Build From Here
Build From Here
Train Small → Win Big | CGA Member Blake Allen
In this episode of the BuildFromHere Podcast, Josh talks with CGA Member Blake Allen. This episode covers Blake's journey from early failure to Grand title. Blake Allen explains how Cornerstone Gundog Academy helped him build a rock-solid foundation with Rose that enabled him to go on and turn his initial failure into success. In this episode you will learn practical, foundation-first tips for steadiness, calm handling, and consistent progress—whether you’re hunting or running tests.
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I'm really excited to have T member Blake Allen on it. Blake is an incredible guy office. He's been with us for a little while now. He's been training dogs for some time. He's uh just got a passionate of fire, really unlike really anyone. He's just fired up about it. He's also got the first SOK dog to uh become grand titled. So this is gonna be a fantastic episode full of valuable tips, nuggets, and also just cool stories. So without any more chatter, let's bring on Blake. How's it going, Blake? Welcome aboard.
SPEAKER_00:Hey man, I'm definitely excited to be here. I think it's gonna be fun and and uh ready to really dive into it and share what I know and what I don't know and and and I you know help some people out and while they're listening to it and be fun, and it's gonna be good.
SPEAKER_01:Man, I'm excited. Well, you got some pretty ribbons back there behind you, maybe some dog pictures. It's uh you can tell you're you're ate up with it. I mean, now you've got your own kennel and everything. So, you know, if we rewound uh back, I guess, to when you got started in Cornstalling, you're probably just getting rolling. But even before then, I want to go way back. I love to go back on the stories for all the members of like where did this all begin for you? You know, the the whole hunting thing, the outdoors, you know, is this something you grew up doing, or did someone like a dad get you into it? What's your story there? I'd love love to know more.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so I I grew up deer hunting, turkey hunting, uh things like that, small game. Didn't know one iota how to duck hunt, didn't know how to train a dog, didn't know, and I don't know what it was, but I'll just be quite honest. I woke up one morning and I said, Man, I want a dog, you know. Graduated college, you know, living on my own. I was like, I need a dog. And I just saw a video on Facebook, it just popped up, you know, they're always listening. So I saw a video for uh labs pop up, and I was like, man, that's cool. I could probably do that, not knowing anything. As most people get their start, found a dog out of the newspaper and did my best. There was no method, there was no program, there was no nothing. And I just tried piecing stuff together, right? And it didn't go well. Uh, you know, I get to a point, I'm like, yeah, I got this. I'm gonna go run a hunt. Uh it didn't go well, right? It it I was at my first uh HRC season test, and I'll never forget it. I remember it like it was yesterday. I go to the line and you know, nervous wreck, feel like I'm gonna puke. Uh, and and I I didn't do well. It ended in a fail. Um, and one of the judges was Lee Warrior Mason, who is uh on the grand committee now and a very pivotal member of HRC, um, just an incredible, incredible person. I failed and kind of hung my head and he got he looked at me and he was like, Hey, I need you go talk to this guy over here. And it ended up being a guy named Adam Andrews, uh, who's local, who's had great success in training, and and really great guy. And uh I was like, hey man, this judge told me to come talk to you. I don't know what I'm doing. I want to learn. And he's like, handed me a business card and kind of you know walked on. He probably didn't think I'd call this 19-year-old kid, 20-year-old kid would would call him. So I gave it about a week and I called him and said, Hey, look, I don't know what I'm doing, but I want to do it. I I've got I it lit a fire in me. He's like, All right, cool. I need you to come out to our training property. We're gonna train, and you just come out and you can watch and ask questions. As soon as I pulled in, I had a weed eater in my hand. And I was like, okay, we'll weed eat for a little bit and we'll train. About eight hours later, they're like, all right, we're we'll be back here tomorrow. I was like, okay, they were like, come on back. I said, All right. I walk in and had a hedge trimmer in my hand. Uh, so for two days we didn't train, right? I was like, okay, I see where this is going. I did that, didn't complain. We busted it out. We had the training properly looking great. And at the end of it, he's like, All right, you really do want to do this. I said, Yes. I don't know what I'm doing, but I want to do it. He said, Okay. So you're in, right? So it was the sweat equity worked, right? So as I get into that and and I realize that I needed a dog that was really great for it. I I found Southern Oak online and and gave Barton a call, and we really talked, and he knew where I wanted to go and what my passion was, and and that's the super, super important, right? It was it's easy to hand somebody a dog, right? But it's it's a lot of legwork and a lot of thought that goes into handing them the right dog for them and what they want to do. Um ended up with a uh the decision was set to get a Hank Cali pup out of Cali's first litter. And uh best decision, best I'm very thankful that I was able to get on that letter. It was great. So I went up to I've got to do it my way. And uh I've gotta do it and and figure it out. And that's kind of how where I found Cornerstone because of the the relationship with Southern Oak Kindles and Cornerstone Gundalg Academy. I said, okay, I need to I need to get this because I've got to get build a good foundation. Like let's do it. Got online and and the the puppy program was was awesome. I I attribute a lot of success that I've had to the foundation of Cornerstone. So as we go through that, Rose is progressing along with my mentors, and I'm traveling and training, just like we'd be ready to run big tests, just with a puppy, right? And I'm just learning and watching and got got hooked up with Steve Eric and Jeremy Legg, who are who are great pros at this and have been around the game for a super long time. And I was helping and working, and they kind of took me under their wing, and Adam took me everywhere he went, and uh we progressed through it, and uh ended up being able to to get Rose to a level that I thought we had a good shot at running the grand. And so we signed up and and we did it. And uh I was very, very lucky and through that started duck hunting and learning how to duck hunt and it all kind of just came together. But the the start of this came with uh uh utter meltdown at a HRC test. And all of the great success and friendships that I've gained started with that. And it's it's it's proof that you can't just give up, give give up or walk away when something doesn't go. Just it doesn't go right. Um it's when you sit back down and you go back to the drawing board and you keep chipping, uh chipping away at it. So that was really my start. And um continue now. I get a few dogs in every year, and me and Rose continue to run tests and enjoy the ride and enjoy the journey. And uh it it's it's awesome. It's been a fun ride, and we're continuing to grow and have success in the Kennel, and have success with Rose and have puppies that are happy and healthy and go to great owners, and that's been the best thing ever to see the people that are enjoying a little piece of Rose in their puppy that I've seen and had an opportunity to have Rose for six years now, and to see her little traits and characteristics pass on, it that's probably the coolest thing that uh that has happened in the last couple years is definitely see those those little those little personality traits and those little quirks come out in the puppies, and it it's fun to watch, man. It's I get pictures all the time. All the time. I'm getting pictures of puppies, and it's it's cool. It always puts a smile on my face.
