Show Notes
“There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter.” - Ernest Hemingway
Clinton Cillers is playing a deadly game. He is tracking armed poachers in Africa with hounds.
Heath is able to connect with Clinton Cillers from South Africa. Clinton runs Tactical K9 Africa. He offers an array of K9 training to include Patrol/guard dog, bloodspoor, wildlife protection and man trailing. Clinton is now contracted to track down wildlife poachers in and around the area he lives. With 12 years running the Tactical K9 training facilities, Clinton has transitioned from the common police K9, Mali and Shepard to hounds. After some issues with the Bloodhounds, he now runs a bluetick cross that originated in the US. Clinton talks about how, and why he now runs this style of hound. He even throws in a few training tips from across the pond. This one is jammed packed full of gold, literally.
https://tacticalk9africa.co.za
Show Transcript
[00:00:00] 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 PACS 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.
Hey guys, the journey on Hounds XP is teamed up with Gow Wild. Gow Wild is a social media platform that was made for Hunters by Hunter. If you guys and gals have listened to any of the other podcasts that I've been on, you know what a huge outdoor enthusiast I am. [00:01:00] I love being in the woods, my hands.
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today on the journey. We are headed to South Africa and I know that Chris just done a podcast with Ivan Carter and we're going into that same country in the same region. And we're gonna talk in a different way about training dogs, how dogs help the conservation, which they hit on a little bit. But more importantly, you know that we are able to help conservation and save other animals through the use of hounds.
[00:03:00] So we're gonna talk specifically about Hounds, but we are here with Clinton Sellers and Clinton, it is just a honor and a privilege to be able to have you on and sit down and talk. I know that you and I have talked a couple times now and it just gets better every time we talk. So I am really excited to have you on with us today.
So how's things over your way? Hi thank you so much for having me. Much appreciated. Always nice talking to you. And sharing some of the experiences that we have accounted and things that we've side upon the community is a small one. And I think with technology it's, it's always good to, to reach out to people of the same interests, across the pond and, everywhere else in the world and to, just benchmark a bit and learn from on each other, from each other.
Yeah. [00:04:00] Which brings me, I want, I wanna tell the listeners how we cross paths, and I don't think that some of the guys understand the the amount of reach that Jeff Shetler has. That, Jeff is very good at what he does. He's got a lot of experience a lot of years in and he's trained a lot of dogs and a lot of people.
And Jeff had you on his podcast and if you guys wanna check it out, it's man Tracker radio. It's very good. And Jeff had reached out to me and said, Hey, I just talked to Clinton, I'm gonna, I'm gonna hook you guys up because you and him have a lot in common with the hounds. And of course then one thing led to another and here we are.
But that's how you and I cross paths and just tell our listeners a little bit about, how Jeff has helped or impacted what you do.
Alright. Originally when we started getting into man trailing, [00:05:00] there were, a few old books around that you could order. And, there was a lot of. Good information that you could use. The books were written really for bygone times, for different situations. And, a lot of things has changed and these books were good.
Between, the odd book that we could get our hands on and making things up ourselves and breaking things ourselves and, trying to be self-taught. Slowly but surely as the internet came more prolific people started to come across like-minded people. And subsequently I always say I don't really care who does what.
I just look at how the dogs work. And I stumbled across a video of a dog trailing and the person that was in a rating, the actual video. Was describing what was happening with that [00:06:00] at that stage. And I looked at the person and I thought this, I actually called it bs. I thought, you can't read so many things, the dog is on or he is not, and or he is trashing and, this person, this happened to be Jeff, he was describing things that was happening to, to the scent and triangulation that the dog was doing.
And I just, I'd never even heard or read or come across this type of high level information anywhere. And I, subsequent to research, Jeff and I came across a wealth of information and I realized that he'd actually been the author of many books and had a lot of learning material on YouTube.
And the deeper I dug into this we all. We all know that the dog's behavior changes. When it starts to give a proximity a a proximity alert. [00:07:00] He scratched when, and started looking at how Jeff actually delves into the whole subject of proximity alerts and how to train it and how to keep tactical teams safe.
I was just absolutely blown away. I realized that, he's a national treasure, his level of experience and. The tears is just way beyond anything I'd ever encountered or come across. And so that's where, these people immediately become a mentor to you because we do use dogs in anti-poaching situations.
We've got law enforcement, we've got private security companies, and dogs are quite an integral part. And by getting to understand the skill sets of people like Jeff and being unable to learn, even if it is through books and through communication he is, he's mentored many people that he is never seen or met before in his life.
Unbeknownst to him, I said to him on [00:08:00] the podcast the other day, he has no idea how many dog related training issues I've had over the years that he's actually fixed and remedied. Just simply by, by sharing his knowledge, unself. Basically how I stumbled across Jeff. He is, he's very revered, ev everywhere that you come, if people are serious about trailing they know Jeff and I think his blood blaze the trail that has definitely changed the game and the name of man trailing probably indefinitely. So yeah, I'm very privileged to have been able to be recipient of his knowledge and the fact that I can just send him a message and search if I need to go of assistance and within an hour or two, he gets back to you and he heavily helps.
Yeah. Basically how my pulses crossed with Jeff, so to speak. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's one thing that [00:09:00] I can say throughout my law enforcement career has helped me with my training of, of the police canines is being able to connect with people as Jeff. And I've got a whole bunch of other people that have helped me and that, like you said, I can send them a text or phone call and say, Hey, I've got this problem, not really sure I've tried X, Y, and Z.
It's not working. Do you have a, another option? And that has helped me become a student of learning. It's opened my eyes that you continually learn. And it's also helped me advance with some of the, with what I do with dogs. And it's been invaluable to me and in my, and especially in my career Which is, again, Jeff's, Jeff's one of those people we connected, I don't know, 12, 13 years ago.
And it's like you said he probably didn't even know at first that he was changing our canine group[00:10:00] without even being here. But he did. And now that we've become, exactly, yeah. We've become friends. But So Clinton enough with that. Tell us a little bit about yourself, where you're from, what you do your background and how you got in, I know like through our conversations, I know what, what's going on your side of the pond.
But tell, let's just tell the listeners so we can get it, dive into what we really want to talk about.
Just very briefly I have been in the dog industry formally, probably for the last 12 years. But I've always been a dog fanatic, just self-taught, mucking around with dogs as a kid. And I got in. I got fascinated by the art falconry when I was a youngster. And I bought myself, I took my savings as a school boy and I imported a book from Philip bla from the uk and basically [00:11:00] book myself out to do falconry out of a book.
