(EP. 45) Seasons End, Dog Training Timelines & Western Hunting Expo

In this episode I talk about dog training timelines, the upcoming western hunting expo and what we will be doing at that. I also, talk about the last few hunts of the year and how those all went. Hope to see many of you at the expo! 

Introduce your dogs to guns and start them out right or help fix your gunshy dog using, "THE GUNSHY FIX" at www.gunshyfix.com

Check out Kuranda dog beds and click on name below to buy one of the best dog cots on the market. 

Also, if your looking for some paw balm, shampoo, dog supplements, treats or other awesome healthy products click on the All American Canine link below for their awesome products. This helps us out a little financially to support the show and we really appreciate it. I like the whitening shampoo if you have a white dog in any shape or form. It really makes the white pop and does an awesome job. The paw and nose balm is good stuff for sore feet and pads after you hunt all day. Really everything they make has good quality ingredients in it. 

Links to products:

Kuranda Dog Beds

ALL American Canine

Crispi Boots

Gunshy Fix

If you want any dog training topics or questions discussed shoot us an email at thebirddogpodcast@gmail.com or DM us on Instagram.

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Looking for an E- Collar shoot us an email and let us get your a discount on one of those. Just let us know what you want. We use the Garmin Pro 550 the most for your yard work. For pointers we like the Garmin Pro 550 +.  If you are tech person check out the Alpha. 

For our training and breeding websites visit the links below:

www.utahbirddogtraining.com
www.fieldbredgoldenretrievers.com
www.utahpointinglabs.com

Follow us on Instagram @fieldbredgoldenretrievers, @thebirddogpodcast and @utahbirddogtraining

Thanks for listening everyone and good hunting!

