The Journey - Big Motor Dogs

Do you run big motor dogs? 

This week on The Journey on the Houndsman XP Podcast Network, Jim Ronquest VP of development for Drake Waterfowl systems gives Heath the skinny on the retriever world. Jim, a world champion duck caller, owner of 5X GRHRCH White River Witch Woman MNH, (Charlee) Jim and Heath talk about what makes a champion and a hunting phenomenon. With Jim working on a new litter out of Charlee and Chosen, they get into some puppy talk. You want to learn from the best, where here's your chance. 

• Breeding best to best 
• Big motors
• Thinkers 
• Puppy picks

And the conversation only gets better. This is the best part of The Journey. 

Drakewaterfowl.com 

IG @Jimronquest 

www.houndsmanxp.com

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

‍

[00:00:00] In my previous life I was a producer and co-host of a outdoor TV show called R N T V. So my co-producer there, Sean Stahl, buddy of mine, he world champion, goose collar, Johnny and I were world champion duck collars. Sean is big into dogs also. And he had a really nice field champion black male that we bred Charlie with for her first breeding a dog.

Carl with a cake, a pretty cool deal, maybe getting off in the wrong rabbit hole too quick. But Carl was a bonafide white coat open all age field trial dog could hunted. So he came back from Canada and this would've been in 20 20, 20, see, tiny 2019 maybe right before. Yeah. He come back from Canada on a hunt, picked up 750, 800 birds.

Two weeks later went to the eighth series of the National Open. So you always hear them, people that say, ah, I didn't feel child dogs can't hunt or. Some of the field trial nerds would say [00:01:00] all them gun dogs are just pretty common. There was one that could do both very well and most of them can.

So I, I was always really proud of that with Carl. And Tiny is a puppy outta that breeding and he is doing very well.

The Houseman XP podcast Network is taking you on the journey. Your host, master trainer, Heath Hyatt, will combine his decades of experience as a homan and as a professional trainer that will light the path forward and make our packs lighter on this lifelong journey to become better hunters and hounds men.

There are no shortcuts, so lace up those boots and grab a dog leash. The journey begins. Now,

I've been a member and supporter of Go Wild for over a year now, man. How time flies. Their social media platform is four hunters by hunters, and if you followed me for any length of [00:02:00] time, you know that I'm in the woods or on the water if I'm not working. And yes, some asks, do you work? Unfortunately, I do.

It's a place that I post all of my trophies no matter how big or small. Mine. Mostly small. I get tips, tricks, tactics, and advice from people who eat, breathe, and sleep the outdoors. I log all my outdoor adventures, including the time spent listening to the best podcast in the land, the journey hosted by no other than yours, truly.

So when I need anything outdoors, I just log on to the go Wild store. Pick out what I need, and that's anything from hunting, fishing, camping optics, outdoor wear, and yes hound supplies. So when you make your next purchase at Go Wild, use our discount code H X P 10 to go along with that free [00:03:00] shipping. I'm proud to partner up with the Go Wild team.

So let's get your journey started today. Here on Go Wild.

The Journey is on a quest and we're here with Jim Quest is who we're with today. If you guys don't know anything about Duck calling, we're gonna learn a lot. We're gonna learn some stuff about labs and Drake Waterfowl, that's who Jim works for, and we're just going to have a good time talking. About ducks and dogs.

That's what we going to do today. So Jim, I'm gonna let you introduce yourself 'cause man, that list of accolades is pretty long and I'll let you hit on the hot topics that you want to put in there. So have at it man. It's it's the only reason it's long is 'cause you associate yourself with good people.

But you got my name spelled right, Jim Quist. I'm the Vice President of Development for Drake Waterfowl [00:04:00] and the Hunter Trading Company Family of Brands. It gives me an opportunity to do a lot of good stuff. In the past, I would, past many years, I was the producer, co-host of R N T V that airs on the Sportsman channel.

I think they're still airing this year, which is a cool deal. Good job for the boys at R n t. Past World Champion Duck Collar. Been a competitive Turkey and goose collar and everything else. Just, I enjoy that kind of stuff. I'm a K C certified field trial judge and a. Large fan and proponent of working Labrador Retrievers.

I judged a couple super retriever series events and one of their Grand Crown championships. It's funny. People will ask, say, man you do all this judging. Do you do any handling? I get to handle a lot during hunting situations from October through the end of duck season. And to their point, it's, I've been there enough to know what it's like to be on the line, but it's always different being behind the line than being on the line.

So I have great respect for all the different dog games and I just enjoy dogs, whether it [00:05:00] be Katrina a Coon or point a cover your birds or fetching the duck. I like good dogs. Yeah. Hey, and I gotta bring, I gotta ask you a question. So you do the National Turkey calling competition too. No. No, I don't.

I did it one time, but I don't participate in that. I'm a them guys are really good. I just like to go watch 'em. Yeah. I heard I had JR Lanam on here a while back. Of course, he's won it six times. He's not won the one, he's the second place, second at the National Wild Turkey Federation.

And man that's how on his to-do list and yeah I'm an avid I love to spring Turkey hunt and I love it. It's one of my second favorite things to do besides chase the dogs. It's, yeah, it's pro's. It's my other passion, ducks and turkeys are my thing. I'm also on the founding board of the organization called Turkeys for Tomorrow.

So I'm part of the board there and, everybody asks me, said Jim Boes, you rather duck hunt or Turkey hunts. I don't have to answer that question. [00:06:00] So thankfully I don't have to. Yeah. It's not in the same season, so you're lucky. That's right. You quit duck hunting the end of January and you've got a month and a half to heal up and get ready to start Turkey season.

So that's all good. Then that gets you, if you Turkey hunt much, that'll get you to the late spring and early summer. And now we're just waiting on duck season again. And so it comes in October? Some parts of the country in Canada, it'll come in first to se, first part of first week in September.

In the US Prairies Northern tier states will start, I think it's closest to September 20th, something like that. Is about when, like North Dakota and Montana. They'll start. Nice. So tell me how you got into the, were you born and raised in Arkansas? What got you into the, to the duck hunting and then the duck column?

What led you down that path? Man, that's a great question. I was fortunate Mr. Heath, to grow up in a very outdoorsy home. My parents loved outdoors. My brother and sister and I were raised in [00:07:00] it. You had two choices. Either love it or hate it. I've come from the Missouri's Arks originally.

My dad and his dad, my granddad on dad's side, they trained bird dogs for folks. Kind of hobbyist bird dog trainers, but at a pretty high level. They trained for, as I understand, people that played for the early days at the St. Louis Cardinals and whatnot. So been around dogs my whole life and hunting.

And dad worked for a large construction company. So what would happen about every three to five years, you'd have to, he'd get transferred from this job to that job. So you just have to pick up and move. Man, I, you hear a lot of people say, oh, I don't wanna move kid. During school years, there's probably a lot of truth to that, but we just up and went when we up and went.

