Join us on a captivating journey as fourth-generation Floridian, Louie Pappas opens up about his experiences training his retriever, Red. With the support of the Cornerstone Gun Dog Academy (CGA), Louie chronicles the lessons learned from generations of hunting in his family, the cherished artifacts passed down, and the intoxicating allure of waterfowl hunting. Listen as he reveals his joyous and challenging moments - from the day he picked up Red to their current training sessions.
Louie shares the highs and lows of dog training, reflecting on his evolving goals and the importance of taking each day as it comes. With a supportive community like CGA, he discusses the invaluable role it plays in fostering confident decision-making for your dog's training. From introducing Red to water in sunny Florida, keeping him cool on a boat in the summer, to training him for unique hunting situations - Louie's journey is a testament to patience, dedication, and an all-consuming passion for waterfowl retriever training.
Lastly, whether you're new to dog training or a seasoned trainer, this episode provides a treasure trove of wisdom, anecdotes, and advice that's hard to pass up. Want to train your dog like Louie? Visit https://www.cornerstonegundogacademy.com
Join us on a captivating journey as fourth-generation Floridian, Louie Pappas opens up about his experiences training his retriever, Red. With the support of the Cornerstone Gun Dog Academy (CGA), Louie chronicles the lessons learned from generations of hunting in his family, the cherished artifacts passed down, and the intoxicating allure of waterfowl hunting. Listen as he reveals his joyous and challenging moments - from the day he picked up Red to their current training sessions.
Louie shares the highs and lows of dog training, reflecting on his evolving goals and the importance of taking each day as it comes. With a supportive community like CGA, he discusses the invaluable role it plays in fostering confident decision-making for your dog's training. From introducing Red to water in sunny Florida, keeping him cool on a boat in the summer, to training him for unique hunting situations - Louie's journey is a testament to patience, dedication, and an all-consuming passion for waterfowl retriever training.
Lastly, whether you're new to dog training or a seasoned trainer, this episode provides a treasure trove of wisdom, anecdotes, and advice that's hard to pass up. Want to train your dog like Louie? Visit https://www.cornerstonegundogacademy.com
Cornerstone Gun Dog Academy online resources to help you train your retriever.
Speaker 2:Welcome to another episode of the Build From here podcast. I've got Louis Papas here. I'm very excited to have him on and be sharing with him. First of all, I just want to just say you know, we've been, we've been in conversation for quite a while just with him and his dog, every year or so, and just his journey and his growth have been incredible to watch.
Speaker 2:It's always fun to see everyone you know come in, whether they've had a dog before as their first dog, and start that journey and then, kind of you know, get their feet wet and then all of a sudden they're all in and then making their dog something that they're proud of. But, with that said, I think Louis has just done an incredible job and we want to honor you before we bring you on here and just say that you know it takes a lot to do what you've done. You know making a commitment to train your dog. You know it's not something to take lightly and a lot of people do take it lightly sometimes and they realize they end up getting in over their head. But it's just something that all that matters is that you pace yourself like you've done and you continue to do, continuing to develop your dog. So congratulations on doing such a good job and welcome to the podcast man. How are you?
Speaker 3:Josh, thank you, I appreciate it and you know. First, I just like to say how much I've appreciated you and Barton and all the help you guys have given me along the way. You know this is something that I've certainly never experienced before. I was not prepared for and I just knew that I wanted it. I didn't know how to get there at first and without you guys I couldn't have gotten there. So I just want to say thank you and I appreciate it. I'm happy to sit here and talk, and all the trials, the triumphs and everything in between. So all is well down here. I'm, you know, west Coast of Florida. We're entering fall. It's not as cold as we'd like it to be, but it's cool enough to not complain. So all is good down here.
Speaker 2:That's awesome, man. Well, let's just get to the very beginning of your story. Yeah, so you're in. Have you always lived in Florida? What's, what's your story there and how'd? You end up where you're at now.
Speaker 3:So I've been born and raised in the state of Florida. My family's been here in Tarpon Springs for over a hundred years. I'm a fourth generation Floridian. You know it's before college it's. You know every small town right. You know everybody on every corner. You know everyone that you go to high school with and their parents went to the same high school and their grandparents from the same high school. So, small town just outside of Tampa, big Greek community. I'm obviously Greek and you know it's kind of where it all started.
Speaker 3:I I've gotten to hunting at a really young age with my, my grandfather and my dad introducing it to me, with other Greeks out in Southwest Nebraska. It's kind of a third generation family friend at this point and it's, you know, certainly more so family than friend at this point. But you know it started really young and we've we've had that relationship for a long time and it all started around, you know, eating and laughing together and you know my grandfather had met my buddy Nick's grandfather back in the seventies, late seventies, early eighties, and I mean it's pretty much been every single year since then where my grandfather was going out there, then my dad was going out there and then, you know, roughly eight years old. I started going out there and we haven't really skipped a beat, so that's where it all kind of started.
Speaker 2:So was it all waterfowl or deer kind of a little bit of everything out that way.
Speaker 3:All waterfowl. I mean I I've killed a couple of deer in my life, but I hadn't shot a deer until later. You know, when I really got to college it was all waterfowl growing up, shooting, shotguns, shooting. You know skeet and trap stuff like that. And you know Southwest Nebraska they're on the Platte River is notoriously known for for really all game, but certainly waterfowl, ducks and geese and that's what I grew up on and that's all I really knew. You know from a very young age, hunting wise, in fact. This and I know people listening can't see it, but this piece of art behind me was given by my buddy Nick's grandfather to my grandfather and I think there's a date on the back of it like the early eighties. So that came from Nebraska and it looks exactly like that to this day.
Speaker 2:So that's insane. That's a beautiful painting, by the way. Well, that's man, that's. That's so incredible to have that much lineage of hunting and just relationship and I love what you're talking about there. Just it's you guys having a good time connecting. I feel like that's what when I was getting into waterfowling, what drew me to the whole. It's a different culture than just your regular deer hunting and stuff like that, which is what I grew up with and I still love to do. But there's something about being in a blind where you can chat, sit back, kick back, eat some good food and laugh a bit. That's man. That's what it's about.
Speaker 3:You know it's. It's funny because the saying that I found myself continue to say is that you're when you're hunting waterfowl, or really when you're when you're tarpon fishing which I can relate to here at home fly fishing you're always waiting and you're never really ready. So you know, as long as you've got a good group of guys and friends and you know there's a lot of drivers around you, you can burn a whole day, 12 hours, and you may, or you know, kill a limit in a couple hours or you might not shoot your gun over that 12 hour period, but you will laugh, you will eat and you will have a great time doing it. So that's, that's kind of what makes it for me.