SPEAKER_01:Man, that's that's incredible. It's uh you know, so many of us have a similar journey as you're getting into this thing. And you know, really, I like what you said there. You can't be if you fail, you can't quit then. And the truth is, I mean, the whole retriever journey, if you you know, if you have a problem with failing, like you're gonna fail almost every day, but you're gonna gain success every day too. And part of that journey is what's gonna lead to that success. Uh, but I love your story specifically on how you went from I mean, you could have just quit right there, but some you took that failure and then turned it into really quite the success to go from being a new dog owner, new dog trainer to I guess so you act let me ask this. So you really didn't get into duck hunting first, you got into the retrievers first, and then that led you to hunting.
SPEAKER_00:I got into dogs first, never put a pair of never put a pair of waiters on. Um, got into dogs first, and it just I lost my mind and it I snowballed, right? And it just it it just it just worked out, and that's wild how stuff like that in life happens, and it was the best thing that ever happened to me. It it shaped a lot of who I am today. It it shaped all of my friendships, it shaped all the the good times and some of my best memories in the last couple years are through dogs and ducks. Um my wife, my wife jokes, she's like, all you think about are ducks and dogs sometimes. And I'm like, Yeah, some sometimes it ends up being that way when you're really in the grind of it. And her support, I couldn't do this without without her, my wife's support, man. She is she's really truly the best. She gets it, she understands it, and she sees the passion, and she's like, Okay, you've got the buy-in. You know, that that right there is super important that I had that that buy-in. You know, when I Rose picked up her second grandpass October of 2023, my son was born in September of 2023. Wow. That's wild. I kind of I was signed up and ready to go, and we trained that whole year, man. And uh she kind of looked at me after the baby was born and she said, Hey, you you go do it. But if you're gonna go do it, you better make sure you pass this one. I said, I'm gonna try. I said, there's you know, with a 20% fail or pass rate, you never know. But she looked at me and said, Go do it. And uh that that's super, super cool and to have that support. And that that I attribute a lot of my success to having the support at home. Yeah. To making sure I have that backbone and keeping the family in line. It's it's my wife, it ain't me. Uh I'm here, and uh she she keeps us all aligned and keeps this place running. And uh to have the opportunity to step away and train dogs five, six days a week, you've got to have that support at home, and that's I I that's what I've got, and I'm very blessed for that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and that is a blessing. And I love how the family's involved too. You know, this is something you know, you said your son was born right before you'll be able to kind of grow. I mean, let's that was in 23, so he's helping, he must be your little trainer now. He must be helping out.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, 100%, man. He thinks he knows it. He thinks he knows it all. If I leave a leave a whistle on the ground or leave a whistle where he can grab it, just I I apologize to the neighbors in advance because it's gonna get blown for the next hour. And he'll he'll blow the whistle and Rose will look at him and he'll go bah. He has no idea what he's doing, but he just sees it, right? And and that's cool, man. He loves to go to the farm and ride the side by side and and get involved, and and we use it as a family escape, you know. The nine to five grind of an office, and it it can get monotonous and can get you know kind of wear you down. But man, when I roll into the farm or roll into a property I'm training on, and I've got everybody with me, and we can let him run around, and the dogs can run around before we get training, and it's uh the good lord's blessed me, and that's one of the best things about it. We've we've turned it into a family affair. I mean, I was running behind one day before a hunt test and called my dad and said, Hey man, I'm I'm running behind. I really don't want to set wingers up. Uh, what are you doing? He's like, Well, I guess I'm throwing birds, aren't I? I said, Well, I'd really like that. It really saved me some time. And so he threw birds for me before hunt test. Uh just to help me help me get ready and and and my mentors that have brought me along and I've stayed at their houses and stayed at their kennels, and yeah, come on up. And and the same here, right? I was I was in Florida and uh during the the fall grand this year. I took we took a family trip, and one of my buddies called me. He's like, hey, I need to train down there. I said, absolutely, here's the code of the house. Um use it like it's yours, right? That that family and that that bond through hunt tests and training dogs is second to none. I I don't think there's any other thing in the world that could that could relate to it. It's it's a special group of guys and girls, and it's a special bond for sure.
SPEAKER_01:Man, it is. And it's uh it's just incredible to see that I love the journey, and I love seeing people go on the journey because that you learn a lot about yourself. You're growing yourself. You know, a lot of people you think you're just getting into this just to get your dog to be good. But by the time you're done with this, and by the time you've you've trained this dog, you're gonna know more about yourself, but you'll be a better person because there's really no option to and let you either grow or you or you die, one of the two. And in this case, you're growing. Um, because that's the only option if you want to have that dog that makes you proud. With where you're at now, man, you've had great success. You've crushed the ground. I mean, the first uh S OK dog there, and you know, getting the the title there. Let's go back to right when you got Rose. So this would have was Rose kind of your she was your second dog, if I understand correct, that you were training. The first one you just kind of blindly went. Then with Rose, yeah, like a lot of people do, and which is cool. You know, you you you learn a lot in that process too, but you also get a lot of maybe some extra bumps you probably you shouldn't get. What was it like with Rose? So you clearly you had invested, you know, heavily in this dog, and yeah, I you seem to have decided, hey, we're gonna take this serious. Tell me kind of about let's go through the training journey with Rose when it just especially early on, like what were you thinking? What was going through your mind? You were still pretty fresh to this. This was when was this 2018?
