Marty Haynes is an incredible man who exemplifies what it means to be a CGA Member. From walking the walk himself to helping other people on their journey of training a hunting retriever, Marty is always willing to learn and lend a hand.
Join him as he shares his success tales from this past hunting season and recounts the triumphs and challenges of shaping Koda and Bear into the impressive duck-hunting retrievers they've become. From the gripping excitement of tower shoots to the significance of non-verbal commands, this episode paints a vivid picture of the bond between hunter and dog, illustrating how each canine's unique personality contributes to the hunt.
This conversation with Marty is a treasure trove of wisdom for anyone striving to refine their dog's obedience and retrieval skills, emphasizing the necessity of a strong handler-dog connection. Marty also shares some insights required to navigate hunt tests successfully and the importance of quick, corrective decisions- especially in high-pressure situations.
Wrapping up, we extend our heartfelt thanks to Marty for the invaluable strategies he's shared with us and to you, our loyal listeners, for joining us on this journey. Cornerstone Gundog Academy is here to support you if you're inspired to enhance your dog's performance or simply looking for camaraderie in the dog training community. Remember, every command, every drill, and every moment spent training is a step toward your goal. So, let's raise the bar for retriever training as we Build From Here.
Want to learn to train your dog with Confidence?
Visit: https://www.cornerstonegundogacademy.com
Need Retriever Training Gear?
Visit: https://www.retrievertrainingsupply.com
Marty Haynes is an incredible man who exemplifies what it means to be a CGA Member. From walking the walk himself to helping other people on their journey of training a hunting retriever, Marty is always willing to learn and lend a hand.
Join him as he shares his success tales from this past hunting season and recounts the triumphs and challenges of shaping Koda and Bear into the impressive duck-hunting retrievers they've become. From the gripping excitement of tower shoots to the significance of non-verbal commands, this episode paints a vivid picture of the bond between hunter and dog, illustrating how each canine's unique personality contributes to the hunt.
This conversation with Marty is a treasure trove of wisdom for anyone striving to refine their dog's obedience and retrieval skills, emphasizing the necessity of a strong handler-dog connection. Marty also shares some insights required to navigate hunt tests successfully and the importance of quick, corrective decisions- especially in high-pressure situations.
Wrapping up, we extend our heartfelt thanks to Marty for the invaluable strategies he's shared with us and to you, our loyal listeners, for joining us on this journey. Cornerstone Gundog Academy is here to support you if you're inspired to enhance your dog's performance or simply looking for camaraderie in the dog training community. Remember, every command, every drill, and every moment spent training is a step toward your goal. So, let's raise the bar for retriever training as we Build From Here.
Want to learn to train your dog with Confidence?
Visit: https://www.cornerstonegundogacademy.com
Need Retriever Training Gear?
Visit: https://www.retrievertrainingsupply.com
Cornerstone Gun Dog Academy online resources to help you train your retriever.
Speaker 2:Welcome to another episode of the Built From here podcast. This episode is an honor to have you here. First of all, I know we've had Marty on before, but it's an honor to have you in studio. It's always a pleasure just to hang out with Marty because you've been with us from the very beginning. You've always been a big supporter of it but you've always been a true CGA member at your heart. You're out getting out there training those dogs, doing a good job with them and you're just passionate about it. So it's an honor to have you here and I'm excited for today to get to share with the world just whatever we stumble upon today.
Speaker 3:It's good to be here. I'm always joy coming over and hanging out with you guys and training. I always learn something when I come over and it's always a fun time for me. I always look forward to it.
Speaker 2:Good, well, let's dive into the season a little bit. We're filming this around mid-February here. We just got on the tail end of the season. How did your season go with your dogs?
Speaker 3:It went really good. We had a locally where I hunt. We had a really nice season this year. There's me and three other guys that we hunt together pretty much every Saturday. We usually kill between 15 and 24 ducks every Saturday. That's fantastic. I think probably the dogs all together. This season, with the tower shooting, they probably picked up over 250 birds. That's fantastic.
Speaker 3:It was a good season. We killed several limits. We made one trip to Arkansas. That trip didn't go quite as well as I wanted it to. It was in December and they had an all-time low on birds. I think we killed 15 birds in three days. We cut back home as we killed a limit the next Saturday. It was always a good time going with the guys I hunt with and hanging out and just watching some good dog work and hanging out in the blind.
Speaker 2:Sounds like y'all got a really good setup. A lot of people don't have that. They're killing two, three, four, five birds. I've got a good setup there.
Speaker 3:I guess what makes it so good is we usually hunt it one day a week. It's got six days to rest. It's not getting over-hunted. We all work together. They like me to come because I'm the dog guy. We've got to worry about picking up any ducks before we're done hunting. All we've got to do is put out the decoys and pick up the decoys.
Speaker 2:The dog guy makes the hunt, in my opinion.
Speaker 3:You get a lot of good advice. If you've got good dogs, you get to go hunt a lot of good places. I always enjoy it. I have a good time with Jess and Regan and Mark and the guys I hunt with all the time. They're good guys.
Speaker 2:We just got through talking about the Tower Sheet earlier. Let's talk about that. There's a lot of birds at this Tower Sheet.
Speaker 3:They turn loose between somewhere between 850 and 900 birds in a little over two hours, somewhere between two and a half and three hours. Kota and Bear they did a great job. I think there was a little short this time on dogs. I think we only had maybe a dozen dogs to cover the whole thing. Between the 12 dogs that were there. They picked up over 650 birds. Kota and Bear they picked up 87 together. It was fast and furious. A lot of solid gunfire, death of guns going off. Feds was falling everywhere, not only the ones that fell. Where we could, we picked up. They can see in every direction. You know birds falling. Good, steady work for your dog. A lot of marks, they're not difficult, it's fairly low cover. They can see them fall and land out there. They shagged birds for about three hours. They keep the dogs cool down because they're just constantly going. It was a really good time. A friend, hunter Twyford, the heads up the dog crew over there. He does a great job getting everybody together.
