EP 1: Managing a Dogs Mental Stability with Clark Kennington

Welcome to the inaugural episode of the Hunt Test Hobo Podcast, your go-to source for truck-side chats and insights into the retriever game. Whether you're a novice just starting out or a seasoned handler, this podcast offers valuable tips, tricks, and insights from both amateurs and professional trainers.

In this episode, host Chris Rud sits down with renowned dog trainer Clark Kennington to discuss the critical aspect of managing a dog's mental stability. Clark shares his expertise on recognizing the signs of mental stress in dogs and how to address them effectively. They dive into the importance of keeping training sessions fun and balanced, the role of pressure in training, and the psychology behind a dog's behavior. Clark provides practical examples from his experience, such as how he managed to improve a high-anxiety dog’s performance through gentle corrections and consistency.

Join us as we explore the nuances of maintaining a dog’s mental health, ensuring they remain confident and comfortable in their training environments. This episode is packed with valuable insights for anyone passionate about retriever training and looking to deepen their understanding of their canine companions.

Tune in and learn how to keep your dog mentally fit and ready to perform at their best.

Transcript

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:10:02
Unknown
two where I'm pushing him a little too hard and I'll see his attitude start to go down instead of hoagie running. Like Hoagie needs Jerome, when he's successful, just balls to the wall, go and get a bird.

00:00:10:04 - 00:00:29:12
Unknown
He just kind of trots out there. And when I start to see that. All right, time out. It's time to make stuff fun for three or four days again, because I push too hard. He's still going to get in the birds and he's still doing it right. But his middle stability is not where it needs to be. You know, we're we're in the danger zone.

00:00:29:14 - 00:00:30:12
Unknown
You know,

00:00:30:12 - 00:01:00:21
Unknown
Welcome to the Hunt Test Hobo podcast, Your place or truck side chats and insights into the retriever game. Whether you're just getting started or you're a seasoned handler, this podcast is another resource for tips, tricks and insights from both the amateurs and professional trainers perspectives. Each week we'll dive into the nitty gritty of retriever training, sharing stories of success, overcoming challenges and forging stronger bonds with our dogs.

00:01:00:23 - 00:01:14:10
Unknown
This is the Hunt Test Hobo Podcast. I'm Chris Rud Your host, fellow retriever, enthusiast and student of the game. Let's dive in.

00:01:14:10 - 00:01:24:08
Unknown
episode one with Clark Kennington How you doing, sir? MAN I'm tired. Tired? Reporter It's not like you ran, like, 15 dogs today.

00:01:24:09 - 00:01:40:08
Unknown
Yeah, Yeah. Somehow or another, I was running for and I got 15. I don't know how this worked out. It doesn't sound like it's fair. No, no. So you guys had a master test at the kennel right here behind the house, and then one at the kennel this afternoon, or about three quarters away, way through the second series.

00:01:40:10 - 00:01:59:22
Unknown
Yeah. Yeah. Well, cool. I'm, like, beyond excited that you're, you know, the the person that we're talking to on episode one of the Hunters Hobo podcast, because you were kind of a I don't remember if you came up with the Hunt test hobo or if Tyler came up with it. And then you like, endorse it. I can't. I was involved in the decision.

00:01:59:22 - 00:02:19:23
Unknown
I remember I came out with it, but I know I was involved. Yeah. Yeah, well, cool. I'm. I'm. I'm excited. And I did want to talk about how we met, because I do think that's kind of a funny story because I was at my second grand and I had, you know, I would watch you on YouTube and like in the Crown and all that cool stuff.

00:02:19:23 - 00:02:41:06
Unknown
And I was like, Dude, that's Clark And walking by. And I was like, Man, I, you know, I got to, like, talk to him because I already had planned on doing the winter stoga breeding before we had ever met. And I was like, I want to do that breeding. And I was like, I got to figure out a way to talk to him and I'm standing there and we're at the Upland.

00:02:41:06 - 00:03:06:22
Unknown
And I knew Jeremy because obviously, you know, he bred winter and, you know, standing next to Jeremy and you're like, Where's my hat? Where's my hat? And I was like, I have my upline hat on. Here you go, sir. So I gave you the upland hex. I knew I knew that eventually I could walk over to the trailer and be like, Hey, broke my hat back, and then we can start talking.

00:03:06:22 - 00:03:23:19
Unknown
And little did I know that, you know, it would lead to a pretty good friendship after that. Yeah, it's crazy how that all happened. You set me up. Yeah. Yeah, you totally set me up. I was like, I've. I've done that to a few people in my life where I was like, I got to figure out how I'm going to meet them and have a relationship with them.

00:03:23:19 - 00:03:39:01
Unknown
And I don't want to be like, Hey, I want to be your friend. My name's Chris, your friend now. So yeah, no, I think that's a pretty funny story. But yeah, it's good. And that was a good grand. You did pretty well. That grand of you were Leonardo, wasn't it? Yeah, I think you were like 14, 13 out of 16.

00:03:39:01 - 00:03:58:07
Unknown
17 at 16. Yeah. Yeah. 13 out of 16. I think I lost one in the first series. I think two in the second. Yeah. The rest of them finished up. So yeah, it was a really good grand with a lot of really good food in that town. I wish they'd take it back there. So yeah, food's kind of become a pretty good staple of our relationship also.

00:03:58:09 - 00:04:22:15
Unknown
absolutely. We have to cook out. Yeah, just terrible always. Because I think, you know, as an amateur, you go to all these finish tests and you sit there all day. If you run one dog, you better figure out something else to do. So I've like I never cooked once before or like I started running contests and like, I'd be running with Dan and Tyler and I'd be like, I'm frickin bored out of my mind.

00:04:22:17 - 00:04:36:00
Unknown
It's we love that. And then but and then all of a sudden I was like, I'm going to figure out how to make a burger. So I like, I like did a ton of googling to figure out how to make that hobo burger that I make. yeah. With the egg and the egg and the what else do I do?

00:04:36:00 - 00:05:02:18
Unknown
I do onions. I do a lot of fried onions, bacon. I mean, it's like it's ridiculous. There's, you know, I was skinny before I met him. I was the same way. I was skinny before I started cooking and hunting. Well, yeah. Let's jump into the topic for the day. So, you know, we as as people who are stand beside dogs all the time, you know, we're we're constantly looking at dogs and constantly trying to see like what is in their head.

00:05:02:20 - 00:05:24:06
Unknown
And I know that, you know, you talk to me a lot about mental stability of a dog. Yes. And, you know, so I wanted to just kind of have a conversation about that and kind of just see where it goes. So, you know, first of all, like when you when you say mental stability, what are you what are you talking about?

00:05:24:08 - 00:05:57:15
Unknown
I guess the best way to describe it, we get a lot of what I call rehab dogs that have been somewhere. And when we get them, they have a lot of anxiety built up over maybe pressure that was unjustified or misunderstood. A dog that is confident and comfortable in its environment, Environment is always going to outperform one that's nervous, even if the nervous dog is extremely well trained, there's going to be situations that come up that that nervous dog just is not comfortable with doing.

00:05:57:17 - 00:06:22:00
Unknown
Kind of give you an example. We did a seminar in South Florida with a group and we were talking about, you know, mental stability and making sure dogs stay comfortable, you know, when to use pressure when they're not. At the end of the day one, we threw some singles, I mean, just several singles, and I put one bird out there said, if your dog is not comfortable, it'll never get there.

00:06:22:02 - 00:06:42:20
Unknown
And we didn't have a single dog. Go get that bird. Can you can you describe the mark a little bit? It was tight to a short gun, but it was also pinch tight to another gun to the right, which wasn't so short. And there was a road leading away from the bird. And I mean, it's just it was a situation that a dog's going to look through there and it's like, man, I don't I don't want to go there.

00:06:42:22 - 00:07:10:10
Unknown
You know, when we're exposed, going over the right exposures, going to the left, semi hidden, gone up the middle and we did it as a bird amount mouth single and man, they just they didn't want to go there. They would go completely out of the picture or try to go back to an old fall but they weren't comfortable going there and it was just because they'd gotten pressure in certain situations that put them in that that that situation.

00:07:10:12 - 00:07:39:10
Unknown
To me, dog training for me is more about the psychology of the dog. Yes, well, they have to understand pressure and yes, we have to use it, utilize it. But the most important thing is reading what that dog's telling us. You know, if the if we're running dogs today and we bring out, let's just say firm, I've got a dog named Fern on my truck, that's a little golden.

