Gundog Nation
A show to bring together gundog enthusiasts, trainers, and handlers with discussion focused on all breeds and styles of gundogs.
Gundog Nation
Gundog Nation #009: Smith Kennels, Ronnie and Susanna Smith
In this conversation, Ken Witt speaks with Ronnie and Susanna Smith of Smith Kennels about their approach to training hunting dogs, particularly Brittanys and Pointers. They discuss the evolution of dog training, the importance of mindset and behavior, and the significance of breeding practices. The Smith's emphasize the need for a good match between dogs and their owners, the role of the female in breeding, and the tools they use, such as the Wonder Lead. They also share insights on their training seminars and the importance of socializing puppies.
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Hello and welcome to Gun Dog Nation. This is Kenneth Witt and I'm coming to you from Texas. I want you to know that Gun Dog Nation is more than just a podcast. It's a movement to unite those who want to watch a well-trained dog do what it's bred to do. Also, we are set out to try to encourage youth, to get encouraged in the sport of gun dogs, whether it's hunting, competition, trials, hunt tests, all the above. This is a community of people that are united to preserve our heritage of gundog ownership and also to be better gundog owners. So if you'll stay tuned to all of our episodes, we're going to have people on here to educate you about training, about nutrition, health. Anything can make you a better gundog owner. It's my pleasure to welcome our listeners and please join our community.
Speaker 1:I'm very proud to have Mr and Mrs Smith on. I have followed their methods their family for probably since 2014. They're up in Oklahoma. I do plan on attending one of their training seminars they offer. I'll let them talk more about that, but you know Ronnie's uncle Delmer Smith's book to me was part of the Bible when I first got started reading about dog training. It was referred to me by so many people. So first thing I did was grab that book, read it several times, and then I purchased videos, you know over the years, and everything else so from the family, and I always got you and Ricky mixed up. Your first cousin, my dad's name's Ronnie, so that'll help me straighten it out. But anyway, I'll stop talking. Let you all introduce yourselves, tell us what you do, tell us about Smith Kennels, and just take the floor.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm Ronnie Smith and my wife Susanna and I. We live north of Pawhuska, oklahoma. We just built a new facility about five years ago and this is where we make bird dogs, dogs that are going to be hunting dogs, dogs that are going to be field trial dogs, dogs that are house dogs that hunt on occasion all of that.
Speaker 1:And Ron and Suzanne. What does it take to make a hunting dog? I mean, it's not easy, is it?
Speaker 2:Well, no, it's not, you know. So you need a dog, obviously, that has a desire for game, right, because it's that desire for game that the dog allows you to put mannerisms to his performance in the field. But I tell you, you know, as we do this, the longer that we do this, you know, dogs change. That you get in for and we adapt with that as well. What's really become, I think, very apparent to Suzanne and I now is the mindset of the dog. When I first started training, a dog was expected to point back and retrieve period, just period. They got to do it, and, and, and and. Now we've got dogs that are, you know, members of the family, living in our homes, going on vacations with people, just a real, integral part of a life, and so it's a different dog that we're training now.
Speaker 1:And, Ronnie, has that changed your breeding and also changed the bond with the dog that you see in the field? Yeah, you want to talk on that.
Speaker 2:Suze.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and to tie it all in too. To go back to your original question what does it take to make a bird dog? And to go back to your original question what does it take to make a bird dog? That's one of the things that keeps Ronnie and I so invested and so interested in what we do, because it's not a set recipe. You can't say, ok, I'm going to go buy this dog out of these parents, this dam and this sire, and at a year of age I'm going to have a bird dog made.
Speaker 3:Every dog is different. You can't guarantee what genetics you're going to get. You're going to hedge your bets and try to get the best genetics that you can, but there's no guarantee. And then each animal develops differently, so they need different opportunities at different times in their lives. So there's not just okay, you know this has to be done now, and then in one month we'll do this. It's according to the animal and then it's a journey that's never over. You know they're not like a computer, where you set them, you program them and it's done for life. You're constantly setting them in opportunistic moments and trying to help them to be better.
Speaker 3:So I think that's why Ronnie and I love what we do because it is a journey with these dogs and it does change. It does evolve. So, to go back to how our breeding changes, you know our focus in training and in breeding is to build a confident, resilient, bird-driven animal. That's what we're really looking for. We're looking for a dog that can travel the country and hunt any species of birds in any environment, maybe with one owner the entire time, or maybe in a situation where there's lots of other dogs, other people encountering new situations continually. So we want a dog that is very resilient and able to adapt quickly, because a lot of the dogs that we train, you know they live in the house. Like Ronnie was talking about, they travel when they can. Most people have to travel when they go hunt. So there's a lot of challenges put forward in front of these dogs and we're trying to build, breed that dog that can be successful in any environment, which is, it's, a fun challenge.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. So you know, like Ronnie, I'm probably a little bit older than y'all. I'm 56. I know I'm older than you. You're older than me.
Speaker 1:You're older than me. Well, good, I got that one right. Or well, I got that right on the good side. You know, when we grew up and I grew up in rural southeast Kentucky, appalachian, and you know the hunting dogs kept outside you know we didn't have them in the house. And now that's not, that's almost never the case. And now that's not, that's almost never the case, except for maybe, like pro trainers that can't do that, and even some pro trainers will put dogs inside. So obviously that's had to take a different turn for breeding and I don't want to get too related and I'm trying to stay on this topic, but British gundogs are kind of British labs, seem to be more. They were bred that way as a house slash hunting dog, whereas American labs are bred like we like we just talked about, they were a hunting dog only Now that's starting to change with everybody. But so that's obviously, I guess, had to change your breeding. So what would you look for to develop a dog like that and characteristics?
