Gundog Nation
A show to bring together gundog enthusiasts, trainers, and handlers with discussion focused on all breeds and styles of gundogs.
Gundog Nation
Barton Ramsey - British vs American Training Methods, Group Steadiness, SOK
#34 The journey to developing an extraordinary hunting retriever demands more than just basic obedience—it requires a training philosophy built on understanding, patience, and fair expectations. In this captivating conversation with Barton Ramsey of Southern Oak Kennels, we explore the nuanced approach that has established him as one of America's premier British Labrador breeders and trainers.
Barton takes us deep into his training methodology, emphasizing the critical difference between British and American training philosophies while revealing how he's crafted a hybrid approach tailored to American hunting conditions. His perspective challenges conventional wisdom: "That dog didn't wake up today and decide to ruin your day," he shares, highlighting how most training failures stem from inadequate teaching rather than willful disobedience.
What truly sets this episode apart is Barton's masterclass on group steadiness training—his signature technique for developing dogs that remain calm and controlled while others work. Unlike traditional methods where dogs are worked individually and kenneled immediately after, Barton's approach teaches retrievers to self-regulate their excitement, a skill that proves invaluable in real hunting scenarios, particularly in his beloved flooded timber settings.
The conversation weaves through practical considerations like seasonal nutrition adjustments, health management for working dogs, and the complementary relationship between professional training programs and DIY methods like Cornerstone Gundog Academy. Barton's insights into reading canine behavior reveal the profound communication happening between handler and dog that most owners miss entirely.
Whether you're a seasoned handler or contemplating your first retriever, you'll leave this episode with transformative insights about the relationship-centered approach that produces not just skilled hunting companions, but dogs with the steadiness, versatility, and joy that make them exceptional partners in the field and at home. Connect with Barton through Southern Oak Kennels and Cornerstone Gun Dog Academy to discover how his methods can transform your training journey.
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Hello and welcome to Gun Dog Nation. This is Kenneth Witt, coming to you from Texas, and I want you to know that Gun Dog Nation is much more than a podcast. It's a movement to unite those who love to watch a well-trained dog do what it was bred to do. We are also here to encourage youth to get involved in the sport of gundogs, whether it's hunting, sport or competition. I want to build a community of people united to preserve our heritage of gundog ownership and to be better gundog owners. Stay tuned to each episode to learn more about training, dog health, wellness and nutrition from expert trainers, breeders and veterinarians. Be sure to go on our website, wwwgundognationnet and join our email email list. You'll receive newsletters from trainers and vets and breeders. That will also help you being a better gundog owner. And be sure to listen to some of our supporters mo pitney, who is a very good country musician and bluegrass musician. He has a bluegrass project with called pitney myers and he's getting ready to come out with a new album on curb records, so stay tuned. Also, the music provided on our show is from Sean Brock, originally from Harley, kentucky, just across the mountain from me. He did all the music that you hear on our introduction and our outro for the show. He played all the instruments except for Scott Vest on the banjo and Jerry Douglas on the dobro. Check them out. Thank you for listening. Hello, this is Kenneth Witt with Gun Dog Nation.
Speaker 1:Many people quickly become frustrated and confused when training the retriever. Cornerstone Gundog Academy's online courses eliminate all the guesswork by giving you a proven training system that will help you train a dog that anyone would be proud to have in their blind. Learn where to start, what to do next and what to do when problems arise. Visit cornerstonegundogacademycom to learn how you can train your retriever. I have used this method myself. I have been through it a couple times with different dogs. I refer back to it lots of times when I'm trying to get dogs freshen back up for hunt test season. I highly recommend them. I have actually been a subscribed member of cornerstone gundog academy since 2016 and I would suggest anyone use it. I highly highly recommend it. They have an app that you can get to on your phone. You can do it from your phone, your laptop. You can't get any more convenient than that. I've used it. It's proven and tried and I know literally hundreds of people that have done the same thing that I've talked to Visit cornerstonegundogacademycom and learn how to train your own retriever.
Speaker 1:Welcome back to Gundog Nation. It's Kenneth Witt. I'm coming to you today from Midland Texas. I have a really good friend and honor. We could talk about so much that I had to get him on for a round two of our podcast. Barton, I've known you a long time and you're no stranger, but go ahead and introduce yourself anyway.
Speaker 2:Man, my name is Barton Ramsey and glad to be back with you. I am coming to chat from Guntown, mississippi, and owner of Southern Oak Kennels and one of the founding partners of Cornerstone Gundog Academy founding partners of Cornerstone Gun Dog Academy.
Speaker 1:Barton, you know I got to see you at the Cornerstone Gun Dog Academy members weekend and even though I've known you since around 2016, yeah, it was 2016, maybe 2015 actually when I talked to you on the phone, but 2016, I got to meet you in person and you know, over the years, you know you've grown, your business has grown, and rightfully so, for lots of reasons.
Speaker 1:And at the weekend you were putting on a little training seminar and it made me realize that, hey, man, Barton's not just a social media influencer, he's not just a very successful Labrador breeder. Barton's one heck of a trainer. And you taught me, you brought up something that was about the hunt command with a whistle, Something simple like that. That sounds like common sense. But anyway, I just say all that because you are an excellent dog trainer and I want to pick your brains I didn't do that the last time you were on here about your training philosophy, your training knowledge. Tell me, tell me your philosophy and how it may differ from others and not we're not criticizing other trainers, but I just want to know Barton Ramsey's philosophy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think you know the there there's. There's always been a lot of talk about cornerstone in the early days, especially being uh, air quote british style, you know. And now you've you've been both places. You've seen a lot of training, I'm sure, um, I would say cornerstone essentially from the beginning, especially the complete academy. That's sort of my, my training, the way I train a dog, start to finish. It does have what I would say like a british philosophy which I think over time has become far more adopted here in the us, but it's definitely not british style.
Speaker 2:Like I don know, there are a lot of differences. Like I don't line my dogs up for marks, I just send them on their name. I don't, you know, we run a lot of water, we run remote. They don't run dogs remote in the UK at all. In fact, my friend Laura had me do a video on remote marks because she wanted to teach it over there. No one, no one really does it. So there are a lot of things that from a stylistic standpoint they match american hunting.
Speaker 2:You know I'm a waterfowler, um, but from a philosophy standpoint I would say I've always had a little more influence on positive reinforcement, especially from the start. Um, on being very fair to the dog and, uh, my, my mentor, mark Harefield, he, he always pointed out when I was frustrated or when I thought a dog was just disobeying intentionally or maybe trying to frustrate me or whatever that was. He would say these short little quotes, like that dog didn't wake up today and decide to ruin your day. And then he would say why do you think he's doing that? You think he has any idea what you're asking to do? Or I would get onto a dog and he would say do you think that dog has any clue why he just got in trouble? And those little quotes I would always drive home like man, I suck, I don't know what I'm doing with this. And this is look to go back, this is probably 2010, nine and 10. And, um, and he just kind of drilled in my head the idea of being fair to the dog and that most of the time if the dog was not getting something right is because we hadn't properly taught it. And so that really influenced my philosophy of training dogs.
Speaker 2:And I will say I've had the, I guess, luxury of exclusively training dogs from my own breeding program for the most part. So in 2009 and 10, I trained a handful of Springer Spaniels and really enjoyed that and then I got into British Labradors. But I was also like pretty much broke and trying to train dogs for the public just to make extra grocery money. So I took in. For about two and a half years I took in just whatever somebody would bring me and I had nice dogs. I had dogs that somebody bought for $200 from the newspaper, mostly Labs all Retriever. I had some Boykins, I had a couple goldens and I learned to train training those dogs and that that is what made me decide to just breed british dogs and only train those. So it was. I've. I've been you know my experiences for the last 12 years at least relatively limited to just British labs. So my philosophy is really geared toward what I think gets them ticking. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:So actually Barton, that part I didn't know, I didn't know what got you on the British side. You know I know how I got into kind of accidental myself and which is how led me to you.
Speaker 2:But so that's how you kind of you started seeing from training yeah, well, mark, my mentor, mark hairfield, he, he had some british imported labs. He still does and uh, he's been importing, I mean since the 70s. So, um, he had spaniels and labs and I was into spaniels and he would get the labs out after we would. I don't know if you've been to a lot of spaniel training stuff. I know you've been to some pointer stuff, but the spaniel stuff is all quarter and flush. So we would go out and he would plant pigeons or pheasants and I would walk with him and shoot. And there were very specific instructions like if you know, if a dog Well, if I saw a dog not sit to the flush, don't shoot that bird, right, the dog doesn't sit, there's no reward. Um, if there's lots of little things where the dog is on the flush, you know as, as where the dog is in the field is where I'm going to decide to shoot the bird. There was a lot of focus on shooting and watching the dogs, reading the dogs, and at the end of of those mornings I would do this almost every Saturday Um, and at the end of that morning he would say all right, you ready, we're going to go train the labs. And he had these duck blinds built and I would just go throw birds for the labs, and that was my introduction to British Labradors, um, and I was like man, these dogs are really fun. He had a very cool group of dogs back then, um, including, uh, ledburn Earl, which I know you've, you're familiar with. That's the one that Josh and Keith had for years and years and that was a foundation for our breeding line kind of early early on. Anyway, um, yeah, so when, when I saw his dogs, I said I, I like these more than most of the labs I've been around because they're they'll sit calmly. He would do the same thing. He would get six dogs out of the trailer, sit them down, work one at a time. The other five wouldn't move. And I was like I've never seen that before and he would laughingly say there's no chance my Spaniels would do that. You know they go berserk. So, anyway, that was 2000. I was just actually talking to Lynn Reed about this. So that was 15 years ago, 2010. And then in 2011, he had a litter and that's where I got Maggie from my foundation Bitch, who's still out in the kennel. She's 14 years old. So, yeah, all all through watching him and then over experience.
