The Future is Bright

Do you remember how you felt when you were just starting out?! The Excitement? The Apprehension? That feeling of looking forward to all the great experiences? In this episode of All Mixed Up Chad and Seth have on the ever lively Niklas Isaac to talk about reflections on his last season and challenges facing the one ahead with his pack of young bobcat dogs. Then we head to the desert plains and talk to Jake Wagner who has just stepped onto the path of Hare Coursing dogs after purchasing his first set of infant coursing hounds. 
This episode is going to bring back those all those feelings! 

Check out the Sportsmen's Empire for more relevant outdoor content!

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We all have that one special dog hanging out on the porch. He's just a little bit of this and a little bit of that. All these things you like coming together to make one superb dog. That was exactly what we had in mind when we made this show. Welcome to All Mixed Up.[00:03:00]

Chad, I've recorded with you a bunch, and I'm pretty sure only two of those times I've seen you not eating in the beginning of the episode. You're a growing boy. I got all my candy here. Your juicy bites. I don't even have to bring it. I had to bring it. I got my mandatory coke fruit snacks and some kind of grain.

This time I got cheese nips and juicy bursts. Chad juicy bursts Reynolds. Or cheese nips. Yeah, there you go. How are you doing buddy? It's been a month. Oh, been busy trying to get everything situated going on a hunt here in a little bit, trying to get everything ready and this blow sand came in man and buried my fence to where a toddler could run across the six wire barbed wire without even slowing down.

So it's all this blow sand. It's like Saharan desert type. Oh, it's my backyard. Got it. Yeah, but it's allowing my cows to walk over the fence. This is not [00:04:00] a good thing. So I've been out there for a few days trying to dig it all out. You're using machinery, right? Not your hands. I hope. I hope I broke the

barbed wire, because I'm trying to get as close as I can, and I keep nicking it, and then I'm breaking it. Some of my guys are ready to kill me, but it's part of it, so anyway, I raced in, and I borrowed a trailer, getting ready for this hunt coming up, and borrowed a few extra dogs, and then raced in, and handed them off, and dove in here, and here we are.

So that's how I've been, man. Photo finish. Yeah, I've been quite the opposite. I got off work today and I was like, you know what? I'm just going to hang out and write in my diary from last season and get that all figured out and finished up. And I'm going to just drink soda and wait for Chad.

Like a hot lager. Yeah. I took great inspiration from Bart Hoog's Hound Log, but that was more geared to scent hounds. So I modified it for sight hounds, [00:05:00] and I used it, and then I was like, you know what, I'm just gonna use that format, that template, in a digital setting. And then all the pictures that I take and videos that I have, I take stills from the pictures, or add those pictures to this like digital logbook.

And so I make these like full scale, beautiful... Like books to that have all these like log entries data to help me remember everything honestly, but then also, dozens of pictures. So the from every race, so I went in. Yeah, I'll show you that I'm like, dude, that's awesome, man. Yeah, that's it. That's really cool.

We got to call it like a book of death or the book. Yeah, it's it has a well. To non hair coursers. So those books are on my bookshelf right there in my living room. And anyone who sees them man, this is a great idea. Cause you know, David Heiss, a real inspiration of mine, he's been coursing for 70 years and he's dude, I wish I was doing this from the beginning because he's had hundreds of dogs, over his lifetime and imagine all the crazy [00:06:00] races he's seen in 70 years of hunting, dude.

And so pictures and videos it's in a giant closet. You know what I'm saying? It's I can't. I don't remember the dates for sure. I can remember the picture many years later, but I don't want to the hunt, yeah. How much your mind messes everything up over time too. Witness, witnesses are terrible.

That's that's the first thing. It keeps you honest, man. Like you don't want to get that dead or the better feeling. So you go back through those books and you're like, Oh yeah. Yeah. Calypso, she had her fair share of spills besides just dominating. I just remembered her dominating everything in the early race.

Guess what? She also did pretty good in the middle too. And or whatever it helps keep you straight, and I really love it. So I'm, I've been so busy this summer. Normally I have them completely wrapped up before the season starts. So I'm racing to get it done and get it published before the season starts.

And then I'm going to be more diligent about, working on it. As I. Progress through the season next year. You say publish, is it.[00:07:00] Just publish for me, right? I make a copy for me. I make a copy for my dad. He really likes him too. That's awesome. Yeah. So anyway, guys, if you're out there listening, just remember to write things down.

Just write it down because you will enjoy reading that in five years. I promise you and take pictures. My wife had to force me to take pictures when I first started doing this and dude, now I can't leave without my camera, man. It's the best. And on that note I guess the way I can relate to that is my old terrier, Bea, one of my old Jag Terriers, Bea, that was, I had so much fun with, I got her first name was actually Sanity, believe it or not, I named her Sanity, I came back from overseas and I was in a place I really didn't enjoy, like my, I was like out of sorts, I'm a southern boy that was stuck in Massachusetts and that's when my wife got into nursing school and I came back, I went from 24 hours from Afghanistan, Kabul, Afghanistan to, to Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and I [00:08:00] was just not having it, man. So I got the dog and I was, I named her sanity just while my wife was getting through nursing school before I could get, get back down to somewhere that I was, more my style.

I videoed a lot with her. That's when I really started recording everything. As a, as a child growing up and a young man and everything before the military, I didn't record, I didn't do any of that stuff. And then once I did with Bea, now that she's gone, she died, she's passed in 15 years or something like that.

And all our old retrieval video, I would pay with those with crisp 100 bills and be satisfied, so I'm so grateful. I recorded that kind of stuff, the videos that we take. Of our dogs running, me and Justin have watched those videos at least 500 times each. You know what I mean? It's you have it down, you have it memorized down to every RPM of the vehicle and every cheer.

It's, they're gold. They're just gold. Yeah. I can see how your dog's book there, your diary, could really. Just add that much more. It's you're reading it and then you're looking at those pictures and it just comes alive in your head again. You're like, Oh man, deep down in that reptile [00:09:00] brain, you actually remember more than you think if those pictures are there to supplement it.

Do that peeps. We got a great episode this month. You guys this theme for this month is going to be. Your first season, speaking of this was a very appropriate segue, my friend, because the two guests I have lined up for two little segments are short segments that are one person is completely new to the lifestyle of coursing hounds, and the other has done it a few seasons and has kept detailed log of his experiences and is still completely new, a newbie.

And is trying to iron out a pack of young dogs. So he just lost his like 13 year old track starter. And now it's starting fresh with a whole new set of youngsters. And so it was just recording with these fellas and I haven't been doing it this long, but recording with those guys really came back and made me think about how all those feelings when you were new, take a [00:10:00] second, everyone listening.

And just, even if you got to pause it and just think about how you felt when you just started doing this. All that feeling, the nervousness, the anxiety of, I guess the butterflies, the excitement, the freshness. It was really fun. And as much as I love talking to people that have been doing it for a long time.

There is something that's really exhilarating about talking to people that are excited to get started. So we gotta Enjoy those two segments you guys but we also as always with all mixed up have our own segments and you know I got a good one for keeper cole this month. I'm just gonna say it right now I was I was cracking up when I read it So i'm gonna bring it to the people but i'm gonna ask you right off the bat chad Do you remember what you felt like?

When you were first starting, let's pick, cause you do everything, man. I'm going to read in your obituary that you were hunting like earthworms with chihuahuas or something. But what, do you remember what you first felt like when you started pig [00:11:00] hunting with dogs? When you were just getting going, what did, what, how, what was it like?

And what's changed since then? The only thing that would be hard for me is cause I started in and out of it. At a younger age, so it was always there to be honest, I don't really remember starting, it was always just a part of it, dogs, and then animal training.

And then my dad was at a hunting for a long time and then got backed into it, and that's what got me started a little bit. It was super exciting. I liked the dogs. I wanted to be their buddies more than anything, I was just happy to be out there doing something. As the excitement came a little bit later as.

The thrill of the chase and the hunt and, like the energy and all that, pursuing game with dogs. Took hold a little bit later, but in the beginning, I was just happy to be out in the woods with my buddies, we could have had fun in a mud hole and I wouldn't know better, but but then new venues came on.

So I'm very familiar with what you're saying. I get like pig hunting specifically. It's always been there, but then getting into, falconry or bird dogs, [00:12:00] hounds, the tree hounds, like, all of those are just various forms of. I don't know it's almost like an addiction, to be honest, it's so powerful, it's overwhelming in the beginning, that it's hard to think about anything else, and you're just starving for every little scrap of data you can find on a subject, and it's almost, you start to make up your own mind about things.