Transcript

Speaker 0:49

Hey everyone. Welcome to the Bird Dog Podcast. My name is Ty. Thanks for tuning in to the podcast. Hope everyone's having a great day, and, uh, having a great week so far. Um, want to touch on a, a couple points, some exciting things that are coming up. Well, let's talk about first some, some businesses that I think are pretty awesome. Uh, check out karda.com. Karda dog beds, K-U-R-A-N-D-A. Uh, dot com in the 20, gosh, I always forget, the 44 by 27 is, I believe the, the diameter, the, the dimensions on the dog cots that I like and I'm running, you know, generally, uh, you know, pointing breeds, retrieving breeds down from there to the smaller breeds. Um, also. Uh, check out gun shy fix.com. Uh, that's a new one I wanna share with you guys and have you check out. I'm gonna be mentioning, uh, gun shy fix.com. It's, um, it's basically a way to introduce your dog, your puppy, your litter to guns. So, um, I meet people all the time that just say, oh, I just went out and shot around my gun, and he, he seems okay with it. Well. There's a lot of varying things when it comes to guns. A dog that's gun shy or has a gun issue will sometimes not just run off. They'll do that sometimes also, sometimes they'll just stop working. They'll, anytime if it changes their demeanor in a negative way, um, then you, uh, that's, that's a gun issue, right? So they could be gun cautious, gun shy. And so we want to try to create. Um, a positive mindset when it comes to guns and gunfire. And so there's a way we properly introduce dogs in training. This approach. If you go to gun shy fix.com, um, it's a desensitization approach. Basically, you play, uh, a really soothing song around the dog and the puppies or your litter. They get really comfortable with that, and then you slowly, it slowly adds in, uh, realistic gunfire and gunshots, and you can Bluetooth it. To your speakers and, and play it and just, it just preps or gets the dog comfortable with gunfire. And then when you do a proper introduction or go out and shoot around your gun, hopefully your dog's like, Hey, I've heard that I'm really comfortable with it. Um, when we're playing that we're out playing ball or with a bumper or eating food, just having a good old time. And, uh, it can really help, uh, with that if you have a dog that's gun shy already, this is something that I would really go ahead, recommend trying, is just the desensitization approach. It just saves you a lot of time and money not going out there and just, you know, tying your dog up to a pole or something, just shooting around'em like crazy. Um, that's just a kind of a pain and they're tied up, so that might be negative. So. This is something you can just play when the, the dog's in a crate or hanging out in a room at your house. I mean, uh, you know, if it gets annoying, just play over and over and over until that dog's brain essentially rewires itself. So gun shy fix.com, check that out, and you can download it Bluetooth to whatever speaker you want. I use. Uh, turtle box. Um, I've done it with my last couple litters and had, uh, good luck with that. The gunshots are going off around'em and they just seem to be doing great. So, um, anyhow, uh, in this podcast, well, I'm gonna jump, I'm, I, I'm gonna be kind. I don't wanna say all over the place, but I may hit on a handful of topics. Um, just first want to thank you listeners that are new to listening to me and this podcast. Um, I am a little bit about my background. I've been a bird hunter, a dog lover, ever since I was, uh, a little kid. So I dreamed of having a dog when I was a little kid, wanted one so bad. Finally, my parents got me one. And it was, uh, I just wanted a, a Labrador retriever. And I remember I got on the old KSL class, or not KSL, he's the Herald. The newspaper actually printed out newspaper in the classified section, said pure bred lab puppies,$80. And I said, sign me up. Let's go get one. So I wanted a dog so bad we got there and it was a. Black puppy that had chocolate under its eyes, chocolate over its legs in multiple spots. And I, well, these, these must be purebreds. So I ended up, ended up getting one. I didn't care at that point, honestly, I was about 10 years old and uh, I just wanted a dog. And that one wasn't much of a hunting dog. Her name was Lindsay. But I was grateful to have one. Um, she ended up, obviously, I wasn't a trainer at that point, I was just a kid with dreams and, and, um, of having a good hunting dog or just a dog in general. At that point, we had some other Labradors growing up that were actually kind of hunting dogs, I would say. Um, kind of self-taught almost, um, like, uh, I would say quite a few dogs are. And, um. Andy Anyways, ended up when Lindsay, we were on a vacation, of course, not the best, um, taking care of dogs at that point. We just let her kind of run around the house and she ended up running off. We. We never found her. So we never know. I never know what ended up happening with that dog, but that kind of started me down the journey of, you know, choosing, looking actually at pedigrees, looking at papers. Now I got a legit, the next one was a legit purebred dog. And uh, and then kind of worked down from there. And now. Um, I'm, I'm where we're at today. So I've been training dogs full-time for 18 years. Um, this is what I do day in and day out is dog stuff. So we also breed, um, you know, high-end hunting golden retrievers. Uh, we have a website for that field bread golden retrievers.com. If you're looking for a nice hunting golden, welcome to check that out. Um, also Utah pointing labs.com. I got into the pointing labs. Oh, years ago and was a certified judge for the A PLA and ran some of the, the pointing tests. Um, I love that association. I haven't done as much of it lately. I've just kind of, um, the traveling for those, you gotta travel a little further and. Just kind of gotten outta that. But I still do have pointing labs and we usually have one or two litters a year on those. Not a ton, but if you guys are looking for a real nice lab, um, you can check us out too. We have a litter hopefully coming up if my female took, um, and they are pretty much spoken for. But, uh, uh, we will be having some more in the future so you can always get it deposit in and get on our wait list if that's something. You're interested in doing, um, check us out too on Utah Bird Dog training on Instagram. Try to post stuff on there. Uh, my wife Rachel, she kind of helps me with the marketing stuff. So, um, she grew up from a non-hunting family, but being married to me, being a hardcore hunter, I hunt birds. Big game, everything. It flies, it dies, it runs, it's done. You know, that type type of guy. I'm sure many of you guys are like me. Just love being outdoors, love hunting, everything that goes with it. Right? Um, I have for fun, kinda a little more background about me. I'm a big, I've bow hunted ever since I was a little kid too. I have pack llamas, um, that I use and I'll rent them out occasionally to other hunters if I'm not using them. And so I love, um, going steep and deep and trying to find, you know, nice animals and, and, uh, and take my kids and go with