When Water, Birds, and Gunfire Go Wrong | Brandon Balabus

What happens when the three things every duck dog owner worries about most all seem to go wrong?

In this episode, Josh sits down with CGA member Brandon to talk through Luna’s training journey—from a surprise fireworks scare, to a bad pool experience, to chicken chaos in the backyard. At several points, Brandon wondered if he had ruined his future duck dog before she ever made it to the blind.

But instead of panicking, forcing the issue, or trying to fix everything overnight, Brandon kept following the process, building trust, and learning how to train the dog in front of him.

This is an encouraging conversation for anyone who has ever had something go wrong in puppy training and wondered, “Did I mess this up?” Luna’s story is a reminder that one bad moment doesn’t have to define your dog’s future.

Want to learn how to train your hunting dog with confidence?

Visit: Cornerstone Gundog Academy

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Transcript

Welcome And Why Brandon Goes All In

Josh Parvin 0:00

Welcome to the Built From Here podcast. On this episode, it is my great honor to be introducing you to CGA member Brandon Balibus. Brandon is really a part of Cornerstone and the SOK crew tribe. You know, he's gone all in. That's what we were kind of talking about before we got on uh the call here. And uh I just love it. I love going all in. I think that represents who Cornerstone members are, and I can tell that that's the type of guy that Brandon is. We're gonna get more into his story here in a minute, but he's from the Northeast. He'll tell you a little more about where where he resides currently and just what his life looks like. But um this is gonna be a great episode, and I really look forward to sharing it with you. So welcome aboard, Brendan. Glad you're here.

Brandon Balibus 0:40

Thanks, man. I'm super, super pumped to be on here talking to you, you know. Watching all these videos now for uh over a year. I feel like I know you, you know, pretty wild.

Josh Parvin 0:51

It kind of is crazy to like have the opportunity to be talking with you. Uh for me, it's a great honor to have someone that follows our videos. And then here we are, you've been in around a year, and like you you you've stayed with us, right? You've gone through every single day all the all the weekly training and and here you are now. So to me, uh I didn't envision this when we first started the stuff, the cornerstone, especially. Uh we were just thinking we're gonna get a cool course and help people, and then it became the best part is getting to talk to uh really I we call it the CGA family, and just getting on these conversations and hearing about your life and where you're from and and how things have gone because we have that one common journey that we all go on, which is the dog training journey. And we all know what that's like. It it can be uh it can be up full of ups and downs. So man, I I'm glad to be talking to you and and thanks for taking the time to share with the people that listen to Build from Here. I know they're gonna enjoy this conversation. Um before we go too much further, just give us a little background where you're from, uh, all that good stuff so they get to know you a little bit, and then we're gonna dive in after that to the journey of picking up Luna.

Brandon Balibus 2:00

Sounds good, yes.

Growing Up On Long Island Water

Brandon Balibus 2:02

So um I grew up, so I live on Long Island, New York, which is just outside the city on our own little island out here. Um I grew up in this city outside the city, I know complicated, uh a beach town right on a barrier islands uh called Long Beach. And um it's a cool town, you know. We have the bay on one side of the barrier islands and the ocean on the other. You can literally ride your bike or skateboard from the bay to the ocean. Um, so it was a great place to be a kid. When I was a kid, um you know, I grew up surfing, you know, in a beach town, everybody surfed, and uh which you would never think of in New York, I know, but it was just all about the water. I grew up, I lived on a canal, so I was on the water my whole life, um you know, crabbing, clamming, just being in boats, and uh I just spent my whole life on the water, and honestly, um we'll get into that, but I think that's kind of how I actually got into duck hunting. But um so I grew up there, um, and then I spent a little time in Hawaii. I lived in Hawaii for a couple years, went to school there. Wow, and yeah, that's pretty nice.

Josh Parvin 3:16

Yeah, not bad. You went from one water to uh a different, a lot of different water.

Brandon Balibus 3:21

I did a I did a little bit too much surfing there and not enough studying. Uh parents weren't too stoked on that, and then uh came home and decided I wanted to go to a PA school or medical school with I know you're familiar with the physician assistant, and um so I just put my head down to the books. Um that was a long journey. I did that, um graduated, started my first job in the Bronx in the busiest ER in the country. No way, yeah.

Josh Parvin 3:57

I bet you you have we could probably have a long podcast on that.

Brandon Balibus 4:03

Um so I worked there, and that led me to uh my next job out on Long Island, um, you know, just on the bay. The hot the next hospital I worked is right on the bay called Good Samaritan, and that's where I met my wife. And uh, you know, fast forward to where we are now, you know, um 11 years later, you know. Um that's the that's the cliff notes. But I love it.

Josh Parvin 4:30

That's yeah, Long Island, New York, pretty close to the city.

Brandon Balibus 4:33

How many are you an hour from what probably like 45 minutes from Manhattan? You know, like that's you know, there's five boroughs, you know. You know, when you live here, we only really call Manhattan the city, you know, everything else is just Queens, Brooklyn, or whatever. But yeah, I'm I mean, where I grew up in Long Beach is literally on the border of Queens and Nassau County. Um so yeah, I mean it's it's right there, you know, quick train ride away. It's easy.

Josh Parvin 5:00

Yeah. You know, when you think of like the city or even I guess Long Island in general, you don't think like dogs and outdoor stuff, but that's pretty cool. I was when we were talking the other day, I was looking up on the map, just I was like, it did look pretty awesome. I I could see the beach there, and I could see the bay. I was like, this seems like really kind of a hidden paradise that you might not think about. Um, 100%.

Brandon Balibus 5:22

Yeah. I mean, I love it here. You would again, you'd never think it, but um, you know, our bay system here, the boating we have here, the beaches. I mean, I I mean, I've been a lot of places, and it's it's really beautiful here, which you would never guess in a million years, an hour outside of the city, and it's great, you know.

How Duck Hunting Became The Obsession

Josh Parvin 5:42

Where did the duck stuff come in? Did you is there were you duck hunting around where you grew? You know, you grew up on Long Island on the canals there. Yeah, so I I grew up on the water.

