Gundog Nation
A show to bring together gundog enthusiasts, trainers, and handlers with discussion focused on all breeds and styles of gundogs.
Gundog Nation
Josh Parvin - Gundog Training, Health, and Heritage
#44 When disaster strikes in the field, are you prepared to save your dog's life?
Josh Parvin of Cornerstone Gundog Academy and Retriever Training Supply shares the harrowing story that led to creating their best-selling First Aid Kit after his retriever hit a barbed wire fence at full speed during a Kansas hunt. That close call transformed his approach to emergency preparedness and sparked a mission to help fellow gundog owners be ready for anything.
The conversation explores the fundamental difference between training methodologies in the retriever world. As Josh explains, "My dog does this because it gets to do it, not because it has to do it." This distinction highlights why the Cornerstone approach resonates with so many hunting dog owners who want their companions to work from enthusiasm rather than obligation. We discuss how this philosophy sometimes creates a culture clash between different segments of the gundog community.
The most exciting revelation? A high school teacher has established what may be the first official gundog team at a public school in Georgia. Students who previously had little outdoor experience are now handling spaniels and retrievers in AKC hunt tests, creating a model that could revolutionize youth engagement with hunting dogs. Kenneth shares his mission to support this groundbreaking program and calls on listeners to help provide resources for these students.
Throughout the episode, one truth emerges from conversations with top trainers worldwide: consistency trumps intensity. Whether you're aiming for a hunting companion or field trial champion, showing up consistently over time delivers better results than sporadic intense sessions. Josh's insights from working with Cornerstone members across the country reveal that family-friendly, consistent training protocols create dogs that owners can genuinely be proud of.
Ready to join a movement that's preserving our gundog heritage? This episode offers practical wisdom for both new and experienced handlers while celebrating the community that makes Gun Dog Nation more than just a podcast.
Gundog Nation is Proudly Sponsored by:
I'm Kenneth Witt and welcome to Gun Dog Nation. Gun Dog Nation is much more than a podcast. It's a movement to build a community of people around the world that like to watch a well-trained dog do what it's bred to do. Also, we want to get our youth involved into the sport of gundogs, whether it be hunting sport or competition. We want to build a community of people united to preserve our gundog heritage and be better gundog owners. Tune in to each weekly episode and learn about training, dog health, wellness and nutrition. We will also offer tips for hunting with dogs and for competition, hunt tests, field trials and other dog sports that involve gun dogs. Please go to our website gundognationcom and subscribe to our email list. We will keep you up to form weekly with podcasts that are coming out. We also will be providing newsletters with training tips and health tips for your dog. You can also go to patreoncom forward, slash gundognation and become a member. There's different levels of membership on there. Just go check that out.
Speaker 1:Also, we'd like to thank Sean Brock for providing the music for this show. The introduction and the outro is Sean Brock. He played everything on there except the banjo by Scott Vestal and the dobro by Jerry Douglas Sean is a neighbor of mine from over in Harlan, kentucky. I'm just crossing the mountain in Hyden Kentucky and he's a super talented guy. But most of all, I want you guys to check out the Creakers. They are also from Hyden Kentucky and this is an up-and-coming bluegrass and country band and these guys are hot. They're all over TikTok and YouTube. You will hear these guys because in a year or so they will be on the radio. They are very talented. Their videos are going viral on the net. These boys are family. Two of the lead singers one grew up with my daughters and the other one is my cousin's son, so he's family. But check them out. Check out the Creakers Also. Last but not least, if you want to buy a hat, koozie t-shirt or even gundog supplies, go to shop gundognationcom and you can purchase any of those items.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for listening. It's a privilege to have people that want to put up with me talking about dogs all the time. I actually enjoy what I do and I'm so glad to have this opportunity and thank you. Hello and welcome back to gundog nation. This is kenneth witt, coming to you from the ranch in fort mccavitt, texas, and it's a pleasure to have back again as a guest. This will just be a second of many times I'll have this gentleman on and his father. We'll get him on here too. But, josh, I know you're way more well-known in this world than I am in this industry, but go ahead anyway and introduce yourself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm happy to. I am Josh. I'm Josh. I'm with Cornerstone Gundog Academy. I'm probably just about like most of the listeners on here. I'm pretty passionate about retrievers. I told a little bit of the story the first time we were on there but fell in love with it the duck hunting and then that drew me into the dog stuff man, I'm just happy to be on your podcast, ken, and happy to see what you're doing for the gundog world with Gundog Nation. It's pretty cool how y'all are preserving heritage and how you're really kind of doing something. It's more of a movement. It's deeper than just as a podcast. You've got something deep going on here. It's pretty cool.
Speaker 1:Well, josh, you know a lot of people don't know this. I'm going to tell them. You and your father are very instrumental in me even having a podcast, because I had an idea and, honestly, I didn't share it with anybody. It called you first and you guys both talked to me and supported me and encouraged me and then I didn't even realize at the time that you had a business and that did marketing and story branding and and stuff. I I didn't know what that meant until I met you all, or I I knew you before. We talked about this and your father told me to go get that book, story branding.