Speaker 2:He's a good guy. He's been on the podcast, he's got some good stories.
Speaker 3:I love Hunter man. He's one of my favorite guys man. He's so much fun to be around.
Speaker 2:Let's talk about the dynamics. You've got two dogs and you'll oftentimes work two dogs. What's the dynamic between the two dogs you've got? Their personalities are definitely different.
Speaker 3:They're definitely different. They're both great dogs on their own. Dakota's a little older so I was trying him. He was about to the right age. He was under a year old, maybe eight months old or so.
Speaker 3:Whenever I joined CGA he had a lot of energy. He wanted to pick up. He's a type dog. He thinks he's got to pick up everything he sees fall. My main challenge was him just getting him steady.
Speaker 3:He was probably a little over two years old, two and a half years old before I really felt super comfortable as far as not having to stay on him a little bit about not breaking and stuff. A lot of days I would just go take him out, take my launcher out, sit on a bucket with a pile of bumpers and shoot seven or eight of them out there. I barely put them on there where they wouldn't go too far. I wouldn't let him pick anything up. I'd just go out there and pick them all up myself.
Speaker 3:I had to do a lot of steady work with him but all in all he was one of the easiest dogs I ever trained. He was a kind of dog he likes working with you. He was a real bittable. You could show him something once or twice and he had it. He was just a naturally steady dog. If he even thinks he broke him, he saw it today. If he thinks he didn't get the command to go, he might take off, but he'll turn right around on his own and come back. I'm not sure he likes working with you and he wants to please you. He was super easy to train.
Speaker 3:I run him through the hunting test and shortly after he was two years old he had his HRCH title. I put Kota in a few. I had him in two season tests and he passed both days. Of course that was later on, when he was six. Now it was last year he was five, so he got two season passes. I plan on, just whenever I have a close test, take him and go ahead and try to get his title as well. He's pretty sharp too.
Speaker 2:Both of them are sharp dogs Bear and Kota both Bear definitely. They both like to work. Now They've got that drive to go.
Speaker 3:They live to work. That's one thing I love about both of them. They know when it's time to go to work and they love what they do. That's invaluable with a dog. Like I was telling you earlier when we were talking, I work full time and I get to hunt on Saturdays. I don't hunt on Sundays. I go to church on Sundays, but I hunt every Saturday. We have a holiday or sometimes I take a day or two off, usually about 15 or 16 days a year. Through the season I get to duck hunting. But then you subtract that from 365. You've got another 340 days of the year where you've got something to do with your dogs. That's where CGA comes in. You can spend all that time working with your dogs. I try to get up my dogs, out and do something with them every day, whether it's in the morning before I go to work or when I get home, especially once the time changes. I'll have a little time in the evenings. Me and a guy trained with Sawyer will be getting out and getting after it here shortly.
Speaker 2:I'm ready for spring and time change I know a lot of people are because we get more time to train our dogs One thing that you were talking about there that's worth hitting on. You said it like it wasn't. It took you a little bit of time, but you handled it well. You were able to get them steady. I think a lot of people are in a place where they're feeling like they may never get their dogs steady. It can be challenging. It can make you feel overwhelmed. What were some of the things you did with Koda other than denials and your mindset? How did you go about staying consistent enough to make that happen?
Speaker 3:I was definitely one of my main focuses with him. All the different drills, the obedience drills, to where you stand out in front of the dog, have him sitting and toss the bumpers around. A lot of my training sessions I'll take the dogs out, I'll start it out that way, I'll sit them and I'll have a pile of bumpers in my hand. I'll just throw them all around. I bounce bumpers off my dogs now and they won't go for it. They're steady now. I had to spend a lot of extra time with him but I just kind of stayed focused on it. Anything I could think of to help him out I would. I tried as best I could not to tolerate zero breaking with him.
Speaker 3:Putting that on your focus is the biggest thing. One of the main things that really helped him was just being able to sit there and watch stuff fall and not being able to go get it. He's got enough drive for two dogs. He loves to work and retrieve, that wasn't an issue, but just kind of getting him to slow down a little bit. He's fixing to be seven in March. Wow, we're coming right up on it. He's fixing to be seven and, of course, bear, he'll be six in June. They're finished. What I do every day is just try to keep them polished and sharp and you know, uh re, get, get, get them ready for next season, you know just keep them sharp, so they'll.
Speaker 3:They'll be ready when it's time to hunt, so that's good.
Speaker 2:One of the things we talked about earlier when we're out there training was uh, you were kind of talking about the hunt tests that you had done, and then one of the things that you'd noticed at the hunt test that the gets most people is just a lack of control, uh, over the dogs. That's what costs more people.
Speaker 3:Yeah, That'll that'll, that'll, that'll get you out, that'll get you out quick.
Speaker 3:But whatever, whatever, whatever you start tweeting that whistle, uh, you know, if they, if they don't stop and sit, or whenever you give them a, I give them they say, even if they stop and sit and you give them a cast, if they don't, if they don't, you know, turn back toward the line of that blind, you know that's, that's a cash refusal.
Speaker 3:So I mean, you know that's, uh, that'll, you only get three of those, and you know, and if you get three of them, you're out. So, uh, you know, a lot of times when you're out training and you tweet a whistle a couple of times and you, you know, you don't really think that much about it, but but then you, you, you, you do that the dog don't look at you twice, for that's two cast refusals, you know. So, uh, you know they can, they can, they can get you into trouble and a hurry. So that's, if anybody that's going to hunt, hunt test, you know, you gotta, you gotta have good control over your dog and I think that's one of the things that the new the hunt test guide that y'all got going is going to help a lot of people out with you know, I think so yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm pretty excited about it, especially what Clark and them are sharing too, but also obedience to just going back to the roots, which is you, and one thing I noticed with your dogs always when you're getting them out, there's focus. You're making sure to be deliberate and intentional about all the, every move you make with them, every bit of communication, even when it's open in that door on the kennel. Everything you're doing is intentional and that plays a factor. And I mean a lot of people don't think about it. You know, like you were talking about casting, so often people will get so focused in on the problem that they're not seeing the peripheral that maybe the problem isn't the casting, Maybe it's their obedience in general. Like, how how much are you having to say sit, how how much are you having to, you know, work with your dog, or you having to wrestle with your dog or they in tune with you, Cause that it all starts at the line, it all starts at your side and you're, uh, as you go out further, less and less control you have.