Brandon Balibus 5:52

My father owned a boat dealership, or he was part owners in a boat dealership. So I've just been on boats, the bay, and the ocean my whole life, and um, but I never hunted. Um it was probably around the year before COVID, and one of my coworkers and surfing buddies, um he wound up getting into hunting like big time. And I would just watch his Instagram and he'd be posting all these videos. And I wasn't really sure if I wanted to, you know, like shoot animals yet, but I was like, man, like this guy's out on the bay in the winter, and like the winter is the only time I'm not on the bay. And uh, you know, I'm like, you know, I'm texting him like I want to go out with you. I don't want to shoot a duck. I just want to like, I want to go out in the boat, you know. And um it wasn't probably actually until that maybe it was that year or the following year, the year of COVID, that everything was locked down, and I'm like, um, we're still working, but uh, you know, he took me out and uh I just got to observe and I was like, oh man, this is this is this is it. Like I want to do this. I was I was that was it. And like I just as you guessed in the beginning of this podcast, like when I decide I'm gonna do something, I'm going all in, all in, you know. So I wound up um basically one of so he was the first one to show me duck hunting, and then I wound up reaching out to, you know, it's just it's just one of these things that people that surf, people that fish that I'm all friends with already, some of them actually hunt ducks too. It just kind of goes together, the whole being on the water thing. And one of my wife's good friends that she grew up with, and her best friend's best friend, is like one of the best duck hunters on Long Island. So I reached out to him. I'm like, hey, I met you at you know, Allie's wedding. I don't know if you remember me, but uh, you know, I hear you're the man with duck hunting. I'd I'd love to talk with you. And uh that sparked our whole now he's one of my best friends, but uh he took me out and showed me pretty much everything that I know, which was a you know, with duck hunting, there's no cornerstone for duck hunting. Like if you don't, you know, if you don't have somebody showing you the ropes, it's gonna take you a decade just to sort of figure out how to be mediocre at it. And uh I've been lucky enough that I had this huge leap forward by being shown my area and how to hunt it by somebody that's you know, generationally he's like two or three generations into this area of hunting, so he's just he showed me a lot. So that's kind of how I got into it. It was really my passion for being on the water. Um, the winter here is beautiful on the bay, it's crystal clear water, um tons of life, which again, you would never guess. It's more life in the winter here than in the summer. And it's just uh that's what got me into it. But I also knew that when I got into hunting, me and my wife were big dog lovers. We had four dogs at the time, none of them were trained. Wow. Um, yeah, it was crazy here. But uh I knew that I was like, hey, I'm getting into this duck hunting, and we're gonna, our next dog, I don't know when that's gonna be, is going to be um, you know, a duck dog. And it was also probably around that time where like I Googled, you know, gun dogs or something, and Barton's video of say when that I'm sure you've like everybody's watch, you know. It's like I saw that, I'm like, all right, I'm getting a dog, I don't know when, and it's gonna be from this guy, you know, Southern Oaks. And anyway, we couldn't do it for quite a while. Um, you know, unfortunately, our dogs got old and two of them passed on. And that's when we sort of uh finally put our application in um to Southern Oaks about getting a puppy.

Josh Parvin 9:40

Wow. What did that process look like for you? And so y'all had dogs in the past, so y'all are familiar with dogs. This is a little bit of a different uh I I would imagine your approach is going to be a little bit different this time because this is very purposeful.

Choosing A Purpose-Bred Family Duck Dog

Josh Parvin 9:53

Like we're getting a duck hunting dog, it's gotta be the family dog too. So what did what did that look like as you went through his uh application process, which you know that is the best place to start if you want a puppy, but that's okay, you just need to fill out that application.

Brandon Balibus 10:06

Yeah, it's it's easy enough. Um it's it's a pretty in-depth application, um, which I appreciate. But um we filled it out and I put in there like, you know, they ask you when you want it. I said like six to twelve months or something like that. I I said, and um, and so I filled out the application, and they just I think they send you an email back saying that you know we've received it and you'll be hearing from us soon, sort of thing. And then um one of my I have a friend, um Aaron, who is uh he works for Boss Shot Shells.

Josh Parvin 10:41

And shout out to Boss and Aaron, great, great 100%.

Brandon Balibus 10:45

Yeah, he's awesome. And uh he lives, I I think, right, I think he said right down the street from Barton, so they're good friends. And um, I reached out to him because I know he had an SOK dog, and I said, Hey man, I finally put an application for this dog we've been waiting years to buy. Um, you know, I was like, uh I just wanted to let him know, and I was like, what are your thoughts? And he called me and he was like, Listen, he loves his dog Arthur, and Arthur is a Raymond pup. And he's like, I love all the dogs, every S O K dog is great, but man, I love my dog, and you really should try to get a Raymond puppy. I was like, okay. So now in my head, I'm like, Raymond puppy. Now I'm like, I had no specific dog in mind. I figured that, you know, I'd park with somebody, they'd tell me what I needed, and that was that. So he's like, no, no, you're you should get a Raymond puppy. Um, so he gave me Don and Wally's number in Michigan, and uh I called Don, and we had a you know, probably an hour or two conversation about what I was looking for in a dog, and um, it was probably everything you've already heard before. You know, I wanted um I wanted a family dog. I said our house is crazy. Um, you know, have three kids at this time two untrained dogs. Um we have chickens. Uh, you know, we spend probably half our, you know, half the year that it's nice out here. We have multiple boats. We're on the boat every day, the kids are home. Um, we're on the beach. I want to take this dog everywhere. So that's number one. And then yeah, um, I need a dog to hunt. And the way we hunt ducks here on Long Island is really different from most of the country. Um so I said that I wanted a small lab. I wanted a small lab because I have a small sneak boat. I don't want to be picking up an 80-pound dog out of the water and you know, dealing with all that and just for travel too, you know. Um it just kind of it kind of you know stemmed from that. And unfortunately, I mean not unfortunately, because it worked out, he's like, what you're looking for is gonna be in about a year from now. And I was like, oh I wasn't expecting that, you know. Maybe like six months, you know, but he's like, this was literally like April, not last April, the April before. And uh so I said, Okay, you know, put me on the list, and he put me on the list, and I was um I wound up being first pick, which I know that doesn't matter, but we turned it into something really fun for the kids. So when it was finally time and Raymond and Raven had puppies um in April last year, the puppy pickup was Father's Day weekend in June. Oh, really? Wow, wow. We made it a whole family trip. We took the kids, we flew to Michigan, um, drove to actually first day we went to the boss factory, which was very cool. And then uh then we went and picked up Luna on that Saturday, and we had first pick of uh a black female, and I just let the kids pick. You know, I was like, I don't care which one. And uh I just figured it'd be really fun for the kids to pick a dog, and we kind of just they did, they just let the dog kind of pick them, whatever dog the puppy was coming up to them, and uh that's how we got Luna, and uh we spent the next that whole day in in Michigan. Her first day, that Saturday, we took her to a brewery. That was her first puppy experience in Michigan, and uh the next day we flew home and it was Father's Day, and uh we spent that here. Yeah, wow.