Speaker 1:And man, I just uh, y'all, y'all held my hand as I got off the ground and and you still are like, I know you get aggravated I'm like, hey, josh, I need a commercial. It's always something I text you all the time. But, man, you guys deserve a lot of credit and anybody that's listened to this podcast and likes listening to this podcast, you need to know that Josh Parvin and Keith Parvin are a crucial reason that I'm even on here and, matter of fact, they do. It goes deeper than that, but we'll leave it at that. Not more about the death, but thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, I appreciate it. Thanks for the kind words there and you know a lot of that's my dad and us working together but I would say it all stems from the same thing. And when you told me your idea about Gun Dog Nation and we were chatting on the phone what stood out to me was it was in alignment with what we were doing. Right, we're passionate about helping people have a better experience with a retriever. I mean that's our vision at Coruscant enable everyone to have a better experience with a retriever and inspire future generations to do the same. And so when you came to me and you were telling me about that, I was like, man, this sounds awesome, especially as gundogs as a whole. I love how, with what you're doing, it gets into gundogs as a whole coondogs, upland dogs, I mean all kinds of gundogs. I mean it's pretty spectacular. So it's an honor to be on here, man, it really is well, thank you.
Speaker 1:No, I guess my topics kind of, you know, mirror me because I'm not. If you know me, josh, I'm all over the board. You know, like I might be working in doberman pincher one week doing protection work, that I might be doing tracking work with the dog and then working up land work and, uh, I'm all over the place. And I guess you know I hope that there's enough people that share my passion for all gun dogs. You know, and, and don't get me you know, I hope that there's enough people that share my passion for all gun dogs. You know, and don't get me wrong. You know I'm a retriever guy. I've got a kennel full of retrievers too, and I learned, you know, I think I became a better trainer because of Cornerstone. There's not a doubt in my mind. And for those of y'all that don't know Cornerstone, I highly encourage you to check it out. I talk about it every episode. But you know they have a member weekend down in Alabama and it's a great time. I've made just really close friends from there. Just one offhand, kevin Wright.
Speaker 2:You know, kevin comes in the booth with us a little while.
Speaker 1:And Kevin, everybody knows Kevin. It's kind of funny, you know, like I had Bob Owen on here from Lone Duck Chronicles and we did a podcast which hasn't been released yet. He knows Kevin. I told Kevin you need to listen to that podcast because we burned your ears off on it.
Speaker 2:I'll tell you what Kevin and his dog Mabel. They're viral, they go viral. He's posted a lot of stuff. I was looking and we had him on the Build From here podcast and we were talking before he's up. Man, have you seen Mabel on Instagram? And you know, I get on Instagram sometimes and I get on Facebook sometimes. Obviously, we're in the digital space a lot, but we're kind of sometimes more in a different digital space and the technical side. But when I was looking I was like man, miss Mabel is going viral. That dog is something else. And old Kevin, he's a great dude and he's incredible too. Now, with you guys being closer up there, he is pretty awesome with going with the Nashville Cornerstone Gun Dog Academy chapter. In fact, him and Seth and Ben hosted the first chapter event and it was bar none. It was incredible. We had a great time up there.
Speaker 1:Well, you know the thing too, josh, about Kevin and so many people that come to the member weekend and are so passionate, right? I mean, it takes a lot of time and effort to drive to Alabama, and there's guys there that come from Minnesota and Canada and I'm in West Texas, you know just to train dogs for three days and eat good. But that's how fun it is, that's how much we like it, and it takes a special breed of person to do that, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, hey, before we go any further on this, I just wanted to take a second. I thought this would be cool because if anybody's following you on social media, then they know that you just had an incredible I would, from what I can tell an incredible outcome for two major events Delta and then DU. I know we had some other things we're going to cover, but I thought you know, hey, when are you going to get the opportunity to talk about your own thing? You know you're normally interviewing guests on here. I would love to hear more. Since I didn't actually get to go, I'd love to hear more about DU and Delta. How was the event? Tell me what happened. I would just love to know, because I really hate I couldn't make it either. I had a few people reach out and saying, hey, are you going to be there? I said, well, unfortunately I'm not going to make it this year, but anyways, I would love to know more about it, how it went and all that.
Speaker 1:Gosh Joshush it was. It was really good and it's it's neat because they're both great organizations, both, you know, established to for duck conservation and to, you know, make, improve and acquire duck habitat. But I had never been to either function before, and so this is our first delta waterfowl convention and I had just formed a Delta Waterfowl chapter in Midland Texas called the Permian Basin Chapter back in January, so I'm fairly new to it. I've been a member of Ducks Unlimited for a long time but I hadn't gone to a national expo. So first we'll go to Oklahoma, since it was the first one weekend before last and it was in Oklahoma City.
Speaker 1:You know it was in oklahoma city. You know it was a huge event, a lot of vendors there. Uh, one thing I liked about that show is that, you know, delta waterfowl does stuff post show for like dinners, and they had a banquet and stuff, the one at ducks, unlimited. I wanted to go but it sold out but it was really good, you know. Uh, just people coming to the booth. Uh, you know, we, we, we have t-shirts and stuff for gundog nation and we do have some dog supplies and stuff.
Speaker 2:Uh, yeah, you've got a you've got a gear store, uh, and you've got a swag store, um. Yes, the, the swag store is awesome. I I don't know, have you shouted this out on the podcast yet?
Speaker 1:just get really starting to uh, the gear store. I haven't really, we haven't really done that much, but it's kind of good. Though, josh, I think we were the only people there selling pure gundog supplies. I mean, like you know, and when I say that it ain't like we had a pure store, we just had leashes, collars and dummies and that stuff kind of moved, but it kept people at our booth the only thing I think we've talked about this, me and Heidi, when we got back. It's kind of confusing, because they'd come and look and I had a banner for one business and a banner for the other and I thought you know what we realized at Ducks and Loons.
Speaker 1:This is probably a little much overkill. So we probably won't do that again. We're just going to call it Gun Dog Nation and go from there. But you know I encourage anybody to go out to that Gosh, there's so many, you know, shingear, sick Kuyu Gosh. I don't mean to leave anybody out. I mean there's coffee companies there, gun companies. But fast forward to the next weekend, and this is a killer, because you know we drove to Oklahoma and we went home for a few days and drove to Memphis.