Speaker 2:Man, that's awesome. So let's talk about Florida a little bit and then we'll kind of dive into some more of your story, since you're down there doing some fishing, training the whole nine yards with your dog there. What, what's that kind of like your? You know you got a little bit of a trek. I'm assuming most of your waterfowl is done in Nebraska, where you all we're here talking about there.
Speaker 3:It is. I mean there's, you know, the West Coast of Florida where I've grown up. There we get a decent bit of waterfowl, believe it or not, and I'm not going to say it's the best kept secret because it doesn't compare to, you know, the Mississippi flyway or out West by any means. It's certainly very different but we do get it. Training it's very seasonal on on what you can do because of the heat. So you know, when I first got this dog I got, I picked up my puppy Red from SOK, from Southern Oak Kennels, the end of January of last year. So he's almost two, he'll be two in a couple of weeks here, but when I picked him up it was still cool out. I had, you know, three or four months to work him. But that's the other beauty of being in Florida. You know I'm down here fishing all the time and you know I've got a boat. So I think it was like the first week or two that I had him home. After socializing him and, you know, getting familiar with just the territory and taking him in and out of Lowe's and Home Depot and family's houses and other dogs and all that stuff, my wife Aubrey and I took him out on our boat and we ran to one of the spoil islands out here and I knew, you know, I was so nervous ahead of it, this being my first dog and not wanting to mess anything up and, you know, just trying to be as delicate. But stick to the process. I just trusted the process and I introduced him to water in February down here and it was, you know, hot for most people. It would certainly be warm for you, but I think it was like a, you know, mid to high sixties day. The water temperature was probably in the seventies or so for that time of year and I was worried that, you know, is he going to be a swimmer? And everyone is telling me, yes, he's alive, he's going to love this one. You know, you have nothing to worry about. Well, I had to go out there and I took him out there and I hopped in and we were in a couple feet of water. I put the power pull anchors down and I just started kind of back pedaling and you know, up, up, up, up and started clapping my hands. And here he comes and I run a 25 foot bay boat. So from the bow of the boat to the surface of the water. It's about five feet, oh wow. And I was like, okay, you know, that's a bit of a jump, but he's landing a water, it'll be okay. And I started backing up and he just full out, full speed, all he could give, and just air mailed it off the bow of the boat and started swimming around in circles and swam to me and we went up on the beach and he absolutely loved the water. So it was, it was something that I got to put to bed quickly no water, okay, check, one less thing to worry about and just enjoy the date out there with him.
Speaker 3:And you know, every opportunity I got living in Florida on the boat quite a bit, he was always there with me and I would turn boating days into training days, right. So, getting on place and just starting the place, the click or treat, first process, I'd be on the boat and I'd have a cooler and I would tell him, you know, place on the bow of the boat while we're sitting there at the island, you know whatever, drinking a couple beers, and he would get up on his place, boar, and I'd bring hot dogs with me and I just I took every opportunity that I could to get him into the environment, into the mentality of training and he loves it To this day. If I mentioned the word or the sentence do you want to train? He loses it. He loves it, he absolutely loves it.
Speaker 3:So it's being in Florida, having the boat, having the water. It's certainly a blessing in a lot of ways and you know summertime rolls around, it gets pretty hot here, so the training days are very limited and even in July and August when it gets really, really hot, I can't bring him on the boat because the water temps 90, it's 95 out and it's just too hot to bring really borderline of human out there for too long. So you know you just keep it short first thing in the morning or late evenings and you know you get what you can in for that two or three month period.
Speaker 2:Wow, yeah, it sounds like the paradise for most of the year, until it gets a little hot for dogs. It's Alabama gets hot too in the summer, so but not quite Florida hot. That sun well, it'll get you pretty good when you're down there. Now, one thing I was just thinking about, since you've kind of had the hunting in your lineage for a while, but big part of your family and your heritage is that is the dogs been around. Has that always been something that your family's had?
Speaker 3:It's interesting because there's kind of two parts to this story. It's what got me into the dog thing. Number one and the growing up hunting out west. To be honest, it didn't Were there dogs around. Yes, every time we would hunt, whoever we were hunting with had a dog. It's just too cold, the river's too cold and sometimes it's too deep or we're hunting lakes or whatever it is and we can't get in the water. So there were always dogs, but at eight or nine or 10 years old it was a tool. It wasn't another guy's dog who you may or may not have known. Depending on who we were hunting with right With the family and with the friends, there was always somebody there with a dog. And that was not what got me fired up. I know when I think it was I want to say maybe my late teens, early twenties. My cousin of mine, tommy, who I'm very close with. He got a dog from Wild Rose Kennels. His dog's name's Finn. He's 12 years old now and he was trained at Wild Rose and a phenomenal dog. A lot of drive and even then, because Tommy was eight or nine years older than me, he was hunting with Finn a lot. I was in college so I didn't get a real relationship until later with Finn.
Speaker 3:What got me really into the whole dog idea and where I fell in love with the idea of getting my own bird dog was in college with one of my best friends, jeff Bauer, who now has a Southern Oak dog. He had a dog in college and we hunted our butts off in college. So we were at Stetson on the East Coast of Florida. There's a place called Mosquito Lagoon which is known in Florida for one of the better duck hunting areas in the state, and in Mosquito Lagoon you can only hunt Friday, saturdays and Wednesdays.
Speaker 3:So Wednesdays before class he and I would burn up the road about 45 minutes and he had a dog that was not professionally trained, he just had an unbelievable relationship with Jeff and it stuck to me to where I was like, oh my goodness, I don't know when, but I will be getting a dog because I want a relationship like that. And Jeff's dog, ford. That was that unbreakable bond and he picked up all the ducks for us and I saw firsthand a working dog as a young adult, different than when you're eight, nine or 10 years old, something you certainly appreciate more. And Jeff and I lived together in college, so I spent a lot of time with Ford and Ford was, without a doubt, the reason that I was. You know, I turned into the mindset of I got to have a bird dog. I want to have that experience and that bond with the dog on my own.
Speaker 2:Wow. So that's really that's amazing and I love those stories where you know just past experiences like that make you have to have to get a dog. What was your timeline like in your life after seeing Ford? At what point did you make the commitment and the plunge and let's talk about leading up to that? You know what were some things you were looking for in a dog and like that you had to have? I know it seems that the bond was super important to you, but what was some other character traits you were kind of looking for that you really wanted to have?