Josh Parvin 14:21

So we're just ever a year, I guess. Just over a year, yeah. Wow. Wow. Yeah. Um that must have been so fun, just the kids and everybody just it was a whole big moment. Yeah, yeah. So it was fun, you know?

Brandon Balibus 14:34

Yeah.

Josh Parvin 14:35

How was it when you brought the

First Weeks Home And Crate Reality

Josh Parvin 14:37

the puppy home? So you flew back with the pup, I'm assuming, and then y'all landed, you get back into the home. What was the first week like for you guys?

Brandon Balibus 14:45

Um, well, the whole flight thing, all that was great, um, better than I thought it would go. Going home was fine too. It was a lot of exposure for her. You know, the two dogs, the older dogs, now they're 13, my older dogs, and uh they were fine. They were just like, Who's this thing? What is this thing? But they were, you know, fine. She was already trying to play with them. Um, she was very curious about the chickens right away. Oh, I bet. Yes, that's a good sign. That's a good sign. Yeah. Um, but it was all good. The crate training was a little rough. Um, you know, you watch the videos on corner. I I got Cornerstone immediately. I talked to Barton. I got the whole complete retriever. I was, you know, um, and I watched it in preparation, and um, I I listened to all about the crate training. But, you know, it had to be tweaked a little bit for us just because, you know, three little kids, two other dogs, you know, if she barked in the middle of the night and I had to go down and let her out, and she didn't want to go back to sleep. If I put her back in the kennel um to do the whole extinction principle, she would bark for like 30 minutes. And then I had then I had like then I had kids waking up, and my wife was like, yo, you can't do this, man. Like, I I don't care what your program says. Like uh so I spent that whole spring.

Josh Parvin 16:04

It's amazing when the sleep is attacked.

Brandon Balibus 16:06

Everybody gets oh no, yeah, they nobody could handle it. So, and I get it. So uh basically I I kind of there wasn't complete extinction. There was during the day. She was, you know, we we we were stayed trod and shoot with that. It was just that whole nighttime wake up when she peed in the middle of the night, took her out. She never had any accidents, but uh that's amazing. That's yeah, she was good with that. It was just um she didn't want to go back to sleep at three in the morning after she peed. So I literally laid on the couch, snuggled her on the couch, probably everything you're not supposed to do with a 10-week old dog. And uh, you know, we we slept until five or six on the couch and she had to go back out, and then we started our day. And it was a very tired spring for me. You know, I really uh I didn't get much sleep last year. But that faded fast, and you know, it it went by pretty fast. It wasn't that bad.

Josh Parvin 16:58

It's uh it's just part of the process, and it's um hey, it worked out in the end, and and that's what No, yeah, she's fine. She this dog doesn't make a peep in that kennel, you know. That's yeah, and that's whatever you did, you did it right. Um sounds like you you handled that well, so that's uh that's good. How let me ask this. You had that experience. What was your mindset going into this? Like you you were thinking about this for a year as you're on the wait list, you've got your dog, you go full stand on cornerstone. Was there apprehensions that you had about training the dog, or you felt pretty confident before you got started? What was the what was that like for you?

Brandon Balibus 17:41

Uh I mean, I think there's I'm I'm a bit of an overthinker. Um so I'm always second guessing everything, and uh, you know, it's like a blessing and a curse, these problems I have. But uh yeah, I mean right away I was I was and Barton, you could you could reach out to Barton, he gets right back to you, which is amazing. And um I I messaged him right away that um after I decided about a Raymond puppy and I said I asked him about cornerstone. I mean, this is literally like eight months before I got Luna. I was talking to Barton about cornerstone probably. And I'm like, you know, explaining him to the way we hunt here, which we can touch on too. And I was like, I really um think I just need the basic retriever. I I don't I don't I don't think I'm gonna need blind retrieves and all the stuff. I mean, I'm shooting ducks at 10 yards, you know. I'm I don't think I'm gonna need all that, you know. And he's like, you know, you know, just talking with you and seeing how you are, I think you might want to get the whole thing because I think you're gonna really get into this and you're gonna want the whole thing. And he was 100% right. I'm so happy I bought the complete retriever, um, which has everything. It has the older modules, which were also helpful, as well as the whole 52 plus. And um obviously here I am. I'm 100% into it, you know, and I I love it. You know, it's just uh it's so much fun. But I, you know, you have the apprehensions like I've never trained a dog at all, ever. Like, none of my dogs are trained. I don't even know if they know how to sit, half these dogs that I've had, you know? So I I didn't know, but I knew that my personality, that I was like, when I say I'm gonna do something, I'm gonna do it. And uh, but I didn't, you know, I was you're nervous, like, what if I mess something up, you know, all this stuff, and um of course you're always gonna second guess yourself.

Josh Parvin 19:33

And and we went through a few little struggles too, where I was second guessing myself through the process as well, which is normal, but let's dive into some of that real quick because I think uh when we talked, you you had some pretty unique things that had happened. Uh almost everything like that could have gone wrong went wrong, like with important things. Let's

Fireworks Pool Spill And Chicken Chaos

Josh Parvin 19:54

just talk about that real quick. And because I I that will hopefully encourage some people if any of this has happened to them that it's still possible to make everything work out.