Speaker 2:I just I didn't want to. It was this was a hobby for me and, as I'm sure you understand, like I didn't want to spend my time training dogs that I didn't like, because I was just doing this for fun. So I was like I want to find something that likes to learn this way, and the British dogs were so eager to please and, um, they don't. We can get into it, but they don't use compulsion training over there, so you don't have to be. You know, pressure is not as foundational in their training style, so you don't have to have a lot of pressure.
Speaker 1:So that was that was, that was what I liked. You know, barn, I didn't realize, actually you had.
Speaker 2:So you had some foundations in upland training yeah, uh, I wouldn't say I'm great at it, um at all, but that was. That was where I cut my teeth on. Dog training was a lot of quarter and flush work and uh, mark would always joke about you know, you flush a bird, the dog sits in the flush, you shoot the pheasant and then then you have to retrieve with spangles. They do have to retrieve the bird and he would. He would always laugh and say the the labrador training is the easy part. You're just doing the very end of what we do. You know we we do quarter and flush and running good patterns and finding birds and steadiness to shot and all that. And labs just got to sit still and go get it. I was like, yeah, but it does get more complicated than that.
Speaker 1:But now, Martin, you mentioned something earlier and I didn't want to interrupt. You Explain to the listeners what remote retrieves are. You were talking about Laura Hill. How'd you do?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, remote sit retrieves. So you know, marking is a big part of of our training. So the ability for a dog to sit still, watch a bird fly through the air and then remain steady until sent, run directly to the area of the fall, where that bird fell, establish a hunt, pick up the bird, recall and deliver to ham. We call that a mark. There's a lot that goes into that and we can break that down too, because I think that's what I think set Cornerstone apart and our training style apart in the early days, and still does so for me. In the US, marking is emphasized, in my opinion, more than it is in the UK, because you're not necessarily penalized for a quick handle on a mark. In the US, marking is emphasized, in my opinion, more than it is in the UK Because you're not necessarily penalized for a quick handle on a mark in a trial over there. You are in a working test and you know there's only so far you can throw something and there's only so far you can shoot a handheld launcher. And a handheld launcher is a great tool but it's only given the dog one angle right, going away from and uh, and you don't always have, uh, a Chris, or a stone or somebody that I had around to throw a bird they call them bird boys, and so, uh, remote mark is having a dog sit remotely by itself in a place. You can use a place board, uh, or a MoMar stand is what I like to use and you have the dog sit and then you, as the handler, walk out to where you want the mark thrown from. You throw the mark and then you have two options you can either release the dog by the dog's name from where you're standing, which would mean the dog would directly go to the mark, or to the area of the fall, rather pick the mark up and then just run straight to you, which is going to be a shorter recall, or you can throw the mark, walk back to the dog and then release the dog. I like to do both. I do the first one more, uh, which is always funny with with imports, they've never done it, so when you say their name, they just run to you, they just recall and then look like all send me, and it's hard to teach them like, hey, go, go to that, fall over there, but anyway, it's a, it's a. It's an important tool, in my opinion, if you train by yourself If you don't have a helper to throw or you don't want to set up wingers or thunder launchers every day.
Speaker 2:Remote marks are very helpful and I also think they're in increasing a dog's steadiness, because the dog is choosing to be steady without you standing right next to it and distance erodes control and so when you're distant from the dog the control level goes down. So that helps with steadiness. And I don't know how your listeners are hunting, but I hunt a lot in flooded timber and then also on some rivers and creek. They call them a river, I call it a creek in Kansas and the dog is rarely able to be right next to you and so, like when we hunt at my buddy's flooded timber place, we have the dogs usually two rows of trees back behind us on a stand. So the ability to have a dog back there marking and that's just say the name uh is is definitely a game changer now, that seems to be your preference, barton, floated timber.
Speaker 1:Why is that? You?
Speaker 2:you seem to really enjoy hunting and I do love hunting floated timber and I I get asked that question by friends a lot like what's your favorite? I don't know what. The one I'm doing right now usually, uh, is my favorite. However, um, I'll put it to you this way I don't know what all style of duck hunting you've done, but I've done most of it. I haven't done a lot of sea duck hunting, uh, but when you're in a cornfield in kansas at sunset and you're working, you know 250, 300 ducks and you get a big mondo wad right before shooting lights over and they absolutely just suck into the spinning wing decoys and you shoot a. You know 12, 15 ducks out of that group.
Speaker 2:Hunts like that are incredible and what makes them incredible is a lot, but you usually kill like 50, 60, 70. We've been on several hundred plus duck days, which is that's a lot of ducks. That takes a lot of people and you're so excited. The retrieves are very fun. You get that same exact level of excitement when a six pack of mallards drops in the woods Like it. It takes hundreds in the field to get you super pumped up. You know, for me, for a lot of people, I've seen this over and over when you're in the trees and a six pack just absolutely does it. It's unreal, especially when you, when you get into them.
Speaker 2:Good, so it just takes a lot less duck and there's some sportiness to it getting them in the woods. Um, you know, know a lot of less, a lot less. You know party hunting per se. You know, call it out, hey, ken, it's your shot. You know, next single that comes in is all you like that? I love that stuff. The retrieving aspect is almost all dog in the in the woods. It's just not. You can handle and we do handle on blinds, but there's so much breaking up the vision between where you are and where the duck is. Just you have to get the dog out there and say, all right up to you.
Speaker 1:Now, you know, go for it so that's the one style I haven't tried yet and, uh, I think you probably know that I've had a lot more upland experience in waterfowl, but this year that's my goal.
Speaker 2:I'm definitely gonna try flooded timber it's fun when it's fun when it it's slow. It's very slow but I love it. There's a reason that it's getting harder and harder to do. You know, most of the great spots get bought up and it's a whole different style of dog training. In the corner of my pond back here I have a little flooded, shinned and knee-deep water area with trees still in it, just shin to knee deep water area with trees still in it, just so I can put dog stands out there and work the dogs where the dog has no access to dry land.
Speaker 2:So that's a whole different ball game for a dog. They're never going to be able to get on dry land, which makes even like lining up for a blind retrieve is difficult. You can't just spin them around a heel. They got to learn how to do that off a stand, so, or they got to have to learn to do that standing in water. That's up to their belly, you know, and that if they've never done that it's it's hard for them. You have to teach it never.
Speaker 1:That never dawned on me. I can imagine how that could go sideways if you took a dog out the first time. He's never flooded. Timber hunting yeah, it's very different. Uh, barton, you know, I know you're a founder of Cornerstone Gundog Academy. You're the reason I joined gosh back in early 17 or 16. And I know I refer so many people to it, especially people who want to train themselves. We obviously know that's a do-it-yourself method of training. You also offer pro training and you have pro trainers. Kind of explain the the pros and cons of both, because you know it's different strokes of different folks. Right, and and they're both. They're both needed in our society for sure, yeah, it's.
Speaker 2:Uh, I I have. You know you'll have people that ask like, isn't it a conflict of interest? You know that I have, I have Wally and I don't think it is either. However, I do understand the perception like, hey, you're I'm encouraging people to buy this program and do it yourself. But I also have, underneath the Southern Oak Kennel umbrella, you know we have Wally and the crew up at great lakes, phillip Cody. You know we got three guys training up there stone, noah, miles, parish and then Alex. Some of those guys are more part-time and and most of those guys are for the most part, focused on just Southern Oak dogs and I even I'll get into it but I even encourage the people who are sending their dogs to them to have Cornerstone.
Speaker 2:So a few reasons. Number one we prefer to get our dogs in for training around six to eight months of age. Parrish likes them to be eight to ten months. There are a lot of opportunities before that to establish a proper foundation and and we can really tell when dogs have had the right foundation. They show up at seven months and they are light years ahead of dogs who haven't had anything done with them. They'll show up and they barely know their name. Right, and even from a socialization standpoint, you just the cornerstone puppy, the puppy foundations, part in cornerstone, whether you're walking through 52 plus the first phase with Josh, or you're just using success with your new puppy, all of that, in my opinion, is some of the best stuff out there for raising puppies and we would all of our guys would highly prefer that people properly walk through that. I say properly because you can mess up, you can focus too much on obedience and you obedience and just because the program's there doesn't mean you're doing it right. But if someone will properly walk through that, their dog will be ahead by, I would say, at least a month and a half, which means Cornerstone has pretty much paid for itself at that point. Right, so you're already ahead. You're going to save.