Speaker 1:That's a lot, that's a lot Truck loaded down with stuff. But we get to Delta Waterfowl and it's just like oh my, it was so big that it was kind of overwhelming. First they had a huge exhibit hall and then they had sold out and opened another exhibit hall across from it and they were both. There was an empty booth. So Friday's show was a little bit slow, which it was like that in Oklahoma too, yeah, yeah, you know kind of slow, steady. But Saturday it opens at 9. We show up at 8.30, and I'm not lying. There was, I'd say, a couple thousand people lined up on both sides of the exhibit hall. There's stairs to get up to that floor, it's like the second floor on both sides and there were people lined up all the way outside. It was insane. The only thing I've heard that's bigger than that is the Wild Turkey Federation one in Nashville.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a big one, and I've never been to that and we're on the waiting list to go there this year to keep our fingers crossed. But, josh, it was just so good. I just met so many people that are passionate and, of course, unlike Pheasant Fest that I went to, which is upland dogs and upland hunting, this is waterfowl and you're right in the heart of waterfowl country because you've got all these people from Arkansas, mississippi, alabama, tennessee, kentucky, and it was just a constant flow. People weren't allowed to have. I think there was carpet in there in the room, so so the only dogs that were there were select few and, like some of the vendors had their own dogs, but there weren't many. Uh, I don't think there were any pet dogs.
Speaker 2:uh, now there were some pet dogs at delta waterfowl.
Speaker 1:I don't know what the rules are, didn't inquire about that, but you know, uh, it was really neat. I mean gosh, I met so many people. And what's neat when you leave there and you've done this stuff like, you've got so many business cards and podcast ideas. And the cool thing was I had other podcasters coming up to me, which is great, because some of those guys I really idolize, like Adam Campbell, the doghouse- oh yeah.
Speaker 1:I love his podcast and listen to it religiously. And then a new guy that I just met at Delta Waterfowl and he has a huge podcast the Honker, the Big Honker. His name is Jeff Stanfield. We were supposed to have done one yesterday and he's got the flu from Memphis.
Speaker 2:Oh no, that's not good, Stanfield. We were supposed to have done one yesterday and he's got the flu from.
Speaker 1:Memphis. He came back from Memphis. He has a crazy number of following and sponsors. There's a gentleman I've listened to a long time. It's the Hunting Dog Podcast. He's from up north, maybe northern Michigan or Minnesota or Wisconsin. It's one of those three states. The Hunting Dog Podcast I've listened to a lot. He's been out 12 years, so we're all going to be on each other's podcast, I think. And it was neat because you know a podcast a lot of times you don't see those guys' face. In my case, that's probably a blessing For me. People don't want to see me, you know, so they can just listen, but just really enjoyed it, you it and got to learn from them and what they do to be successful. I don't know. It's going to be in Memphis again next year and if you can make it, I highly recommend it. I'm not paid by Ducks Unlimited, I'm just a member and it was just really fun, really fun.
Speaker 1:Hello, this is Kenneth Witt with Gun Dog Nation. Many people quickly become frustrated and confused when training a retriever. Cornerstone Gun Dog Academy's online courses eliminate all the guesswork by giving you a proven training system that will help you train a dog that anyone will be proud to have when they're 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.
Speaker 1: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 freshened back up for hunt test season. I highly recommend them. I have actually been a subscribed member of Cornerstone Gun Dog Academy since 2016, and I would suggest anyone use it. I 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 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 2:Yeah, hopefully maybe we'll make it out next year. I was talking to some of the chapter leaders, volunteers here at Cornerstone and I think what we're thinking next year is going to be pretty awesome. We're going to have and I've already got quite a few that have agreed, but we'll have chapters actually do the booth for Cornerstone at DU and Delta, maybe the National Wildlife Turkey Federation as well. We'll have to look into that, but I'm pretty excited about that and I think it could be cool.
Speaker 1:Well for you guys. You know, to me too it's money well spent. I mean, you meet so many people and you know it never fails, josh, when I leave those events, my, my listenership always increases and our social media following increases. Uh, and while I'm on that subject, I gotta talk about this. So there's a. There's an up-and-coming band. I'll give you some information about it, but you know, I'm from hyden, kentucky, real small town right down in southeast kentucky, almost in virginia, almost in tennessee. You know about I don't know 45, 50 miles from each state, and uh, there's a. There's a group of boys from our hometown called the creakers and uh, and my cousin's son, tanner, is one of the singers. The other singer, alan Hacker, grew up with my daughters going to church with them and stuff and actually singing with my daughter in church. These kids are so talented, they're all from home when you hear their music on Spotify, apple, youtube, tiktok. There's no studio musicians on the recorded stuff. They write everything they do.
Speaker 1:No way it's pure when you listen to it. And it's pure, like when you listen to it, it's pure, there's no fancy. You know studio tweaking. Uh, they play bluegrass but it's kind of country and they're they've kind of I don't know. I hate calling crossover, but they're a little bit of a crossover the two, but uh, these guys are great. So anyway, alan, uh, one of the singers he sounds like Chris Stapleton, by the way, and I asked him. I said, hey, man, I might get you to, because he loves these hats. I don't have one with me, it's a shame, but he loves our Gun Dog Nation hats and they wear them on stage.