Brandon Balibus 20:03

I thought I ruined this dog several times, 100%. I was, you know, I uh well, first thing, so this puppy came home in June, the end of June, and um obviously it was 4th of July, and there's fireworks every night where I live. I'm in a suburban community here. I mean, people are lighting off fireworks for like weeks, you know. That's and they they didn't bother her um when they were far away. Um so it was probably just after 4th of July, we went to a block party, and um it was also like my best friend's son's birthdayslash block party, and we brought the puppy. We thought it'd be a great everything's about socializing the first few weeks. I brought the dog everywhere, brought the dog to the block party. I'm like, oh, it's mid-July. Didn't even think about fireworks, you know? And uh, you know, the party, everything was great. We were there for a couple hours. Luna did very well. Um, there was other dogs there, lots of people. She did great. And then um it got dark, and I didn't even know they were putting fireworks out in front of the house. And I mean, and all of a sudden, I just heard everybody, somebody say, like, all right, we're lighting them off, look out. I'm like, what? You know, I didn't even know they were out there, and now I have this, you know, I don't know if she was a three-month-old dog, you know, and anyways, yeah, they lit off every giant firework in the world, and we were like, you know, not even a hundred yards away. So I'm like, what do you do? What do I do? I start just I start walking away with her. I didn't want to pamper her too much. I just walked away with her. I just started walking down the block as far as I could, as swiftly as I could, not running, but we just, you know, and she was looking around, she was jumping every fireworks she heard. She didn't know what it was, you know. Um man. And I, I mean, I left and I was pissed, you know. Not really at my friends, you know. I was like, because you know, it's not their job to tell me they're lighting off fireworks for my dog. It didn't even cross their mind, you know?

Josh Parvin 22:06

Yeah.

Speaker 2 22:07

Um, just kind of pissed at myself, you know, that uh I I I left. I was I was freaking out to my wife on the ride home. I'm like, I ruined this dog, man. You know, I sh how am I gonna do this now? Like now I just scared her for gunshots her whole life, you know. Um so that weighed on me, which we wouldn't find out if that was true for many months, you know. We're we're a long way from basic gun dog. So um, so that weighed on me, this whole foundation period. But you know, I I went through that whole process, and then not even it's still that something.

Josh Parvin 22:42

Hey, but before we go into the next thing, I just gotta say you did a good thing. A lot of people, and this is a nugget for people, a lot of people make the mistake that when they think something goes wrong, they immediately say, Well, now I gotta go test it and and get the dog through this. But you said a key word, you said it wasn't for many months that we were gonna get to basic gun dog. You choosing to wait did a lot of good for you because you had that time to build the bond with the dog before it was time to to reintroduce that and your dog also fell in love with everything you were doing. So I just had to throw that out there just because I've heard this story many times and a lot of people don't wait. They're like, we've got to fix it now, and they end up making the problem worse. So good on you for for riding it out, even though it was weighing on your mind every time. No, 100%.

Brandon Balibus 23:30

Thanks. And I think that's a good point. Like, I think that makes sense for a lot of things we do with her is to when something doesn't go right or goes wrong, your mind goes immediately, like, I need to do it again and fix it. And sometimes it's better to just uh to wait, do something else for now, you know, come circle back to that, you know. But anyways, yeah, so um the next thing that kind of went wrong was uh we got invited over to um let the kids swim in uh my wife's best friend's pool. And they have kids and they had a puppy there, and we had a puppy. They're like, bring Luna, it'll be fun. You know, they could run around the backyard together. I'm like, great, socializing my dog. I'm still, you know, bringing her everywhere. So I did, and they did really awesome. They were just running around being puppies and all that stuff, and my wife was sitting in the pool with like on like um the edge of the pool with her legs in, and uh the kids are in the pool, and you know, I'm just kind of standing watching Luna, and she gets like the zoomies. Oh, yeah, and she's running around the perimeter of this pool chasing this other dog, and the dog's chasing her, and I'm just like, I said it before it was gonna happen because she jumped. This dog loves to jump. She jumped over my wife's legs like several times doing their zoomies. I'm like, Telly, this dog's gonna fall in this pool. Like, um, don't let her do that, you know. Like, and I it was the next lap that she went to like jump over my wife's legs, and she moved at that moment, and like it bumped into her leg. Luna bumped into her leg and like fell face first into the pool. Like, there was no swimming here. This dog nosedived into the pool and was like three feet underwater. I grabbed her and lifted her up out of the pool, got her out. She looked scared. You know, I'm like, oh my god, dude. I'm gonna have the only Southern Oak dog that's scared of gunshots and scared of water. Like, this is like I ruined this dog, you know. Um, so again, I left like kind of pissed at myself again. Like, what could I have done different? I should have never let them run around next to the pool. You know, I I don't know, you know, it just happened so fast, you know. And then I kind of when she went in, it just happened so fast too that I was expecting her to start swimming and she didn't. You know, she literally was like underwater. You know? Oh my goodness.

Josh Parvin 25:51

Yeah, worse that could have happened happened.

Brandon Balibus 25:54

Yeah, 100%, you know. Um, you know, so that was that. I mean, one more thing that wasn't as bad is kind of later on, um, in the early fall, the chickens, my two older dogs get along good with the chickens, but Luna does not. Um and I really thought about do I train her to get along with the chickens when they're free ranging? When they're in their run, it's fine. They're in there, you know, she doesn't bother them, they don't bother her, but when they're out free ranging, do I train her not to chase them? I was like, I don't know. I like to have that prey drive, you know? So, anyways, I didn't, and um one of the kids let Luna out when the chickens were out, and um my wife was was outside with the chickens, I was downstairs, I don't know what I was doing, and I have it on my rim camera, it's pretty funny. But Luna went out, and I don't know, maybe she was like four or five months old. She ran straight for these chickens and picked one up and was running around the yard with the chicken. Um, and my wife screaming at her, no, Luna, no, drop that chicken, like screaming at Luna, you know? And uh, anyways, like she got the chicken out of Luna's mouth. She like tapped her on the nose, say no. And yeah, so I had this like big fight with my wife. I was like, bro, like you just told her no for doing what she's meant to do. It's like it's our fault that she got out, you know? Anyways, um, yeah, that took a long time. Um, because it's happened several times since then.