I. I think one year I went through five different schools, but we moved from like Missouri to Kentucky, Tennessee Missouri, and then Arkansas. And I've been here longer than I've been anywhere. This is home. This is where I've been. Kinda like mom said, home is where you hang your hat, but this is where I've been longer than [00:08:00] anywhere.

And then growing up in a hunting family, dad liked to bird hunt and duck hunt, western Kentucky, Southern Illinois, northwest Tennessee, northeast Arkansas, all come together right there, some of the finest ducking goose hunting in the world and just grew up around that and being a part of it.

And guys that my dad worked with liked to duck hunt and herd hunt, coon hunt and, I'd just go with 'em and learn from 'em. And I got into calling and I was driving my folks crazy messing around duck calls and they, I was a little short fat kids, so they put 'em on top of the gun cabinet.

Where I couldn't reach him. So I can't do it anymore. Learned how I could call ducks with my hand one time, and I could natural voice call geese. And they had finally said, we can't cut his arm or his head off, so let him have his calls back. So that led me to where I am today. So thankfully I got to play with him.

It all come back to when I was in high school in, at the Cheatham County High School near Ashton City, Tennessee. It was an ag class my sophomore year, and there's a sign hung up there and it read something to the [00:09:00] effect, I don't remember it word for word, but something to the effect of, find something you like to do well enough, you would do it for nothing and become proficient enough that maybe somebody will pay you for it.

So I'm not sure that I have been proficient enough, but I've at least fertilized some folks into doing that. So we're doing well. That's right. There's a real floating around talking about that, that it it says what, your dad says if you can find something you love to do and do it every day, you don't have to work.

So I get it. Yep. So you talked about Coon Hunt. Did you coon hunt any back in then, or was it just I had, yeah, I did. I don't anymore. I got a good friend here at home retired Arkansas Game Fish law enforcement officer, Randy Rhodes. I always check in Randy here, how he's doing.

He gets after, chasing them Walker Dogs bunch. But one of my dear friends growing up was a mentor of mine. A good friend of my dad's taught me a lot about duck hunting. He also was a coon hunter. And he had a couple really nice dogs. So I enjoyed going with him quite a bit and listening to Dogs Run.

But personally I don't have name [00:10:00] right. I could see me at some point in time in my life having a couple out here. But as of right now, no. Now if you get them Walker dogs, you go that you have to go yonder, you have to get you a boat with the boots to go with it. Go chase them scandals, man, fours around here.

That's exactly what they do. Yeah, I give 'em, I, I can give every breed a hard time 'cause I've owned them all and I've got, most of my dogs are Walker Mix now, but I've put a little bit of slow down in mine. I don't enjoy walking to the top of these mountains and having to get the dogs off a tree much anymore or get way deep in the swamp here.

It all goes back to one thing. And I hear this a lot, and I don't know if you hear it on your side of the industry, but you hear people say, man, just to grind, just going through that daily grind. We're just grinding away here, man. Running dogs every night, just grinding away or duck hunting every morning.

Just grinding away. Look here. If it's that bad, don't do it. Take up golf or racketball or [00:11:00] something else. But it's supposed to be fun. That's right. I. I'm not saying when you hunting every day or guiding and it's pouring down rain, that there's days it's not work. It absolutely is.

But if it's just that bad of a grind, I suggest you go find you something else for a hobby. That's right. No I'm a hundred percent with you. I, one of my other passions is I like the musky fish and man, them scandals are hard to catch. And last week we, yeah last couple weeks, it's, it's been tough.

Of course the rain, we rain, it rained here for almost 10 days, and the river wasn't it wasn't good. So I tried to fish anyway, and that was just a waste of time. And it got aggravated and they were like, if you're getting aggravated, you don't need to do it. And I was like, yeah, you're right. So I took two days off the river, come down, and the first day I was out, I ended up hooking, getting one of the boats.

I was like, yeah, now we're back on track. There you go. There you go. So where again are you located Here? Southwest Virginia. So the [00:12:00] Blacksburg. Virginia Tech. Okay. Yeah. Virginia Tech or Roanoke is the closest airport to me, ER, Oak's about an hour away. So basically I can be in, I can be in Tennessee, North Carolina, West Virginia, and Kentucky, all within about the same amount of drive.

So I'm down here on the point down here on the Southwest. Like I can be in Tennessee. I can be two, two hours, two and a half at the most, takes me three hours to get to Gatlinburg running there. Okay. Yep. My sister, interestingly enough, my sister lives in far northeastern Tennessee, near Rone Mountain.

Yeah. And I guess that's almost to a she, I think she grocery shop in North Carolina. So I don't know my way around a lot over in that part of the world. I hadn't been there much yeah, that would be towards, what is that Washington or, I don't know all the counties down in that area, but yeah, she can drive right across to Boone, North Carolina.

That's right across to the line. Yeah. I think [00:13:00] that's it. Yes sir. Yeah. Let's talk a little dogs. What? Man, I'm in buddy. I know you and I had a pretty good conversation the other day and we was like wait. Just save it. Save it. There's too much good stuff here. First let's touch on you bred you, you bred Charlie, your female to a pretty good male and you got a little of puppies and how old them pups now They are 10 weeks old. They've just been getting the new homes for a little over a week and I just got reports from everybody over the weekend. Sounds like they're all doing great. They're all swimming and chasing tennis balls and pigeons and just doing excellent.

And I. So has this dog won any, you told me that you'd won several world champions. Let's talk or championships. Yeah. So not world. So char charlie. So there's hunt te in the retriever world, there's several different hunt testing organizations, mainly the H R C and the A K C. And then there's Levell above that.

And probably some of my dog buddies will, I'll get phone calls about this, but a [00:14:00] level above that is the actual open field trial, qualifying amateur and open. It's a little bit higher level and they are true competitions, whereas in the hunt test world, You compete against the standard, your dog either passes the standard or doesn't.

Now there's variances in there but my dogs play the hunt test game both the A K C and the U K C. They're trained by young man named Tyler Patterson, maple Ridge Retrievers. Tyler does a fantastic job. So Charlie, my older female, she is eight. She has passed the H R C grant Grand Hunting Retriever champion five times, and she has three a K C master national passes, which makes sure a master national hunter and the A K C Hall of Fame.

Now, the, a level above that where the marks are more difficult, they're not all hidden like in a field trial, but like in a hunt test. But when you move up to the field trial world especially at the open level, That's the kind of stuff that people [00:15:00] go, my gosh, that's crazy. We're talking, 400 yard marks are not outta the question, 500 yard blind retrieves that it's just unbelievable what they teach those dogs to do.