SPEAKER_00:Uh I got cornerstone eight. Yeah, I got cornerstone in 17, 18 to try to prepare. Once I knew that I was getting Rose, I think I waited for like don't quote me, man. I can't remember yesterday, so I'm trying to think back a couple years, but uh, I think I waited for Rose for like eight months, nine months. Wow. So I I kind of knew it. I knew it was coming, but that was a perfect little time frame to prepare mentally, right? Um, and honestly buy all the cool stuff you think you need and have an excuse to buy. You know, hey, I need I do need this gun. I need this gunner kennel, I need this leash, I need this, yeah. Oh yeah, I I got a dog coming, I gotta get it. That's right, that's right. 17, 18, prepping for it. Uh Rose was here in 19. 18 or 19, April of one of those two years. She's six. We'll figure it out later. Um, but I knew from, and we had talked about it earlier, I had learned from the people like Adam and Jeremy and Steve that I'd watched that a trial or a hunt test is one or passed or failed in that 10 five to ten feet circle at the bucket. So I knew that obedience was super, super important. And through cornerstone is the foundation of my puppy work. All of my puppies go through the cornerstone method. Now my method adapts as I grow to to get to the hunt test or what works best for me and my time frame. But I knew Puppy Rose was coming in and puppy rose was gonna go through the cornerstone program. That foundation, that foundation is key because when you have a dog, you've got to look at it and say, okay, is that is that obedience and is that foundation is it solid or is it solid enough? It needs to be solid, bulletproof, right? I that that term gets thrown, you know, bulletproof basics, bulletproof this, right? You want to make sure that your foundation is bulletproof. So as I'm progressing with Rose and we're going through the the methods of learning and and it teaches you in the videos that you watch and the examples and the good and the bad. What happens when it goes bad? What happens when it gets good? You can't ride the highs and you can't ride the lows, right? You gotta balance yourself out because it's gonna balance your dog out. They, man, I tell you what, they feed off of you more than people understand and people realize. They feed off your adrenaline, they know when you're nervous, they know when you're mad, and they know when you're excited. They can feel it, right? They know. So you've got to do your best, and that's super hard as a whole, right? You're walking the line or you're you're in your yard or you're training with your group of buddies. Hey man, I gotta do good. I gotta I gotta be perfect. You don't have to be perfect, you've just got to step in the right direction, and you gotta continue to step in the right direction. So as I got Rose and I went through this with a the the program and the foundation was there, as I progressed, training with other people and and learning from my mentors and taking pieces of that and taking pieces of this and building my program on how I build dogs um allowed me to progress fairly quickly, right? But it was a sense of no skipping steps, it was just I had I had a dog that was skilled and capable. Um I think you've got to look at the dog. I think you've got to learn from the dog and you've got to train the dog that's in front of you. It's easy to look at a 10 times grand champion and be like, I want that dog, I'm gonna train my dog just like that. But you can't do that because that dog has different personality traits and different genetics than your dog. And you've got to train your dog that's right in front of you. So as we progress, you know, I we I talked about it earlier. I I went to two grands and never entered. I went, I trained, I pre-trained, I did the grind of 4 a.m. in the morning, the sunset at night, and we were training. But that's how I learned, right? I stood at the line, I took notes, I threw birds, I asked the questions. So, and I still trained my dog. It wasn't a situation where I just sat there and looked. I was able to jump in and run setups, you know, change a little bit for the dog, you know, throw a single and run a blind, or throw a double and run a blind based off of where my dog was at. But I could still see the big dogs run. And I learned a ton from doing that. I think that's super valuable for people that if you want to get somewhere, you gotta find somebody that's done it before, and you got to build a connection, and you gotta do the weed eater and you know, hedge trimmer for two days to get there. But as I progressed and I walked into my first grand in uh St. Louis, I was a nervous wreck. I'd never been there, I've never done it, I've never stood at the line, and it is the highest adrenaline rush you could naturally ever have, and it's the best feeling in the world. But you don't get there without taking the proper steps. A dog that's gonna pass the grand, or a dog that's gonna pass a finish test, or even a season test, you don't get there successfully by skipping steps. You get there by following your program, and you get there by taking steps in the right direction consistently day in and day out. That's how you get there. Because if you don't those holes will rear their head at the absolute worst time. They will. It just it just happens, right? And then that's when you look at it and say, okay, was that the dog's fault or was that me? And you always, you know, you always come out of it with with a lesson, um, a teaching moment, or a pass, right? And sometimes all three. And you you look at it and say, Oh I I learned my lesson, but I got through it. Or I I got through it, but I could have done that a lot differently. We're gonna go work on that next week. We're gonna go and and and work on that, and and repetition, repetition builds that muscle memory. Because at the end of the day, it's marks and blinds. You can slice it up however you want, but it's marks and blinds. And and as I progress, I quickly learned that, right? That you've got to throw the concepts in there, you've got to run quality blinds, you've got to challenge your dog, but you can't challenge them to situations that they're not prepared for. You gotta walk in knowing that no matter how hard a test is, or no matter how hard a training setup might be, you want to make sure that that dog has seen that before. And and I think that's important. You know, we walk into our first grand at uh like twenty seven, twenty-eight months old, um and and and run through the gauntlet um and and and pass it, luckily. Um and fortunately, you know, we took our lumps in between our first and our second pass. There's there's no way around it. We we took our lumps, but every time I took a lump, I got better. And so did Rose. But you got to make sure that like I I kind of go back to it, and uh you want to make sure that you're walking to the line, and it can be the hardest taste you've ever seen, but your dog has seen the concepts before. They have an idea of the concepts, and it all goes back to like I talk about, that foundation. A grand is passed or failed at the line. It truly is. If you can point them in a right in the right direction and you have control of your dog at the line, you're gonna have better success than a dog that comes back and is jumping and and moving and can't settle back in after a mark, you're not gonna have good success. Where if you can point your dog in that right direction and and drop your hands straight and they're gonna go straight, you've got a chance. Now, the grand 27-28% pass rate, it's not gonna work out every time for everybody, but you gotta make sure that you've got the foundation there. And is it solid or is it pretty solid? You gotta make sure it's solid, man, and that's super, super important when you get into it. That people need to remember from puppy to six-year-old dog, foundation, foundation, foundation is the pivotal thing for people's success. The big time pros, you look at Clark, you look at Lyle, you look at all these big names, those dogs started as puppies. They didn't just come out nine-time grand champions, but you have to build a foundation. You've got to follow a program and you've got to train the dog that's right in front of you. It's super, super important to have success at a national event or at a hunt test on the weekend or at some whatever you're gonna do. You've got to have a good foundation, and it's super key, man. Super, super key.