Josh Parvin 27:33

Um, once they draw first blood, it's over. Yeah they're they're hooked forever.

Brandon Balibus 27:38

Yeah, so but you know, my why it took some time for my wife and the kids to get through that whole process that you learn in Cornerstone, which is like, you know, I'm going on a bit of a tangent here, but it's like when you when you tell my whole family that when the dog picks something up, you don't tell it no. Like that was mind-blowing for the whole family, you know. Um, what do you mean? We've been taught our whole, you know, that's what you do your whole life. When the dog does something, no, no, you you say, good girl, and you say, Come here, you know, bring it to me, you know? Um, same thing with the chickens. It's like when she picks one up, you know. But uh that took some time, but everybody's on the same page now. Um, but yeah, there was like several of those things that happened that I was really that you don't get to um in Cornerstone for a little while uh that I was I was worried about, you know. I was worried that when I get there, like, how is she gonna react to water? How is she gonna react to um to gunfire and and you know, ducks and such. You know, we do spend a lot of time on the boat, so that summer we did take her on the boat a lot, and we never forced her to swim. That was another thing. I just ever since that happened, I just didn't want her to be scared of the water. I figured it was better for her not to even go in the water at that point for a little while. Um, you know, we would go to these bay beaches and you know, I'd just let her run on the beach, and if she wanted to put her feet in the water, great. I never did puppy retrieves or I didn't very didn't do any of that stuff. Um at the end of the summer, we did one day of it just to like see. And she actually swam. I was like, okay, all right, maybe the water thing is good. You know, maybe we're all right, you know. I did that before it got cold. Um but anyways, yeah. So that's that was a couple of the little hurdles that we that we went through that are you know, probably worst case scenario stuff.

Josh Parvin 29:22

That's pretty much the the three big ones. I mean, what gunfire, water, and and then birds. Yeah, yeah. That's what I mean. The three biggest fears. I I don't know if it gets any uh more concerning than that, but you handled it well. I mean, you did the right things, and the big thing, like I love what you said there too, is you you didn't just try to force the dog in the water. It was totally the dog's decision. It's always best to approach things that way because once it's their decision, they're gonna love it. Uh you can also like reverse think about this, and it might help some people or it helps me sometimes, is when your dog does stuff you don't want it to do. And sometimes it's kind of hard to get them not to do it. Well, why are they doing it? Well, they just really want to do it. So if you if you go with that philosophy and that mindset, hey, look, if I just this is a hunting dog, it's a water dog, odds are those things are gonna work out as long as we don't try to force it. We go at the dog's pace. And um it typically works out well. So it seems to

Train The Dog In Front Of You

Josh Parvin 30:21

have for you. So let's actually continue on this line of thinking because with those things happening, that like you said, you carried those with you through training. How did you sort through that? How did you navigate that mentally so that it didn't keep you from progressing? Because it it sounds like you were able to progress anyways, despite those things. And a lot of times those things happening, if you don't get a control of those thoughts quickly, can mess up how your training goes.

Brandon Balibus 30:51

Yeah, you know, um I I I had a lot of this talk with uh with my wife too of my concerns, and she was she's always like, It's gonna be fine, you know. She's that and I'm like, all right, but what about this? What about that? But um but I pretty much I put it to the back of my mind. I I said, let's just get through the foundations, let's get up to the whole fetch hold release portion and see see how it all goes. And then, you know, we'll maybe get up to gunfire right around the start of duck season um and see how it goes. But I really I really just put it to the back of my mind. I said, the dog's probably gonna be fine. Let's just not worry about her right now and just you know, build the bond, like you said. And I think that if she goes through all these phases and you you build this bond and you build this drive, she's probably not even gonna think about the water. She's just gonna do it, you know? Yeah. Um, but it was a little, it was always in the back of my mind, but I tried not to think about it, you know. Um, I never knew for sure if it worked or not in until you know, we had that reassuring thing in the f in the early fall when I I took her out um on the boat and she did okay. Um but um you know, we really we went through the whole the fetch hold release thing is another thing that you you read about, people struggle with that. And again, I'm an overthinker. I'm reading through every I think it was at the time that you kind of switched from the Facebook community to like the app community. Um but I was reading through everybody's I was like searching fetch hold release problems or whatever, and I read through everybody's struggles.

Josh Parvin 32:32

You're looking for their problems.

Brandon Balibus 32:33

I'm like, what do I do when I I'm like waiting for the problem? Like, you know, because um but actually fetch hold release for Luna was very easy. Um I hate to call anything easy, but it was it was not a problem. We didn't read we didn't hit any roadblocks. Um, you know, I I I did everything, every every part of it the way we were supposed to. Oh, actually, you know what? There was one part. I will sell say this, and I know you say this a lot, and this has been a little bit of um a mantra for me a bit, you know, like train the dog in front of you. Um, every dog is different, and Luna is different too. You know, you watch Violet, who's a very high drive dog, um and Luna is also a high drive dog, but she's a little different. She's also like very naturally steady, and if you're not careful, she'll get bored easily. So there's a there's a weird fine line of the dog's you know, like a fireball to she'll just you know, if you bore her, she'll lose all interest. Um so when we did the lane, the lane was a little bit of a problem because we would do everything, but the lane being so confined for her, she would do a retrieve at like a snail's pace. Um I kind of tweaked it for her when I would be like, Okay, let's just get a few retrieves in the lane that you're gonna walk out to. She would go there and back and hold it and sit and do everything she's supposed to, but like zero fire. And then I would walk outside the lane and throw the bumper 25 yards across my yard and release her, and she would take off like a rocket and come straight back. I was like, as long as she comes straight back, and we're not creating the bad habit, I'm gonna I'm gonna do that. And uh so we tweaked it a little bit, which is kind of my story also with Luna, little things we tweaked just to kind of fit her personality. Um, so I always kind of had that mindset. I was like, as long as I'm not creating a problem, if it works better for her, I'm gonna do it this way, you know. Perfect.