The arc is there, it's always the arc. Gosh, I, time and time again, and coming from a guy who's done quite a lot of it, he's more than I probably should, like I've seen myself do it so many times, but now if you were like, hey man, I'm like, we're gonna pay you to get into.

Sled dogs. I'd be like, all right, Chad, shut up and learn for the first two or three years. Cause it's not until then that you really know anything, and I agree. Yeah. And a good mentor will just change everything for you. Cause I was already making up my mind. I walked into coursing completely ignorant.

[00:13:00] And I didn't even know there was a community in this world that did it still. And when I met Justin, it just catapulted me forward in a way that was very helpful because he was like, no, that's stupid. Don't do that. And he's so nice. You know what I mean? He'd be like if you want to try, you can, but I don't recommend it.

Are you trying to reinvent the wheel? Yeah. And he was like, man, I know. And I've gotten to the point. I know it's, you don't want to be like, oh, just the status quo forever. But at the same time, it's especially something like coursing, it's been going around for 10, 000 years, at least.

I think we figured out after 10, 000 years, yeah, I guess that's what I was gonna, when you first started falconing, take falconry, that's such a niche thing that is so unknown, that's a lizard with feathers and you, that thing could just leave you.

When you first started, do you, what was your biggest fears? The bird legion, just flying off without anything. And it happened and I got it back. I got it back. Yeah. It was like, [00:14:00] cause there's always this big push and it's a weird thing in the falconry that they want. Ideally you want your bird as fat as they can be and still hunt.

So so everything's the number. Oh, your bird's 1200 grams. Oh mine's 1245. Oh yeah mine's 13. So everybody walks around like they're. Number of hunters, with the weight of the bird and it doesn't really matter. Like, how you perform the health of the bird, performance of the bird.

That's what matters, so going into it. I just wanted the fattest bird, the biggest bird, because that's what everybody else was like, hanging their hat on before. I knew that didn't mean anything, so I wanted the biggest bird and we went out there and the bird knew the lure, which is the thing you like.

It's a get out of jail free card. Oh, it's flying off. Or, oh, it's not hunting anymore or something scared it. Okay. How do I get my hands back on this animal? As fast as quickly as possible and it's the lure you swing around this little stuffed animal on a string that roughly looks like a rabbit and it. I know a person that uses dog toys and he just zip ties food to it.

It could be whatever and I took it out and the bird [00:15:00] looked at it and then flew away. Oh, no, and I spent the first few hours chasing this thing around trying to get close enough to it. And that's the problem. It did have a good lure response as long as I was within 100 yards. But being ignorant, I didn't know I needed to be like, 500 yards away, at least the birds, you look different at different distances, and I couldn't get close enough for my lure response to work, and I just chased it around and I get underneath it.

And I have my lure out and I'm like trying to be as subtle as possible. Don't look at it, cause we got predators. So I'm like trying to look down at the ground, but I glance up at the tree and throw this thing and he doesn't come down. So I like ease up to it and like slowly bend over and pick it up and.

Throw it another 10 feet and then as gently throwing something as you can, and and it whenever I threw it, it would spook it. But when I held it, it would do that little head bobble thing. Yep. Yep. I'm interested. It's hilarious. My wife likes She was heartbroken for me when [00:16:00] this was going down, of course, but like at the same time she was cracking up because at some point I realized it, so I started trying to show it in my hands, and she realized that, hey, it's every time you throw it, that you're scaring it, so it's so anybody walking by would crack up because there's some bald guy in the middle of the woods, like creeping up to this soul tree out in the middle of the field.

There's nothing else around it. And I'm holding up like Simba from the Lion King, this like little fuzzy stuffed animal, like it looked like a two liter bottle with rabbit fur and some meat on it. And I'm like holding it up in this Simba. Everyone's hearing the Lion King theme song right now in their head.

If I could sing, I'd sing that thing right now, I promise, but I'm not going to ruin it on air. Yeah, no, it sounds roughly like cats mating, like underwater, it would be bad. But I finally got him to bobble his head and bobble his head, and I like... Dropped it, and he bobbled his head even [00:17:00] more.

So I was like, okay, I'm going to turn around and I walked away and it came down and I just creeped in and creeped in and then clipped the leash to its anklet, and then I'm like, Oh, laid there. I didn't even move. I just lay there with my head in the mud and let him eat. I got you, you can't get away from me.

And then we lowered the weight and everything was fine, but. Man, that was horrible. This is dumb, but you lower their weight so that they're hungry to have an incentive to return to you, right? That's right, it's all about numbers with them. You'll find a window, and everyone's oh, you starve it?

No. Just like I said that, like, where I would throw something at it, and it didn't want to come down and eat, or it flew away. A starving bird, let's say it's sick and I didn't notice it, a starving bird acts the same way. So a fat bird that's too fat to want to hunt is afraid of you and unresponsive to the lure and a starving bird, that for whatever reason, some health issue or spent the night out and you couldn't get the food into it.

So not on purpose is what I'm getting at. And those birds won't come down either. Sometimes they're just, [00:18:00] they're non responsive. And I guess that's nature's way of save your energy. Don't chase anything fun, wait for you to kill, nah, I don't want to risk getting hurt. I might not be able to catch that.

I'm fat right now, so I'll just wait for something easy. Then as the weight lowers, they get into the window where they're like, Yeah, I'm gonna kill anything I can chase right now. And then as they proceed past that, now they're getting into starving, hungry. Then they're like wait. You only have so many calories left.

Don't burn it. That's too fat. That's too fast. We're waiting for like a buck toothed mouse with a broken leg. I'm just gonna fall on top. I'm waiting for those hairs too. You know what I'm saying? I just wait for an easy kill to crawl underneath my tree. I'm gonna fall on it and eat.

Oh yeah. So there you go. So we just lowered their weight down to his weight window, took 10 grams off and we were blasting rabbits like the very next day. So awesome. Awesome. Awesome. What was that? What kind of bird was that? That was a red tail. Oh, nice. Those things are, Kestrel depending on your state more or less.

Some of the [00:19:00] Southwest states allow you to start with Harris's, but red tails, good old red tails are. Like a, like an American pit bull, like they're just, they're gonna be okay. Just about anything that, if they get ahold of it, it's theirs, be able to catch anything, but you're really not worried about, this critter fighting back or that they're the biggest dog in the woods, short of like eagles, so yeah, and the thing about red tails, they're so versatile. They're just such a successful generalist animal that lives all over the Northern hemisphere. They're just. Really successful animal. And so that makes sense. I think it seems that all those starter birds are generalist species in the wild.

Kestrels, peregrines, red tails, golden eagles. They're just like these ultra generalist animals that really can survive in a lot of different terrains and stuff. So anyway, it makes perfect sense. Hey. We gonna move into Keeper Call now or what? Yeah, definitely. Do you you got anything to tell me about when you, your start of your first year?

Oh man, this is [00:20:00] how silly it, man, this is embarrassing. You don't want to tell? I'm gonna tell. I'm gonna tell. People, honesty... I almost lost my bird, this is how, okay, so I started at night with a pit bull pointer cross, okay? And I know for a fact that she was totally outclassed in the daytime, but at night she was fine.

She actually could stack them up at night, but that's whatever, that's like you saying you walk into a middle school and start beating down on kids it's, whatever, you know what I'm saying? When I first got my first sighthounds, I got them from a gentleman named Dean Bohannon, who's like a really famous long dog breeder and hot blood breeder in Texas.

I was like, what if I got Dean was so cool, I had literally no reason whatsoever to suspect I got gypped or anything like that, but I was like, what if these puppies don't have a double suspension gallop what if they're super slow what if something's wrong with them what if I don't train them right, or what if I don't I just had no idea that it was, it could be as simple as just walk them out into a field and show them a [00:21:00] jackrabbit, Okay.

And let their genetics do the rest. And that's exactly what I did. I just showed them as many rabbits as humanly possible from the age that they was appropriate to start letting them run. And they just showed me how to be a courser, and then I met Justin pretty soon after I got pronto when he was still a little baby in Calypso.

And that kind of changed my life too. I felt so. Just what am I messing up? I had no, I'm a confident guy for sure. But I just had no, I have no dog hunting people in my family. I had nothing. I was going completely alone. So I just had no idea what I was doing. I was just blundering around.