Speaker 3:if you don't have enough control here out of the distance you certainly aren't going to have control there If you don't got, if you don't got control, you know, right, right here with it, you know 25 or 30 yards of you, you can forget it. Would they get out there a hundred and 50 or 200 for sure. But but, um, you know, and uh, that's a, and then something else. So it'll get a lot of people in trouble too. Uh, to me, on both of my dogs it is a. Generally hardly ever get a, a refusal, or on a whistle, on a, on a cold blind, uh, they, they, they seem to want to. You know, when I run a cold blind, you know they didn't see anything fall, they're pretty much dependent on me to get them there. But on a mark, if they miss a mark, run past it, uh, and they think they know where it's at.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and then you know, you can, my dogs will sometimes if they're in that kind of hunt mode you think they they're running out there and say, okay, it's something, they run past it and and I tweet the whistle to you know, try to get them back to me, I'll get a, I'll get some uh refusals sometimes there, you know, and I and I do work on that with them a lot, you know. So I I call her condition both my dogs, um and um, just mainly for that reason. Yeah, because I and especially um, handling at long distances, um they're smarter, they know when they're, when they're out of range.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know they, you know they, uh, I could bear. You know, he's really usually really good. But you know, if he, if you send him on a mark and he runs past it and he gets out there, he'll just, you know, a lot of times I'll you know, if I tweak the whistle the first time, if he don't stop, then if I just give him a good solid, you know no, then he'll, he'll stop and look at me and say I can, I have to kind of reel him back in a little bit.
Speaker 3:You know, and uh, and call him to me. But uh, but uh, yeah that, uh, if you're gonna, if you're gonna run a test, you know you gotta, you gotta work on that control, you know, yeah. So they gotta be steady and they, you know they need to, you know they need to be able to uh mark well and definitely got to be able to um, to work with you running, running blind. So when you start tweeting that whistle, you know, as, uh, them judges they want to, they will have the hunting, the hunting parts over. They want, they want you to have control of the dog right to the, to the, to the, to the blind, you know, or the, or the mark that you had to handle them on, they want you to handle them right to it. You know can't let them run around and hunt anymore. You gotta, you gotta handle them.
Speaker 2:So yeah, that can be challenging. Yeah, I mean that, especially in that scenario.
Speaker 3:Like I said, I'll I'll have the information that uh Clark's putting out there. Um, you know, is uh even like the, the beginning stuff he put out there? You know about uh, not training with emotion. You know that's, that's, that's something good, everybody can learn, cause I see so many guys, even pro trainers, man, I mean they, they get, they get upset, you know a lot of times. And you know, um, I mean, we all do, yeah, it's just easy to do. And uh, but that really, that one little piece of advice there is is help me more than anything. And uh, I can say, since I watched, that I have not gotten upset with my dogs at all. That's amazing. But uh, uh, cause it, like he said. I mean they don't, it don't accomplish anything.
Speaker 2:you know yeah.
Speaker 3:And if you find yourself getting a little you know upset, sometimes it's better just to put the dog up sitting in your truck for a few minutes and think about it and uh and uh, get your dog back out and, you know, pick back up.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of people get trapped in that and you know, it's really a matter of like. You know, a lot of people find themselves training. They're here, their dogs here, and they're buttoning into each other. But you really need to be kind of going in the same direction and it's our job as the handler to make sure that we're going in the same direction with the dog, like you're saying. You know, maybe you need to put them up and think about it, but you know and I think there's this idealistic view when it just for all trainers and it's not bad, but it's not good, yeah, that we're all going to one day I'm going to arrive as a trainer and I'll have it figured out. That is not going to happen. And if you are viewing it that way, your motives are wrong, your perspective is wrong, because you're trying to train to some end destination and it's not about that. It's about the journey with the dog every single day, every time you go out, is you're? You have a choice that day to either make a decision to be, uh, in tune with your dog and make the good decisions, so you have a choice to get frustrated, right and uh. So that's, that's a good point that you brought up there just that emotions.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of people, especially early on in the journey, that there's a lot of frustration because they're not trusting the process or trusting themselves either. They're, they're like wondering if they're ever going to get there. But that's where that faith comes in in the process too. Like, hey, like you said, I mean, that's one thing I want to highlight about your story that you're sharing too is, you know, around eight months old you had a big break in problem with Coda, but you count up, you know, about by two years old you had it worked out.
Speaker 2:Well, that's the long time, but you got it worked out. Oh, yeah, and that's what matters. And you, you weren't, you didn't give up in that. You know, whatever that is uh, little over, uh, or about a year period or however long that was between eight months and two years old. Um, you didn't give up. So, yeah, over a year. So you just kept just day by day, little by little. You were going to get there, and that's that's the attitude I think we all need to have and uh, that's what you I think you exhibit so well for the members and kind of encourage uh people to do, and so that's, that's awesome.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I mean I didn't try to rush anything so much with you know, even though I was getting out there training a lot every day. Uh, far as you know, hunting, hunting the dogs, none of my dogs never get to hunt the first season their life. I mean I'm not taking a. That's a good move. I'm not, I'm not taking a, they got, it's got to be. At least my goal is, by their second season with their, I mean I want to be able to take them and hunt them some. And then, you know, by that third season, I mean I want them solid. You know, that's, that's, that's my goal.
Speaker 2:You know there's not much, if any good that comes out of hunting a dog.
Speaker 1:Their first season. I mean it's not worth it. I've seen.
Speaker 2:I have seen countless Problems like I mean, because people come to us like we did this, we did that. I've seen countless issues where people have hunted their dogs early. It's causing problems because there's people out there on social media said hey, yeah, that's the best thing, you take them a little learn on the job.