00:07:39:12 - 00:08:04:13
Unknown
And just give you an example today, Fern has been with us a while. We're trying to get her qualified for the Master National. Her biggest issue, Islam matters like matters. And it's not a defiant thing with her. It's an anxiety issue with her. She was a dog came with to us from somewhere else, and she had a lot of nervous energy at the line.

00:08:04:15 - 00:08:20:07
Unknown
Well, with dogs like that, she's extremely high powered. A lot of go people can misread that and say, I've got to get on this dogs. But up here, you know, I got to get this dog. Sit still. I got to get in there, head over. In reality with Fern, the more you got on to her, the worse that anxiety gets.

00:08:20:09 - 00:08:51:04
Unknown
So as that anxiety gets worse, it's got to go somewhere. And it's either going to come out by movement breaking or vocalization. So today I was runner in this master test and she had broken think twice last year, master test on fliers. And I put her back on my truck and we've been working with her for a little while and all I did a very, very light pressure, like if she barely moved at all on a low one, just a very light neck, just to get her attention and put the responsibility on her to get by me.

00:08:51:06 - 00:09:07:10
Unknown
No major things about it and not a lot of pressure. And then I would just remote sitter her to the side. We still had a collar on and she would watch me run ten or 15 dogs and she just had to learn to sit up there and chill and relax. Today, she didn't move one inch. I mean, not at all.

00:09:07:12 - 00:09:31:10
Unknown
And I came off the line. Preston was sitting there waiting on me. He's like, Dude, you got to tell me what you did. How did you do that? And I was like, Dude, I didn't get on to her. I'm telling you, the pressure is not always the answer. It is in some cases, but a lot of the stuff is about the dog's mental stability and then being comfortable with the environment and, you know, the expectation of what they think they should do.

00:09:31:12 - 00:09:55:06
Unknown
And that has to do with our standard. It has to be the same day in, day out. It can't deviate. And if we keep it that way, when we go to the test, we're a lot more likely to get the same dog or they start to deviate is where we're different in the test. You know, you need to treat it just like it's a day of training, like don't don't give off anything different, you know, go up there, put them in the hole and blind like you do every day.

00:09:55:08 - 00:10:21:13
Unknown
It's walk up there like it's a same day. I know that's easier said than done. I've done it for almost 20 years now. But I'm telling you, the sooner you can get that mindset, the more successful you're going to be. Yeah, And that comes with time in Rome, right? Right. Some other examples about mental stability, even super advanced dogs, if they do something wrong, you don't always need to grab your transmitter and start getting old.

00:10:21:13 - 00:10:40:03
Unknown
So, you know, there I mean, we make simple mistakes that we know is wrong every day we throw Mark the other day that the gun was kind of hidden. It was thrown up a hill into some cover, and I had it as a memory bird. And some of my SRS dogs fell down the hill toward the gun under the art.

00:10:40:05 - 00:10:58:05
Unknown
I didn't burn them. I just stopped them. No. Here, call them back halfway and cast them. Got them to make the right decision. Then I threw that bird again, tossed a bird at the subject it up random a and rent as a memory bird again to see if they'd make that decision. Once they did see the gun to push off, they hit the gun up the hill and I got what I want now.

00:10:58:05 - 00:11:16:10
Unknown
If they'd done it again, yeah. Now I'm justified to give them a little pressure about it. But if they go under the arc and I just start and I start fry on them for it, well, guess what? They didn't. In their mind, they're like, I don't want to go anywhere over near that gun ever again. Yeah, well, what if they throw that bird and go back?

00:11:16:12 - 00:11:46:23
Unknown
Yeah, there weren't a lot of trouble because we just tore into them the day before, and they're not going to go anywhere near that gun. And it's taken me a long time to get to that point to understand that middle stability is one of the most important things to make in a solid dog. Yeah, I think that I'm in a space with my development as a as a trainer, you know, like, you know, I'm always trying to be a student of the game.

00:11:47:01 - 00:12:11:18
Unknown
And the thing that I think I'm starting to realize is that there's like these levels of understanding in the dog. There's basics there, which I like equate to like elementary school. Like everything is like really black and white, Like there's no gray and in transition, there's there's not as much gray. It's, you know, we're treating them a lot of basic principles, like stay in the water.

00:12:11:20 - 00:12:34:13
Unknown
We're teaching them, you know, how to cast out a suction, you know how to make sure you're marking the bird and and going straight to the bird like we're doing all those transitional fundamentals, which is like I equate the like high school work, right? And you get the finished and then then there's like this transition that I've like, started to realize what happens where things get gray and things get contrary.

00:12:34:15 - 00:12:58:17
Unknown
And that is the space that I find highly intriguing to like to start to really understand. Because like when I got into this retriever game, I was like, I'm just going to be so stinking particular and strict and I'm not going to let the dogs make any mistakes. I'm going to be a perfectionist. You're right. And we had this blog that I had this conversation about you just the other day.

00:12:58:22 - 00:13:23:09
Unknown
Yeah. And and, you know, I realize now that that works pretty well. If you have a very high powered dog that works really well up and, you know, honestly, like through someone in that grand level, like you can kind of still be in that very black and white space as long as they still feel comfortable to go get a bird wherever it is.

00:13:23:14 - 00:13:45:02
Unknown
But the distances normally aren't so extreme that they don't they, you know, they'll go in general, they'll go to that bird. But as soon as you start running stuff like where I'm at, where, you know, low level field trials and SARS work, when judges are like, well, dog is trained to go here, we're actually going to have them go there to that different spot.

00:13:45:03 - 00:14:13:02
Unknown
That is, are they comfortable enough to go they're comfortable enough to go there. And that is a whole nother space. And that has had to completely shift the way that I think about dog training and I will never forget when I went down to Texas and we ran that one set up and there was this bird that I mean you through it is in the middle of this bunch of they had to get in a channel, they had to swim a little bit like 30 or 40 yards.

00:14:13:04 - 00:14:43:04
Unknown
And then it was just grass, water, you know, waterlogged grass. And you couldn't see the dog. You couldn't see any land features. And it was just you sat down and you just like, find the bird. There's nothing you can do but just go find the bird. Yeah. And that was a really important lesson to me about mental stability, is that the dog has to like you can't correct a dog unless they understand what they did was wrong 100%.

00:14:43:06 - 00:15:03:20
Unknown
And when it's gray, how do you have to lean on the side of of being on the dog's side? And that was a huge thing for me to learn. And, you know, mental stability, like if you get on the wrong side of that, you can take a dog that is killer and then all of a sudden like they're not.

00:15:03:23 - 00:15:21:00
Unknown
Yeah. And you made a good point earlier about in to be successful in this game, you have to always be a student of the game. You have to always be open to learning. And what you just said, like hit the nail on the head. Take tombs, for example. Tombs is one of the most talented dogs I've ever stood by.

00:15:21:02 - 00:15:43:20
Unknown
He's incredible. Well, he went through a slump last year that he was just, gosh dang, man. Things just weren't going good. And I couldn't figure out why I was I was asking too much of him. I was holding him to a much higher of a standard than I needed to. Okay. So I was putting a lot of unnecessary mental stress on him.

00:15:43:22 - 00:16:00:07
Unknown
So this year he's been lights out. He's been doing great. Well, I took all that mental stress away completely. Like, I'm looking for the decision making. If you don't go out there and kill that mark, that's okay. Do it. As long as you made the decision to get out there, I don't care if it takes you 15 minutes to find it.

00:16:00:08 - 00:16:19:19
Unknown
When we're training, you made all the right decisions to get there the year before, man. If he didn't go out there and just kill it, you know, I was nit picking him over things, and it put a lot of unnecessary mental stress on. He failed a master test. A dog should never fail a master test before. He is right here in my backyard where we train.

00:16:19:21 - 00:16:36:01
Unknown
So, you know, I had to do some soul searching. They're like, why is he doing? I remember this time. What is going on? Yeah. And a lot of the times if you sit back and do that soul searching, you realize you it's not there. And then you got to figure out what do you need to do to change it?

00:16:36:03 - 00:17:00:15
Unknown
I mean, he's as talented as they come, but I'd set him back some stroke of the same way. You know, I had to really realize as he grew up that I needed to relax and not expect him to be this perfect machine in this conversation. LOL and I were having about you, you were talking about some 400 yard mark you ran and she had done 350 yards of it, right?

00:17:00:15 - 00:17:27:05
Unknown
And she made one minor little thing at the end. And then you started handling. You've got to let them have some success, like if they've gone 375 yards on a 400 some yard mark, they've done a whole lot of things, right? Yeah, they got to win. Yeah. You know, to me, if I'm throwing them out, no matter what the factors are, at that distance of that dog's going to end up on the correct side of the gun is giving me a lot of effort to make sure it's fourth.