So when you, when I met someone who's been doing it for 50 years. It's a huge comfort when he's Oh no, you'll be fine, man. I was like, all right, cool. That feels great. Don't do this, do that. And I'm like, all right, cool. You want to just hunt every weekend? He was like, yeah, sure. And then that started an addiction of friendship and rabbits.

But basically mine was just a, very anxious and excited for the future and [00:22:00] it's a simple thing. Just show them the fur and they'll get after it. I hear you. Let's roll right into Keeper Cole, man. I know you got one, and I got one. Do you want to start or do you want me to start?

Nah, you go first. I think I'm excited to hear it. I don't really know if mine's going to be very good at this time. But I want you to hear it. Here's my Keeper Cole. All right, everyone. You guys know we're Keeper Cole and we give our scenario about a dog. And we decided, would you keep it?

Would you call it? This one is a hunting partner had an interesting ride in towns of an XP to be remaining anonymous by request, because it has to do with people, Chad keep or Cole you're in a bear rig. You're rigging all day long. But your partner has a combination of horrid breath and won't stop dipping the grossest wintergreen dip you've ever smelt in your life.

So we're talking rotten halitosis mixed with wintergreen in that cab all day. Now you [00:23:00] like this person. You do, you guys are buddies. You guys have hit it off. Good. You keep on, are you calling that friendship? Gosh, you'd think that the wintergreen dip would help, help, but I guess this is bad enough to where it is not.

It's like. Putting a little potpourri on a lot, I guess what you're trying to say, it was made clear to me that it was the halitosis far worse than the wintergreen, but this is a non tobacco user. I asked, so it was extra gross, but he, this person was like, Hey, this other, my hunting partner is a very cool person.

And I was really enjoying their presence. But man, that was just rank. I don't know if I could do it. I don't know if I could do it, but I'm serious. Hold on the windows. Like up here, it's cold more than it's hot. That's the problem. Yeah. It freaks the death, like maybe just find different rides. You know what I'm saying?

What kind of, can you say what venue? Would that be giving away too much, are [00:24:00] we talking treehounds? This was bear, bear rigging. Ah, but there you go! Just tell him to get in his own damn truck! And then you know? Come up with a reason, just, I got it.

So you show up the next day, and your passenger seat's just gone. I don't know what... I... I was there when I went to bed, but I got up in the morning. It was gone. Oh, there's so much crime here at bear camp. Oh, yeah. So you might as well take your truck, man. We got to go. No, I don't want to ride with you.

I yeah, man, have you tried this new these new Tic Tacs they're off the chain, man. They're like extra strength wintergreen, bro, or whatever. They actually won't mess with the flavor of your dip too. I love them. You want to try. That might work because people say bubble gum, but if it's really bad, every time they like smack their, in their mouth, it makes it, you got to keep them lips.

Got to be Altoids or Tic Tacs or something. Maybe superglue. I had a good friend, a really good friend of mine, we called him crazy Ken, but he had a phobia of having gross breath. So that dude would like every 20 [00:25:00] minutes spray this, like very potent. Like minty stuff in his mouth.

And I mean that maybe he had an issue growing up. He probably did. You don't get that kind of pathology by just guessing. Nope. Nope. But he always had unbelievably minty fresh breath and I was like, I really appreciate it. That's the kind of person I won in my bear rig. . Gimme a sniff man.

Let me, I'm gonna say, 'cause it would sound like it was a new friendship being cultivated. I'm gonna say. Dude, I'm nice. I'm going to say keep bro. I am. Yeah, I can deal with it. I will say after we become friends because I have a coworker who had ranked disgusting feet and I put up with it for three months.

And then eventually after we got comfortable with each other, I was like, bro, you got to deal with these feet. They are rank. I would do the same thing with this dude's breath. I would. I'm a man enough to be like, yo, you got something in your teeth or Hey bro. Your breath smells like a dead animal mixed with tobacco.

Yeah. So I'd say I, you say, I say cold to a second year. [00:26:00] not a hard coal, you know what I'm saying? A soft, cold, soft call give away. We're not going out with a shovel here. We're gonna soft call this one to, you're gonna give him away to a new home, . Yeah. There you go. Sterilize him and find him.

Mic pup. Train home. . I swear to God I tried Steril thing. Ster perfect. I tried the vehicle thing, but bro, I don't know what happened. I woke up this morning, the passenger seat was gone. Hey man, I think you'd learn a lot more if you rode with Bob. He's got a lot more knowledge that I just don't, I don't know, I'm not really talkative, nothing either.

Yeah. He had no surgery, man. He's got a nose. What's his name? The guy who sang Thriller. Oh my God. The king of pop. Why can't I go, he's got a nose like Michael Jackson. And he just. Pop up. It's gonna be the classic. It's like a snap on tool. Yeah. So anyway I say a man up and keep until, unless the friendship doesn't cultivate out and then it's a hard cull, we're going to get there.

Then a hard cull. Yeah. Fair enough. You're doing a soft cull. All right then here's one. It's I'll go [00:27:00] with your human keeper call. So I had I've had a lot of folks. Because I use weird dogs to do different stuff, like having the drats with the big game hounds and stuff, I get a lot of folks that are like, hey, can I come and bring this?

And I'm always like, just because I do it with mine doesn't mean it's going to work for everybody. So I've always been really shy and not meaning that I'm better. It's just that I've worked towards that goal. And a lot of the people work towards a different goal. And then it may not work out the same way, and that'll lead into what my few rules, hard rules for my dogs are you need to come when I call you, you need to shut up when I tell you no dog fighting.

Don't crap in the dog box or, crap accordingly. , like we don't want a water bucket issue. We don't want in the dog box. the water bucket. Defy appropriately please. Thank you. Appropriate defecation. Yes. Those are my four question. I'm gonna get that sign made for your kennel. By the way.

appropriate [00:28:00] dedication is required only. Yeah, . So this guy did I really Had a great following with this particular venue and I'm gonna, I'm gonna stay out of what breed this is, but this particular venue had a hell of a following is notorious for being a great trainer and having a solid dog or dogs and all this stuff and he wanted to go, I was like all right tell, talk to me about this stuff.

And he's Oh, no, my, my dog would do that. He definitely get into that, I was like, Oh, yeah, how do you know? He's I went out doing this before with another guy. Yeah. And, their dogs were tree and my dog went up there and just whooped every dog off the tree, and then none of those dogs would even come next to the tree.

He claimed that tree. I'm like, supposedly it jumped and the dog jumped on it tore a bunch of hair out, it pulled the hair going to the next tree and treat. Supposedly this dog treat well and everything, but yeah. The brag here was that he whooped the other dogs off the tree.

And I was like, how could, did you think about that one before you hammer amateur hour? I'm not even a tree dog guy. I know amateur hour that, did you really, [00:29:00] because the fellows should have enough dog knowledge to know that we don't want that to happen. That's a nightmare. Like a bunch of hard charging tree hounds, like just ripping into each other, like at the bottom, gosh. And it's a self rewarding behavior. So once one starts fighting and the other starts fighting, and then you could, you'd have a pack of dogs ruined by one dog, and I just immediately like anyway, before I give my answer, and that was a, and I thought I had a lot to learn from this gentleman and I still do.

I just find other ways of getting the data without him coming out to any of my bear trees, but, if you had to make the decision right then everybody makes mistakes. Everybody says dumb things Okay, I'm gonna say first off that dog wouldn't be within a thousand years of my pack Okay, first off secondly, if this dude is cool, and we have a rapport together.

I would be like hey, man, you're dumb But if I just met this guy, I'm not gonna be rude, but I'm gonna soft call [00:30:00] walk off And just be like, you got a lot to learn. Maybe in three or four years we can reconnect. I'm just going to walk away because everyone says dumb stuff. We've all done it.

And we've all been grossly uninformed. So I'm never rude. You know what I mean? Never, but oh yeah. Damn. I would just be like, I'm not about this at all. And I just, yeah. Soft coal human, hard coal dog. Yeah, there you go. And that's what I did. I was just, it was cause I really wanted to learn from this gentleman about this other venue, like which he is very skilled at, and he was just all about bringing his.

His little dog, out and wanted to do it and when he said that, Oh, I whooped all the other. I was like, Oh yeah, I'll let you know when I'm going, man. And I just found ways out of it. I didn't want to stomp it down, but I was just not happening, we still actually have a pretty good relationship.