friends. So, anyways, um, so, but the stuff I'm sharing with you guys is from experience of training these animals, working with these animals, hunting with these animals. I've worked with all, I would say the major breeds for sure. Um. Some of the less common breeds are, you could say, kind of rare breeds. Um, worked with quite a few of those too. So, um, have a pretty good background on training these dogs. And we also do just obedience training. Uh, so we train a lot of dogs for just obedience work, doodles and whatever people have, whatever people are crossing or purebreds or whatnot. We just, I just got done sending home a great Dane a couple weeks ago, so. Uh, we worked with Great Danes. We've worked with some of the big breeds too. Irish Wolf Hounds, um, you know, Burmese Mountain dog. Well, those aren't necessarily that big, but anyways, worked with a lot of the bigger breed Pyrenees. Um. St. Bernard's, you know, and some of those cool breeds. So anyhow, not that, that's what I love. They're a tricky year to kind of have, they're just so big around, they're so big, but they're fun to have'em and have, have in for training occasionally. So, but our passion is bird dogs, so that's why this is called the Bird Dog Podcast. So, um, I had a client write in and he, and I've had an a couple clients actually ask me about this. And this is, uh, um, timelines is what I want to talk about. But first I wanna talk, um, about coming up this weekend in Salt Lake. At the Salt Palace is the Western Hunting Expo. So this is our second year at the Western Hunting Expo. Um, if you're a hunter, big game guy especially, or a hunting outdoor bird hunting, I wouldn't say there's as much bird hunting stuff there, but there's a lot of big game fishing. Um, the Western Hunting Expo, you gotta check it out. And I would plan on spending at least a full day. It's usually gonna go from about 10:00 AM to 7:00 PM I should know'cause I have a booth there, but it's right about there. Um, but, or 10:00 AM did I say 10:00 PM 10:00 AM to about 7:00 PM uh, Thursday through Sunday. Sunday, I think it closes at four a little bit earlier so exhibitors can start taking down their boots and stuff. So. This is our second year at the Expo. Yesterday I was up there pretty much all day setting up our booth. We are gonna be in booth 2 0 6. 2 0 6, um, is our number. Uh, you can look at the exhibitor map. Last year we were tucked away in a little, in a room off the main hall, and luckily this year we're able to get moved into the main hallway. So we're down by Moss back, if you know where Moss back is, where I think we're the second aisle on the end. Um. To the south and east. So come check us out. We're gonna have some fun stuff there. We're gonna be giving away some swag. Um, we're gonna do a drawing for some swag. We're gonna give away a tangle free floating gun case just for putting your contact info in there. Um, we're also gonna give away. Um, a half a dabbler pack, half dozen tangled free decoys. Some of the, the mallards have flocked heads and stuff, so really nice. Um, decoys. And then we're gonna have a fund this year as a, a pay to play. So we're giving away an A for a Beretta brand spanking new. Semi-auto Beretta a 400 extreme. This thing is sweet. It's nicer than my current shotgun that I have right now. I'm shooting a funky and I have a silver hunter browning. But this thing is awesome. So it's a$2,200 gun and it's, we got a fun game. So it's kind of like a carnival ish type game. So, um, for 20 bucks you can go five bucks, 10 bucks, 20 bucks. Um, but basically we have a dog collar that we're gonna. You have to step back from the edge of the carpet and we've stepped, there's a distance and there's a full body goose decoy, and if you can throw that dog collar on over, ring the goose's neck, essentially with the dog collar, um, or just get it to even stay on there. You're gonna get a ticket and each ticket goes into the raffle to be drawn for that shotgun. So, um, for 20 bucks, I think I have 12. You get 12 tosses, um, with the collar. And every time you ring the goose again, you get a ticket to go into the drawing. If you pay 20 bucks, you get automatically a ticket. Even if you, you miss the goose, you still get a chance at the shotgun. And then for 10 bucks, I think you get five tosses, um, no automatic ticket. And then for five bucks, I think it's two or three tosses, um, to see if you can ring the goose to get your, to, um, to get a ticket, to get in for the drawing. So something just fun to, fun to play. We got a handful of new hats. We got hats, shirts, stuff like that. So come talk dogs, come talk hunting, um, and uh, come, come see us. The, at the expo. So it's gonna be fun. Western Hunting Expo this week, Thursday, Friday. Saturday and Sunday booth 2 0 6. So I'm gonna have Jeff, Ian. Um, Orland had some family things come up, so unfortunately he's not gonna be able to be there at the booth, but I have a couple of my other trainers there with us. Um, my wife will be there to help answer questions too. And, uh, it's kind of in a family, family slash trainer event that we're, we're gonna be there. So, looking forward to, to meeting you guys, seeing you guys, and, uh, hope it's a, a great show and a great time for everyone. So, um, that's a little bit about the Western Hunting Expo. Um, I wanna do a little quick recap. My bird hunting season pretty much is officially, I think over for the most part. I might do some guided, uh, help out some people, some I don't have a pheasant hunt. I gotta help out over at Wasatch Wing Clay Local. Um, pheasant Club here is a service thing, um, you know, this next week. But besides that, pretty much it's starting in into hunt test season here. It's knocking on the door for us, um, and, um, training season's here. So, I mean, we're training year round, but I kind of like spring, summer. And then fall, we'll be here again. So when the water starts getting nice and hot test season, we're, we're gonna be diving into it. So, um, I ended up, uh, uh, I got up to Idaho, should say that where we went, but went up to Idaho for. Uh, the last week of the duck hunt up there, the end of January, um, it was, we got birds still. It was a fun hunt being on the river. Had a great time. Had some great dog work. Some young dogs. Had probably the biggest water blind I've ever handled a dog in my life. Clear across the Snake River. Across the bank, up the river, another 200 yards, grab the bird, bring it in. It was just a phenomenal water blind, all swimming water, you know? Of course. Until you get all across the river, different currents diverging where the dog had to, the current would push it left, then it'd push it right and the main current and then push it left. And it was just fun to be able see all that training, that hard work, those hours and hours of handling these dogs. Were you able to blind retrieve, guide them to a down bird that's clear across the river that would. Be impossible to get without a dog that would handle unless you had a boat. I did have a boat, but I was like, I wanna see if my dog can, I can handle, handle him over there to pick it up. So, uh, it's just fun to train your dog, test