Speaker 2:Well, I, you know, composure, a dog that can compose. I think that's it in a nutshell. I mean we could say other things, but if we were to say one thing, it's that dog that can mitigate the stresses of life or the stresses that they encounter. That composed mindset, stresses of life or the stresses that they encounter, that composed mindset. What we see are dogs that come in, um, that can can think their way through a situation, can stop, analyze it and adapt. That's the one percenters. You know those are the dogs, whether they're the best bird dog or not, um, their mind, uh, makes them that one percenter. That that's the dog that you can put in a truck and travel to Montana and when you get there he still eats, right, he's not so off balance that he's off his groceries. You know, he's that dog that can go to that country and learn it real quick and adapt. So it's that dog that has that ability to mitigate the stressors.
Speaker 1:So I'm sure that the both of you and I'm going to get into the both of you just a second and your roles in the training. Like Ms Smith, I don't know if you take a certain stage of the dog or both of you do the whole hog, you know, but I would assume you guys are training and generalizing in so many different scenarios to prepare for that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. What do you do Even today? So we've got a new class in and we're working on some agility obstacles, just trying to teach some of these dogs that are again, that are off balance, that are coming here and and to move to a cue, to to face some fears, to learn how to learn, you know, learn how to mitigate those things that that concern them, because we are training to the mind, right, that's that's all we're training to is to the mind. All that physical stuff that'll come, but if you train to the dog's mind and really pay attention to his behavior and his reactions to stimuli, you'll have a better animal in the end. So that's our primary focus.
Speaker 3:And that's actually what we were talking to our apprentices earlier this morning about. You know what we're looking at at this, what we're looking for at this stage of training. And I told one of them that at this stage of the early stage of training, the function doesn't matter. If you get a great recall, that's not as important. If you're working on recall, that's not as important as what that dog's mindset was at that moment. You're trying to get that mindset right and then the function will come. If you get the mindset right first, rattle out of the box, then training is easy, then it kind of has a flow to it. And we're, when we're looking at these dogs in our training classes, we're looking at, like Ronnie said, composure. That's always first thing. We want dogs that are able to be aware of the surroundings around them and not just react to actually think through everything.
Speaker 3:And then confidence, like Ronnie talked about. They have to be confident in order to be receptive to training. So we're trying to build that as we go. And then we're starting to try to build a little bit of compliance into the picture. We want them to start listening to cues and willingly following and join up with us. So, particularly in the early stages of training, it is all about the mindset.
Speaker 2:You know, susanna said something. Excuse me, susanna said something this morning that I'd never heard or said. That really resonated with me. She was talking to one of the apprentices and helping him work his dog and she said if I get this right, correct me if I don't. She said if you're really paying attention to the dog he was working on quartering drills right on a 20-foot rope If you're really paying attention to the dogs, the dog then your check courting can can be a mess because you're playing to the dog. Then she said, if you're not paying attention to the dog, your check courting has to be perfect, and that that really resonated with me that makes a lot
Speaker 1:of sense you know gosh well, first of all, I enjoy this so much because I'm a student, I'm learning from y'all, I'm actually taking notes, and I'll listen to this several times from both of you, but you know I've caught myself being busy and looking at my phone checking email while I'm trying to train worst thingst thing you could ever do.
Speaker 1:Just like you just said. I miss everything my dog just did, and then when I catch back up, I don't realize why he's doing what he's doing at the time, and so that makes so much sense to me. What Now you all do Brittany's and pointers.
Speaker 2:We do. We raise Brittany's and pointers.
Speaker 3:We train all pointing breeds but as far as historically, we just breed those two dogs, two breeds.
Speaker 1:Okay, you know I was so excited getting you on here because you know I want to diversify the breeds that I talk about on this podcast. You know I'm a retriever guy mostly and a protection dog guy mostly. I do both very actively. But you know, and two things One, it seems like there's just so many retriever owner hunters that it overwhelms me. Now that I get into this and I'm on social media, I don't see, at least I'm not seeing it yet. Maybe I will, maybe through this podcast, y'all it'll open up some doors, but I don't see the large numbers in Brittany's and Pointer's like I do labs. Is that accurate?
Speaker 2:You know, I think that probably is accurate. You know, I think there's and I don't know. This is just my observation. I think there are some reasons for it. One what I've noticed with the retriever trainers is you know, there's a lot of drills and they're very obvious. I mean you can look at them on paper, you can read about how to do it and I think that just the average guy following a lot of those drills, that has a dog that is genetically predisposed to be a retriever in the first place, he retrieves right and you follow those drills and get some obedience work and I think a lot of just the average guy can be very successful training his own ladder board right.
Speaker 1:Okay, yes, yes, and I'm one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, and I think too, you know, typically you have. You know there are guys that travel for waterfowl. You know, going to Canada but I think it's the areas that you go to tend to be closer to home is what we see. I think the abundance and the availability of waterfowl across the country is probably more accessible than what we're doing. You know that natural wild bird population has rippled from the East Coast to about where we are and from here West is kind of where the wild birds are now. So if you live east of Mississippi you're going to have to travel. I mean, you go north, you're going to get into grouse, but if you want to get into sharpies and the huns and quail and prairie chickens and pheasant and all that, you've got to travel.