We just never, he's never come to the bear tree, yeah, yeah. That's where I'm at too. But yeah, that dog [00:31:00] definitely never came out and the guy, he just hasn't either. I even offered one time when I knew it couldn't happen. The dog got hurt and I needed surgery. So he's down.

And I was like, Hey, now's the time. You're already coming? Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, there you go. That's mine. Keeper Cole has been a perennial favorite. I actually have gotten messages, more messages from fans about an episode of All Mixed Up from Keeper Cole's segment of your dog crapping and then black crapping in the water than any other.

That was amazing. Folks, I want to hear some Keeper Cole's on the Houndsman XP group about the dude with bad breath. And the dude with a pit bull at the tree , because I thought about that for quite a while and it, it just it felt natural to, to be nice about it, but then to, to slip away. Slip away.

Yeah. So do you wanna buzz through a dog one then real quick? 'cause I guess we both did kind of people real quick. I, I can. Yeah. You got [00:32:00] a dog one. Bring it up. One. I got one more. Heck, bring it up. I got a dog that I was helping train and It was great hunting. No aggression in its body, would retrieve, was kind to other dogs, everything, absolutely everything.

Fine in the yard, fine in the hunt, fine in everything, and but was dog aggressive to males in the dog box. Fine with females? It was a male that was dog aggressive to other males. You can stick them in there with a pile of females. Everything was absolutely fine. He'd even get whooped, and wouldn't retaliate, but males, he was just ornery.

How good of a hunter? Ornery on him. The dog was a showstopper, man. Oh, that's a good question. Really good dog, but was a hound. And was dog aggressive than males in the hound box. Do you think neutering him would have changed that behavior? I do not. I do not. I do not. Pathologic. I think that was just, he saw males as competition, and we can, what's the word?

We could [00:33:00] speculate all day, but we really don't know why. We just know the behavior, and the behavior is this dog hated males. Gotcha. Gotcha. I'm going to say this. Oh, sorry. Do we need any more supplemental information? No, that's about it. I can tell you how I worked around it, but eesh.

Clearly you kept. I did. I did. I did. Me too. A showstopper? Son, this guy is just going to be a ladies man, screw it. If he's that good, there's no question. Now, do you think he would fight if he was exhausted, tired? Because I've seen dogs that are not friends at all. But when you get them out on a tough rabbit and they catch it, they don't fight at all.

They get that stupid energy out and then they're fine. And I've even hunted, I've hunted two males with a female that just came out of heat. And they didn't care at all about mating with her. They wanted to hunt, man. And so that made me happy, too. If you think, if you, if he was really badass, if you started a track with him, you think that once he got focused and got that dumb energy out, he'd probably not fight.

You said it [00:34:00] was in the box only, so for me... In the tree, he would fight. You'd have dogs, puppies fall on him, bump into him. He didn't care nothing about it.

He was just in there with the ladies. Ha. And what I did, because that's actually why he came was because of the dog aggression. He's man, could take a look at this, and it was his off season and my on season. So I was like, sure, why not, and I tried all my tricks, exactly that, I wrote him till he could probably not even stand right and put him back in the box with a very soft male, just to let him try to build a routine, and it was almost, honestly, it was almost like he was grouchier.

It was almost like a perc. Because then he was like, intolerant. Whereas the anticipation of the hunt. Almost like might have helped maybe, but then after he ran he just was intolerant of everything. Don't eat you're breathing on me I'm gonna bite you, so What ended up happening?

Is the guy just rigged him every time, like even in lines when he wasn't planning the rig And then when i'm super cold he put the passenger seat with him. I was gonna say yep [00:35:00] Yeah, so but he was his track starter. That's what it was. So so there you go I kept I even told him i'd keep him.

I was like man. This is an amazing dog You need to you just need to deal with this, you know Even my new box that I made now has like a big bay with two backsides, but I have a single up in front What's this dog's name? I'm not, I'm no, I'm not, One of those things, we, I feel like I could breathe these real world stories.

And share it anonymously. As long as I do it anonymously, I don't want to burn any bridges, that was the thing about the bad breath guy. The person was like, do not say any names. And don't even, yeah, no supplementary information at all. So the, all details of that story that are not relevant to the breath have been fabricated by me.

So everything was all false. All names have been changed to protect the crux of the Keeper call. All right, man. . There you go. I don got a dog one. I just, when I read that one I was like, that's all I got. [00:36:00] This is all Seth Hall needs that. Awesome . That's awesome. So I wanna move into our first segment.

Man, I think we'll just do 'em, let's just do 'em back to back. All the first one I'm gonna run is my friend Nick Isaac. And Nicholas and I have talked many times on the Patreon page, you guys, and I want to say that when you hear this episode, go to last week, or week, yeah, week before last part one of this conversation is on the Patreon page, and when you hear the second guest, my buddy, who has just reached out to me as a fan of this show, and I was quick to help him out, Jake we have a part, That is on the Patreon page.

So as usual, with all mixed up, you guys like to keep the segment short. That's the point of the show. But if you want to see, hear the more extended conversation, join us on the Patreon page, it's all there. So we're going to start here with Nick. He's a young Bobcat hunter. He's me and him are a bird of a feather, man.

We're both talkative, [00:37:00] energetic guys that love to hang out, have a good time, party a little too hardy. And hunt some dogs. Let's roll right into it guys. Me and my friend, Nicholas Isaac talking about Bobcat hunting. All right, man. So I want to hear, what are your goals for this upcoming season?

We've covered quite a bit. And if you want to hear the beginning part of this talk again, go check it out on Patreon, you guys it's there. Nick, what do you got going on this season? What are your goals? It's a great question. My overall goal is to catch Bobcats. With my dogs, my, so really this year, I'm down, I don't have a whiskey anymore, so I am down a finished dog, which I guess I didn't really have her last year either.

But yeah I'm I'm just really flying with unproven Bobcat dogs. My most promising prospect is Roo, and he's about three and a half years old. He's my walker out of my [00:38:00] mentor's dogs. And yeah, last year I really worked with him a lot on like rigging. So striking from the truck.

And I worked with him and Cooley on loading up, loading up on top of the rig box on command. So I don't have to get out of the truck. So basically. I just, I pretty much free I rig, I drive tons of roads and I rig, but I freecast them so I don't chain my dogs up on the dog box.

I've just had a couple too many bad experiences with them flying off and hanging themselves by the neck. I get why people do it. It just sketches me out and I don't know, I have a good enough handle on my dogs that it's just I know they're capable of just riding up there. Safely without a chain on the, attached to them.

Yeah, I'm work. Rue is doing really good with all those kinds of handling skills. And then he also started striking cats from the truck [00:39:00] last season. So that's the main focus is just really getting Rue rock solid so that he can help my younger dogs, get on Bobcats. How many young dogs do you have coming up?

I know I asked you this earlier, but I can't remember. So I got three, one. One and four, they're a year and four months old.

Yeah. Yeah. I got them on, I got them on, handful of cats last year. And yeah, but they're still super green. We're going to have to do a lot of trash breaking. That'd be another, that's a, that's another goal is to get those three dogs fully broke. I had one opportunity, last, it was either last week or the week before, I just went out and roaded the dogs before the season actually started.

And Tika took off on a deer race she ran it like almost a mile. But, it was good productive trash breaking. And she was the only one who took that track. [00:40:00] Did you know it was a deer? You saw the hooves or did you see the deer? I saw the hooves, I saw the tracks, and I also saw the deer.

I managed to cut, I managed to cut her off and I watched the deer, it was actually two deer run across the road in front of me. Oh my god, were you livid? No, not really, I was so excited that Rue, I was so excited that everyone else came back. Yeah, true. Rue came, they all took off with her.

And then, within about five seconds, Rue and Cooley came back to the road. And then, by that time, I got my alpha out. I was able to tone them. And so then Clover and Bruno... I guess Clover went with her for a while. Bruno came back, and so that was pretty awesome. He came back just with a tone.

I didn't have to shock him at all. Nice. But I lit Tika up. Yeah she got a big dosing. Yeah, juice of no [00:41:00] deer. What command do you use when you're trash breaking? What command do you use? Cause in, in British Columbia, Lloyd uses no deer. That's just his bad dog. No matter what they're doing bad.

He says no deer and it makes them work. It makes it, it works, man. Really? I, my theory, my philosophy on is I'm going for the, they call extinction training where. They're just like, just wiping out that behavior completely. So I don't use any command. I just, I don't even tone. I don't even give them like a warning tone.