00:17:27:05 - 00:17:50:13
Unknown
The factors to be there. Let them get it. A misconception with what field trial, what you're working with right now. The dog that wins the open isn't necessarily always the best Morgan dog. It's not. The dogs that are the most successful at the Open are the ones that can remember where the guns were and where the bird should be in relation to the gun.

00:17:50:15 - 00:18:07:15
Unknown
I mean, you think about that, those retired guns, you think they truly remember exactly where that bird is. Absolutely not. It's the dog that can look out there and go, Yeah, that gun was right there. And then as he's running, he's like, All right, the gun was there. I mean, push off where the gun was and this is where the bird should be.

00:18:07:17 - 00:18:43:11
Unknown
There's a lot to be said for that. So you got to make him comfortable with that. You can't think that, it's got to be perfect every single time they've got to win. So yeah, yeah, he's really good. Well, I did want to talk a little bit about young dog mental stability because I personally believe that the the two weeks I'm sorry, at the two month mark to six more month mark is where they can learn a ton of the principles that they are not maybe not principles isn't the right word.

00:18:43:11 - 00:19:11:09
Unknown
They they can learn the foundation, whole relationship between pressure, between getting a reward. They can learn, you know, how to be stable mentally when things don't go the way that that they need to go. Right. But that's 100% dependent upon us. Yeah, I 100% agree with that. You know, bringing them up in the proper way and structuring their lifestyle, that's a big thing.

00:19:11:09 - 00:19:33:10
Unknown
Structure, structure, structure. But not to the point with the puppy where you're taking driveway structures. Good. But it can't be overwhelming. And we see a lot of that with young people, you know, young puppies, you know, I want my dog to be steady before it goes. Get the bird. It's a puppy. Yeah. At the summer gun retreat for a while, and it gets crazy about retrieving.

00:19:33:12 - 00:19:59:16
Unknown
Then we'll reel it in. Yeah, Structure is important as long as it's done in the right way and not overdone. Yeah. Yeah. No. That the they can. I talk about this all the time. If there's a pendulum or a speedometer. Right. Of no momentum, uncontrolled momentum. And you had that perfect sweet spot that everybody talks about like right in the middle, you never want to be right in the middle.

00:19:59:18 - 00:20:25:05
Unknown
You always want to be slightly I don't know. There's a moment inside all the time. And if you ever get to the other side, that's what we call the danger zone, because if you don't have momentum, you have nothing 100%. So you have to you. And I think that the mental stability, you can go really quickly from being in that that right spot is slightly to the momentum side and do something that you don't even realize you're doing.

00:20:25:07 - 00:20:49:19
Unknown
Yep. And then all of a sudden you're in like the danger zone. Yeah. And things aren't going right and you don't know. I like teams last year saying is exact example of it, but you've always got to be open to learning. I mean that that situation, I just, you know, had to step back myself and figure out what, you know, what's going on, how do I fix this?

00:20:49:20 - 00:21:14:05
Unknown
But man, I'm always still learning from other people like, I've got a situation with the dog. He's an SRS champion, He's qualified for the Crown this year and he's got some weird stuff there I've never seen a dog do and it's always on feel Charles stuff. He may be halfway to the bird and he'll just do it like a spin, then take off running back to the bird like a pressure spin, but like an excitement, like weird thing.

00:21:14:07 - 00:21:37:12
Unknown
And typically when it gets close there, the fall, he'll do it again and get the bird. So I was talking to somebody that I value their opinion greatly and their field trial game, and he made a very good point. He said one of our biggest issues when we're training advanced dogs is we always worry about balance, balance, balance, balance, balance, he said.

00:21:37:12 - 00:21:54:05
Unknown
We know this dog's issue is feel short and that's when he does it, he said. So circle the problem. That's the problem. Don't worry about anything else. Circle the problem and work on that. He's not going to forget how to run a blind. He's not going to forget how to run a poison bird, one, you know, they know how to do it.

00:21:54:07 - 00:22:14:08
Unknown
Circle that problem and focus on it and fix it. The rest of it's there. And we just talked about everything on field. Charles stuff. When I send him on the mark, he's halfway there. We throw another bird within him. Over here comes another one to fire drill. We fire drill. That joke on every single field trial, Mark. And I'm going to do that until the crown.

00:22:14:10 - 00:22:31:00
Unknown
He's not going to see a field cross set up. They don't get fouled fire drill. I'm just trying to kind of break that, have it. Yeah. And I mean, that's months from now, but I'm circling the problem. So every time we run field trials set up, we're going to focus on that issue with him and I think we missed that a lot.

00:22:31:01 - 00:22:52:16
Unknown
You know, we, we think about, okay, this task allow minor issues and we know they have linemen or issues, but we don't circle that problem and focus on it. Why? Because it's not a lot of fun to work on, but it's fun to watch and go get birds and make decisions. It's not a lot of fun to work on that circle the problem and work on that problem.

00:22:52:18 - 00:23:05:23
Unknown
You know, that was a really good conversation we had, and I was like, You know what? He's right. Right. They're not going to forget what you taught them. I mean, it's kind of like throwing a lot of singles rather than multiple spots. They know how to count to three or four. They always know how to count to three or four.

00:23:06:04 - 00:23:33:02
Unknown
Yeah. There's no point in you continuing to beat a dead horse with it. You know, focus on the issues you need fix. That's really good. So I want to talk a little bit about reading the signals that a dog is giving you. Like what? It was a dog telling you. You know, as an amateur, when I first started, like people would be like, Man, the dog looks, you know, puppy, but it or doesn't look like he's engaged.

00:23:33:02 - 00:23:59:04
Unknown
And I'd be like, we talking about it took me a long time to realize there's certain cues that you can pick up from the dog. So I'd love for you to kind of walk through some of those, You know, the easy cues for anybody to look at and realize is, you know, the dog going along with the shelter, is it eager and happy to work Like that's something easy to pick up on when we start trying to communicate with him to run a blind.

00:23:59:06 - 00:24:19:11
Unknown
If we use that keyword, whether you use Dad, Deb or whatever, and that dog starts going looking everywhere, but where you want to go, read it. That dog's telling you, Look, man, I'm uncomfortable with the situation. I'm not really down to do this right now. And you got to figure out why they're doing that promise you. Most of the time it's us.

00:24:19:13 - 00:24:41:01
Unknown
We've done something to create the issue. Most of the time, you know, the cues that are harder to read is the ones where you really have to know that dog because every dog's different. You know, Take Stroker, for example, and there's some days people watch them in training and they'll be like, you know, he's not really giving you a whole lot of effort as he got older.

00:24:41:02 - 00:25:02:08
Unknown
Well, that's just stroke or sometimes, you know or take a we've got a dog named Hoagie here. I can read how you like a book. There's sometimes two where I'm pushing him a little too hard and I'll see his attitude start to go down instead of hoagie running. Like Hoagie needs Jerome, when he's successful, just balls to the wall, go and get a bird.

00:25:02:10 - 00:25:17:02
Unknown
He just kind of trots out there. And when I start to see that. All right, time out. It's time to make stuff fun for three or four days again, because I push too hard. He's still going to get in the birds and he's still doing it right. But his middle

00:25:17:02 - 00:25:21:18
Unknown
stability is not where it needs to be. You know, we're we're in the danger zone.

00:25:21:20 - 00:25:43:17
Unknown
You know, he's worried rather than just going to get the bird. Yeah. And when you see that, you got to step back and say, all right, what do I need to do different? That's the kind of stuff that you've got to read with the dogs tell you. And you know your dog better than anybody. So if you see something start to change in their momentum, their attitude, their eagerness, like try to figure out why

00:25:43:17 - 00:25:47:01
Unknown
and never be afraid to back up and make it fun again.

00:25:47:03 - 00:26:16:04
Unknown
Sometimes we push too hard and we want to continue to push when reality is we need to back off and just let them be dog and have some fun again. A good friend of mine used to work for Mr. Danny Farmer and we had a lot of conversations about this kind of stuff. When they get a dog like that and if they're throwing a water set up, I don't care if that dog runs around the water and goes and gets a bird, really wants that dog starts getting back up to where it needs to be mentally, then they'll start chipping back away at it because guess what?

00:26:16:04 - 00:26:35:18
Unknown
If they're killing him and he's not marking because he's too nervous, can he win open? Absolutely not. They got to be comfortable enough to mark the bird. So until they can get them back to that right mental stability level and you know him wanting to go do it instead of being nervous about it, they need to free him up.