Speaker 2:My daughter's going to high school this year and there's a, there's a program you can do in that school and where she's going, where you can graduate high school with an associate's degree, and we were talking about and they were talking about how much it costs, and my wife was like man, that's expensive. And I was like that's a lot cheaper than two years of college, like you're going to save on the back end. So the other thing is, if you're paying someone to train your dog, you probably just don't. There are lots of reasons for that. You could not have as much time.
Speaker 2:I'm fortunate to have free time right now in my life, but there were periods in my life where I didn't have extra free time to pick up a hobby like training my own dog. I was doing that for a living but there were no other hobbies to be had because we were just busy. And that's a lot of people. And we sell Labradors to a lot of people who are 24 to 30 and they graduated college, they're married or getting married, they're having their first kids and they're starting their career and they want an awesome dog to raise with their family, which I love that. But they don't have, you know, an hour and a half, two, three, four times a week to get out and work their dog. You know, drive somewhere, get the equipment. So for those guys it is a good, you know, it is a good investment to send your dog off and most of them want to realize their dog's fullest potential. And so even still, let's just say you send your dog to Stone at SOK, lone Star and he has the dog for seven months and you got a dog that's readily passing season test. You'll understand this. You have Maverick all right, that's right. So you had Maverick from stone dogs good and going ready to hunt. You know, if you don't know what you're doing and you go home, that dog is going to lose all of that, and so how are you going to know what to do? I've told people all the time at least the complete Academy. It's got every drill you want to run in it, and so if you'll just go in there, I can just tell someone hey, you're taking home an intermediate gun dog, so go in the intermediate module, this dog can do every drill in there. You need to learn how to do them. Go do the drills with the dog, and this will take you so much further along with your dog.
Speaker 2:Um, we had this, this experience not that long ago. We had a guy who, at an event, was complaining because his dog wouldn't stop on a whistle, and he said something to someone else. He was like I had this dog with a Southern Oak trainer for five months and the dog won't stop on a whistle, and I heard about it. I was like that's a weird comment to make. So I started looking it up and I was like, dude, the dog has been home with you for two years. You've had 24 months to the day that this dog has been home and you're complaining about whistle stops. What have you not done in the last 24 months? There's a lot that goes into keeping a dog working properly, and I think Cornerstone is great for that. Um and so yeah, if you want to do it yourself, I think it's all in there. If you want to pay a pro to do it, there are lots of reasons for that, but you're not. It's not like sending off your shotgun to get it tuned up by rob roberts.
Speaker 2:You know, you're gonna have to, and then you just sit in the closet and it's ready for next season. Dogs don't work, work that way, and so you're going to have to have some level of hey, what do I do now? And uh, is as good as I think our guys and a lot of trainers are at communicating with follow-up questions. There's just not enough time for that to be adequate to get a new guy up to up to speed on keeping their dog. You know, dog going.
Speaker 1:Bart, I'm a prime example of what you just said. I called you in search of a dog that was started that I could hunt with but still wanted him finished up. And I got Maverick and then Stone took him to another level. And then what I did is I used a dog that Stone trained to go through the hunt test circuit to help me learn how to be a handler, and I used Cornerstone too and trained dogs with Cornerstone. I used both.
Speaker 1:So I don't see a conflict of interest whatsoever. Matter of fact, it's just like you said. You know, guys like me and you work for a living and sometimes I just don have it. I, I'm self-employed now, I'm a land man. I may have so many projects, I just can't devote time. And that's when I, you know, I took Maverick back to stone and uh, but I use Cornerstone and refer it all the time. And I've got a young dog I'm using Cornerstone with now. Well, it's not young, she's a year old, but uh, yeah, I, I think it. I think there's a place for both and there's no right or wrong. But I do think even if you go and buy a fully trained dog from southern oak kennels, you need to know how to handle that dog yeah, yeah, it's true and I think it can.
Speaker 2:People can get frustrated sometimes when they're when they're training on their own and I do think with Cornerstone, there are certain levels of things we implemented that I think are very helpful, such as showing dogs making massive mistakes, showing the failure training sessions, because you're going to have a lot of that. I was texting with the cornerstone guy yesterday. Who's he's? He's had a lot of struggles with his dog that have he. He'll know what. He'll listen to this, I bet, and he'll know I'm talking about him, but they're a hundred percent his fault. It's like hey, look, and he was at a CGA member weekend and at some other events I've been, and it's one of those situations where he's got a big issue with the dog and I'm like here, give them to me and in six minutes the issue's gone Right. I was like all right, and then he recognizes like oh, shoot, this is me. And I tell people, don't be discouraged by that, because you have to realize, with pro trainers, even if it's a guy who's been training dogs professionally for just let's just say, when Stone moved back to Texas, he we've talked about him a lot, but we both know Stone and he's in your state.
Speaker 2:When he moved back to Texas, he had maybe two, two and a half years of experience working with me. Well, you think, well, that's, that's not super long, right? Well, what was he doing in two and a half years? Well, he had at least six dogs that were under his, under his care, right? Which means every day that he trained, he trained six different dogs with different personalities, different levels of drive, on the same types of setups. Which means means, if you're Joe Blow and you've got your first dog and you're walking through week 26 of 52 plus, in one week, maybe two weeks, you're getting the amount of training experience that Stone was getting in a day, the amount of training experience that stone was getting in a day.
Speaker 2:Right, he's getting six sessions in a day sometimes more so the progress is so much faster when you're working dogs that much, unless you're just not paying attention, right, because you've got to learn, so you're just getting so many more reps. It's the same if you're playing sports, right, it's like you know, yeah, you, how much practice can you really get well with dog training? You're playing sports, right, it's like you know, yeah, you, how much practice can you really get Well with dog training? You're kind of limited because if you push it too hard with one dog, you're going to ruin that dog, the dog that can't be trained all day, every day. And so I tell people it's not that you're not good, it's just you don't have the reps. Yet Someone's got to sit here and help you figure out how to read that dog responding that way Because that's the biggest question most people miss it's like, oh, my dog's just this and this. I'm like, no, it's not that You're just you're misreading what the dog is telling you. And if you're training a lot of dogs and you've got a pro trainer who's been doing it for 10 years and they've averaged 10 or 12 dogs in their care, they've seen it all. They've seen dogs respond in so many ways I mean, wally, wally can look at a dog and tell you exactly who his parents are from our breeding program, but based on the way they respond to something, because he's just seen it so many times, and he'll say, oh yeah, that's a moose pup. Like, all right, here's how we got it, here's how we got to navigate that. And he'll get right through it and you're like, oh yeah, well, that's because he's done it 25 times, if not more, and that's an advantage that I think pro trainers have.
Speaker 2:I do think with Cornerstone and your first time walking through, you do get to focus on just one dog, which is great. You'll learn a lot. And then when you go get that second dog, most of the time you're going to have a much easier experience. You're going to be like, oh, I'm going to fix all the stuff that I just never. I'd never done it before. It'd be the same with any any do it yourself hobby. You know, I bet if I tried to, I see these Facebook videos of people making like custom tables with the resin and all that. I guarantee if I did that with a full step by step, I'd probably screw it up and it wouldn't be great. But the second one would be better.
Speaker 1:Hopefully I'm dangerous and stuff like that and I'm not the most patient guy. Purina ProPlan here at Gun Dog Nation we use Purina ProPlan for our dogs. We actually use the Sport Performance Edition, which is 30% protein and 20% fat the beef and bison. It contains glucosamine, omega-3s for their joints. It also contains amino acids for muscles and antioxidants. It also has probiotics. It's guaranteed to have live probiotics in each serving. There's no artificial colors or flavors. We see the difference in our dogs. We see the difference in their coat, their performance, their endurance and also in recovery.
Speaker 1:Be sure to use Purina ProPlan dog food. The reputation speaks for itself. There's a reason that Purina has been around for such a long time. We suggest that you use it and we are so proud to be sponsored by Purina Dog Food. Switching gears a little bit, barton, because this is just something that always amazes me. Anybody that's seen your social media will see pictures of you, sometimes with heck six, eight, ten dogs all sitting calm and chill. I know you can't answer that in a short podcast, but how in the world do you do that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, me and old Slingly. If you follow him on Instagram, he posts reels of his dog sitting still all the time. I mean steadiness is super important for my dogs. I'm going to a couple facets of this answer. It's a lifestyle thing for me that dogs would be steady. It's also 100% a relationship thing.
