum. Yeah. But the thing about, for me I, of course, I'm I wanna meat dog to start with. Yeah. I don't care what it carries. But if you have a possum, your dog is on the, is on odor. Yeah. There's no question that he's tree and odor with a slick and you can't confirm it.

It's always a guess. Yeah. And I want to just, and this may be just a pipe, I always want to think my dog was [00:45:00] trying to tree a coon. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. That's, we all have that. Yeah. Yeah. That, here's the thing though, Heath, if you turn loose at your dad's house and you gotta climb the north face to get up there and you get there, And it's a possum tree.

I know you're gonna be mad. Been there done that. Exactly. And you weren't happy about it, were you? Oh no. My blood pressure probably spiked the 200. Been there, done that. But now, looking at reality, like for me, I can fix the possum thing. Like I can break my dog, I can deter him, change his behavior.

But for the slick tree, when you're, you always in the back of your mind, you're trying to sort out, okay, did the coon limb out? Did he tree a squirrel? Did he just fall tree because it got too hard? There's always that second guess for me, it's always, so the possum I can control anytime there's a stick there is, why did this dog do this?

And we never know. Now there's, that's right, there's a [00:46:00] straight up and down going across the creek or something like that. You get that. Yeah, if it's a good tree or a small tree or a tiny tree, I've seen dogs' tree on trees that they could've just stood on and bent over. I think good, accurate dogs too that normally have coons just tree on nothing.

Again, here's something that can go into, and Heath can talk about this, but it's a lot of that slick tree and stuff. I've never seen a young dog that wanted to lie to you that just, they wanted to dog, they wanted to be, when they first start, tree and coon, that's when the dogs are most accurate on the planet.

Guy. Guys will, as soon as that dog barks up, then they go running through the woods like last of the Mohicans to get in there and they leash him up and they're excited. And I don't care if you pet that dog or not. That dog can read your body language better than you ever thought about it. Now you're, they can feel your adrenaline, they can feel your pheromones.

They know that, and they're gonna, they're gonna key off of it. So they learn. To be like that. [00:47:00] And if you back up and you start blowing squalls and shaking vines and feeding into that, they've already shown you that they've got the natural instinct to tree. And you go in there and you start acting a fool, you're gonna, you're gonna reinforce that behavior without ever saying good boy or petting that dog.

I just did that the other night. I do it all the, your voice inflection. Yeah, your voice inflection alone. Just like you just did Chris. I just, I do it. Your voice inflection tells the dog how your mood is. Yeah. Absolutely. And if people would just and I tell my detection guys this, so I can bridge this here.

If I reward my dog on let's say we're doing proofing, which means I'm trying to get my dog off an odor. That is attached to the scent picture. So I'll use magic marker. Magic marker is on every evidence bag that we put into evidence. So when I hide dope, I hide, it's in an evidence [00:48:00] bag with magic marker on it.

So that becomes part of the scent picture. That sounds like, so put out magic. That sounds like a terrible place to hide your dove. Yeah. So if if you reward the dog on the magic marker alone and the other odor is not attached to it, I tell my guys like, okay, you made a mistake. It's no big deal. It's gonna take you numerous sessions to get that dog to a award reward on that odor and that odor loan every night.

So back to the slick, like one time or two is probably not going be detrimental to your training. But if you continue that process over and over, you create a monster. And I think any logical hound trainer knows that. Yep. Nope. I agree. But I did. It's when you get in the heat of the moment, like Powell said, angel a month ago, angel treated her first Coon.

She was seven months old on the day and[00:49:00] she was 400 yards past Hazel who was still running and just dies on the street. First tree she's ever made. That wasn't a hangup or something like that. And I like to run her over with that side by side. I was hunting outta the Ranger and she cornfield and I come sloppy.

They hot, like smokey in the bandit, and I jump out and like to tackle that pup course. She's got it in a little bush. What she was doing was, she was just running an edge trip over this coon, ambush it, create it, and I just I like to just, she could tell she was pumped up by the time we were tied back.

And so what I did is I sat there and I let her tree tied up. Never said a word, never nothing. And it took her about 45 seconds to a minute. Of being tied up, which she's been leashed at trees, she's been at old dogs trees and I've had her leashed a lot of times. And even them pups will knock the coon down.

We'll let 'em, we'll let the old dog chew on it and that pup don't get it, that's right. They don't get a mess with it. None. And we'll just move 'em onto another spot. But she [00:50:00] was tied back. She'd sat there for maybe a minute and a half, and then she started treeing again. And so I just sat there calmly in my side by side, never said a word, let her tree for about four or five minutes before, I went in there and pet her up and stuff.

