Build From Here
Build From Here
A SOCOM Veteran's Take on Dog Training: From First Turkey Hunt to Epic Retrieves in Rugged Alaska
Every hunter has their start. Whether it was a friend inviting them to try hunting or a beloved father. In CGA Member Wayne Triplett's case, his grandad was the first one to introduce him to the outdoors when he took him on his first turkey hunt.
That defining moment in Wayne's life started a lifelong passion for the outdoors.
Wayne's infectious enthusiasm for the sport and his dogs shines through as he recounts memorable hunting tales, including his pivot to archery and the exhilarating moment he first set sights on waterfowl hunting in Alaska. His stories bring to life the excitement and passion that come with every hunt and training session.
Wayne's journey with dog training began with the desire to get a dog. It was no smooth ride. Skeptics and so-called experts often doubted his ability to have a dog due to his hectic work schedule. Wayne was fortunate enough to have some great friends who encouraged him despite what he had been told.
Wayne's persistence paid off. He achieved remarkable results by dedicating just 15 to 20 minutes a day and leveraging the Cornerstone program. Not only did Wayne find success, but he also involved his children in the process, creating a unique bonding experience that enriched their lives. Through ups and downs, Wayne shares insights into the importance of consistency, visual learning, and adapting training methods to fit each dog's needs. His story is one of patience, dedication, and the simple joys of shared experiences with dogs and family.
Want to hear the details of Wayne's story? Listen to this podcast to find out more.
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cornerstone gundog academy online resources to help you train your retriever welcome to the build from here podcast.
Speaker 2:On this episode we've got wayne triplett here, a good friend. It's been, uh, honestly, quite some time, man, that we've been talking back and forth with dogs and just it's just real an honor to have you here. So welcome aboard, appreciate it well it's been.
Speaker 3:It's been a journey. It's been really fun. I'm pretty honored to be sitting here with you, so thank you.
Speaker 2:I remember the first phone call. It was, uh, I guess sometime in 2018 we talked about that earlier and uh, you're up in alaska. We just started talking, hit it off right away, talking about ducks and dogs and how, uh, you were thinking about getting into this thing. So it's been, yeah, it's been a journey, and now you're you're two dogs in two dogs in.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a, it's an addiction. Once you figure out a little bit and you start to get some confidence in your ability to do things. It's like all right, let's, let's try this again. Let's try and get better. Let let's let's make it better than the first time yeah.
Speaker 2:So with everybody, let's get a little background history where you're from and then, uh, you know, I want the viewers to be able to get to know you a little bit, kind of know your first hunting experience, because one thing we all share in common on build from here is or most of us that are that are training our dogs. We're training them to go pick up our ducks because we love to kill ducks I mean, who doesn't? It's a, it's a fun time. So what got you into it? Was it a hunting like? Was it duck hunting in general? Was it a deer hunting experience? What kind of like piqued your, your interest in the outdoors? Like way, way back childhood or whenever you first you got introduced to?
Speaker 3:it. So my, uh, my granddad took me on my first hunting trip and it was for turkey and I was seven years old and I remember this. We sat there, didn't see anything all morning and, uh, I had a good granddad. He uh I said, hey, can I try the turkey call? And it was the most box calls, yeah, and I sat there and the way he tells the story I was just like every stereotypical child with any kind of a call, just nonstop. And that he, just the way he tells it, he pulled out his peanut butter and jelly sandwich and just figured, well, that's the end of the hunt. And these two Jakes came walking in. Really, wow. And he didn't even think that that was going to happen. But they came walking in and of course I'm excited. So I just drop the call and I shoot out my arm over the blind and scream out Granddad, turkey. Which of course then they get scared and take off running. But from then on I was hooked Really.
Speaker 2:No way, that's a pretty unique first experience. Yeah, turkey men and the guy right here behind the camera, colin, he's had some experiences with some turkey, but you never know what they're going to do.
Speaker 3:No, you hear them and you think that they're 15 feet away and they are right behind you. Or you think that they're 100 yards away and they are right behind you, wow. Or you think that they're a hundred yards away and they're 30 yards away and they're looking at you, wow, um. I had a funny story with uh um Dwayne, yeah, and we I took him on his first turkey hunt oh really. And we were convinced that this bird was right there next to us. And it was.
Speaker 3:But it was calling from still up in the tree on the roost, and we were just trying to like inch a little bit closer to close the distance, because we knew there was a creek. I'd always been told I don't know how true it is, but I'd always been told turkeys won't cross creeks and fences. So I was like, well, let's just try to close the gap just a little bit and see if we can see him. And all we did was just start to move. And then I heard a twig and we both looked up. He was 20 feet away from us in the tree, calling down to us. We could have shot him out of the tree if we had wanted to, but of course he hit the ground and took off at what felt like 90 miles an hour. But wow, from then on, duane was hooked, so that's amazing wow.
Speaker 3:So turkey hunting was kind of a big part of, I guess, growing up for you and then, or any, it wasn't the beginning it wasn't the beginning um later on I I grew up and I started to deer hunt because everybody in the south um they take their kids deer hunting yeah and I got to go deer hunting.
Speaker 3:Um, we moved around, my job took me to alaska and I got into a whole other world of big game hunting. That was just another level. There's no turkey in alaska, so that one went away and we started to uh, chase stuff like caribou and moose and bear things that'll hunt you back. Wow, that's another kind of excitement. And then I transitioned into archery hunting. I got really addicted into archery hunting.
Speaker 3:Something about being so close that you could like see them inhale and exhale, like it's not just looking through a scope anymore and it was. It was different and it made it more of a challenge and I like to challenge myself. So I did that for a while and, um, some friends I had were like, well, you need to come duck hunting with us. Okay, I never did that growing up. So I went on a duck hunt and I was hooked because it was like turkey hunting yeah, you're talking to the birds and the birds can talk back. You're trying to get, coax them to want to come in. They, they kind of don't want to come in, but they do want to come in and they want to mess with your emotions. So, and then that was it like that really took hold with the, the waterfowl hunting.
Speaker 2:Wow, was that first duck hunt? Was it like y'all killed a bunch or it was more of just like? You kind of just got a taste for the experience and it was you know.
Speaker 3:I don't remember. I don't even remember if I shot a duck. Wow, if I'm being honest with you, I don't remember. I just remember the reaction to seeing birds flying early in the morning.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Seeing them want to work into decoys and wanting to land, the feeling of what it was like to see them react to the people on the blind calling Cause I knew not to call. I knew better that. I can't tell you if I even shot a duck, but I know that it was fun because when we were shooting it was just happening. Everything was fast-paced. You didn't really have to worry about being super quiet or don't move. You don't want to stick your face up and look right at the ducks and flare them, but you can sit there and make fun of each other in the blind while you're waiting on birds to fly. You could never do that when you're deer hunting, that's right, because you've got to be quiet.
Speaker 3:That's right, you never know if they're right there around the corner. So that was the intro to duck hunting and it just kind of took from there. I got to go with a bunch of other people and I wanted to have a dog immediately, because I saw other people with dogs and that was where it was at it was seeing that dog walk.
Speaker 2:Some of your buddies had dogs that were out there picking up ducks for you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they had dogs and they'd go and get the duck and the dog would be out running around looking and they'd blow a whistle and the dog would stop, turn around and sit down. I'm like what is this?
Speaker 3:And he'd throw a hand signal out and the dog goes in the direction of the hand signal and I'm looking at him and going your dog's smarter than most of the people in our class. How'd you do that? And to me it was black magic. I loved it. I was like I want everything to do with that, but it started off. I think everybody goes through the stages of I have to kill everything. Yep, I have to kill drakes. Now they've got to cup up in the decoy and fully work. So as you progress and you get more mature with your hunting, then your experience is mature. Wow, at some point I figured yeah, yeah, I really want to have a dog, so wow so what?
Speaker 2:um, so you wanted a dog. How did? How did you come across your first dog? What was the story there? And then uh, you know, yeah, yeah, what's the story there?
Speaker 3:yeah, yeah. So my, our first dog was Cash. He's a yellow lab, he's a British lab.
Speaker 3:I had wanted a dog. I was going to get one from a kennel my background and my job. I pretty much got told by the kennel like I can't sell a dog to you, your, your work has you moving too much. It's not fair to the dog. And I felt like, well, that means that I, I really can't have one, because if they feel this way, other people must feel it too. So it was really discouraging to think that not only should I not have one, but I'm not qualified to train one. So it just didn't happen.