Speaker 3:No, no, no no, I don't learn like that and they don't learn from other dogs. They don't learn from watching other dogs. I'm sorry that just don't happen. You know it doesn't know. A lot of people think, well, you know, they can watch this dog do this. That's not the way it happens.
Speaker 2:At least on the level that we're trying to train to. You know, maybe a dog can see a dog run out there and go get something to figure out why I can run in that direction to you. But when it comes to seeing steady, being straight lines, taking cast, all that that comes through Diligence and repetition.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's, that's pretty much what I focus on with my dogs now is, you know, even if I only got, you know, a few minutes, you know, to run out and do do something with him, you know, I might just plan a couple of coal blinds, you know, and run each dog, you know, take a couple minutes with each dog and, you know, put them back in the truck or back in the Side-by-side and come back to the house, you know, but I'm, you know, I always try to spend a little time doing something, you know, and then on the weekends we'll try to do, you know, a little something more, you know. I mean, so we get together, will maybe put out the wingers or put the verse out and run some marks and Run some blinds through the area of the fall, or, you know, under the arc, or, you know, try to try to set up some different stuff Just to just to keep them, keep them sharp, you know.
Speaker 2:So that's the thing that we can all struggle with is less is more. It doesn't take a whole lot to make and honestly, as I'm sitting here listening to it, you say that it actually might be better for people on there. Nobody may. It may sound counterintuitive, but get two dogs, get two puppies, because you can get your training fix, because you're gonna train more. You can over train a dog, oh yeah, but if you got to, you'll get your train of fixing because you're getting double the amount of training time, but each dog is getting the right amount of training.
Speaker 3:It's. It's definitely a challenge, and it was. It was a challenge having two of them, but they were, like I said when I started, got there and started him. You know he caught up to Kota's level. Yeah, you know pretty quick. And you know, and I was able to, you know, train them both at the same time. For you know, far as that goes, and you know I kind of miss having a, I kind of miss having a puppy, you know, to get out there and work with. You know. You know work with and going through all the obedient stuff, that's fine.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. The puppy phase is so fun. They're so bitable, they're so eager. That's like one of the most exciting parts.
Speaker 3:I'm looking forward. I'm looking forward to my next one because I'm gonna, I'm gonna start him out with like 52 plus. What? Now, whenever I was starting up both of mine, you know, I just had the, the basic gun dog, yeah, stuff, you know, and. But I'm on my next puppy, I'm gonna start him out with any on 52 plus. I'm gonna take him all the way through the you know the whole, the whole program and he's gonna do good, oh, yeah, yeah, it's gonna be good. You know I've, I'd, watched a lot of. You know, even though I want and training a puppy, you know I had watched a lot of it and I just recently went back and started just going back through Watching the new 2.0, 52 plus. Yeah, cuz it was kind of formatted just a little bit different, you know. So I kind of started working my way. Just why, a lot of times when I'm sitting there on the couch you know TV's on all I'll pop my phone up, watch some 52 plus episodes.
Speaker 3:You know, just you know, I enjoy watching it. You know I always learning, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I go back and I'll even watch. I mean, it's funny to say that, but I'll watch my own videos, just because Now we put a lot of work every week. You know, it's not just we weren't just going out there and just, alright, let me figure out what I'm gonna teach you today. We studied and prepared. You know it was.
Speaker 2:It's one thing to like know your process as a trainer, it's another thing to communicate and teach your process. So we would study, we prepare and make sure that we cover different angles from, like just different concepts and in that week, what else can we teach? In this week? You know, if we're working on, yeah, introducing hand signals for the first time, what concepts can we be teaching there? So the amount of work that goes into it, you know, if you're not sharp or if you're not Preparing for that week's teaching, it's worth for me at going back and watching it, just because I don't how much work went into it. So, okay, well, if I go back and watch it, I'm gonna pick up some stuff that I may have forgotten, since we Made it a point to teach that. Oh, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, just just staying focused and moving in the right direction. You know that's, and you know, kind of learning as you go. You know as you can always, you know, learn from. You know going back and watch yourself. I'll do that sometimes. So you know, I'll film my dogs running stuff, you know, and I'll go back and watch it and you know and see how they did. You know, sometimes somebody's with me, you know they'll, they'll Sawyer, he'll try, he'll. He'll film some stuff for me, you know, and I'll do the same for him.
Speaker 2:We'll go back and check it out, but it's amazing what you can learn, the little details that you can pick up. Yeah, that's pretty amazing what you can, what you can learn from what you're doing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like I said, I'm back to you know, back to the hunt test guide on some of the the you know, the different segments I've been watching with Clark, you know, and another thing that they kind of really Made me stop and think you know, whenever he gets a dog out he talked about, you know, he'll have a bunch of dogs out there at all different levels, absolutely, and whatever he's working on at the time, he knows, okay, this dog when he's running this, this is the three or four ways that he can mess up.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and, and he already knows, he's already got in his mind what he's gonna do, you know, you know, to correct that dog, or to help the dog Simplified, or whatever he's gonna do with that dog Before he ever turns it loose. And that, and that's one thing I've been trying to do too, you know, is, whatever I'm running with my dogs, you know, okay, if they, if they mess up, you know, what am I gonna do, you know yeah, I think it through the possibilities before it happens, because if it happens and you like, oh my.
Speaker 3:What I do now. You know, I let one of the one of the hunt tests that bear Bear didn't pass it was on one of the marks and and he picked up the. He picked picked up the first two clean and Then when he turned to run the third one, it was kind of like a little bit of a downhill and he's pretty fast when he takes off and he run just to the the downwind side of it and just passed it and he and he just kept on going and going and going and I was, like you know, I had no idea. You know I had no idea what to do. By the time I thought to pick up my whistle and blow it, he was already a hundred yards past it, looking along the edge of the field.
Speaker 3:You know it happens really really fast, yeah, especially the dog was fast like that. Yeah, you gotta, you got. You know I didn't, because it looked like he was going right towards it, but he just run right past it and by the time I picked my whistle up and tweeted it and I recalled him back to me, he was right out in the middle of one of the old falls and I gave, I gave him a. You know, I cast him over and my casting he was. He started smelling.