Speaker 1:That makes so much sense that you said that. I just kept wondering, even though it's today, like on my gundog Instagram. I mean, I've got thousands of referrals to retriever people. I was like man, I want to find some Brittany people. You know, really the only social media friends I have in this English pointer, I've got some cockers, but are you guys? And I'm just like you know why is that? So I'm so glad that that sums it up for me.
Speaker 1:I've got my labs two labs up right now and this is my podcast number one. Y'all get bored. You should really listen to it. It's Scott Neenabry. He's been guiding for 30 some years. He does 105 consecutive days while he does a Paul Nelson farm and then he goes and does his own opening day and I learned so much from him.
Speaker 1:As you think about it, just like y'all, there's no substitute for people like you two and people like him who are working dogs 105 days. Well, y'all work more than that probably, but he's running dogs 105 days a year. To me, there's no one. There's no substitute for that. He sends so many retrievals, so many different dogs. They substitute for that. He sends so many retrievals, so many different dogs. They rotate dogs in and out. He's got my dogs in the rotation of his own dogs. And you know and I actually I think I had Martin Ramsey in here, we were talking about that too People like you, I could study and read and work every day, but I'll never get the exposure of what you're all doing with so many different dogs, different breeds.
Speaker 1:You're working, but I wish I did. I wish I had that knowledge. So I guess, after I digress there, what do you love about Brittany's and Pornhub? You obviously train all Pornhub dogs, but that's what you keep at the house. Why those two? What do you love about them? I mean honestly, ronnie, you've been in the Brittany business since probably before you were born. I guess you inherited the Brittany business.
Speaker 3:Well, there's a lot to that. You know the Brittany's that we have now. They go back to the same bloodlines of the first Brittany's that Delmer had in his kennel and Ronnie and I got to a point where we weren't going to breed any more dogs. We just wanted to focus on training and guiding at the time and we weren't going to breed. And then we realized who in their right mind walks away from a heritage like that Exactly?
Speaker 1:I love it you can't give that up, so we know I'm a history buff and just that's why I was so excited to have you. You really was one of the first on my list, but I knew you were crazy busy. So, Susanna, what's it like to marry into a hunt dog training family? What was your previous life?
Speaker 3:So I grew up on a large ranch in West Texas, just a couple hours from where you are. Really when at Just north of the Big Bend National Park, down by Marathon.
Speaker 1:Oh, I was just at the Gage Hotel. I was at the Gage Hotel, yep, yep.
Speaker 3:We're good friends with the man that owns Gage Hotel, so I lived 35 miles south of there growing up and we were very remote and my father was gone a lot. So, honestly, it was my sisters and my mother that did a lot of the work with the cattle. And so here you've got women running cattle and very limited number of people you know one to two people and there's no resources, so you have to learn how to work with an animal.
Speaker 3:We were dealing with very large Brahman cattle, so you really have to learn how to work with them and watch the mindset and set yourself up for success so that you don't end up going to the hospital 70 miles away.
Speaker 1:But that was the beginning of me studying animals met Ronnie.
Speaker 3:it was a pretty easy transition for me to go from a focus on horses and cattle to a focus on dogs, because so much of the behavior is exactly the same. So it was a pretty easy transition.
Speaker 2:What tell? You've got to share what the name of the the joke name of the cattle company was.
Speaker 3:This is public.
Speaker 2:I love it. No, I love it, okay you okay, you want to get personal.
Speaker 3:So yeah, we finally referred to our our cattle operation as WACO women and children cattle company.
Speaker 1:I do love that. So that's y'all. Had me some tough ladies I'd hate to mess with you tougher in setting one or two out there you talk about. You know Midland. Here it's very popular because of the oil, but you get an hour out of Midland in any direction and there's nothing.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's a lot prettier down there. That was done on Labor Day weekend. Okay, love that area. I love Big Bend. I've been four or five times, but that's crazy. I didn't know you from there. How long have you been a trainer, because you're a pro trainer. Well, you're a pro trainer. How long have you been doing that? Is it for dogs?
Speaker 3:no for dogs. I guess um 2006 is when I moved to oklahoma, started training full-time. After we got married, um and I lived in texas for a little while and then moved up here and just went to train the full time.
Speaker 1:So, the two of you, what have you seen in all your years? And you just mentioned at least 18. What have you?
Speaker 2:seen in the evolution of the breed of Britneys and Pointers?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's easier to focus on one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's easier to focus on one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, there's again it's a different dog that we're training in the, in the ski boat, or have their dog on the paddleboard or or hiking in the mountains and send pictures, you know, up on top of a 14 or you know, and just absolutely integrated into their life and then go do an astro trial and and and and do very well, or go bird hunting, just um, it's, it's amazing, um, how much a part of our lives the bird dogs have become in, in, and that's positive and negative, all right.
Speaker 2:The positive part is is that you can build a relationship with that dog that we never were able to build 40 years ago when, like you said, they were, they were tool, they were in a kennel and that was that. So you can build that kind of relationship. The negative part of it is is if you quit paying attention to the dog, then the lines become blurred right and the dog doesn't doesn't respond any better to you than if you had left even kennel. So it's, you know, nobody wants to hear it, but it's just like raising children and that's the honest truth. You know.
Speaker 1:You say that you set parameters and you be consistent and fair with it, and and that's all there is to it yeah, you know, and I'm always trying to make my dog work for me out of desire and respect and not out of fear, right?