Speaker 3:And when I had told that story to a friend of ours, her dad was like those guys are crazy. Yeah, that's not true. Yeah, but you could, honestly, you could, totally, you can make this happen. And so one day they called me. They said we have a dog. He was trained for autism service and something's worked out and the family can't take him, but he needs a home. He's not a bird dog, he is birdie. He comes from a good bloodline, but he is an autism service animal. So his behavior is on point. It's just you're going to have to teach him and I was like I don't care, it's a dog, I have the chance to do this.
Speaker 3:And so I worked with a friend uh mentioned his name, dwayne Bachman. He's a great dude that I worked with. He's a CGA member and we were working together in Georgia and I saw him training a dog and I was like, if Dwayne can do this, I can do this. I love Dwayne to death and so I started watching the videos, those little free videos that are on the YouTube channel. And my wife is a behavioral analyst. She works with children with autism and she heard some of the words that y'all were using, some of the guidance that you were given in the video, and she goes what are you watching? Like she was all like suspecting what are you doing? I told her this is the program that I want to train the dog on. Give me the phone. She takes the phone and she watches it.
Speaker 3:Like 30 seconds she goes you can get this, I don't care, just get this, I don't care, just get it. I was like I'm getting your approval on something. She's like everything that they're teaching you is based on science and I completely support it and you need to do it. Wow, I was like, okay, that's all it took. Dang, that's crazy. So I jumped on board and it felt like drinking from the fire hose. Oh yeah, but I wanted it. I wanted to drink from that fire hose. It's what made it different. Yeah, because instead of me just feeling overwhelmed, it was something that I had already wanted. Wow. So then I dove into the videos and Cash came out and we immediately started. And Cash was he, I don't know. It's my opinion dogs need consistency, yeah, and so he was consistently trained in a and now I was training him in b.
Speaker 3:I was training him something different. But I was being consistent, we were working together, we were spending time together and it wasn't even a lot, it was like 15 minutes. 15 minutes every day of running through things and it started to piece together and we were um, we were just working together and it was clicking, and that's that's how it happened. That's how I got my first dog and that's how we started. The cornerstone journey was with the original, before 52 plus came out. Then it was, which is really cool, because those the videos really help you out. You can read a book all day long. But if I see what I'm supposed to do, then that really makes it to where.
Speaker 3:I can't misinterpret it. I can, flat out, do exactly like it's supposed to, and it should work.
Speaker 2:It should be consistent. That's awesome, man. I didn't know that about the first people saying like, hey, we don't think dogs. That's horrible. I mean the funny thing is, but I mean dogs are your buddies, they're going to go where you go, and that's how I feel about that. But I'm glad someone you had a friend that kind of talked some truth into that, which is awesome, because especially.
Speaker 3:I mean, I know I was intimidated by the idea of training my own dog. Yeah, so then when you have someone else who's a dog trainer telling you you can't do this, you listen to the people that are supposed to be experts.
Speaker 3:You're like oh yeah, you must be right, I must be out of my mind. Yeah, but the Cornerstone program worked out to where that's not true. But the Cornerstone program worked out to where it's not true. People have their own misconceptions and their own ideas of how things are supposed to be done. But I mean, anybody can give the 15 to 20 minutes a day of work with your dog.
Speaker 3:Yeah, 100% so that's really all it took. It was just consistency. There are some crazy things in life that throw curveballs Kids. That's right Having kids can throw curveballs in your training, but that doesn't mean that you can't work around it. Dogs are really resilient. They bounce back really quick.
Speaker 2:I feel like that's in some ways having kids makes the training better. You get real distractions when the kids are old enough to run around.
Speaker 2:I know, we both have a three-year-old and I know you know what that's like. Oh yeah, it's fun. I mean, violet loves that. The other day, I think, I sent you this video. We were out there and somehow my daughter, mercy, told me I'm going to be the bumper boy. And I was like, okay, I'll be the bumper boy. So I'm out there throwing the bumpers and she's sending the dog and then the dog's going back to place and then she brings the bumper back to me and I throw it back out and then she goes and sends the dog. So it's quite the experience.
Speaker 3:Yeah, caroline does it with cash. Wow, we haven't gotten to that yet with Millie. She works really well with place. She watches. They watch everything you do. Wow, caroline, my daughter, she'll see me, like put my hand up, put me at place and walk backwards slowly. And Caroline and her tiny little three-year-old hand, puts her hand up, looks real serious at the dog, walks backwards and like lowers her head. I'm starting to think to myself am I doing that too? Am I like lowering my head, looking intense like she is, because I know she's copying me? That's awesome, oh man, and then she'll want it. She wants to throw the bumper. So she can't throw as far. She knows that. Yeah, so she'll walk out a bumper and drop it on the ground.
Speaker 2:Really.
Speaker 3:Walk all the way back to me and look at him and cash and send him. That's amazing. That's the stuff right there. If I can keep her addicted to doing this kind of stuff, I'll be happy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's how simple it really is. Though Even a three-year-old can do a lot of this stuff, it's us that gets in the way when we start thinking too much. It's almost this flow you just have to get in. It's like you just got to relax and we talked about this earlier, like the bond, and then focusing on momentum, which just means are things going good, and then focusing on helping the dog win. We're a team.
Speaker 2:It's not about you know, we always say this. You know, we all have our own agendas. Like you know, you're going to 52 plus. Now, right, You've got an agenda built for you, but sometimes that agenda isn't what needs to happen. You know, you may only do half of that for one day, or you may need to realize, hey, this dog is, we got to try it from a different angle. And it's about the team and it's about that connection with the dog. In my opinion, that makes it work, and I think which is a beautiful thing about kids is they understand life, Like they got it down, Like they're focused on people. They thing about kids is they understand life. They got it down, they're focused on people. They're focused on relationships and connections. They're not distracted, worried about all the details. They're just in for the action and it's pretty much that simple for the most part. It's just sometimes-.
Speaker 3:And they are a great distraction when you need to incorporate distractions. Caroline will go and sit down on the place board next to Millie and I'm like all right, we're going to work with this, we're going to use this as a distraction and sometimes it works. Sometimes she's too much of a distraction for Millie and that's okay. It helps me as a dad, because I want to be a good dad. So I also want to be a good dog dad. I want to be able to train the dog right and I want to be able to have a good demeanor when I'm training the dog, because the dogs pick up on that.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:So I want to be as comfortable as I am training the dog, as I am having my daughter there with me, like if she distracts the dog it's okay, the whole session isn't ruined. We can turn around, we can come back to it. We can work on this.
Speaker 3:Take a break, come back, it's all good you can translate that into even life and how you react to your kids 100%. And if I can get like that with how, I'm not going to worry about it because maybe she's distracted the dog and the training session is over with. I'm not going to be mad at my kid If I'm out there distracted the dog and the training session's over with. I'm not going to be mad at my kid If I'm out there with the dog and the dog's doing something and the blind in the real hunt. I'm not going to get upset. It's okay, it's life.
Speaker 3:You had somebody on that talked about sending their dog out and instead of doing a straight line to where the wood duck fell, it jumped on a rock and started sniffing, yeah, and it went from another rock and then it went to another rock and later on he realized well, it's because she was smelling where those ducks normally land on there, right, and she was getting in on that surrounding.
Speaker 3:And to have that going into that situation, have that kind of a way to look at what the situation could be like so that you don't get overwhelmed and frustrated in the middle of a way to look at what the situation could be like so that you don't get over overwhelmed and frustrated in the middle of a hunt. So you can be like my granddad just pull out the peanut butter jelly sandwich. That's right. Who cares? That's right. Enjoy it as it is, because they're not going to last for forever and the only thing you're going to have left to look back on are either the photos or the memories. So, wow, don't think about the things that frustrated. You. Just eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and keep going it's pretty good advice there.
Speaker 2:I love that. So with cash, let's kind of. Let's kind of hit back at uh, first time ever training a dog, okay, so, yep, so you got cash is the first time ever you've trained, you're going through cornerstone. What was it like working up to go on that first hunt? What were you feeling? What were you thinking? You know, at that point had you already done hand signals and stuff We'd gotten into?
Speaker 3:hand signals. We'd gotten into whistle stops. Like it was crazy. That was my first like I can do this moment yeah, was a whistle stop and redirecting him in another direction, to another bumper, somewhere else, and him going and then coming right back. And then going, sending him back again after his original direction and him going and man finding it and coming back like he hit all of his marks and I'm sitting here thinking to myself I can do this, this is working. It's steps, but it's working.