SPEAKER_01:That's good, man. That's good nuggets. Well, I mean, great nuggets. I think I hope people will listen to this too. And in this journey of sick, really what you're talking about is a journey of success, and that mirrors whether you're doing the hunt test or you're doing the duck dog thing or you're doing both, that foundation's everything. Um it makes your life better. It just makes you you have a better, more fun experience versus sweat. Like you you hit something earlier, and I kind of want to bring this back in since you're talking about foundation. You hit on, you know, you need to go to the line calm, cool, and collected because your dog's gonna feed off of you. And I would say, in my experience, and I would I'm asking you, that foundation probably gives you that ability to go calm, cool, and collected because you're not worried about the the five feet around you, right? The dog's gonna come back, the dog's gonna listen. That gives you the ability to be relaxed, versus if you're sitting there questioning, yeah, I know my dog can do a 200-yard blind and I know it can do these triple marks, no problem. But I'm I'm a little bit concerned if my dog's going to be steady or is it going to get re-engaged? Is it gonna miss a mark because it's distracted and too excited at the line? So that foundation is is everything, like you said.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, 100%. When you when you you know, you're gonna be nervous. That's human nature. You're gonna be excited. I mean, you put a lot of money, time, and effort into getting your dog to pick up three marks and a blind. There's a lot of effort that goes into that. It is not easy. So the little stuff that you can take out of your mind, of your worry, like, oh gosh, is are they gonna sit this time? I hope they do, because the other day they did, but the other 10 days they didn't. But the other day they did, so I'll I hope they do it this time, right? You've got to have that because it takes it out of your mind, right? Because when you watch a test dog and you look at a test and you're sitting there saying, okay, that comes out there, and that comes out there, okay, I'm gonna pick up outside, outside, middle. Okay, all right, cool. I'm gonna run the blind this way. If they get here, I'm gonna cast here. If they get here, I'll cast there. You gotta have a mental game plan, right? But everybody's got a plan until they get punched in the mouth. And you will get punched in the mouth more times than not because something's gonna happen. The wind will change, the dog will get caught up in scent, uh, uh something, a car drives by, honks their horn because they see you do it, you know, whatever, right? You you hit the nail on the head. You want to have that confidence going to the line that that circle, there's nobody better than me or whoever's running a dog. You want to have that mindset, right? There's nobody in that circle that's better at obedience and better at a foundation than me because I have worked so hard to do that, right? And it's not better than anybody else, but it's in your head like this foundation is solid. I have put in the work. I'm gonna go from holding blind to the bucket with not a not a stress in the world. I'm gonna sit there and that's my time to I'm gonna breathe, I'm gonna get there, and then the nerves can kick back in when I'm loading the shotgun, right? But you want to make sure that the it's super, super important because you see it at a weekend test, or you might see it on a training day, that dogs are amped up. They get excited in different environments. And those environments, and the more excited a dog is, it erodes your training naturally. It does, it just does. They're they're dogs, we're people, they're gonna have their their moments, their their mental blips. But you gotta make sure if that foundation is 100% and you get to uh a hunt test and it drops itself down to 80 because the dog's still excited, that 80% is good. But if you go to a hunt test with 80% obedience and 80% foundation, and it drops down to 40 or 50%, you're on ice skates, and you're there's the nerves kicking in, right? So you've got to make sure that that foundation is solid, that you know that you and your dog, you are a team. When you get to that bucket, your dog is only worried about going where you point them, and you're only worried about pointing them in the right direction and doing your part as a handler. It shouldn't be, are they gonna sit, are they gonna jump in front of me, are they gonna bark, are they whatever, right? I've seen you you see all the crazy stuff happening, but it goes back down to back down to that foundation. You want to have a hundred percent foundation and a hundred percent obedience because when you get to a hunt test, it's gonna drop itself down to 80. So if you're walking to the line pulling that dog off a truck with 80% obedience and it comes to the line at 50%, oh boy, buckle up. Sometimes you can get sometimes you can get through, sometimes you don't get through, but that's when you gotta self-reflect and be like, man, those holes that I had that I thought were good enough, I gotta go back and fix them now. And you don't want to have to do that, right? Failures happen. The dog could be 100% prepared, but it shouldn't be a situation where oh, I didn't show them that concept, or I didn't focus enough on heel work, or I didn't focus enough on swinging with the gun. It should be, okay, we just we just didn't do it. They did they did their best. The little stuff was there, the the manners were good, we just didn't do it. I can live with that. I can live with a dog giving me good effort and giving the hundred percent. Cannot live with a dog that doesn't listen and doesn't do what we trained them to do, right? I'll live with a failure if we we don't make it. It happens. But I it you gotta self-reflect when you do fail because of a training hole. It's not their fault. They're not gonna wake you up in the morning and say, hey, we need to go work on some heel work, or we need to go swing with we need to go swing with a gun today, dad. That's you. And that's where those having the notes and having the mentors and having a program that you can follow is super, super important.
SPEAKER_01:Man, that's very valuable. I hope everybody's taking notes here. I think uh if it if they do and they'll apply it, you'll learn. I mean, because the truth is success happens before you ever get there. You know, whatever that's just the result of the work you've done. Success is the result of the work you've done. Or failure is also the result of the work or the lack of work. Let's go back a little bit. I want to go back to when you were first started with Rose, because you're still green there. Clearly, you've got lots of experience now, and this is awesome to see how you've grown over just a short period of time, six years. Um, with Rose, what talk me through that the first few weeks or first, I don't know, first six months with Rose. How how was that? You were taking it serious. How did that go? How was what were you doing differently there with Rose? Obviously, you were using Cornerstone, you're going through the process. Um, but as it just if you can think back to how it felt at the time, right? Because where you're at now is definitely far ahead of where you were then. What uh yeah, what were your thoughts going on at the time there? And tell me more about that experience.