Speaker 2:but you ain't that's right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know you said something that hit me right. Then I do. Right now I'm training two dogmans, a young one and an adult, an older pup, and and if you don't watch their body language and you're doing bite work, you know it could get you hurt. You know you've got to know your dog. You've got to know where their ears are, certain direction or their tail is or their stance, and, uh, you like my dogman saturday.
Speaker 1:Uh, I took, he bit a bite sleeve off the decoy and I got the sleeve away from him. He's getting ready to take around behind my back and throw it back to the decoy guy so we could start again. My dog, who's very safe, that's why I got out of the mouth. He turned around and thought I was playing. He grabbed my arm without a sleeve on it. I was throwing the sleeve back. He wasn't trying to hurt me, he didn't break skin. He could have hurt me bad. Now I know to watch him If he thinks I'm doing something fun. You know he's going to. You know I can get some stitches. But but yeah, you got to watch that dog all the time and know how they're going. You know, know what that language means, I guess, and it's hard to do that unless you just fool with it.
Speaker 2:Well, that's right, you know it's, it's it it. If you can learn to read the animal, it takes all of the guesswork out of it. Right, then you don't have to wonder if or if I should do this or when I should. You just if you read the animal. It's like turning the pages on a book. I mean, the story just is right there. You know the story just is right there. You know the story and you know, talking about Susanna's background, what we have seen with the owners and apprentices that have come in here, it seems to us that those folks that grew up in maybe a rural environment they had livestock right. If you're moving that livestock, there's a speed with which you go, there's an angle that had livestock right. If you're moving that livestock, there's a speed with which you go, there's an angle that you take. It all matters If you're trying to take that, that livestock, into a pen and not stress them or have it blow up in your face, and those folks really learn how to read animal behavior.
Speaker 1:Yes, you're right. You know I've got a little catalog experience with Border Collies and I got trained by a really good guy and dabbled in it. But yeah, you're so right, it's a and boy. I learned about how you can mess up moving cattle quickly and I'm not. I don't. I have a ranch, but I'm not a cowboy. I don't have those skills. I do it from an ATV, but yeah it's a.
Speaker 1:So you all, you all sell a tool on your site that I'm a huge believer in, so I'm dying to talk about it and it looks like something really simple. Let's tell the folks about the Wonder Lead how to use it, where to find it if they want to buy one, because I've got four or five laid out with my dog training bag at all times. A dog training bag at all times, yeah.
Speaker 2:So you know, that's a that's, that's something that that my uncle Delmer and my cousins Tom and Rick came up with. They were, they were ropers growing up and it started with a pig and string. Right it was laying around and somebody I don't remember who it was, but somebody picked it up and used it as a lead and realized that things were different. I mean, you know, a choke chain or a pinch collar, it's all the same concept, but for whatever reason, that contiguous piece of rope, it makes your timing better, right. So dogs started to associate. So what we did with it is we went and had our own lay done. So that's a special lay that we found that, or stiffness, if you will, called the lay that we found that worked best with those dogs. So we have those custom-made for us, those Wonder Leads, and you can always keep them with you and, like I said, we have found that again.
Speaker 2:Just your timing, it just makes your timing right. Dogs associate quicker and better and you can get a dog to heal in. Shoot three minutes Now. You can't go off lead after that. Shoot three minutes Now, you can't go off lead after that. But I mean you can teach the concept in a very, very short period of time.
Speaker 1:And you know, maybe it's just me and you know, protection dog obedience is important obviously and I'm getting into hunt tests and things and obedience is obviously important there too, but really important in protection sports. But to me, healing is one of the hardest things to do correctly. To teach healing, I mean to me, for me as a trainer. I don't know what it is, but that's my nemesis. And the person I mentioned to you earlier, carly Farron of Nones Northwoods Training Kennel, is the one who suggested I use that and it was. So I sold and it works. It's not. It's not a gimmick, right, it works and I'm living proof.
Speaker 1:Um, now, we've not got too far into this yet, but y'all stop me if you ever got to go, because I'll talk your heads off. Um, I'm getting ready to. I won't get on the schedule. I'm not gonna be able to this year because the dogs that would come to your advanced seminar, which is the next one I think you got offered for me in time those dogs are in North or in South Dakota. So let's talk about your seminars. I know you have three levels. What I love about your advertising on your seminars is you're honest in it. You let people know, hey, when you come to our seminars your dog's not going to leave completely advanced or completely you know intermediate but we're providing you the tools. Y'all tell us about that.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, you know again, the dog is our priority and their mindset and the healthy development of that animal is our priority.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, absolutely, you cannot train a dog in two days. You know, no matter how good an instruction you have, it takes time and and you got to just start developing behavior and start developing a mindset. So each, each seminar that we have so we've got the foundation intermediate in advance each seminar that we have represents a month of training. So that's what we try to show people, what we do. So for the foundation, we show people what we do in the first month of a dog's training with us and it's I mean, it is packed full of information, trying to give everybody the tools that they need and the understanding of their dog that they need to be successful and the understanding of their dog that they need to be successful. And then the intermediate that goes into the studying process, which is the second month, and the advanced is the final month where you're transitioning to game birds. So, yeah, there's a lot of information packed in a really short amount of time in those seminars, but they're worth it.
Speaker 1:And it's just tough to take home and apply daily.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so you get a good start training your dog and then you take it home and apply it and you know if you get in a bind. You can holler at one of us and say, okay, here's where I'm at in my training, what do I do now? And we can walk you through it because we know the process of where you're at.
Speaker 1:Okay, you know, just for the listeners. I've talked to people. Your all seminars highly recommended. Everybody talks about how nice you two are and I've heard nothing but good feedback.