So it's easy to do when those young dogs tree acc koon through there the first time. There's nothing better than that. And I've won Big Hunt and I've done all this stuff, but when something you raise does what it's supposed to do, the first time you're pretty pumped up, you better believe it. Yep. There you are.

And I know the dog can pick up on it, but I can't stop it. But it still comes back to the fact, the first time it happens, just like you're describing it's expected, but the second time it happens and they're in there and they're starting to, they're trying to I'll give you a perfect example is when I was breaking, when I was training Mongo, Mongo was always that independent type dog, and he'd always be off doing his thing.

And he would locate, and I would sit there and I'd be like, oh, he is gonna do it. He's this is it. He's gonna do it. He's gonna, he's gonna [00:51:00] slam it right here. Instinctually. I wanted to run in there and help him out. Whereas if it goes back to that, that podcast that you did with the guy from South Africa Heath about letting the dogs fail, how.

So yeah, my first instinct is to run in there and help him out when the best thing that I could have done was sit back there and let him work the problem himself and self reward on that deal. And it's just a natural thing. So you just gotta be, you just gotta be calm, you gotta be patient.

When you start getting down the road with the pups, for me to answer this question directly when I look at a dog that's slick treeing a lot, I think a lot of that be comes from, I look at myself and think, okay, what have I done to do? What have I done to cause this? Yeah. No, that's not, that's I don't think Slick tree.

And then you guys, correct me if I'm wrong, some dogs are genetically more wired, [00:52:00] a tree, we know the strains. We know the lines, we know all that stuff. But true slicks and a true slick tree and problem where they're just absolute wood monsters is all 100% of the time, in my opinion, a handler issue.

Yep. Absolutely. Yes. It is a training. It's a training issue. Correct. Can you train a dog to hit? Can you, Heath, you've done this, you've seen it in canine work. False. False positives. False. When dogs just alert, false alert in certain spots on a car where the handler talks 'em into it and then they reward 'em.

And I know you've seen it cuz I've seen it. I've worked a lot of dogs out, but yes. And it's all handler induced. Yeah, it's all handler induced and Yes. And it's on the handler. It's absolutely on the handler. The handler is queuing the dog for that behavior, whether it be. He's hiding the odor in the same [00:53:00] place.

And the dog knows that when I get to the gas cap, oh, there's the odor, so I'm gonna pop a squat. It's all handl and due yep. Josh, you're a hundred percent on the mat. That's problem. Yep. And we've all, you take a dog that's wired the tree, and I like a dog that is a natural tree dog. I that's what I prefer.

I want a dog that's gonna get treated early in, its, early in its life and be more apt to treat. Cuz those dogs are more apt to be quicker to get treated, which is important in the competition side of it. They're more apt to not check. And I don't need a dog to check every single tree to make sure it's all right.

A slick, every now and then to me is okay. But also you don't want it to be a problem. And we've all seen that in certain lines and we take those lines and I'm not throwing it cuz these are lines I'm fan of. You look at nailer and rat attack and. Some of the mother dogs that, that threw tree dogs bone collector was another one that threw tree dogs.

And these guys get this five and a half [00:54:00] month old pup that's tree and squirrels in the yard, or finally is looking to get treed. And they just encourage that so much at a young age. If they don't care that the dog's got anything, it's just treeing and tree's. Good. And they encourage it and the dog turns the tree into its own reward.

Yep. They self reward. That's exactly right. Yeah. That's that whole podcast we did on slick Tree. Yep. Because it, when Con's a tree minded dog Hazel's a tree minded dog. When a tree minded dog that is wants to get wooded runs into trouble, their default is default tree. Yes. When they're, when they're confused and they're frustrated, their default is default tree.

When you look at some of these wipe out dogs or. Some of the other breeds and strains or whatever, their default is to just pound it out and work it out. The track is the reward. And those dogs you wanna strangle because they won't get treated enough. And so at six and one half 'em dozen, the other I like.

Yeah. And I don't even think it just, you can just put it in a box of competition. [00:55:00] What guys are looking for in competition. I haven't hunt, I haven't entered a competition hunt Yeah. For a long time. And standing out there and listening to a dog beat and bang around and I think I'll get treat.