Speaker 2:And he was talking about how much he liked it. That's so cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know it's free advertisement for me. So he liked it so much. I said, man, I knew he'd about worn it out, you know, because he's sweating and he's on stage at summertime. So I said, you know, hey, do you want a new one? I've got some other colors here, see if you like one. He picked one out and I sent it to him in the mail. So he gets it in the mail, you know, takes pictures with it, thanks me and all this stuff, and we sent him a koozie.
Speaker 1:So now he does TikTok Live and it's going insane. You know just him, alan Hacker, tiktok Live. And so, long story short, he made me a little quick commercial. What is today Wednesday? So it was late Monday afternoon and he just tells people to go follow his buddy and check out his podcast, gun Dog Nation. He has a hat on, he points at the patch and he tells them to go subscribe to my YouTube and follow my social media. And he sent it to me and I posted it on TikTok. In 24 hours it had 35,000 views, wow. And now the last time I looked he's getting close to. I'll just see real quick, because this is crazy. So we're knocking 48 hours. Right now he's at 94,500 views.
Speaker 1:Wow, and it's on mine and it's just crazy, uh, how things work and some of the podcasters that I've talked to it's been successful. Um, you know, they said that it's just one video, one, one podcast sometimes kind of just puts you in that different level. But he's really helped me. That makes sense. I'm so thankful for it and it's drawn a lot of attention. It's made my social media grow in the last two days like it's never grown before. Matter of fact, my likes and my followers, my likes doubled. It's crazy, josh, you know me. I'm kind of old school on this technical stuff and I try to be social media savvy, but I really am not. Yeah, social media savvy, but I really am not.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, the way I always look at it too is there's a lot of gurus out there, but in reality, at the end of the day, this is all about connection with us and with people and with the dogs. If you really get down to the root of everything, it's about connecting. So, whatever you're doing, you know, just connecting with people is the key, and that's what we always try to do, is connect with people and connect with the dogs, and that's kind of we build a lot off of relationship is key in everything yeah, and you know what makes it so great is I love what I do.
Speaker 1:josh, you know I'm a talker like hardcore. Uh, if you're gonna get on the phone with me, you better set aside some time or go somewhere. You're gonna lose service really fast because I'll talk to you for three hours. So having an outlet for that, where I can talk to people and I told you that's why I started this podcast, because I'd get on the phone talking about dogs to somebody. Way before I did this. I'd look at my phone an hour and a half later and we're still going and I thought I need to put this into a format. But anyway, I love doing this and I'm so thankful you guys gave me the encouragement to do it and believed in me, because I wasn't sure it would work. And you know, josh and when I say we, I'm including you and your father, because we've been a team at this and we've come a long way in 11 months. You know September 26th was my first episode last year.
Speaker 2:Wow, we're coming right up on it. Who knows, this might be releasing at the same time. You've got a queue of them queued up, so we'll have to look and see. Heck, this could be a one-year anniversary.
Speaker 1:And you know, I've got one coming up, josh I've got to talk about just briefly because it's so exciting, but there is a high school just across the line from Chattanooga, tennessee in Georgia I think that's Ringo, or I shouldn't know that because I've been through it so many times, but I got approached over the weekend on social media by a high school teacher who actually started a gundog team.
Speaker 1:No way At the high school teacher who actually started a gun dog team sporting dog at the high school. That is amazing. One year under their belt they compete in akc, hunt test and I think maybe hrc, but I know they do hr akc. The teacher bought. He got all this approved through the school system and got him to do it as a trial program. It's all his idea. He had bought two cocker spaniels and they've raised them in the school. He's got an older lab.
Speaker 2:I need to talk to this guy. The fact that he was able to pull that off. In a school system, he knows how to sell. There is no question about that.
Speaker 1:You're right. He's got the backing of the administration behind him there in Georgia. We're going to have him on. We're going to have him and some of the kids on the team on on this podcast in a couple of weeks. And the cool thing is, josh is some of those kids.
Speaker 1:You know, when we talked about what I want to do with this podcast, you all helped me develop that, and one of the things I wanted was to get the youth encouraged and get involved, so I want to do more stories on that. Well, this was my best chance. I thought you know what. This is my chance for me to practice what I preach. You know, because I say this in all my podcasts, but this is doing it anyway. Uh, those, some of those kids had never hunted, oh wow. And some of them had one of the kids he talks about hopefully he's gonna be one of the kids had never hunted, oh wow. And some of them one of the kids he talks about and hopefully he's going to be one of the kids on there had done nothing but play video games and stay in the house Wow that's amazing.
Speaker 1:So it's a great story. I want this to go viral so that other schools do the same thing. And, for anybody that's listening, I'm trying to get them a Labrador retriever pup to raise from the ground up. They can probably use the cornerstone system to train it Absolutely. And, uh, so anybody out there and they want something that's competitive level, that they could do hunt tests with not necessarily field trial dogs, but some because they're going to do hunt tests and compete, so they want a well-bred dog. So anybody out there that's listening, contact me on my social media and if you have something in mind that you could donate to them I'm not going to interact in the donation itself I'll let you do that with the school and the coach, but I think that's a great thing and I'm very passionate about it.
Speaker 2:I think that's pretty incredible, I agree, because it's actually kind of interesting. I, um my high school, had a co-op and, um, basically, you could get out of work, out of school early and you could go work and uh, so I, what did I do? I did the co-op. I was like I don't like school anyways. I mean, yeah, I went through school and did all that, but I didn't like it. I was like I could be out training dogs right now. So in high school I was leaving permission rise through the co-op thing and I was actually going out and training dogs. So I think that's yeah, I would say so it was a win-win for everybody. I had fun doing it. I had fun doing it.