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think when you when you when Rose could, you know, we drove her down from Michigan, and I'm a nervous wreck. And I I listened to the podcast. I think it was with you and Barton on where to air your dog and go to hosp you know, you gotta avoid hospitals and uh or avoid, you know, hotels and cracker barrels and and all this stuff. So I'm like, gosh, I just invested all this time to drive up here. I just invested all this time into a a really well bred British dog. I gotta make sure I do this right. Right. Because if I don't do it right, it doesn't live up to what the dog's potential was. I get her and we we built take that bond. I think I took three or four days off of work and just kind of just first couple days we didn't do anything. I mean, she was just a dog, you know. Puppies waking up all the time at night. I don't think I slept. Probably a good thing I took off work because I probably didn't sleep at all. But we settle in, and after like a week or two of having her, and it's like, okay, it's time to bear down. We gotta lock in because there's a goal. The goal was always this from the day I picked her up. It was it was always that. Whether we were gonna achieve it or not, you never know with an eight-week-old puppy. But we're gonna give this our best shot. So we're thinking long term, right? It's where you're at right now. You're you're you're training where your feet stand, but in your mind, you know that the where you're doing right now and what those little pieces that you're putting together are getting you to that long term. So we really started heavy with obedience and following the methods and making her work for her dinner uh was huge for me. Doing heel work in my garage or in my living room. I was moving couches so she could do heel work up against a flat wall and working to back up and and doing all that stuff. Um, but I found success sticking with a program. Because when you stick with a program, you know that you're going from step A to step B to step C, not A to C to F to Z to back to A, right? That's what catches, I think, a lot of people up because they get so excited because their dog's doing so great. Well, they're doing so great because you've done everything prior to that the right way. And that's what I the way I looked at it, right? I followed my program. I didn't jump ahead. If I had to go back, I went back, it wasn't the end of the world. But I followed it step by step, and it's super, super important because with Rose, she was picking stuff up pretty quick, pretty quick, and I was like, all right, cool. And I catch myself like, oh man, I'm gonna I'm gonna see if she can do that today. And in my head, I'm like, that's not what my people teaching me how to train dogs would do. That's not what, all right. As cool as it looks, and as as much as I want to just go, go, go, go, go, I I had to tone myself down. I had to put the perspective in front of me. Okay, I probably need to work on this a little bit more, or we go to a training day and something's a little loose. Yeah, we need to work on that more. I mean, I've done it a hundred times when Rose was six months old, you know, we get through the the whole conditioning and force fetch, and it's like, you know, we go to a training day, but she's super excited and in the holding blind before I go up there. And it wasn't to my standard. Now, is that standard super high? 100%, but it's super high for a reason. So even at a training day that I drove an hour to go to or 30, whatever it is, right? You drive to your training day with your buddies. Bros, as a puppy, she got every now and then she gets super excited and jump in front of me at the bucket or do something, you know, that I didn't like, you're going back on the truck. I'm not gonna reward you at a young age with a duck or with a blind or with whatever because you didn't do what I needed you to do from the holding blind of the bucket. And that was hard, right? Because you want to show your dog off. It's a lot of work. And when they do it right, they do it right, and it is the coolest thing ever. But you've got to minimize them doing it wrong. And if you can put her back on a truck, and I've done I've done it, I've done it multiple times. Picked her up, put her back on the truck. I'm not getting on her, you know, I'm telling her what, you know, no, listen, you know, stuff like that. You're not, you know, taking them, you know, taking them down, but you're like, listen, I'm gonna show you by attrition that you can't do that. And I can tell you one thing that no matter what happens, a dog is a dog, is a dog. They're gonna break, they're gonna do the stuff you don't want them to do, but you've got to minimize that. And I feel really confident with my program and through the cornerstone puppy method, that foundation is solid. And I know when I take that leash off, she's not gonna jump in front of me. She's gonna walk cool, calm, and collected to the bucket. But that started from 10 weeks old to six months old, and we still work on it. We s we we still work on obedience and we still do the little things that are super, super important. We still do them. We still do the foundation. She's we still work on swinging with a gun. We still work on coming from a hold and blind. Every training session, I I've got a hold and blind up before I go to the bucket. And that repetition is part of my training. It's just as important as marks and blinds. So I think that was super pivotal for the first six months of six months of Rose's life, was the foundation of the obedience and showing her simple concepts and building from the simple concepts to the more complex concepts. Because if I go out there and throw a hip pocket for a six-month-old puppy, they might pick them up, but they're probably not gonna pick them up in a way that is right. So if you show them how to do it piece by piece and put the pieces together, that's super important. I know we talked about it before we hopped on here, man, that no matter how hard a test is, no matter how difficult you're running what level you're training at, you should never walk into a training day or a hunt test or a field trial and say, Oh boy, my dog has never seen this. Hope they do it right. You should be like, okay, they might they might mess up because life happened. But they've seen a hip pocket, they've they've seen uh a down the shore blind, they've seen a mark where you have to go in and out multiple times. Well, they've seen it. Whether they do it or right, and do it right or not is gonna be up to the dog, right? And uh and life happens, but you want to make sure that the concepts that these dogs are seeing at hunt tests or training days or whatever, whatever your goal is, you've got to make sure that they see the concepts before they get to the competition or before they get to a training day so you can control the outcome and build off that success. That's good stuff.
SPEAKER_01:I want to pull out what you said there too. You know, you hear a lot of people saying, you know, don't test the dog, train the dog. I feel like a lot of people don't fully understand that though, but but you hit on it right there. You said especially early on, you know, when you find that your dog's doing something they shouldn't, right? Maybe they're breaking a little bit. Rather than let it go on, you're stopping it right there. And you're not you're not even really getting on to them big. You're just stopping it because you understand the principle, which is dogs on any any behavior only exists because it's reinforced or rewarded. So, and a lot of people make this mistake. They think, well, we'll work this out down the road. But the first time your dog does something is the best time to stop it if you don't want that.
SPEAKER_00:100%.
SPEAKER_01:You can stop it there and then reward them another way when they're doing it right. But they'll learn right there, oh, that got stopped. That means maybe I shouldn't do that because I didn't get the retrieve or whatever it is. You know, if you're doing obedience, they didn't get the treat. If you're doing the retrieves, oh starting to break the retrieves interrupted, the dog stopped. So many people make a mistake and they just wait into it hoping that it'll get better. Oh, you know what? Oh, it's just one little mistake. It's really imperative that you stop it day one, second one, and then you set your, as you said, you reveal it to them piece by piece because that's how dogs learn. They don't learn through, okay, they they messed it up here, let's go fix it and let it just keep happening. You've got to stop it right away. If you don't, you're gonna be in a world of hurt uh and then you'll be all tied up upside down, you won't know which way is up and down.