Speaker 3:You know, believe it or not, and I feel like this kind of goes without saying, but being so young and just not having a ton of exposure. So, backing up a little bit, through high school, in the first couple of years of college I was playing football to where I think it was my sophomore, junior, senior year of high school. I couldn't go out West, I couldn't hunt because it was all football, football, football. That was my whole high school deal. And even into college I played in college and that was all I cared about. That was my dream. I focused heavily on that when I stopped playing football in college and I started back doing the normal things I'd like to do shooting, skied. I shot competitively in college and I had the opportunity to hunt a lot more when I saw not just Ford going and picking up ducks and just being a cool dog that he was, it was the obedience factor that I thought was incredible.
Speaker 3:There was one particular story where we went out for dinner or whatever, and I think we went out to lunch and we left a full pizza on the kitchen counter and we left Ford at the house as we normally would, and we got back to the house and Ford had an entire pool of drool surrounding him at his feet and he was just sitting there standing at the food and the food was untouched and I was like, oh my goodness, that's amazing. It's incredible. Is this normal? I didn't have really anything to compare it to, but Jeff and I started we found came across Southern Oak Kennels probably through social media at the time, and I remember when Barton introduced red on social media and I was like oh yep, that's it.
Speaker 3:I gotta have something just like that.
Speaker 3:I want a dog that can jump a mile, that can run as fast as any dog can and is essentially fearless.
Speaker 3:I wanted that drive and so I remember when Barton introduced red, jeff and I were talking about it and I'm like you know what. This is not the opportunity for me to get a dog. I was 21 or 22 years old. I wanted to get established, get on my feet, have a place for the dog, and I wanted to do it the right way. And as difficult as it is, being that young and being patient, I really forced myself to not get a dog at 21 years old or not get a puppy that young and graduate from college, get my life in order and find the passion that I wanted to do in life. And once all of those things started happening to me, I remember reaching out to Barton, going through the process and picking my puppy out from red and the mother was Scarlett and I waited almost a year and a half for that litter. So it was really well thought out and I really took my time and I was very patient with that process.
Speaker 2:That's incredible. Well, the weight was worth it, I guess in that timeframe, let's talk about your mindset going into this. So this would be your first dog to have yourself. What were you thinking about training? What was your process kind of leading up to that? Were you kind of thinking DIY just because your buddy had done a good job with his dog forward? Is that kind of what made you lean to doing it yourself, or what's the story there?
Speaker 3:It was and going into it, the initial thought was do it myself, jeff did it. Ford was a great dog. This dog, red, comes from a great line genetically and he's got all of the genetics and the history and the background and the pedigree to be a good dog. How hard could it be? Type of thing. That was the initial thought. And I had known my cousin, tommy, had his dog, finn, that was trained at Wild Rose and was way more of a polished dog, if you will right.
Speaker 3:So, Ford didn't have the hand signals down, he wasn't running 150 yard blinds, he was just a naturally very gifted dog and incredibly obedient he was, you know, and that's all I was really looking for. Once I started kind of looking around and YouTubeing, getting on Google and I mean, that's really how I came across CGA and at the time I didn't know that, you know, Bart had any affiliation with it or was promoting it or anything like that. I just stumbled across it, googling and looking into it and I was like, okay, wait a minute, there's a lot more that goes into this than I thought. So leading up to getting the puppy, I was dead set on training the dog with the idea that you know what, even if this doesn't go too well over the next three or four months, maybe I can just send them back and I'll just send them and let you know Barton's team train them for six months or whatever.
Speaker 3:So I decided to give it a shot and that's kind of what put me in the position was I had something to fall back on. But CGA looks as legit as it possibly can be because, you know, searching the internet I didn't come across anything other than like random clips of different YouTube videos of different trainers, and they might have like a three or five series on like force fetch or hand signals or introduction to water or whatever it is. There was no constant A to Z with every letter in between until I found CGA.
Speaker 2:That's awesome, so that puts you at ease a little bit. Let's talk a bit about kind of the emotions. You know the idea of the fallback position. So I think a lot of people, when they're getting into training, are really thinking about. You know, do I have what it takes? Is that something that was in the back of your mind or you kind of felt like you could do it? You just wanted to make sure that your dog was gonna reach that potential.
Speaker 3:The end goal was what drove me from the get go. I know what I wanted the end product to look like. I wasn't concerned on whether or not I had what it took. You know, from a standpoint of I know how to be disciplined, I know how to do things on a daily basis, work hard. It's kind of the football mindset, right, of just growing up. You work hard, you put enough time into something and it does pay off, and I knew that. But what I was really concerned with was well, what happens if you hit a roadblock? You don't have no idea what you're doing. Who do you have the fallback on to talk to about this? You know, the videos are only so much and they don't show X, y and Z. You know, because at the end of the day, it was you training violet and every dog is different, right? So the way violet reacts to something or introduction to a real live bird is not necessarily what my dog's gonna react like. So I was more concerned that if I hit a wall, what do I do? So once I let me back up I picked up my red little red the end of January, right after Nebraska.
Speaker 3:I flew from Nebraska to pick them up and I had talked to Barton you know what's the best way to go about training here and he said CGA, 100%. And we spoke about it for probably an hour. And I spoke to you about it for about an hour and both of you had mentioned that there was a members group. So I was like, okay, so there's other people going through this. This is a big community. You know, I can always reach out and you know, maybe at the time I had no idea on how receptive other people would be to me asking questions or anything. But you know I decided to give it a shot.
Speaker 3:So once I committed to CGA and I bought 52 plus, I immediately log in and you know, go on Facebook and I find the group. I get on the group and I mean I've still got the posts are still probably there. But you know, as simple as how many pieces do you cut the hot dog up into? Right, right, right. So just the little things.
Speaker 3:And you know, going back, I know CJA has those videos, but you know, is your dog supposed to be slightly tilted when you tell him to get on to place or is he supposed to be looking directly at you? And you know how do you discipline a 10 or 12 week dog, or do you even discipline a 10 or 12 week dog? And all of the little things that you might not find or see on these videos. I could go to this members group for and every single time I posted if it wasn't you or Barton responding which most of the time you guys did I would get a ton of feedback from everybody else, and without the members group I simply could not have done it. It was incredible how receptive everybody was and how creative a community it really is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the community is awesome, man, and I know we already talked about that a little bit, but you know, for us, the members are everything when it comes to this. Just because without you guys putting in the work and doing what shall do, which is train your dog, using the videos and the resource of the community to kind of rally behind you and help you on your journey, you know we couldn't exist and so you know we're really, we're really grateful for you guys and, honestly, your first time through, it's a lot of information to take in. So, having the community too, because you could watch all the videos but you can still miss stuff, just because who knows what your dog is doing something, your family member says something to you and you miss one important nugget, you know, and then that one nugget you may need or maybe it's, like you said, a different little, it's slightly different situation, and you're trying to figure out. Okay, how do I piece this in exactly to fit my specific situation? And that's what I love about just the members. You know you got good people in there that share good thoughts and help you. Just give you some stuff to think about for yourself, to make your own decisions, and that's the other thing I love about you guys is you'll make good decisions.