Speaker 2:But, yeah, getting getting kids involved and and I think about that having kids in my, my own um, you know, even to the point when my um, my oldest, was really wanting to watch a lot of TV, and it's easy to do that as a parent because you get you get a little bit tired sometimes, and so what we we the straw that broke the camel's back is it was creating a little bit of a bad attitude. So we're like, well, no more TV. Well then I started letting a little TV come in, but it was only fishing Fishing shows or hunting shows. She's kind of more into the fishing thing, so we watch a lot of like inshore fishing and a little bit of offshore fishing, specifically the Gale Force Twins. They're pretty awesome. I'll tell you what I love about them. Uh, if you're, if you're into fishing, is they're, they're uh, their attraction for you to watch them is their personality. They're very modest and I'm not seeing a lot of that out there, and so there's only like certain things that I'm going to let myself watch first of all, but also my girls watch, because when they're watching that that's something they're going to be considering doing, maybe modeling after. In fact, mercy said the other day she's like we're watching, she's like one day I'm going to become a Gale Force twin and I'm going to be doing this video stuff. But what's cool about that is they're actually modest and they're attracting you. I think they actually just got a TV show, if I'm not mistaken. So they've hit it big. They're on the Out, hit it big like they're on the outdoor channel, like big, big time.
Speaker 2:But I say that to say when we're talking about the younger generation, it's important to give them pieces to connect and make it fun. You know, a lot, of, a lot of times it's it's really about getting them involved and never forcing it, and that kind of gets to the way we train too. We don't want to force it too much. So I love what that teacher is doing and I'm sure we would be willing to support that as well, especially supporting with the methods that we utilize. I think that would fit very well, especially with the family. We're very family-oriented at Cornerstone and Retriever Training Supply. I think we, you know, if you talk, whenever you talk to him, just fill it out Obviously, just see where they're at. I would love to know more. Maybe you could set up a call with me and him and I could chat. But I would love to support that so that we could help the future generations to get involved.
Speaker 1:Hello, this is Kenneth Witt with Gun Dog Nation and I've got to tell you guys about something that I've gotten hooked on lately. It's Fauxlicious these that I've gotten hooked on lately. It's Fauxlicious these are gourmet instant faux and ramen bowls that actually taste like the real deal. When I'm out in the field all day and the last thing I want is to settle for bland camp food, fauxlicious is what I go to. It's authentic. The flavor, it's real ingredients. It's ready in just minutes. It's perfect for hunters, fishermen or anyone on the go, and you can get them over at 1900 Walmarts nationwide, your local HEB here in Texas, or you can just go online at foliciouscom. Trust me, once you try it, you'll keep a few stocked in in your bag, in your backpack or for your next adventure. I just want to say this I want to add this to this commercial because I know the owners of this company. They've hunted on my ranch. Because I know the owners of this company. They've hunted on my ranch.
Speaker 1:Joseph, he and I actually met in Colorado on a hunting trip. That was a real adventure. They are true hunters. They've hunted at the ranch. You know, and I've hunted with them. And Anna, she is just amazing. She is the one that came up with this idea. They were both on Shark Tank. They are amazing people. So I love seeing people like this have a business. And I just had to say that, in addition to the commercial, because I really believe in the product and I believe in the people that made the product. Be sure and go to Foliciouscom or go to Walmart or HEB and try their product. I promise you you will like it, I will do that. And the good thing is like I can tell he's an experienced gundog guy. I promise you you will like it, I will do that, and the good thing is like I can tell he's an experienced gundog guy, so he knows what he's doing. But yeah, I'll get you all in touch and, like I said, I can't wait to do that podcast and release that episode.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's going to be a cool episode, but the one episode, the one thing I was wanting to do today and, josh, of course I'm getting ready to get your dad on here on another episode and you all together but I really thought the timing was perfect for us to talk about not just Retriever Training Supply, but I happened to be there last fall and you guys were putting together a new item that you were going to release on Retriever Training Supply. Yeah, yeah, and I thought it was really amazing and I know you and I aren't veterinarians and we may not understand everything in these big expensive kits, but let's talk about that just briefly a little bit. Tell everybody what you said. We're talking about the first aid kit, okay, yeah, well, yeah, let's dive in. I've got one sitting sitting right there.
Speaker 2:Um, let me just before you know, rather than getting into the technical stuff to start with I'll just tell the story of the first aid kit and why it exists today and why we started the Retriever Training Supply First Aid Kit. Because, um, up until this event that had happened, I had never really thought much about first aid. My first aid thoughts were pretty much a Band-Aid and if that, I didn't worry about it too much. But especially when you're around the house, you're close by. If you're close to stuff you can get help you need pretty quickly. But we were going on a hunt to Kansas and for us, when we're bringing the dogs, we got to drive right, because if you fly in the winter, if it gets below a certain temperature, they're not going to let the dogs fly, which means you're grounded and you're stuck. So we're pretty much driving right. We don't want to get stuck anywhere. We don't be able to get back if we need to, and so we drive 12 hours. So we leave around four or five. I think we left a little later on this day, maybe around five or six, uh, 8 AM, and so it took us about 12 hours to get up at the Kansas and we were actually going to Wade's and this is his old place, this isn't the new place, uh, but when we got there, you know the, the dogs that we stopped once. I'll let my dogs out briefly, but I mean, we're trying to make this whole trip in one day, so it's, we're not, uh, we're not doing a quick let out, so it's a. It's a quick let out, it's nothing, just enough to go to the bathroom, get water, and then we're back in the truck and then hammering down and so, as you can imagine, when you arrive, the dogs are, they are amped or they are so happy to finally get there.