I guess I do. I don't know. It depends if I know for a fact they are, they just jumped a deer. I saw it happen. I'm not saying anything. I'm just hammering down on the stimulation. Yeah. Until literally until they are back on the road. So however long that takes them to get back. It might hurt a little bit, but yeah these blue dogs are quite a bit more [00:42:00] difficult to break than Roo. I don't know what, but Roo is also even more, he's more sensitive dog too. Like he is, he does not like getting in trouble, like he, he wants to be a very good boy. Yeah. I got three of those. I got one stubborn one.

I got three that are very well behaved. Nice, but yeah, catching bobcats, get, roost striking, and everything, and you got a young cash, you got your work ahead of you. Not only are you young into this, but you got to start a whole young set of dogs, man. You got a tall order ahead of you.

Yeah, I know the thing is and I've thought about this a lot like I have a dog hoarding problem Like I can't get rid of dogs. That's why you're sitting in your truck right now

But I also Just going out into the woods with my dogs I think that is what completely [00:43:00] just going wrote just broding them like that is 100 percent fulfilling to me so Everything else beyond that catching game is a bonus. You know what I mean? Yeah, I think, I don't know that mentality. I feel like holds me back.

Cause I'm not very like competitive, like results driven. Like I'm not very, I don't know. It's weird. I just love being out there with them. And I like my happy place is sitting here in my truck, just putting down the road with all my dogs. Running in like the Mighty Ducks formation ahead of me. Yeah. It's so sick.

I get what you're saying, and that's, that's why we all do it. We love the dogs. You know what I mean? If, I tell everyone, if I just wanted to kill stuff, I would just buy a bunch of chickens and wring their necks. I it's so much more than that and... Although I will say, I really love catching a hare.

Of course. Yeah, but I know what you're saying and I agree with your sentiment. Goals this year, get your pack, get your young dog, get your [00:44:00] young old dogs, quote unquote, going. Yeah. And get your pups online. Yes, sir. Yep. Nice. Nice. Nice. Yep. It's a, it's like a blessing and a curse starting young dogs. I enjoy it so much because the future can be so bright, but man, sometimes I really just like rolling out with my four that are just trained assassins.

You just load up, they just jump in. We hit the prairie, they're all business. They jump that. That little furry missile and off they go. I love that feeling. I love that feeling. Oh, yeah But yeah, if I was smarter, I would have not kept all these puppies And but now you can see what you got though.

I know that's the thing. I can't like Ah, it's so complicated if I was smarter if I wanted to catch more bobcats I would have done this completely differently. I would have not kept all these accidental puppies, [00:45:00] and I would have taken up my mentor's offer of his older dogs that he's, they're like aging out of his pack because his pack is like he's got, he's got like 10 roos, 10 like three, maybe not that many, but he's got a whole bunch of three four year old, just like rockstar cat dogs.

And so his nine, 10, eight, nine, 10 year old dogs, they just can't really keep up on those races. And he has offered me these older dogs and I just can't really, I don't have any room for them. Yeah. You know what I mean? You're right. You want to develop your own dogs. Whiskey may have given you a big help, but at the same time, you may thin down your herd and bring in some of those veterans.

When you really want to drive or maybe you're going to, Hey, you train your own pack and it gets to work in the way you want. That's gonna be very prideful, man. Very rewarding. Absolutely. Yeah. And there's, like I said, there's just different ways to go about it. Yeah, for sure. My mentor's [00:46:00] son, he actually, he doesn't really hunt hounds anymore, but he used to be super into it.

He's I think probably five years younger than me, but like he, I was talking to him one day and he was like, yeah, if I was going to start over, he's I would. Maybe if I would have a pup trainer if possible. But he is I would get, he's I would have a litter of puppies and keep all of them and just train them all at the same time to run cats.

And I don't, I really res, I resonated with that idea because it's like you're training a whole pack at the same time versus a seq, a series of individual dogs. , which I've heard most people will say. You should only do, only start like one dog at a time. But I've actually heard from a lot of fox hunters that they will keep a lot more dogs.

They'll keep the whole litter and just run them because they're running 20, 20 dogs at a [00:47:00] time anyway. So it's yeah. I don't know you. Like I said you took the hard way, no doubt. So I'm really curious. This episode has you're no, you're you're definitely into this a lot longer than our, our other guests for this episode, but I still, I'm really excited because maybe we'll have a cat dogs, chronicles two and three that we'll get to read about your progress.

Because yeah, you got a door that is to be opened. And it's going to be a tough one. So yeah, I'm really looking forward to hearing about your progress. And if you're catching cats, call me, we'll we'll go make a big jamboree out of it. I know Charlie wants me to come back up there and it'd be fun to get the Beagles out and Tria a little spotted Oregonian forest kitty.

Oh, hell yeah, man. Yeah. We got to make it happen. See the other, that's like my bet. I wish, see if I wish we could just run. Other games, like bears and lions. Cause I feel like my dogs now, and [00:48:00] I'm sure people are gonna be like, Oh, you're so ignorant, but I, I do feel like. Like the bobcats are just so tricky.

I've heard you say it before that, you've, it's the hardest thing to catch. I've been told, never experienced myself. No, exactly, but you've talked to very well experienced dudes and ladies, I'm sure. But I wish I could run other stuff too, because I feel like my dogs are talented.

I know. Yeah, but it's do I want to open that can of worms because I can't run the big game, the bigger stuff out here. Yeah. Yeah. And we have a lot of it. We have a lot of lions and a lot of bears. So if I'm, I don't know, I feel like it could set me back. I've thought about driving out to Idaho and, go hunt some bigger stuff out there.

But it's is that gonna totally screw me over? You want special running bobcats? Yeah.

I'm looking forward to it, man. [00:49:00] And like I said I've if anyone's going to do it, it's going to be you. You got the energy, you got the enthusiasm, and I'm sure we're going to read about it in your upcoming book. Hey, I want to ask you, brother, is there anything you want to say to the Houndsman XP world while I got you here on the mic?

If I'm being self promotional, everyone should go buy my book, CatDog Chronicles. It's on Amazon. And you should subscribe to my YouTube channel. Those are my main things these days. But that's every, all, I get so bummed out by all the there's a lot of infighting that goes on and all of hunting, but hound hunting, especially, I don't know, it seems like everyone's always pissed off at each other.

I think we shall need to be nice to each other. I agree. Wholeheartedly, my friend. I was blown away. At that. I thought, oh, hey, all of us love hunting dogs. This is going to be awesome. And I will say, I think the majority of people are really cool. And most groups that I've ever been a part of have actually been really rad and lots of [00:50:00] cool people.

But I also was surprised at how adults can be like children. So that's any group. I agree, but I am with you. Can't we all just get along? That's right. And also... World peace. Dear hunters, we're your friends, okay? I'm going to say that too. That's right. Nick, thanks for joining me here on All Mixed Up, brother.

You guys, if you want to hear the beginning part, we had a 40 minute talk right before this segment. It's on the Patreon page, so go check it out, you guys. We really appreciate you all there. And Nick, you're a bomb, man. You've been a, you've been a friend of mine and a loyal patron and guest on this show many a times, brother.

So I can't thank you enough for joining me here, and hey, good luck this season. We'll stay in touch. Thank you, sir. Oh, yeah, one more thing. Everyone should go listen to the episode that I had you on my podcast because I felt like that was a pretty good pretty good chat with you, buddy. Hey, I appreciate it, man.

It was fun to be a guest and I really I was happy to. It was fun to have the roles reversed. All right, man. I'll catch you around and keep me in the loop, buddy. [00:51:00] Sounds good. Talk to you later. See you, buddy. Bye. Guys, this is a no nonsense podcast. You guys know that I'm going to talk to you about onX cause I'm sitting in camp in New Mexico right now.

I've never stepped foot on this ranch and I've used onX so many times in the last three days. With their high definition maps, I can see maces, I can see grasslands, I can see the canyons. I know where the critters ought to be living, and Onyx helps me find those spots and get to those spots. And it totally augments my tracking equipment.

I could buy a map card for New Mexico, but this year alone I've hunted Louisiana, Indiana, Kentucky New Mexico. I didn't hunt in Colorado, but I was there in Montana. I've been in Montana. You do the math on the map card and when you buy Onyx at their elite price for around a hundred bucks a year, I get all of these maps that are [00:52:00] right on my phone, extremely clear, landowners are marked, state lands are marked.