Speaker 2:So every time that I go out to the kennels and let the dogs out, I don't say a word. I just open all the kennels on one side and then I turn around and I say their names and they come out and I switch it up every time. I never I can't tell you the last time with my dogs that I said sit when I opened the kennel. They just know Chris, on the other hand, who is probably letting them out right now, when he opens it, they're halfway out the door before he gets it open. I mean they're coming out like rockets and they're usually barking. When Chris opens it, I can go out at. I did it last night at 9.30 PM. I walked out to the kennels and I opened the gate and I walked up the gravel and I got to the first kennel and no one made a peep. If Chris goes out of the front door of the lodge and hangs a left, they start barking. Their relationship with him is very different than their relationship with me and I don't whoop on them or anything like that. I'm just the one that's in charge and that can easily be anyone my kids. They will break. They will. I mean now if they're out doing one-on-one training, they're pretty good, but they'll jump out of the kennel and my kids try to get them to sit and wait and they'll come busting out. So there's a lot of relationship that goes into. Just I don't want to do the whole like oh be the alpha. I've had some bad experiences from trainers trying to teach me what it meant to be the alpha. I don't mean that necessarily, but I do think there's something to be said about being a pack leader, a trustworthy leader to your dogs. So when I go, let mine out you haven't been here, but I would love for you to come by and see. I'll make a video of it you can share. But they're not sitting in the kennel nervous because I'm letting them out. They're very excited. Their tails are like they're excited and in fact when they come out they all run and jump on me. So I think there's something to be said about being a trustworthy leader.
Speaker 2:Now the the group steadiness. We all, all the Southern Oak guys, do this as kind of a part, a brand deal for us, like, hey, you're going to hunt, our clients are going to hunt their dog with other dogs. We need to know that they can sit steady with another dog out. So it starts relatively young. And I just say a few tips, like if, if your dog hasn't done that, prevention is worth a pound to cure an ounce of prevention and put them on a lead. Put them on a lead until they learn it's not their turn. Have a way to physically block them. So I'll have a group of dogs sitting behind me and I'll be throwing like a chuck at tennis ball, away from the group of dogs. And if I have a new one, I make sure that I'm facing the dogs and I'll just throw it and then I'll put my hand up and you'll see the new one take one or two steps and I just move my body in front of them and say ah, no, and then put my hand up and if they still try to go, then it's a louder no and then we might have to put a slip lead and go backwards, might have to use a MoMarsh to just show them. Hey, you got to be on this spot. But man, it's unreal how fast dogs learn.
Speaker 2:You do three or four training sessions. I do this a lot when I'm on the road. The pictures you mentioned usually Aaron Davis photos from being on the road. Well, I've got 10 to 12 dogs with me in the Ailey and in the Gunners and I only have limited time so I like to get them out in groups and give them. I like to. In my head, I want to give them. I don't give every dog three marks in a blind, I just want them to run, and so I'll get six, eight dogs out at a time. Well, there's always, there's always going to be a new one.
Speaker 2:This past year, huck and Will they were new boys with me and Fletcher it was his first season, so they had not done group work with me until this season, and so at the beginning of the season you could tell I'd shoot a handheld launcher and they'd take that step. You're like I'm going to go, and then they look at me and I just hold my hand up and then I'd never send them on that one. It was always going to be a steady dog. And it doesn't take four or five training sessions for a dog to figure out like, okay, this is what we're doing, I'll get my turn. And you can see now the boys who've been with me a long time, and the girls Twig, tango, ozzy, moose, cedar they'll just lay down and start eating grass. They know they're like it's not my turn until he calls me up. But the new ones are like everyone could be my turn. So you can just see a difference. And it's just group work takes a little practice, a little patience.
Speaker 2:If you have some people that have some fully trained dogs and you've got a youngster, just go have your dog out. There's this kind of overarching theme or philosophy in a lot of American dog training where you get the dog out, the dog runs the marks, you put the dog back in the trailer and I don't think they learn how to self-regulate their excitement that way, which is why I think at Hunt Test you have the honor bucket right. Your dog is steady. For what? Your three marks and someone else's one mark?
Speaker 2:In my opinion that is insufficient to evaluate steadiness, especially when dogs are allowed to creep a little bit. They're hopping up on their feet. You know that doesn't tell me very much about a dog's ability to be steady. I'm not dogging hunt tests, I'm just I think they evaluate a lot of good things. I just think that is incomplete as an evaluation, whereas you've been to a trial in the UK. How long are those dogs steady as an evaluation? Whereas you've been to a trial in the UK. How long are those dogs steady? I mean, you might be walking 20 minutes and you can't even really say heel, you can barely pat your leg, you know.
Speaker 2:And so I think the group work having dogs. I need to see, before a dog is able to be a part of our breeding program, that they can self-regulate their excitement level. I don't care if you're excited, I don't care if they're up there shivering because they're excited. I mean I'm sure you know that you'll have dogs shiver. In the middle of the summer is 90 degrees. It's not rarely shivering because they're cold, it's usually excitement. As long as they can regulate that and not just lose their mind, which comes out and make a noise breaking, creeping. You know, if those things can't be regulated I don't really want to deal with that dog because if I as a pro trainer can't regulate that, joe Blow, who bought a family dog who's going to hunt 10 times a year, is going to have a real tough time with that dog.
Speaker 1:Amazing. So if you just because I'm getting ready to start trying to do this with some of my dogs, martin, but would you start out with two dogs?
Speaker 2:or three. Yes, yeah, start out with two. Start out with one that you're very confident is going to be fine, and then one that's mid-level. The hardest thing to do is when you have two youngsters, that's when it's hard. And so, yeah, it's easier when you have an older dog that's a little more experienced. And then, um, well, stone trained a dog for a guy a couple months ago and the guy was having a tough time transitioning the dog to his house. Similar situation super, super nice guy.
Speaker 2:Um, and I connected with this guy when he first picked the puppy up, because he has kids that are younger than my kids and they all do jujitsu. So I was like, man, it's good family. So we started chatting. He got home, his wife was absolutely frustrated with this dog and I said, hey, just bring him back, let me, uh, let me have him for a couple of days. Well, he had a list of things the dog wouldn't do. Of course. I called stone and I was like, hey, give me the rundown of this dog. And stone was shocked. He was like that's a nice dog. He's actually very similar to maverick. Uh, he's a rio pup. He looks a lot like maverick, got a lot of drive, uh, but really nice dog.
Speaker 2:The guy gave me a list of stuff he was struggling with and within, I want to say, the first 15 minutes of being at my house, we had demonstrated. The dog could do all of that with me, who he didn't even know. Right, I'd never seen that. Last time I saw this dog it was when it left here at eight weeks old. So we demonstrated and the guy looked at me. He was like all right, I get it, I'm the problem. I was like, yeah, but you, you don't know what you don't know. And he, this, this guy had purchased cornerstone but he hadn't even really been in it yet. And so that dog, though with him, was not sitting steady in in group a group setting at all.
Speaker 2:And so I had, uh, noah, my son, who's only 12, bring him out on a slip lead. And I said, hey, if he sits still for three or four dogs, we'll give him a retrieve. Well, man, the first day he he was trying to do the alligator death roll, I'm trying to do backflips off a slip lead. So I just had Noah back him up. I said just back up 20, 30 steps, you sit back there. Well, after about four or five retrieves. Noah said Daddy's being still. I was like perfect. So I threw one out to the side. He sent the dog being still. I was like perfect. So I threw one out to the side, he sent the dog. He got it, brought it back to Noah. I said walk about half the distance. So we've closed the distance. Got closer to the group Well, on the third day Noah had him sitting with the group next to him with no slip, lead on, completely steady, and so just just simplify, prevent, teach the dog what you want.
Speaker 2:Hey, if you'll just sit, still you get go, get this. And they learn. They learn so fast, they're incredible. So anyway, that's, that's the quick tutorial no, I find yourself a little frustrated.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna try it. I like that, um, yeah. And while we're on the fact of maverick bart, his, his focus was drives off the charts, which is why I love him his focus. When he's in a hunt, test or for training, you could set off fireworks beside him. He's never going to look away from where that bird's coming. Yeah, it's laser focus. I love that dog. Yeah, excellent.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I like that. That's a different style of dog you used to do that out of that breeding.
Speaker 1:Do what now? Did you have other breedings of that matchup? I can't remember. He's Cedar Cedar and he's a Tolia female yeah, cedar and Millie.
Speaker 2:No, or Cedar, and I can't remember if he's Cedar and Millie, or Cedar and Leah or Cedar, and I can't remember he's Cedar and Millie, or Cedar and Leah or Cedar, and I can't remember. You know we had we had your Rose. No, oh, cedar and Rosie. Oh yeah, that makes more sense. Um, yeah, yeah, I, we trained a lot of those that that intensity comes from the mama. Cedar is very focused, but he's, he's pretty chill, okay, um so, yeah, it was a heck of a breeding.