Speaker 2:You know, you think through things and if you look on other groups out there just not groups just generally out there and other information there's some crazy decisions being made out there and I think one of the advice that's recommended, I'm like man, we really got to be thinking a little bit, you know. But I don't have that feeling inside of our group because most of the things I see in there are really on point and are very good. So it's always good to see that community, so kind of your vision and your goal. Let's talk about that. What was the idealistic picture for your little red? Where do you want him to be? Where did you want him to be when you were starting this journey and what was your perception of like how long is this journey going to be and what did you expect to have to give input to get out what you were hoping to get?
Speaker 3:So it certainly evolved right. When I first got him as a puppy, the goal was okay, an obedient dog that can go pick up ducks, that doesn't break, that doesn't line and loves what he does. Very simple, right? That's what I wanted to do and I thought to myself at the time okay, you follow the videos step by step, one day at a time, and you'll get there. And the reality was is that, you know, going into the first three months, right, thinking like the month one, two and three checklists when you're in, like basic obedience, and getting him through that stuff, I was like, oh man, bring him to my office with my other colleagues when he was just a puppy. You're going to families or friends houses and I tell him to place and he gets on that chair. And it's just so rewarding at such a young age for that puppy.
Speaker 3:Now, fast forwarding right From having him at 12, 16 or 20 weeks to now, like I said, he's almost two. The goal has changed quite a bit. I've gotten him so much further than I would have ever expected to get him on my own. It's so rewarding to see and, you know, looking back, even when I'm going through some trials, if you will, right now I'm trying to keep him from putting his nose down when he gets past 100 yards through cover to keep running in that blind direction. You know, like stuff that I didn't even know existed a year and a half ago that I'd be working through. It's so cool to sit back and remember, okay, you know, when I was sending him to place as a puppy or introducing hand signals, and how well he picked that up and it might have taken me an extra week to where I couldn't move on to the next step.
Speaker 3:And you know it's really just one day at a time. If you continue to work at it, it does pay off. There's no doubt about it. So the goal, at this point where I'm at, I've surpassed all the goals, all the expectations and everything that I wanted out of him when I first got him and now it's just like fine tuning and enjoying it. I mean, he's such a high driven dog to where, you know, if I don't run him at least I run him pretty much every day. But if I go two or three days, for whatever reason, without running him, I can look in his eyes and I can, you know I can tell that he's like okay, what are we doing? Where aren't we going? Where aren't we going? You know, so it's. It's cool to continue to push him and to continue to work him on almost a daily basis and just fine tuned the little nitty gritty details that a year and a half ago, I did not know existed.
Speaker 2:And that's amazing. I love. I love to hear stuff like that. Just, you know, you start here, this is where you're going to be, and then you end up being further along. That that makes it worth it to me. Just to hear you saying that just makes me proud. I would say makes me super proud. And yeah, I think that's a good thing for people to think about and realize that, hey, you know, start, start with your original goals, but you know anything's on the table and, like you said, you didn't even know about some of the stuff you're you're working on now. So it's just a matter of time and a day by day, week by week, and putting in the work and you're going to, you're going to get to where you want to go. So well, where are you at right now with him, and you know how does, how does it feel to be where you're at now. Compared to that, that starting point.
Speaker 3:So right now I just ran him, actually a couple of weeks ago in his first weekend of running season. I ran him and started last year a little bit before he two, before he turned a one, and I got him. I got him titled fairly quickly and you know that's a whole different world HRC brand new to me, definitely, I know. You know running a started weekend or just the started section of HRC is if you've got a dog that's got natural abilities, I mean you're going to pass. It's not something that's very technical or difficult. You can hold the collar and you know, as long as he brings the duck back you, you get your, your ribbon, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 3:Moving into season, which is what I recently did. So you know there's. What I've learned very quickly through this was that there's there's training your dog to hunt and there's training your dog for HRC.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And I guess one could argue that they go hand in hand and in some ways, a lot of ways, I guess they do. But for what specifically? What they're looking for to pass you at season that finish and then you know ultimately if you get or want to run grand. But that's just different. Sometimes it's not very practical when it comes to hunting. But I took him up to North Georgia a couple of weeks ago and ran him. My wife and I made a kind of a vacation out of it and the first day I ran him through the you know the land test and he did just fine. I ran him on his blind and I never had to cast him past that. He was steady, you know all good stuff.
Speaker 3:And when I got him to water I was like man, you know, I haven't really spent any time handling him in water because I've never really had to and I was like you know what, on land he ran his blind, just fine. I lined him up and he went. I never had to handle him. Best case scenario, right. So I get to water and I line him up and I send him and he's starting to veer a little bit. So I'm like, okay, I guess I'm going to have to try and handle him here a little bit and take.
Speaker 3:You know, just to be completely honest, I'm a novice in all of this. I'm a novice when it comes to to the HRC related stuff. This is the first time again that I've bought and worked and handled and trained a dog, so I'm learning a lot every step of the way. When I sent him, I had he started veering and I pushed him back. I casted him back and I got him close to the bank and he was probably 15 yards off and I sent him over to my right and he took the cast. So I was like, okay, you know, he understands the program here. He's workable in water and I had never done that up till that point. When he got on the bank he was probably like 10 yards from it and I gave him my hunt command and blew the whistle the way I had. You know, it's like a find it type of whistle or run it up, depending on what you say.
Speaker 3:But he made his big circle, picked it up, brought it back. I'm ecstatic, he just back to me, delivers it to hand, and I stand up, I'm feeling great and the judges are like, yeah, sorry man, we're gonna have to fail him. I'm like, wait a minute, what? What do you mean? He didn't break. He picked up both of his marks, his, you know, go bird the memory, all of it. And I go. What do you mean?