No, I'm not gonna get, I think I'm gonna get treated. No, I'm not. That just drives me up the wall. It's like you either do it or don'ts. Right now I got brandy and Hazel. Hazel makes a loss. She's treeing. Brandy makes a loss. You're gonna get it in there, you're gonna get her off that track and move her. Yep.

That's just, they're two different style of dogs genetically training wise, whole works. And I prefer Hazel. I prefer a dog that's going to take a chance and get treated. It's like my old buddy Jerry Mall always says about slick tree and dogs. He's it's a lot easier to take tree out of a dog than it is to put it in them.

Yeah, put it in it. But you guys think about it, they don't remember the old days when they were three years old. They made their first tree. Yeah. They were happy about it. Even in the big game [00:56:00] world, like we have like our dog slick, pretty sometimes there's no perfect dog. I mean has dog with a hundred, he's going through a tunnel ain.

He something scream, blacked out, screamed out and he's cutting out on his real well, it's dark. He's still telling it's dark. I said even the though our dog and you yourself. Yeah.

Heat. I gotta mute you buddy. You're cutting out on us. I know what you're, I know what you're saying. Hard on how a slick tree on a bear helmet. Minute out I to finish that because I've asked myself that too and I've seen that myself on my, with my own dogs, jazz slick tree walking down through there and she's tree on a 10 inch walnut tree that doesn't have a coon, that doesn't have a bear or a coon in it.[00:57:00]

And not even a good excuse. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the one thing, and that is he's got a point That is the one thing that possums have over slicks is at least you know why that dog? Yeah. Yeah. Slicks. You just don't know. I like the old, I like the old wind detection, carrying in the old wind detection bow hunter trick.

The little, have you ever seen those little puffy bottle, puffy bottles? You squeeze them If you look, if you pay attention. A dog that misses like that. You take out and you do a wind check. If you start looking up wind from where they're at, a lot of times you can either find a dent tree or you can find a coon sitting where they just missed it.

And that's, if it's something that's uncommon. If you haven't, if you don't know if you're just like, last 50 trees I walked to, I saw a coon. Why is this dog missed on this tree? If you start looking up wind, a lot of times it just got to a point where they're, they just made a mistake.

They just missed. That [00:58:00] goes back into the style of dog too. Cause you look at duds, may he rest in peace. He was a trailing type dog that always had a coon and when duds treat in a mailbox, he opened it, it was, yep. It was one of them deals where if he treat on a little sapling, I was just astounded.

And I would look and look. Missy was another female we had way back in the day, in the early two thousands, late nineties. That when she tree, I remember when she treated slick one time and I called my brother thinking she was sick. There's something wrong with this dog. I'm like, I looked at this tree for an hour.

There ain't nothing in it. And but then you get a dog like Connor or Hazel or some of these dogs that take chances, or they're layup style dogs that can lay a coon up, they're gonna miss some. And it is what it is. And with con, I'd glance I've probably kicked him in the hind end off of some coons.

A lot of coons actually. Yeah. Because I don't look at his trees as hard, because I know what kind of style a dog he is. He's gonna take some chances. Keith, you got good coverage. Now you're saying something about slick train dogs that kind of covered [00:59:00] for you. Yes. I wanted you to finish your bear deal.

Oh, I always wondered that myself. How does a dog slick on a bear? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know what y'all heard, but that's what I'm said. Even. We come up short and it's not often, but it happens. Like your dogs pull up, you walk, pull the mountain and they're in a slick tree and you're like, how do you slick tree on a bike.

So happens dogs are not perfect. We don't know all my works. We don't know what's going through the dog's mind. So it happens to all dogs. It's not just dogs. Yeah. Hey, we need to move on. We got a lot of good participation this month. I wanna make sure that we cover the, cover these and this one shouldn't take long.

It says another question. This came from Caleb broach, would you rather have a jack of all trade style [01:00:00] dogs or a specialist if you could only have one dog? And this is gonna be interesting. Because we got a lot of, we got different interests here. Let's, I'll go first. I know, I seen Heath was backing up.

I dunno if he's got a trailer on or, yeah, no, I'm good. I just pulled into the house. There you go. But I'll go first. And that is situational. Do I want to have fun? If I want to have fun, I want a jack of all trades. There's no pressure. That dog has a little more leeway. That dog, which I've got one jace's squirrel dog over there that we'll take out, few times a year that he treats a coon and possum, skunk catches a rabbit.

Squirrels, I don't care. We have a great, but it says one dog. You can only have one. Josh. And I know what you want. I gotta have a specialist. Yep. I gotta have a specialist. And I don't care if it's a retriever, if it's a English setter, if it's a squirrel dog or if [01:01:00] it's a coon dog or if it's a bear dog to me.