It's all right there. Check out Onyx at onyxmaps. com and get with it, man. And at checkout. Enter the promo code HXP20 and you will get 20 percent off of your Onyx subscription. Know where you stand with Onyx. That's a cool guy, man. I really enjoy him. He's he's just a, he's a kook. So when I recorded the second half with him, he actually had to be in his truck or when this time when I recorded with him, he was in his truck because he had two bitches and heat and a kennel full of males and he lives in the city.

All his dogs are indoors right now to avoid the howling and the. Oh, gosh, that's rough. Yeah I, man I had one, I had two hounds when I had a tiny yard. I'm talking tiny yard, like 40 yards by 20 yards. And that felt like it was too much for me. Now that I [00:53:00] got this five acre pen for them, I don't really care, but man, if you had a tiny yard, it would be tough to be a houndsman in the city.

So kudos to all you guys that just make it work. I have a lot of respect for that. I had an intact male Belgian Malinois and two intact female Jagdterriers at one point when I was living in the apartment. Would they try to mate? Oh, they tried all the time, yeah. And it, he chewed on the wildest things.

Cause he tried to be a good boy. He would really try and be a good boy, but it would like, bubble out in weird ways. He took paper out of the printer and shredded it. And as possible, just shredded it, and and this is the weirdest thing. So he shredded it in one spot, like in the middle of the living room, and then there was like a grocery bag, like this is like where we were living there.

We actually had to pick up the poop. Oh, God, it was horrible, like with a bag, so we had bags out there and he went and got a bag and pulled it over by the paper. He [00:54:00] shredded and then peed on the bag and pooped on the bag. In the middle of the, so I don't speculate, everyone's oh, he needed to go in, shut up, we don't know what the hell happened, but this dog was just coming apart at the seams, cause this thing was so bag over, and then pee and poop in the house, on the bag, now it missed, but you can tell He was trying to mark it, so I, yeah, I got it.

I got a mail that I got a mail that he goes insane when there's any kind of stimuli outside of the pen. So if someone's walking a dog down the road, that's 50 yards from the edge of my pen. He'll just start shredding brush. He does never bites the other dogs. He doesn't attack anyone. Sometimes you'll roar, roar, like just bark at it around, but he's never laid teeth on anyone, but he will run up to a bush and just start destroying it, like shredding it.

And I'm like, that's fine. You take out your frustration on that bush. I don't care. So like along my fence row, where they always stop to bark, all the brushes just chewed [00:55:00] down. It looks like grazing animals have mowed it down. So it makes me laugh because sometimes you'll bite into a creosote bush and they taste.

Horrible. And he'll be like no. Mesquites are mesquites. He doesn't bite a mesquite bush. That's the only thing he won't bite. But it just makes me laugh. So I keeping with the theme of fresh starts, it does not get any more fresh and this is what we were talking about in the beginning of the episode, Jake reached out to me.

And he just was like, Hey, I live in, I live here in Texas. I just moved here and I'm pretty sure where I live. Is great running dog country. And I was thinking if it would be a good idea to get into it. This guy sent me a picture of where he lives, and my jaw hit the floor. It's paradise. It's perfect.

Perfect. Rabitat? It's perfect hair bitat, rabitat, whatever you want to call it. It's magic. This guy's so lucky. As humbly as I could, I was like, hey man yeah. That would be awesome. So I actually helped him get in contact with a [00:56:00] buddy of mine. Shout out to Cash. Cash had a litter of nice hounds on the ground and he Jake went and got two.

So you guys, this interview is... a person who is excited has been hunting dogs his whole life, hunting a hog hunter run trap line dogs and stuff. But this is his first time getting into coursing. He had you'll hear the story. He was super cool guy, really smart, well spoken a little nervous.

You could tell a little nervous, but great guy. I really look forward to our friendship. And he is walking into an entirely new world. And so I was really excited to just ask him how he felt about what he thinks it's going to be like, and what he's most excited about. And again, you guys, the extended part two is on the Patreon page right now.

So if you want to check it out and I couldn't help myself. I geeked out about hairs just a touch. No. Yeah, let's roll right into it. Everybody. I got a very special guest. Listen, I get reached out to by fans. I'm not that popular, not as often as Chris, but I did get [00:57:00] reached out by this gentleman here and we started an awesome dialogue and it has born fruit.

So why don't you introduce yourself, brother, and tell us a little bit about yourself and why we're talking right now. Great for the awesome intro there, Seth. My name is Jake Wagner. I'm in my mid four and I grew up in South Texas and what they call the brush country, Live Oak County, McMullen area.

It's between Corpus Christi and San Antonio, a little closer to Corpus. It's not quite the coastal plains, but it's not the. Edwards Aquifer area hill country either. That's where I grew up. And I migrated to Tom Green County, which is around San Angelo, or is San Angelo, Texas after college, but I've got to know West Texas fairly well after college years, [00:58:00] but I have a good lot of memories in South Texas and and a lot of dog hunting guys down in that area.

That's where I learned most of my dog skills down there. What were you hunting? Dad was packing me around at a very early age. He's an old South Texas cowboy and we had black mouthed curs and catahoulas for hunting cattle. And so that's where it all stemmed from. But then he had curs are a very versatile breed.

So he had another pack of dogs. When he wasn't cowboying, we'd go hog hunting and that put food on the table for us. Thanks for watching! So we, and their style of hog hunting back then when I was a real young boy, and it even went into high school years, that bulldog was almost a bad word. Those guys did not dare [00:59:00] use a catch dog.

I wasn't interested. Why? Sir. Why not? They thought that they'd kill more hogs by just using a bayonet and peck. They shot over the, they used. They rarely used anything over a 22 magnum rifle. They, as they were bathed up and shining lights, that sounder that they had they could shoot three, four, six pigs at a time.

Whoa. Okay. Crazy. The catch dog was more, they liked their curves a little rough, not too rough to where they backed off out of the way and they were able to get good clean shots. That didn't always happen that way, but 90 percent did. And so that's, they, him and that group of guys down there, that, that was their style of hog hunting.

Interesting. Yeah, I've seen Bay and Shooting and I've never, obviously I've never done it, but it [01:00:00] does look pretty fun. Yeah it's a blast. And then in later years as I became a young adult with my hog dog pack I've bounced back and forth from just straight, depending on what dogs I had on the ground.

I would bay shoot over them, or sometimes I just like my big old rough gruff bulldog go get a hope, everybody likes that too. So definitely, yeah. And then, but before in the middle of that, I, saw the movie where the red fern grows, and read the book and fell in love with that.

And. And so I had a magazine the Kuhn hunter magazine back in the day before computers there was an ad in there they can't, I can't remember the kennel name, but they were out of Kentucky and this guy won contest after contest, not only a train contest, but he'd won on the bench [01:01:00] too. So Grant.

Forgive me, I don't know the proper, it's been so long since I, but it was grand night champion, blah, blah, blah, bitch champion stud and on. And so I ordered out of that magazine. And so I was coon hunting that very early age down there around three rivers and running those river bottoms with those coon dogs.

So I enjoyed that quite a bit. What did you love about it?

Just how the instinct and a well trained dog, how it all can come together, there's so many obstacles that can go wrong. And how they can just figure it out. Don't get me wrong. There was nights I was questioning myself down there because dad wasn't able to go with me all the time, he just turned me loose.

And there's it's alligator country down there too. So I, those coons swim in the river back [01:02:00] and forth. There was many nights that I wondered the safety of my dogs and. And myself, honestly, yeah, and they didn't have as good a lights then as they do now. And so on a quiet river bottom down there, listen to those dogs, figure it out.

And then tree and all the splashing and all the noise that was down there. It was truly amazing. I really enjoyed it and I miss it at times. Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah. So you've you've changed gears a little bit now.

Tell us about your newest venture coming up. I've my family has moved. To the Southern High Plains area of Texas south of Lovett, about 30 minutes. And I'm on this, I'm very blessed to be living on this big ranch and it has some big open areas. It's [01:03:00] nothing like South Texas. As a young boy, my grandma took me to the Corpus Christi Greyhound track.

And my parents let me adopt a greyhound off the track. I've always had a... Liking for those sighthounds, but just never had the opportunity for use for them. And so we weren't going to be, the way we were brought up, we weren't going to be feeding anything that didn't help us out. Yeah, for sure. Anyway, dad let me adopt this greyhound, and I did not know anything about sidehounds.