Speaker 2:And that's.
Speaker 1:That's a lot you know, and, like I said, I was going to attend some back and I got out of the bird dog business a little while when I first bought my ranch down here, because that's high fence hunting and I was training full with tracking dogs that's what I needed at the time and antler dogs, because I had millions of antlers and you know they're getting to be kind of somewhat valuable. So I've gotten away from it and and but I was going to go to one year old seminars back then, which would have been around 2018 19. So, um, you offer them how many times a year usually? What's your target?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we have seminars that will begin the first weekend of April and we'll finish up like the third weekend of October. I believe that's right. So here at our facility we'll have a foundation in May, we'll have an intermediate in September, and we'll have an intermediate in September and we'll have an advanced in October, so like running when you well, I'm sorry so when you go off site because you all host them also in other locations, in other states, do you all still put those on?
Speaker 2:your service. We do that. We have people that will host those seminars, will We'll do them in different states.
Speaker 1:So yes, Okay, and then each year do you mix up the states, or do you usually do it in the same location?
Speaker 2:Yeah, typically the same location. We'll have some people that will inquire about hosting a seminar and if it works logistically, if it's not too close to seminars, then we'll have it. But yeah, we're on the East Coast in May and we try to do all the Southern stuff as early as we can, so we're not out there in heat.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I train Retriever Club. Yeah, yeah, it's a I've trained retriever club and it's kind of south texas and it's yeah, it's still hot. Um, so, and then let's get into that, and I've actually talked to you about this myself. But how many? I'm sure that you guys have a waiting list for pups and started or trained dogs, that you don't have those available every day, like someone can't just get on your website and I'm going to get by a puppy. Today I'm driving to Oklahoma. I'm going to take home and start a dog from Ronnie and Susanna Smith. Tell Pete the listeners how that would work if they're interested in buying a pup for you guys, and I suggest that to to the listeners.
Speaker 3:So we don't breed a lot. For us, and how we raise a puppy, it takes a lot of effort and a lot of time. So if we breed, what do you think? Three litters, four litters a year, that's a lot for us. And typically what we do is we don't even announce those pups until they're on the ground and we, instead of taking a waiting list, you know, two years out, where Joe is signed up for the next litter and it happens to be this litter and this is a really hard charging set of parents and likely to have a really really big range and tough kind of pup, where Joe needs a short range preserved dog and he's not. It's not the type of dog that he's looking for.
Speaker 3:We don't want to get in those kind of scenarios. We want to be able to match the dog with the right home so that the owner's happy it fits for the dog. So when we get a litter of puppies on the ground, we'll announce them and we'll start trying to talk to people and pick what we think are going to be good places, you know, good fit for the owner and a good fit for the dog. And even when it comes to puppies going home, you know we study those puppies and really watch them and try to help guide the people. Okay, this puppy is probably going to be a good fit for you versus other puppy you know for X, y and Z reasons may not be as good a fit because we never want to put you know, big running, hard to manage dog in an environment where somebody is not equipped to deal with that, because then nobody's happy. So we really try to match not just the litter but the individual puppies with the people.
Speaker 1:Susanna, what you said is so important, especially once you listen to this podcast. It's a new buyer. Maybe they want to get into it, they do some research and they're ready to go buy. You know a lot of people, especially when you're buying your first dog. It's impulse, what's pretty, what sells, what's available. But what you said is so crucial because what people don't realize unless they've been dog people like y'all and me is that it's a marriage.
Speaker 1:You're buying a pup that's going to maybe live 13, 14 years with you and so it's so important to go to a conscientious breeder. You guys are obviously not a puppy miller. You'd be running Brittany's every week out there puppies but you don't, which speaks a lot about you. And two, that you actually care where that pup goes and it matches the owner as best as possible. I love that and you know, as I've gotten older and older and I try so hard to find that match when I'm looking for a pup and having breeders like, I know what I want but if the breeder can't pick it out, it's not worth a dime. They're just giving me a pup to make some money. So I think that speaks a lot of your all's integrity as breeders and I appreciate that and I think that's very good information for the listener. And so when you say three or four litters a year and I'm not holding you to numbers is that Brittany's end pointers?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah so that's very little for two different Britons.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we spend a lot of time with our puppies. We start doing the super puppy program with them, you know, day three to 16, we do that with them. Um, we're, we're in there daily, socializing them, trying to think of new and interesting things to expose them to, to help them grow and mature. Um, and then when they're, you know, six to eight week old, we're taking them out in our field and doing lots of puppy walks with them and exposing them to birds and and the environment that we expect them to be hunting in later on. So we're really trying to give these puppies as much opportunity as possible. You know, however they develop is how they develop. If we can just present them with these opportunities, then you know we've done our job to equipment, equip them for the world.
Speaker 1:And just for the listeners, what you just said and y'all correct me if I say something that's wrong because you're all the pros but that builds confidence in the puppy. It builds generalization that they're used to different scenarios, they don't freak out when they see something different and see different kinds of cover, and I think that's kind of my specialty. I'm not definitely an expert trainer, but I think what I do best is puppy development and I think that's kind of my specialty. I'm not definitely an expert trainer, but I think what I do best is puppy development and I work real hard at that. And just what you said, I do those things I try to get. I've got like a little tiny puppy obstacle course. You know to build confidence and maybe go through a little tube or whatever that is. You know to create a kind of a hunt scenario.