Speaker 34:45

Um I wanna I want to holl out that too, because like you're I mean, that's exactly what you we want you to do, is don't be afraid to think outside the box, right? We're teaching these dogs to think outside the box and be problem solvers. And you're learning that as you go through the process, too. And I I I don't think you could have done it any better, right? You could have, I mean, now you actually you could have run into a big problem right there. You could have said, I'm not gonna tweak this, I'm gonna just stay right in this lane. Guaranteed that would not have ended well. You with that dog walking out, you would have 100% created a problem that needed by my pulling your hair out when in reality all you had to do was just step out of the lane and then here you go.

Brandon Balibus 35:25

And and that was and uh and uh sorry to interrupt, but it was another thing in that part was the denials, which you know, Violet sometimes would break very rarely, but like I knew you like watching your videos, I knew that was like something that you know Violet needed to be kind of she needed to be toned down a little bit, it seemed like, you know? Uh 100%. Where Luna, I would do denials and still do denials once in a while, but if I did too many, it would shut her down. So that was another thing too that I would I would just you know tweak a little bit. Like, you know, if we had a really good thing going and she was steady, I just kept it going and would do one denial in a session rather than three or four because she was steady, she was good, and you know, you obviously want to teach them how every retrieve is theirs and all that, but um too many denials in the lane were would shut her down, and I just so I had to do little tweaks like that, you know.

Josh Parvin 36:21

And that's fantastic. It's kind of like what we were talking about earlier. We were chatting through kids, and you know, we've got three, I've got some kids, and our lives are full and busy, but what's unique is that every kid has their very unique, different personality, and it's they're just unique. And so you pretty much have to talk to them the way that it makes sense for them. And it's the same thing for the dog, you know. Violet had that personality and 100% correct. I've got Violet's daughter, she does not have the same personality. She still has the fire tendency, but on only on release. Otherwise, she's very chill um and she doesn't need a lot of steadiness, which is interesting. Whereas Violet needed a lot of that because Violet is always on the edge of just absolutely exploding and just going into it, which I like a lot of times, except for when it blows up. You know? Yeah. Where did you learn the tweaking concept? Do you you just naturally felt that way, or you were you felt like you got that from Cornerstone, the permission to make tweaks? What or was it the community? What what was the thing that led you to those tweaks, that concept?

Brandon Balibus 37:28

I mean, I think that the the big concept of Cornerstone is teaching you how to be a dog trainer. Like not like teaching you that there's not just one way to do it. You know, there's there's a few ways. I mean, you just got to go by the you're basically going by this protocol, but it's teaching you to read your dog and um to make some you know game day decisions if you need to tweak something. I I think I pretty much you know it's not in any single video of yours, but it's watching many of them together that you learn that you know, maybe I do need to tweak this a little bit for her or do this like this. Um so I would say a part of it is just me and um reading extra material and going a little bit extra and reading the community and stuff. All in, baby, all in. All in. Um, you know, but um other things I tweak too. Um we could fast forward a little bit and um not telling anybody to do this. This is just Luna, you know. I mean, follow the protocol, you know. But uh, you know, like uh we got up to to frozen ducks. Um and by the way, we introduced gunfire.

Gunfire Introduction Without A Bird Boy

Brandon Balibus 38:39

I skipped over that part, but it was nothing for her. Like I the first she didn't even like uh it didn't matter to her at all. Like, because we already built such momentum with all the marks and the lining memories that like as long as that noise got associated with with a retrieve, it didn't matter. And I didn't have a bird boy. I know we talked about this a little bit, but I'm kind of going a little bit back on the gunfire thing. We used a slinger winger, which you bring up towards the end of intermediate gun dog as a good tool. I used it in basic gun dog because I didn't have a bird boy. Um so I figured, hey, I could use this tool, I could put it a hundred yards away, and um, you know, I could use a remote, and when I launch the bumper, I could also shoot a primer. Um and that's how I introduced her to gunfire was with a slinger winger and a primer. And uh it worked out awesome. It was actually uh it was a really it was a really good thing for somebody that you know I'm off on weekdays and not many people are. I don't have I don't have many people around that could help me, so I had to do a lot of it on on my own. So that was helpful. So anyways, she was great with the gunfire. That was no thing. Um I pretty much did it the that way, other than I tweaked it using a slinger winger rather than a bird boy. Um so that worked well.

Josh Parvin 40:01

That was a big relief, no longer worried about it. All the things you were worried about, they they ended up working out. That's great news.

Brandon Balibus 40:09

Yes, and then uh so now it's like the middle of winter, and I'm bringing home ducks all the time, and uh I'm like, you know, I didn't even think it was a frozen duck. I just had fresh ducks, you know, that I was introducing her to, and I watched the video, and you pretty much do it just like the fetch hold release module. You know, you're holding the duck in front of the dog, you're saying fetch, and this was a no-go for Luna. She would sniff it and pluck feathers. Oh, no. And this went on for a couple of days, and now I'm freaking out again. I'm like, great, I'm uh you know, so um I watched on the older modules Barton do it um a little bit different. And um, he made it more like a retrieve initially, like little fun retrieves with the duck. And I also reached out to Don and Wally at at um SOK North, and they sent me some videos on how they do it. And I was like, you know, I'm gonna this might work for Luna's personality a little bit more. Um rather than like putting it in front of her face and say, fetch, I was like, let's try this, which basically wound up being like on that older module. I literally took a fresh duck home. I think it was like a pintail or something, her first one. It was either a teal or a pintail. Pretty finci.

Josh Parvin 41:28

Dog right there.

Brandon Balibus 41:29

I know, right? You know, just throwing pintails around my backyard, you know.

Josh Parvin 41:34

But uh we got people on here that have never even seen a pintail in the wild. Yeah, man, I I need a pintail.