A specialist means that you trained something into that dog that is not natural. That's hard to do. It's difficult. And the challenge is what has always intrigued me. It's that's the thing. Compe pure competition dogs enthused me more than anything else on this planet, and I don't care what kind of competition it is.

That's why I'm so scared to get into other styles of dogs because I know what I would do, have my picture taken no matter what kind of dog I'm hunting. That's So you're a narcissist is basically I am. A little bit, yes. And it's not that I want the recognition we knew that is, that I want the challenge.

There's nothing more challenging than to make a dog that's perfect, which is impossible. Then you ought to be hunting, trying to hunt plots in pkc or pro sport if you like to challenge. I also like to win,

but no, I just, I look at these guys that train these dogs and there's some [01:02:00] great ones way better than me that are consistent winners and that are good talent scouts and that are good dogman. And I just think that, that is cool. And then you get, and I got a lot of friends that are multipurpose style dogs.

William Newbie is one of 'em that I talk to all the time that just loves draw tars and German wire hairs that will make, that may kill a fox one to minute and then point a covey quail the next, but they're not really that great at either of 'em. That's what you run into. Yeah. They're just mediocre at everything.

I want greatness. I, mediocre dogs don't enthus me as much. I've been down this road and I'm living it right now, man. I, I've got dogs that I can catch hogs with in Louisiana, but they're not great at it. I've got dogs that I can catch bears with in Virginia, but they're not great at it. I've got dogs that I can tree Koons with in Indiana, but they're not great at it.

So I'm at this point in my life, I thought, yeah, I'm gonna have a jack of alls trades type dog and this is gonna be [01:03:00] fun. It's gonna be cool. But, and it is fun. And it is cool because I run around I'm headed New Mexico next week and we're gonna run 'em on lions and they'll take a track and they'll do it.

I know they will, but I like having dogs that are good at what they're doing. Yeah. And that is a hard thing when you're dealing with a jack of all trades. Yeah. I've never seen a jack of all trades that was really good at something. Yeah. Good dogs, great dogs, cool dog, but never really, truly great at one thing.

Yeah. Yeah. I think it's more of a personal, what do you want? Yeah. Do you want to, do you want to be able, like they totally fulfill my adventure spirit to be able to go and watch 'em be involved, and be a part of the hunt, Treena, mountain Lion, Treena Barrett, Treena Hog, Trina Coon in Indiana.

If that's what you're looking for and that's what trips your trigger. [01:04:00] That's great. I, it does bother me though that I don't like having a mediocre dog or one that just does gets, is participating. I want one, I want dogs that are getting in there and getting after it.

Yeah. When I get everywhere I go, when I invitation to Bear Hunt or Lion Hunt, and every now and then they, because they know that I'm a homan, they'll say, bring a dog. And that all sounds great, but. I want my dog to be the best one up there. Yeah. Yeah. And I know it's not we, we could take a young dog up and go bear hunting with our buddies in Wisconsin or something like that, and they may get in the mix and they may do some good things and some, but they're not gonna be the best one there.

See, I wouldn't go though. I wouldn't go if I didn't have a dog in the hunt. And that's takes so much out of it for me. Yes. That is the problem with having a specialist, is that when I go bear hunting, or now when I, because I want competition with Coon Hunt and I wanna focus on the coonhounds.

And when I go waterfowl hunting, I don't have my retriever there. When I go bird hunting now I [01:05:00] don't have my setters there anymore. When I go rabbit hunting with Lance Wilson and Irv Taf over here, I don't have my beagles. I'm okay with that. Yeah. It's hard. I don't like it. Yeah. Because I know that if I was hunting with Lance and Irvin and they were, they got world-class beagles, I would want a world-class beagle that was better than theirs.

And I know I can't have it. And so now that also prevents me from going and experiencing things with dogs that I should enjoy, and it takes a lot of the enjoyment out of it. Yep. Heath, Jack of all trades or a specialist? Right now my, I want a specialist. Yeah. I want the best dog possible. But if I was back and having to use my dogs to supply food and stuff, I would've want a jack of all trays.

But specialist, I want the bet and I've said this to my guys a lot. Like when my dog opens, I wanna know that it's a bear. Like when he trees, I wanna know it's a bear. I don't want any other option. So it has to be a [01:06:00] specialist. Yeah. Yeah. I think it just goes back to, you know what? What you want out of hunting and what you're trying to accomplish.