them, see what you can do with them. And have'em be successful. Obviously knowing your dog and what they're capable of is part of that, is part of that game. But, uh, but if you had been hunting a dog at that level and you knew how to handle it, you know, the cool thing is I could have just had some waiters, put some decoys out, still sail. It was a, um, Drake goldeneye. He sailed, hit lung, shot him or something, whip up, way up, river, died, boom, hit, floated in the edge of the current, got basically stuck on the bank, crossed the Snake River, and I was able to guide him, guide him to that. And um, but you could have hunted that. Scenario if you drove up there with the truck parked your car hunted and, and still would've gotten that bird and put it in my hand and, and part your bag limit, you know, instead of letting, letting it go to waste when you have a nice dog. You know, and I've, I've said this before, having a good dog is the best conservation tool out there that you can have. So, um. It was a, it was a good hunt. We shot a four man limit the first day. It took all day. We hunted from morning till dark. Um, the second day, uh, we shot 21 birds, so we didn't quite get the four man. Uh, it was slower, pretty nice weather. Um, a a lot of, quite a few hunters on the river. Um, most of Idaho is closed down, so that area, I think everyone just thought, oh, we'll go there, you know, to kinda hit the last part of the season. But still. Still blessed to be on the river, still blessed to have those amazing dogs be with good people. And that's what it's all about, right? It's the whole thing. It's not just killing a bird, it's, it's the dog. It's the beauty of nature. It's everything that's out there. So I know you guys, if you're listening to this, I'm sure you can relate in one way or another. So sometimes it's even hard to explain to, you know, friends and loved ones, unless you really put yourself in that situation. I was talking to my friend, uh, that was with me hunting and I was like, could you imagine doing what we did hunting today, these last couple days without a dog? And it just would like, it would just take so much of the fun out of the equation for me. Obviously being a dog, I'm just like, Hey, you'd have to shoot these birds and you gotta jump in your boat and run down the river. And you know, it's like, but man, you got the dogs. You gotta work them. You gotta release'em on marks. You get to handle'em. You get to see'em. Hit the, you know, get in the current, push down the river, 200 yards, 250 yards, swim up, get on the bank, get outta the current, come up, bring that burden, put it right in your hand. I mean, it's just, it's just cool stuff. So, and just having'em take, taking care of your animals, seeing that hard work coming into play, you're putting them. You know, through the game and some of the, you know, some of the bigger rivers that are around here. So, um, just fun to, fun to do that and obviously geek out about it. But that's, that's what I do. So, um, I did, I got a chucker hunting a couple days ago for an afternoon hunt for a few hours. Um, I have didn't get to do as much wild chucker hunting as I would've liked to have done this year. We do shoot quite a few chucker and pheasants in training, and so I used to be a chucker nut. I still love it. I still, I love, I love how it makes you feel. I love hiking the hills. I love sweating. I love grinding. I love steep slopes. Um, I love the views. I always tell friends that I take chucker hunting. There's two things I can guarantee. You're gonna have a good time today. You're gonna be tired, you're gonna get a workout and you're gonna see have a beautiful view. So when you're chucker hunting, it's always steep country and you're, and with that comes a beautiful view. So you're gonna be tired, your legs gonna be tired, you're gonna get a good workout. And you're gonna see some pretty country if you get a bird. I don't know for sure. But, um, I did end up shooting a couple birds, um, which was fun. I could have shot a limit of birds. Um, I was lucky enough, um, I had a, a, a client that had some private property, um, owns a mountain range area, and I was able to get on there. I had never hunted it before, so it was all. Virgin Country to me, and we were able to get, I went with uh, Callie Parmley from Gun Dogs, gun Dogs Magazine, and she ran her setters and I had a setter. And we went out and put these dogs to work and had, um, her dog Jones had a beautiful point. Um, and we were kind of working with the wind. It wasn't ideal condition. We kind of separated and I went one side of the mountain. She went around the other. And um, then we kind of met up at the end and worked back and that's when Jones had a beautiful point and I came over the hill. He was on point. She wanted to stay back and get some photography and, um. I knew it was a first bird flush. I was shooting it over under pop Missed. My first shot came out a little far. He had a nice point'cause he was off ways. Second shot, I hit the bird, it sailed down. I marked where it went and I thought he was stoned. I thought he was, it looked like he died when he went down there. But we took the dogs down there, they got all birdy and we couldn't, couldn't pick up that bird. So that was a bummer. We lost that one bird. Um, earlier in the hunt, I was working with the wind and had a couple wild flush. I shot those. Um, and then after that,'cause I hadn't hunted this property and didn't want, I want, you know, and it's private. You wanna kind of conserve it and stuff like that, kind of manage it. You don't want, I, I've shot enough chuck, or I just don't need to go shoot a limit. Um, I was like, okay, I'll only shoot'em if we get nice pointed birds after these ones. And kind of just, I had, I had one that was, I had one nice point for a second, but the bird just, I wasn't ready for it. It was kind of point. Break. And so I didn't shoot that one. And uh, but we ended up seeing some birds. There wasn't a lot. We probably saw 20 or 30 ish, 20 to 20, a couple dozen roughly. Um, but there was still a lot of country we didn't, um, get into. But it was still fun to knock down a couple wild birds, nice big birds. And, um, that was fun. So that was kind of the recap of, of, uh, of, uh. My last few hunts, I got up to Idaho. Then in the previous podcast I went goose hunting with uh, Mike Cornew. And um, ended up just dev, just crushed the geese. I mean, we were in and out in like, what was it, 20 minutes? Something like that. Shot a two man. And that was way fun. It was fun seeing him handle his dog. Um, and seeing them team up sh sharing, I love seeing clients send me pictures and videos of them really getting into it and spending time with their dog and, and helping'em progress and get better. And that, that was really fun. So, um, but actually Mike, um, so it's kind of recapping my season. I'm looking forward now to, to working some of my younger dogs and getting ready for hunt test season and all that. And then, you know, you'll be surprised. I mean, hunts are, you know, we got March, April, may, June, July. August, we got six months before Dove and Grouse season opens up