Brandon Balibus 41:40

Yeah, yeah, they're not on Long Island. Oh no, they're not here. But uh, anyways, yeah, no, I just so I I like made it a fun retrieve and I actually used my other dog, who's a 13-year-old lab who's asleep over there, uh chocolate lab, and it it really fires Luna up because she doesn't want him to get it. She's still a puppy, Luna. So no matter what I throw, she's going to run out there and pick it up. So I took the duck and I said, You want it, you want it? And I tossed it, and she ran over there and picked up the duck perfectly in the center, brought it back to me and sat down. I'm like, What? Like, uh, and then so I I just did that a couple times and then I went back to do it the cornerstone way, um, with doing it just how we would do fetch hold release. But I just needed her to get a little fired up that you're that this is what you're going to be picking up and get that drive for picking it up. So I I tweaked that little part, but we came right back and did it the on the placeboard and everything else, you know.

Josh Parvin 42:35

Absolute perfection. I mean, you it just that's exactly what you should do. And I hope that encourages people as you're they're listening to you right now. Um, it's okay to to get outside the box to tweak things a little bit. Like this is this is here is the guide, and we want you problem solving for yourself. And sometimes it's as simple as stepping out of the lane, throwing the duck, letting the dog go get it. Whatever you got to do to get momentum. Momentum's the key, and you found forward progress, and then you're able to go back and then tweak it up, make sure, hone it in. The reason we do that whole fetch on release, anyways, is just for the precision. Uh we're just over-training to the highest standard. And so, but sometimes you do need to get them excited. It's really honestly the same process that you think about, you start with, which is fun bumpers as a puppy. You're just doing the same thing with the dog, fun duck, throw it, get them going, boom, get them back, tweaking it up. So uh makes me proud to hear you're doing all this and thinking outside the box. That's awesome.

Brandon Balibus 43:28

Thanks. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I mean, uh, like I said, Cornerstone really teaches you how to think a little bit, and you, you know, if you you go all in, you'll see you just gotta train the dog in front of you, and you might have to do those little tweaks, but you know, you still go by the principle and stuff, and you you watch the videos and you still do it. But um, the little tweaks have helped me in Luna. And um I think that's why you know I would say overall training Luna has been fairly fairly easy. I I haven't had too many issues other than what we talked about and stepping outside the lane, throwing There was, you know, she did give that adolescent thing where there was a couple weeks where she seemed to forget everything we learned. Um, you know, and I just tried not to get mad, which is a whole other thing with these dogs. Um Luna does not take well to getting yelled at, you know. Um, it's it's weird. She has this she has this fire in her, but also does not love discipline, like as you know, corrections, hard corrections, you know. Right.

Getting Luna To Love Real Ducks

Brandon Balibus 44:33

Um so it's I don't know, you know, a unique animal like they all are, you know. Um so you know, I found that when she was having what even now, like I I uh when we talked a week or so ago, and um, you know, we talked about the Long Island chapter, which we made, which we'll I'm sure we'll touch on at some point. I already have a few guys, and I I had a one of the guys, Brian, he got a dog the same day as me, but from a different litter. It was a Ripp litter. Oh really? Um they trained together for a little while when they were puppies. He would come over with the dog, and when we were just doing like foundations, fetch, hold, release, and then his dog went back to Michigan for training for six months, and he just got her back. So we finally got to meet up the other day. And Luna, of course, it's just like anytime you meet up with somebody, your dog has like an awful day, you know. It's like, you know, he sees all these videos of Luna like crushing it, and then like she's chasing rabbits around a field, you know, and I can't recall her, you know. So uh, no, she did fine, but you know, there was a few moments that um you know she didn't obey what I wanted her to do, and you know, you can get frustrated and all that, but it doesn't go anywhere with her. You know, I'm better off just resetting and trying again and getting success, and that's that's what builds her more than yelling at her. It's uh, you know, if she goes out and she does a whistle stop and a cast and gets the bumper and stops and sniffs it and looks at me and then sees a rabbit and chases it. I mean, you could lose your mind right there because you're like, What are you doing? Like what? You know, you've done this a bunch of times. What are you doing right now? Um, but you get them back and you just rather than like yell at them, I would just I just repeat it and maybe shorten it up and maybe use a tennis ball to get her super amped up on this, you know, lining memory or whatever it is instead of a bumper. I just found that that does better for her than you know yelling at her.

Josh Parvin 46:35

Oh, that's awesome. Well, yeah, so let's let's talk about the chapter for a second, because that's something we've been doing at Cornerstone. We're very excited about. I say we've been doing it. Actually, our members have been doing it. You know, we just kind of facilitated it, and the members are jumping in and taking the initiative. When we talked, you're like, hey, yeah, we should do a chapter, already meeting up here anyways. And so we set it up, and then you sent me a picture that afternoon. You are already out there training together. I thought that was that was cool. How is uh how has that been, even just in the short time so far, just having that ability to connect even the the local group uh of people there?

Brandon Balibus 47:08

No, it's been really cool, and I like um quick background on that was basically um you know, Luna has an Instagram account. We made her a little Instagram just so I could, you know, look back and see the training and everything. So you could literally see her from day one. And a few of you know, my friends over the years, acquaintances, um, they've seen her and everybody writes to me all the time, like, how do you do this? And I tell everybody, even like Cornerstone, like even if you have a house dog, man, get the obedience stuff, like cornerstone, like this is what I use, you know. I tell everybody. But um two of my old fishing friends um messaged me and they said, Hey, I'm thinking about getting a new dog. You know, I see all these videos of Luna, you know, how do you do this? Like, and I told them, you know, you know, get the dog you'd like. Um I always I'm a Southern Oak fan, obviously. Um, you know, as they say, you know, starting out with the you know, cards stacked in your favor or whatever the saying is is best. But um get whatever dog you want, but I really you gotta get this program. Like I can't say enough good things. Anyways, they both got dogs, they both got cornerstone, and um we've been texting ever since, um, which is probably going on six months now at least. Wow. So um we had that, and then I had my um other friend Brian who got the rip puppy at the same time as me. So we had four people, and then we found out on um Cornerstone on the app there's a way you can like search people close by you or something. There's a tab for that. Yes, yes. And I I found another guy, Ben, who lives out in Montauk, which is a beautiful town, super unique also for for our area, and he's got a puppy there too. And um, so we got five of us so far. Um hopefully more people in the area. Um, but yeah, so we've already been texting, and this hopefully will maybe get a few more people and we could have some meetups. You know, we also live in a unique area, which is not just the way we hunt, but to train a dog is tough. I mean, you can't do gunfire around here. Like, I gotta take the dog out on the bay, which lucky enough is only five minutes away. But you can't I only have football fields to train this dog in. Um football fields and um town of Babylon parks, which you're not allowed to have dogs, period. And then there's a state park down the street from me, which has three baseball fields um like facing each other. And I use that a lot because it's a state park, so I could train the dog, but you can't do gunfire, they're supposed to be on a leash. Wow. So I I put the long lead on her, and so you know, we could say she's on a leash. And we do our training there. So she does training at football fields and there, and then we go out on the bay. So it's good to get people together so we can hopefully have places we can meet up and um you know, we could throw everybody on my boat and go take them out, all these dogs out on