Speaker 1:And you know I'll never forget I had I was actually flying a dog. I was gonna fly to wisconsin with a lab. It worked with that dog like crazy, had it trained to do all kinds of things, probably four, six months old. Get the airport. I'm walking in the airport with me on leash and, uh it, it saw stairs just locked up. Well, I live in Midland. It's flat. There ain't stairs really anywhere, not even at the park, you know. And then you know I was like well, here I am carrying this you know 40-pound dog with my luggage upstairs in the airport because it saw an elevator again locked up, and so now I'll go up to Hampton Inn and walk my dogs in the elevator and upstairs just to get them used to every scenario. So you know, there's not enough things you can expose them to. In my opinion, of course you've got to wait until their amusations are kicked in and stuff and be smart about it.
Speaker 3:But you're right, it's amazing that intentional exposure. That intentional exposure, you have to think about the things that that you can present them with, to to build that adaptability. And for us, you know we're always challenged by that because we don't live in the city, we don't have a lot of those urban opportunities.
Speaker 1:We're constantly trying to create new stimuli, new experiences for the puppies, even though we live in a very quiet rural environment. Yeah, you know well you probably know where my ranch is that area, because I'm between Ilderate and Menorah, you know I'm 20 miles from a store you know, with gas, and I'm probably closer than most, and I know that's nothing compared to where you were at, where you were probably 200 miles from, but yeah, but it was a, it's a haul.
Speaker 1:Well, fort Stockton, probably closest big time with stores. Yeah so, but yeah, so, you know, you just then think about it. That stuff applies to hunting scenarios. But yeah, do you all sell many finished dogs? I know it's probably so hard and such a time-consuming thing.
Speaker 3:We sell a couple a year maybe. So we try to keep one to two puppies out of each litter that we sell because we want to develop those dogs and see how that breeding um actually went. You know, you don't really know what a dog is produced until those offspring are one to two years old even, and so we try to. We try to keep some puppies back and we develop them and we train them um, and then rami and I have been in the the really neat position here in the last few years in particular. We're selling some great dogs. They're just not the dogs that are going to fit in our program. So again, we find the perfect home for them and it's been a really good program.
Speaker 2:So we'll move one to two dogs a year, yeah yeah, yeah, not a lot, it's in and again they're, they're great dogs, but uh, you know, for one reason or another we're, we're trying to keep that the, those dogs that are going to fit our program the best and trying to figure out our genetics.
Speaker 3:You know what lines we want breed. If we have too many of a certain line, then we're going to try to cut those numbers down, because I get accused almost on a daily basis.
Speaker 2:You are.
Speaker 3:Of being a dog collector. We try to keep our numbers down.
Speaker 1:You know that breeding is such a challenging thing. I mean you could have a world NFC field champion male that just doesn't throw himself. That's right. That's right. And you know everybody's got their own little preferences. I'm a strong believer in the female.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes.
Speaker 1:I actually think it's more important. And I don't proclaim to be an expert, it's just my hillbilly logic from fooling dogs my whole life. But I really look at the female too. The female does the initial imprinting.
Speaker 3:She has a lot of molding that she does just in those first six, eight weeks. So genetically I don't know what the contribution is. We both have our theories, but um, yeah, absolutely, the dam is critical and suzanne.
Speaker 1:Do you think that helps that? That's more important for the, for that female, in developing the behavior, the social skills, the kind of confidence in the puppy you're? You see that way more than I'm ever going to see, that absolutely do you feel that?
Speaker 3:what do you feel she contributes in that I'm ever going to?
Speaker 1:see that Absolutely. What do you feel she contributes in raising that puppy to its outcome?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so, like Ronnie said earlier, you know, raising and training dogs is like raising and training children. They are looking at the adults as their role model and learning how to navigate the world. You know, if you've got a female that is scared of everything, she teaches her puppies very quickly to be scared. Um. And if you've got a calm dam, she she reacts calmly when something unexpected happens and the puppies pick up on that and they're able to deal with it. So they tend to grow up to be a more composed, confident animal, which again, is the the recipe for success in training and hunting.
Speaker 1:See, I firmly believe that way, 100% what you just said. Now you all said that you both have a little different philosophies in what each side brings to the table in genetics. Tell me about that. I'm curious to know what your differences are, what your opinions are, because it's important to me what your differences are, what your opinions are, because it's important to me.
Speaker 3:Well, I think probably what fascinates both of us is seeing repeat breedings and we've done it with some of our Britneys, where we had one pairing the first litter like wow, there's no reason to ever breed these dogs to any other dog, because this is the magic pair. And then watching those dogs I don't know how many times I'm thinking about the. The two britneys um bred maybe four times during their life, three or four, three, I think and, and each litter was pretty consistent, pretty uniform, but different than the prior litter.
Speaker 3:And and we see that quite a bit in that, you know, maybe you get a dog in for training like wow, this bloodline, this is it. And so you go back to a repeat breeding of that dog's parents in the offspring that you get, that second litter is not the same animal that that first one was. So you know, there's a lot of unknowns there, I guess.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I don't. I'll never understand all that, but that's crazy. So you're seeing litters of a repeat breeding that's throwing different stuff.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely, you know, and we were talking about the male and the female, and, and my observation has been, you know, if, like the Kentucky Derby winner or the Preakness winner, we're always breeding to the winner of that year, you know the national champion dog, we breed to him, and then we breed next year, we breed to next year's dog, and so that's why, you know, I think, female, there are not many males that can replicate themselves. We've had two, we've had the privilege of having two, and, boy, they threw that good stuff that you were looking for, and they also threw that stuff you didn't like.