And then obviously I needed a pointer and I used to go driving around in a BMX with a falcon on the handle ball on two pointers and tow. And we used to just have a good time. I was still pre telemetry as well. And then the telemetry started to become available, so I always enjoyed docs.
And then from there we had to do national service. So I had to go and do two years of Army. And then from there, coming back obviously I needed employment and the area that I was living at that stage, the only. Real employer was the mines. The gold industry was booming. South Africa was the largest producer of gold in the world.
So I went and got myself a day job and I kept that up for 20 odd years. But, in the interim it allowed me to get out with dogs. I started getting into some of the pointer breeds and [00:12:00] got myself a German in shepherd and did a little bit of shouldn't. And I enjoyed the bite work side of it a lot.
The obedience side, I get a bit bored with obedience to be quite honest. Even although I'll do obedience with dogs, it's not something that brings me great pleasure. And then from there the tracking side, the sport tracking to me was very flawed. I couldn't understand why a dog would, really not enjoy tracking, because of the amount of compulsion you'd have to put on the dog.
You'd have to get the tail carriage down. And I had a look at this and I thought to myself, no, I dunno if this is gonna work for me. And then that's basically where I started messing around a bit, trying to come up with my own ideas of tracking. And from there I eventually registered a security company and I registered a training center and I got myself.
I'm certified and qualified [00:13:00] and I then left the mines and I became I didn't really, you have to be a security company registered to have a training center, but I just ran the training center side of things where we would then train and certify handlers for predominantly the security industry.
And then from there I slowly started growing my security company where we would then have guys predominantly dog handlers, either looking after, national key points like diamond mines or water purification looks and that kind of stuff. And then we started from there, putting down dog handlers in farming areas, our rural farm farming areas.
Riddled with crime. There's quite a lot of crime going on. And then we got into the anti-poaching side because the, everything pretty much goes hand in hand. The guys that are poaching are the guys that are breaking and stealing and stuff as well. So then we got into that [00:14:00] and yeah, I grew, we grew the numbers of the company called at large, and then I found myself in a situation where I no longer enjoyed it anymore because it was just, became unmanageable and, your dog handlers.
It's not a profession over here that is either well paid or respected, so people would become a dog handler cause there's nothing else. And it's a position and I've, I've started getting a bit disillusioned by, you'd have a few really good guys, you'd have all of these other guys that are marking around and you get there and the dog hasn't been groomed or he hasn't even got any water for the dog.
And then you have to discipline him and then the next guy comes and so I just, I shut it down and I just, I kept the best guys. And what we did with them is we started putting vehicles down. We. Had reaction team. So you'd have a reaction officer that is highly skilled and there's, he's got a dog to a dog component to what he [00:15:00] does, and these dogs are predominantly trailing and apprehension dogs.
And then from there, we had the other guys that were with the salt, we put into small anti-poaching units where they would go and do, tracking and observation on farms, try and pick up movements and removing off snares and that kind of stuff. So that's basically where we are at now. And the training side for me is still very appealing.
I've actually probably training more now than I've ever trained. I'm completely on the training side because that's where the most personal growth is for me. We, we forever students. And the more we know, the more we realize how little we know. And for me, every dog is a learning opportunity.
And every time you get to the point where, Now things are going really well. The next dog comes past and humbles you. And you realize, okay, I don't really, I haven't, I haven't got [00:16:00] this down. I thought I had this, but I haven't got. And it's nice because you learn it's different breeds of dogs.
It's different ages of dogs dogs with different drive levels, dogs with different capabilities, and you actually learn that you have to adapt to the dog. You can't adapt the dog to your program. The dog is the program. You need to change the way you need to make an evaluation of this dog and decide what's gonna make the stock tick.
How are we gonna get this dog to move forward and how we gonna get him to do it consistently? And so the training is where I'm at. It's not something I can see myself giving upon easily. I enjoy it. It. It entails me dealing less with people, if I have to choose between dogs and people, dogs second and third.
So it allows me to, it's nice and flexible. If the weather's good, I can go and work a bunch of dogs. If it's hot, I can stand over and I can go do something else. And it's very satisfying when it goes right. And at the same time, it's very [00:17:00] humbling when it goes wrong. It really it makes you dig in deep and say, alright, I've got to, I'm a person that I don't like to be beat, if the dog is, dog beats me that night, I'm lying away staring at the stealing, trying to think, what am I gonna do the next day?
Because you've won the round, but you haven't won the war yet. So that's where we are at. We're trying to get into more and more into the wildlife conservation side of things. Which would also predominantly be training dogs up to go and do, be it penguin research or.
Scat dogs, finding population entities of certain species. And so it's more on the wildlife side, on the conservation side and predominantly training. I would like to train people up and I'm a firm believer if you train someone up, there needs to be a can maintenance plan.
Yep. Because, the guys are so overwhelmed by the mountain, all of information that you're throwing at them and they keen and they've learned a lot, and then they [00:18:00] find themselves out there and two or three weeks later a parameter changes somewhere and they run into trouble and they're too embarrassed to say.
I'm stuck. So we, we try and actually hold these guys hands a bit initially and then just popping in and out and then just doing an evaluation. You've dropped a few catches here, or what you're doing here is counterproductive, or everything is right, but it's not working as it should.
Let's try something else. So the idea is to get people to be successful because I see a lot of people, getting into the canine industry and then when they get out there, there's so many challenges and they run into a wall and they get defeated and they throw in the top.
And it's not so much that they're doing things wrong, it's just that it's not an easy industry to get. There's so many things that can and will invariably go wrong. You sometimes just need that end on your shoulder to say, just, give him deep [00:19:00] count to 10 and, let's try this.
It's much easier as an outsider to not get emotional with training of dogs than it is when you're actually in there in the heat of the moment and you're trying, or darnedest and the dog just isn't getting right. I wanna back up real quick cuz you hit on a couple things through that, that block there.
So you said that you started with falconry. So one of our ca one of our podcast partners, Chad Reynolds he uses he uses birds in, in his hunting which is so cool. And you had talked about And with Jeff, you had talked, I want you to talk a little bit about the training of a bird because you just, you can't make that thing do anything they don't want to do.