Speaker 2:I love, yeah, well you never know what you're gonna get. I mean, that's we. That's a whole different conversation. Don don sent me a video of a dog last year that was just jacked like just tons of drive through the roof and, uh, really nice dog, but like one that you're like. All right, I hope the client knows what they're doing. And he said guess what? Litter? And it was literally the last litter I would have guessed. Of all the ones they had that year, I would have said that litter would have been the calmest. There's a lot of guesswork that goes in. We do our best to stack the odds in your favor from a breeding perspective, but if it were an exact science, it would be a thousand times easier. There's a lot of just like. I hope that this is what we get.
Speaker 1:Well, I know you're a hardcore waterfowl guy. Do you ever take your labs and upland hunt?
Speaker 2:I do, yeah, I do. Um, pheasants, I don't have an opportunity to do a whole lot more. Uh, I did go to do a really fun quail hunt down in South Georgia. I've done that every year for a couple of years and what I do is walk my dogs at heel while the pointers do their thing, and then it depends on the dog.
Speaker 2:Cedar and Ozzie and Moose were with me and they asked me if I could use my dogs to help flush the birds to give us a better flush, and I said sure. So they would have two dogs on point. I would pick one of my three dogs, tell the other two to sit walk forward about however far, and then I would give them a hunted up command and they would get in there and they don't flush like a spaniel. You know spaniel is going to drive a bird out of the cover, but just getting that close to them would get the quail up. So, uh, that was really fun. They would flush, I would hit the whistle, we would shoot noah was with me, my son, we would shoot and then I would release the dog that quarter or that flushed to go retrieve whatever we shot and then run the rest as blinds If we shot more than one bird. I think that's very fun.
Speaker 2:I have a blast doing it with pheasants I do the same thing. I do a bunch of pheasant hunts every year with the guys at salt plains outfitters and it's a. It's a canned hunt, like they're. They're releasing the birds but they're on a big piece of property. They're not shaking them all up. It's like, hey, we're going to, we got to go find these birds and they've got some unbelievable pointers and spaniels that their team runs, and so same thing. I have my dogs walk at heel on that and I just I don't know if this is common, but in my experience pointers like they'll retrieve a handful of times and they're kind of over it and they just want to point, and so as soon as their dogs like quit caring about retrieving, I start picking all the birds up with my laps. It's very fun.
Speaker 1:That's, of course, far more similar to what they do in the UK than what we do here, martin, with all that, you have a lot of obviously high dollar dogs and you've got to take the utmost care of those dogs. What are some of the things you've learned over the years about health, nutrition? You know, keep just keeping a dog healthy through hunt season, through, through everything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, nutrition is very important, um, very, very important. I learned several years ago when I first became a part of um team Eukanuba. I don, I first became a part of team Eukanuba. I don't know, can I talk about Eukanuba? Yes, sir. Okay, I don't know if you had a dog food sponsor or anything.
Speaker 1:I do, but that's perfectly fine.
Speaker 2:Well, one of the things they, one of the things they were talking about when we first went, we went up to their big headquarters the Mars headquarters really fun, educational and like 70% of the protein that dogs consume goes to their coat and I remember hearing that and being like what? Because I'm a big fella, I like going to the gym and I'm thinking about like whey protein is going to my muscles, dude, you know, that's where I want it to go. But for dogs they're different than us, right, they're different. And so coat is not only very important. In my opinion, it's one of the clearest indicators of whether or not a dog is properly you know nutrition properly cared for. So not just shiny coats, because if you're on the road and you're in a dog trailer and you're going down and grab a road, your dogs look dusty. Right, that's part of it, that's all good. You know I always, when people show up and they have a dog, that they work, but the dog lives inside, I'm like, oh, you can tell thing looks like a oil slick, you know. But having a thick coat is so important and having a double coat for a Labrador is such a good indicator of whether or not the dog is getting the proper amounts of nutrition, and this is why, when you see malnourished dogs, they've lost a lot of their fur and you go to a rescue and they don't have a lot of fur, that's one of the first things to go, and so you know if your dog is having trouble with its coat, it could be allergies. It could be. My dogs are all blowing their coats right now. It's going to be 90 today, so we'll be using the battery powered blower to get the fur out before we hose the kennels for the next several months, but they will always have a thick coat of fur because they're eating properly, and so that's a good indicator of whether or not your dog's getting proper nutrition. A couple other things, you know we could go into a lot.
Speaker 2:There are so many topics when it comes to dogs staying healthy, but you know, for us, from a nutritional standpoint, we feed a high quality food. It has now been produced in such a way that you can buy multiple levels of that food. As far as the amount of protein and fat content, based on the working load that you're giving the dog. So the gold standard for Labradors is feed the dog a 30-20. Well, that's fine, unless it's June or July and it's too hot to really work. And your dog's working let's just say a quarter amount it does in the fall and the spring and you're still feeding it a ribeye and baked potato every night.
Speaker 2:You know your dog's going to get overweight. And then what people do is they back off the amount of food. So this is super common. It's like hey, my dog got fat over the summer, so instead of feeding three cups a day, I'm going to feed two cups. Well, it's still fat. Now I'm going down to a cup and a half and your dog's eating half as much and they're probably not losing all that weight.
Speaker 2:And the problem with that is these foods are formulated in such a way that if you get below so much below the recommended daily feeding value now, your dog is being robbed of the actual nutrients that they need to thrive. And so I tell people find a food that fits your dog's working level. In the summertime we'll switch almost all these dogs from 30-20 to 26-16. And they'll eat the same exact amount that they were eating through the winter on 30, 20. And I like that because I know they're getting the nutrients, the recommended nutrients, but they're not getting fat because they're not working as much.
Speaker 2:So, uh, I'd far rather a dog be a little skinny than a little fat. Having fat dogs is when they're overweight is so hard on their joints, their lungs, it's just hard on them. In general, it's very hard to get them, get them ready. I think honestly, it's one of the silent way we abuse a lot of dogs in this country is by letting them get fat. But I want them to have the proper amount of nutrients. I think that's super important, and so I think if you've got a dog that's got a healthy coat, you can see one or two ribs and you're feeding somewhere close to, I would say, within 20% of the recommended daily feeding value, I think then you're on the right track.
Speaker 1:Also I know you being a Mississippi. I'm sure you have tick problem, like most of the Southeast. What's your recommended treatment for that?
Speaker 2:Flee and tick. Well, back up, heartworm's the big one here, that's the, that's the killer here, uh, and we use um pro heart. I'm not, this is not a sale, I'm not pitching it, but we like pro heart 12, uh, and pro heart 12 is also um used for heartworm treatment now by a lot of people kind of off label. It's a slow release heartworm kill. I'm not a vet, so don't don't take all this advice from me and take it to the. This is what we do. We do pro heart 12 every year and then I supplement a dewormer with that, usually an ivermectin throughout the year and that's going to take care of other worms. I'll add in a fembendazole which is like safeguard, and we run a lot of this stuff old school. We do our shots at the vet but we're like, hey look, we feel like we need to do this. We have a pretty tight regimen on what we do use, but as long as the Pro Heart 12 is on board, I'm not worried about heartworms, and so that's the biggest one for me. And then Flea and Tick I've kind of used it all, man. I've had great results with Trifexis, I've had great results with Semper Catrio and I've had great results with NexGuard. Those are the three I've used that. I've had no problem.
Speaker 2:Lynn Reed, who was just here she has my we call it the girl's dorm and so she has a bunch of my moms and all my puppies and she has great results with oh, what's it called? It's the one I think of cats when I think about it Frontline she uses Frontline and she has no problem. But she's very particular about, like, the chemicals around the kennel and the girls and all that because a whole different subject but I think we're seeing a massive increase in the amount of cancer these dogs have, yes, and so she's very particular about bug treatment and all that. No roundup or any of that stuff. So anyway, um, we that's a roundabout answer to say we use a lot of things, but I'm pretty, pretty convinced on the pro heart 12 for heartworms.
Speaker 1:Okay, I will switch gears a little bit with you, barton. So I know, just because I know your history and and I've listened to all your podcasts and stuff, that you actually got started with a springer. It was your first hunting dog in your home and and now you know, I would assume you're probably one of the top lab producers, of the top gun dog lab producers in the US. Why Labrador Retrievers?
Speaker 2:Man? That's a great question Because for years I was convinced this it was springers, and there are some stories. I took a springer Nelly on a duck hunt. When I first got into duck hunting this would have been 2009, maybe January of 10. And it was below freezing and we were hunting out of a pond and we shot. We shot hooded mergansers. I knew two things about duck hunting Ken, jack and squat. I was just out there with my dog like, hey, I'm here, and the dog liked to froze to death. I warmed her up. But again, these stories are why I do have a lot of.