Speaker 3:I was immature. I know that I had anxiety going into the first hunt because it's like I hope I've done this right. It wasn't towards him, it was. Bumpers are one thing, now it's live. And I tried to do everything I could Blank shooting with dummies with shotgun, blank shells, yeah, like everything to try and make sure that everything is the exact same as what it could be. But you can't control the real world. No, yeah, there's all kinds of stuff going on and it was in Alaska. So we went hunting and it was for sandhill cranes. It was our first hunt and not a single crane came in, not a single bird worked that day, oh yeah.
Speaker 3:That's how it was up there. They either come through when the season opens or they've already come through. So it's at the top of the flyway and you can get really lucky and shoot some really dumb birds that will just decoy to everything. But if they've already pushed through, they've already pushed through and that's what it was. So that was frustrating because we had worked up, we had planned on this trip as a family wife we didn't have kids at the time, it was just us and the dog and it turned into.
Speaker 3:Well, let's go walk the hedgerows looking for grouse and a grouse flushed. He sat still, he didn't move at all. He tracked the grouse in the air. My wife shot the grouse, I sent him on his name. He went and got a grouse and came back. Was it a duck? No, but it was a bird that tastes really good and he got to hold steady wait. He tracked a bird. He went and got it and he came right back, man. And then we just kept going and kept going. We got really big into hunting Kodiak, the island. Really. Wow, that is a nobody. You don't need to go hunting Kodiak the island Really.
Speaker 3:Wow, that is a nobody. You don't need to go to Kodiak. There's nothing there on Kodiak. There are no birds on Kodiak. It is a hidden gem. It is an absolute hidden gem and we were hunting scoters out in open water. You want to talk about a real test, at least in my opinion. A real test on a dog is open water.
Speaker 3:We're not talking like. We're talking 60, 80 feet deep open water Like real, yeah, real water. We're doing long lines with scoters and we're hunting out of a boat and a couple of scoters came in and we dumped both the scoters Wow, and I sent him out the boat. He went, got a scooter. He's coming back and I get him in the boat and by the time he's come back with the first one, the other one has now drifted in line with the decoys and I've trained him and trained him to stay out of the decoys, because that was one of the things he did want to do. He wanted to bring back decoys. So when he went out the second time, he was in the decoys but he didn't go near the decoys and just out of reaction I've got that whistle with me I just blew that whistle. It wasn't like I really I'm being honest I didn't really expect him to do anything, because it's the water, it's not like he's going to turn and sit.
Speaker 3:He turned and started dog paddling, looking at me and I was like he's doing it, wow. And then it clicked oh, I gotta send him, I gotta give him direction. So I give him his direction and he just looks right over and he's like oh, there it is, and he goes straight in there. So he does a double really in the ocean, off of whistle enhanced signals and I was like I got a dog man they can do this I mean that'll challenge any dog.
Speaker 2:I mean open water. I'm sure the water's not like glass. I'm sure it's kind of moving a little bit.
Speaker 3:there's some. There's some chop. You can get some glass days up there. There's some really good spots to hunt where it is glass, wow, um, but there's some chop, wow, and. And it's some really good spots to hunt where it is glass, but there's some chop, wow, and it's cold. It's cold water, I bet it is. And so I mean we had buddy heaters on the boat so that when he'd get out he'd sit down and there was a buddy heater on him. Man, we were doing everything we could to make sure. I don't know if it was, if I was overthinking it, but I didn't want that to be the reason why my dog went down.
Speaker 3:So we were thinking about everything and he pulled those. He'd pull Harlequin. That dove on him. He went under no way. He went under the water and came back out with that Harley in his mouth. I was like stop, stop, I don't think it. Can you get that dog in your life? That's like that one in a once in a lifetime dog and it's like that's him, that's Cash, and maybe everybody's like no, that's just a really good hunting dog. I don't know, I don't have that that background. Maybe Millie will turn out to be identical to Cash, maybe she'll be dumb as a box of rocks, I don't know. But as it is right now, he put a really high bar.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean that's really amazing for your first dog to train. I mean, y'all are clearly a team, y'all clearly have that bond. You clearly developed that along the journey, because some of that stuff, I mean you can train that in, but some of that stuff's just there's this like the dog gets you, you get the dog, and it's just like this perfect symphony of everything working together as it should.
Speaker 3:I mean I hate to sound like a broken record, but even just being consistent on the training you're building that relationship with the dog where they can trust you. Like, I know that if you put your hand in this direction, I need to go there because there's something there that you want me to get and it has always been there. So we'll always be there. Yeah, and I know that when you call me back, you're going to get me out of the water and you're going to take care of me. That's right. And I know that, when it's all said and done, I'm going to get to eat because I know you're going to feed me and I know you're going to give me a bed to sleep in, like. So the little things build upon each other and it's like you build a real relationship to where it's not just a dog and a dude Like Cash is my buddy, yeah.
Speaker 2:So yeah, when you were training Cash, was there any like challenge that you know you struggled with a little bit and then you kind of finally overcame it, or was everything just kind of smooth sailing and gelling? It's me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I am my biggest challenge because I'm harder on myself. I don't know if I'm being too hard, too lenient. Do I expect too much? Where is that fine line of it? Just comes with experience. But where's that fine line of being able to learn your dog? So many people use the term? I had to learn my dog. I had to understand what my dog was telling me through its behavior. Right, and it's real. I wish there was a class on like, because every dog's different, but it they're literally. You won't do that. You won't get to that where you learn your dog until you work with your dog. That's right. Yeah, so if you'll just get past that part of it's okay. There are some stressors you're going to run into. You're going to wonder why they're not getting it, but then wonder why they're not getting it. But then you're going to understand why they're not getting. There's too hot, they're thirsty, there's a new smell, something's got them distracted. Then you can get past that a lot faster.
Speaker 3:Yeah, um, it would be cool if I could have like, had that in the beginning, but I wouldn't trade it because I've learned it and it's something that sticks with me harder now because it's like I know how I felt about it in the beginning, but I wouldn't trade it because I've learned it and it's something that sticks with me. Harder now because it's like I know how I felt about it in the beginning.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just a little overwhelmed, trying to figure all that out.
Speaker 3:Just trying to figure it out.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But that program worked so well that it was like you were constantly getting even I was getting reinforcement. I was getting that reinforcement that I needed. Each time I'd go out to where I made it to, where I know we can do this again because I'm seeing little steps, which is saying I'm doing it right too, Not just him, but I'm doing it yeah.
Speaker 2:I love it, man. I love seeing people go through it for the first time, and it's like learning to ride a bike for the first time. You know you. You just don't know until you do it. And then, once you do it, yeah, you may fall down, you just get back up and then you just keep going and then one day you kind of figure it out. And I love it, though. I love seeing, just like the, the light bulb moments that you've had.
Speaker 2:You know, we've talked on the phone quite a few times and you just, you know just simple stuff like hey, we're facing this, this and this, and we just talk through it. And most of the time, what I find is that if I'm on the phone with somebody, and you in particular, you kind of already have the answer, but we just talk about it a little bit and then you start well, maybe it's this. I'm like, yeah, I think you're right, I think it's a good idea and you already knew it to begin with. You just that kind of helps to bounce some of that stuff off of somebody and realize you know, okay, actually it is a hard, like the whole idea what you were just talking about trusting yourself because we don't know what we don't know. And you know, am I doing this right? That's the question that we all ask. That's a heavy weight. To have the dogs know the outcome of this dog rest on my shoulders. That can feel like a heavy weight, but it's also, you know, it can either feel like a heavy weight or it's a wonderful opportunity if you just believe You've got to just trust the process and like no, like hey, this will turn out and that's where you know.
Speaker 2:But sometimes belief comes over time too. Like more of that, like you said, those little wins. It's like, oh, okay, now we're starting to get some. Like actually, we made progress, this is awesome. And then you start making steps in the right direction and then now and then then your belief grows a little bit. And that's the biggest thing is if someone could like that's what we're talking about earlier.
Speaker 2:Like you know, a three-year-old kid they, they, they're not questioning themselves whether they're doing it right or not. They've seen you do it and they're they're not questioning themselves whether they're doing it right or not. They've seen you do it and they're following, they know this is the way to do it because you have shown them, and then they're doing it with total confidence, and that's what it's about is having that confidence in yourself like, hey, you can do this, but sometimes you do have to. You just got to walk that out, but I don't know if there's a better. In my opinion, I don't think there's a better way to do it than just to do it, because you have to have that firsthand experience.
Speaker 3:You've got to get through it. You've got to experience it for yourself so that you can experience that feeling of am I doing this right? And then seeing that you did it right, and be like, no, I was doing it right. Yeah, because then it just sticks. Everything that you experience experience, whether it's with the dog or with yourself in life, it helps you become better. Yeah, and if you beat yourself up about it, eventually you're going to figure out oh, I didn't need to beat myself up about it, but I did enough to where I remember it, so I know that it's a real feeling. That's right. So, yeah, he Cash is pretty awesome. We've gone everywhere, yeah.