Speaker 2:And when we got there, it was starting to get dark. I went in and shook hands with everybody first, and then I went and let the dogs out, so I actually let them all out at the same time. I think I had two with me on this trip Rhett, and then Beretta, or Rhett and then Violet, and it was starting to get dark. Well, there was a barbed wire fence and there was tall grass, like as tall as the barbed wire fence, and so I didn't think much about it at the time, like I knew the fence was there, but I was letting the dogs run around in this huge field and you know, then I got Rhett put up and the violet was still out there hanging out. Well, it's starting to get darker and with that grass, violet could not see that fence and I saw like the grass moving off at a distance. And then I saw her and like I could barely say anything and it was too late. Violet was violet was running full speed and ran into that barbed wire fence and you hear like a, and then you just see like a flash, like flipping through the fence. I was like, oh no, my dog is, she is done. There is no way. Um, so I get over there and I mean it knocked it, winded her, like it. You know she, she wasn't running after that, but I get over there there. And then her tail was she came back, like what happened, tail between her legs.
Speaker 2:As we met in between halfway in the field and I looked at her, I was like started looking around but it was too dark I couldn't really see. I was like, okay, I guess we're fine. I can't even believe it In my mind. I'm thinking about her eye and the barb there. I'm thinking, oh my gosh, like when I, when I was walking up to her, I thought, yeah, either her neck is done, her eyes done. I was like I was like she could be, her guts could be out, but she was not, thankfully. Uh, but what? I couldn't see because it was so dark as we we brought her in and got into the light Cause, by the time I was like kind of panicked and worrying about her, loving on her.
Speaker 2:I was like you, okay, we get inside and there's a, there's a couple of big slashes, I think, one on her arm here and then one like right down through here. And uh, what was crazy is, you know, at this time now, what's going through my mind is okay, well, I'm looking at these are deep cuts Like this has to be checked out. Like this isn't something you can just go on with. Like this, she's messed up, we're gonna have to get her fixed. And so, uh, fortunately there was no like blood vessel that was hit, or artery or anything, so there was no massive amounts of blood, a little bit of blood, but nothing massive. Um, so it wasn't like she was about to die, although she could have. That could have happened. But now in my mind, the next thing is okay, like we're out of the woods as far as a big, like she's not going to die immediately, like we can get to the vet. But then I'm thinking, okay, well, here we go, emergency vet visit. That's going to be three grand, you know, but you got to do it. You got to get your dog taken care of. And so it just so happened.
Speaker 2:Uh, david Graham, a Cornerstone member, he also has SOK dogs and great guy, he's down in Florida. Love Mr David. Um, he was up there and his friend was a vet that actually was hunting with us and I had no idea. We literally just got there and so David had a first aid kit there and then the vet happened to be there. So I was getting ready to like go find an emergency vet. Well, it turns out there was a vet at the place we were at. I was like that doesn't get any better than this. So David whips out this first aid kit and we start pulling out some stuff and then they clean up the wound and then boom, boom, boom, boom stapled it up and we're good to go.
Speaker 2:And Violet was actually able to continue hunting, like that didn't even mess us up, like she was good to go. He doctored her up. He didn't even charge us, he literally just did it because out of the love of the animal and because we were there, and so he saved us number one sleep, thousands of dollars. And but having that first aid kit was, you know, there, like if, let's say, it was worse, um, and we had to go to an emergency vet and she was about to bleed out or something. Thankfully they were there and they had the first aid kit there.
Speaker 2:And if, if they weren't there, what we would be doing is just barely wrapping up with whatever we could find a towel or whatever we could find and then hightailing it to the closest emergency vet. But, as you know, as you're out in Kansas, you're out in the middle of nowhere because we're going to where the ducks are. Sometimes you've got to go to the middle of nowhere. I don't know if she would have made it, because I wasn't even aware of if there was a place around. So a first aid kit basically saved my dog's life and it allowed us to continue the hunt and a vet allowed us to do that.
Speaker 2:So when we that marked me and so right then, and there, like, we already had a retriever training supply. We were already, I believe at the time we had a retriever training supply. We did, and so at that point in time I was like you know what this is, we've got to get a solution for this right away. Because I started looking and what I found you know, as someone like me who's not a vet, and all that, when you start looking into first aid it gets overwhelming. There's so much out there, there's so many different first aid kits and you don't even know what to get. So what I did is I went and I was connected with people that knew what they're talking about, connected with my vet, who's actually a gun dog guy too, and then Robin, who worked with us at the time, was actually he'd worked at vets for years and we consulted other vets and we put together the best, most comprehensive first aid kit that we could fathom.
Speaker 2:To put together that you would be ready for pretty much anything you needed to as far as a first line of defense. This is, you know, it's not necessarily like this isn't no tier one trauma, but like, if something happens, you got something in there that can. That I'm not going to say is going to save your dog's life, but I will say, will give you an opportunity to do something and to basically enhance your odds. And that was kind of what I was going through in my mind, because it's like, well, as I know personally my experience with dogs and first aid and all that and I'm very limited I learned a lot on that trip, but I also know a lot of us out there. If you're not in the medical field, you're not in the vet field and you're a business owner like me, or you're working hard and just providing for your family doing whatever. You're a business owner like me or you're working hard and just providing for your family doing whatever you're doing I wanted to create something that would make it, give us a chance, especially if you don't know what you're doing.