00:26:35:18 - 00:26:54:11
Unknown
And once he's freed up, they'll start chipping back away and getting a more precise. Well, that's really interesting. So, yeah, I mean, he's one more open than anybody has ever walked the planet. So I feel like he kind of knows what he's doing, maybe a little bit. So that's how much it means to them. You know, it's it's important.

00:26:54:13 - 00:26:56:07
Unknown
Very good.

00:26:56:07 - 00:27:15:12
Unknown
All right, So, look, I want to talk about any sort of specific set up or Mark that, you know, you really will see when a dog isn't mentally stable, like they just can't do it, you know, Is it a bridge bird or is there, you know, a bird that is like, you know, really, really hard to do if you have a dog that's nervous.

00:27:15:14 - 00:27:33:12
Unknown
Yeah. Bridge birds, a perfect example of it. You know, if we throw a bird across a channel of water, the dog that's not comfortable and really paying attention to where the gun is and hey, hunting around somewhere in that area, they see that channel and they're like, I'm going to the end of it because if I don't, I'm going to get killed.

00:27:33:14 - 00:27:53:13
Unknown
That's a prime example of it. We throw Mark the bridge bird this past week or the week before and training to were several dogs just that got in the water. And we're going to then what do we do with him burn them? Absolutely not. They're already nervous about picture. They just told us that. Yeah, we just had the bird boy.

00:27:53:13 - 00:28:12:20
Unknown
Hey, hey. And if they're that direction, let them hunt around and find it. And guess what? We throw it again, See if they were comfortable enough to go get it. They'll probably throw it again this week for just to see if they're comfortable enough to go get it. Another example is a checked down bird, and this is a misconception thing.

00:28:12:22 - 00:28:34:00
Unknown
A lot of people want to burn a dog when they run through a check down bird. What have we conditioned to do most of their life? Keep on going, keep going, Keep going. As Adam Campbell says, run until you smell malady. Exactly. You know, a check down bird a dog has to be comfortable do. And it's more of a communication thing, in my opinion.

00:28:34:02 - 00:28:50:17
Unknown
You've got to work. Don't get a whole lot for that dog really understands when you're cute and easy easy sentence off that hey, we're going short. What do we do if they overrun it? Don't grab our transmitter. You know, there's multiple ways to do it. You can just have your gunner help them. Hey, hey, hey, hey. Get him back in there and get it.

00:28:50:19 - 00:29:09:04
Unknown
Or sometimes I'll just tweet to Twitter to get them back in there, hunting in the area and find it. And I'll repeat it. Maybe not in that same place. I may go to the next set up and do something exactly the same, but in a different place. It's not something you're ever going to get him to do, but give him pressure.

00:29:09:06 - 00:29:28:12
Unknown
And people that do get pressure, guess what happens? Easy. That dog immediately goes, shit. You know, because every time I hear that word, I'm getting pressure. That's what's going to happen. That Joker's going to bug out. It's not worried about anything, but crap, I'm about to get some pressure. Yeah, So every time I hear that word, we're in trouble.

00:29:28:14 - 00:29:50:20
Unknown
So that's something to keep in mind when you're working on that bridge. Birds are the same way. You know, you can't get make them get those birds by using pressure. The long retards. You think we're going to give them pressure and make them want to go get that long retired? Absolutely Not like you want them to want to go get that joker.

00:29:50:21 - 00:30:08:11
Unknown
We don't want to be beating them up on it. So if we're running along, retire, which would be give them, given them pressure, especially at a young age for anything they do wrong on it. Actually, they're not. We should be helping them get there, whether either by gun or help or casting. But every time we go get a long retired, it should be something that they get.

00:30:08:11 - 00:30:35:02
Unknown
They're successful, that there shouldn't be pressure involved with it. So what are some things that, you know, you do when you see a dog, you know, that you maybe don't feel like is, you know, mentally stable? Is there like specific drill you go to? Do you throw certain types of marks? It just depends on the situation, not every dog's mentally unstable for the same thing.

00:30:35:02 - 00:30:58:13
Unknown
Most are all different, like ferns, Islam, minor stuff going to dog your name? Jerry. His biggest issue is running tight to a short gun. That's his thing. Like he's just not comfortable with it at all. Wow. I don't know. That's just Jerry. So do I put pressure on that when he doesn't do it right? Absolutely not. He's already nervous about it.

00:30:58:15 - 00:31:18:15
Unknown
He won't do it. Me giving him pressure is only going to make him more nervous about it. So I just work at it a lot. And if he goes to flirt, tweet, know, cast, get the bird, come back or he throw it and get him to run tight to the gun. You know, misconception is, he's playing off the gun.

00:31:18:16 - 00:31:38:18
Unknown
We're going to give him pressure and cast him into it. No, that's only going to make him more nervous about the situation, help him be successful at it. Something created that. What it is, I don't know. But I know I'm not going to fix something that they're nervous about, putting pressure on it and creating more nervous energy toward that situation.

00:31:38:20 - 00:31:58:17
Unknown
Lance, we're just talking about you, that dog going around a bond and then all of a sudden like, my gosh, Well, we probably created that by putting too much pressure on Castor fizzles, and most of the time it's a younger doll like we were having this discussion earlier. You're not they got to win sometimes they got to win.

00:31:58:19 - 00:32:25:07
Unknown
So one of the things Rick's car used to preach in this has a lot of mental stability. If you train for a momentum, precision will come. But if you train for precision, you'll ruin your momentum and you'll never have a precise dog. So keep that in mind. I mean, he's the greatest to ever do it. I mean, most of the people that are being successful in the field trial world today were Rick's Car Disciples.

00:32:25:09 - 00:32:46:17
Unknown
I mean, he's trying for momentum. He's not training for precision, because as they build more momentum and become more successful, the precision will eventually come. That has a lot to do with the mental stability of the dog. Yeah, well, let's switch topics a little bit. I mean, we've. Well, is there anything else about, you know, mental stability that you really that you want to talk about?

00:32:46:19 - 00:33:16:21
Unknown
Yeah, one more thing. And this is something that's kind of old school spring up the HRC green All right I've been running it for I don't know, 1617 years. The tests are so much harder than what they used to be. The bar placements better, the dogs are better. They're not as strict on limb limiters. They used to be just outrageously strict about it.

00:33:16:22 - 00:33:39:00
Unknown
They used to not let us hunt as much, but the tests were a little bit easier for the most part. Part of being really successful at that at the Grand now is having a dog that's not nervous and there's a lot of dogs that struggle because people focus so much on the linemen or getting to the bucket or the chair, making sure the dog's not moving at all.

00:33:39:02 - 00:33:56:04
Unknown
And they put all this on justified pressure on this dog Mentally, when they get up there and they get to the green, they're so worried about what's going on around that chair that they can't focus on what's going on in the field. And I feel like that's the detriment for a lot of the dogs at the green that go out.

00:33:56:06 - 00:34:26:17
Unknown
They're so worried about moving that they can't focus on marking. And I feel like a lot of people struggle with that when it comes to that. And I think specifically with like with my mentors in the grant, a lot of it has to do with the standard that the dog understands. Yes. Because like I come from the Dan school of Lynn Manners, which is, in my opinion, probably be the strictest of anybody that I've ever seen.

00:34:26:19 - 00:34:50:22
Unknown
Like we have incredibly high standards for for line manners, but our dogs know the standard. Right. And what would happen when I first started training is I wouldn't understand how to maintain that standard. And so I would train with Dan. He would show me all these things that I would go and do some of them, but I would miss certain pieces of it.

00:34:50:22 - 00:35:13:20
Unknown
And then my dog would naturally his standard or her standard of what was acceptable was higher than what Dan was. Would Dan would label like acceptable? And what would happen is, is I would come there and I'd be like, why isn't my dog doing it? I'm trying to do all these things right in. The dog would get so nervous.

00:35:13:20 - 00:35:41:20
Unknown
And and what I finally realized is that I have to make sure that I understand how to maintain a standard because that's what the dog understands. Correct. And what happens a lot is people go in, they have a different standard, right? For the entire year. They have this, you know, this less of a standard. And then they the two weeks before the grand, they start trying to crank their dog back down and their dog gets inevitably nervous.

00:35:41:20 - 00:36:03:18
Unknown
But what I've learned is that if you maintain that incredibly high standard and you have to make more corrections before the grand, because maybe you're paying a little bit more attention to it if you've had a very strong foundation on what that standard really is, they don't get overwhelmed by it. They then they understand that it's a just correction.

00:36:03:20 - 00:36:25:09
Unknown
I think that was one of the biggest things that I've learned in the last like probably two years is that correcting a dog when they don't understand is like one of the most dangerous things that you can do as a dog trainer. And we can unpack what happened with Winter. And you know, you took winter for two springs ago.