I was on ki I've been on a mission to, to have a pack of dogs that I could go anywhere and do anything. If I'm not totally embarrassed, I'm okay. You know what I mean? Yeah. And I've had some great ones in Coonhounds and things like that. And yeah I'm I had a guy Jack of all traits.

What's that? I had a guy ask me today, I just had a guy ask me today if I cat hunted my dogs. And I'm like no. I'm like, if I was gonna cat hunt, I would have me specific dogs to cat hunt. I wouldn't mix. Cause like when I walk up the mountain, or I, I take a hunt like I wanna know, and even though my dogs have treated cats on accident in the past if I was gonna, if I was gonna cat hunt, I want cat dogs.

If I'm gonna bear hunt, I want bear dogs. So specialist. Yeah, it does limit [01:07:00] our cause. Just like when I went bear hunting in Wisconsin or if I go run hogs down in Texas, I go with these Fox found guys and Chase coyotes, with Colt Baldwin or somebody like that up in northwest Iowa.

I it's cool. I'm excited. I'm excited to leave, man. I load the truck up and I'm like, this is gonna be fun. I'm gonna see these guys' dogs work, and I'm an hour into it and I'm just like, I wish I had one of these dogs. I wish I was turning something loose cuz this is not that fun, yeah. And I don't wanna, I don't wanna break those guys' hearts that gimme these invitations and stuff, because I wanna see their dogs work and I appreciate their dogs. You don't, you can't really, truly enjoy yourself at something like that unless you have a dog or I can't. Unless you have a dog that's doing well.

That's because we're dog. We're dog. We're dog men. Exactly. You can take your brother-in-law that doesn't have any offend, he is got no admiration for the dog or anything. He's just out there to hunt and have a good time and get outta the house. That's [01:08:00] a totally different thing.

But when you're a dog man, going and watching somebody else's dog's work and you not having a dog in it, I get to do that a lot and I enjoy it, but I'm not just sold out, fired up. When I went down home with Shannon Raska, I saw some amazing dog work down in Texas chasing coyotes the whole time.

I wanted to turn my y terrier loose, and get him in there, and especially you can't mash the enthusiasm of the owners that you're hunting with. No. And they, they are so excited and they're wound up cuz they've got good dogs and they've got specialists that are good at what they're doing.

Yeah. And they want you to be as excited as you as they are. And that's impossible. Just some kid that comes over and hunts with me and he is just a pleasure hunter. And I'm excited because this dog's doing that. They're not gonna be as happy as I am. And it's gonna take some of the level of enjoyment out of it.

Yep. Yep. All right. I, we gotta move on. We gotta wrap this thing up. I can't leave my buddy Doug Boykin out. He's been a [01:09:00] guest on the podcast. He's just a hoot. All right, so this is what Doug says. His, he goes by Carl. He goes by Carl on Facebook. I don't know if we're allowed to say this or not. I think he's actually in the witness Prote, the Facebook Witness Protection Program.

He's been in Facebook jail so many times that he had to change his profile. But all right, Sid, we accidentally had a fun. We accidentally had a fine bread competition. Coon dog breed one of our young and promising females. He's a lion hunter. Yeah. We did not like the way the coon dog performed as far as cat hunting goes because he was trained to be a one-on-one competition, coon dog, and didn't want to trail with our pack.

We sent him back to his owner, who is well known in the competition coon hunting world. My question is this, does that mentality carry on to the pups or with the different kind of training? Will the pups have what it takes to make the grade in our world of cat hunting Heath, that's a [01:10:00] training question, man.

That's a genetic training question. That's a complicated question. I, it sounds complicated. I don't think it, it's that complicated. Keith, what do you think? I think you answered it. It's training like there, there'll be dogs in that litter that will suit his needs. And he may have to do a little bit more testing as their puppies, but you can train that in the dog.

I don't think that, I don't think I would worry about it one bit. And again, he is gotta think about this too. You're not getting that dog. You're getting the 50,000 different molecules and genetics that go into that dog. He may be surprised with what he gets. Josh, what do you That's what I think.

I think that we talked about this earlier in the podcast. Independence is a natural trait, but it's also so easy to train out. Like he said, that's a training issue. Get the dog, keep the dog in a pack. As a baby, you're raising these puppies, [01:11:00] so it shouldn't be a problem at all. We start encouraging independence when they're old enough to walk.

So just don't do that. Encourage being in the pack and do that throughout the life of the puppy until they're ready to get started, and you're gonna be just fine. And plus you'll have that competition coon hunting talent.