Speaker 2:So that's where the first aid kit comes in. We've got those booklets, we've got everything in there, so basically it's a good first line of defense, and so that's where the first aid kit came from, and we can barely keep these things in stock. People buy them up left and right. Whenever we send an email out, it's gone, like they're just flying off the shelves. But I believe it's, and I've been told it by many and vets and everybody and many people that have said that is the best first aid kit I've ever seen, and really I'm glad people are saying that. But what we did is we were like we just want to put something out there. That's great. That will prepare you If you're out in the middle of Kansas or you're in Canada or wherever you're at. It'll at least give you a fighting chance to do something to help protect your dog.
Speaker 1:Well, josh, I can say for a fact you know I'm out around a lot of events and stuff and I've seen other first aid kits and I'm not knocking any of them, but yours is by far the best one I've seen. And I'm not just saying that because you guys, you know we have a relationship, but I I call it like it is and if you don't think so, if you're listening to this, you just go check it out yourself. But what I like is that you sought expert advice. When you design, you know what goes into this kit yeah, let me.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna see if I can share this to you. I think I'm messing around. I see a share screen, let's see here. Is it showing up here?
Speaker 1:Yes, looks good.
Speaker 2:All right, oh, there we go. Okay, okay, let me pull it up here, the first aid kit and we can look at that. This is, we're in retriever I'm actually in Retriever Training Supply as we're filming this but we'll go to the training accessories here and we'll pull up this first aid kit here. You know, one of the things too, just starting off the bat to you, is when you look at first aid kit, there's a lot of bags and stuff and I think those are great. But what was very important to me as a waterfowler is a waterproof, and so that's where that case comes in. We wanted something that was going to be waterproof, durable. You know, if somebody you know drops something heavy on it, it's probably going to be fine, because protecting the contents of the package are vitally important, right, if you think about it, you know, for me, like, hopefully, you know, god forbid, god forbid, hopefully you never, ever need this, you know. But if you do need it, you want the stuff to be protected so that if something happened, you can get in there and you can start figuring some stuff out. But yeah, this is, this is the first aid kit here and it kind of you can go through the pictures and see some of the different contents. We've got a first aid kit that drafts up and it just helps you. Like I said, it wouldn't hurt you to familiarize yourself with that first aid kit and with all the contents of the package, but we wanted to have a simple first aid kit. If you're in the field and something happens, here are some steps you can take to help mitigate that.
Speaker 2:Let me just say too, this doesn't have to be all big trauma, like there's some simple stuff in here, that that smaller stuff like um I you know another example Violet um, I actually had to miss Violet's had to have this first aid kit used on her twice. Um, it wasn't too long ago, actually, member weekend this past year, violet ate something in the yard and you know I was on the phone or whatever and wasn't paying attention and she ate something and, uh it, she got an impact in her, in her stomach. Now, what this didn't allow was, like this wasn't going to fix that, but, um, I was able to give her some of that honey and stuff right there and some stuff to try to help her stomach feel better. And had it not been an impact, I know that would have helped her stomach feel better, and had it not been an impact, I know that would have helped their stomach feel better and we would have got you know beyond, that would have been all good. Now, unfortunately, she ended up having to go to the vet and have surgery for that.
Speaker 2:But just having that first aid kit and being able to read on all that gave me a lot of comfort, knowing like, okay, like I'm not out here fighting this on my own, I don't have to wait for the vet to with her. And I've actually used a couple of other items like minor scrapes and cuts and things like that for the dogs to just help them out. But you can get on here and read about it If you, if you want to know what's in the contents of the package. It tells you everything that's in there. So you know what to expect and it just tells you pretty much everything.
Speaker 1:But, like I said, the waterproof thing was was something that was pretty, pretty important to us and Josh, I remember there, when I was at your store there in Alabama, you actually had some of those cases. I thought it was a Pelican case. Is that what that is?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's just like a Pelican case, a very hard shell. It's like a hard shell style case. It's not a Pelican itself, but it's a hard shell style case and it's pretty much it's the real deal, I mean, and that's what you know. The bags are great and it wouldn't honestly hurt and that's what that little mesh bag there is for, like, if you look at this, uh, this picture, we kind of took a little bit of a hybrid approach. Instead of having just a bag all the way around, like you could throw in some of your essentials into your blind bag, if you want, and then have this back at the truck. You know, like, if you needed to like get back for something more serious or whatever, hop in the Polaris, get back to the truck. But that and that's kind of the way you're thinking too, you know it wouldn't hurt.
Speaker 2:Like when you're going on a hunt to you know to really like find the vets and also for yourself, find emergency rooms nearby, like these are the things we just don't think about.
Speaker 2:That my eyes were open to accidentally on a hunt, and we have some awesome members, chris and Sarah Roland, and Sarah's an ER doctor, a trauma doctor, and she's gone through a whole seminar, Like at member weekend. She typically does the seminar called Stop the Bleed, and you'll learn a lot from that. But they've taught me so much and it's like you don't think about these things until it happens. I'm hopefully shedding some light on thinking about all this stuff first, but I do want to say hey, we are not vets, we are not doctors, so personally, you should consult a veterinarian and a doctor before using all this stuff. It really wouldn't hurt to even call your vet and say, hey, I'm going to get this first aid kit. Can you talk me through some of this stuff too? But we do have that initial guide in there. But, like I said, this isn't necessarily going to guarantee safety or protection or anything, but it's, in my opinion, makes me feel better to have as a line of defense there.