00:36:25:09 - 00:36:47:18
Unknown
I think it was, yeah. And we did something to her that we never would have thought would have been a problem. it turned out to be but is in it's still a problem to this day so she's just turned four now and it's still an issue. And what happened was, is, you know, we switched whistles. We went from a p whistle.

00:36:47:20 - 00:37:12:02
Unknown
It was a sport dog. Yeah, a little orange one. Yeah. I don't know. Well, it wasn't the orange one is the P list whistle, Right. The black, Black with the orange was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The actual whistle is a is orange. She went from that where she would stop no matter what because she knew because I was the only whistle that she had ever heard and because we were moving to transition into more field trial work.

00:37:12:06 - 00:37:41:12
Unknown
We talked about it and we're like, okay, we're going to switch to the whistle while makes. And that transition didn't go well. Now she struggled big time. Yeah. And what I believe happened and I think we've we've talked about this I think you agree with me is that she was getting what I call phantom corrections. Yeah. Where she did not understand when she would not stop and she would get called pressure for not stopping ship or get harder.

00:37:41:12 - 00:38:04:19
Unknown
She would go harder thinking I I'm not going fast. Like it's back to the pile and she's feeling she's being forced. And so we were getting the opposite response of what we wanted. Yeah. And it was because she did not understand the pressure, even though she had been schooled in it. She had passed the grand already in that whistle change, completely screwed up.

00:38:04:21 - 00:38:26:16
Unknown
Yes. She didn't understand the correction with that whistle like this was not a tone that she was taught. She she didn't understand it. Yeah. And was something we had to discuss a lot about. Like how do we break it down and fix it? And now, you know, we you and I talked about this before. This game has to be a game of humility, like you're going to make mistakes.

00:38:26:18 - 00:39:02:05
Unknown
And that's that's all part of it. Like, those mistakes are only going to make you better. It's going to make you think about things more in-depth before you do them. I give you another example of that type situation. I've got a dog here that struggles to hear, like legitimately struggles to hear fast. 200 yards and sometimes in in the way a trainer has to be has to be justified to understanding that like there are no there are situations that she truly can't hear me run on water like the grain.

00:39:02:05 - 00:39:12:13
Unknown
She passed this grain, but it's because I really understood her and I knew when I should and what I should not be trying to stop her.

00:39:12:15 - 00:39:35:06
Unknown
But at first, when I first got her, I was like, I think she can hear me. But she just being defiant, started getting onto her a little bit for guess what happened? Start poppin. We created or unbuckled. She was possibly like, crazy. Yeah. So at that point, I'm like, wait a minute. Like, maybe she really can't.

00:39:35:08 - 00:39:56:22
Unknown
So we had to work through the pop issue, and it's still a little bit there. You know, I had to cover up a couple of in the first series that grant like I could see her momentum change, and I was like, I just might as well go ahead and stop her because she's about to pop. But those kind of things you have to work through, like really read the dog, Like if it starts popping on you, well, that's telling you something right there.

00:39:57:04 - 00:40:24:14
Unknown
Yeah. Like I, I firmly believe that when you start to see an issue and you don't know where it came from or what it is like, you got to stop and you got to think about it for a while. Yeah. And you got to try to, you know, figure out what to do. And I think what fixed winter or has mostly fixed winter because every once in a while, like if, if we dry something really hard and it doesn't go well and she gets just her just corrections, she'll default back into that mode sometimes.

00:40:24:16 - 00:40:54:09
Unknown
Right. Like which is normal Like that's just, that's dog or dog. What, what causes it. Why, why she do it Because she's not mentally stable. So she has some anxiety built up. She has anxiety about it. But my my point was like a fight or flight mentality. Yeah. it's total flight. Yeah. And we and when we when when we started to rebuild winter like it was really hard because she would randomly pop, she would sometimes not stop and then sometimes she would go harder.

00:40:54:11 - 00:41:15:07
Unknown
And I and I couldn't do it like I had nothing like. Right Like you you want to try to fix a problem, a single problem at a time and when? And like Dana always says, it's like, like squeezing a thing, a toothpaste, it's going to come out one end or the other way. Eventually the pressure is going to come out, you know, out of one way or.

00:41:15:07 - 00:41:35:06
Unknown
And what we ended up doing is I went all the way back to the beginning. I said, What is the fundamental about running a blind? It's forced to pile. And I took the dog that was the youngest dog ever. And I went back to force the pile and I made this little note card and I said, I'm going to do this for ten days and I'm going to do the tea and then I'm going to do this.

00:41:35:07 - 00:41:55:16
Unknown
And I went all the way back through it, and it took me three months to get to where I believe she understood everything that was happening at that point. But I had to go back and reteach or everything with that new whistle because of what happened. It was it was it was probably the hardest thing that I've ever had to do as a dog trainer.

00:41:55:16 - 00:42:18:19
Unknown
Yeah. And the reason why you did that had we got the same response in every instance, then we would understand that she understands it this way. Yeah, but when you get a pop or you get a run faster, or sometimes just who the hell knows? Yeah, there's no constant. So there was no really understanding because there's no constant response to it.

00:42:18:19 - 00:42:38:15
Unknown
Exactly. So that was like, Hey, we got to do something different. Yeah, it has to go back to the beginning and never be afraid to go backwards. Yeah, like that. That's a thing that's really hard force as we get into advanced work, man, it's so much fun watching them do that stuff and watching them problem solve. And sometimes we don't want to go backwards.

00:42:38:18 - 00:43:05:22
Unknown
Yeah, it's our pride that gets in the way. Yeah, yeah. I mean, they call me the pattern blind Nazi. I go back to it a lot. A lot. When I start seeing issues and casting change in directions, go back to the basics of it. But be afraid to. Yeah, it's good stuff. Really good stuff. Well, as we kind of wrap this up, what I want to I want this to be a good resource for firms, specifically amateurs.

00:43:05:22 - 00:43:26:00
Unknown
Right. Like and I want to know, is there a specific drill that? Not a lot of people do or not a lot of people think about. That is something that you use a lot or think that it's just something that people don't do enough of? Yeah, I can think of two of them off the top of my head.

00:43:26:00 - 00:43:48:19
Unknown
One of them is ABCDE. Mark Andrew covered all your bases of, of what conceptual marking you can do within it in a very controlled environment to where the dogs really aren't going to get much trouble. And you can teach a lot in that drill and you know, indirectly by the dog just running past a gong going through will fall under the arm, type behind a gun.

00:43:48:21 - 00:44:10:16
Unknown
I do that a lot. The other thing as far as running blinds, I do a lot of air drills, you know, with security drill for people that don't know. Can you unpack before we get into a key relationship to drill, Let's unpack. Like what an ABCD marking drill is and kind of what its point is, right? So there's a lot of different variations of what people call a ABCD drill.

00:44:10:18 - 00:44:29:01
Unknown
The way I like to run it, there's one, two, three, four guns out there in the field that I like to run it with out there, the first bird, and it's just setting up the rest of them. Let's give me some distances so people, they don't have to be real big. You know, the first bird may be 75 yards, the longest bird may be 200.

00:44:29:03 - 00:44:48:01
Unknown
They don't have to be big. And remember, too, a lot of people. That's pretty big. Yeah, that's true. I mean, and you can shorten it up. You know, my first bird's setting up the rest. We're going to throw one typically out of it, left or right, and then the second mark is going to be left to right type to the back side of that gun where they have to go.

00:44:48:01 - 00:45:19:18
Unknown
And right behind that chalk gun and go get the bird. And I'm okay with it being where they can see where they're going, especially for young dogs. The second one is going to be thrown. The gunners are going to be a little deeper than that short bird, and it's going to be thrown right to left where they've run basically under the arc and go get that bird and then the last bird that they throws the long one and they're going to go through, they'll follow the short bird and under the arc tight to the gun, almost of the third bird you fell through and go all the way up there and get it.

00:45:19:20 - 00:45:37:01
Unknown
And what we're looking for is that dog just to be comfortable going through there, like look past all those other guns and as they get better at doing it, singles, then you start doing bird in mouth singles, play the bird in the mouth. Third the mark, take the bird out and make them refocus in what what does the bird and mouth do?

00:45:37:03 - 00:45:57:07
Unknown
So the burden mouth is just the same mechanics as doing a multiple, but describe what you So dogs retrieve the first mark that's setting up the rest of them. We're going to throw the next mark. It's going to be tight behind the short gun well left while the dog's still still holding the bird on the bumper. So bird false.