Speaker 3:You know birds, oh, I've been following out there and he, I got, I got a several cast refusals right there and but I, but I, you know he did, he I cast him over and he picked the bird up. But you know, like I said, lack of control there, you know got you standing out, standing out there in the middle, when you know it's been 25 or 30 birds, you know fall, you know it's he thought he was in the right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but just if I'd have been a little bit fight a little bit quicker, you know, you know I might, it might could have, you know, handle things a little bit different. But yeah, thinking things through before you ever turn the dogs loose, the dog loose, that was one tip, that from the hunt test guy. That just really, you know, helped me too.
Speaker 2:So I agree with that and I quarter does a great job at communicating and just thinking through the possibilities. Like we're out there today and I was thinking through the possibilities, like with Violet and this first time I've ever ran that drill with her and I thought she was gonna do what she's gonna do and completely shocked me. That was one possibility I didn't think of. She ended up going in different directions. I blew my mind. I was okay, well, and then when? Sometimes, when that happens you know that's part of training Sometimes you just let it unfold.
Speaker 2:Sometimes I'll let things just unfold just to see I want to know why my dog is doing it. So I mean, it's not always the best thing, you don't want to do that every time, but, like, sometimes I'll let my dog just, I'll let them just screw it up Completely and do the opposite, so that I can try to get into their head Okay, why are they making their decisions at that point and why you know? Because if you, if you cut them off every time before they make a decision, you don't get to see their full process. So for me.
Speaker 2:I'll sometimes just want to see the full process. Hey, let them do it, because it's not the end of the world. It's not like I can't rerun the drill and Then get them, you know, narrow it in. But if I, if I, if you cut them off too early, you don't have that opportunity To to study your dog and learn. So it's it is important to study the dog and kind of learn their tendencies, for sure, oh yeah.
Speaker 3:And, like I said, that three-legged drill that we run today. I really I mean, I really like that drill. When I first heard about that drill, I was actually watching one of the hunt test guy I think it was a Q&A, you know, session of the Jake was was Facilitating I guess that's the right word I'm looking for with Clark, and Clark had mentioned it talked about a running a three-legged drill and I wasn't really 100% sure what it was. So I went back and after the, after it ended, I I called Jacob on the phone. He talked to me a little bit and kind of, you know, explained it to me and I and now, since then I had, I had done it, you know, probably four or five times, yeah, and then when they just dropped this last segment on the hunt test guy, the first module that was one of the first things that Clark you know kicked it off with was that three-legged drill and that that's one of my favorite drills to run for us casting and and I really help.
Speaker 3:It really helps your dog, you know, cast, being able to cast them out of suction, you know, when they're looking at one thing, you got to be able to cast them off in another direction. You know it really, really helps, definitely helps on your control for sure.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I think that Clark did a good job on that one specifically. I mean that well, all of them specifically but like their approach to running the drill. You know it's one thing to know the drill, but it's another to have how you approach it and all the different angles You're looking at it and they I think they bring a lot of value to the table and how to approach the drill With the dog and how to think through it, because you know there's there's right ways to do it. There's any way you run the drill is probably fine, but there's a right way to do it. Oh, yeah, I feel like they got that. They got that pretty dialed in.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and then, you know, and, and then, even, like he was talking about, you know, after the seasons out, you know he'll take all, even his you know, it was just finished all his master hunters and grand champions. You know he'll take them back out and you know, run them through it, you know. You know, keep them. You know, keep them sharp, you know.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, all those, concepts really work, whether you're hunting or testing casting out a suction specifically. I Mean we've seen this on hunts that we went on. When we went up there to Kansas, I mean there were so many birds falling, oh yeah, but there's birds that are getting away and we can talk about some cripples here, because I know Kota's all about those cripples. But having the ability, if you got a dead duck here, casting your dog out of that suction, to go get the cripple, that will get away. If you can't get the dog quickly and if you're wrestling with a dog over which bird to pick, you're going to lose some birds. So what did you have? Any stories maybe from this hunting season where you ran into some situations to where you had to cast them out of suction, or is it more of just you had a cripple and then you had to get your dog out to the cripple pretty quick, yeah?
Speaker 3:like I said, I try to hold down on cripples as much as possible.
Speaker 3:I learned that and all the guys I hunt with, me being the dog guy, you know, they know I hate cripples, especially when you're hunting in timber and where we hunt at the timber is swimming water.
Speaker 3:Oh wow, and you know, whenever I send the dogs you know they got lunch in water for about 30 yards out on the little flat where we got all the decoys and where most of the hole, where most of the birds are coming. But when they drop off into the there's probably another 50 or 60 yards of you know nothing but standing trees and stuff and it's fairly thick. You know, and you know if you get a duck that's got his legs under and it gets back there in that timber and it can go by the time you get a dog back in there, you know the duck's already 100 yards. That way, you know, steadily going in the swimming water and the dog can't see it and you don't know where it's at either. It's almost impossible to catch. You know, get them. So all the guys I hunt with know once we finish a volley that throwing shells in, they're looking at the birds and very soon you're swimming all.
Speaker 3:That's another important thing about having a steady dog. If you got a dog that breaks, you can't finish cripples, that's right. So you know your dog's got to be steady and a lot of mornings you know we'll have a dozen ducks laying out there in the in the spread, you know dead. Before you know I ever get out and start working the dog, picking them all up you know.
Speaker 2:So that's something we can talk about to you right there. So the word steady, it means different things. I think there's different levels of steadiness. There's one level of steadiness which is just not breaking, not actually going out on the retrieve, but it's another level of steady to do what you're talking about there, mentally, the dog being steady as well. If you got, you know, four to six guys blasting and then shooting cripples, some dogs will sit steady, but it will get them so jacked up in their mind that when they're released, they're just in another universe.
Speaker 2:So, it's that's. It's not just enough to train your dog to just sit there. That's where what you have done, I think, with your dogs, which shows well you've trained them to like process. Still, it's one thing to be steady, but it's another thing to still have the capabilities of processing and not getting too, too excited. Yeah, yeah they.