And while it all based off beginning of a hunting situation, it's just the evolution of the training ability and the dog breeding of the dogs to get to where they can do that. So that you always try to keep something. When I judge a minor stakes, I keep something that's very hunt like involved in that.

But that said, it's all based on the roots of picking up all your ducks on a ordinary day shoot. It's just evolved into something that's if you've not ever seen it, you go out there and look and you go, that dog's supposed to see that bird go down and go pick it up. Not only that, there's four of them and he has to remember every one.

And if you handle, you just dinged yourself, so it's pretty impressive what these dogs are able to do nowadays. That's crazy. So back to it. Oh, it's nuts. So back to it. My dogs are hunt. They hunt a [00:16:00] lot. They pick up a lot of birds. They test at the high end of the hunt test deal. Again, both U K C and a k c.

So really proud of my dogs and I've been blessed. You've probably heard that story that a man's allowed one good woman and one good dog in a lifetime. I out kicked my coverage on the wife's side for sure, but I have been blessed to be able to hunt over some very fine very fine retrievers.

Yeah. And she's a five time grand champion, right? Yes. Five, five time grand champion. We just bred her this time, this last litter with a field champion field champion, amateur field champion, my rocks. He knows my name. Call, name chosen owned by Miss Pam Wilson from the Texas. One of Cho's big things is when we was trying to look for a male debris to, he's been to.

I don't know how far he is finished in the National 6 7, 8 series, but he is also won a double header, meaning he's won the open and the amateur on the same weekend. Now the difference there is a open field trial can be, you can [00:17:00] be an amateur and run in the open state, but if you're a professional trainer and handler, you can't run in the amateur actually.

So Ms. Pam had chosen, won a double header and that, that says a lot for not only her ability but his, it takes a lot of dog to do that in two different tests. So that's part of why we read him that and why you can't breed title to title. That doesn't make sense. They really look nice as an outcross when you get, go back down through the papers I'm sure in how world you get into that same deal. Yeah. And we got a lot of talk about, but you done made me want to ask you like three other questions there. So when you bred to him, were you trying to pick up. A certain trait from him? Or were you just br breeding best to, best looking for traits?

So in the fir this was Charlie's third breeding. First breeding was with Carl with a K, next one was with the Arkansas dog, FC Willie RAF Creeks road grader call name Willie out a out of a [00:18:00] Grady puppy outta Grady. And that right there was trying to double up on that marking.

Charlie's an a plus marker. Willie's an a plus marker. A lot of motor, lot of horsepower there. So Willie was trying to do two things. He's trying to pull that down. Willie's a thinker. Great style moves really good, but a little bit more of a thinker, not that we're trying to water down that we, the horsepower there, we're just trying to enhance it, control it a little bit better.

Looking maybe for a little bit better line miners, not that hers are bad, but. She's ready to go. So trying to get a dog that, that steady wanting to watch, I'm gonna, I'm gonna try to blow up another stereo stereotype. Hear people talk about man them field trials. You'll hear people say this quote, man, them field trial dogs are wild.

They're bouncing off the walls. They're just crazy. The good ones aren't, the good ones are very attractable on the line. They pay attention, they walk, watch their birds. Good. They typically all have good switches. I made sure in every [00:19:00] breeding we bred to a dog with a good switch. And what I mean by that is I want my dogs, when we come in from hunting, for traveling on the road, come in the motel room, curl up in the corner, just me by myself, typically they're riding in the front seat.

Or we come home at night, they come in the house, I. I want to keep my dogs acclimated to the weather. But I think you get a lot more out of them if you live with 'em. So with that said, I want a dog with a good switch that when they come in the house, they're not just running crazy and going nuts.

Now, they may get excited if a stranger comes over for a minute, they're going to look around and do what dogs do when a stranger comes in. But once they know you're good, they're back over laying down. So that's important to me. So anyway, back to why we bred, we chose him was several of the good things we heard about him on how much of a thinker he was how good he was at not making mistakes and just seeing what if that combination works.

And that's when you got a nice dog in the retriever world, a really nice female, you try to take her attributes, pass that on, but maybe none of 'em is [00:20:00] perfect. So you try to breed away from maybe what might not be their strong points. And I'm sure the hound world is much the same way.

So that's what we've tried to do and it's been fun. To see out of this third literature, they're still babies, but outta the first two litters, we've got several of 'em already got master titles on 'em, and there's only been one washout that I'm aware of. They're all still playing the hunt test game, so I'm pretty tickled with that.

That says a little something about the genetics we're trying to pass on. Yeah, and just, I want to tap on a couple things you said. Our other Hounds podcast, Seth and Chad just actually did a podcast Friday all mixed up, and they were talking about they, Seth had a question asked about if dogs living inside made 'em better or took away some of their hunt and you just confirmed what they had already brought up.

I'm a big proponent of it too. I, my dogs are inside with me at some point in time. I've got so many, I can't have 'em all inside, but I've raised [00:21:00] several of my hounds. Right here in the kitchen. They're crated, yep. They, I like to do the hands-on. It's what you just said. I talked to some of the dirt court star guys the German Shorthaired pointer guys, and that was one of the big things why they like the dirt dogs is because they're like a light switch when you put 'em out in the field. Go. And when you bring them in, it's like they shut off. And so you're tapping into some of the stuff that we talk about regularly and we talk, and even in the police dog world.

My second dog was a Belgian Malis alley, and he was like a rat on acid 24 7, completely jacked and wore his self out all the time. If you rode him around in the car for 12 hours and you had to jump out and do a track on somebody at. Eight, 10 hours in most time, he was gassed 500 yards into it because he didn't lay down.

He wouldn't shut down. And my dutchy that I have now, my dutchy is like a light, you don't even know he's in the car, but you open that door and you hook that lead strapp to him. It's [00:22:00] go time. So man, I really like what you're saying and I complete, I see it like I, that's stuff that I believe in myself.

It just makes the whole experience better, doesn't it? Yes. I, it just, everything about it's better and I think a lot of it goes back to socializing those dogs, and I you, from the canine side of things, tactical canines, it's even more so more important for those dogs to be socialized. 'cause all the different people they're around and learning how to separate threat from non threat have to be around a lot of different people.

I was telling you the phone, on the phone the other day, one of my best dog friends, a guy named John Landes, who would really be the guy you need sitting in my seat right now. He's been a great retriever trainer, friend of mine, been a part of all of my dogs. He is, his wife really just got interested in the mal wall.

So n is I wanna say she's two years old, two and a half. So John's been taking what he knows about retriever training as a high-end [00:23:00] amateur retriever training, apply it to, as he says, bite dog. But then he is also trying to learn from guys that, that are in that side of things that know that side of training.

And he was talking about, he didn't get into the details, but some of the things he's learned about some of the obedient stuff y'all teach with canine dogs, how he is learning to apply that to Retrievers and he's looking forward to his next. A lab puppy just to apply some of that knowledge from y'all side of things to our side.