Speaker 1:Well, ronnie, do you think it's important this is just a question for my own self to find a female off that derby winner, like a female puppy off the male winner to use in your genetics? Is that a?
Speaker 2:strategy. Yeah, I think that's a great strategy, absolutely.
Speaker 1:More so than the male pup off that derby.
Speaker 2:Yes, you know, you've got to be careful what you say. Yeah, yeah, but I tell you, I'm just a firm believer, and it could be RU till the sun sets, you know, and I'll take all of this, I'll speak for myself. I'm a firm believer that the majority of the time, the female is absolutely what you need to be paying attention to.
Speaker 3:So I'll sum it up and I'll put words in your mouth, but these are your words. Ronnie's belief on breeding is that you always breed a good male to a good female, and then those are the best odds. Hey, I'm fully subscribed to a good female and then those are the best odds.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I've. Hey, I'm fully subscribed to that theory too, and you know I'm training two pups right now. They're about 14, 15 weeks. I imported a male from Ireland. He's a 2023 Irish IGL champion male puppy Cause we're no females available. You know that's where I was going. And then I've got a female pup same age imported the same month, in July. You had to import everything because August 1st the CDC changed the rules and you can't get a puppy now imported to the States under six months, so we beat the deadline. So my female is the 2022 English IGL champion's daughter.
Speaker 1:That dog's name is Boho. Now she, the female off the champion, he's got hunt drive. I mean she, I can put a piece of I use beef liver, dry beef liver treats to train. She hunt a piece of that up in a hundred yard field and find it. But her trainability is rough and I don't know if it's because she's so high driven or she's so high food drive. I can't get her to come. So I'm really working with it, but anyway. So, conversely, the male off the Irish champion of this past year, man, I'm liking this dog. I mean, he just gets it and he just gets it. He's the only lab pup I've ever owned that took a run and go off a boat dock in a lake. When I just got him he was 12 weeks old and jumped in just on his own. I mean just jumped in and swam like he'd never and I called the guy, or I messaged the guy an hour and I said, hey, do you have this dog in water?
Speaker 2:He's like no, because you know they're not waterfowl people.
Speaker 1:They're not waterfowl people. Even their hunt test is very little water. You know challenges there. But so I'm just like man. Maybe my theory is wrong. You know I've always looked for that female. But you know the jury's not out yet, right, I'm not finished. And these pups they're young, they're to change. But right now, if I were to take a bet, I think this the male off the champion's gonna try better female. I normally would have never thought that, but we'll see what happens. Yeah, maybe I'll have that up for one of your seminars.
Speaker 2:yeah, I think, I think there are some great, great male dogs. I don't know that, that that male, female matters at all on that as far as is a great animal. But on the replication, like Sue said, that female has a lot more input, it seems, than the male dog.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm really just so curious to see how these dogs turn out. I've been real lucky. I've owned some good stuff. I've had a few dogs I got rid of that. I've trained. That's had quirks I just don't like and it's usually not to do with hunting, it's uh just. For example, I've had a dog that uh, one of the best dogs, natural ability, or was that? I imported pup, but usually you could take it out. I was teaching the shed hunting and retrieving and I could run it and that's why I was in Kentucky running mountains for an hour, two hours, hardcore. Take it back, put it in a kennel, which is an outdoor concrete kennel. Use a bathroom.
Speaker 1:Then it lay in it. I could not break it. There was no breaking it, no fixing it and I finally sold it to a really good hunter. I was like man, here's what it's it to a really good, you know hunter. I was like man, here's what it's gonna do. If you fix that, good luck. But to me it's just like humans. You know I've got four kids. You know some are really really neat and clean, so not so much.
Speaker 2:And you know they're bred the same anyway, but yeah, yeah um so I don't know, but you know, you know how it is you've got.
Speaker 1:I'm sure you all have quirks or something you don't like and you're not going to keep that dog and there's nothing sound fundamentally wrong with it. It might be vocal, I don't know. Whatever that might be, but I don't know. So what else? So tell people where? Where do we find Ronnie and Susanna Smith online If we want to attend your seminars? Where do we go?
Speaker 3:So our website's a great place to start smithkennelscom. We've got a lot of information up there about our training philosophy and the classes that we hold, and then the seminars as well, so there's wealth of information there. We're also on Facebook and Instagram and we try to keep people updated on upcoming events.
Speaker 1:I love your YouTube video on there. I watched that this morning. Oh great, I thought I've never seen this video you also. That's why I want to talk to you about it before I get off. But tell me about the book y'all You'll have a book and y'all that's your book, right? That's why I want to talk to you about running before I get off. Tell me about the book y'all that you'll have a book and y'all that's your book, right, that's right. Okay, yes, well, first give us the title. I mean, I know it, but tell the listeners the title and tell us what went into that book and what a reader and a trainer would expect to gain.
Speaker 2:Suzanne is the most qualified person to talk about the book. I just did some proofreading. She, she, really, that's, that's her baby. She did it.
Speaker 3:No, we, we worked on it together. Um and read, read Bryant. Um, he's an amazing writer, couldn't have done it without him. Um, as far as the book, uh, training with Ronnie Smith Kennels is what the title is, and you know, I think that book is one of those projects you look at, and, man, I wish I could go back and redo that, because there's so much more information that we want to put into it.