SPEAKER_00:And it's not fair to the it's not fair to the dog either, right? Because you look at it, you teach a dog how to do something and you teach them how to do it the right way. You can't correct a dog because they're not gonna learn from it if they don't know what they did. If they knew that they had to sit on a bucket and not move and not make a sound, and then you turn around and you get on the dog, whether you have a collar, you don't use a collar, or you have a healing stick, whatever it is, right? Whatever method you use to correct your dog, if you just correct them, you're not gonna get the outcome. They'll do it again because you've got to show them first what they have to do the right way. And if you show it the right way and have that high level of a standard, then you can get your corrections in and the dog will learn. You know, a dog goes to the line and I've never let them move or never let them break, and then I correct them at the line, they're gonna know, uh, yeah, I did take a step. That's why dad's mad at me. Right? That's why I got in trouble, and I either a caller correction or whatever, right? And I'm not saying be mean to your dogs by any means, but you can't fairly correct a dog without them fully knowing what you expect in the first place. And that becomes a situation where you as a handler have to teach, teach, teach, test it out. Teach, teach, teach, test. And because if you don't teach them or you let your dog creep from the time they're six months old, and then a week before a hunt test, you start getting on them. Like, dude, you've let me do this my whole life. I'm six months old or I'm a year old now. You've never got on me for creeping. So I don't know why you're getting mad at me. I don't know why I'm getting hit with a collar or or you know, put back in a truck. I don't know why. But if they know Oh, yeah. I I did creep a little bit. Yeah, that's probably, you know, in their head they're probably like, yeah, that's probably that's probably justified. Yeah, I see why he's mad at me. But like, that's the thing. You gotta show them. You can't just expect. They don't go in a kennel with another dog and talk to him and be like, hey, what'd you do on that hip pocket today? I did this, right? They don't they don't do that. They don't talk like we do, right? Like, man, what you do on that test in high school? You know, you're like, hey, what's number three? They don't do that, they're animals. So you've got to show them what you want and have a high level of expectation from day one, and it starts with foundation. I think we talked about earlier, man. You the foundation, you talk about it. There's a lot of amazing horses that run the Kentucky Derby. Those are the best of the best. But there are so many good horses running all the other stakes, right? It's the same thing with dogs. There's a lot of good grand champions. There's a lot of good FC, AFC dogs that run field trials that are probably some of the best of the best. But there's also some really special dogs that a guy just picked up that is his first dog that's running a season test that does great work. And he does great work in seasoned, so he runs finish tests. And there's a it's your it's it's what the handler puts into the dog. So just because you're not running a big national event doesn't mean your dog's not good. It doesn't mean it's not great. It just means that you've got to continue to build to get there. And that's what I think people lose sight of. They want to get to the top, but they don't want to put the sweat equity to get to the top. And if your dog doesn't get there, it's not because they're not a good dog. It's just because sometimes you just have a dog that's not built for it, or you have a dog that you don't have the time or the financial means to put into it to make that work. And that that does not mean your dog is any less. It just means your dog is what you need to train in front of you. So don't train it like Clark trains his 10-time grand champion, and don't train it like Lyle trains his dog. Train the dog you've got in front of you. Build that solid foundation and grow from it, and you're gonna have a good dog that everybody likes to be around. And you're gonna have a dog that your your kid loves and gives it a kiss every night. You're gonna have a dog that your wife doesn't mind watching while you're at home, while you're not at home, right? It it it it all it all comes back to that. It all comes back to making sure that you have a good foundation, you're training the dog in front of you, and you're building off the moments of success and not sitting on the moments of failure. You've got to level yourself out. You can't let a failure, you know, discourage you, but you also can't let a win or a hunt test pass turn you arrogant, right? You oh, I passed that, I'll pass the next one, right? You can't just not work. Right. You gotta go to work and you gotta bear down on them. And part of bearing down on them is is is going out there in the yard and going to your training grounds and and doing the work. And that's what matters, is doing the work and enjoying the ride and enjoying the journey. And Rose has taken me all over the country from Kansas to Louisiana and everywhere pretty much in between, and I'm very blessed for that. But there was a lot of work in between there, and you can't lose sight of the importance of the foundation and the building blocks where you're at.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's good stuff. And I think kind of pulling from that too, one thing I want to highlight is you you said something earlier, and basically the the essence of it is you know, if you haven't done it just at this point and now you're expecting it now right before the test, that's not really fair to the dog, not fair to you, but the same the really the the secret to the winning is not just doing a lot at once, it's just being consistent over time and putting in the work like you're saying. Um let's chat about I want to kind of pull in your first grand experience now. Um your first do you remember the whole thing? You remember your first run, you remember everything? Let's let's talk through that a little bit, especially first time coming in.
SPEAKER_00:I blacked out from day one to day five. Uh no, it uh man, I'll never forget it. It was a good it I was blessed uh to get that first pass to run the first one, and and it wasn't me at that one, it was Rose. Uh but you know uh it to even make this a wilder story is you know, we're pre-grant, you know, most people, most groups pre-grant about a week or two before. So we're pre-granting, we're going through it. Rose is doing really well. I'm feeling as confident as a new handler can. I'm still making sure that I'm leaning on my mentors, say, okay, we're four days out. What are we doing? What do I need to do? What do I need to do to correct? What do I need to tighten down? And we're working through that and we're doing really, really well. So day before a big event, day before the grand, the dog gets to relax. They still have to uphold my standard, but they're getting a triple and a blind. That's it. Super simple. I'm gonna make it where you go into it, not at the top of the mountain, but you're starting your journey to peak performance-wise. So I don't want you coming in at the top. I want you knowing that you've got to build your way up um excitement wise, right? Triple and a blind. She goes out there, bing, bing, bing, runs a good blind, put her up. So we're training in central Kentucky, and the first grant we ran is in St. Louis, so it's a couple hour drive. Put her up, nothing. Nothing out of the normal. We clean up, we all convoy over to our Airbnbs in St. Louis. I get to St. Louis, I open the door, and Rose is like this. Her eyes closed and her heads tilted. I said, That's not good. So I'm freaking out internally. Uh luckily a guy in our group is a vet and he's one of the best, and his name's Tony Schuman. Um, I call Tony in like an utter panic, and I'm pretty sure he was eating dinner, and he's like, I'm dropping you a pen. I need you here now. I was like, Cool. So he met me the in the hotel lobby, which is right across the street from the restaurant, but I'm almost 100% positive he was eating um because I didn't see anybody else around it. I knew it where everybody else was. They were in there relaxing. And he came out, we took Rose in the hotel lobby of a holiday inn in St. Louis, and he looked at her eye, and he's like, Man, I I don't see anything. It might be a seed. So he's like, I'm gonna give you some drops. Okay. He's like, every hour. All right. He's like, even at night, done. Set my alarm every hour. The day before the grant, I wasn't sleeping anyway. Let's be real here. So it's like, I'm up every hour. We wake up the first day of the