And maybe there's some stuff we do that could help y'all out. And like I said, I still got five other questions I wanna go back to, but I see the labs as when they, the, one of the things that, and you and I touched on it the other day when we were talking on the phone the cap drive.

Like when you're sitting there and you and I don't know your world, that's why I've got you on here. 'cause I wanna learn, I see videos I watch, I watch the Sportsman's channel, those dogs are sitting in a blind with you guys and y'all knock out a few birds, [00:24:00] whatever.

And that dog has to hold until you tell him to go and for us, in the law enforcement side of it, most of our dogs are so jacked up that. And Pray Drive. You and I talked about that. There's so much pray drive there that it almost kills them to have to set still. And I see the control that you guys have.

I think it's wonderful and I think that more people should learn how to control that or have their dogs. And I'll tell you a quick one and we'll move on. Years ago when I was hunting by myself a lot, I had a couple dogs that I could just put on a le a double coupler. I don't lead my dogs much in the woods.

Put 'em on a double coupler and I could actually undo the double coupler and I could have dogs go in and strike and start opening and then tell the dogs when I wanted 'em to go. I could say, okay, go. And they would go, and I could hold the other dog back until I told it to go. [00:25:00] Now, here we are 15 years later and I definitely don't have that.

But that's, I was thinking about it actually the other day, is, I'm getting back to that. I'm getting back to where I don't have to lead my dogs. They're gonna walk with me and whatever excitement's going on, I want to have enough control on them to say, okay, hang on just a second. And when I dad says, you can go join the fund.

And you know that, I see that with your world. So that's why it's really important to train on honoring and steadiness training. You can overdo it and you can underdo it, but there's several different training philosophies there. Some people will, just throw marks, really enhance that prey drive and then start working it backwards from there.

Other folks go the other way. Steady. And then, Start building the pray drive later. Both sides seem to come up with about the same outcome. And a lot of it's that pray drive, which mentioned with Charlie and Tiny, they've got a lot of pray [00:26:00] drives. So steadiness is a big part of it.

So there's a lot of times I won't let 'em get every retreat, let 'em understand that they're not going to get 'em all. They gotta sit there until they're told. Go means go, but sit means sit. Sit means sit there until we say go now that let me be let me be honest here.

My dogs will break on occasion. And once they learn that if I'm hunting instead of handling and they see that I'm shooting, they know I'm holding on that gun and pay attention to shooting, I'm not paying attention to them. They're like we going to get one over on o pop. They will definitely do that, but at the same time you can get on 'em and they know they did it, and a lot of it in the duck hunting deal is safety.

The last thing I want is my, Dog to get shot. Oh, God forbid, how would a guest hunter feel if they accidentally shot your dog? And I'm pretty close to my dogs. I had a story, I'll tell you, backing up to one of my first master hunter dogs, a little female named Katie. Who was, she?

Just, I don't, her and Charlie, I don't know which, if they hated them or loved them, I don't know which. But Katie had lots to go [00:27:00] and mean. She was we leaned on that little dog every day and I told tell folks in the morning guiding, especially if it's a new group of folks, I'd give my guide speech in the morning.

I'd say, all right guys, look here, we going have a good time. I'll call the shot. Keep your safety on until the shot is called. Shoot your lane, you 10 to two. Just going through all that, just a safety reminder for everybody. And then I can get really serious, or serious as I could and say, look here guys.

That little dog right here, y'all need to know something. If you shoot that dog. This is what's gonna happen. I'm fixing shoot you, cut you up in a million pieces and put you out here in the swamp and ain't nobody gonna find you. Yeah. At all. And what you really don't know, if you shoot me that little dog knows how to shoot you too.

He keep quiet. People say, man, you know them rednecks. I bet he is not lying, but anyway they will get, they'll get loose. They like it, that you always trying for steadiness, but the ones that really got a lot to go, they're eventually going to, they're [00:28:00] going to break on you.

You going have to reinforce that somehow or another. But you constantly teach it. Talking with Tyler the other day, we were talking about tiny, getting ready for, he's going to the grand this fall and hopefully the master national and the grand is probably, I'll probably get a phone call on this too, is more about steadiness control than it is necessarily marking or handling.

Now not saying that the marks are all easy, they are not. There's some tough marks in there and there's some tough blinds, but it's more about control. Whereas the a k c master national is probably a little bit more technical, but not as much on control. That's But you're still training for the same basics.

Yeah. So set means set until I tell you to go. When I say go, you go. And I want go. That's, this is one of the questions I wanna go back. 'cause you said that the two do one that Charlie and one of the other dogs was like a plus marker. Can you explain that to me? I think I know what it means, but can you explain that to me and just in case our listeners don't know what you're talking about?

Yes. [00:29:00] Very good question. When you're talking to a retriever guy, especially a competitive retriever guy or end of dogs, if they say this is, this dog's a plus marker, or this dog's a fair marker, but runs really good blinds. A good marking dog's a dog. When they come to line and sit down, they can see the birds really good.

And they know where they're at. They run out there and you're looking for 'em to go front foot 'em or put a really tight short, quick hunt on in the area of the fall and come back. A dog that's not as good as marker may know the gentle area and run out there and hunt a bigger, wider circle but might not have been as confident in knowing where that bird was.

Typically what happens, you get a out of balance. A lot of times dogs that are really a plus markers don't handle well because they're very independent. They already think they know where they're going, they know what they're doing, and it's just that kind of type a personality. They, they're a lot of self-assuredness.

So the balance there is a dog that's a really good marker, but will take good directions from its handler. And when [00:30:00] you blow a sit whistle, you're running a blind retrieve and you send your dog on the line, they get the picture dead bird back, and they're running that line to get off line tweet, you need a left-handed back.

To get that cast, and they take it. Whereas sometimes that really good markings, independent, self-assured dog is no, I know where I'm going. I'm gonna blow him off. So that's where you're looking for that balance. But in all of them, marking is of a, is of primary importance.

So if you weigh, at least in my mind, especially the A K C world, marking is of primary importance. There's more, you put more weight to marking than you do handling. Yet when you read the opening paragraph for what they call a non-slip retriever trial, non-slip means steady, doesn't slip at the line.

And it's something about a dog that marks the area of the fall, moves at a good rate to not unduly disrupt too much cover will take handler, take [00:31:00] directions from MHA up from its handler. And we'll pursue a strong cripple is considered a sound companion in the field or something to that effect.

And when you look at those attributes, mark's the area of the fall, moon's at a good pace to hurry up and get there and get back. We don't, we may have another bunch of ducks here coming. Doesn't disturb too much cover if you're a pheasant guy back. But when they have to handle take directions from his handler as needed and will pursue a strong cripple, meaning it has good hunt skills and will pursue the bird, good nose, good eyes, and we'll pursue the cripple when you add those things up.