Speaker 3:They've come a long way, you know so, but they'll both. You know they'll sit there and visit lab and watch ducks fall all morning until I get out and start sending them. So that's, that's you know.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. Yeah, Not a lot of. Not a lot of duck hunters have the ability to say that about their dogs.
Speaker 3:They got a cripple out there and everybody's blasted away. The shots hit the water. You know the dogs sitting there see it all that. You know it's it's, it's tough. You know. That's why you got to put in the work, you know, and and work on all that kind of stuff before you ever take them to the duck blind. You know you take a young dog out there and and he's not steady and you got cripples out there and you know, and one of your buddies you know shooting over the top of the dog. You know when he's out there, you know and it ain't good.
Speaker 2:So you know, you really have to prepare for it.
Speaker 2:A lot of people. I think the excitement gets them like, oh yeah, I've got a dog, we're going to get out here and hunt and. But like it, there's a lot more preparation. Like even for like a dog, even if you don't do hand signals, the preparation, the weight of the work is loaded on the front end of training. It's the obedience. That's why, 52 plus, we spend the first 16, 17 weeks worth of training on obedience. I knew it starts with an eight week old puppy, but you got to get that obedience in there, otherwise you're losing control.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely, you know that. That found that obedience foundation. You know every bit of that transfers out to for the rest of the dog's life. He'll use that basic obedience every time, every day. You take him out to the. You know out to the, to the to hunt or train or whatever. You know. You know the. Tell them to go place.
Speaker 3:They got to go hop up in the, on the, on the in the Vizel lab or on the timber stand, or you know, or in the in the dog spot on the end of the pit blind, or wherever you know, wherever you know. They got a place and they got to stay there, you know. So they need to, they need to stay, they need to stay. They need to sit they need to stay.
Speaker 3:Like I said, every one of those commands you know all transfers out in the field and whenever you start do start working on. You know hand signals. You know certainly that whistle stop is just is an extension of the sit. You know. You know it's all it's, every bit of it is you'll use for the rest of the dog's life and nailing it down.
Speaker 2:It makes a difference too. It will. A well obedient dog will change your experience. A dog that's lacking obedience will be a thorn in your side when you're trying to work on the big stuff. I think Clark or somebody was saying you know that you know advanced trainers. People have a lot of experience work on the basics and then you know a lot of times newer trainers. The tendency is to want to work on advanced stuff. Well, to get to the advanced stuff at all starts just for the foundation stuff and keeping things simple I mean Clark and them they're running single marks most of the time, right, and they keep things to where the communication is. It's about training, not running the drill. It's not about accomplishing the drill, it's about actually training that dog when you're out there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, what he talked about on the marks. That made a lot of sense to me. Every mark that they set up has a purpose. That's right. You know they don't just go out and run marks you know randomly for no reason, but every mark they're actually working on something you know with that dog, you know, and so you know. Having that kind of you know, you know, I guess, outlook on it, you know how you're, yes, you know. When you get out there, you know, this is what I'm, you know, this is what I'm. You know whether it's running a mark or you know through the another mark, through an area of an old fall, or a mark going into cover, you know. Or through cover, you know. Or whatever you know, you know. Or a check down bird or whatever you're, whatever you're working on that day, you know, can you know? Having that kind of you know ability to think through those kind of things, and before you ever start training you know, because get the dogs out of the truck is a good thing.
Speaker 2:So that's right. Yeah, I guess that's something good to talk about real quick. Cause, purpose and training is that's kind of what, honestly, we're hitting on. All on this podcast is purpose. Everything you do needs to have a purpose. Every decision you make should have a purpose and a reason so that you're strategic and you're intentional and you're getting the most out of your time. What, how? How do you feel like you've transformed, because obviously you've been with CGA from the very beginning? How do you feel like you've transformed from training a dog before to where you're at now, years into it?
Speaker 3:Well, the first off, this is not the first labs that I've owned, I've had a couple of other ones before and you know I would. I didn't do a ton of duck hunting but I mainly. Back then I was doing a lot of deer hunting and turkey hunting, you know, and stuff and I had some, you know, guys I hunted with, you know we'd start seeing, you know, later on in, you know, january we'd start seeing some mallards or stuff show up down in some of the sloughs where we was deer hunting. You know we would, you know, and I, my dogs would be tree but by no means were they steady or anything, you know, and I would a lot of times I just take them down there with a timber lead and you know I'd hook them onto a tree, you know, where they couldn't break. You know we'd kill seven or eight ducks, you know, and then I, you know, I'd let him, you know I'd unhook them and let him go, go get them, you know, but I had no idea how to train a dog, you know, wow. And so the last one I had a chocolate lab named Trapper and he would have been a great dog if I'd had CGA and knew what I was doing back then, because he had a lot of drive and he liked to retrieve, and you know, but I didn't, his owner didn't have a clue, you know. So he lived to be 14, and he and he was a, he was a good, good pet, you know. And a little bit of time clicked along and I and so I'm gonna get me another one. This time I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna train it, you know. So you know that's what I did.
Speaker 3:And then, a little later on, you know, after I got Cody, you know, I'd been following Southern Oak Kennels and you know, y'all was just getting it, you know, getting CGA upstarted, and y'all was trying to get some founding members to get in. And I got to reading about it, you know, and I was like man, I said, I said there's no way, this can't be good. You know, and I would say this a thousand times that is the best money I ever spent is getting in CGA as a founding member. That's awesome. I mean, that was, you know.
Speaker 3:You know, when you start training a dog and being able to know exactly what you need to do, every time you, you know, leave the house, what you need to work on, you know, when you start out at the beginning with a puppy, you know you start out working on basic obedience, you know. And then you'll start working on some beginner gun dog skills and you know you'll start tatering your training sessions to where you know you're working on all this stuff. You know, every time you go out, you know and you start seeing the progress a dog makes. And I don't know.