Speaker 3:They said well, you know, the whole idea of the blind is we want to see you work him in this cone and you didn't work him as much as you probably should have. We want to see you work him into the bird. You should have casted that last cast into the bird and not told him to find it or to hunt it up. And I sat there and talked to them for like five minutes just to learn, because you know, of course it's frustrating, but if I wanted to do this, I have to learn what the rules are to play this game. So they told me it and I you know, if you asked my wife, I was pretty beat up that evening.
Speaker 3:I'm like, oh my gosh, I just drove all this way and I just failed him. He did everything I asked him to do and I failed. I failed this test. I'm like, oh my gosh, what are we doing here? And I'm like, do we go home? Do I even? Do I do this the next day? And she's like you know? She's like, yes, we're already up here and you know, he did what you asked him to do. Just ask him to do more tomorrow. And I'm sure that he will. So Sunday rolls around and I had to handle him for the land test and you know, just to the blinds or, I'm sorry, the go bird, the mark, the surprise, all that stuff was fine, it was. It was the blinds, the way I was handling him. They wanted to see more on. So when I got to the land test Sunday morning, I kept him in the cone, I handled him, they passed me, and here I am at the water. I'm a nervous wreck, my heart's beating out of my chest Like.
Speaker 3:I'm getting ready to play a football game for like a state championship. I'm freaking out. I'm like, okay, you know what, though I got nothing to lose Either way, I love this little guy and you know we're going to be just fine. It doesn't matter that much. So they had told me they were like look, if you have to whistle, stop them 50 times to work him, so be it. That's what we want to see. We want to see control. So he picks up his go bird, he picks up his mark or his memory, and here I go, lining him up on the blind, and you know it's across the body of water. It's not really a keyhole. I mean, the marks were probably 15, 20 yards, but it was downwind of those marks, so I was a little worried about that Right yeah.
Speaker 3:I send him on the blind. He takes a good line, starts to drift a little bit and I just start hitting my whistle, looks at me. I cast him to the left. Five seconds later, whistle again, cast him to the left a little bit more. Five seconds later, push him back and he's taking every single cast and I'm like holy crap, this is, you know, number one. Wow, he's not blowing me off one time. This is brand new to both of us. But you know he gets it. Just continue to work him and trust him and just trust what you're doing. And I get him to the bank.
Speaker 3:He's like five yards from it to where I wouldn't have even said anything in a hunting situation and I was blown away that he actually sat to the whistle knowing that he was right, that close to it. But he did and I casted him over to it. He picked it up, brought it back and they passed me and it was just a really cool experience to you know you work so hard to train him in normal hunting environments and T drills and white bucket drills and all of the things that I've learned on CGA handling him, and when you know you're put in a situation where I've never handled him that way in water and I just listened to the judges. I knew I was there to play a game and I tried playing the game and he took it, and he took every single whistle and winning that at that moment it was just. It was a really, really satisfying feeling at that time that's awesome.
Speaker 2:That's quite the experience and that's that's beautiful, how he handled so well, even and that's that's something I feel like you've done a good job with him on, and I hope I believe all of our members do. You know, at a certain point, you know we talk about generalizing skills, but at a certain point, once you've done enough training in a few different areas, even if you throw them into something completely different, they should be able to learn on their feet and it sounds like that's what went well and you, you did a good job as a handler, you adapted, you ever came, and that's what it's all about. That's and that's incredible. Well, let's let's talk a little bit about his hunting experience too, so to kind of contrast the differences. And so it sounds like you were a little shocked on the test that the, the experience was different and the hunt, you know the hot whistle wasn't cutting it in the test, what? What does your hunting look like, and what was your dog's experience like and hunts up until this point?
Speaker 3:So last year I hunted him right, he was just a little over one year old. You know, in the middle of season he turned one and I was really torn going into that on whether or not I should hunt him. And I remember talking to you and talking to Barton about it and you guys asking me, well, where's he at? And I'm like I'm through the introduction to, you know, live birds I haven't really handled him, handled him yet, like yes, he'll sit to the whistle, but I hadn't got through casting him. And you know I wasn't really concerned on that aspect of working him or, you know, casting him into a situation in the field. I just really wanted to hunt with him. You know, put in all this time and effort and I'm like, okay, here's hunting season, I've caught a bird dog here, let's use him. So you know, I started hunting him here locally the beginning of season. It was, you know, middle of November last year and that's when, like, the light bulb went off for him. It was like wait a minute. You know, all this time and effort it's not just a game, this is what it's for. And you know, looking back, to be honest, I probably hunted him a little bit too early and the reason I say that was because you know he's against such a high driven dog. He was so fired up the first couple of hunts and that is something you cannot prepare for, no like it. You know it comes back to obedience, sure, but at the end of the day, when you're talking about a one year old lab that's driven like he is, you know good luck more or less. So I took him hunting in the first, probably I don't know two or three hunts in November. I ended up tying him.
Speaker 3:So down here in Florida we hunt depending on what the tide is. The tide plays a huge factor because we're hunting the coast right and we have we have model ducks which are native to Florida. We get our random clouds of teal that come flying. In late season we get redheads and pentails mostly redheads and rafts of redheads, but early season it's, you know, a lot of. It is like some mallards, definitely models, occasional tiled which is a wige and occasional teal.
Speaker 3:His first duck he picked up was a vision. The first three hunts that we did I tied him to the mangroves. So you know, super low tide you can get really tucked up into the mangroves, kind of turns into like a mucky beach and you throw out your decoys, you know right, like anywhere else, and you kind of get up into that like low tide muck, if you will. And I had him on his bone marrow stand tied up as tight as I could tie him, basically just allowing him to breathe, so that number one, he wouldn't break. And number two, he knows that this is game time. There's no, you know, playing here. It was definitely a learning experience.
Speaker 3:And being down here in Florida. If there's one thing he learned very quickly is that it was there's, there's patients. You got to have a lot of patients because we're not getting swats and swats of birds flying in and you know blowing our calls our morning and decoying them one after another. So you know, when the opportunity presents itself down here, number one, don't miss as a shooter. And you know, number two, you've got to really be patient, because the opportunities don't come very often. So he picked that stuff up very quickly Once. You know, I hunted early December with him a couple of times. He probably had picked up somewhere between 15 and 20 birds from opening day to middle of December or so, and he understood the program. He started becoming way more patient. I didn't have to tie him up anymore, you know, and at that time I had not introduced him to an E-caller.