again. That's not very long when it comes to training dogs. So it's game time right now. Get out there, get your dog trained, and, um, or send it to us, let you, let us do the hard work for you. That's why we're here too. So, uh. What I, what I want to talk about the topic. Besides, you know, everything we've mentioned so far today, I wanted to talk about timelines. Timelines when it comes to training a dog. So for me and my programs, I have timelines and those timelines have been developed over from my program and training, the program I've developed, and the amount of days that we train dogs and the way we push'em, blah, blah, blah. These timelines where it comes from, I would say most dogs are gonna fall under this pretty closely. If you know what you're doing and you spend the time with your animal, most pros or most good amateur trainers or your dog's gonna fall in this realm just because you're dealing with the mental capacity of the dog you're dealing with, um, you know how fast they can, they're maturing and their bodies and their bites and all that stuff. So, um, we're gonna kind of dig into it. See how deep we go. But I'm just gonna kind of hit on timelines when it comes to your dog and expectations. Okay. So, but every dog is different and every training program is different. And not saying that mine is the best out there, the only one that works, um, it does work, but it's, there are, there are, you've heard the saying, I'm sure if you listen to other PO there's more than one way. The skin and cap. There's more than one way to teach the woe command. There's more than one way to teach the sit command, the lay down, whatever it may be. There's more than one way to force fetch a dog. So there's a lot of ways you can go about it. Um. With my program, I found what I like, what I'm comfortable with, what works, and then put to the test and then has proven results with putting it on dogs and knowing, okay, this works. We can take this, this can produce a really nice hunting dog or a hunt test dog, or whatever we're trying to do. So, um. Let's talk about, and these are kind of generalities, okay? So you get your puppy, let's say generally the youngest you're gonna pick up a puppy is six weeks of age. Um, that's young, that's like the youngest. So, um, generally you're gonna pick'em up seven weeks to as late as like 12 weeks in that range. I'd say eight weeks is pretty standard, roughly to pick up a dog. They're weaned off mom, they should be on Hart food. They're ready to go. So. Uh, timelines. Let's say I am taking a puppy and I'm keeping it. I bred a litter of puppies and I'm keeping this one for myself. Let's talk about that so you can kind of go off this with your dog. So let's say you have a German shore air pointer, when those puppies are. Four weeks old, roughly. And you can even do it younger if you're a breeder that you could even ask your breeder to do this. Like take a dead pheasant, dead shucker, something you're going to be hunting. Um, if it's a lab, you could do a duck. You could do duck en pheasant. Um, I like to mix it up and use game birds, but those little puppies. Are just little sponges. And so what I do is I'll just, when they're in their whelping box, I'll take a bird and I'll just dangle it, kind of just right there by their noses. And they just sit there and they smell it and they'll just kind of, you know, kind of soak that smell in. You don't have to really say a lot. And then they're all, and as they get older, what do puppies do love to do? They love to jump on things, right? So. They jump up and they kinda, one will hit it and it'll kind of move and then they all run after it, and then when it hits it or bites at it and they run after it and it just, it kind of starts creating this prey drive, right? Like that bird's kind of ping pong and back and forth. I don't leave it in there so they can just destroy it and chew on it. In the beginning I might let it, let it sit there and kind of let'em, you know, bite on it a little bit. But I want'em kind of. Biting at getting after it. When they grab it, it kind of knocks it away from'em, and so it just kind of develops that chase and their excitement for feathers and just that development. So that's. Timeline number one is starting the puppy off on birds. Now at that same time, you know, you could start with, like I just mentioned earlier, in the gun shy fix, gun shy fix.com. You can put the gun shy fix in there. That program where it plays music and introduces songs and essentially starts'em off into just a comfortable atmosphere. With gunfire. So, um, and you just kind of work that up until the dogs just are having a ga old time and they're grabbing bird going for birds and you're feeding'em and blah, blah, blah, and, and they're okay with guns. Now, when you do a gun introduction, I would still not just do you know the program and then go out, oh, my dog's ready, and shoot a 12 gauge over its head. You still want to introduce him properly, find an object they really love. You know, start at a distance and work in watching the dog's behavior. And as long as the dog is acting okay, which it should, with that program, it should have a better attitude. Then you can, you know, go ahead and move through until you're throwing a bird or a bump right over the dog, shooting over it. The dog has a positive, good attitude and you're off to the race when it comes to gunfire. So, um. Okay, so you have your puppy and, okay. Now the, the puppy's, you know, been started on birds. Maybe it's been started on, you know, proper gunfire. I don't try to startle the dogs. Like some people, like when they're eating, I'm gonna bang pans over'em. I don't, I don't like that. I just feel like a puppy's like eating I'll boom. Like, what is that? Like? You don't want things to startle'em. So what you can do, you could kind of tap a pan quietly. And then give'em food. It's like this equals food, but you don't want to startle'em. You wanna start quiet, right? Like and work until, okay, maybe you're popping those pans or two by fours a little louder together if you want to. But I don't do a lot of that. I'm not trying to startle'em. And, um, I, you know, I've never had a dog that's completely gun shy. I've had dogs. I had a couple dogs. One, one golden retriever that was a little, she was a little cautious towards it, a little more, but she would still haunt work through it. But I've never had a dog gun shy,'cause I'm, I don't want to screw that one up. So, um, as long as your dog has drive, you're generally not gonna have a gun shy dog. But you gotta properly introduce guns. So. Okay, let's go back to timeframe. Timelines. We got our puppy, we're working on, um, you know, starting, soaking'em up on birds and maybe we do some gun, some gun work like with, with the gunshot fix, something like that. Maybe some pots and pans, two by fours, whatever, not a. Pro not official gun introduction, but we're just kind of starting'em out. Main thing I would say is definitely focus on birds. Um, and, and we're working on developing that prey drive. And then as that puppy's getting a little bigger, I'll take like a, a bird out, I'll drag it on, you know, maybe tie