And this greyhound, her feet were so soft. So I wanted to hit the, we had a couple of, forgive me for stumbling around, but we had some coastal hayfields. Where I grew up to that daddy cleared off from brush and there was a lot of jackrabbits right there. So I was like, man, wouldn't that be cool [01:04:00] to chase and catch one of those jackrabbits?

So I thought I had no idea that there was a core scene community somewhere else in the world. That done it for 100 years. Of course, I was in my late, 16, 15 years old then. And so when her, it took a while for her feet to get toughness to follow around. That was a little discouraging there at first, but eventually to my surprise, she followed me out there to coastal fields, just foot.

And we jumped jackrabbit up and. And I don't remember a registered name was Tennessee Sandy Sandra. And I was like, I wish Sandy would have been here to sing that. And about that time, I heard this noise and this greyhound blew by me like a rocket. And I was like, wow, it was game on after that. Of course, I was just hunting with one dog.

And of the thousand [01:05:00] Jack rabbits, we jumped up, now, and I know now that it's almost impossible for one dog like that to catch it. Yeah. It's tough. It's really, very tough. And so that, that was a pretty good adrenaline rush. Washington, Sandy, run them Jack rabbits through there. And of course we didn't have big giant open prairies to run through.

So there was some obstacles in the way. So we had. They'll have her taken in and sewn up from running through fences and broken toes and eventually she broke a backhawk and she was three legged. She still ran them pretty tough for a three legged greyhound like that. But anyway, that was my first experience with a sighthound.

Their speed is insane, isn't it? It's like when you first see that, it's just insane. Yeah it is unbelievable. It is truly awesome to see. I get messages from people sometimes that are like, yeah, I wonder if my hound will run with your dogs and I'm like, they will run with them, but like a zip code [01:06:00] behind, it's hard to describe that speed until you've seen it. It's just insane. And a track dog. Is the definition of power and speed. Wow. It's crazy, yes, sir. Yes, sir. Anyway, I geek out about it. Clearly. Yeah she, I went off to college and she got old and life happens and I never did have time to get another one, but it was always stuck in my mind.

I, I need to, I would like to have another sighting hound like that. Just hunting hogs. I did. A buddy of mine knew a coyote hunter, and had some old school greyhounds, he called them, and crossed them with a dogo. And I had a, one of my catch, running catch dogs was a dogo greyhound cross. And he, I, he was a pretty good dog, but Just didn't fit my pack really that well.

I gave him back to my buddy and he got along with him fine. And then I [01:07:00] just stuck with my hog dogs until I'm sold out. And I really don't want to go, I'm just over it. I don't want to be stapling and sewing out my dogs anymore. So I stumbled across this. Being in this area.

And so it really got me excited. I'm like, man, why hadn't I thought about this months ago? But now I'm on the bandwagon and I'm really excited. Future looks pretty good. Yeah. It definitely does. You gotta have, you got two new runners, two new pups coming up, bred for hair coursing.

You, you have a you have a dog right now that you thought maybe would be good for the job, but probably not, but I am very happy. We, you reached out to me. And asked me some general questions and I was more than happy to help out where I could, and basically I got you in contact with a guy I know [01:08:00] and got you some dogs and I think you have a bright future ahead of you now, because not only do you have the land, you have the space, but the difference between a dog that's bred for the track and that's bred to catch hares is pretty, pretty distinct.

I can look at a track greyhound and I can look at hunting bred dogs and know the difference usually very quickly. So you're going to have a lot of fun when those little guys grow up. So shout out to Cash. He had a nice litter on the ground and he was pretty close to you. So that worked out pretty good.

Yeah, it worked great. I can't thank you enough. I had that lurcher and she just turned a year old and with my other old catch dog that I've been trapping coyotes and he's all around dog. And I'm so glad that I stumbled across you and you've been guiding me in the right direction.

Best I can. Yeah. To me, what would really save me a lot of time and heartache was having a great mentor. And not that I'm a great mentor, but I do have a great mentor and I've been surrounded [01:09:00] by a lot of people that have been doing this for decades. And so they fast tracked me.

On to not making a lot of mistakes that could have happened, and and it's cool that you've had such a varied experience of all these different dog lifestyles, because I I think you're going to be really surprised at how different coursing is and Some of the questions you may have, I can definitely answer some of them.

And this would be a great time too, because, we're on air and people can glean in if there's any young people coming up. But one of the reasons I wanted to bring you on is because, we all started somewhere and to me, the start is like one of the most exciting parts of this entire lifestyle, it's trying something new.

It's really exciting. And when I started, I was like you, I had no idea there was even a coursing community out there. I had no idea. Any of this was even a thing. I thought I was like resurrecting this ancient thing. I was pretty surprised when I found out there's people that have been doing it for like ever.

But yeah, I wanted to what are you looking forward to most? Let me ask you that. Cause that's what are your big dreams with those two [01:10:00] right now? This is a good time to ask this and you're going to listen to this in five years and be like, wow, either this was true or man, I have changed my mind a lot.

I just want to go out when I have the time and give it honest effort the, with these dogs, the way they're bred, these two pups that they're the rock stars of coursing or hair in a little bit of rough terrain where I'm at. You're saving me so much time because in my mind with that lurcher that I have, I was already thinking do I need to find something to cross her to.

Like I was trying to develop my own breed for this country and knowing you now, you saved me years of frustration to figure this out. And I know cur dogs, I know hound dogs fairly well, but sight hounds, like I said, only had that one and two with the lurcher like the other than the [01:11:00] basics of your shot and deworming programs that all dogs need, all puppies need, but.

Because their structure is so different than hounds and curves. I had a lot of questions to you how to go about The feed programs and stuff like that. But in the future, I really see myself with these dogs going out and making several runs with, if the weather's permitting and really catching some hairs.

Let me ask you something. Did you grow up shooting Jack rabbits? Like with a 22, like I definitely did. Yeah. Oh, yes. Did it blow you away the first time you sent a dog after one? How hard they are to catch? Yes, absolutely. Those things are like a stud missile. Yeah, like for instance, yesterday I had my little, my older pack that is not a true hair, but I want to do it so bad.

And I admire my hunting dogs that I [01:12:00] got. So I'm going to, I'm going to give it hell. You can have a good time until my puppies are up and old enough, and it'll just blow them out of the water, but I'm still gonna I'm not just going to sit on my pockets and not do anything because I'm heck. Yeah, I enjoy hunting dogs so much.

I don't care if it's a chihuahua, right? Yeah, I couldn't agree more. Yeah. Like yesterday I jumped a jackrabbit and this jackrabbit he like he was a cocky jackrabbit. He just 30, 40 yards thinking, ah, nobody's chasing me. That border bull and that lurcher got hot on his heels.

And then he hit several more gears. They do that. Yeah. And that's the thing too, when they come up. They're hopping. It's called flashing where they're I'm so strong. Don't mess with me. Nobody even think about chasing me. Cause I don't know if you've ever seen this before, but they'll do that to coyotes.

And I've seen them many times do that to coyotes. And the coyote is no way I'm not even going to try it. It's not even worth my time. And [01:13:00] so the thing that blew me away, it wasn't just their top speed. Cause I've always seen Jack rabbits run away from me, but it was never with those, with their ears down, just.

it, but it's also their agility is insane. I don't know if that I don't know if your lurchers fast enough to actually turn them. When my dog started turning them, I was just like, Whoa, this animal is running 40 miles an hour and is turning on a dinner plate.

Circumference area is crazy. It's crazy, man. When you start catching them. You're going to be elated because when you first start, there's that, that there's that kind of evolution of all hunting, right? And I know you've been through with every species you've gone after, but for me, they are so difficult to actually catch that the first time you catch one.

You're going to be like insane. You're going to just be elated because it's, they're just really hard to catch. I remember mine. They'd jump them. They were little babies and I didn't really know any better. They'd get out, run. And I was [01:14:00] like, man can my dogs do it? And then when they got around 13, 14 months, they were just mowing them down.

And I was like, oh my goodness, they can do it. Yes. Like I got a good pack of dogs and it's so validating, it's really fun. I love. I love those memories a lot and that's why I was really excited to have you on honestly. Okay. I appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you i'm just so excited. These pups are going to be really amazing.

How are you raising these pups? That's what I was going to ask you. So what you got in mind to train them Do you have any ideas or are you going to just lean on I got an idea and Normally my other dog hunting dogs growing up lived in kennels or On a chain. I don't like chains so much anymore.