Speaker 3:So going into Christmas, you know, I had this, this trip, this annual trip, playing like we do every year. But this time, instead of flying out there for four or five days, I decided I was going to drive out there and I was going to try and stay a little bit longer, you know, for 10 or 12 days. Make a next trip out of it with Aubrey and myself and obviously bring the dog. And the biggest concern I had going out there was okay, this is different country, this is zero negative degree temperatures how do I keep them warm? How is he going to react to that?
Speaker 3:And, most importantly, when you're dealing with rivers and lakes and really cold water, what happens if he's chasing a cripple and ends up a mile away or on somebody else's property and the wind's blowing and you can't hear my whistle and I can't get his attention? So I remember talking to you and Barton about this quite a bit. I was a nervous wreck before I introduced it to the caller and I really only did it because I wanted to have. It was an insurance policy for me. It was that I could get his attention a mile away if I had to right so right that process was, was it was great.
Speaker 3:I'm glad I did it. I certainly glad I did it, and you know, not from never from a punishment standpoint, but a control standpoint right, yeah, absolutely what.
Speaker 2:Um, how did the hunts go for you when you went out there? Everything you know what, what was it like hunting them early out in Nebraska? So you said you took, you did take the big long trip. I remember us talking about that before you going out and and the concern you had how did uh, how did he fare on that trip?
Speaker 3:He. He Honestly blew it out of the water he really came to. That was the light bulb point for him. Wow, when? So that trip was, you know, 10 days long?
Speaker 3:In the first half of it it was really just my wife and I, my buddy Nick, his wife and his kids up there, and you know so we're hunting on family land. They've got tens of thousands of acres up there, other big cattle and cattle Ranchers and you know they farm sugar beets and corn. They've got a ton of property. Their family's been out there very long time. So I had like an endless amount of options on where to hunt, which is a good and a bad thing, right, it's yeah because there's so many options. It's okay when do we go today? But it's also obviously a blessing because you can go scout a ton of different places, find the birds and go hunt it.
Speaker 3:So the first half of that trip he surpassed all expectations. He picked up his first goose. That was like his size at the time. It was a massive goose, fallen to cover over a lake, up a hill on the backside of the hill, and he did everything he could. He dropped it like five times. He was still working him through. You know, proper holding all the way back to me at the time.
Speaker 3:But after we had, you know, shot and picked up 40 or 50 birds and he ran through that water and we were hunting negative temperatures and when it was dumping snow on us and we were in you know, panel blinds, not like a concealed comfort or really you know high-end, nice, first-class blind. We were hunting this more or less raw land. It might as well have been public land because we were very mobile and you know layout blinds and Panel blinds. So he hunted all these different terrains where he had to be steady and he was steady. I had a little buddy heater for him for underneath his Milmar's hut which kept him warm. And you know he'd come out With, you know, a mallard or whatever and he'd get back into his, his stand and he had ice all over his face and he could not get enough of it. It was incredible. He was steady. He he broke a couple times early, was so fired up and you know I actually turned a couple retrieves into the Niles out there. I tied him up and I walked out there and picked up our own birds, brought it back and that fixed itself fairly quickly.
Speaker 3:But after that, the first half of that trip, you know the light bulb went off. He's looking at the sky, he's knowing to be patient and you know he just learned so much on the fly out there and I never had to handle him number one. I wasn't in the position to handle him at that point. We hadn't gone through that in detail yet, other than like sitting to the whistle the whistle at distance, but it was. It was an incredible experience with him, with my wife and she ended up leaving halfway through the trip and there was a big group of guys who flew in from my hometown and we booked a deal out there. In the same area, prairie Rock Outfitters was the outfitter at the time that we went out and hunted and you know there were I think six or seven guns and every blind and we limited every single day, no matter where we went, and they allowed me to use red.
Speaker 3:So he ended up picking over 150 ducks up first trip, being a little one, and I mean I can't even begin to describe how that was different environments, incredible, incredible scenery, you know cripples up and down, you know cripples up and down and everywhere, and him having to, you know, kind of figure out different marks and Memories on his own, everything just kind of came together. You know that's amazing Hunting by yourself or with one or two other people where you only kill, even if you kill limit there's 12 of them. You know you might only knock down two or three at a time, but when you have six or seven guns and you know you're dropping them one volley after another and you watch him, watch most of them fall or all of them fall, and go and pick them all up one by one, go get the cripple first or go get the furthest one first, just naturally and not stopping all morning long. It's just the most incredible experience.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's, that's a true testament of the work that you put in with him. I mean that that's a hard situation right there that many guns going off, that many birds falling, changing terrains, and it's that just goes to show that the preparation does pay off.
Speaker 3:It absolutely does. And you know, going into this I Obviously didn't know a whole lot or anything really. But if there's one thing I certainly bought into, it was pedigree. And you know the idea of what Barton is doing at Southern Oak and I know there's kennels that I'm unaware of, that I'm sure do a great job as well.
Speaker 3:But just my experience with Barton me buying into the idea of pedigree and genetics, and you know, taking a dog that you get through the basic obedience and you know the generalization and the different, the small things of just getting the dog to understand what you're trying to do and Then putting him in an environment and watching the dog do things that you had never taught him to do, just because he's naturally got what it takes from seven generations of proper breeding and genetics and stuff like that, it is truly incredible.
Speaker 3:I know, you know, watching Barton, he was over there and, I think, england this past week and I was watching some of the videos that he was putting up and you know what those dogs go through and how they're trained over there before he imports them over here and it just solidifies, solidifies everything that I've believed. You know, because up to that point you know, I don't really know. I didn't know where they came from. It was just more of you know, reading the AKC, uk's UKC sheet of paper and you know it says they're from here and it says but it didn't mean much to me. So watching that and and seeing my read do what he did on Just you know, natural ability at that point this time at one year old it was it was so cool.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. You know, that's the one important thing to you and hopefully from for people. If you don't, you know, if you don't have that opportunity now, but at least once in your life you should definitely. You know, stack the odds in your favor and I can get a well bred retriever wherever you get it. It's as well I personally do. I like to stack thoughts in my favor.
Speaker 2:I mean, training retriever isn't easy, it's doable, it's more than doable, it's actually fairly easy. It's just time-consuming and discipling. It takes a lot of discipline to do it. But it's nice when, when you've got some good breeding, like you're talking about there to To help out a little bit, it almost just propels you forward a little bit faster in some ways and it's. I'm a big proponent of that. But I'm also a big proponent of just the foundational work that we do.