That's what makes a good duck dog. That's all any of us want. When you go duck hunting every day, that's all any of us want. And to be honest with you, when I'm hunting, I just assume not every half to blow a whistle and handle. I want the dog to know where they're going. An independent self-assured thinking dog suits me well.

And you said that earlier you said that there was like four ducks that the dog had to retrieve. Like how does that, how do they remember? I've trained dogs my whole, for a [00:32:00] long time now, and that kind of blows my mind that they would be able to remember four, four places.

Yeah. That's part, that's a subset of marking memory. So you want, you, we, we look for dogs with good memories and it's amazing the kind of memories that, that they have once you start seeing it and maybe training for it. And I bet you'll really see it in your canine your tactical dogs.

Police dogs. I bet you see it a lot there. But y yeah so at a, at the grand or the master, there's a, there, there's a triple with a blind. And when you step up into the open, all that stuff, there'll be always be a quad in there somewhere, four birds. And sometimes at the hunt test level, there'll be four birds.

But I've been on hunts where there was. Eight, nine, and 10 birds down. And you can always tell when the dog is remembering, they'll come back looking over their shoulder looking, where's that next one at? Where's that next one? You just keep sending them and then you may have to handle from there. But I've had dogs, remember birds, like [00:33:00] a bird they missed in the morning, early morning.

They'll be looking around and then later that morning they'll go back to the area that falls and look for that bird. Cool little story here. And I hope I ain't taking up too much of your time. Absolutely not. So if I am, lemme know. No, but this is a fun, fun story. So I get a lot of people asking me, he said, man, Jimbo, what's your favorite retrieve?

And all of my dogs have made I've had some really cool ones and As I think back, there's some that tie that there's some equals here, but one of the Katy dog I was telling you about, here's a perfect one. We was hunting old dead timber break over here on the east side of White River.

And we'd had a fair morning and she was a good cripple dog man. If I had to go find a duck with a million dollar duck band on it, I go dig her up and bow hot air up here, rear end, see if I could get her back up and running again. So we was hunting that morning and we shot into a bunch of ducks and I sent her and she had a big chase with a maed hand that was front and left of the blind or [00:34:00] facing out that way, and started getting up in the morning, the hump slowing down and oh, Katie kept looking over at that.

There's an old stump or some grass right in there, and she just kept looking over there and she kept looking over there and I had scolded her earlier. I said, man, you let that duck beat you. Katie, I can't believe you let that duck beat you. And she kept looking over there. Finally, I just put my hand over that bird back and she run over there and went to swim around and looking and smelling on that water.

And I seen her kind of just pretty shallow and really muddy. She sat back on her haunts a little bit and she's taking in front paws and she was digging down in that water and seen her stick her head down and she'd come pull up that batard hand with a bunch of weeds and mud around her and come back with it.

And I, I probably would've never believed that story had I not been there to see it. And it's absolutely what she did and it was so cool that one, she remembered that bird and two, she just went over there and started feeling for it and she found it and she stuck her head in there and dug it up.

That's crazy. You can't teach that. No, that's just in it. No, [00:35:00] that's that's the cool stuff right there. That's phenomenal. That's amazing. Is what that is. It makes you want to go see 'em. Do it again. It's so fun when you got a young dog, it's showing promise, and they'll go do something like that.

You're like, gosh, that's cool. And you think I tested a couple dogs last year for cadaver, and we, and one of the, one of the tests is water. And it's so neat. And both of these dogs were labs, coincidentally. And it was so awesome to watch those dogs. We put 'em on the front of the boat and they just they'd stand there and they'd be working inside, just kinda like us rigging dogs on the truck.

They would be standing there. And then they would do, whatever they were trained to do for their indication. And sure enough, then they would find the scent underneath the water. They had dropped anchors with the odor down on it. But it was, it's phenomenal.

So what you're saying Like the dogs have so many amazing abilities that a lot of times people just take for granted or don't process how special they are. Really?[00:36:00] It's it's cool. One, you talked about memory. She remembered that bird there. And look, that was, I don't know how many birds we shot after she lost that one.

It was a pretty fair hunt. So she remembered that bird was down and went back there. Not only did she remember the area of the fall, she dug it out of there. You know that was cool. So the journey on Hounds Man XP has teamed up with one T D C, this dual action support for oral health and mobility in our dogs.

This unique supplement is so effective that it is recommended by top veterinarian experts worldwide to maintain and improve our dogs' health in four different areas. Their oral health, hips, joints, and muscles, skin coat. Energy and recovery. Guys, I've been using this product for the last six months and it has been a game changer for me.

If you're looking for something to help with the overall health of your dog, go to work so [00:37:00] well.com and give this product a try. It is highly recommended by Hounds Man XP here on the journey. Similar tales. So young, tiny outta Charlie. The first year he hunted, we was out. I was hunting with some folks up in Missouri.

We was out looking for a cripple, and it was his first duck seasons. He didn't know a whole lot. He just, he had to go hunting to learn, right? That's rights. Learn more. Shooting birds over. So we was in the woods, there's some flooded woods, and I was looking and I seen something dip Hey, there's that duck.

And then I seen a head come up. I. Oh my God, it's tiny. And then I see him get up and he stuck his head up in the air and he got him a big old breath of air and stuck his head back down in the water. I'm like, oh my God, please don't try to smell. Please don't try to sniff or not, I'm scared to death.

And here that sucker comes up with the duck and I'm like, could this gracious looking here? Yep. I didn't teach him nothing about that. He just started doing it, yeah. I, and I've watched his mama track 'em on the water, be on the water with their nose right on the water [00:38:00] and track 'em and be gone for 30, 45 minutes and come back with a cripple.

Now that's the kind of stuff you can't teach as, as trainers and judges and all that. We're looking for all those other attributes that makes a good dog. But in the end, that's the kind of stuff right there that we're all looking to get. It don't matter what kind of dog you have, it don't matter.

When you have dogs that work like that and you see that stuff it. It sets 'em apart. Like it just, it's phenomenal. You're seeing dogs do stuff in your world that most pet owners never know about. They don't have a clue. And then, us in the hunting world, we see dogs do so many amazing things.

And then, you know what got me into the long, the canine world was because I hunted and tracking tracking people. Or is my, that's what I love to do. And I always said that my hounds what, seeing what my hounds could do and our police dogs we only get about half out of our police dogs are what they're actually capable [00:39:00] of.

Now the searching and the stuff like that. Absolutely. But when it comes down to a dog's ability, we don't tap into over half of what they're able to do. On my end of it, I don't think. With the stuff. Just like what you're seeing. This is the stuff that we've seen that, I'm like, man, these hounds do this stuff, these other dogs should be doing it too.