something around its neck or leg. Dragging around and get that puppy kind of chasing the bird out on the lawn and getting after it. You can do some like drags, stuff like that. So, um, I guess I'm not gonna get into as much training, but again, timelines. So, um, from eight weeks, so two months of age to about six months of age, you're gonna work on. I like to work on exposure training. Okay, so reward base and exposure training. So reward based training is gonna be treat training, clicker training. Basically the dog does something good, dog. You give'em a treat, sit good, give'em a treat. You just reward them for the behavior, and you start using those commands you're gonna use. Here, here, here, here. The dog gets a treat. Or you just use your kibble. Instead of putting the food in a bowl, you have the dog eat the food outta your hand. Here, here, here, here. Dog comes to your hand, eats the treat. Okay? He goes in his brain, he goes, oh, if I hear the here command. Um, and I. I hear that word. If I go to his hand, I get food. Or if I hear sit, I get food. And that may just be like putting your hand back over the dog's head, which makes the dog look up, which automatically sits. As soon as it does that, boom, you give him the food. So it's just a reward-based training, but you can do a lot. You can teach him to. Retrieve on their name. Go put some food on a white bucket, something that stands out. You can send'em out there to go pick it up. You can start send'em on the back command for future blind retrieve. You can start casting'em. You can do place work, you can do kennel work, you can do sit, lay down. You can do pretty much all the obedience. I'd say Walking Hill is a little more challenging, but you can do walking heel work with that reward-based training. Um, and that's as puppies, they're hungry and those things are really exciting to'em. So that's why that works really good. At the same time, I wanna socialize that dog good. I want to get around people. I want to, um, get it out on walks through the field so it's soaking up like I'm used to walking through brush and obstacles. Maybe there's a log and he jump over the log and the dog has to crawl up over it and just builds confidence in himself to get through brush. So down the road when you go pheasant hunting or. Whatever you're doing. That dog's used to getting into cattails, getting into brush, you can start throwing a little bird into cattails or brush, so he has to dig into there and dig it out, and he's just having a good time. Everything's positive, right? Like, oh, we're having a good time. I love birds. We're just, life is good. Well between four months. And, um, also, let's talk about, sorry I not get ahead of myself. Water. You can expose'em to water too. As long as the temperature is warmer, like 50, mid fifties and up 60 degrees warmer is better. Um, to expose'em. You just want to. It's just using common sense. You want it comfortable. You want it enjoyable. You don't want to have a steep drop off nice slope where that dog can just, okay, you throw a little bumper or you just wait out there with it and it just kind of follows you around. And next thing you know, it's swimming and he's like, oh, this is fun. And next thing, next thing you know, you're throwing a bird out or the bumper or maybe a bird and he's going out there and kind of retrieving it in the water. Um, it's just having a good time. You don't want negative experiences where. The dog falls off a boat, boom into the water, freaks him out. And that like fi in the dog's brain of like, I'm afraid, you know? That was so negative. And it just like, it's like it just shocks him. You know? It's kind of like with gun stuff, just, whoa. It just so much startled him. It just becomes negative. So we want to ease him. Ease him into it, right? Yeah. We just want to have a good, good experience. So between four and five months of age, that dog is going to have, its. Adult teeth transition in so puppies to adult during that timeframe. You know, you're not, not gonna wanna do a whole lot of heavy retrieving and I don't do heavy retrieving with a puppy anyways. I want to do less is more. Um, when it comes to retrieving, remember that? So maybe do three or four retrieve. Tease him like, you're gonna throw it again. And they're like, oh, I want that so bad. And then you tease, like tease him, pull it away, and they're like, oh, I guess I don't get that. Well next time you pull it out, they wanted it already so bad. That's kind of sat in the dog's brain. So now he's excited again. So, um, so, but be aware between that four and five month mark, those teeth are gonna be transitioning. Their gums can be sensitive. So if you're throwing a harder object or something like maybe a frozen bird, um, the dog's, uh, retrieved desire may come down a little bit. If you're seeing something, again, become negative, stop that. Use something that's, you know, comfortable, maybe softer, maybe some socks, something that just isn't gonna hurt the dog's, gums. And if you have a really high retriever, high drive. He probably won't even care. You could probably throw a cinder block out there and if he loves to retrieve and his teeth are bleeding and his gums are bleeding'cause his teeth are falling out and he just loves to get it, well you got a good high retrieve desire. But if you kinda have him middle of the road, little lower desire retrieving dog, again, you want things positive. So just be aware of retrieving during those times. After about five months, most of those adult teeth are gonna be poking through. If they're gonna be in between five and six months, they should be pretty much fully in. And then you shouldn't have any gum issues. And then you can continue on with retrieving and training. So, um, at six months of age is where I usually start my formal training. Um, again, there are variables to all this, depending if you have a really soft dog or. Um, yeah, I'm sure. Soft dog, timid dog. Maybe we're gonna wait a little longer, you know, 7, 8, 9, 10 months until that dog, you know, has maybe matured a little more. Seems to have a little more backbone underneath him. But I would say the average dog is generally pretty good to start formal training at six months. So between, um, six months and. 10 months, I'm gonna do my formal training. So that's gonna be like all my obedience training, um, all my eco conditioning, all my force fetch training, all my steadiness, so the dog's sitting and going on their name, water work, um, what we call our foundation training. We can start as young as six months of age. That's gonna be around that four month. Program. So it's a basic marking dog, kind of a junior hunter type level. It's gonna have all the obedience, have force fetch, nice retrieve. It's gonna do upland work. It's gonna be hunting. We're gonna be shooting pheasants over it, chucker whatever you're hunting there. It's gonna be a waterfowl dog. It's gonna be marking, shooting birds over it, releasing the dog on land and water, working through decoys, all that stuff. So you can have a dog by 10 months of age doing that. So I would say most our dogs come to training between six months and a year. But