Speaker 2:You know some people, when you're looking at our course, I think if you look at it you might think, man, you know You're all going a little bit slow with obedience, when in reality, if you add up the the time, if you start with a Eight-week-old pup, we're not really going that slow. However, we are being methodical and deliberate with how much of a foundation we build because we are preparing our members for situations like you face right there, difficult situations that will test you know, if the foundation would have cracked right there, if that, if your dog's obedience would have cracked, it would not have been able to pick all those birds up. You know a lot of dogs in that situation. If they don't have the proper foundation, if their trainer didn't do what you did and take the time to invest in them, you know you may get a few retrieves and all of a sudden, boom, they crack under the pressure and then they're just running around in circles out there because it's just too much for them, they can't take it. You know it's a little too early, they didn't have enough, they didn't have enough foundation to sink their teeth in.
Speaker 2:So I think you know that's the one thing. You did a fantastic job. And what? What week did you make it to? Or what? What section of the training? Just about what were you working on? By the time you had hunted and met about a year old?
Speaker 3:so, to be honest, I was just past. I want to say I was around week Late, week 30s, maybe week 40. I was past Introduction to a live bird. I was whistle-sitting, I was. I was just like just starting Casting, that's very beginning of it to where I was not ready to cast him in an environment and he probably would blow me off, not knowing what the point of casting is at that time back then. So I think that's right. Where I was was end of the 30s, early 40s, maybe Somewhere in there.
Speaker 2:That's a great spot to do it, you know, if you hunt a little bit earlier and it's fun to do it. But it's better to be training a little bit further ahead than where you know the bare minimums are you the bare minimums are, you know gunfire, birds, all that, and have the foundation laid. So when you're a little bit further ahead you know he's gonna. That's I think that's why I did so well, being where you're at 38, 39, 40 somewhere in there that that definitely probably played a huge part in and to help it and do a little bit better. So for you as a, let's get back into your mindset, let's rewind so you remember how you felt when you started. How were you feeling?
Speaker 2:I guess at that point that was really the true test of okay, this is, we're about to see if this, this whole thing, has worked out so far, even though we're not done. What was your mindset like at that point? And then, how is it shifted to? Where you're at now is we're approaching a new season this will be a second season and he'll be further along and in training so the the best analogy I can give.
Speaker 3:When I started, I was at the base of Mount Everest. I'm looking at the top, it's impossible to get there. And I just remember thinking to myself Okay, how do you get to the top? You just do it one step at a time, one day at a time, one video at a time, and Just trust the process. And that's what I did and For me and my experience it worked. With a lot of help by a lot of people, it worked.
Speaker 3:At this point now, I mean I'm, I'm Passed, like I said, where I wanted him to be, as far as the goal was. I mean I'm licking my chops to get back to Nebraska. I'm just excited to go hunt as often and as much and as far and wide and as I came with him, because he's Everything I'd ever wanted out of a dog, times a hundred, I mean you know it's fine-tuning, it's the angle backs, it's the angle twos that you and I had talked about, you know, not too long ago. It's just the, the stuff that that you may or may not even need, but Because of the relationship I have with my dog and because of where I am in my life and where he is in his life and the love that we both have to do it. I get to continue to fine tune and whether it's necessary or not, I'm doing it because I love it and I know he loves it and you know, it's really just those. It's fine tuning him. It's I could go on him anywhere confidently and enjoy every moment of it.
Speaker 2:At this point, I mean that's amazing, I mean that's what it's all about. Oh man, that gets me so fired up. You just. I just think back to when, like you said, when you first started. It's kind of like you're looking up at the mountain and then you, I mean there's one option it's either start or don't, you know, and then every step of the way, you can choose wherever you want to stop on the mountain. You don't have to make it to the top, but there's no reason you can't if you just keep trying and doing, doing what you're doing, man.
Speaker 3:And that's, you know, a big part of why I loved CGA was that, you know, because the process can be very overwhelming, especially if you've never done it before. But when you really do break it down and you spend the time and I remember I watched so many videos weeks in advance before so I know it wasn't new to me when I was watching them, right, I could kind of see why the one paw on the place board got a hot dog and a clicker. You know, I knew what I was getting into. It gave me the confidence and confidence is so important in this process, not just trusting the process but knowing that.
Speaker 3:Okay, you know, the first week it's getting on place and then it's the heel work and all of those things lead up to the 100 yard blind, the 100 yard cold blind. Right, it's just, it's believing in it. But it's really not hard. It's time and it's effort, that's right, that's all it is. And the first six months of the puppy's life for me, you know, they only have so much attention and stuff. It's 15, 20 minutes and you know, whatever, four or five, six days a week, whatever you can do, but it's not really that much time. It's the effort, it's you having to decide to go do it with your dog on a daily basis. So you know that's what made it easy for me was was just CGA is so fine tuned and so well broken down to the day that you just have to follow it. It's not hard, it's all laid out there for you, you just have to commit to it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's some good advice to just for anybody that's kind of getting into the processes is just realizing that it is that one day at a time and and viewing that the first six months as that is, that is some of the most important time and it's some of the most convenient time. You don't want to miss it. If you can help it you know you don't want to be starting at eight months old if you can help it. I know a lot of people we get. I was talking to somebody today on the phone that they were jumping in at a year and a half and you know that's fine. If that's where you're at, you can make it work. In. The idealistic best situation you could be in is starting like you did with an eight week old puppy and then going from there. But at the end of the day it doesn't matter. You got to start where you're at and then that's where we get. The build from here. Idea is a build from here, build from wherever you're at. Let's take what you've got and let's build on that and let's make it better.
Speaker 2:I guess in some closing thoughts here this is We've covered a lot of ground, a lot of really good thoughts here and it's just been awesome to hear your story and to kind of. You know it's funny because we've been talking for since you've got your dog, Since the beginning here, so I guess almost two years. But it's funny now as we kind of like start talking, we package it in here in this hour, just here, and how everything laid, laid itself out before we close out and before we get to. You know your two cents on sharing with people what you would recommend, any advice you would give. I always love to have that. Do you have any like specific retrieve or any like specific moment that you remember with your dog? Like you're like, wow, you know, I remember you said something about. This was like the moment it clicked. But was there like a specific thing that stands out to you, specific tree or specific day where you're just like man, this is, this is what it's all about.