Oh, they can all do it. You the canine dogs. Man, I just, so backing up in my dogs and I mentioned this fellow's name, my buddy Randy Rhodes at the time was Game and Fish Canine guy. And I had a yellow female. I have lost a male dog named Tank to a Twisted Stomach torsion. And he was just an awesome animal. Right at the beginning of duck season, so went without a dog that year. So I've got a puppy.

You like to be outside like I do hunting, fishing, hiking. If so, OnX is the app for you. I've been a loyal Onyx user for years. It's the one app that [00:40:00] I can honestly say I. I use daily while hunting. I know where I'm at all times. I mark trails, bedding areas, feeding areas, and the list goes on in my travels.

I use it to Prec Scout, all the new places that I am blessed to hunt. Last year, while hiking Yellowstone, I used OnX to map out the trails and know the difficulty of each one. And here's a secret. I mark all of my favorite fishing spots on X. It's been a game changer for me at work. I've used it multiple times to get in touch with property owners.

On X has so many great features and tools. You can literally use it in your everyday life. It is by far the best mapping app on the market. And hey, it's approved by yours, truly at Hounds Man xp. So when you go to subscribe to OnX, use our code H X P 20 and get you a discount. [00:41:00] So get your journey started with on x and know where you stand.

Anyway, I got a puppy, a yellow puppy from a buddy of mine the next year from Ira Cauley. His name, her name was, there it is her name was Molly. She's little yellow dog. And anyway, I had her with a buddy of mine training and she just wasn't gonna make it. So they were, look, Randy and them were looking for some dogs who gave me fish and for that kind of stuff, for finding people and like evidence and.

You can explain that stuff better than I can. So he said, will she chase the tennis ball? I said, oh, heck yeah. She'll chase the heck outta tennis ball. So he come over and so anyway, Molly went to work for Arkansas Game Fit. She had her own badge, she had her own pitcher, she had everything good looking.

Little yellow dog. We had a picture of her that, and a duck line on dog box blind. She said, I may not be a duck dog, but I play one on tv. And at the time she was but she found her niche and [00:42:00] that's stuff. And I, Randy told me about, she found evidence, I think for a murder case. She found evidence, found a guy poaching on some state ground, it wasn't supposed to be deer hunting.

Run right up underneath her and looked up the tree. And he said, man, the dog wasn't supposed to find me. I'm wearing rubber boots and all this scent locked stuff. He says, you have to ask the dog about that. But to that point, it's amazing what they can do. And especially if you find something they, I hate to say enjoy, but.

She found her niche. She did a good job with gaming fish, she found her niche and Randy talked about tracking people and, putting her on harness and tracking whatnot. And that's just cool stuff. Yeah. My, so my dad used to raise labs, but we don't, we didn't duck hunt.

We just, he just loved labs and man, we, I've had a bunch through my life. And then my first police dog was a yellow lab. Big old lab, like 80 pound big lab. And of course I only done tracking and narcotics with him. But there's always been like a, [00:43:00] I guess from my childhood growing up when dad had 'em, and, I've always liked them and I, we just replaced one of our dogs that retired and the couple guys that I was looking at dogs from, They asked me what I wanted and I'm like I don't care.

Like we're just gonna put narcotics and tracking on it, so I don't care. I said, but if you can come across a good lab, I'd be more inclined. A lot of our guys are getting the German short air pointers right now, but it, we ended up getting a mally because that's what was available. And he's all put together and done what he's supposed.

He tested out well, so we ended up putting narcotics on him and got him going. But yeah, the lab is not I like 'em. I've always liked them. And like I said, I've never hunted one because that's, I don't, we, I don't have anywhere to do that here. But I want to go back and ask a question off of your pups.

'cause you're doing some testing techniques, some of the stuff that we use, and you talk about chasing a tennis ball. What are some other things when you're [00:44:00] sorting through these pup and how old were they when you sent 'em on the way? Eight, 10 weeks? No, seven weeks. Seven weeks. Yeah. So at that try to get as close to that day.

I don't, somebody wrote a big study about that day. 49. Or seventh weeks. The 49th day is a big time, but somewhere six and a half to seven to eight is when I try to make sure they're going to new homes. Yep. So at that age, what, is there certain things you're looking for or is it at that point for you guys?

Is it just reach down, pick one out and hope it works out? Man, now that you just opened up the big old can of worms right there. So some people are of the opinion and this, and you will get some very top shelf dog trainers on opposite ends of this conversation. I fall somewhere in the middle.

There's some folks will say, man, put a sack, reach in there and grab one. See what it is. If it's a female, you want a male, put it back until you find a male or vice versa. Yep. I believe you can do a little checking around. But the, my little tiny dog, he was the [00:45:00] runt outta that litter.

We thought something was wrong with him. Shoot man. He is excellent. So anyway I would say this. When I keep 'em, I have 'em on duck wings chasing tennis balls, chasing socks. If I can get a live pigeon, I'll throw a lot of pigeon down there with 'em, and just try to start building that prey drive.

Seeing who wants to go get 'em. And what as a puppy will likely change when they're six months old or a year old. You hear a lot of guys, some of the most well decorated competitive dogs. And in our history the stories when you read the history on 'em were just, nobody did nothing with 'em for the first year and a half.

'cause they didn't seem like they liked it. And just, I don't know. I argue here I am, I'm talking in a big circle of myself. I like to see what, who's doing what as a puppy myself. Again, chasing the tennis ball, chasing the duck wing if you got a live pigeon, and really alls I'm seeing there is if they show entry, natural instinct yep.

Natural instinct. And I, if I can, if [00:46:00] water's warm enough, I'll wait out the pond, see if to follow me, get them comfortable with water. But o other than that, you never know what you're going to get. It's going to be time and training and socializing. I can't emphasize enough the importance of if you get you a puppy, I don't care if it's a coonhound puppy, a bird dog, puppy canine, tactical puppy, retriever, puppy, that little sucker, let it live with you.

Let it go everywhere it can go. I know there's times you can't take that puppy with you everywhere you go, but as much as you can, take that puppy with you. Everywhere. Let it be around as many people and dogs as it can. You make sure it doesn't get around a dog. It's gonna be aggressive towards puppy getting, interfere if you need to.

But the more they can be around things and exposed to different environments and people and different things, the better they're going to be. And I know how important it is in the retriever world. I would have to think in the canine enforcement world, it's even more so like that. So there, yeah, there's two things there for me.[00:47:00]

I do more environmentally acquisitions for mine. Like you said, different environments, different, floors are a big thing for us. A lot of dogs don't like slick floors. A lot of dogs don't like open great stairs. A lot of dogs don't like to be high on stuff that's unstable. So for me, I'm not necessarily socializing it with people.