And one of the things that we need to hit on is your company is Tactical Canine Africa. That's the company, that's the training facility that you run. That's correct. So talk about the birds a little bit and [00:20:00] then, something that, you hit on it there, but what you and I talked, I thought it was like it was shocking to me that when you worked in the mine, I want you to elaborate more for us, because, sometimes I think as Americans we forget what the rest of the world's and I don't know that I could work in the conditions that you were working in.
All right. We. The minds was basically, it I went, I finished school, I matriculated, which was basically our highest school level, and the idea was to go and study nature conservation at the university of which I then got allowance. We then had to, we had forcibly had to go to the army at that stage for two years.
And I had gone to school a bit early, so I finished at the rip age of 17, so I can, I'll never forget that I was older enough to go to war, [00:21:00] but I had a, I had, I needed to get a letter of permission from my mo, from my mother, from my mom to go. So she had to sign a consent form because I wasn't 18 yet for me to go to the Army.
So I went off to the army. There was two years, came and went. And coming back from there my mom was a single parent and, she used to hold down two jobs to try and take care of me and my sister. And at that stage the, the tuition and stuff for university was just not really manageable.
Obviously Plan B was to get a job and the biggest employee, employer was the gold mines. And they were employing, they were expanding tremendously. So I went and I went for an interview and it was actually quite funny because everyone around me. Came from, they came from a mining background and, whilst they were having these interviews I always make a joke, these guys were just mining, literally mining the building out from underneath the interviewer.
And I [00:22:00] got there and it was Mr. Donald McCloud and he asked me a bit about my history and why I was there and I said I needed employment. And he said to me what do you know about mining? And I said to him absolutely nothing. And it's down below and I know it's gold and that's it.
And he said to me, but all of these other guys have a lot more knowledge than you. And I said, yeah, but I'm here to be taught, that's why I'm here. This is obviously a training center because you go for training for quite a time and then you go, so long story short, we got the employment and then.
Went for an underground visit and our instructor at that time, Benny Nelson he didn't sugarcoat it. He took us to, South Africa at that stage had the deepest gold mine in the world. We went down 3,500 meters and which is probably like 12,000 feet. And it took us to all the places and it was hot and it was greeny and I was literally dying of the heat.
Been so hot in, in my life and the sweat was filling up in my gum boots. And[00:23:00] when we got out from underground, I dropped to my knees and I kissed the ground and I thanked the Lord and I said, never ne never again. And five days later I was on the play and, I was I was underground.
And what they did is you start off right at the bottom. So you do every job you go and do for a few months. So if it means that you're a, you're operating a shovel, then you're load shovel for a few months and then you're building timber supports then you're operating a winch.
So there's a whole. Almost like an Artisan Pro program that you go through. That takes about two years before you physically start mining. But it's it's like anything else, money is the root of all evil because at some stage you get yourself a co, you get yourself a house, and you get yourself a collar.
And so you start, incurring debt and the only way you can service that is by, continu to work. Yep. And and I learned so I learned to, to work with people of different walks of life [00:24:00] altogether, from completely unskilled, uneducated to highly skilled. It was very interesting and, different nationalities because we were having people from as far as Malawi and Mozambique coming over for work.
So it was a good, yeah, it was good. The mines were good to me, it was hard. It was tough. I think I grew up pretty quickly, but What was the, what the reason Honest job. What was the reason you left? That's what I was trying to hit on. What was the reason that you said? Yeah. And then the next wave that hit us after that was, and this was the big one, is we were dated by what they callas.
We started getting all these illegal miners infiltrating the gold mines, and it became a whole cartel. These guys were walking around with AK 47 s. They would hijack your equipment, they would steal your explosives. They would shoot you on site if you stumbled across them. And, in the middle of the night, walking around a corner.
And, I'd been bombed [00:25:00] twice. I lost a bit of earring in my left ear, which thankfully has come back over the years. And it just became, it got to a point where, you know, everything I was doing was no longer mining related. And you start losing a lot of your interest in doing, you get up in the morning, you think to yourself, you know what?
Crap is waiting for me today, and then your night shift count out. And I said they couldn't clean anything because the, all the water hoses were stolen during the night and they've sabotaged your airman falls. Then you have to have a meeting with your production manager and you need to try and understand, he needs to understand why your production is down.
And he, he doesn't want to listen to your excuses because he's paying you proper money to make sure that everything gets done. So it started losing a bit of, its bit of its flavor and at the same time, I was slowly. Getting my little business together with the dogs and I'd slowly gotten a bit of a farming, my wife built up a very successful farming [00:26:00] business, on the sideline.
Every time there was a bit of money, we buy a few sheep and a few goats, a few head of cattle and she was taking care of that and just got to the point where, it started getting difficult, getting up in the box, you had, I had to drag myself to the car and then one morning I'll never forget, I used to have to wake up.
I used to have, I was at work quarter to five, so I had to work, I had to wake up half past three in the mornings to get to work. And the one morning my wife woke up and she said that, wake up, you'd overslept at work. It was like almost six o'clock. And I said to her, I'm not going to work today.
And she said, are you off? I said, ah, I'm off. She said it's fantastic. Let's go do something. So we went to town and had a bit of a breakfast and, sat and drank a and just walked around. It was all good. And then the next morning, she shook me up again and say, you, you've overslept.
And I said, no, I'm off today. And the third morning [00:27:00] she said to me, listen, what's going on here? And I said to her, I'd actually resigned. And she means, what do you mean you've resigned? I said, oh, I've resigned. I resigned a month ago and I've worked my notice. And she said, I haven't resigned unemployed.
I said I, either way I'm unemployed, resigned. Call it what you want. And she said to me, but what are you gonna do? I said we'll start, We'll start a business with dots. I, it's something I wanna do. It's something that I'm passionate about. And, we've built up a bit of a skillset and we've subsequently trained up a few dogs.
And what initially happened is a lot of companies were a company was sending me their work and they would pay me to, do a few trailing dogs, et cetera. And, but they were invoicing the government bit money. And while this was, a bit of a cash inflow coming in, I then got the training centers sorted after we got ourselves to the point where we could start doing our own thing.
So yeah, this has been a long way probably not the most [00:28:00] normal way where people go and they then go and become dog handlers and police and, grow that way. So mine is, has been a bit of a. A bit of a long one, but the desire and passion for dogs has just, always been there.