Speaker 3:Yes, there is, and it's kind of a two part story because the aha moment was the day after one of the worst days of training, so it was actually almost one year ago. I was, you know, knowing I was going to get on this podcast. I was looking at some videos and some stuff that I had recorded on my phone. About a year ago, where I was and I remember a cold front came through down here which brought a lot of rain, you know, and never obviously any snow, but a ton of rain. And I've got kind of a retention drainage area behind my house where I did all of my training up until six months ago, where we he quickly outgrew it and I needed a lot more space, but you know, it's a little over an acre piece of property and it's kind of a big triangle. So the drainage ditch in the back, you know, obviously collects all the water, but it holds water there for like a day or two if it rains enough, and it did, and I was like man, this is a great opportunity to go back there. Let's work on, you know, a little wagon wheel deal. You know this would be perfect. This would be great, and I want to back up by prefacing and saying that I was very lucky when I first got him as a puppy because I was still living in like a condo hotel deal before I had built my house, so I had like an 80 yard hallway to work with him on. So no matter what I threw or placed at the end of the hallway, he had no other choice but to bring it back to me. So with that being said, now I'm here at my house I was just finished and ton of water back there. I hadn't really trained him in like a marshy, like ankle deep type of water deal. It was either you know all water or it was bone dry. So I did a wagon wheel, I throw you know whatever three marks and for like 25 minutes straight he wouldn't bring a single bumper back to me. He would go pick it up, he would get in his little you know where the hit the zoomie mode and the high back and you know the tuck tails running around as fast as he would not come back to me no matter what I did. And I was just like, are you kidding me right now? And you know I got so frustrated to the point to where I was like, okay, I'm all done here. I'm putting them up. We're going to do this, you know, tomorrow or the next day my ears were like steaming and I remember I just took a breath and I remember you know from the previous conversations that you and I are had this is part of the deal. You got good days, you got bad days. When the bad days come, hang it up, do it the next day.
Speaker 3:I put the bumpers away and I was already soaking wet because it was dumping rain and I remember just at that time it was cold out too. I had one of his little, you know, like a tennis ball, the little blue and orange rubber deal, whatever that is. And I remember just going back there with him and just playing and my wife was working, there was nobody home, it was just the two of us soaking wet and I'm chasing me around, he's chasing me around. I just turned it into, like you know, recess more or less, for like an eight year old, and it just, you know, for like 20 minutes until I was out of breath. At least I caught a quits, dried them off, and I try to just kind of put the day behind me, but you know, I wanted to make a memory of it in his mind, of that. This is more than just you know me listening to you every step of the way. So let's have a little bit of fun here and just try and like have that bond moment, right, yeah, and I did.
Speaker 3:And then the following day so I'm very frustrated turned it into kind of fun, but not fun training related whatsoever. Frustrated, very frustrated. The following day, still a little bit of water. I'm like you know what. We're going to try this again.
Speaker 3:This could go one of two ways. I either imprinted a very bad habit into his mind that if he plays, keep away enough, I'll start playing with him, or he's going to, you know, recognize that we're back in training mode. And he did and I did the wagon wheel, we did the whole deal for you know, whatever, 20, 30 minutes and every single one. He went and God delivered it to him. And you know these are wingers, are sent. So it helped and I have a little. I use my shotgun with blanks and I sat there and I'm firing away and he never broke and he brought every single bumper back to me sitting, delivered a hand, like best case scenario, best day that we've ever had training together at the time and it was just like okay, you know, we understand each other, just a different, a different relationship going forward after that.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. I love that story. I love how you handled it too. It's that's interesting. You know, a lot of times it's hard to make it flip a switch like that and I know you probably internally didn't feel great about it. But you know something.
Speaker 2:I mean, sometimes the situation can be so bad that sometimes you just have to laugh at it. And I think when you take that approach and like hey, you know what, this is a bump in the road, it's going to be okay, but it's. It's easy to hear that on the podcast or to talk about it in hindsight, but in the moment it's actually pretty surreal that it's a pretty tough moment.
Speaker 3:It was, and you know it to me at the time I'm like there's no way, who is this guy? This is a fluke, like I know he's gassed up because he's soaking wet and it's cold out and you know it was like his first real winner as a young, but not an infant, if you will right. So I'm like he's never played keep away before. He's never, you know, wanted me to chase him. I'm like what is going on here? And I was just like, you know, to heck with this.
Speaker 3:I'm you know we'll move on till tomorrow and let's just have a good time for the next 20 minutes, but that you know the I've had. I've had some really cool training moments with him light bulb like moments and different scenarios and different places, generalizing him and just having the going through the process and watching him blow you off, sometimes when he's super young and you second guessing yourself and then the day in that case, the next day and in some cases the week later that you know the that ah ha goes off in his mind and he sits to every single time you blow the whistle or he takes an overcast every time you send him over. It is so rewarding.
Speaker 2:Man, that's what it's all about, and you've just done an incredible job. I think you've gotten the essence of what it's about, and that's about connecting with your dog and that kind of which is amazing. That ties around full circle to what got you into it Was that connection to the dog you saw with your buddy and his dog forward, and it's uh, that's pretty special. I think that's. I think that's awesome. What would be your, your closing thoughts to, to anybody out there, maybe in your shoes, when you were thinking about first getting started? You're, you're in this position like, hey, we're going to give it a shot. What would you give someone that may either be thinking about, hey, I'm going to give this a shot, or hey, I'm on the fence. You know, I'm just concerned about you know what it's going to take to get this started where it needs to be.
Speaker 3:I would say the the message that I have are for those who were my were in my spot two years ago first time, not knowing what you're doing, debating on whether or not you train the dog or you send the dog off, and the message that I have is that you know, don't be overwhelmed. Take it one step at a time, truly one day at a time, and know that you've got a community of people behind you that will help you and everybody at some point in time, because there's so many people in this community. Somebody has experienced whatever it is you're going through with your dog and don't let it overwhelm. You, don't give up on it and don't give up on the dog and just work through it. And if it takes you a week or two to work through it, you will work through it. If you don't give up on it and lean on the people around you, lean on the community, lean on Josh, and you know, just know, that whatever that situation is, you can get through if you stick with it.
Speaker 2:That's awesome, man. Well, that's what it's all about. It's been an honor to have you on here and to share your story. I can't wait to get this out for everybody here and just it's an incredible story of just hey. You set out to make this happen and you did it, and we're proud of you, man. Congratulations on it. You've done so far and I look forward to hearing more how this upcoming season goes, and maybe we'll have to do a follow up at some point to talk about season number two and the maturity of your dog as it enters its second season of training. I think that'd be pretty, pretty sweet.
Speaker 3:Josh, thank you. I appreciate the time, all the help to get me to this point. I'd love to talk again when I get back, maybe the end of season or whenever we find some time and, you know, continue to the conversation and it's always evolving. So thank you for everything you've done and the opportunity to be on here.