grand, which is a Saturday, and it's worse. And I said, This is not good. Go back to Tony. Tony sees a scratch. So before the day before the first grant, she actually scratched her eye from top to bottom, kind of like at an angle. Not good. So I just looked at Tony and said, What do I do? He said, Well, I'm gonna give her these more medicated drops. It's gonna fix it while we're here. We'll look at it at the vet office when we get back from the grand. Because I was real low on the running order, so I didn't run the first day anyway, so it kind of gave me a day reprieve. I'm like, okay, so I'm drops, medicine, all this stuff. We go to the first day of the grand, and it's a big test. It goes left, left bird, right bird, middle bird. Middle bird is as far as you can throw it at the grand, it's plus 200 yards, down a hill, up a hill, and I watch for a day and a half of some of the best dogs in the country not see that bird. I'm like, great, I've got a dog with one eye that's barely two years old. We're gonna give it a shot. Boom. I'm looking, I shoot and I look down, she sees the first bird. I pull her over, boom, she sees the second bird. I'm like, all right, well, those are your chip shots. Here comes the test. And I point and I tell her long, and she looks out there, and I see the I see the bird go off, pop, and I'm looking down at Rose, and Rose, one of her tells is she'll stick her tongue out. If she sees a tough bird, she kind of sticks that tongue out and looks. I look down, and that tongue was out, and I was like, okay, we got a shot. Send her, boom, she goes out there and just punches. Oh my Alright, now we gotta get two more. So she runs that one, she picks that one up, and we run a really good, we run a really good blind. The test was that middle mark. And uh I come, she picks up the blind, and I again seriously, blacking out at that point. I just bend over, put my hands on my knees, and I'm breathing because I didn't breathe for two and a half minutes straight, and I'm like, oh my gosh. So I pull, you know, we no honor, no nothing. We go back to the truck, and I'm still giving her meds, and it's getting better every it's like, man, if I could just get some more time in between me and a test, I'm good. I just need more time to get that eye healed up. We go through our second series, and it's a little wood duck hole, and the dog's got to go over a log for one of the marks, and they're in lily pads, and it's giving them trouble because a lot of dogs are not going over that mark. And Rose is 45 pounds, soaking wet on a good day. Like, she's little. And she goes right over that log and kind of picks her back legs up, and she goes completely underwater and pops her head back up. I'm like, Well, she's completely discombobulated, get ready to blow a whistle. And she comes up and sees that bird, picks it up, comes back, run a really good down the shore blind. And I'm like, okay. Third series comes and it's tough. It's even harder than the first. And your judges are not giving you any leniency. First two birds out, it goes, it went left, middle, right. That right bird was big. It was another big one down a hill, angled back. And if you overran it or went to the left or behind the holding, you heard put your dog on the bird, and you had to handle. Another one I'm not feeling good about. Rose goes out there and steps on that long bird as the last bird picked up, just puts her paw. I'll never forget, man. She's about a foot, maybe eight inches off the bird, gets parallel with it, and just hits the brakes. Boom, hits it. I'm like, we got a shot. So every day I'm like, we've got a shot. And uh, we do really well. One whistles that blind, that was tough, and she was just on a high. She made a run that was a run. I mean, we had there was no reason for me to say anything else other than the dog went on a run, and they do that, and it was we peaked at the right time. And the whole week it was 70s, 75 degrees. Day four, last hunt test before the upland. And it's like 50 degrees. It is freezing cold, and it's a water test. You got a dog on a truck for four days straight running tests, they are ants to the gills. I pull her off for the fourth day, and she's ready to go. It's like she knows what's coming, and it is the blind, the wind shifted, you know, throughout the week. This test wasn't terrible. It was a long swim to get out for the blind and push up the hill. No wind, that bind is the dogs do it all the time. That wind was blowing right to left, pushing the dogs into a coat. And the big dogs that had seen it before and done well, they just shouldered the wind and kept going. Little 45-pound Rose was like, this thing's pushing. So she it's literally I'm watching her run a you know, swim a straight line, and I can see her just go, keep going, stop her. And I'm having to, I'm I'm we're working as a team and I'm fighting and I'm working and I'm working. And it was tough, man. I blew a lot of whistles, and I she picked it up, and I'm sitting there like, man, I'm toast. This is I'm toast. And I can it had an honor, so it was even worse. I had an honor, so I go to the bucket, I load my gun, and it's sitting in front of me, and Rose is sitting there, and I just put my head on the gun and I just start praying. There was no other, there was nothing else to do. And actually, Clark was in the holding line, and it was getting late, so we had like they were wanting to train up one. And Clark kept saying, like, hey guys, we need to make a decision here. Like, I need to go. It was his last dog, I was second to last, he was last. And he was like, We need to go. And they're like, Hold on, Clark. He comes back up again. I was like, guys, we gotta go. So shout out to Clark Kennington. Didn't know me at that point, pushed the judges to make a decision, so and it it went in my favor. And I I'm very, very blessed. Man, I remember coming off the line, and Adam, my mentor, who has taught me everything, was standing right there, and I just, you know, gave him a big old bear hug, and he's like, You good? I was like, Yeah, we're good now. He's like, All right, now we gotta go back to work. Now we gotta get ready for Upland. We gotta get ready for Upland. And uh we went back to work and she did great in the Upland, and Tony Schumann had her eye. I mean, by that point, day five, we were we were good. And uh that was our first grand experience, man. We were very fortunate to have pass the first one, and we took our lumps on some other ones. We made a couple deep runs. I've gone out in the third and I've gone out in the fourth before, um, and then it came back to Kentucky, and uh I had the best dog I could have had, um, personally, right? What I had in front of me was the best version of Rose that I'd ever seen. It was the screws were tight, the mental capacity was there, the veteran status kind of came out in her for some stuff. I was there was a couple marks that I really had to coach her into, like, okay, nobody's wanting to do this, but we're gonna have to do this, hon. And you know, I can coach Rose into anything, and it's just taking my time to coach her at the line. And, you know, we we rolled through the second grand all on twos, which is the highest score you could get, um, and pass the upland. I mean, she was humming, and uh, I was it was great. I'll never forget it. Four series, it was a pretty flat field with some hay bales, picked up all the marks clean, and the blind was a keyhole blind, and uh between two hay bales, they're probably like a hundred and something yards out, and you had to run between them. And I'll never forget, she was running it good, and I didn't have the guts to let her go to line it. I was like, I'm not letting this go south. So I stopped her and gave her a hard right back, and I I did it, and she took it, and I just held my hand. Like I it was like a moment in time just froze, and it's like all those years of hard work paid off, and you you take that, she took that cast, and as she's coming back, I'm like, cry. I mean, I'm I'm crying. I cried more for my grandpats than I did for my kid. Don't tell my wife that, but I I definitely cried more for my grandpa, my grandtitle than I did for my first son, but that's okay. I still like my son more, but I definitely cried more because it just hits you, man. The years of work, you just start having those mental flashbacks of everything you did to get there, man. And it's been a crazy journey, and I'm and I'm blessed and fortunate. But it's uh it was a wild ride, and and I had a lot of help in between. There was times I stayed at Barton's house and and trained when the grand was south and trained at other places prior. So it's it was a team effort. It truly was a team effort to get everybody ready and and to help me with roles, and that's what matters the most, and that's what made it so special.