Speaker 2:What are yeah from? We've talked, you've kind of been able to hunt him in a lot of different places. What's? Been some of your most memorable hunts outside of Alaska, and you got anything that comes to mind in particular. So hunting.
Speaker 3:We hunted flooded timber oh man.
Speaker 3:Arkansas public land. Oh man, I'm gonna tell you what. Everything anybody says about hunting Arkansas public land is probably true. There are some ruthless people oh yeah, we got, we got set up. And three minutes before shooting light, somebody else comes and sets up literally 60 yards to the right of us and I'm like, is this normal? I'm just looking at the guys. I'm like, oh yeah, no, this is public land. Like, okay, cool, oh man, and we are just destroying them. Cash is just bringing in bird after bird after bird and we've got the most. Like me, I didn't think that it would work, but it did. And it was the bottom part of a climbing tree stand Wow. And a yard sign that was zip-tied to the bottom of that tree stand so that there weren't grates Wow. And that's what he was sitting on as his place part Wow, place mat. And we were just hammering him and it was awesome. He was working.
Speaker 3:He was on fire all day long wow and then we get back to the boat and the guys had who set up nexus left. They weren't shooting anything and yeah we had the perfect spot.
Speaker 3:We got them where they were coming in and they were dropping right in on the X. And we go back out to the boat and the buddy cranks up his boat. He's like why isn't it moving? I said, what do you mean? It isn't moving. And he pulls up the prop or the motor. The hit, pulled the prop off his motor and chucked it into the river Dead. Serious, that prop was gone. No way. The only reason we got back is because we happened to pull a smaller boat up and over the levee back in there with us to help move all the decoys and everything out. Otherwise that thing would have been down too. We would have been stuck, because then you've got the whole public land laws. We're going to be out by a certain time. Yeah, so here we are with this little boat with like a 20 horse.
Speaker 3:oh man, pulling a big boat with like a 60 horse full of all the decoys and you've got, like that store-bought, nine dollar, like rope from walmart, oh man, attached to the boat. And we're just going as fast as that little boat can go against the, the cash river, just like trying to get to the ramp. And we're just going as fast as that little boat can go against the Cache River, just like trying to get to the ramp in time and we did.
Speaker 3:But, I was like is this normal? And I've had guys be like oh dude, they've pulled the drain plug to boats no way, and just chucked the drain plug and flooded boats before I was like y'all get ruthless.
Speaker 3:I'm like, hey, that's public land, honey. I'm like that's different. Yeah, that's a little different. But there was, we shot a five man limit Really Wow Of greenheads and that's I don't care, I'll shoot ducks. Ducks are ducks. Yeah, bonus ducks or bonus ducks, I don't care. But these guys were like, no, we shoot greenheads. I was like, okay, we'll shoot greenheads. And we did. That was really fun watching Cash work in flooded timber. That's amazing.
Speaker 2:It was really cool.
Speaker 3:And then crane, sandhill crane. We went to Texas and these birds are bigger than he is. I swear they're reared up like cobras wanting to fight back once they get down on the ground. The cranes are a scary bird to send a dog after. Yeah, they are. He had his goggles. He did not like wearing Rex specs at first, but I knew that it was coming, so we trained for months wearing Rex specs at home, so it was something normal. Yeah, and it worked. He got out there and he got out there and he didn't care. That bird was on the ground and I've got the video still I'll watch it occasionally of him just coming back to the blind and that tail is just wagging as hard as it can as he's walking back to the blind, dragging that, dragging that crane. So it was really good.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. I love seeing you know dogs. Just something about them light up when that bird is still got some fight left into it. It's the ultimate matchup. Oh yeah, beast versus bird, seeing them like something about the dog. They get fired up about that.
Speaker 3:We hunted with one of the guys from SOC.
Speaker 2:Noah, yeah, we hunted with Noah.
Speaker 3:This year I took Cash out there and they got photos of Cash and he's got one duck in his mouth and he's coming up and there's another duck right there and he's like I can fit both of these. And he drops the dead duck to go get the live one, which then starts running away. And they got right that action shot of him, like it full, like I'm going to get you look. And he tore off after that and got. He brought them both back. Man, he's getting older but he still he loves it. You just have to be more cognizant now of yeah, all right, you worked hard today you can take a break. Wow. So I've had a lot of really cool memories with cash oh yeah, he's a.
Speaker 2:He's a good dog and he's been doing and just out there, you can just see it in his eyes. He's got zero quit. He's all. He's a gung-ho when he's on, he's on.
Speaker 3:That's the only thing I worry. That's something I worried about was making sure I didn't overwork him. Yeah, because he's one of those. He wants it, he wants to work.
Speaker 2:And now Mill.
Speaker 3:So and now millie millie, how all there were seven, eight, eight months. Seven, eight months now, yeah, almost eight months. Yeah, um, we were gonna get one of violet's puppies, that's right, yeah, and it didn't work out. And I told you who all was having litters and the moment you heard the bloodline, I heard the excitement in your voice. I don't know dog bloodlines. I heard the excitement in your voice. I don't know dog bloodlines, yeah, but I heard it in your voice and I was like, so that's what I need to do. Yeah, that's the dog you want. You need that dog, that's right. So I was like, okay, that's enough for me, I'll take your word on it. And we went out and we got Millie on the 23rd of December. Wow, right before Christmas, wow. Pregnant wife waiting on a baby.
Speaker 3:We were sitting there thinking to ourselves well, if we get her now, by the time the baby comes she should be crate, trained to where she's sleeping through the night, not like crying and waking up the baby in the middle of the night. That's right and it actually worked out that way, but that would have been a rough one for me. If she hadn't, I'd have been sleeping outside instead of the dog.
Speaker 2:Oh man, yeah, that would have been rough, that would have been rough, but we jumped on the 52+ Dude.
Speaker 3:I love that program. I'm not lazy, but when you show me exactly what I need to do, I don't have to figure out. Do I need to work on this today or that tomorrow it's? You're working on this 15 in the week. It isn't working out, it's not clicking right. Cool, go back and do it again. There's nothing wrong with that. But this is where you need to build on. We're going to start here. That has been a game changer.
Speaker 2:Wow, I'm glad you're liking that. I think it allows you to focus on some of the more important aspects, like we've kind of talked about which is versus before. If you're sitting there planning having to figure out, okay, well, how do I piece all this together, what am I working on? And that's a good skill set to have. At some point you'll develop that and you already have because you've gone through it. But it's really nice if you can just say this is the game plan. Now I can focus on the connection with the dog. Like I don't have to think like this is, I just pull it up, this is what I'm doing. And when you focus on that bond and that connection, I feel like I mean just seeing y'all out there.
Speaker 2:I mean you brought Millie out. We're working her out there at the land. She's never been at the land before. It's freshly cut. We've got tall grass, short grass, all kinds of smells, turkeys are all over that place, all kinds of animals. And you know she's. But she listened, you know, and she's still a puppy, she's still very young, but she also was able to kind of like. You know, if you recall her, she was coming back immediately, which was saying something.
Speaker 2:That means y'all are doing something right.
Speaker 3:That was the first time that I felt like everything is clicking was on heel work. I felt like she picked up where heel is. So you've talked about like, if you're a left-handed shooter versus a right-handed shooter, where do you want the dog to walk on heel?
Speaker 3:So, I'm right-handed shooter. I want her to walk on my left and so getting to say heel, and knowing that she's going to go to my left side and she's going to sit down immediately, that's insane to me. Yeah, because I mean, that's something that I'm seeing. That's the first real step of progress of when she's clicking, she's putting it together, the recall, recalling with a whistle, like I was telling you, like if I don't have my whistle on me, I can whistle with my mouth. And she still knows that whistle means coming back. Wow, she'll stop. Whatever she's doing, she'll run right back, blows my mind. I know that they're smart, yeah, and she'll run right back, blows my mind. I know that they're smart.
Speaker 2:That's pretty good for a young pup. It blows my mind, yeah, a lot of pups. But we've talked about some of these things and some of the details you focused in on are really important. Like you know, early on, you know, everybody thinks when they're first training a dog, like you know, if I say here they need to come immediately, well, yes, say here they need to come immediately. Well, yes, with a caveat if you've never taught them that you can expect that.