00:45:57:13 - 00:46:18:08
Unknown
Looks at it for a second. Now we're going to take the bird from the dogs. Mao. The dog's either going to keep staring at the bird as you take it, but most of them, when you take the bird, they're going to look off a little bit again. You got to get them to focus back into this exact same mechanics is throwing a multiple so you can work on your mechanics of multiples by just simply doing bird math singles.

00:46:18:10 - 00:46:39:09
Unknown
It helps a lot that little bit makes a big difference. Like before I do any multiples with dogs, I do a lot of Barton mouth singles. So you're just setting him up for success. You've already done the mechanics of Yeah, for you ever asked them to do it? Multiple. Very good. All right. And the second one was a I believe it was a key relationship drill.

00:46:39:09 - 00:47:02:14
Unknown
Key relationship drill. I do it a little different. You know, some people throw just one mark and they'll run three lines off one mark. I like to throw three different marks, sometimes four. Just depends on what I'm doing. And I keep it very black and white and not very big. Mark maybe 50 to 75 yards. Typically, the first one, I'm going to go behind the gun and I'll have the gunner out there.

00:47:02:14 - 00:47:17:23
Unknown
It's exposed. I'm going to have a white line stake to the backside of that gun. Throw the bird. We're going to pick it up. They're going to run the blind behind the gun. And I want them to wear when they commit to go in behind the gun, I want them to see where they're going. I want them to be rewarded with that.

00:47:18:03 - 00:47:40:02
Unknown
Yeah. The next one I'm going to do will be under the arc. And then the third one I'll do will go through the oval. That's typically the way I'll do it. Now, the younger dogs, we're going to do it as they're the mark, pick it up around the block. A lot of times with this, our dogs will throw them out and leave it laying around the block.

00:47:40:04 - 00:47:59:14
Unknown
But it's just the mechanics of going behind the gun, being able to communicate, to get them to look behind the gun, to be rewarded for going. They're going under there. Again, that's being comfortable with it. A lot of the times I've had dogs have had a lot of pressure about going back to an old fall. Yes. What happens if you try to run that blind through the whole fall?

00:47:59:16 - 00:48:19:18
Unknown
They'll avoid that joker. Yeah, I'm going to run to Timbuktu. I'll go anywhere, but then I'll go into the ark. I'll go behind the gun. I'll go out there, but I won't go there. So it's just a drill that I like to touch on a lot just for them, making sure I'm getting the communication I want out of them and they understand where I want them to go.

00:48:19:18 - 00:48:37:02
Unknown
In relation to a gun with a blond. So I do that a lot. When I'm getting ready for the grand. I don't do it typically very much here because that's one of the difference between a grand and a master test and a lot of people struggle with when they put that blond in the middle of no man's land.

00:48:37:04 - 00:48:58:16
Unknown
Yeah. And there's nothing for you to really key off. Yeah. And if you don't work on that, you can struggle with it because that dog looks out there and goes, There's no gun. Yeah, I'm going to run a blind relation, have the same thing happen all the time in water when it's like they just put the blind egg in the finished test, like right up the middle of this big, you know, big, huge, no fact workable.

00:48:58:16 - 00:49:14:03
Unknown
Just swim across. And I'm like, shoot, when's the last time just swam across and did it like go by a down a show or do this? You know, it's like, you know, that's that is where balance is is important. yeah. Dog works out there. Like, what do I do with my hands? You want me to go straight that way?

00:49:14:03 - 00:49:29:13
Unknown
Yeah. That looks a little too easy for us, right? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's always funny. Like when you I don't know if it happens to you all the time, but, like, I walk up to a test, like, I haven't done that in a long time. yeah, Yeah. You're like, my God, I could have done that yesterday.

00:49:29:13 - 00:49:43:07
Unknown
There's a perfect spot to do it. And now I'm running a test and I haven't done it. It seems to work out, but I've never makes it feel good. Yeah, Yeah. When you say something like, Gosh dang, I hadn't done that in a long time. I hope they remember how to do this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It happens quite often.

00:49:43:09 - 00:50:07:06
Unknown
Fortunately. One thing I want to ask you, because I've heard other people who've been running the Grand for a long time, they used to say that it was, you know, it was three marks on the blind, but the mark didn't really have a relationship to each other like they were. They were really hard singles in the sense that you ran as multiples, but they didn't really converge or have a lot of like.

00:50:07:08 - 00:50:26:10
Unknown
But I haven't really found that to be the case when I go to the Grand now, it's like things are always evolving. That used to be the case and you still see a lot of them that way. Yeah, like if you look at the numbers this year, the hardest test they're looking by the numbers results out. Yeah, and I ran that first series.

00:50:26:12 - 00:50:48:15
Unknown
They had no relationship with each other. They were just hard. Yeah, just hard. I handled on every bird with a dog at some point, I even handled on the go bird. At one point, they were just hard marks. The second series, they had a lot of. They were tight. Yeah, they were big. Yeah, big and tight. So you really had to have a dog that understood that can't go back to where it's been to before.

00:50:48:18 - 00:51:08:15
Unknown
Yeah. So it is evolving. You will see that more often in the grand than what you're used to. You'll see some hip pockets now. Yeah. Very rarely. You're going to see it in lot. We have seen one, we saw one at a not necessarily in line. Now when you say inline you don't mean hide stacked on top of each other.

00:51:08:15 - 00:51:33:22
Unknown
You mean the traditional fields are typically not going to seen in line. But you will see, you know, mom and pop. You will see it now. Yeah. So you got to be comfortable doing that and dogs understand it. Yeah, I think that based on just watching amateurs at the Grand, I think the one of the weaker things that amateurs have is they don't have a dog that what I call discipline marking.

00:51:34:00 - 00:52:07:10
Unknown
And I don't know if there's a better word for it, like it's is what I call in. And I feel that they don't hunt testers sometimes I don't think this happens as much in the AKC side, but definitely people that are, you know, come up in the HRC side is that they don't understand the how important it is to do that insanely tight hip pocket or how to actually pick up an inline triple the correct way because what I believe that really does is it teaches the dog to say, if I'm telling it's selection, right?

00:52:07:10 - 00:52:28:06
Unknown
If I'm telling you you're going to go get this bird, even though you feel like you want this outside bird per se, right. You're going to go pick this bird up. And we don't. I just feel that like that's missing a lot in amateurs marking. But but in reality, most of them don't know how. Yeah, and that's what I'm hoping we can do here with the hunt.

00:52:28:06 - 00:52:44:09
Unknown
Just gotten all of the different people we're going to bring in and all this exorbitant amount of knowledge. Yeah. Not just for myself and Lyle, but from people like you and Diane and the others we have coming on board to do this stuff is to give people the knowledge and the understanding and the know how to do that.

00:52:44:12 - 00:53:04:05
Unknown
Yeah. And feel comfortable doing it, because we've shown them how in a very in-depth way. Yeah. And I don't think it's what you're seeing is I think it's more I try to think of the it's a lack of knowledge. A lack of knowledge. Yeah. It's not, it's not because of lack of effort. Yeah. No, definitely not a lack of effort and a lack of knowledge.

00:53:04:05 - 00:53:20:13
Unknown
If you're running the grant as an amateur and you're taking the time to do that week long trip, man, I mean, you've put your time in and that's what's so hard about watching, you know, somebody go out there and just they just missed two birds and you're like, my gosh, yeah, it's like that. Like that is so hard, you know?

00:53:20:13 - 00:53:40:08
Unknown
But that's part of the game, right? Yeah, So it's all part of it. And I've learned more from my failures than I have from successes. I'm you. So failure not always a bad thing as long as you look at it. All right? And you know, we need to work on this. Yeah, you know, why do we fail? And that's always what you need to look at.

00:53:40:12 - 00:54:06:09
Unknown
Look at the one. Yeah. And then go to work on it. If you don't know, you know the why, but you don't know how to fix it. Well, there's plenty of people that are willing to help. We're willing to help. And that's what we're trying to do. So don't be afraid to ask for help. You know, I've been blessed to be around some really good dog trainers in my career, and I wouldn't be where I am today without them.

00:54:06:11 - 00:54:27:10
Unknown
So had I not went to them for help when I needed it, I'd never be where I am now. And people have to realize that everybody that you look up to in the Retriever world at some point in time was right where you are. They're in your same shoes. Yeah. So that's kind of one of the things that I struggle with.

00:54:27:10 - 00:54:55:12
Unknown
Like what you were saying, you didn't know how to come up to me. Like, I remember when I tried to run my first grand or my first master test, I still view myself as that, you know. So sometimes that bothers me when people talk like that about me, because I clearly remember then and I never want to feel like I can't be approached by anything because it's definitely not you, it's us.