I like good kennels, but I think you've got to have a really good personal bond with your honey dog. I don't care what kind of dog it is. I think there is. That's very important. When I was younger, I probably didn't have that so much. [01:15:00] But as I got older, I realized that you really need to have a bond with them and a good handle.

They need to be trained. I, one of my pit bulls and I'm sure everybody will call BS on this, but my, I had a pit bull that I can down, sit, stay spit him out on command. I didn't have to have a break stick. I didn't have, I didn't have to repeat myself. Nothing. It was, he was very, I put a lot of hard work and time with that dog.

And I just wanted to prove not only to myself, but the people that it can be done. And he worked really good for me. But with these pups I'm their house. I'm breaking them to be house dogs. And some people have different opinions about that. But my wife and I just love these little dogs. I just, we got a good bond already going on.

I'm gonna have them heal and sit and stay and at the proper time. They're too, [01:16:00] to me, you can put too much pressure on a little pup. Oh, totally agree. Yeah, I let them be puppies for a while. Yeah, I'm gonna let them, I'm gonna let them grow up with my past experience. Just let them be puppies for a little while.

And then later on, adolescent time it's business. You'll be amazed how important heel is. I train all my sighthounds heel. And what I love about heel is, sometimes when you're walking, you want to have them what's called on slip, which is a rope that are a leash that's tied to your body or in your hand, secure to your wrist.

And then it goes through their collar loops through it. And then you hang on to the other end so that when you see a hair, you just let go of the rope. And since it's fastened to you, they take off. Okay. And that way, if you're hunting in an area with like lots of coyotes or antelope or deer, that way you can keep them right here.

You know what I mean? And if they heal, they're not pulling your arm out of the socket all day, which is really nice. And I also, really focus on recall because when you're on foot, they're going to catch her a hair, a [01:17:00] mile and a half away from you. And so they're going to be looking for you carry a really loud whistle.

I use, I can whistle loudly, but it's still not enough. That sound does not carry. There's a whistle called the storm whistle. It's like this orange whistle that you can blow. And a dog can hear that thing like three miles away. I'm not exaggerating. It's so loud. I plug my ears when I use it.

And that way they can hear you when they're coming back. And and if they have a good handle, they want to come back, so nothing is more frustrating than when a sighthound takes off running with another pack. And one dog is just nah, I'm just going to keep hunting. And they're a mile out there.

And then they just start hunting from there. And you're like no, no return. First we'll hunt together, oh gosh, it makes me insane. I go live it. I guess that's one tip I would give is make sure your dogs have great recall because to me and everyone has their own hunting style. So I'm just saying my personal preference, I can't stand when dogs, when sighthounds are hunting like a hundred or more yards away from me and you have one out there that's out sniffing around and he jumps a rabbit by himself and [01:18:00] all your other dogs are close by.

Now they're going to have to try to gain all that ground to get on that rabbit and it's just stupid. So in my opinion, you, that you're on the right path. Having heal and come is going to be one of the best commands ever for those dogs. Yeah. And another aspect of it as getting into this I was counting my pennies and just I had the lurcher.

I'll just get one more, one pup that's more of a hair dog and see how it works. The more I thought about it. That's, I'll be banging my head against the truck. Why didn't I just thought there was a little bit litter there. They're proven good genetics. Yep. Why not get to. They get raised up the same, they have the same speed and agility, the same instinct, everything.

That was a good call. I'm really glad I took your advice on that and it's working really good so far. How many times do you hound doggers catch [01:19:00] yourself thinking about... an awesome hunt you had, or retelling this great story with family and friends around the dinner table, and all you have to remember that moment is some terrible cell phone picture, or worse, no picture at all.

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I just wanted to give a quick thanks, shout out to all these people that help, A are my friends and B just kinda. are open to talk about these experiences. So yeah, it was so awesome talking to him because it was like me being a time portal going back and listening to myself in a lot of ways, minus all his experience beforehand.

And when he talked about his hot blood, just running out on those coastal fields of South Texas. He was like, I just was blown away at how fast those dogs are. And I just remember the first time I saw a sight, how, excuse me, really open up. It's just insane. And so it was really exciting. Anyway, [01:21:00] Yes, he is.

I shamelessly was like, bro, we got to run. There was no, there wasn't even a hesitation from my solicitation. Yeah. So anyway, Chad, I hogged the mic for this episode, brother. You got anything else to say? Not really, man. Just, I'm just pumped looking forward to it. Like you too, man.

Everything's going I guess I got my little trip. My little bird hunting trip coming up and then after that. Duck season should be right around the corner and then bear season opens back up for a little while and. We're going to pour into lions and bears, not bears, but pour into lions, and nice and of course, as soon as it's cool enough, I'll be running rabbits more, that's great.

I think I might skip falconry this year, man, and just focus on, I got a lot of new dogs. I got a lot of new dogs this year. I got my two Salukis that I want them to get started. And I could start [01:22:00] them with a hawk or a falcon. And that's what I wanted to do and still want to do, but. I think getting them started the right way and then pushing up going the cockers, I'm going to tell you right now, those two Saluki's with Daryl are going to be deadly son.

I can't wait. I can't wait. Those, that crew is going to mow you down some rabbits. I am pumped for you. And I'm going to come up there and watch man because I'm telling you right now. Two speed one Saluki or two Saluki one speed. Adios rabbits. Adios. That's. I can't wait. I can't wait. And we'll have plenty of video footage of that count on it, sir.

We'll have some video for that. For that. You're gonna be spurring Big Red, I'll tell you that right now. You're gonna wanna see that actually. Rodney. Rodney. Rod, Rodney, big Red, big Rod's, who You'll be on . That'll be Oh gotcha. Okay. That'll be your horse. There it, but he's big.

Dang, he's big, but you can get on him. I got some shorter buddies that have trouble getting on him. I'll get it there. I'll jump on him. [01:23:00] And I can't wait, man. But again, so turn them Saluki's on and then polishing off Jolene, the Cockers bird dog training. I got caught up with some other things and didn't quite finish her off.

And then Dandy, I plan on starting him this coming week, like he's got as well and all that. So between those, for young dogs, and then doing right by the veterans, I think I might just skip a factory the year this year, but at the same time.

November, I might just say, ah, yep. And I got them started the way I wanted to in time to get a bird. So we'll see. Yeah. Regardless, I can't wait. We got all kinds of fun. Secretly excited to have you run those dogs without the bird? Cause you'll get to see what they're really made of. And I swear by that all the time.

I'm taking my own medicine now because a lot of people say Oh, what do I do? I want to do falconry, and I find out what they want to hunt, what they have, what you want to hunt. Doesn't matter. What do you have? Yeah. And then how can a dog help that out? Because it does, it, it improves everyone's falconry.

It doesn't [01:24:00] matter basically what you're getting things, but just about every form of falconry can be improved with a dog. And then, but I always tell them just make the dog, cause you can train. Good. 15 birds with that one dog, my dog's going to be around for a while. Is there great for it's a train your dog, teach it to be a hunting dog first and then teach it to be a falconry dog.

And that's not the only way to do it. I've done the other, but that's definitely my opinion, the way you get up just a well rounded dog, so this will be me taking my own stinking medicine and making the Salukis and Daryl coursing dogs first, and then, learning how to be a part of a falconry dog team as well.

Dude. And if you have the space without the rocks, you toss that hot blood into the mix. Oh. Oh, yeah, that's a conversation. We're going to go too deep down that hair hole. So we're going to, instead we'll call it with that for me, blabbing about your dream team here, because you got an exciting [01:25:00] young crew coming up, that's going to serve you very well.

So I'm very pumped, bring them down here. I got 13, 000 acres of a pool table for them to try to smoke one down on. So that will be awesome too. There's absolutely no chance I won't make it down there. As long as you're still willing, I will be on the team, oh, see races? Watch rabbits get run down.

Oh call me I'm in So hey brother, that's all I got man. This has been a great month and hey We got a good month coming up you guys next we gotta Should we let the cat out of the bag yet or should we get a surprise? We got a hog a palooza. You can put a teaser. You can put a teaser out there How about that?

We got a hog a palooza next month. This month was me Next month is chad. So If you guys like chad's soothing baritone? I don't know, I don't know. I don't know, there's some cheeky wheel in there too. If you like Chad's cat's mating underwater voice, then you're gonna enjoy next month.[01:26:00]

Chad, thank you so much, buddy, for joining me this month. No problem, bud. That was a blast. Let's hunt them hard and treat them like heroes.

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