Building A Local Cornerstone Chapter

Brandon Balibus 50:02

the bay and do some water work and stuff, which I'm hoping that we do in the next few weeks, actually. Which would be cool.

Josh Parvin 50:09

Yeah, it's probably getting good up y'all's way now. I mean, man, this is this has been incredible. Uh I'm excited. We're gonna have to do another one um soon. Uh as we kind of land the plane on this concept, I think community is a great way to end it. So I imagine you'll be hunting with your friends as well. I mean, you'll probably be all taking dogs out and all that. What are you thinking about? Like, what are you most excited about for this fall, or kind of what's your game plan with where you're at now? You've been at this a year. This is where it's gonna really turn out to be nice this fall as you guys start hunting. What what's going through your mind? What are you what are you doing to prepare? And um how how are you feeling about the upcoming season?

Brandon Balibus 50:49

Well, I'm feeling really good about it, and again, I'm an overthinker, so I'm already preparing for duck season. You know, uh we also have a unique way we hunt, which I'll touch on very briefly. Um, you know, we hunt in tidal, tidal marsh here, tidal salt marsh, and um we have very, very shallow water, and we have to use specific boats, and they're small boats for the most part. You you cannot use a V-bottom boat here. It has to be a flat bottom boat for the most part, should be a flat bottom boat and uh sneak boats. So we put, you know, they're all dressed in marsh grass with custom blinds. Everybody here, everybody has a unique boat here. You you'll never find an aluminum boat here. Everybody's got fiberglass sneak boats that draft, you know, two or three inches of water with that, and you know, and that's how we get around. So you can only really hunt two, three guys max at a time. So our hunting here is a little different. So it's mostly by myself or with one other guy, maybe two if we go on a bigger boat, but it's generally small groups, if not solo. Um, so I prepared my boat for Luna. I'd made her all little steps and had a launch out of it, which will be part of our training this summer, is getting the dog to launch out of the boat and climb back up the way I'd like her to. Um, so that's part of the preparation, but I'm really looking forward to it. We we're actually on the last week of intermediate gun dog. Wow. Wow. So we're, you know, we're introducing angle backs and patterned blinds right now, which um she's doing well, we didn't do the angle back yet. I'm on day two, so I have uh a couple days left, but we're tee drills, you know, advanced gun dog starts next week, which is introduction to tea drill, but I might have cheated and did it already a couple times, you know. She's uh just for funsies. So she already does it, kind of, you know, but um, but we're at a really fun place. I have a lot of fun training her in this this part, intermediate gun dog, and I'm sure going forward is just so much fun for you and the dog. The control part is just I mean, all that's really fun, but this part is so interactive and fun. I really love it. Um and I'm glad that we're taking it the whole way.

Josh Parvin 53:08

And uh glad you went all in that that 100%.

Brandon Balibus 53:12

And I would encourage everybody too. I'm sure they will once you you know, once you get to a certain point, but you know You're gonna fall in love with it.

Josh Parvin 53:19

I mean, it's it's fun. Once you've made it that far, you gotta get further.

Brandon Balibus 53:24

Because I couldn't imagine stopping at the end of basic gun dog and be like, all right, we're good. No, I I there's no way.

Boat Setup And Preparing For Duck Season

Brandon Balibus 53:31

I don't I don't think I'll ever be done. I think we'll be training for a few years, you know. Um, but I'm very Luna is asleep over there right now, but she's she's been ready to hunt ducks, probably could have even snuck her out, but I didn't want to do that uh last year, um, this past season. But she's she's 100% ready to hunt ducks right now. So uh we're very much looking forward to the opening day. And uh I can't wait to see her do it because she's she's a little hammer, this dog. So I can't wait to just watch her fly out of the boat. Like this dog, she's a jumper, man. Like, I guess like a lot of those, when you watch those British field trial dogs are hopping over fences and stuff, like this is her. Like she's a little small 48, 49-pound dog that could probably jump over this table right now. Um, so I just I love watching her do stuff like that. So I can't wait to just see her fly out of the boat and grab a black duck and and bring it back, you know.

Josh Parvin 54:28

Oh man, I can't wait to see the video. You're gonna send me a video, or I honestly might have to make it up there at some time point.

Brandon Balibus 54:34

Yeah, you want to share some black ducks, let me know.

Josh Parvin 54:37

Oh, yeah, there's no question about that.

Final Takeaways And Next Hunt Plans

Josh Parvin 54:40

Well, well, Brandon, thank you so much for taking the time to share. And this has been an incredible episode. So many good nuggets, and I love your approach to things. I love how you've tweaked the things as you've needed to along the way. And really just you haven't worried about it, you've just kind of put one foot in front of the other, and it's turned out amazing for you. And it's going to really turn out amazing. You know, we'll definitely do a follow up podcast just to talk through this first season, the first few hunts, and and just share how things have gone as you finish out the rest of 52 plus and the rest of the cornerstone uh course. So thank you so much for uh sharing and everything. And it this has been an incredible episode. Couldn't have uh couldn't have picked a better guy to be on here. Thank you.