00:54:55:14 - 00:55:20:03
Unknown
I mean, it's that that's just one of the things people watch remembers. Yeah, everybody was right where you were. Yeah. Nobody just came out and said, I won't be a dog trainer. I have to learn. I think that I've I'm starting to realize that running test and running trials is fun, but I love the training more. Yeah, but go ahead.

00:55:20:05 - 00:55:55:06
Unknown
I've gotten to the point now in my career I still enjoy running test, enjoy the challenge of it. I enjoy watching the dogs that we built and created. Be successful in the environment. I love to train. I love to see it. Click like to see them get better. But what I found as I've gotten further in my career is that I really enjoy teaching people and helping them with their dogs more than more so than I enjoy training and I still really enjoy training, but I enjoy helping people really start to understand the dog and why it does what it does.

00:55:55:06 - 00:56:19:23
Unknown
Yeah, and start really processing that rather than who it did this. I will get this correction. I did this and you can't be a robot, right? So that's kind of what I found as I've gone further in my career is I really enjoyed teaching people and helping them progress on throwing them out. There is one of my clients, Jake Smith.

00:56:20:01 - 00:56:46:00
Unknown
I mean, he really, really, really struggled with running the grant. The first Grandy ran, he crashed and burned and he has a phenomenal animal, phenomenal dog, several of them. And, you know, I really had to be like a mentor or in a cheerleader to talk him into, Look, you can do it, dude. Like, no, don't let something beat you.

00:56:46:00 - 00:57:03:12
Unknown
You know, you can do it. You crashed and burned with a five or six time grand champion the first time. But like, hey, everybody fails one, two here and there is I don't care. It's the greatest dog of walk the earth. The dogs that have the most grand passes, they failed one a couple of times. Mason failed one or two.

00:57:03:14 - 00:57:24:16
Unknown
Dude failed one or two. They're going to fail. And now he's passed two of them. Three, three grand. You know, sometimes you got to step outside your comfort zone and say, Hey, you know what? I won't strap up. I'm good with this. Yeah. And it doesn't matter what level you're running. Yeah. No matter what level you are. I mean, it's kind of like this IRS.

00:57:24:18 - 00:57:45:01
Unknown
I mean, if you're going to come into that game, you have to understand you're going to take it on the chin for a little while. You're going to have to learn from those those beatings. Yeah, It's going to make you better as soon as there's a competition. And like I wrestled in high school and that the probably one of the greatest athletes of all time that people don't know about is kill Sanderson and kill Sanders.

00:57:45:03 - 00:58:09:13
Unknown
And he was a four time NCAA champion wrestler, best wrestler of college history ever. He goes to the start doing international and he loses. He was undefeated all four all four years. He goes to his first Olympic, you know, Olympics or worlds. I can't remember when he got beat like six times or something. It's like there's another level where you're going to get your teeth kicked and it's in.

00:58:09:18 - 00:58:28:11
Unknown
And what happened? He ended up winning a gold, you know. You just did He quit? No, He learned from it. And that you've got to do that in this game. You've got to take your lumps. I mean, it's going to happen. It happens to everybody. Just when you feel like you've got this thing figured out, it's going to smack you in the face and you go, Look, I really didn't know anything.

00:58:28:11 - 00:58:45:00
Unknown
I thought I knew a lot, but I really didn't. Yeah, and that still happens to me to this day. Like, situations come up when I'm like, I don't know how to fix this, and then you got to figure it out. Yeah. And if you can't, you need to be humble enough to go to somebody and say, Hey, I need a different perspective on this.

00:58:45:05 - 00:59:04:03
Unknown
Yeah, like, what I'm doing is not working. What's your thoughts? You know, and don't be afraid to do that. Well, let's, before we wrap up, I want to spend a little bit of time, you know? You know, you kind of. I remember you when we first met. We were talking about, you know, and I give you the hat or you gave me the hat back.

00:59:04:03 - 00:59:15:21
Unknown
I was like, you know, you're mentioning like, Yeah, we're going to do some video stuff. And I was like, okay, what is that? And he told me a little bit about it. But you know, now you've been doing that for a few years, you know, is it over a year, year and a half now, you guys, We're almost a year and a half now.

00:59:15:22 - 00:59:38:05
Unknown
Yeah. So kind of talk to me about like why that came to exist and kind of what, you know, what's your mission with the Hunters Guide? You know, HUNT Just God came in existence because looking around, there was no source for like, really help for, for the average guy and not necessarily just amateur, the young pro that's aspiring to be better.

00:59:38:07 - 01:00:00:14
Unknown
There was nothing out there to really help guide them and nobody really willing to help for whatever reason. A lot in this this industry people guard knowledge like it's Fort Knox. You know, they don't want to help others out because they look at them as competition and have just gotten to a point in my career that I'm like, look, I've been very blessed and done everything that I've ever wanted to do.

01:00:00:16 - 01:00:19:12
Unknown
What's the next step? Well, let's see how many people we can help get to where they want to go. And that's where this was born in. Originally, it was just going to be myself and Lyle. And then, you know, the more we thought about it and I talked with Lyle and Keith and Josh and Barton, it's like, Look, man, there's so much knowledge we can bring people.

01:00:19:14 - 01:00:42:22
Unknown
Let's bring other reputable people in. They may not have the exact same approach that we have, which is good. We need to have more approaches for people to learn and whatever fits their mindset and what's best for their dog. They can pick and choose what they need to use, but let's make that information available to them. So that's what we've done and we're bringing more and more coming.

01:00:43:00 - 01:01:06:20
Unknown
You've got a course coming out. Yeah, I think I think by the time this podcast is released, it'll be out, which is going to be awesome. I mean, there's nothing out there of it. Amateur, true amateur in the Hunt Tess world has been successful on limited grounds. I mean, truly little grounds. I mean, I don't know of any other amateurs that training that have a coyote named Sparkles or they trained in a field in the middle of Chicago.

01:01:06:21 - 01:01:22:18
Unknown
Yeah. There's been a few times I've had to pick up Puppy because I saw sparkles. Yeah, I was like, I'm going to carry you the rest of the way. So to be able to bring something to the table for amateurs, like, Look, this guy has been there and done it. He's been in your shoes. Let's help you.

01:01:22:20 - 01:01:40:08
Unknown
Like, let's put somebody that's been in your shoes to help guide you to that point. You know, we've got another one coming with puppy stuff. I mean, they'll be coming out that's going to be killer, you know, how do you take a six week old puppy and do pre work with it to set it up for the rest of its life?

01:01:40:08 - 01:01:56:11
Unknown
Yeah. there are some courses out there like it, but none of it's geared toward hunt test. There was just nothing there to help get the people that wanted to run. Hunt test for that. Maybe it's just the average person that has a hunting dogs. They want to be able to do something with the off season. There's nothing there to help them.

01:01:56:13 - 01:02:22:06
Unknown
And that was the vision behind the hunt. Just go, yeah, and and I do think that most of the stuff that people do can translate between hunts and field trials. Yeah, but there is definitely a different race in, in a couple of things that I don't think that Hunt testers necessarily know. Like a couple examples is just the hunt area.

01:02:22:08 - 01:02:39:03
Unknown
The hunt area between the hunt test and a field trial are completely different at times. Yes. In in I talk a little bit about that in my course, but Dave Rotherham was on, I believe it was with on the doghouse and he I don't know. Did you listen to that podcast. Listened to that man. It's a good one.

01:02:39:03 - 01:02:56:07
Unknown
Like I give a shout out to what Jimmy and Adam are doing, man. Like, I mean, I, I'm like the first person to, like, listen to everything. Like, one came out because I think they released him like on Tuesday mornings or something like, like 5 a.m.. I'm like in the shower listening to it. That's like my mind does a lot of what they call in their golden nuggets.

01:02:56:09 - 01:03:20:03
Unknown
There's a lot of gold nuggets in there. Yeah, but they had raw them on and he said his one critique of hunters was that our hunt areas are too tight. And I'm not saying I agree or disagree because I just think that there's different. and, but I do think you have to train differently, you as a puppy, you have to teach marketing differently than you.

01:03:20:03 - 01:03:43:03
Unknown
If you're going to teach a dog to be a field trial dog, now you can mix and match and you can transition that for sure. I'm just saying it can be a lot easier for the dog if that's your focus. There's ways that you can do things different. look, corn, I've had this discussion before. Luke runs or so you're in a lot of master test passed the ground a couple of times, but now he's doing solely field trial work.