And coming back to the falconry side is, I think it's taught me that firstly you can't really coerce, falcon too much. You can control its weight, but that doesn't prevent it from flying off, off that killed something. There still needs to be enough of a relationship that when you approach that bird and a kill, that you can actually pick it up and feed it up or take the rest of the killer away and put it up and let it onto ya.
As long as that Falcon feels that it's reciprocal and it's a team effort it's fine. At the moment, it feels cheated. It's just gone. It doesn't have to stay around. It can go and hunt itself and it can, be self-sufficient. So that, I think that has taught me.
That you have to find a bit of a, animal needs to want to do what you want to do. So you [00:29:00] need to set that dog up to the point where it's doing what you what you want it to do. But it's enjoying doing it, and, when we started biting dogs people used to come and have a look at my dogs and say, but you're doing this all wrong.
Because the, I used to always joke, I used to say, I, I raise my pups for the devil. My young dogs have got very little boundaries. There's very little discipline put into them. They're just wild, hectic, crazy pups. They run around, latch onto everything and It's just no, there's just no structure to the dogs.
And then, from, they are slowly start putting on the brakes, but I make sure that the dogs are completely fearless and that they're not scared of anything strange, anything new surfaces, they'll rush up to anyone, go and greet anyone, jump over everyone. And from there we just slowly as the dogs mature, I just slowly start putting on a bit of a break there, a little bit of structure here.
But we don't put a lot of compulsion into the young dogs because I find sometimes if you've taken it [00:30:00] out, you have a hell of a time putting it back in again. And I'll always ask myself, what is the core function of this? And if it's a dog that needs to be de detection, then that to me is the most important in terms of the hunt drive, the desire to work not how well that dog heals or how perfect his sit is.
It's the same as a bite dog, if he doesn't have the cleanest out, but he's forward and he is solid and he's calm on a bite, and he'll take a bite anywhere you give it to him. The fact that he is maybe a little bit lazy on the out is the least of my problems. But if I've got a dog that's, spits the decoy out, but he there's no power or no grip on the front and he is not really committing to the bite, to me that's a much bigger problem.
And it's the same I d. Exactly your side, but I think you guys are pretty much doing it the same way in the sense that, we don't like a dog that outs on the bite.[00:31:00] A dog that, that spits somebody out to me is a bit of a liability. I want him to stay on there until everything is under control and everyone is where they should be.
And, I can pop him all from there. I don't like a dog anticipating an while he is in the fight, and I don't want a dog when he pops off. And there's, people next to him and wants to redirect that desire to bite. We try and keep the dogs in the high state of arousal, when they in it to win it.
And the trailing with the dogs is the same. When that dog gets an opportunity, it's something that he must live for, and he knows he is gonna trail now. Nothing else must be more important than that trail. He needs to really, put himself into that trail as. And I find that if you ask yourself what is the core purpose of that dog?
And you actually focus on that more than anything else, you can always fix the other things around that core as you move on. But I think sometimes I've seen people get so caught up in obedience that [00:32:00] there's no dog left for them to beyond that they've just put way too much compulsion on the dog.
The dog was too young, it was too much. It was too much of everything. And and people, have the best intentions, they've just taken it beyond the point where the dog has lost interest. And now you want to trail with that dog and that dog needs reassurance from the handler the whole time.
He cannot be a leader. He cannot think for himself. He cannot make decisions. Every time he's faced with a challenge, he looks at the handler. And the handler needs to solve that challenge. Now go put that dog on a blind truck and you've got a completely defeat tea. And then the handler becomes stressed and it goes down this towards the dog, and the dog was stressed to start off with.
So yeah we do things a bit differently. I like to work with the natural desires of the dogs. I like a puppy to be a puppy. I never try to see how far I can get a puppy in terms of, [00:33:00] obedience or bite work. We play when we play with the dogs, when they start eating, we stop playing.
Might be a good time to go over to trailing from there. We keep everything light. We keep everything fun. And I've actually picked up some of the really big sport trainers, the guys that are really been in it for a long time. I see they're doing the same with the young dogs. There, there is not.
They're not pushing these young dogs, beyond a point where, they can't recover. They're allowing these dogs to develop into a role which they've paved the way for them. They've got a schedule that they're running on. And, for me I think that's the way and for some dogs it's fast and for other dogs it takes forever.
And this is the nice thing when you start working multiple dogs, you realize that the dog dictates the schedule. You can only do so much and beyond that you're not gonna be adding any value anymore. Yeah. Yeah. And I wanna switch gears just a tad. Can you go over so I know that [00:34:00] you started with the point of your dogs and then you made a transition into the hounds.
Clinton walk. Walk us through that process and why you did what you did, and then we'll get into the background of some of the hounds that you're running The journey on Hounds Man XP has teamed up with one tdc, 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 dog's health in four different areas, their oral health, hips, joints, and muscles, skin coat, energy and recovery.
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All right. I started off with the we had pointy air breeds. I had a Sable German Shepherd that just turned out to be an absolutely phenomenal dog. He could do everything but. Not just could he do everything. He was just a phenomenal tracking look, he was absolutely in the class of his own.
And at some stage I thought to myself I should, I should try incorporating hounds as well. Hounds are obviously bred for trailing, and I got hold of some bloodhounds and they trailed well enough. I just didn't have the same affinity for them. I think it was maybe a combination of these specific hounds were very scrappy.
They would, you couldn't feed them if there was, another dog within 10 yards of them, they'd want to climb into them. So they're very noisy. They had a very [00:36:00] specific odor to them. They were not really easy to live with, and they would go from, the correct trail.
They would. Go onto other trials, very seamless. You would literally half the time not know that they're taking you on a ghost trial. So I muck around with them a bit. I was inexperienced, I had no hound background back then. I then got a few, it's a cross that's been running since the seventies in South Africa where they actually cross dobermans and bloodhounds and then go back to the bloodhound so that you have a 75% bloodhound.
It's just a leaner, cleaner bloodhound. They're very nice. Yeah. I then went over to them and I got, I had one or two that really worked very nicely and I used them for a while and then I went, just went back to the shepherds. And the main reason for that is initially these are things that I call a learning process.
I thought it. Doesn't make sense to [00:37:00] have just a trailing dog. You want a trailing dog with a biting aspect at the end for our comprehensions. So the pointy at breeds made a lot of sense. So we went back there and it worked. We got them up and running and we did it for a while and we were running a lot of trails very much in, in the bush, so when you pick up a trail con, chances of there being other contamination was very rare.