Speaker 2:And then you got to go through the process of teaching them that. And the number one mistake a lot of people make is they'll say here, the dog doesn't come. Well, they're, well, what do they do? Well, let's say, here again, here, here, here, and the dog finally comes. Good, well, you've reinforced the dog for coming on. Three hears yep, and then now, every time, here, here, here, and then the dog finally comes, because they're learning that that's association.
Speaker 2:I know it sounds backward, but it works. If you, if you only call the dog when you know it will come to you, and you start that way, within a short period of time you can start testing that and say, here, like today, we're out there, millie, sniffing the grass. You say, here, she came on back. Or when the camera guys were getting some stuff in the car, she was over there, a big distraction. One of the camera guys was petting her. You said, here, bam, she comes back over here. That's saying you did it right.
Speaker 2:You focused on that detail and the bond, the connection which is just some of it's just being natural, it's just connecting with the dog and then also not realizing that everything's not black and white, and we've talked about that and operating in the gray area, and that's some of the hardest parts for people. Everybody wants it to be black and white, but when you boil it down to the fundamentals of, hey, this is just a relationship, and relationships don't always look exactly like you know. It doesn't have to be textbook, what it needs to be is just that. That connection Y'all, y'all seem to have got that. Millie's good eye contact. She's looking up at you, she's, she's in tune, she's excited. She's still looking as a puppy, you know, left and right, like wondering what's going on, but she's still in tune and I'd say that's. I think I'm excited to see that too that she hopped out of the truck and boom is already working and that's pretty good oh yeah, I really am proud of where she's going.
Speaker 3:Again, like I said, I'm my critic, so I have to really pull on the reins on myself of am I expecting too much yet? Do I need to breathe and let her have her puppy moment? And then when do you actually step in and make the correction? But not to let it drive me being frustrated in her performance or in her behavior. And then, like you said, you say hear three times, and then she finally comes. Yeah, you've reinforced that. Three here's mean come here. And so, like in the videos, you said give it about five seconds. You've got to really teach yourself to give yourself five seconds.
Speaker 1:Five seconds is a long time when you're sitting there kind of like waiting. Is it going to?
Speaker 2:happen.
Speaker 3:Here. Good girl, all right, now we can move on.
Speaker 2:It's crazy that five-second window. It really makes you think here one, because if you don't, I mean we're all looking for that immediate response and that's coming from training. On that level of, well, you're trying to get a finished dog response or a fully trained response with a brand new puppy, or a lot of people are yeah and it's. But when you realize you know we're, we work into that, we step into that, then it works out.
Speaker 3:So oh yeah, all right, so that's. That's where we're at, we're doing and this is you've got an interesting perspective.
Speaker 2:So with Cash, the dog had obedience pretty much nailed when you got him, had no gundog training, and then now Millie is a fresh, clean slate. You get to start from ground zero, which is a really unique experience, I would say, because you've got dog experience, you've got training experience, but you get to have the the beginning experience of programming this dog from you know, from a puppy that knows nothing to a fully trained hunting dog and they feed off each other.
Speaker 3:Yeah, she watches what he does and she'll do what he does. That's amazing, he doesn't. He'll feed off of her as far as like, yeah, let's go play. He's pretty much set in his ways now at his age.
Speaker 3:But as far as like telling him to load up, for instance, that was you and I talked about how it's not in the videos, but it's something that I wanted. I wanted a specific command for the dogs to load up in the truck. So, load up. She'd watch Cash do it and then Cash would load up. Yeah, she'd watch cash do it, and then cash would load up. And she'd start by like looking and then sitting, like what do I do? I'd pick her up and put her paws on the truck, say, load up, watch her tail wag. And I'd pick her up and put her in. Yeah, and then one day it was, she jumped up and put her paws on it and then dropped her paws and sat down on the ground and kept loading her up until, out of nowhere, load up. They both were in there. All right.
Speaker 3:That's pretty cool, just building off of it giving them consistency, giving them showing them, letting them see from each other, see from you, what it is you're expecting out of them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, hey, I hope you're enjoying the episode so far. I just want to stop and ask a favor of you real quick. If you are enjoying this episode, let me know, like subscribe, hit that notification bell, that way you can be aware of any new content that we release. And also just let me know of what you're thinking. Maybe there's something that stands out to you, or maybe you just have a thought and you'd love to comment what's been one of your uh challenges thus far with millie? So you're, you're week 11 right now. Right, so just you're, you're midway or you're a little, you're a little over halfway on the uh, the foundations phase, the most important phase. It's where it all happens. Right there, that's where the magic happens. You get that right. Things, things work pretty good from there.
Speaker 3:Any uh, any challenges thus far that are yeah, uh, me understanding that the difference between a puppy, yeah, and an adult dog was that kind of a uh shocker, like you know, at least for me.
Speaker 2:Like sometimes, once my puppies are grown, I always forget that. You know, I forget about the puppy face, and then I reintroduce a puppy and like all these memories come out. Oh yeah, I forget about all this, and then, and then I reintroduce a puppy and like all these memories come back. Oh yeah, I forget about all this, and then you're having to deal with all these these little things. Was that kind of what it was like for you, or just Cause?
Speaker 3:we were. I was spoiled with cash. I'm not fun, but to be honest I was spoiled. You have a dog that shows up and his behavior is I mean he was I don't want to say perfect, but I mean he had impeccable behavior. And so it's a puppy. It's not going to be the same. They've got puppy things. They've got to figure out Kennel, crate, training. You got to get past that. You can put cash in a kennel and tell him to lay down and go to sleep and he's out like a light. You put a puppy in a kennel. A puppy's going to have some separation anxiety for a little while until they realize, okay, he's going to come get me, just not right now. And then you know it's in the videos, but also hearing it from my wife you have to let the puppy whine. It has to stop. You cannot get the dog out when it's whining and barking and screaming and hollering that's a dangerous road, right because all you're doing is reinforcing.
Speaker 3:Well, if I do this, that means you're gonna let me out. Yeah, so you can't do that, and that's something that you have to learn.
Speaker 2:It's hard, it's hard on a lot of people because it's not natural to do that you know we think we've got to stop this. I mean, that's the natural instinct, you know, like with a baby, like if they're crying, like yeah, let's figure out what's going on. There's something they want.
Speaker 3:But with a dog puppy.
Speaker 2:You just don't want to do that.
Speaker 3:No, so there was that that has been. My biggest thing is realizing that we're starting all over. This is ground zero. She has no background. She has no knowledge of what it is that I'm expecting her to do. She's learning it just as much as I'm learning it. So just having that like going back to dad like patients, like learning to have that dad-like patience with the dog, if it's okay, we're going to get through this, we're just going to keep being consistent that has been my biggest challenge is just that and learning my dog. So you have to learn. Every dog is different. Once you learn your dog, you learn their cues. Then you can make the best out of it. And getting to that maturity level of um. We were training yesterday and we got through two sessions and we're starting to work on session three. And um, my brother's dog comes outside. Well, they love to play with each other. It's a new dog. They've only been around each other for like two days, so that's a new buddy for her.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, she's completely distracted, like paying attention to any training right now is done. So I'm like, okay, so I just start to pick up the place board and put it up. I'm not trying to recall her, I'm not trying to correct it, I'm letting her be distracted with that dog right now. Yeah, and my wife's like why are you stopping her? She's not in the mindset right now. I'm mature enough to know that I got two good sessions with her.
Speaker 3:We will let her have this distraction and run around.
Speaker 3:Let her have her five minute break, let her have her 10 minute break and then we'll go back and we'll re-engage it. But there's no point in trying to force it to happen now when there's something so distracting that's out there, because now all I'm going to do is get a bad reaction from it and I don't want her to have that. I want her to know that whenever I'm calling her back, that we're good. I don't want her to think that she's going to be in trouble because she goes in place with another dog, because that's the other thing. Trying to balance out socialization, 100% Socialization, that's trying to figure that one out, because nobody else's I don't mean this like in a bad way, but nobody else's dog is going to be anywhere near on the same level of obedience as most people who use CGA. And whether it's a generational, a social acceptance, whatever it is, I see too many people that have dogs as just it's a dog it is. I see too many people that have dogs as just it's a dog.
Speaker 3:And then you've got the people who have a dog that they throw like a service animal vest on and the dog is like cinnamon from stepbrothers just jumping all over the place out of control and they're like eel cinnamon, that's not a service animal and you haven't done anything to train your dog, so I get reservations about do I want my dog to interact with dogs like that to pick up on bad behavior, or do I let the dog be in that environment so that it understands that not all dogs are going to be as behaved as it is? Yeah, that was another one that I challenged myself with that's a tough one.