Speaker 2:I'm very driven to help people figure it out, because I figured a lot of it out on my own and that dog didn't die, she didn't get sick, but it was one of those days where if I, if I had pushed her, she could have right and and man, she her hair froze. I'm talking about, like her, you know her feathers. I was literally able to break her hair and she was one of those dogs that had so much drive she never would quit, she would have gone until she died, and so I was. She was very forgiving dog and I learned a lot from her. My first real gun dog lived to be 15. But I remember my friend had a lab and that dog was not at all cold and I was like there's a big difference right here. And uh, that was the first time I was like maybe the labs do have an advantage, and that's just to being able to shed water off with their double coat and their coats. Don't they freeze on the very outside? But I have hunted labs in some conditions and uh, they're, they're hardy, uh, honestly, I live in waterfowl country. I you can quarter and flush with the labrador, for sure I prefer they don't point, I think if they, if they're pointing, something happened, I'm not gonna make any more comments than that. Something happened some generations back that wasn't supposed to be in there. Same thing if they're silver, um. But the, the lab to me can can do a lot of things really well and can do the waterfowl thing better than anything else, and so I know it's most popular breed in america for, I think, 26 years and was recently surpassed by the Frenchie, which can't do anything, including breed and birth its own puppy. So that's actually, I think, more of a testament to the direction of our country than anything else. But Labradors are still coming in a second place.
Speaker 2:First place on the gundog working breeds. Working breeds, I just, yeah, I think that they are the most versatile when it comes to bird hunters, waterfowl, upland, all that, and I have no problem with the rest. My buddy has a drop tar, I mean tattooed ear. Like the whole deal past the. I mean it's an insane amount of stuff you have to do to like be certified in that.
Speaker 2:He has one and it's one of my best friends and the dog comes and stays over here when he's out of town.
Speaker 2:He hunts a lot of big game and that dog does like all kinds of crazies Like it'll point, it'll pick up a goose, it'll kill a cat, that's for sure, like a rodent, anything like that. Like he can't let it out around here Cause my cats I have an outdoor cat at the house and like he has to be on an e-caller almost got my cat a few weeks ago took off and he grabbed the remote and was hitting it. You know anyway, like that dog is, takes versatile to a new level, right, but he's also not like super fun to live with and he has a lot of energy and he tried to pick up a goose in frozen water in canada and wouldn't even get in. So I don't know. For me, I think the labrador is like the, the prime example of perfect dog for the average american guy who wants to go kill ducks and kill pheasants and shoot some quail. I don't know, there's just something about them. They're easy to live with.
Speaker 1:Hello, this is Kenneth Witt and Gun Dog Nation is proud to have one of their sponsors as Retriever Training Supply. Based in Alabama, retriever Training Supply offers fast shipping on quality gear. Your dog will love it. Visit RetrieverTrainingSupplycom to purchase gear to help you train your retrie. This episode was brought to you by Waterstone.
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Speaker 1:You know, barton, they're versatile. I've got a female from you that is actually with a friend of mine, boris. I won't pronounce his last name because he's from Belgium and I would really butcher it, but he's a Nop. Mine Boris I won't pronounce his last name because he's from Belgium and I would really butcher it, but he's a Nopopo instructor does contract work for the military, for the government, big-time protection, dog trainer, drug and narcotics training. And he's got one of your dogs, which is highly excelling right now in narcotics detection, detection that I went over there with him and he I was going through the school, the final course of the gold school, and I took her with me and he's just went on and on. But she's those, you're right, they're so versatile. You know, and I've had a dog, I got dogs I got from you that shed hunt like no other and I mean they could be competitive.
Speaker 2:I just didn't compete with them, but they're so versatile, uh yeah, we have a friend of ours up in michigan, bridget carver. She does a lot of shed hunt stuff and she wins a lot of competitions with her. That's okay, dog, we have so many that do sheds. And look, maverick originally was going to be a service service dog for PTSD. Just a little too much, right, and that's, that's fine. I think that's when you look at how many dogs are entered into those programs versus how many dogs are accepted, you know and pass it's, it's. I didn't feel bad about that. I think he he's. He's right where he needs to be as a hunting dog. However, we raised eight dogs for the Canine for Warriors program and seven of the eight passed into the program. I felt really proud for that because that's not an easy thing to do.
Speaker 2:As far as the service dog work, but I do think labs have a high propensity for it because especially I'm not dogging American labs, but especially calmer British dogs because they can settle in the midst of you know, everybody talks about an off switch. Every dog takes naps. Every dog sleeps in the daytime in the kennel I'm talking. Can the dog settle down when gunfire is going off right? Can the dog settle down when 30 other dogs are around it. You know that that's what I'm looking for and, uh, for instance, I'm going to be in july. I'll be at the delta waterfowl expo in oklahoma city. I'll take a couple dogs with me and put them on a momar stand and they'll have 5 000 people come pet their heads and talk to them, and then we'll be next to probably, the lucky duck booth with the spinners going off. We'll be next to a couple of duck call booths with duck calls going on. Can they chill out in the midst of all that stuff? Right, that's the real, that's the test we have.
Speaker 2:But we have versatility. We have, but, yeah, versatility. I have multiple avalanche search and rescue dogs. Shout out to Tyler and Mojo. They just got their certification at Mammoth, which is super cool. That's a Rio pup. We have PTSD service dogs. We have search and rescue. We have a couple of dogs that work with the FEMA team. We have one dog that identifies ancient human remains or old human remains, which is unreal. It'll comb two acres to find an old tooth. It's crazy that one's wild Diabetic dogs, peanut allergy dogs, just all kinds of stuff. Man, it's pretty cool.
Speaker 1:I can honestly say I've owned my fair share of southern oak dogs. Never had a bad one, actually every one I've ever had.
Speaker 2:I'm crazy over, you know, and you've had some of the good ones I don't think people know that. Did we mention that on the first podcast?
Speaker 1:yeah, we talked about. I got jet from you and I had waited you and I remember on your website, barton, but you had said, like I can't. Yeah, you referred to it as quote in the bio of the dog, the pedigree. Yeah, allie, yeah, you got that dog over and I wanted to pup off that female and you were going to breed it to a male and I waited forever. You know you always make fun of me. I said I won't first pick female.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, I know you don't think that matters and it probably does not matter, it does to the the the beholder. But yeah, so I got, I came and got that dog and she was a rock star. But at the time, uh, with work I was hunting where I lived. I knew that that dog and I called you after she was about a year old, Something like that wasn't important, but anyway I sold her back to you because I thought I was going to waste her potential.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you wouldn't believe how many people out there have jet pups too. I mean, she ended up doing five litters. They weren't real big, but she was a great mama dog and her mom is still alive, the pedigree. She lives with some friends of ours in Houston, texas, and they have a I won't say, I can't remember if they have. I think they have a litter sister to jet, because that was Snoop and Allie. Yes, and I want to say they have a litter sister named Spoon and Allie lives with her and I think she's 13, 13 or 14, maybe 12. Anyway, she's on up there living in Houston, still alive. Jet was a phenomenal producer. Chase was a phenomenal producer. That was another one. We bought back from you. The imported puppy. I laughed, I was like man Ken's going to raise several mama dogs for us was a phenomenal producer. That was another one. We bought back from you, that imported puppy.
Speaker 2:I laughed, I was like man ken's gonna, ken's gonna raise several mama dogs for us and uh, send them back and uh yeah long long time ago, but good, good sets of dogs from I don't know a decade plus ago so you know, jet found a shed antler, a fresh shed shed.
Speaker 1:That, martin. It was a spike. It could have been three inches long and high grass in Kentucky and she was four months old, but she was so intelligent and then so athletic, she could run like a deer. She was kind of long and lanky. She has everything I love in a dog, but yeah, that was a great dog.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she was nice. I will say I have to. People always ask you know what's? What are dogs biggest weaknesses? That was a really nice dog with a lot of working potential and a lot of energy and definitely had an off switch, but probably one of the most destructive dogs in a kennel I've ever seen in my life.
Speaker 2:You didn't see the water hose or something dude I've. She has the record for water hoses and I'm telling you can people laugh at this? We're pretty particular. My hoses are rolled up at the kennel here. But, like you can, if you're looking at a kennel and a water hose on the ground and you're trying to gauge the appropriate amount of distance that the hose needs to be away from the kennel so a dog cannot get it, you need to triple that for jet.
Speaker 2:She had a way. I'd be like there's no way she got that hose in there, but somehow she would. And you come and it would be in a thousand pieces. Man, I'm talking just and but when she had puppies I'm talking just and but when she had puppies she never did that. She, she, we would put the vet bedding in there, but she couldn't put the vet bedding in there until she was having puppies the day before, it was getting shredded. As soon as she had puppies she turned into a different dog, just absolutely calm, and then. Then she'd go back to her jet ways, you know, she'd grab a bag of dog food and shred it through the fence. I mean, I think she just had a lot of driving, we'd just get bored. And she was never that way in the house.
Speaker 1:In the house, as long as you were with her, she was great, but anyway, I'd hate some of her habits, but I love the dog and I just oh yeah, she was special for sure. But you know, man, I've got Maverick and I've traveled a lot of places together now and the dog I've got from you. He'll be three in September and man, he's solid, he's good.