Wow. Yeah. Just hopefully they don't tree with anything. Have a freaking UFC fight under the tree. But other than that, yeah. We're in good shape. Hey, if you raise 'em with a pack, they won't be rough like Tony is. No. I, it's, you guys know that just as well as I do. There's three big country pups right now that are in the west.

Two of 'em in, all three of 'em are cranking on big game. Yeah. Casey s Stutzman's got two of them and I don't know how many days he's hunted since last September, but the guy's a beast man. You can't keep him outta the woods. And he's [01:12:00] bear hunting 'em now, and they're doing great. And they came out of big country and my jazz female, and they're just hardcore.

And that's not self-serving. That's just two dogs that were specifically bred for train raccoons on a scorecard. And boom, they're do, they're doing it in the west and it's all because of the way they were exposed and the way they were trained and the way they were brought up. So we should have sent the bella big country litter to two big game hunters.

I think they would've just absolutely excelled. Is Bella still alive? No, Bella got run over when she was eight. Not long after the country p were wining. Yeah. But they were they're gonna be notoriously slow starting competition coonhounds just genetically that's the way they're gonna be.

And some of 'em are, they're still really good Kondo, but they were genetically, in my opinion, Perfectly fit in that situation. [01:13:00] Those would've been naturally independent dogs. That would've excelled just fine in a pack. Yeah. Yep. All right, ma'am. Hey, I'll tell you what, we gotta wrap it up. Greg McBride, my old bear hunting camp cooked friend, asked you put sugar in cornbread.

Josh, do you put sugar in cornbread? I, everyone's gonna call me a Yankee, so I'm not gonna comment. There you go. See you live in northern Missouri and he tries to say he is not a Yankee. I'm in Missouri. Heat Heath. What? You're in northern Missouri. Missouri though. Heath, what do you say? Yes. You do put sugar in cornbread.

Yes. Yeah. You're from Virginia. That's right. Yeah. You're supposed to be from south. My mom. My mom does. Yeah. It gives a little bit of sweetener. I like it that way. Yeah. Yeah. But I'll, do you want to alienate half the Homan XP listeners? Cuz here we go. I don't even like cornbread. And cornbread is bread.

Oh. We've gotta have cornbread. Love all the things you [01:14:00] could spend time baking and cooking. Here's my thing. Here's my, I spend enough time with Greg McBride and all the, and Steve McBride. Scott McBride, and all these guys that, you know, Greg. Greg will come in and just fix food after bear hunting.

That's just, it's phenomenal. I am a traditional type guy, so when I'm fixing cornbread, I do not put sugar in it, but I wonder if that's more of a tradition thing or a flavor thing, because I've been in enough bear hunting, trip trucks and stuff to see the little Debbie rappers. I know they eat that junk.

They eat some stuff, I know that they're not afraid to eat little debes and cakes and all that other stuff, but when it comes to cornbread, they're like, I ain't eat, I you don't put no sugar in a cornbread, so I don't get it, man. It's Hey. Yes, they, we all need to put the cornbread, the little debes and all that stuff down.

That's right. Use the monk fruit or something like that. Oh, you sound like a hippie now. I [01:15:00] am. I got a little bit of hippie in Me too. For not a Yankee. I've got a little bit of hippy in it, fruit and granola. But yeah. My, my mom started doing that just to, to sweeten it up. But my grandmother, both of my grandmothers did not.

Absolutely did not. So maple syrup, I can, yeah. So that's like putting sugar in grit. Sugar. Sugar and grits. You got, people say, ah, you don't put sugar and grits, and then you got people that are brave enough to say, Grits are better with sugar in 'em.

Oh, that's a good one, guys. I appreciate it. Thanks for taking the time to listen to Homan XP podcast, AMA We'll do this again. Make sure you're watching for that photo of me and Tuff waiting for your questions on social media and post those questions. If we didn't get to you this time, I don't know what to tell you.

We just got so much time that we can answer all this stuff. Some of it's already been answered on previous episodes of the Houseman XP podcast. [01:16:00] And make sure you check out our a m a episodes and everything we're producing on Howman xp. And then you might find the answers to some of the questions you're asking.

Guys, you got anything else before we sign off? I don't. I appreciate it, pal. Hey, man, appreciate you guys. Yep. All right. Yep. Good seeing y'all. Yep, you too. All right, guys. Until next time. Hunting with Hounds is a great time and this is fair Chase.

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