I'm doing more environmental socializing for me, and I lumped that all into everything. Yeah. On socializing. Yeah. I try to get 'em walking across different stuff as a puppy. So they're used to it, like you talk about them moping great stairs. Old dog tank that I lost, twist his stomach.

That sucker was amazing. Where he'd go and what he'd do. He and the two I got now, they scare me because they're not scared of heights and they're not scared of stuff like that. So that, that scares me for them, yeah. Because I am Right. I'm a big wimp. Get me two foot off the ground, it's a little wobbly.

I'm like, whoa, wait a minute here. But yeah, I want my dogs used to all that. 'cause you see all those kind of different situations [00:48:00] in different hunting environments, traveling around the country different types of duck lines they gotta get into in and outta boats. The more you can get 'em acclimated, the different textures if you will, environments, the better they'll be.

Like you mentioned the slick floors. Man, I've seen it where you could keep a 90 pound Labrador from crossing the a silver door threshold. It was a quarter inch tall and that wide. 'cause it, there was a barrier there. Didn't wanna get on that slick linoleum. Yeah. I'm all for you on that and any dog for that matter.

Yeah. I would go on to say that a lot of the basics in raising a puppy, regardless if it's a, regardless of what it's outcome, what its job's going to be in the end, some of that stuff's gonna be very similar. Yep. And so you just talked, I've got a litter pup snat. I had a litter on their, they're coming on 14 weeks.

They're not quite, and I've got three left. But, I do some of the some of the same things that you're doing with mine is, I wanna check that Pray Drive. And again, they're usually six, [00:49:00] eight weeks old. When I'm looking at this so I have what we call a flirt pole. So it's a pole with a, like your string on wing, on a string kind of thing.

It's a leather cloth and I just move it around see if the dogs are interested in chasing it and if how they wanna do that. And I look at that, but one of the things that, and I've really, the last couple of litters is how pups change so much in a short amount of time.

One of the strongest pups outta this litter, we call her aj, and when, she was the, she was a fireball. And now, like her demeanor has completely changed. I've got two more that have. Really well. The other two that I have left are really outworking her and are outdoing her and my dogs are loose, like they're loose right now.

Running around in the yard, probably down in the barn lot with the horses. I seen one of the trainers go down there just a minute ago. They'll go down there with [00:50:00] them and run around the horses and stuff. Like you said, you'd stick your hand in the bag and pull it out because those dogs change so much.

Her, she was not afraid of anything is what you was talking about. And now loud noises. Anything that's outta place, like the lawnmower. The lawnmower. Yesterday, I mowed yesterday and normally she wasn't paying attention to it. When I started that thing up and went around the house, like boom, she circled around to the back of the house and I'm like, what's wrong with her?

The other two's just laying there What are you doing? You're gonna have to move so I don't have to mow over you. But she changed, she flipped on me. And I'm a little bit concerned about that behavior. I feel like she'll come out of it because she's in good hands. But at the same time her demeanor has changed.

Big time. Big time. In four weeks. That's interesting. And that's what I said earlier, that's where I argue with myself about my thoughts is, if you just give 'em time, you'll see different things. One of the things I do when I raise the litter puppies, and I didn't raise this last litter, [00:51:00] but once I get 'em starting to wean 'em and get 'em on wet food and, transitioning into dry food, from that time you, you let it soak until it's soft and mushy, till it's just floating food.

And when them little guys is going after that food bowl, I'll back away from 'em or have my daughter or wife feed them. And I'd take two pans and I'd. Whoop 'em together, I'd clap my hands and make it pop as loud as I could and I'd try to turn that loud noise into going on when there's a positive experience.

They're eating, they're getting their bellies full. And I think that I lead that over to, again, lawnmowers, trucks, tractors, shotguns, pistols, don't go shoot right on top of them at a young age, but get 'em acclimated. They hear they're doing something good, hear a bang, a pow I might yell just some, anything, just a loud noise that would startle 'em maybe, but they're eating so try to make as many positive experiences I can with things that could be interpreted as like a gunshot going off or [00:52:00] a backfire or your lawnmower or whatever. I don't know, for something you could do there, you hear a lot of people treating gunshot dogs like that. Start off, that's where I first got the idea.

A guy would feed. Have his wife feed his dogs and he start eating. He'd she 22 short from like a hundred yards away and he just kept moving closer, little by little, slowly back, very slowly being patient and finally got the dog where she was fine, turned into a fine duck dog. A lot of that kind of stuff can be overcome with just trying to think of what, where it comes from.

Yeah. And to, and I'll tell you how to save some money on some 22 shells. We used balloons. We started out with balloons, but you, it just dawned on me. Shotgun. I noticed in the police side of things. I've even noticed it in my hounds actually. When I go down east and hunt, you have to use a shotgun.

You can't use a rifle. The rifle and the pistol. Yeah, I can work my dogs through that pretty [00:53:00] quickly and most of them have no problems whatsoever. My, my police dog right now is solid. I can shoot my ar right over top of him if I want to. He don't care. You put that, that shotgun up and that percussion off of that shotgun changes his dema.

He still does his job, but he pins his ears back and that tail tucks, and I'm like, okay. Me and Chad Reynolds had this discussion last year about it. Chad feels like it's the, has more to do with the gunpowder because it's more overwhelming coming out of a shotgun. So he puts the, he'll put a couple empty shotgun shells around his food bowl and feed the dogs.

And I have done that with the last litter of puppies I had. And of course I haven't shot a shotgun around 'em, so I can't tell you if it's been. It's been fruitful or not. So with that percussion, especially if there's several of you guys in a blind and you've got a dog right beside you, how do you guys work through that?

Or the dogs just have that good of nerves that it's not really an issue. I think they get the nerves where it's not a problem. [00:54:00] So over you learn as you go. So you heard me talk about that little old dog, Katie, I thought so much of, and I was in the guy just, and she was getting shot over every day and I made a mistake.

I built her dog porch on the front of the blind, but yet there was a hunter standing right behind her. So she literally got shot over the top of her head every day, horrible deal. She was dang near death time, she was eight. I've learned since then, I do things differently. But if you're in a blinder pit, the dog's next to you.

The gun's out front a little bit, but people are always going to be swinging. I, and I think they, the prey drive overcomes the nerves there eventually. That said, if you can, if it's anywhere I can, if I'm hunting in the woods or a different setup I either move my dogs over away from the blind or set 'em behind me a little bit more.

One, I think they mark better like that. And two, that you're not affecting 'em as bad with as much noise, but that doesn't bother them at all. The shotgun, 10 shotguns going off is not yet to be an issue. But [00:55:00] all of these dogs, we work hard at acclimating them to loud noises. As a puppy.