01:03:43:05 - 01:04:03:04
Unknown
And we were talking about like, what's the difference the amount of time between when they leave the line and the decision making that they make. There's a lot more time for that dog to process things on a field trial. Mark You think about that? Yeah, that's true. We're throwing a two or 300 yard mark. There's a lot of room to make decisions to wear and hunt test.

01:04:03:04 - 01:04:22:17
Unknown
All that decision making is made within 100 yards. So it's a different thing. You know, we're asking the dog to speed process. You know, the we're in a field trial. We want them a little loose and being able to have plenty of time to make those decisions together. The the as Rahm calls it, he's like the ebb and flow of a mark.

01:04:22:22 - 01:04:42:06
Unknown
There ain't a lot of ebb and flow in a field in a contest. Not it's not. So it is different. Yeah. And that's kind of what makes our game so hard because you got to be good at both you. Yeah. It's a struggle. Yeah. And so that's what I think. I'm really excited about it because I'm able to share a lot of the things that, you know, I learned from pros.

01:04:42:06 - 01:04:57:23
Unknown
I mean, I don't feel like there's anything in the course that I like. I mean, there's nothing new under the sun, Right? Right. Well, go ahead. Typically all this stuff, even I mean, the stuff that I'm throwing out there, laughs thrown out there, others it all came from somebody else. Yeah. A lot of it came from Rick's car.

01:04:58:01 - 01:05:20:09
Unknown
Some of it duty created. I got far more of them. I mean, but most of it comes back from Rex Car. You know, most of the drills you see nowadays are either exact carbon copy of it or they're modified. Yeah. Something that Rex car created. There's very few things that you can look at and say somebody truly created as far as drill work for retriever training.

01:05:20:10 - 01:05:40:21
Unknown
Yeah, I think I know of one and we're going to show it, but Brian or Dan does with buzzer blinds. yeah. Yeah. That, that's pretty cool and unique. Yeah. I mean I've never seen anybody I've never even heard of anybody. When you were telling me Buzzer Blinds, I was like, What the hell is a buzzer? I'll tell you what, there's two reasons that winter passed around the year she did.

01:05:40:23 - 01:06:05:07
Unknown
One of them is Buzzer Blinds. It is, in my opinion, the best way to handle a dog in transition because he's going to that's going to be part of the basics program that we're doing with it that he's filming. But the concept is, is when you cast, if they give you the right cast, you can tell them, you can tell them where the blind is, you can reward them with that blind is even if they can't see it, which I think that's cool.

01:06:05:07 - 01:06:26:01
Unknown
That's a good point. That's it. It does two things. It helps them to line with confidence and it teaches them to cast with confidence. And so you can you can that transition work and you can expedite it extremely fast and get success faster, which ultimately we all know that dogs that experience success, they lock that into their brain.

01:06:26:05 - 01:06:54:10
Unknown
Yeah, I mean, anyway, I won't talk about it too much because there is a process that you have to go through to teach them how to do it. And you saw a little bit of that today with Yeah, yeah, you know, you can start that at any age, but I'm primarily doing that because there's a part of the course that I haven't been able to film yet for the amateur course that we're going to release later, I'm going to use it with thing and it's about how to use those buzzers in a marking scenario when you're when you're throwing marks by yourself.

01:06:54:12 - 01:07:14:00
Unknown
The only dog that I use to teach that like winter doesn't know how to do it, and I try to teach her to and I can't teach an old dog new tricks, but we've had enough issues with trying to do do that. But but I taught Rex how to do it, and Rex was really good at it. But the problem is, you know, now Rex can't hear, so I can't I can't demonstrate it with Rex.

01:07:14:01 - 01:07:36:14
Unknown
I'm like, I'm waiting for that point where I can get Fang to do it so I can record that. We can supplement it into the course. But I've used it a lot to teach like bridge birds because it's incredibly helpful if you can train them to do it, to not have to worry about where the gunner is. Because the hard part about teaching a bridge bird, the you know, you have to handle to it and you can, you know, that's like your only option, right?

01:07:36:16 - 01:07:51:00
Unknown
But if you can place a buzzer in that fall area and you can teach them to respect that and know what that means, you can help them before without any sort of intervention and you can make them calm and you can make them go this stuff. I don't even know if I'll be watching and learning as we go.

01:07:51:04 - 01:08:07:12
Unknown
And this is I mean, this whole process is going to be not fun, not just fun for the people that are going to get to see it and utilize it for them. But there's going to be things that I learn. Wow. Learns other people, you know, other pros have done this a lot. You know, watch things and be like, wow, that's that works Well.

01:08:07:12 - 01:08:46:12
Unknown
It's a great idea. So and that's part of being senior of the game and being humble about things like you never know everything always be open to new things because you may need it. Yeah you know so I'm really looking forward to that. Yeah, it's going to I'm really excited because I think that what I think that the course is going to help people realize is that all those nuances to all these traditional drills, field trial drills or, you know, or whatnot, but how you can shift them just a little bit to make them much, much easier to have success when you're training by yourself.

01:08:46:14 - 01:09:11:12
Unknown
Right. And I think that's a key, a key thing that a lot of people don't realize. And so I don't realize because I have a bird boy in the field, I'm not training by myself every day. So there's obstacles that you and amateurs have to overcome that I don't know. So it's cool that we're going to have that we're going to have that tool because most of the stuff that's put out there is from pros that have help in the field and you're seeing the stuff with your ears isn't that way.

01:09:11:12 - 01:09:35:12
Unknown
Yeah, it's you and the dog. Yeah. And there's a lot of things that, you know, we talked about this a little bit earlier and I think it's good to get to share with, you know, you know, whoever is listening is that there are things that pros don't know to say to an amateur because they haven't experienced it in a really long time, because you started as an amateur and you probably experienced it.

01:09:35:12 - 01:09:54:16
Unknown
But it's been 20 years since you've you've right, you've dealt with that and and one of those things is drag back sand. Yeah. I don't you don't think about that every day. Yeah. You don't, you don't think about it. Right. But I'll never forget like the first time I had a dog run halfway out on a memory bird and just start hunting, like with conviction.

01:09:54:18 - 01:10:26:10
Unknown
Yeah, I smell and I smell. And Boss is here, you know? And so there's. There's certain things that amateurs have to continually do more of because unless they're in a large training group and when I say large, I mean like 15 dogs, like you can't create that same amount of drag back scent. Yeah. Without, without doing something about it, you know, setting something up and, and I'm really excited for a lot of these little nuggets that I think are going to just be, you know, because retriever training isn't about one thing that's going to save the day.

01:10:26:12 - 01:10:50:02
Unknown
No, absolutely not. It's a little pieces that put in all those little pieces and and and that's what I think I'm most excited about being involved in the contest guide is is we're adding central place. The hardest thing for me was watching all these YouTube videos and and the thing about YouTube videos that are online about retriever training is they demonstrate a lot.

01:10:50:04 - 01:11:12:22
Unknown
They don't teach much. They don't. Some of them do like I think I think Bill Hillman had done a pretty darn good job of trying to explain a lot of this. And I really respect what Bill has done with this YouTube channel. But most of the time you see somebody do something and if you're not able to ask them why, you make assumptions that are wrong.

01:11:13:00 - 01:11:35:05
Unknown
Right. And the why is the most important part is the most important part. And I know we're going a little long here now. We're like an hour and 10 minutes, but I'm going to do a little shout out to my another that, you know, we're both really good friends of friends of the Jeremy leg. And I'll never forget when I was spring grand training with him, pre grand training, he did something and I was like, why is he that?

01:11:35:07 - 01:11:52:03
Unknown
And I watched him do it for like four days straight. And I finally asked him, I said, Why are you doing that? And I think I knew by the time of the I was like, I'm pretty sure I know why he's doing it. And he said, I'm doing it because of this. And I was like, Yep, that's what I thought.

01:11:52:05 - 01:12:15:03
Unknown
But when I first saw it, I was like, What the heck is he doing? It makes no sense to me. But then after after watching, like probably, I don't know, he probably had like seven dogs and we ran like, you know, programed to do two steps a day for four days. I finally figured it out. All right. But I should have just asked earlier, Mike, can I help you?

01:12:15:06 - 01:12:31:23
Unknown
If I would help me. But anyway, that's a point. Well, Clark, appreciate you. You know, let me hang out for the weekend and we're going to get a lot of other stuff done this weekend. And, you know, good luck tomorrow at your master test. And you know, you haven't lost anybody yet, right? Not yet. So for 100%, that's what we're striving for always.

01:12:32:00 - 01:12:35:01
Unknown
Yeah. All right. Thanks, man. I enjoyed it.