Speaker 2:I mean that to me is the toughest because a lot of people don't know the boundaries that you're putting in place. That's so difficult to navigate those waters and everybody's going to be different. Some people are going to want to run up, give it all kind of puppy noise and want to lay down next to your own puppy and it's like I wish you wouldn't do that, please don't do that.
Speaker 2:But it's also like you know what. We're just going to let this be and move on. Yeah, if it's a one-off occurrence, but that is one of those difficult challenges is to navigate those waters.
Speaker 3:That is even with cash. I think that is just as I'm not going to call myself a trainer, but as a person who's trying to train his dogs by himself myself a trainer, but as a person who's trying to train his dogs by himself, knowing how to go out into public, knowing that those are those situations that I could be in with other dogs other people, it's easy, but other dogs how do you approach that situation? That's been difficult.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't think there's a one-off answer for that, it's just you got to figure it out Every situation is going to be different. You just never know. That's challenging. Well, that's pretty cool. What? What's been one of your, your biggest moments with Millie so far, like where you feel like y'all are, you know you?
Speaker 2:said one challenge earlier that you had was starting to read her body language like obviously you know cash and really, I guess another way of saying it's we're getting to know the dog what was kind of like one of the moments where you feel like you and millie are starting to gel and connect and like, outside of the hill, work, you know, but that you realize. Okay, I'm starting to understand her tendencies now and she's starting to understand me as well. Have you had any of those moments yet, even this early on in the training? A couple, okay, a couple.
Speaker 3:That's not like as night and day. Yeah, it is with cash, but I can pick up now on, I know more. When she's getting exhausted, mentally, yeah, not just physically. Anyone, I don't think any. I think pretty much anyone can look at a dog and tell, all right, you need a break. You're physically done, yeah. But when you can look at a dog and say, okay, she needs a break because she's mentally been pushed I'm starting to pick up on that.
Speaker 3:I can tell when she has worked her brain and just let her go sniff some sniffs, let her have her moment. She doesn't even like I'll tell her. I'll be like, okay, go play. She doesn't even go to the water, she just wants to go walk around and sniff. That's right. There will be a ball in the yard. She doesn't even want to pick it up like a soccer ball. Yeah, she just wants to go sniff it and touch it with her paw and then walk around. That's right. And then she'll come right back to the place board and sit down on her own.
Speaker 3:And I'm being really cognizant not to reward her for that. I want her to go be rewarded when I put her on place. But it's like okay, I'm back. Yeah, I'm ready to do this. Give her a command here or heal, and she comes right back and we go right back into it. Like I can pick up on when she she's needing a mental break. Let just, yeah, dad, let me put the textbook down, let me go, let me go walk around the room, let me go kick a ball and I'll be right back.
Speaker 2:Sure, that's a real thing that's a real thing and, uh, we kind of talked about that too, like on the uh, you could call it whatever rule you want 80 good, 90 good, 90 successful reps, 10, 10% failure, 80%, 20% failure, probably 90, 90, 10, but try to get 90% of your reps to be successful. 10% are failure and for me, 10% are just testing. We're pushing to see what our boundaries are and that's some of those things. Like you know, puppies, they have a short attention span and, like a lot of us may not realize that, but I mean five minutes to a dog. I mean we got to think you may not realize that, but I mean five minutes to a dog. I mean we gotta think you know they live 10, 12 years. Five minutes to them is a lot longer than five minutes to us.
Speaker 2:You know they're living you know, whatever 80 years, so that amount of time you can condense so much, even though it feels like you did nothing in five minutes, and then you keep pushing on and going further. The a big mistake we've seen a lot of people make is they push to failure. Every training session, like every time they go out, they're good. We got, you know, 10 good reps and we failed. Now we're ending the session.
Speaker 2:Well, we always want to end when there's gas left in the tank and we always want to end on a good note. And we kind of talked about that like maybe do three solid sessions, but on your fourth one, you know, start off instead of let's, let's push the boundaries at the beginning of the fourth one and then find out where those boundaries are and then wrap up the session on that good note. And that's one of those things that you're talking about there, that you're kind of you're starting to recognize it. The fact that you can tell before your dog's getting tired, that's a huge win. That's a small detail, but if you're recognizing that, that means something's going right, that means you're you're doing something right, you're learning what you need to learn, I hope I am.
Speaker 3:I really am trying, that's what it comes down to, I just the dogs have so much potential. Yeah, and more than anything, I just don't want to disservice them. Yeah, I want to make sure that I'm helping them unlock whatever potential that they have to their fullest and I want them to enjoy it. That's all I want. I just want to spend time with them.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. Well, you're doing. I think you're doing the right thing and we'll obviously see the outcome of that in time. Week 11. Now, as you continue through the course, you'll see more. You'll have challenges. Of course, we all face the challenges as we train our dogs, but there's going to be that moment, just like with Cash, where I would say that defining moment, where you just instinctively blow the whistle and then you're kind of in awe that your dog's sitting there and looking at you and then you cast it and then it goes and picks up the duck and everything comes together and that's the journey you're on. I know you'll get there and I can't wait to see where y'all go with that. I'm pretty excited. I am too. I'm pretty stoked. We need to get a hunt planned. We got to get a hunt planned, yeah.
Speaker 3:We got to figure out where we're going to go. What do you want to do? I'm down for anything.
Speaker 2:We'll pick up some ducks and what. But that'd be cool if we did a follow-up episode on this and, like millie, you know it'll be a little bit before she's ready, but get her out there in a year or so or whenever next hunting season, get her out there and then let's show her off and then see what happens. I think that'd be exciting. Yep, I'm down, let's do it. Um, question how with your life? Okay, because we get a lot of people.
Speaker 2:Some people have these wonderful schedules. They work from home, they live on 30 acres, they got anything someone could ever ask for, like I got the perfect setup to train my dog. But there's others. I would say most of us don't live in that situation. Live in a neighborhood. I would say most of us don't live in that situation. Live in a neighborhood, live in an apartment or town hall, something really tight, and the work schedule is battling traffic. With your schedule, times change, you have more availability sometimes and less. Others Talk through that. What has that journey been like with first, first with cash and then with million? And what would you say to someone that is kind of concerned about like time? Because obviously that the one trainer's like and that's something I didn't know, like no, you don't need a dog, it's not gonna work. Then you get these other people like well, it's gonna work.
Speaker 2:You know, what's your personal experience. So anybody listening could like figure out for themselves like, hey, you know, will this work for me as far as timing goes?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we're in the middle of a move.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Moving from Colorado to North Carolina. We technically don't even have a home yet. We're still waiting to move into the house that we're going to rent. We have been living off of our different family members' spare bedrooms for the past two months, so there's been a lot of moving pieces. I have an eight-week-old son and a three-year-old daughter who's now wanting to also push boundaries and see what she can get away with, and now I also have a seven-month-old puppy that is trying to figure out where her place is in the pecking order.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, there have been a lot of changes, changes and there's been a lot of moving parts, and I think it's been a balance of just telling myself it doesn't have to be a one hour thing. Yeah, it can be 15 minutes, it can be 20 minutes of quality time and if you can give yourself just 20 minutes you can get progress. That's right and you can maintain. I think here in the South, here, like in South Alabama, where we're at right now, it's been. The only other new monkey wrench is the heat. Yeah, it is way hotter here than it was in North Carolina or in Tennessee when we were up there visiting family and I could train at any part in the day in North Carolina or in Tennessee, when we were up there visiting family and I could train at any part in the day. In North Carolina there's always shade somewhere, but here, no, there is not, at least not where we're staying at.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so you either do it in the morning or you do it at night, which means you got to just fit your schedule. Are you going to the things that you would normally do in the morning or at night? Can you take 20 minutes away from that and do it at another point in time during your day so you can go and try it again at the evening? And that's what I've been doing with millie. Yeah, it's just sun. Sun goes down around six o'clock.
Speaker 3:Place boards out. We're going out there. We're going to start doing our training. We're going to do um, send a place extended out. We're going out there. We're going to start doing our training. We're going to do send a place extended sit. We're going to do advanced heel work. We're going to work through it. And when I start to see those cues, then if I get three sessions out of her, sweet. If I get all four sessions out of her, yeah, cool. If I get two, I'm happy because I'm at least showing the dog that she will consistently get something from me, and I think that's the biggest thing is if you can just remember that the dogs just want consistency.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:They want someone to do the same thing consistently, over and over and over again, so that they know you're their person. That's training them. That's right. And if you can at least set up 15 or 20 minutes, you can do anything. Oh yeah, and if you can at least set up 15 or 20 minutes, you can do anything. And the program is so easy, especially 52 Plus, because the videos are literally right there. What am I doing today? I'm doing this. How am I doing it? Well, we're going to do four sessions and they're 10 minutes each, or four sessions and they're five minutes each, but you're going to do this one and you're going to do this one. You're going to take a break and this one and a break, and that's literally so laid out that I can. I can leave, I can go somewhere because my job requires it, and my wife can pick up the phone and say where are we at? Okay, I need to do this and this and this, and she's done it. Wow, and I got it. Not everybody can do it. My wife is an amazing lady. I'm super lucky.