And, I realized that the biting component was overrated. It's not something that we actually used a lot, but it was there and we continued down that path. And then the conditions under which we were working started to change. We started to run trails. Where, the trials would start off fairly uncontaminated and then they would go into village and compound type areas.
And what we then found was over and above the fact that we have not [00:38:00] trained the dogs properly to be sent specific. But what we also found is that the biting dogs would be very easily distracted by people approaching that coming past. And bicycles. They would, they'd want to get paid.
And this meant that we could only trail to a certain point without getting ourselves in trouble. We would get within maybe the last 200 yards of where the guys have actually ended up. But we couldn't make arrests. And let me explain that real quick to our listeners. What you're saying is, and I mean I see this cuz I'm, I work this con continuously is the dog goes from completely using his nose to, he goes visual cuz he is overstimulated.
And then he takes his, he just does a self reward. Like I'm done. Exactly. There's too much going on. I'm grabbing the first person that comes along and we're done. Exactly. Once they get pick. Yeah. Yeah. So go ahead. Sorry to interrupt you, but I just thought that was important to add in. [00:39:00] Wonderful. So then we started taking pointy eight breeds, specifically those that would be, let's say, a very good detection candidate.
Very hard drive, not particularly aggressive. And we still started putting trails on those dogs and that worked very well. We now had dogs that, Would really fixate on a trail. We started working more and more on contamination. We started working more on dogs being seen specific, right off the bat.
And now suddenly things were working out really well. We could have a second dog that has a bit of a trailing and biting component as backup dog. And that was basically where we had evolved to. And it was something that suited the modus operan under the conditions, which we were working extremely well.
And right about that stage, when I was comfortable with where I was at and how things were working[00:40:00] I started rethinking the whole hound situation again because I'd spoken to. To, to t bu, which is probably the biggest hounds man we've had, in, in our country probably forever in terms of being really dedicated to the art of hounds and dedicated to his breeding program.
And, I spoke to him and he actually called me. He was getting into falconry and, wanted help him, mentoring. But we were talking, he, Tim, listen, when are you getting a self proper hand? And I said, no I have, I had blood downs. He said, no man, when are you getting this south proper hound?
And I said, okay. And he said to me that, I need to re-look out, I mustn't go and get myself a high speed. I need something that will plot along and happily just straddle it, straddle a trail and, just get going. And I said he planted the seed again. And, I [00:41:00] started questioning the way I trained the Hounds originally, with the knowledge I had at that stage.
And I thought to myself I probably, didn't have the greatest of skillset in all honesty when we started with how, so I started looking at hounds and the main thing that, kept on coming back was the hounds could definitely go a lot longer and a lot harder than what the point every I've seen it over and over.
If you look at the guys Running hounds. If you let the garment, you'll have a hound that has done 30 kilometers and each average speed was 11 kilometers an hour. And, hotted is and you think just you've got the nose. They the dogs are more predisposed to work holder the trails.
You don't have to worry about aggression issues. They're not gonna, redirect when they see visual stimulus. So then I thought myself maybe I should revisit the whole idea [00:42:00] about hounds and right about then I also started scratching around a bit to see who is using hounds in main trailing, obviously there's a lot of people know specifically on, in the blood hound site And they were doing very well.
And I've got a lot of respect for a bloodhound. I just have very little inclination, to be dragged behind one all day. And roundabout then I stumbled across a video clip where I saw a hound working, but it was just something of beauty, it was just this dog was just excited and it was doing hard surface tracking.
And the next thing, lo and behold, this dog is indicating microparticles, half the size of a pinky mill. And I thought to myself, Kama this can't be to get a hound, to be this precise and to walk, work through all of this. So then I, I started, shopping around and I found out who the breeder and the trainer was.
And I realized that he is actually a highly, a skilled [00:43:00] homan. And I'm a man trailer and I spoke to him. His name is Miguel Cark. Very interesting gentleman. He's doesn't speak English, but fortunately today you can just send a text and translate it Uhhuh. And one thing grew to another and he said to me, listen, get yourself a hound and I'm this, I'm going to send you a book.
This is how we start hounds. And, just try it, he's got a specific method that it gets the hounds really wedded on odor and it gets, so that I'm much less inclined to, get, excited about other odors and other scenes and that kind of stuff. And, so the nice thing is I knew I could go back to Tni.
It was now a few years later tragically in. In a hunting incident. But the nice thing is his wife had actually still kept the whole home program up and running. She still had people going out hunting the homes. She was still [00:44:00] producing the hounds. And he contacted her and she said to me, her dogs don't really go out to anyone that's not hunting specifically, be cats and stuff.
And, what do I wanna do with a dog? I said to her I had this conversation with Terrance many years ago, and she said to me, he'd actually said to her that, when he has the right dog, he was actually, he wanted a gift, me with a right dog for man trailing. And, subsequently she did she was coming down to Johannesburg.
She asked, I could meet her and she brought out a dog there and she said, listen, If he works. If he doesn't, just bring him back, but give him a try. He is, very well bred. He's a dog with a very cold nose. And subsequently, we've started trailing and I've actually got a quite a few dogs that I've, put on exactly the same starting program, so to speak.
And they're all doing very well. It's still with [00:45:00] Hounds, it's always, still a lot of work ahead. Because especially, we have the other day we, he was trailing beautifully and I had a whole troop of ver baboons explode out of the tree and run, run, thrown at the heart.
Very difficult, for a dog to ignore those type of things when he is seven months old. And these are, these things happen, but that's why we train where we trail because, once you get the dogs totally wedded. And that's not an issue anymore. So yeah, that's basically where the Hounds, I definitely won't call myself a Hounds man.
I'm still very inexperienced when it comes to Hounds, but what I can tell you is that when it comes to trailing they aren't a part of the a, it won't take anything away from the pointy ear breeds, especially in terms of how broad scope you can use them for. But I find that the feet on the hounds are fantastic.
I'm never battling with feet. They look hot and winded, but they just don't stop, they can just keep on going. We really don't have any real issues.[00:46:00] With the heat they get hot and they get exhausted, but they just keep on working. Whereas with the pointy air breeds, when they get hot, you've gotta stop.
Or you're going to run into trouble very quickly. There's a hound that's look pretty. Wind will still give you a bit, before he really runs himself into trouble. And I just love the feet. I love the feet on the hounds. I love the fact that they live for what they do and the dream is to get the hounds as excited on man as what they are in their natural.