Speaker 2:Love that, yeah, and they're all different and they all take a little bit of a different approach, and that's, you know. To make it full circle, we talked about training. You know everyone says it, but you need to train the dog in front of you. Um, it's uh, it's very, very important that you don't cookie cutter all of it and having the ability to say, hey, this dog's different than the last one, and difference not bad, it's just different, and I need to adjust what I'm doing to this one, I feel like that has been probably the most important thing for me. When training dogs, it's easy to just say, man, I wish that you were like. Well, I did it.
Speaker 2:Maggie, my first dog was phenomenal, I mean just easy, very forgiving dog, hard, hard, not soft in any way. And you know I learned so much. And then I imported angie and angie was so soft. She got spurred by a pheasant, um, on a training day and it took me a year to get her to pick pheasants up again because she was just so, so soft. I mean, if you raise your voice, she'd lay down and roll over. Yeah, and they were both really great dogs. Um, I we used to have this thing called the british field trial society of america, which I would love to bring something like that back one day. But um, I want to try with both. I want several trials with both of those dogs. They couldn't have been any more different, the two dogs.
Speaker 1:And those soft dogs, barton. They make you a better trainer, don't they?
Speaker 2:Because you've got to reevaluate your whole method. Yeah, yeah, it's not just that, and I used to, and I'll be honest, there have been times in my career where I was not super fair to dogs. There were times where I was too hard on dogs. I think if any trainer says that they haven't, I don't think they're being fully honest. Most people anyway, and just I think I just probably got frustrated with dogs over things that I should have been frustrated with myself about because I wasn't teaching the dog thoroughly. With soft, soft dogs you have to really be careful, because even just a harsh voice and too harsh of a correction with the slip lead you'll ruin your relationship with the dog and then you won't make any progress at all, and I used to really really not like having super soft dogs. And.
Speaker 2:I'm older now, I've got young kids. I'm far more patient with dogs now and I really prefer a very driven dog who's soft that's my favorite to train. I used to not like that at all, but now I'm it's and I just have the like, same mentality. I mentioned the beginning. I go out and I'm like I know you didn't wake up to ruin my day and I'm not gonna let you ruin my day. You're not gonna put me in a bad mood. I'm having a great day. I'm out training dogs outside having fun. We're gonna. We're gonna work through it and if we're not gonna work through today, I'll put you up and we'll try again tomorrow it's just not worth getting frustrated.
Speaker 2:I need to start saying that to myself, yeah I think we would all probably get a lot further. And if you think they don't know when you're frustrated, they know, I'm telling you. Well, as soon as you walk out, I I had a really tough day with the kids not long ago and I was ready to throw them in a kennel and they frown on that. So I needed a breather and I went out to let my dogs out and it was so funny because I let them all out. No one was in season.
Speaker 2:So I let all the boys and girls out and I noticed no one was jumping on me. They were all sitting there looking at me like you, good dude, and I was like they know that my blood pressure, whatever it is, that's telling them. They know I'm having a rough day and it's so funny because they're just like I'm going to stay a little bit away because I don't know. And then I leaned down and I think it was Lucy and I was like that's a good girl. And they all started jumping on me like oh, he's all right, they know, man, they know when you're not, uh, when you're not feeling it.
Speaker 1:It's amazing, I love that too. Uh, they, they sure read us really quick. Um, martin, anything exciting coming up for Southern Oak kennels.
Speaker 2:Man. Um, we imported a lot of dogs over the last like 14 months and I told my guys I was like I'm taking a break. Thankfully it's summertime.
Speaker 1:You can't uh that's hard, it's a lot expensive, isn't?
Speaker 2:it. It is, and it's a lot more expensive after covid, not just the dogs, but the shipping, and shipping is double what it was before COVID. And so I noticed during um, it was more than he asked for. But I noticed in 2020, we couldn't import 21. We didn't really import and then 22, I was like, oh my, my girls and my boys are getting older you know everybody's four, five, six, which means they're about to retire.
Speaker 2:So 22 and 23, I started really hitting the gas pedal on trying to find stuff. But I wanted to be particular, I wanted to find stuff that I really liked, and so I did my trips over there and I I made some new connections and I just said, hey, this is what I want, and if it comes over here and I don't like it, we're just going to move it along, but I would like to mitigate that risk because it's so expensive. So we've imported, in my opinion, the best stuff we've ever had, um, and so my new boys, fletcher and will and huck, are very well bred, very fun to work like, and so far the puppies have been really nice and I've got some really good new girls here, and so we've kind of had like a like a reset on our breeding stuff and which makes me really sad, like when I hear that someone's retired like jet, you know, when she retired I'm like dang, that's the end of a whole era, you know, like, and. But right now I'm like I can go get any dog in this program here at headquarters and get them out with, like you mentioned, with a group, and work them and just be so pumped that they're here. And so I'm excited about the pups we have coming up.
Speaker 2:We're doing our Delta Waterfowl Expo this year, but for the summertime we take a lot of time off with the dogs. They get a lot of exercise. Training is pretty low-key until you know august, when we'll get up early in the morning and get them ready for dove season. So, uh, yeah, we did our our across the pond event this spring with laura hill. That was very fun. I'm gonna do that again next year with some some. I got some other folks that are going to come and try to make that an annual thing, so I'm excited about that too.
Speaker 1:Is that a video event that you can watch?
Speaker 2:No, I didn't video it, but I might, I might. I got to figure out cost-wise what that looks like, but what we did is we had Laura come over and do two days. We did a Q&A. We sold some premium handler spots, which means you get to bring your dog and work your dog, and then we sold some spectator spots, which means you get to just come be a part of it and watch, because in reality, if you have 20 dogs here, you're not going to get the attention you need. So we just had six dogs and Laura did one-on-one. We did a Q&A Friday night with a dinner and then Saturday and Sunday we did hands-on training through whatever she wanted to work through uh, ask all the questions you wanted to ask and great food, and it was. It was truly one of my favorite things we've done as a company.
Speaker 1:It was so fun well, when you do that again, be sure to holler at me, yeah.
Speaker 2:I'll hit you up. Yeah, I'll hit you up. It was good and it was really cool too because you know Laura, laura made moose up to field trial champion and she started Twig, one of my mamas, and so it's cool. She got them both out and handled them All right. Interesting story. Here's a nugget for your podcast. Two things Moose loves everybody.
Speaker 2:So the reunion with Laura was not much special because he just loves anybody. And you could tell he was like, hey, I'm happy to see you, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, the next day Laura asked if she could run him on a few retrieves to try something out and I was like, of course, you know, you're a dog. So she got him out and started running him and like halfway through a retrieve, something clicked and he recognized who she was. It was bizarre. He came bolting back and just started jumping all over and I was like, oh man, he yesterday. He didn't know, like he knew. But he wasn't like, oh, my god, this is you. Yeah, and it clicked on the second day and I'm talking about he. He turned into a different dog and that was really special to see.
Speaker 2:Um, from a training aspect, I send my dogs um with their name on a mark. So I, I just throw a mark in the uh in the air hits the ground, I just say twig, and off she goes, um the crazy. So twig, trained by laura, laura sends with uh, twig, go back on everything. So I told her she could borrow twig to do some like drill work with to test out what she was going to do the next day. And she decided to run the setup that miles and Wally were running this is after everybody's gone home with twig was a pretty tough set of marks and so she asked miles. She said what does Barton just send her with her name? And he was like yeah, just say twig.
Speaker 2:So they shot off a mark and Laura said twig, and she didn't budge. And she said twig, nothing. She dropped her hand and said twig, go back. And she took off. So then she tried three or four more times to get her to go with just saying her name and she wouldn't do it.
Speaker 2:So Laura tells me she was like I can't, twig won't go without me saying Twig, go back. I said really. I said let me see. So I got her out, walked her out, shot a mark off, twig, boom, took off. So this dog has. I've only had Twig for a little over a year. She has in her mind two different ways to be sent, each connected to a different handler. That's crazy, whereas she won't go on twig for laura because that's not what laura defined as steadiness. Laura defined it as twig go back as the release, whereas for me I just use twig and she goes. I thought that was one of the craziest things I've ever seen because, yeah, I think we just don't give them all the credit they need sometimes for a dog to be smart enough to know that's not how she sends me, so I'm not going to go and remembered it from a year ago.
Speaker 1:From over a year. I've never heard anything like that. That's pretty cool. Yeah, we were pretty amazed. So, martin, you're all going to be Southern Oaks going to be set up at the Delta Waterfowl in July in Oklahoma City.
Speaker 2:Yes, we're going to be in Oklahoma City July 25th, 26th, 27th.
Speaker 1:It's like the last weekend I think. And then the next weekend is Ducks Unlimited? Will you be there too? Memphis.