Speaker 3:In every real, in every relationship, there's a reacher and a settler someone's reaching outside of their means and someone's settling for whatever they can get. She settled and I reached um and with a six-week-old baby, a four-week-old baby, she was training Millie. No way. That's amazing when she would put the baby down for a nap and the baby is going to nap for wake windows that could be anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour. Baby goes down.
Speaker 3:She's got five minutes to take the dog outside and do something. Wow, even if it's only five minutes, she can do something with her. That doesn't mean that you have to do five minutes and then five-minute break and you have to go right back into another session. You can do another session later on, an hour later, two hours later. It's just showing the dog that there's consistency from the people in the home, that someone is going to train me on these things, that they're always going to hold me to this standard that they expect me to behave at, and if you can just show that, then you'll get leaps and bounds with progress. That's good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's y'all are clearly doing such a good job at that, operating in the gray, Like you know. If you're like well, it has to be back to back to back, you're missing out on beautiful opportunities. Five minutes here and there, like you're saying too, which that's pretty amazing that your wife's doing that, I mean with a six-week-old baby. Four weeks, I mean that's impressive, that's awesome.
Speaker 3:Again. So she believes in the sciences behind CGA. She completely believes in it. So she knows why it's okay and why it's important to do it. Not everybody knows that. Not everybody has that medical background to understand its importance. So I'm lucky in that aspect. But that's why it's because she uses this, she understands it.
Speaker 3:I'm sure it would be a hard sell to try and convince other people, but maybe seeing how easy it is is what could be the easy sell to tell people like no, you don't have to say it has to happen at 4 o'clock every day for 45 minutes. Not everybody has that. You may not get home until 5 o'clock, that's right. Is session training canceled? No, is it going to be the same 45 minutes? Maybe not. Maybe you got to put your kids down to bed. My daughter goes to bed at back in the day. She went to bed at seven o'clock and then she started waking up at like 5 am and I was like nope, and we're going to move it to eight o'clock. Now she wakes up at 6 am. There you go. So if you have to adjust, you just adjust as you can. But I think that flexibility knowing that you can be flexible.
Speaker 3:That's really big.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and also, I think, much over 20 minutes. And you're getting into that, that failure, rap territory to where, yeah, you can train for 45 minutes but a lot of times you're working through stuff that you don't need to be. Versus the puppy, younger dog, I mean any age dog, 20 minutes is pretty much the, that's the golden window. And if you got more than one dog, I mean also within an hour, I mean I've got three dogs in my house right now, one hour and I get all three dogs trained and they're good, they've all had a good session, they're happy and I'm getting as much work as if I would have trained for three hours an hour each dog. In fact I'm getting more done because if I was training for longer, there would be a lot of correction going on. There'll be a lot of correction going on, a lot of things not going right. The dog wouldn't be happy. They're being forced to stick, push through it, versus we get a good, solid window and we'll. It's just hyper-focused for that. 20 minutes yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:One other question I want to ask you, as, as we kind of like wrap this up and then we'll ask the standard question at the end, what would you recommend is you know who did you hear about CGA from? How did you hear about CGA? What was your first initial attraction? Obviously, you mentioned that your wife heard that you were just watching these videos and she's like this is the one you should do it, but what for you got you drawn to this?
Speaker 3:So we were in Georgia and we were working with one of the CGA members, dwayne Good old Dwayne, I remember him too. Talked to him on the phone as well. Yeah, great guy he is and he's he is living his best life, smashing ducks in, uh, the pacific northwest right now and rubbing it in my face on how beautifully plume these birds are oh man, oh man, he's my unicorn duck is a pintail I I have.
Speaker 3:Yet Because whenever we'd go hunting and there would be pintails, it would be like there's, you can shoot one, that's right. And there's enough pintails that are in that group that if even one person shot, you could possibly overdo everyone in the blinds limit. Yeah, so it's like I've never got my pintail. Oh man, and he has to rub it in my face every chance he gets that. He has his bent tail. We're going to have to make that happen. He was training his dog, and in my line of work we make fun of each other. It's a term of endearment and so I saw him and I was like if he can do that, I can do that.
Speaker 3:If he can train his dog to do this, anybody can. So he was very big on no, you got to check it out. You got to check it out. And first he had told me about pellet grills in the Traeger. He was right about that. I don't care, everybody can judge me whether or not I know how to time putting real hickory blocks in and containing the right heat. I don't care. Turn it to the dial, smoke something and it's delicious, I'm good with that. But he told me on that and I was like well, he was, I'll listen to this one a little bit more. And I started looking at like the frigging videos on YouTube and there was those there's like six or seven of them, yeah, and there was those.
Speaker 3:There's like six or seven of them, yeah, and it's just. It starts off with the same guitar riff oh yeah.
Speaker 3:And then you go straight into a training session, whether it was you or whether it was Barton, but I'm sitting there watching all of them. I've been like going through them over and over again, watching them all multiple times, and that's what it was. Is Sarah heard me watching it? Because he said you need to, you need to look at this, and that, being in her line of work, that's why she was so adamant, like no, you have to. That's awesome. I was like, yeah, but it's, it's pricey and I'm not. You know, I don't remember what it was back in the day when I bought it, but it was enough to make me be hesitant. I'm about to spend a lot of money on a training program that I don't know if I'm good enough to do this. And it was her saying I don't care, I know you can do it because I understand and I trust the science behind this and if you will just stick with whatever they're telling you to do, you can do it. I was like, okay, I have your permission. That's awesome.
Speaker 2:That's what it took, and now you trust yourself.
Speaker 3:I do a lot more. And it's still one of those things where you quite like I still reach out to the people on the members page on the Facebook and on text messages to other people that are using it and ask them for their opinion, because when it's your first time doing it, you still want to ask somebody like did you run into this too? Okay, you did All right. Cool, my brain like what you said. Yeah, I already knew what the answer was. Yeah, but I needed some confirmation that I was thinking in the right direction. Okay, I am Cool, we're good Building in the right direction. Okay, I am Cool, we're good Building that confidence. But I will tell you right now I am nowhere near on yours or Barton's level of walking around with six or eight dogs at a time. Like that is a whole other level of training.
Speaker 2:Well, I'll tell you this and it's a dangerous place. If you're training your dog and you're not concerned that it might not work out, or if you don't have that fear, or if you feel like you know, like if you don't have like zero concerns, like you know 100%, like oh, we've got this, that's when I would be concerned. I mean, when I'm training my dogs. There's not been a single dog that I'm training that I don't get stumped by with at least one thing. Don't get stumped by with at least one thing. Or you know, with Violet, you know where we were filming the videos and we released it before all the videos were done. But we opened up a window like, hey, you get the first, I forget what. It was 16 weeks or eight weeks, or maybe it was eight weeks, and we I was through 16 weeks we released it to members and then we opened it up to the public a few months later and we still weren't complete for the process and people knew that they're buying into that.
Speaker 2:But you know, there's there's days out there where I'm feeling I'm like you know, it's like that, you, I don't know, that's the word like yeah, I just don't know. I don't know what's going to happen. You know we're sitting there talking about, yeah, how'd training go. When I'm talking about dad and barton, well, well, I don't know, we'll see. But if you're not at that place, that's a good place to be, because that means it's just a dangerous place to think you got it all figured out and we all know that Anybody gets to that place. That's a dangerous place. You got support. That's a big one.
Speaker 3:So with Millie she didn't want to go get bumpers in the beginning. We're trying to do like like somewhere around week five is like introduction to retrieving, and she would go out and sniff and turn and come right back to me like, okay, what is this?
Speaker 2:yeah, what am I?
Speaker 3:supposed to do with this and it was reaching out to people and then being like take a duck feather and black electrical tape it to the bumper, give her something different, change it up. That's all it took. Wow, she brings back everything. Now that's amazing. I don't even use the bumper with a feather on it or a wing on it anymore. Now she's just like oh yeah, I'm going to bring this to you and the delivering to hand. She does it. That's amazing we haven't gotten in.