Yeah. Yeah. I was gonna say I've just noticed in my handling with dogs that shotgun and last year we were down in I was down in North Carolina and two of my young dog, year old dogs we had a bear on the ground and they'd come in and. Shot several rounds and my dog, my dogs come out like when they harvested the animal and they started shooting, they come out now they went back in with me and acted fine.

But that initial three or four blast got 'em. And of course I've been working on it since then, so hopefully that's not an issue. But yeah, so when y'all are bear hunting and you got a bear on the ground, you go in, are you using your AR for that or what do you or the shotgun, the slub it depends on where we're hunting at.

Like for me, hunt hunting at home, I carry a pistol. I just carry a 41 Magnum now if I'm hunting on the coast, most time we're carrying 20 gauges, slugs. I got you. Yeah. Okay. So it depends on where we're hunting [00:56:00] and a lot of times if we have guys that haven't Hunted before whatever they're carrying a, I carry an old 30 30 in my truck for whoever needs it, or 2 43, something of that.

That caliber's usually what it is. Yeah. No it's always interesting to, to learn different things from different parts of the country on what people do. I always enjoy that. Yeah. I like to tell folks, my passions are ducks and turkeys, but I like quail hunt, coon hunt, squirrel hunt.

I still like to hunt. I like to hunt. That's other people do. Yeah. Yeah. I like to hunt. Yeah. So I always like to ask about that. Jim, what, before we wrap this up what do you want, what would you like to tell people about the labs and the retrieving world? Training tips or tricks or something that, stands out to you?

What would you pass on to us? I hit on a couple of there a few minutes ago, but one, let 'em be your buddy. Don't try to force 'em into anything, man. Labradors, all the retriever breeds are great dogs. I just happened to be a lab guy. Goldens, Chesapeakes, they're all great. A lot of people using [00:57:00] hunting with boykins, they're pretty cool.

There's a lot of cool dogs out there. Find a dog that you like and let it be your friend. Be his buddy. Let him be your friend and you be his friend and treat him as such. Sure they gotta be acclimate cold and hot, and they gotta get, toughened up and in good physical condition, but at the same time it's okay for 'em to ride in his front seat of the truck or come in the house.

That's socializing. And early life, I think, goes such a long way into the dog at the end. The more different environments and people and things, you can get that dog around. I think the better dog you're going to have in, he's three or four years old. The other one I would say is don't get in a hurry.

In the lab world there's a lot of people they want their dogs handling and running big blinds by the time they're like two years old or a year old running, 400 yard behind the trees and whatnot, don't get in a hurry. Let the dog learn at its own pace. Try to enhance what's the good Lord, give it in its marking ability.

Try to enhance on that and then slowly work on the [00:58:00] control side and running blinds. Let that come progress naturally. Don't try to force it again. I think too many people they wanna overcome marking and just teach the dog to handle and they immediately want to start blowing whistles. 'cause hey look, it's cool to kick your dog off a dog standing run out there and you gowe back, tweet over.

It's cool to see that dog do that, but don't make that happen too fast. Don't let that be your priority. Let the dog come along and a natural pace and don't force those things. Think about that six month or year old puppy, what you want that dog to be when he is in his prime, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.

That's what I want to think about. Think about the end game, not the now. Look at the long term. And that's, I, that's part of this podcast. It's called The Journey because it's a process and I don't care how all that, oh wow. That's it. The dog never stops learning. Just like we should never stop learning.

Hey, when I [00:59:00] quit learning about things I do in the outdoors and getting excited about it when it works. Coming back to that grind thing. If it's a grind, I'm gonna go find something. Maybe I need to learn how to golf, play tennis. I don't know. But when I quit learning and quit getting excited about it, I'm out.

Yeah. And I think it's what, like I'm always trying to learn how to do something better or different, or tweak something. And that's what makes it, that's one of the things that makes it so fun for me. Is, there's a thousand ways to train a dog and I wanna know a thousand in one ways, how to train a dog for myself, yeah. We can always get better. That's right. We can always learn something about whatever you do, you can always learn. Yep. And it's fun to learn. That's something I always appreciated about my dad. He always, he knew a lot about the woods and was an excellent woodsman, but he was always trying to learn something or teach something, he'd always ask you questions about, why do you think this tree grows right here instead up there? That kind of thing.[01:00:00] Just you, we can always learn. And always be willing to pass that on. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Jim, I can't tell you how much I appreciated this, how much I've enjoyed this, and I know we just touched a surface on dogs.

Oh, man. Yeah. I don't know that I answered any of your questions. Oh, yes. And it's so funny that you're reinforcing a lot of the stuff that I say on this podcast through the year. Don't get in a rush. Take your time, spending time with your dogs, and I say it all the time in fact, I've got it saved on my phone.

You take 18 minutes a day, do something that you love for 18 minutes a day, you're gonna be better than 90% of the world, 93% of the world. Just a little bit of time, just a little bit of time every day. I spend, I may only, when I'm working, I may only get five or 10 minutes with my dogs. And I know that Shane's been posting a lot of Little short reels and stuff on Instagram where I'm making my dogs load and they're three months old and they're loading in a truck and they're getting ready.

[01:01:00] They're gonna be in that truck between now and when I start taking them more times than you'll ever know, but I'm getting them comfortable with that and loading and being up there and liking it. I don't want my dogs barking in the truck. I don't want 'em carrying on and acting crazy.

I want 'em to be, natural. So spending more time with your dogs, I couldn't agree a hundred percent more than, having the dogs inside and having hands on 'em. It just makes it more pleasurable. Plus, it helps with that handle on the dogs. It doesn't hurt their abilities at all.

Oh no. Now, we'll, like coming fall, whatnot they'll stay out in the kennel sum, to get acclimated. Start building that undercoat, but. But once it gets cold and they're hunting every day, shoot, there's a lot of times they're in bed with me at night. I've woke up and have one laying on top of me.

Get off of me. I'm hot. Yeah. But it, I guarantee you it helps in that communication with that animal. Yep. It absolutely does. And they learn. You, they learn. They know you anyway, but when you spend more time with you, you don't even have to say anything to 'em. You can look at 'em and dog's okay, dad wants me to do this.

[01:02:00] Okay. Dad wants me to do that, man. Yeah. I, and I talk to 'em like they're people. I'm like, get in a boat. Get in the truck. They just know, they learn how to communicate with you. Yes, they do. Jim, any last thoughts? Man, I could go on here forever, but you probably need to go back to work.

So do I. Yep. I've got training this evening. I'm gonna, man, it's hot and humid. It's awful out. I'm, I don't know what they was thinking during. It's not training with That's right. That's right. That's what it is though. Jim, thank you so much. Go ahead. I was gonna tell you, I have thoroughly enjoyed it.

Thank you for having me on. I appreciate it. I always like making new friends and being around other folks. Absolutely. Thank you for helping us teach, train, and learn. There you go, bud. Two, two time. Yeah.[01:03:00]

‍