again, we're kind of starting early, um, uh, six months to 10 months, so is about four months. That's gonna be kind of the foundation. Um, and then from there, let's say you're really pushing this dog and I say pushing this dog. You're training five days a week. Every day, every week. So, um, this could just be once a day, five days a week. But the consistency is what's important, that you get out four or five times a week and you're building, you're reviewing, you're building, you're reviewing, you're building, reviewing, building, and, and making progress moving forward. It's no difference than training a child. Math, they gotta. Review, build, review, build, then it all builds on top of each other, and eventually you're gonna have this beautiful painting, but you have to put those daily strokes. You don't just go, okay, we're gonna learn. Math once a week for four hours, your child's gonna be like, this is not fun. I'm burned out. I can only absorb so much. The human brain can only absorb so much in a training session. And so, and a dog is exactly the same way. So sometimes people think I'm gonna have these long, old training sessions. Well, you're gonna do a disservice to your dog. Almost less is more when they're a puppy. And then as the dog matures, naturally those training sessions are gonna get longer. If you're doing setups where you're. Throwing birds for the dog and you're, you know, working on, you know, marks and blind retrieves and you know, whatever different drill you're working on, um, those are gonna naturally turn into a little bit of a longer session.'cause it just naturally takes more to run the dog on those things or work through a certain concept. So, um, you know, by. 10 months to a year, let's just say it, you can have a, a nice little hunting dog. It's gonna be more of a marking dog. He sees the ducks come in, you shoot him. He should be steady. He might be still excited. So you just want to stay consistent. Make sure he is steady, all even into the hunting field and you have a dog that you can go out and hunt with. Now, um, if you want to start to teach a dog to run blind retrieves or handles, so let's say. Let's say that by 10 to 12 months. Okay. We have a junior hunter type level dog. And this could be kind of advanced junior hunter.'cause a junior hunter technically doesn't have to pretty much have any obedience besides recall. Needs to come back to you, needs to have a good enough retrieve. It can deliver to hand, and he needs to have desire to go out and pick up a bird. So this kind of, let's call it in advance, you know, junior, you have a dog that has all the obedience. He's steady. He does upland work. He's force fetched so he can pick up birds on command, delivers the hand, comes to he sits, all that stuff, and we're kind of. I would say, I guess when I'm talking in that realm, we're talking on those retrievers right now. I'm probably going off more of a retriever. Um, I'll talk about upland two, but kind of retriever guidelines at this point. So, um, now we're getting into handling. You're gonna be. Timeframe wise, you're gonna be, uh, 10 months to 16 months. Okay. So roughly around four months is gonna get'em. If you're running, if you're focusing on blind retrieves and handling, and now we're working on double retrieves, um, you know, developing the memory and that stuff. I would say typically I'm running senior dogs. A young senior dog is like, you know, or on average, I would say, if we're pushing'em through our program, it's gonna be about. 14 to 16 months of age, you have about eight months. So from six months of old, you know, six months of age, if you went straight through eight months of training, that's gonna put you at, uh, I just had a brain fart. So, uh, 14 months, right? So 14 months of age to 16. It depending if you're working on testing stuff like walk-ups and diversions and honoring and those different things that go into hunt tests. You could be running a senior hunter level dog around that 14 to 16 months of age. Now when you jump into master, it's kind of pretty much a month to month type deal. Every dog is different, how good your dog is, how fast they train. I would say timeline. If you're running a dog by two years of age. So the dog is two years old and he is passing master test. That's a pretty dang nice dog. So, um, that's just like he can mature fast. He's got a lot of training, he's doing really well. Um, that's a nice dog. So there's some dogs that. Can get master hunter titles before they're two years of age. Um, people have put a lot of time into that animal. Get'em there, plus good genetics and it's doable. But also you don't want to get stuck on timelines. You wanna work with your animal and not push him. A lot of people getting, my dog got his master hunter by the time he was two. My dog got a senior hunter by the time he was 14 months or 12 months or whatever it is. Don't get stuck on that. Work with your dog. Work with his pace, but timelines, if you want a dog that can basically do most things a retriever, we're talking about retrievers here. The handles can pick up, doubles can run kind of that advanced senior hunter level work with our program. We call it our complete retriever. That's around a dog. That's about eight, eight months of training. So starting at six months to 14 months, you're gonna have a dog that's. That's a really nice dog. A lot of people have not heard of blind retrieves. You guys are listening may not have heard what a or know what a blind retrieve is, or handling or know what, um, even force fetches that could be completely new to you. And that's, I'm glad you're listening to these'cause you're gonna, as you hear that more or hear their trainers talking like, oh, what is that? Or you can dig into it, into the, you know, into the, on the internet and find out more information that these are all kind of building blocks to get your dog to. You know, to have a, have a really nice hunting dog. So, um, my passion of love is hunting with dogs. And so, um, I do hunt test, um, with my dogs because we do breeding, so I have to test them. And, um, and it's fun. It's, it feels good when your dog does good. Um, but test the hunting is my love. Testing is kind of part of the game. Um, great people. Um, it's great off season stuff if you're looking for. Um, you know, a way to work your dog in the spring and summer. Well get into hunt tests and I would, I would say you're gonna become a lot better handler if you go and watch a lot of pros handle those. Senior master level dogs are really good amateur trainers. Um, you're gonna learn a lot just by watching a lot of dogs work. So even if you don't run hunt tests, I would highly recommend going and watching'em and watching, just like sit there and just watch these really nice dogs work and then be like, okay, I know now what my retriever is capable of doing. How do I get there? Right? So, and that's where we're kind of talking about these, these kind of timelines to go off, to give you an idea of potentially where your dog, um, can be so. All right. That's gonna give you a really nice retriever, waterfowl, upland dog, all that good stuff. Let's go back and talk