Speaker 3:It's not even in the lesson plan yet to talk about bringing it to hand and using the command dead to drop it. But she has heard Cash and watched Cash drop everything on the command dead to where now she does it. I'm not even training it of her, she's just seeing it because the program like I mean it, like I love this, it's just lays it out to where there's like you do this and your dog will pick up on it. And these dogs are so smart, wow, they watch other dogs and they'll pick up on it, even if you're not even intending on them to pick up on it.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's awesome, man. Well, I'm excited for you, I'm excited for the progress y'all have made and I'm excited speaking of the Traegers. I think week 12,. Have you looked ahead to week 12 yet?
Speaker 3:Grilling and chilling.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Grilling and chilling. What are you going to be cooking for week 12 when you're letting Millie sit there on place?
Speaker 3:Well, I would. I would love to say that it would be like a brisket, but that's going to wait. That's way too long on place, that's a long session. That's a long time on place.
Speaker 3:I don't know, I'll do something and just have her come out there and sit down. I am something, and just have her come out there and sit down um. I'm really craving. Some beef short ribs sounds good. I really feel like letting my inner fat child out. So maybe do some of that. Let her smell it and it's goodness, and know that she can't have any because I'm a mean father.
Speaker 2:We'll call that a denial yeah, that's a solid introduction to denials that's rough on a dog, that's right. It's rough on uh, rough on anybody I know sitting there by the grill I'm thinking, man, I'm ready to go right now, just can't wait for the stuff to get done. We were at uh yesterday for father's day. We're at uh. We had a traeger mishap. I got my father-in-law on the traeger, so barton got me on the Traegers and then I saw people on the videos and I was like you know what, I'll try this. Abigail was not for the Traeger, but I don't remember how I worked it out, but I did and somehow we bought a Traeger. I don't know that she was full. I had her about 80% on board, maybe 70. Not fully happy with with it, but I was convinced that it was the right move and it was. She is now 100 on board with traeger because she can cook on it.
Speaker 2:But at the father-in-law, I don't know what happened. Honestly, we get over there it like wouldn't get above like 300 degrees, so we just started messing with it and all of a sudden it fixed and we think it was just the hopper was too overloaded. Yeah, I don't know if you've ever had that happen, like he poured like a whole bag in. He thinks that maybe it was like compacted, and I don't know if that was or not, but it didn't matter. We got it worked out. But I don't know. I'm going down that road. I think I just I'm getting hungry here.
Speaker 3:Now we're starting to think about beef and smoked burgers and we my wife made this candy bacon jelly.
Speaker 2:Really Never heard of that.
Speaker 3:I can't explain it to you. I just know that she made candied bacon on the Traeger and then she cut that up and put it in, created some kind of a spreadable jelly, and then we smoked the burgers and put that across the top. Oh my gosh, was it good. Yeah, I was ready to fight people for more. I was like that's dibs. Father's Day, I get dibs, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 2:Father's got to eat. Good on Father's.
Speaker 3:Day yeah you do I do. No, we've had some fun times. I'll probably do that. Maybe hang outside and have my kids have a nice little redneck summer with a sprinkler oh yeah, Like what I grew up on. That's where it's at. Just have her run back and forth through the sprinkler and have the dog sit on place.
Speaker 2:Hey, that'll be good.
Speaker 3:That'll be a tough session right there. There's going to be a lot of high-pitched noises and the dog's just going to be like I need to go play with her that's right and be smelling that smoke yeah, the dog's going to be.
Speaker 2:I can't wait to hear how that goes. Yeah, well, this has been an incredible episode. I feel like tons of good nuggets. But also it's just been great to hear your story, just hear how it worked out. I'm really glad that you had your friends in your life that told you like, hey, what that first person told you was just wrong. I mean, because this may never would have happened if you didn't have those people.
Speaker 2:So whoever told you that, I'm grateful to them. Yep, because I'm glad you got a dog man, now you've got another. But for all those out there that may be in your shoes, got changing schedules and all that outside of issues got changing schedules and all that Outside of what we've already talked about. I think, outside of that, let's talk from the perspective of the. I think the one thing I want to hit on and that you could share with somebody, because you've now been there and done that, was coming into it. You said I don't know if I have what it takes or if I can do it. So what would you say to someone that's got that concern that's thinking about, I guess, their way in it back and forth, like do I need to get a dog and if I do, can I even do this?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you're going to run into those moments where you're going to think, can I do this? Am I doing it right? Am I going to run into those moments where you're going to think, can I do this? Am I doing it right? Am I going to screw up? Um, some of the common sense ones.
Speaker 3:This is an investment not just in a dog, not just in the program, but in an entire change to your entire life. Yeah, you're putting a dog on a path towards something that you have to really want to do this. And if you don't want to do it, that's cool too. Yeah, um, I've had people that I've known, that I've seen Millie in the beginning stages, like she is what, 14 weeks old, walking on heel at work with me. Wow, like, perfectly at heel as a 14 week old, like four, like we're having leaps and bounds and behavior.
Speaker 3:And people like, how are you doing this? I'll show it to them. It's like, but I have a Husky. Okay, it doesn't matter. Yeah, you don't have to train your Husky to be a gun doc, the basics is in the obedience. If anything else that you get out of this is that you get on the program specifically to have a more obedient, well-behaved dog, you're going to be leaps and bounds from every other person who owns a dog out in the world today, who owns a dog out in the world today. So if, let's say, you start down this path and the waterfowl hunting world just isn't something that you want to take a dog into, for whatever the reason is, it's fine.
Speaker 3:Know that you have a training aid for the rest of your life and people that you can go to for the rest of your life to help you with training members of your family dogs on how to have better obedience. And if you get nothing else but that out of it, then you've got a solid win. Wow. And you are going to be intimidated by what's going to be in front of you, but those little nuggets of seeing success will build that confidence in you where you know that you can do this. Yeah, you're always going to have questions because you're not an expert. You've never done this before.
Speaker 3:You're just like when I was doing it I was figuring it out as I was going, but it was having those little positive reinforcers for myself that I'm doing it right is what helped me. Continue to know that I can keep doing this. Like I said, I don't think I'll ever get to the stage where I can train seven or eight dogs to walk steady, to sit there, to never flinch, like the dogs that they do over in England. Those trials like dog can't move, can't make a sound. I don't know that I'll ever be on that level, but I don't need it.
Speaker 3:I don't need to be on that level. I just want to have a good relationship with my dog. It's not expected of me to come in and be able to perform at that level right now. That's not what cga is about. It's right. Can I help you, can cga help you train your dog, can cga help you be successful? Can it help you build confidence in your dog and can it help you build confidence in yourself. That's right. The it help you build confidence in yourself.
Speaker 3:That's right, and the answer to all that has been yes, like I. There is not a single other training tool out there that I have seen that has gone so in depth on how to do things to help you feel confident and successful and other people have figured it out doing other methods, and that's fine, absolutely.
Speaker 3:like some people want to do force fetch and it may work for them, that's fine. It's not the route that I want to go, so I'm going to go this route, yeah, um, we talked about some people are absolutely obsessed with e-callers and I cannot stand being on a river hunting public land and hearing a dog ride the lightning all morning long, because their owner is just shocking the living daylights out of that dog every time they shoot the shotguns.
Speaker 3:And then I'll sit there and look at Cash or other dogs that have been trained using this program and they're all just sitting there, chill, and it's like, yeah, there are other methods out there there, but there are some methods out there that work a lot better than others, and this has been one of them. So that's good man. I'm just really grateful.
Speaker 2:I really appreciate you guys putting it together, because it really it took all the stuff that was like in books and you made it to where it's dummy proof that's we appreciate and I always say this, but it's the 100% truth If it wasn't for people like you that are willing to go out on a limb and go on uncharted territory for yourself you've never done it before, you don't know if you can do it, but it seems like a good idea and for you to take that plunge. And then this thing doesn't work unless people like you put in the hours. You're the one putting in the hours. I'm not putting the hours in. I mean I put in the hours to do the videos.
Speaker 2:Outside of that, I'm training my own dogs, but you're out there making it happen for your dogs. So as much as you try to put it on us, I you would trust it and that you're putting that time so that your dog can turn out like you want it to, and it means a lot to us to see that. And as fun as it is to see my own dogs be successful, there's not a greater level of excitement for me than to see someone take the videos and to have success and have that moment for themselves. I mean, I love seeing my dogs win, but I love seeing people win even more. And seeing you win with your dog, that's amazing.
Speaker 3:Yep, I'm pretty stoked. Yeah, man, it's an honor. Thank you, buddy, thank you.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to the build from here podcast. To learn more about retriever training or our podcast, visit cornerstone gundogacademycom slash podcast.