SPEAKER_01:Man, that's incredible. That's uh that's a good story to hear, and it's awesome that it's crazy how everything teeters in the balance made one mistake and it can be over right there. And you've made it that far and you gotta start again. So that's that's pretty incredible how that all worked out. Uh man, this has been a very inspirational episode, I would say. I think just so many good nuggets, so many good valuable tips. Uh, and I appreciate you for sharing all that. I know that's gonna help a lot of people from we got all kinds of listeners, those ranging that are that are don't even have their puppy yet, to people that you know they're they're on their third dog. And I think anybody will be able to learn something uh from this episode. Um let me ask this the final question and then uh when we after that you can let everybody know how they can find you. Because you mentioned earlier, and I want to just shout this out, you said you're gonna have some rose puppies maybe first of the year. So, you know, if someone's listening to this, you don't have a puppy yet, and you kind of like the sound of all this, you might want to consider reaching out uh to Mr. Blake. He might be able to help you out if you uh you get the right goals, got the maybe it's the right pup for you, who knows? Um before before you tell people where they can find you.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:What's your final last minute nugget? And I always ask this question if you could tell someone that's on the fence thinking about training their dog, thinking about starting this journey, maybe a little apprehensive, they don't know what the best decision is, they want to make a good decision, they really want to uh you said something earlier, they want to do justice by their dog, right? Because that's what you wanted to do. What's your what's your advice? What would you give? Just last advice to someone.
SPEAKER_00:You I I think it's it's it's tough, man. When you look at it, you're nervous and but you want to do it yourself, right? But you think, I don't know how to do this. What do you lose if you don't do it? You don't lose anything, right? But you're set to gain so much if you do it yourself. So don't look at the negatives, look at the positives. There's gonna be time spent with friends and family, time spent with your dog, getting better, having the opportunity to travel, to see the country, to with your dog, to hunt, or to run tests, or do all that cool stuff, right? But the positives will always outweigh the negatives if you look at it that way. So don't be afraid to start. Don't be afraid to ask the questions. Don't be afraid to put yourself out there to just throw birds, to work, to weed eat, to mow grass. Don't be afraid to do the legwork and put in the sweat of equity because I can guarantee you when all of that comes to fruition and you get your dog to the level that you want your dog to be at, you can turn around and look back at your journey, and I can guarantee you you will remember every memory that you had, and there will always be more good memories than there are bad memories. And the point of it is don't be afraid to start, dive headfirst in, become a student of the game, and I can promise you guys it'll be the best decision you'd ever made because without dogs, I wouldn't have the friends that I have. Without dogs, I wouldn't have friends that have puppies of my dog, and to see the growth and as a family grow, right? My mentors saw me have my son and they see him at training days now, and I see them as they or their kids have kids and all this cool stuff, right? It's a network and it's a family. Don't be afraid to start. Don't be afraid to jump in, to make yourself vulnerable, to put yourself out there to become a student of the game. It is all worth it in the long run. Don't don't let the highs outweigh the lows, and don't let the lows outweigh the highs. Keep yourself right in the middle and build brick by brick and step by step, and then you will have a dog that you will be proud of and be happy for. It's worth it. I'm looking around. I don't see mine right now, but I can guarantee you I left the bedroom door open and she is curled up under a blanket asleep right now. I can guarantee you that. So the the when you get there and the journeys as you progress and you get a dog to where you want, you're gonna be able to look around and be like, my dog is a grand champion, but she's probably feet up in the air, dead asleep right now, under a blanket on my on my bed. And I'm gonna go pick her up right now, and when we get done, we're gonna go train and we're gonna go hit the fields today. And she'll do it. And that's that's what you want, right? You want a dog that listens, a dog that you can enjoy, and a dog that can come in the house and enjoys your family, because that's what it's all about.
SPEAKER_01:That's awesome, man. Well, where can people find you? Um, I know you since you got your channel, you're doing a little bit there. Um, if they're thinking about a puppy or just want to connect with you, you you have a website or social media, where would you like them to go?
SPEAKER_00:Yep. So absolutely. So Bourbon Trail Retrievers, um, I'm owner, CEO, president, whatever you want to call it. I just train dogs. Um not that, not that, not that pivotal, right? It's not that not that important. I train dogs. Um, my name's Blake Allen. I've got all my personal social medias. You can find me on Instagram and Facebook under Blake Allen. Um you can shoot me a message. I'm super active. Uh, you can see me. I I try to help out as much as I can in the Cornerstone um Facebook page, the Cornerstone group, and I can help out as much as I can in the Southern Oak group. Um, I'm not super social media heavy. Um I'm just not. Um, but I I'm pretty active. I can respond to a direct message, I can comment on posts, but other than that, I kind of teeter totter on social media ability. I'm I'm working on some social media stuff, I'll share that on my personal pages. But anybody that wants us wants to reach out, they can shoot me a message on Facebook. I'll give you my cell phone. We can text, I'll call you. Uh I'm here to help because I had people help me. Rose Puppy's coming up next year. More to come on that. You'll see some stuff hopefully here soon that we work some stuff out, probably first of the year. See some stuff on the Southern Oak page about that. It's going to be cool. It's going to be special and to have a piece of that is awesome. But if you're in the in the you know market for a puppy or thinking about it, guys, reach out to Southern Oak Candles, ask questions. Ask questions from the people you're work you're thinking about getting a puppy from. Knowledge is power when you're picking a puppy. And Barton and you, Josh, and Miles, y'all got that down to a science on that deal, right? The cornerstone partnership with Southern Oak and all that good stuff. And Southern Oak has that puppy pickup stuff down to a science on what works best for everybody. And that's super important. Super, super important. So make sure you reach out to Southern Oak Kennels. You can reach me at Bourbon Trail Retrievers on Facebook. There's more to come on that. So my name is Blake Allen. Shoot me a message. I'd be more than happy to help, man. But Josh, this has been awesome. Hopefully, this is not the only time we do this. Let's definitely circle back because it's been uh it's already been over an hour. It's it's been you know quick. So definitely yeah, we'll definitely circle back and have some more. And if somebody wants to ask some questions, we'll go from there. But Josh, I appreciate your time, sir. And if anybody ever needs anything, guys, again, my name's Blake Allen with Bourbon Trail Retrievers. Just give me a shout on social media.
SPEAKER_01:We appreciate you, man. I appreciate you. And I I don't doubt that this will be the last. The first won't be the last. We'll do this again because this has been an incredible episode. And just again, uh thank you for sharing. And and guys, go check him out, especially if you're thinking about one of those rose pups. Maybe you got some similar goals. Good dude here, and uh, thanks for hopping on, man. All right, thanks, Josh. Have a good rest of your day, sir.
SPEAKER_02:Thanks for listening to the Build From Here podcast. To learn more about retriever training or our podcast, visit Cornerstone GundogAcademy.com slash podcast.