about timelines of an upland dog. So pretty much the same six months of age, we're gonna get that dog in. We can do. All the obedience training between six months and 10 months, we're gonna do all the obedience training, we're gonna do the woe training, we're gonna force fetch him, and essentially I'm gonna get that dog generally naturally steady. What most people want is just get that dog steady until that bird takes off. Once that bird, the dog goes out, can hold point on that bird and then you know you can go out as the owner and produce the bird yourself. Um. That's kind of what we'll do is what we call our foundation training. So we want that dog to go out, hold point, not flush birds or, or break point. You can walk up past the dog. Okay, there's a bush right there. He's pointing right into that bush. There's probably a pheasant there. You kick up the bird when the bird goes up, dog breaks. Point to go make the retrieve. You shoot the bird, he gets the bird, puts it in your hand, and you have a really nice upland dog. Um, if you wanted to do like steadiness all the way through. State of wing, shot and fall. Bird dog goes on point, bird comes up, bird gets shot, bird hits the ground. Dog is still staying steady there. And then you can release the dog. We usually release'em on its name to go pick up the chucker or pheasant, whatever it is. That usually takes about a month or so, could take a little longer depending on your dog's drive. So you could be about five months of training. So let's say. Now your dog's anywhere from about 11 months old to a year to kind of get'em that realm. And now let's say you wanna do honoring work, backing, um, you need to honor a dog working completely, you know, as a bird gets shot, your dog has to stay there, watch the dog go, get the bird, bring the bird back to hand, doesn't have to, doesn't interfere with that dog working. That can just be kind of a, a month to month thing. But I would say. You know, timeframe wise, you're gonna be, you know, training, you know, five days a week, you know, six months, you're gonna be 12 to 14 months of age to get the dog roughly around that level. Again, there's, depending on how fast your dog likes to point or doesn't like to point, how much, you know, work it takes to develop that or force fetch the animal, all those little factors. There's, there's variables, but these are kind of average dog, I would say roughly average time timeline. So, um, and then, uh, yeah, so, and that's, but those are gonna give you really nice hunting dogs that you know, roughly that for an upland dog, you know, I would say. You don't need to spend as much time unless you're trialing'em and you're gonna run down that whole rabbit hole and play that game. But we're, let's talk about just really nice hunting dogs. Okay? So, you know, six months of age to. 12 months roughly, you can get all that formal work done and then from there you can kind of fine tune and, and tweak things out. You know, if you're a retriever or a, or a pointer, or let's say you got a pointing lab and you're cross training'em for both, well those are gonna overlap into those areas and, um, but. Anyhow. And then after that, the sky's the limit. You know, take your dog hunting, that's gonna be training in and of itself, you know, developing the nose, all that fun stuff. So, but that gives you some timeline. So the first year, even when you put all that training into it, right, you're trying to simulate, like I've talked about for Train, for the Hunt, you're trying to simulate what the dog is gonna experience down the road and get them trained for that. So, um. That first season, depending how much you hunt, that's the factor, right? Is how good your dog's gonna be if your dog gets out. Two or three times, you're gonna see some areas where it could break down. You're like, okay, I gotta go back and work on this. You know, if you hunt your dog weekly, or two or three times a week or whatever your schedule permits, obviously the dog, the more it gets out and it sees birds and experiences, the game you've taught it for, the better it's gonna get at watching the sky and using its nose and tracking and all those different things. Um. You know, working different habitat, all those things you're gonna encounter that dog's just really gonna bounce, you know, is gonna start rolling that second year now, okay, the second season, okay, we got through the first season, kind of maybe you're still working through some cobwebs with your dog. Second season he is like, okay, I know the game now I know what's going on. He's a little more mature. That season's gonna be. Should be a pretty dang good season. Pretty dang solid. Maybe he still breaks a little bit. Maybe he still, uh, gets excited, kind of forgets what he's doing there for a second. Um, and then the third season, and again, as long as you're consistent, you reinforce, you correct the dog as needed, reinforce consistently the right way. That third season, man, you dog should really start hitting its stride. And by season three, if you're consistent, you should really have. Minimal, you know, a lot less issues or things you're working through, and he's really teamed up as a team player and you have a beautiful animal. And now from third season to about, you know, let's say three years old, roughly, let's say three years, three years old to seven is about your, those are the, those are the, the beautiful years. You got about five years of awesomeness and then eight, nine, you're gonna start seeing that. Little gradual tick down 10, 11, 12. Then the dogs, you know, 12 to 14 will usually pass on these bigger breeds. So, um, it's really, it's unfortunately it's not a huge window, but, um, that we have these awesome animals, but just enjoy it, you know, is there puppies? It's so fun. And then you get your old mature dog, you know, and you're taking'em out, watching those sunsets and realizing. This is his last season. This is, this could be his last retrieve those really special moments too. And they're hard and you gotta let, let an old dog go and go the way of the earth. But then there's kind of excitement too, getting a puppy again and starting over and a different personality or maybe a, a different breed or whatever it is. So it's just part of this our life, right? It's our season of life and, and being able to be blessed to be around these, you know, these, these animals. And then the joy and stress and, and, uh, everything that these dogs bring into our life. But obviously, mostly, mostly good stuff, right? You can, you can have a rough day and your dog's still happy to see you, and you go out and you throw a bumper or you go put your dog work some dog on some homing pigeons. It's just an awesome thing. So, um. Anyhow, we're gonna go ahead and wrap this up. Uh, uh, I gotta save my voice for the, for the expo, right? We're talking to a lot of people about dogs and so, um, maybe my voice will be completely gone after the show, but looking forward to meeting any of that. Come up there, um, and talking dogs and, and sharing hunting stories and all that stuff. But I hope you guys have a wonderful day and we will see you in the next show.