Speaker 3:I guess I kind of took a little bit different approach about the different modules, you know, but I would take the little training the I guess you'd call it training builders, you know, and what I did is I would take one and I would put all the different skills for that module on that one, you know, for the basic obedience you know, then I'd put all the skills for the beginner gun dog on another one, and then that's where I was at with the dogs, you know, and I would, you know I would.
Speaker 3:Just every time I'd go out I'd work on different stuff, you know, and I kind of tracked it in my head, kind of picking and choosing which one you want to work on and I would mark on there.
Speaker 3:You know where the dogs were at. You know whether they were just acquisitioning the skill or you know they were working on fluency or we was just. You know they already had it. You know, and then we had touched back on it. I'd still go back and you know, even today with the dogs, you know I still work on that stuff. You know that's good.
Speaker 2:Like I said some days you know it's worked pretty good for you. Those dogs are nice yeah and you know.
Speaker 3:You know a lot of people say, well, if I'm having a bad day I just don't go out and train my dog. You know Well, sometimes when you're having a bad day you can just take your dog out and you can do stuff with a dog that you know that it's going to be good at Absolutely.
Speaker 3:You know, if it's just take them out, and you know, run a couple of memories with them. Or you know, or sit them on the uh, on the on the mo marsh, and take a couple of bumpers and walk out there and throw one, you know, over at 50 yards and walk over and throw another one and then walk back to the dog and let him go pick them up. You know, I mean, you know just, uh, you know anything, anything. Or you know, a lot of times I'll just, I'll just go out and I'll just do a walking baseball drill, or you know, a wagon wheel drill, or you know, I'll, I'll, uh, you know, uh, you know, put a blind, just put an easy blind out at 70 or 80 yards and shoot a no bird off the launcher, you know, and then turn and send him to the blind and then let him come back and pick the mark up. You know, just, just.
Speaker 3:You know something that you know the dog can. You know it's going to be quick and easy, you know the dog's going to have a good time and you know it's going to be low. You know, you ain't, you know it ain't a lot of prep work, and you know, uh, just, you know, like I said, days when I'm, even if I don't feel like training, a lot of times I'll I may just go out and uh work on some uh, you know, uh, some delivery. You know, I'll just sit the dogs out there and give them a bumper and they'll hold it and I walk out and I'll call them to me and let them, you know, deliver, deliver the hand. You know, just stay on it.
Speaker 2:you know honestly, uh, if you've had a rough day, I mean it's good, you'll feel a lot better if you go out with your dog. Now, if you're trying, to teach your dog a new skill, you might be feeling even worse.
Speaker 3:If you're having a bad day that might not be the, but you know it's all you can always get out there and do a little obedience work or do a do something that you know the dog's gonna, you know, be successful at. You know just a, just a wagon wheel or walking baseball, or you know there's just so much stuff that you can do. You know that three bucket drill that you know that, uh, y'all y'all have on CGA. You know that's a, that's a real good. Uh, that's a real good, simple drill you can take out. Put three buckets out for some bumpers at each bucket and just work on getting your dog to cast in a in a in the direction you want it to go every time, lining up and sending it. You know there's so much stuff you can do.
Speaker 2:That's good, yeah, where, uh what? So we're kind of transitioning from well, I mean you know well, the time will change soon. So, kind of what's your mindset for the spring, what's your goals for for your dogs and what are? What are you hoping to uh to to do this spring with them, yeah, uh just, uh, you know.
Speaker 3:Just you know, I always look forward to getting back after this. Uh, and you know, I've got some like I act, some guys that I train with, you know, and I've always had guys. It was this past Saturday, uh, me and Soria were out and we was running that three, that three leg drill, and uh, we got done and I I got back to the house and sit down and somebody texts me. I'm looking at my phone and uh, uh, there was a guy that drove by, uh, you know where we were training at and I I'd never met him before, but he'd got, he'd got my number from somebody. Uh, he said he, he just messaged me and said that he was driving down Dotson road and he thought that was me out there training my dogs and I said, I said, yep, that was, that was me.
Speaker 3:He said, well, he said, he said I got a year and a half old dog. If you ever need anybody to train with you know, he said, I'd like to come out and train with you. He said I've had three or four people around Caledonia, you know, tell me how to. You know, call you, and so, anyway, I just started texting them, you know, and we're going to get together and try and yeah, uh, but I, you know I, I'll answer your question. I mean, just uh, getting back out there and you know, just uh, just keeping my dog sharp and then getting with some younger guys maybe and trying to help them out. You know, uh, get them, uh, you know, headed and ask him, you know where he was at with his dog and his training. And he, and he told me that you know that he, uh, I know some of the guys that he is uh, trained with a little bit, yeah, and he told me he felt like the dog could probably pass a um, a started hunt test. That's where he was at.
Speaker 3:So, uh, that's a great place to be yeah, yeah it is, and uh, and uh, but he, but we're going, we're going to get together. And I'd like to say I've never met him before other than just through texts, but it was just kind of. You know, I liked meeting new people and getting out and training with different guys. You know so, and I have more time to do it Once the time changes, you know versus. You know rushing home. You only got a little time to get home. You know you only got an hour worth of daylight to get out there and do something. You know. So I try to. I still try to get out there with my dogs and do a little something, you know, but it's just, it's a lot easier for me by myself to do something. When I only got 30 minutes and I was trying to hook up with somebody and do it.
Speaker 3:So I'm definitely looking forward to the time changing and uh, just uh, you know, just uh, like I said, I will. You know, we, we always uh, me and Sorya, when we, when we get together, we'll, we'll, we'll talk about what we want to try to do today. You know what we want to work on. You know where we're going to go work water, land, you know. Or uh, try to uh run a, you know, like a hunt scenario, you know, sometimes we had a, we had a pretty cool thing that me and him was doing over at my daughter's house.