Speaker 3:But, you'd have an encyclopedia would work if you put what you get. Yeah, by the time we got to the end of the book writing it, you know we were trying to cut down on our words and just make it as concise as possible, because there's just so much information we wanted to put in there. So I think if we were to do that again, we would break it down into four books.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you have to do volume. Yeah, just do volume. One, three, four. There you go. But you're right, I would imagine that has to be hard to do. I've never set out to do something like that. I've thought about books. I was an attorney in Kentucky, a prosecutor, and I always wanted to write about. I was a prosecutor in a small town court, you know, and the stories I've got were just hilarious. I've always wanted to write about it but I won't even know where to begin. You know what I mean. So I can't imagine trying to tell people how to fully train a pup, what all the things to look for.
Speaker 3:It'd have to be too much to put into it, hopefully the book gives everybody a good start with, with you know the average dog what to expect. Each individual is going to be different. You can't put all that information into a book, but hopefully that book can walk people from the day they bring their puppy home all the way through training and even transitioning to hunting wild birds. That was our goal in. What we put in that book was just give them the information they need to be successful with the average dog.
Speaker 1:Okay, how long has it been out?
Speaker 3:It was published in 2019.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you probably will, one of these days, do it. When we get the time. Yeah, I'm sure. So you know one of the questions I was going to ask you all, but it about answered itself you all probably don't go and do trials and hunt tests, do you?
Speaker 2:I mean, do you, do you have time to do that? We know it's a child. We, we really condensed um, what we did, you know, we, we, uh, we used to. Well, we lived in, you know, for a while we lived in a, in a horse trailer, for five months of the year, you know. We'd go to, and then we upgraded when we had children and bought a 42 foot rv, you know, and lived in it. But we'd go to montana for 30 days and we'd take a crew of dogs and get on wild birds and we'd come home we'd guide for in texas, at the four sixes ranch there in guthrie, texas, for we did that for 20 years and then from there we'd go to South Texas for the last 60 days or nine weeks of season. And now we're not one Montana, we're not guiding anymore.
Speaker 2:So we're staying home and working, just training dogs, just training dogs and raising some puppies and really I tell you you know I've said this before, but I've done this a long, long time and I'm having more fun. I'm enjoying my job now more than ever before. I really, really love where we are and being able to stay home and just focus on training and not be traveling the country, you know, trying to make a living. This is, this is a way better deal.
Speaker 1:You know I could see it, ronnie, just myself. It's uh, I've had, you know, stay on the go pretty good, but it's like it's. So you, I think you're so much more better as a trainer when you've got that routine, you know, you know, and you're not going. I mean, going from place to place is obviously good in training dogs, but living that way all the time is rough. I find that I'm a better trainer when I'm in my routine as a person, not just with the dogs. There's days that I've been stressed and I walk out and realize you know what? I better not fool these dogs. Today I don't want to give this bad oar off on them because they, you know.
Speaker 2:They know it when they see you walk through the door. They know it. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And I'll, you know, then I'll, and sometimes I might just go take me a break and then come back and do it, and then you know that all. But I learned that you know that all. But I learned that you know just from trial and error. Well, hey, I know I've taken up a lot of your day. Hopefully I'll get to get with y'all. It's probably going to be next year, looking at you, because I might bring one to intermediate class and then next year I actually might bring two to the advanced class. You don't care, you don't mind, I've got retrievers, that's okay. You two to the advanced class? You don't care, you don't mind, I've got retrievers, that's okay. You charge me like a surcharge, for there you go, we'll charge you more.
Speaker 2:They've got good man.
Speaker 1:I bet they do. But you know, I honestly prefer to play an overwater foul. I've said that on this podcast. You know, in a retriever world that's kind of a dirty word. That's kind of a dirty word. It's 80, I don't know the numbers. I'm guessing I would say 80% of retriever owners are waterfowl guys and gals. It's big. Even in Lubbock you've got Sandhill Plain and Duck and then all the way to Arkansas and Mississippi. I just prefer upland myself. That's why I think I might end up gravitating more on what the pointer spirit is, my myself, and that's why I think I might end up gravitating more on what you know the pointers breed is, which my labs are doing pheasants right now. So but I'm kind of like your wife. I have a dog fetish. I'm a closet dog collector. I tell people I'm like Mila DeMarcos. I told one of the guys I did a podcast.
Speaker 2:It's on your age there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly yeah. I had one of the guys I did a podcast with. I was on a call. I do that Cornerstone Gun Dog and God love them. This is a true story. All of them are from up north, like Minnesota, wisconsin that's where it's at right. So I got on there one day and I was like guys. I felt like I was on a little right. So I got on there one day and I was like guys. I felt like I was on a little skit on Saturday Night Live with the Bears, but no one knew what I was talking about, because I'm an old dude. But you remember Chris Farley, they were on Saturday Night Live and they'd talk about they were Chicago Bears fans and that's what it sounded like to me. I said, oh man, that was a good joke. Don't know it because you're too young, but go listen to it on YouTube. I see it on the YouTube link.
Speaker 1:But, no, no, it's my age. You would think I'd get wise when I get older, but I don't know if that's really helping. Well, listen, it's been a pleasure, an honor talking to y'all, especially, you know, first time face-to-face on video, and hopefully I'll get to meet y'all at least next year. That'd be great. This year don't look too good, okay. Well, hey, I'll get us off here and thank everybody for listening to Gun Dog Nation and be sure to check out Ron and Susanna Smith at smithkennellcom, and they have products on there. They have seminars, internships, a training book and training supplies, so check them out. All right, thank you all very much.