That to me would be the ultimate dream. If I can get the same excitement level out of a harmed, if I put him on a mantra as I would, if I put him on anything else, then I think we would've arrived in terms of conditioning and training and everything else. Because when you look at Miguel's dogs, You hardly know if that dog is on man or if it's on animal.
If you look at the excitement those dogs are absolutely pumping to get onto that trail. [00:47:00] And it's obviously got to do with, just the way he tracks. He is absolutely phenomenal at what he does and he's been doing it for a very long time. And he's very meticulous.
But at the very least we are working towards it. Our dogs are loving what they're doing. For the best part, ignoring everything else. I'm also, because I am fairly inexperienced with pounds, I'm not. Pushing things too much, every so often, we just basically stay where we are and we just do a better repetition and we just solidify some of the foundations again.
Sometimes we go back three or four steps, I find the easiest. I've never find going back has ever hindered anything. I think sometimes we are too stubborn to go back minus step. Sometimes you need to go back to the start and just to go and make sure that you solidify one of the blocks that you might be [00:48:00] running into trouble.
If you have a dog mate starting to skip the articles in the end, you need to put something in place so you can fix that. You can't be worrying about going further and further ahead if your start isn't let a fight. Because the start is the most important part of the entire trial.
And this is why Jeff, for instance, Jeff is probably the guy that can com compartmentalize things the best I've ever seen. He can break things down into beautiful bite size chunks and said this is how you're going to do it. This is where you're going to start, and this is why it's important.
Having these guys out there sharing information so that the rest of us can grow. It definitely takes a village to, to get to these points. If you have someone that can help you with these things, it just fosters your own growth and your own aggression. And we all bring something to the table.
Every time I have students, I sometimes look at something and I'll say to someone, but why are you doing it that way? [00:49:00] And, they're like all apologetic. And I'm, no, I said, no, don't apologize. I just wanna know why you're doing like, doing it that way. Cause it's brilliant. Bloody making noise.
So yeah, it's interesting. I think it's, as long as one is open to learning I think it just never stopped. Yeah. And I want to go back just a bit again I'm backtracking on you. The bloodhounds that I see are more show quality or show bread. They've got a really thick skin, a lot of droopy skin through their eyes and their nose and on their flaws.
And that's just not conducive to what we want to accomplish. The dogs are too heavy, they get too hot. And like you said, they, you can't hardly handle a hundred pound bloodhound. Pulling you through the country. And then the second thing I wanted you to hit back, go back on and touch on is for our listeners, I think it's so [00:50:00] interesting, I want you to talk about Tennis's Bloodline and where it started, what he added and took away to get to where you're at today.
I would hardly be qualified to, to discuss his work because it's, so vast and he's, put so much time, effort, and love and dedication into it. But just in a rough summary he started off with predominantly, I think it was Smokey River Bluetick. He imported a bunch of dogs.
Just to give the viewers listeners a bit of background, genesis, the. He was a bigger hunter of large predators. Predominant lived on the continent for 30 years. He was hunting 300 days out of the year. And he just hunts the cats. That's what he specializes in. [00:51:00] And he had these blue ticks. He'd obviously selected them over the years.
They worked extremely well for him. They ticked all the boxes and then at some stage we hit quite a bad drought. Our country is quite prone to droughts and, some of these cycles will last up to seven years. And a lot of the areas where we hunt cats, we've got, it's just very sandy and the sand just doesn't wanna hold sand very well.
And what also happens is, with especially your big cats like iron. If you find a track and it's 10 hours old, you have to work it because you can go search for another week and not find another track. The home ranges are extremely big. So you can't be particularly picky and say this track is not fresh enough.
And what was happening is you ran into problems with a drought and realized that his dogs were having a very hard time on the really aged track. Then made [00:52:00] a conscious decision and he actually went and saw a few people and wen had a look at dogs and he imported some grand Gascon dogs.
And he ran two lines. Another one was the gangster line, the other one I can't even remember, to be quite honest. And what he then did is he started adding these dogs to. To his current lines. And subsequently he started getting colder noses on these dogs. And, the dogs could go there two or three hours on the tracks.
And then from there he actually started to basically mix the different blood lines to come up with what he would call a really good all-purpose doc. Something that could work the age tracks and that had enough stamina and not as, as heavy and cumbersome as the gascons, [00:53:00] something that could put.
And and I still had, and what important fort was, you needed dogs with heart. A lot of dogs will not work a line. They might work. But if they pick up a lion trail that starts getting fresh, it starts getting hot today, they don't wanna work it. So he was very adamant that his s needed to be brave.
They shouldn't be fearful of lion. And subsequently he selected his different lions and he ended up with, he used to call him his African blues, which was basically a mixture of some really good old school blue ticks. And some, and he even had some petite in there as well.
And he standardized these dogs to the point where the genome phenotype was pretty set. And these became his dogs of choice in terms of hunting, moving on from. Yeah. Yeah. When you had sent me that clip, what, and especially for you, blue [00:54:00] ticket enthusiast out there that's listening.
He got dogs for Mr. V, for Mr. Vaughn. He got JJ Henman's dogs. He incorporated that into the gas con. And then he actually tweaked it because he, they were too big and cumbersome, like what you said and put the petite in. But one of the things that I thought was fascinating, Clinton, when you sent me that video and it was showing he was going through his dogs and he had a dog named Buck, which was a two year old dog that was, he was gonna start implementing into his breeding program that looked like Dale Cameron's old dogs.
And I know that Dale had picked dogs from both people mentioned just now, but the coloration was the same. Pumpkin seed over the eyes. The dark rich and Dale used to call it velvet. They looked like they're, they had velvet had the same coat and coloring the same blaze up the nose into the eyes.[00:55:00]
When I seen that dog, it was like, holy cow. You're, you got, you. Look, you could take that dog in planet into Dale's dogs and no one would know the difference. That's how much they looked alike. And that was one of the things that I thought was amazing, that, here tennis has taken this group of dogs and mixed it up and produced a product that he wanted.
And, Dale had done the same thing over time and they looked the same. And you're, thousands and thousands of miles apart, and those two probably never spoke in their life and they're producing the dogs that look exactly alike. I thought that was interesting to me.
It actually must say quite a lot for form follows function, I would presume. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That is amazing. So let's just real quick, we'll tap in a little bit of the, we could go on and on and we haven't even gotten into the training side yet. So just to [00:56:00] to back to reiterate why, so you and I both have worked pointier dogs.