Speaker 3:They got a nice, nice pond and on the property and we put out some decoys and I was setting my Versa launcher out there and uh, we would kind of like, you know, uh have, uh have the dogs sitting there with us. You know, we'd be, they'd be on their uh places, you know, and, and I and I would, just when I would hit that button for that versa, I'd just launch all six, oh man, and then we'd have a gun, you know, and we'd fire three poppers, you know, and then, you know, after that we'd set the guns down and then we'd just stand up and we'd just let the dogs run, pick them all up. Just like you know, hunt a hunt scenario.
Speaker 2:That's a pretty legit drill. Yeah, I bet the first time you ran at the dogs you're like what is going on?
Speaker 3:Well, I'll be, I'll be. How many times are you out there hunting, you know, and you and your buddies? You know you're knocked down. You know we've knocked down six ducks before. You know four or five. I mean a lot of times. You know it. You know it ain't like you're shooting one at a time and they mark that one and go get it and come back and you mark another one, you know. You know it's a lot of the bird, a lot of the stuff that fall. You know you got multiple birds falling. The dog can't mark all of them and they're not going to.
Speaker 2:So you know they got to trust you.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:They got to be. They definitely need to be exposed to that.
Speaker 3:We'll come up with all kind of like, um, like cool stuff to do.
Speaker 3:And there's another, there's another drill that I like to do and, like I said, when I ain't got a lot of time, it's kind of like a modified tea drill.
Speaker 3:You know, I'll have the spot I'm running from and I'll just start walking in a direction and I'll go out about 25 or 30 yards and I'll throw some bumpers out to the, to the right, some to the left, walk on up another, you know 20 or 30 yards, do the same thing, come down to the end and I'll throw you know four or five out down at the end and then I'll always send the dog it ain't nothing really out there for him to look at, yeah, but I'll.
Speaker 3:I'll send them toward the far pile and then I can stop them right there, cast them left to right to pick up one, or you know, I can to the next spot a little further out, cast them left to right, or I can stop them and then just cast them straight back to the far pile or just let them run straight through to the far pile. You know, just simple stuff like that. You know it's just I'm always trying to come up with something. You know something to something to do with the dogs, you know, to keep them on our toes and keep me on my toes.
Speaker 2:Hey, we all gotta stay on our toes. Well, as we kinda talk through and wrap this up a little bit, let's kinda get back to what would be your thoughts for people that are kinda like you're about to help the gentleman with that's got about a started dog. What's kinda like your first recommendations for people is they're getting going and they're making decisions.
Speaker 3:I always tell everybody that I train with and there's several of the guys that I've trained with that have joined CGA but I always tell them for what you would pay for maybe a month, month and a half of a pro trainer. You can get into CGA and do it yourself and, regardless of whether you get somebody else to train your dog or not, when you get the dog back you gotta know what you're doing. That's right. I mean, you just throw your money away If you can't just sit.
Speaker 3:They ain't like a person. You can't sit them off to school to get them back. And you know I can show you how to do something. A simple task, and you can pretty much go and do it anywhere, but for the rest of your life. But a dog ain't like that. You gotta keep working with them and if you wanna have a dog that performs you can be proud of, whenever you go to a hunt test or whenever I come to CGA weekends or whenever I show up at the duck hole with my buddies, you gotta stay out there and keep them sharp.
Speaker 2:So yeah, yeah, you definitely want them to show good when you show up. Yeah, yeah, and they will regress if you're not careful. Oh yeah, gotta, keep them sharp.
Speaker 3:Yeah, if you've lost a cent of the dog off and you think you can come back and get out there and do anything with it, or it don't work that way. So you gotta. A lot of the trainers will tell you I gotta train the handler too, or the owner too. You know what to do when they get the dog back.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so but yeah, well, that's good. Well, marty, it's just a pleasure to have you on and just to share any insight that you always bring. You're always so insightful and just your approach to things. Especially, it's nice to have to be able to share the maturity of your skill set as a handler. You've been with us for years, and you always have good thoughts that you bring to the table.
Speaker 3:And that's something else I want Anybody that might be on the fence about joining CGA or whatever I mean for me. I feel like for the rest of the day, with what I've gained from CGA, what I've learned as a trainer, is for the rest of my life. I'll always have a good dog. I know exactly how to train and I know exactly what to do Whenever I get one day when I do get a new puppy, it's no doubt in my mind that I got it under control.
Speaker 3:And so I'll say, if you have any reservations, I'll say, go ahead and get in there and it'll be the best money you ever spend. If you want a really nice gun dog, that means a lot.
Speaker 2:And member weekend will be coming up too. You need to meet Marty in person. You always typically he leads, some leads groups and if you can get up under Marty's group he'll lead you. Well, you've always, and everybody that comes up under you when we kind of shift the groups around there just enjoying it, and they're like man Marty's, just super helpful for us.
Speaker 3:I always like meeting new people at the weekends and getting back with some of the old friends that I've had from the weekends past, catching up with them, seeing how their dogs made progress and everything and just. It's always a good time. I always like bringing my gear out and helping out.
Speaker 2:It's a lot of fun. It means a lot. I look forward to the next one. It's gonna be fun, it's gonna be a good time. Well, any closing thoughts you got just for encourage people along the way. Like hey, they need to hang in there, they can do this yeah just, like I said, just get out there.
Speaker 3:You know dogs ain't not gonna train itself. There ain't no shortcuts, you gotta get out there and do it. So yeah, just join CGA, and just you know, if you wanna start out with 52 plus, I think that'd be a great thing, you know, for anybody with a new dog, or even if you got an old dog, you know, or an older dog, you know, you can pick up anywhere, you know, wherever, whatever level your dog's at, you know there's so much stuff that you can learn. You know, and all those different drills and skills that your dog, you know, needs to acquire and stay a proficient at throughout its life. You know, it's just you know it's good stuff.
Speaker 2:Thanks, Marty, we appreciate you. And again, it's just.
Speaker 3:Thanks for watching all day too, for sure. Well, thank you.
Speaker 2:Anytime, anytime you're here, man. It's an honor, and we are just grateful for you, yeah.
Speaker 3:I appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to the Build From here podcast. To learn more about retriever training or our podcast, visit CornerstoneGunDogAcademycom slash podcast.