Speaker 2:I won't be at Ducks Unlimited. I will be at the Wakeboard National Championships in Grand Junction, colorado, with my son. Yeah, that'll be fun. So yeah, july 25th, 26, 27th, um. On july the 21st, uh, I will be at sitka gear atlanta. Uh, we're gonna do a q? A and a little talk about getting dogs ready for duck season. Uh, at sick of gear atlanta, 6 pm. They'll post that on their social stuff. So okay, that's the two events for the summer that we'll take dogs to, anything else in the fall, or is that pretty much hunting season for you?
Speaker 2:Man, yeah, Once we get into the fall we have the South Texas trip to Paloma Blanco to shoot doves with all the friends. That's the big kickoff. And then on it goes Hopefully back to the UK this year Watch some trials over there. And then, yeah, duck season. Duck season's hectic.
Speaker 1:Will you be?
Speaker 2:going to Scotland this year at the IGL? Man, that's a great question. You've done the IGL. Unfortunately, you did it, no offense, but you did it at what I would consider to be one of the worst places because it's hard to view. It was hard to view. It's hard to view. It's great to visit, it's hard to view.
Speaker 2:I have done the igl, um, and I did it at packington, which you can walk next to the line, so the the gallery was never more than 80 yards from the line. Oh, wow, yeah, yeah, so you get. That's a different experience, right, um, even still, still, the IGL is very fun. You get to visit with a lot of people, but what I have found is at the IGL, everyone's pretty stressed and so the visiting at the IGL is different, unless they go out. If they go out, they're pretty chill to go to the bar and chat, you know, or just go home, but most people are respectful and stay. So I might go I know a lot of people at where that one's going to be and I'm friends with a lot of folks would be able to have some cool access up there, but I truly prefer to just go over and visit like anywhere from five to 10 field trials on a trip and then stack in training days between those, and I feel like I get to hang out with my friends a little more on a personal level, because the people that I've met over there have truly become dear friends to me, and so I I enjoy spending quality time with them.
Speaker 2:More than anything, I like to see dogs. I like to see dogs. I like to see dogs run at trials. I got to see Lee Hardest's dog, the one that won five Open Stakes. I saw that dog run three trials this past year and that was special to see. I saw him win two of them, which is, I mean, that's insane. So that stuff's fun. You can see a dog in person. Sometimes you see a dog that you've heard a lot of good things about and you're like I don't know that I like that dog. You know, and you might would have been sold over the Internet. So that is important. But for me the most important thing is spending time with with my friends, with Lee Heyman, with Laura, laura and Derek are like my English parents.
Speaker 2:You know I love staying with them, and then with my buddy Simon and Kevin. You know I'd rather just hang out with them.
Speaker 1:I can see your point. Yeah, it's definitely. I've only been one time and yeah, it's pretty intense.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of people that go to the IGL and it is fun. The year that we went, don Alex Miles and I went and we had like the best time ever, like we had so much fun. But we had our own group and you know I'm I was at the time matt nesbitt was the game keeper the head keeper at packington and he and I hit it off really well, so he made sure we had good access, uh, which was cool. I almost got kicked out. I've shared that story a few times. I was recording videos and putting them on my story, oh yeah, and uh, they didn't like that so I had to delete that. Yeah, I was like do you? What they were worried about was that people in england would see it, recognize where we are, and the anti-hunters would come and have a protest and and they were very nervous about that back in 2018. Uh, and I totally get and respect that.
Speaker 1:I was like you really think anti-hunters are following an american labrador kennel, like probably safe, but I get it all good, yeah, no, I remember you saying that actually made me more cognizant of what I did and didn't do over there. But I'd be careful. I think I'm going to. We're going to go this year to cause it's in Scotland, just really just cause, you know, be neat to see it and I had fun. But I want to go again where I can see the trial.
Speaker 2:You'll see a lot more. You'll see a lot more this year. It'll be walk, walked up. I mean they'll do a drive and they'll do drives off the Hills, but you'll be. You'll be in the gallery. The gallery will not be as far in that type of ground and that type of ground is really fun to walk. I mean it's like bow Hill, like like that. I got to shoot at a trial there two years ago and and man, it's, it's incredible to walk. You'll lose the dog when they go through some of those gullies and stuff. But, um, that that will be fun and a lot of people. No offense to where it has been in. All of it's different. It's all great.
Speaker 2:But like high fly, a lot of people wanted to go to that IGL and it's flat crop ground, just sugar beet. It's not fun. The people there are nice. It's dog work and I went to two trials at High Fly on this last trip, so I'm not dogging it. I wouldn't want to go to the championships there. When you get up into Scotland, that's what the people over there would say proper trialing ground. You're going to have some cool dog work, some very far retrieves. Uh, it'll, it'll be. I think it'll be good. Who knows, I may go, I don't know. It's it's fun. It's fun up there and everything up there's so old, like when you stay in the cities, and stuff like the, the you're, the pub you're sleeping in, is like significantly older than our country.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's in a 14th century hotel, Mason Arms Excellent.
Speaker 2:How fun is that. It was something else. You get up and you get the full English breakfast. It's too much fun. I love it, it was neat.
Speaker 1:I'm excited. Well, barton, I know you have a crazy schedule man. I'm honored to have you back and this won't be the last time either. Be looking forward to you. Tell everybody, listen. I know that you're extremely well-known, but for those who may be listening for the first time, barton Ramsey, tell everybody how they can find you on social media.
Speaker 2:Yeah, on social, I have my own personal Instagram but it's really just a dad account, so you might not be interested in that one. But Southern Oak Kennels and then Cornerstone Gun Dog Academy on Instagram, on Facebook, would love for you to check them both out. And if you're in the market for Labrador Retrievers, like we've been talking about, then check out Southern Oak Kennels. And if you're thinking, man, I might want to try to train a dog, then check out Cornerstone and appreciate you listening. And, ken, I'm real stoked about your podcast and how committed you've been to it and I think it's pretty awesome to see the variety of guests you've had and I really appreciate being on the first time and the second time and happy to do it Whenever you think that your folks are not sick of listening to me again and want to hop back on. I'm always happy to do it.
Speaker 1:Man, I appreciate you no, barton, you've actually not had. You know, I've had a lot of people on here, a lot of, uh, really great guests that been honored to have, and even had a country music singer on here. But, believe it or not, barton, you may be the number one download overall.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, well, you want to know what the number one download is on my podcast, the Lab. I should have mentioned that I do have a podcast called the Lab, number one downloaded. One on mine is the story of Huck running away.
Speaker 1:That was crazy. And what's so neat is you announced on my last podcast that you're getting. It was a secret, but you had a dog coming over but you didn't tell everything because it wasn't here yet and the next thing I know I heard about that. I said man, that has to be the dog.
Speaker 2:Barton was talking about on the podcast. It was, it was, and he's a heck of a dog. He's out there right now. He's super fun to work.
Speaker 2:You couldn't imagine that dog running away. Now he's obsessed with me, but yeah, that's the difference to it. On the Lab, if anybody wants to hear the story, I have a podcast called the Lab. It's on Spotify, apple, all that, and I don't remember what episode number, but it's titled how I Lost a Field Trial Champion, and Josh Parvin did it with me, which was awesome, so it was a scary story.
Speaker 1:You can hear all about it on there. Well, barton, now you're going to recall a similar story. He didn't cost as much, but I went and picked up Maverick from Stone, purchased for you all, got home, put him outside in the kennel here in Midland and I told you I said the dog's Michael Jordan. He jumped out of a six-foot and was gone and found him later that day. I didn't have social media at the time and my friend put it on Facebook and I got him back that evening. He had gone eight. Maverick had gone eight miles across town, across traffic on the South side of Memphis, and then I was just. I was a wreck and there's names. Yeah, nobody's on my own.
Speaker 2:Right. Well, here's what's funny about it, is it? And I get it? When that happens, there's a lot of frustration, and then you don't know where to aim it. You weren't mean to us at all, but you were like what the heck, you know? I was like look man, once you kind of leave with the dog, it's kind of on you, you know. And what's great is you were all worried about it and the next picture I got was you and maverick on an airplane.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was like I guess ken worked it out like they're they're flying now so, oh man, no, I didn't blame you guys at all, but I was like, yeah, you're right, you're just in panic man, I was messaging my friend that trained huck and I was like bro, how often has this dog run away?
Speaker 2:he was in shock, which is funny too, because now, well, I'll tell you this I put, I let them all out my airing yard last night and I went to take care of two puppies. And when I and when I was taking care of those puppies, I see a black flash come running by me and I was like hey and dog, turn around. It was huck. He had jumped the six foot fence again, but he was just looking for me. He he was like oh, there you are. Like he was happy as could be, like he's not going anywhere, but you're not going to contain him without a roof.
Speaker 1:He's coming out and uh, I left my brothers for a few minutes. They live in Gallatin, outside of Nashville and man he's took off, he jumped the fence and but Anyway, he's very athletic, I love that yeah.
Speaker 2:Anyway, man, I enjoy being on here. Man, I'm going to go make sure my kids are doing their homeschool.
Speaker 1:All right, you have a great one, ken.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Yes, sir, appreciate it, thank you.
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