We understand what they do well, what they don't do well. Some of the and I don't wanna say a fault, but most of the pointier dogs that we're running tracking now we have got away from that visual stimulation, but it's still there. It's still hard to work them through some of that that overstimulation sometimes.
And if they get overstimulated, you're all you. Would you agree? They're done. It's hard to get them back on task. Finish. Don't get them back for minute. It's done. Yeah. Yeah. So the hound and I'm a ham, like I'm a hound guy. Like I'm, that's what, I live and breathe for. And I have stayed away from the bloodhounds in my career with me personally because of some of the things that, that we've just talked about.
And I, one of my very first trainers his name was Bear Brooks Dave Brooks was [00:57:00] one of my very first trainers and I had just gotten. Dogs from Dale Cameron, which is the Blue Dogs. And when da, when Bear seen my male dog, I called him Clyde, he told me, he's Hey, you need to put him on people. And I'm like, Uhuh I'm not taking that dog and put, I wanna catch bear.
Like I don't wanna catch people. Yeah. But Dave, he stayed on me for months and probably until he retired he would always bring it up. You need to be using that dog, you need to be using that dog. And I never did, but what I'm getting back to is that, the hounds are what drives me.
And I've had numerous people throughout my career say, you should be using these dogs in your trailing. And it's so hard. I don't know, maybe this doesn't sound right, but it's so hard for me to take such a value, like the enjoyment that I have. And take it to catch man, which then it is the same sense.[00:58:00]
There's no more emotions, feelings, satisfaction in catching somebody that's trying to evade you. And a man is the number one like that. It doesn't get any higher than that. So maybe I need to rethink my process, but but hounds are a unique animal. And for you to be able to take those and because of the climate you're in, the trailing conditions and put those to use is amazing that that you've, you're implementing that.
And I can see so many benefits from what you're doing, but I wanna talk about the train in just a little bit. Before we get off here one of the things that you had talked about is when the dog, when the dog starts to fail, I really want you to go through that process, your feelings on it, and why a lot of times we [00:59:00] are the the nemesis of that process.
S all right. Initially when I started trailing dogs, and it is something that, that I advocated to my students as well. I would always say to, to them, the dog must never fail. We can make it harder and harder for him to be successful, and now that failure should never be an option now that the dog needs to be successful and.
If a dog did a good trail, let's say we had a bit of a surface change and, the trail became a bit difficult and a dog lost it, we would actually call the guy at the back, that was running and just do a quick fire truck, because the dog tried hard and he did a good job and we need to just, pick him up a bit.
And subsequently, I have changed my view on that completely. I've done a, I've done a complete 180 on [01:00:00] that one. We telling the dogs, listen if you give up, we'll change the parameters and make it easier for you. So if you are having a hard time and it's becoming tough, just let us know and, we'll do a reset and we'll give you a quick one.
I believe that. As with people, I think hardships both character have not come across people who have had extremely easy lives and found to be very resilient when it comes to hardships. And I think exactly the same happens, if we look at, I don't think we can have a better understanding than nature itself.
If you have a predator and it's hunting and it's been unsuccessful three or four times and it's now hangry and it's emaciated and it can't give up, because giving up means death. It means the end of it. So the failure is teaching the dog to be more creative, that animal.
He needs to get closer, he needs to take [01:01:00] cognizance of his surroundings, he needs to be patient. And I find with, especially with the house, but with all dogs, I find that the moment we interfere, they start looking at us for guidance. So every time things become difficult, they look at us as if, listen, just give us a little bit of a hint, just a little bit of help.
And the more you help, the more they expect it from you. And I believe if a dog has worked hard and he suddenly, picked up a different trail and he's investigated it and come back and he can't find his trail, just put him up, tomorrow he's gonna think about it. And, something that I never used to do when I am doing it now is, Miguel carbo said to me that even if you have a high drive dog, like a pointy air dog, why don't you trail it on?
And, after the food, you can still go back to the toy or the tug or whatever. [01:02:00] And I said to my, now, I haven't got a problem with it. It just, it doesn't make any sense. And, he said to me, what happens if that dog is becomes flat close to the end of the trail? Let's say you've extended the trail and the dog has worked, that's used to doing a mile.
Now the trail is one and a half miles and somewhere beyond the mile the dog becomes a bit flat. Now you put the dog up, is that dog going to, be spending the whole night thinking, damn, as I could've had my ball on my tub. But if he hasn't eaten, if he hasn't eaten every hour, that ticks away, his stomach is saying to him, listen, it wasn't so smart.
Giving up or, trashing on that trail while you were on trail. And it's a primal thing. It's such a primal thing. And you can, we all think, my dog has got a hard drive. He's not very food driven, but don't feed him for four days and you'll be surprised how food driven he becomes and how focused he becomes.
And Miguel's got a beautiful way [01:03:00] of expressing it. He says, you, you never withhold food from a dog. You give him the option to eat. If he chooses not to, then you make sure that you give him another opportunity the next day. The option is always there. You make sure that it's within the dog's capability.
You make sure in terms of distance and age and weather conditions, that it's doable. The dog makes the conscious decision. And especially if it's a dog that basically gives up because it's starting to either get hot or tired or things are getting a bit difficult, then you have the option of saying to him, alright, let's try again tomorrow.
And you put him away and tomorrow morning he comes out and guess what, it's 12 or 24 hours later, hasn't had a meal. And suddenly his priorities seem to align a little bit better and he's more focused. And now when he gets there, you can make a big scene of it. You can even feed [01:04:00] him more than he would normally give, and you can go and put him up and skip a day.
Just make it, let him realize how big that reward was at the end. And it's the same thing as with the quality of the food. His dogs are all on dry ki. But when they get to the end of the trail it's literally a five style buffet. There's, it's not just about how hungry I am it's just, there's something absolutely incredible at the end of this trail waiting for me.
And it's always that. And if the trail is harder and longer or aged, the buffet is even better. And he goes through painstaking time, mixing up different concoctions of hos and livers and stuff to make sure he knows what actually has the highest motivational value for that specific dog. So it's very interesting.
I believe if a dog files it might be our fault or what he can try again, but, not 10 minutes later, I like to put the. Take him [01:05:00] out, give him some time to think about it. And I think failure balls at ball's character I've had dogs that fail and when I go out the next day, it's, they've they just bring the A game.
You can actually see that dog is now really, he needs to get to the end of this study. It's not just enjoying the travel. He's actually now compulsive on that truck. He's like just really gunning it. And it's got to do with the fact that he's even skipped a meal. It's just that he knows he has to try harder or sometimes what I find is if you've got dogs that are working fast and you have surface changes, they start making a lot of mistakes.
And when you take them out the next day, you know when they've done their circuits and they run into trouble and you put them up when you take them out the next day and they hit the same surface. You have this light mo bulb, this light bulb moment, and you have this dog actually slow down and now he is picking at that trail and he's suddenly makes it look easy.
He is now, his mind is now [01:06:00] working. He's now focusing on the problem in front of him and he's now starting to pick away edit. And he gets through that area and he goes off and he gets paid. And, something that I think we forget is that the be it food, be it a Kong, be it whatever is only part of the reward, the amount of praise reli on the dog at the end of that trial is just as important.
If not speaks of the physical, of the emotion of a dog at the end of the trial. Now he, when gets there and he starts eating. Is, he constantly,
if it's our hound, that tile needs to be over, over the dog. He just lavishness on that hound to the point where, you know, that hound thinks this is just the best thing. It's not just your food. And, one of the reasons he likes is because [01:07:00] he's, how many people can you put a that's gonna, that's gonna reward a bartender properly?
Very few people actually know how to, especially if it's the dog is there for the engagement and for the tug. If he gets there, someone is a bit apprehensive for the dog and throw the target at him or whatever it's not gonna have the same value. And this is why he likes food, because obviously food, all you have to do open the Tupperware, and then obviously when you get, there's the handler, you can start really telling this dog just how amazing he is and, getting him to like really, enjoy that moment.
And, you try and extend that moment as long as possible. And it's all about your voice and your inputs and, these are things that we forget about. We just, the dog finds his food and the food is the reward. The food should only be a portion of the reward. It's, and I think this is why it's also important if we look at house we should, the hounds don't eat with the.[01:08:00]
What the catch at the head is, it's not about them being fed it's about hunt. So if we can get man dogs to enjoy the hunt as much as what the hunting dogs are, I think it becomes a full circle. You have dogs that become so true to trail that they aren't interested in anything else because the trail becomes self satisfying and then whatever they get at the end is just a big added bonus.
Yeah. You're taking, I'm a big proponent of food. I've talked about it numerous times on this podcast, and you're just taking one of three things a dog needs to survive and again, implement it into his training and implemented it into his success in whatever task it is that you're asking that dog to perform.
That's primal. Yes it's absolutely primal. It's hardwired within them. It's only because we [01:09:00] allow them bowls full of food that they can eat at. That we start chipping away at that primal desire. And I have people telling me that, I would like to do that, but my doesn't have any interest in food.
Oh yeah. But these are the same people that feed the dog twice a day and then when they train, it's high value treats. The high value treats is half a pound worth. And when they send the dog to me, all I do is I ask the dog to do something or food if he refuses, we try again tomorrow. Yep. And normally on, on day four, I have a dog that has healthy respect and desire for Kip.
Yep. And life moves on and nobody's died. Dog might have lost two pounds in the process, but now the dog is focused, the dog is willing to give me something. I can start shaping behaviors and life is good. Everyone is happy. Yep. No, that's exactly same [01:10:00] train of philosophy. Philosophy that I have. Clinton, and I've probably taken up enough of your time today, but I would love to do a follow up because we, there was some more interesting stuff that you and I have talked about over the last week that I would love for the listeners to get an insight to.
Is there anything that you'd like to add to, to wrap this up? Anything that you'd like to say as far as about the hounds, about trailing, about training, anything in that. I think the good positive part is that I think there's enough knowledgeable people out there that are willing to share.
And, I think it takes a village to raise a working dog, a biting dog a trailing dog, a hunting hound. I think it takes, it takes quite a support structure to actually get these things going. And, I think the more people that can network and can share information, the easier it becomes [01:11:00] because we all individuals, I'm basically stuck here.
There's no one that can assist me with things, but it doesn't mean that I don't have a support network. It doesn't mean that I can't, pop a message to Jeff and, look him for advice. So I think the fact that the world has become, so small and inter intertwined is a big plus.
And. I think the more people get interested in hounds in terms of man I would like to, so even have maning lines for hounds where you actually have breeders producing dogs that are predisposed to a hunting man. It sounds ridiculous, but I think that would be, first prize if you actually have enough people.
And I'm, much as I, I disliked my first hound into. Actions initially. Now having a bit more knowledge and having [01:12:00] slightly different type of hounds, very different type of hounds. I enjoy living with them. I enjoy co inhabiting with them. I enjoy trailing with them. Everything about them is a lot of fun.
And I can't see myself being without hounds again anytime soon just because, the pleasure that they gave me. And watching a hound on trail to me is probably one of the. The most beautiful things. And my, my next step I'm working towards is, to get my house to actually open up on trail when they're hunting, man.
And I'll be super excited. Yeah. Yeah. And I've always wondered about, for me I want us to be quiet. And I've noticed what little bit I know about the hounds. And it always I laugh, I chuckle about it when you see TV and. See him go chasing the prisoner that escaped and on TV shows and then, the doc, the bloodhounds are just baying and opening.
I'm like, I've never heard that. Like I've never [01:13:00] heard that. No, but to me it would just mean that I've actually gotten that dog to the point where he's now really excited. Thanks. Yeah. That to me means we've been doing something right. But yeah, we'll see. It's always nice speaking to like-minded people and thank you so much for having me.
And we've had previous conversations. It's always extremely interesting learning what you guys are doing, that side of the globe. And just as everything is different, everything is also the same. We all have the same challenges and, face to the same adversities and it's always very interesting speaking to other people.
And, I look actually look forward to, listening to some of your other podcasts just in terms of hounds. I'm not a, I'm not a Hounds man, so I'm learning and I think it's a wealth of information and I think the fact that you were willing to take your personal time while you still, include it full-time and putting it out there and sharing with other people is absolutely amazing.[01:14:00]
Yeah. Like I said, it's a, it's an honor to have you on Clinton. Like I said I'm a lifelong I'm to, I'm a lifelong learner and anything that I can I've picked up tidbits from what our conversation was just this, just now, there's stuff that I'm gonna implement and try my program.
So that's what it's about is getting better. So with exactly, with each podcast, I end it with Clinton, thank you for helping us teach, train, and learn. It was only a pleasure. Thank you for having me.