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Speaker 1:You know, josh, I've had several veterinarians on here, one Dr Joe out of Wichita Falls we call him the bird dog vet and he's going to send a list of items essential stuff that you need. But he went over that list verbally on the show and as soon as I got off the show I went and pulled up your website to see and you had. You guys have it. You know it's, you have it all and the the box is like bulletproof. So, yeah, I was. I was really impressed. I have one thanks to you guys and and I'll be taking it with me I'll be hunting in montana, north dakota, and I'll be driving and I'll have dogs. So, uh, and you know, I'm almost like you, though, josh I've hunted with dogs. I used to run packs of beagles, and I never had a first aid kit. Now my, I've actually hunted with guys that did, and they would staple dogs and everything, but I didn't do that and that stapler is a is a great tool.
Speaker 2:I mean, like if you get a big slash even on yourself, like if you need to do. I mean if you need to do something. I think that's a, it's a good tool. But you know, like I said, I really want to throw this disclaimer out there.
Speaker 1:You should really talk to a vet and a doctor about all this, so I can't call you Dr Parvin on here, but and unfortunately now I've only got a four year degree.
Speaker 2:So then, I don't. I don't have all that going for me right now. I don't know that I'm going to. I've thought about it, but you know what? I just like having fun yeah.
Speaker 1:You know I went to well, I had some higher education too, and I actually enjoyed it, believe it or not. But I don't want to go back anymore. I went a long time.
Speaker 2:I had fun with that. I had fun with the higher education too, but I was really there because I met my wife and we were dating. At the time I was like you know what? I think she's pretty, she's really pretty. Maybe I should just really stick around to make sure I got to protect this thing we got going here, yeah.
Speaker 1:You did well. Your wife's a super nice person. So is your mother. They're wonderful ladies. But no, listen, all you listeners out there. If you can't see this and you're dry, you can watch this on YouTube and actually see the kit. But Retriever Training Supply sells the best first aid kit on the market and I can say that with all sincerity. I have one and I will be taking it with me this year.
Speaker 2:I appreciate that, ken, and thanks for supporting that and having that. I think it's a good move and I appreciate that You're welcome.
Speaker 1:You're welcome, josh. It's weird. We're always on here talking about training and stuff. This has kind of been a first. We're just kind of ad-libbing and this is not a bad way to go. So, yeah, what's coming up next for you guys? Do we have any secret releases that you haven't told anyone yet that you might want to announce on here?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're always thinking of something, we always have ideas, but we also always have stuff in the queue. I would say, you know, depending on when you're listening to this episode, I can say what we just did. We've just totally redone the Cornerstone Gundog Academy app. We rebuilt it from the ground up. Totally different experience Now you have access. We used to really focus, have it in the Facebook group, but now you can actually have all of that within the app and view your courses, which is incredible.
Speaker 2:And there's chapters, so local Cornerstone chapters I already talked about that a little bit but, like the Nashville chapter, the Birmingham chapter, at the time of recording this, there are 26 or 27 chapters and they're spanning from east to west coast. But a chapter is basically a local group of members and they connect via the app and they have their own space. They can connect in the app and they have their own place. They can connect with the big CGA family, but that's really what is next is connecting. You know what we're calling for the chapters. It really gets us back to the root and the heart of what we originally want to do and again, we want to help people have a better experience. But it's really about growing the sport, helping families, helping families get involved, and there's no better way to do that than do it on a local level. So we believe that life change happens in the context of relationships and if you think about it, I mean, I think if any listener right now were to think about that, their life has not changed except for in the context of relationships, interacting with another person, having that connection, and I know, at least my life that's been the case. So that's really what's. That's really.
Speaker 2:The next major stuff that we're doing is more chapters on rolling, more chapter events. We're having, you know, local meetups. People are gathering together, training their dogs in person, and that's helping people have a better experience. Like here in Birmingham in our Birmingham chapter in July we had our event and it was incredible. We even had someone with a young dog, like a four or five-month-old dog, come out and participate in the event. I wish we had chapters when we were starting training our dogs, because if you could start that with your puppy, can you imagine they're not going to know anything different. They're coming in to a group of people and they're going to think it's normal, versus most dogs, and most people probably train alone. So our goal is to connect more people and help people have a better experience with their dogs. That's really, I would say, the main stuff. We do have some more stuff we're looking at in the fall. Well, one other new thing we have. We do have some more stuff we're looking at in the fall.
Speaker 2:Well, one other new thing we've started another podcast. We have the Build From here podcast, which is where we're sharing cornerstone real stories and we're not shying away from the problems. We tell it like it is that we get into it and like if we ask, hey, what was your challenges? And we let our actual customers get on there and share their challenges they had and also how they ever came. All that Um and then. But the new podcast that we released is called the it's the cornerstone gundog Academy podcast.
Speaker 2:And so what we want to do again in supporting our vision?
Speaker 2:Uh, we want to.
Speaker 2:We want to help people.
Speaker 2:So this is a it's a shorter form podcast 20 to 30 minutes and where we're diving into valuable tips and insights into retriever training with sound advice that you can trust.
Speaker 2:Right, you know, there's a lot of conflicting information out there and it can be overwhelming, especially if someone's on the journey of trying to train their retriever, and so we want to make it easy for people, and so part of doing that is we just like hey, we're going to do the Cornerstone Gun Dog Academy podcast. We're actually giving tips, advice, in a more in-depth format, in an external format, because there's a lot of people that are Cornerstone members, but there's a lot of people that are not, and so our vision really is to do that, enable every retriever owner have a better experience and inspire future generations to do the same. Now, while we believe that our course would be the best avenue for that, obviously it's so in-depth, there's so much detail and it walks you through every single step along the way. You know some people may not be ready for that yet, and so that's where the podcast is going to come in. We want to help people at all levels, no matter what they're doing, and so that is the next new thing that we've got out as well.
Speaker 1:You know, I think that is an excellent idea and, uh, you know, even and I think it'll be popular and I'll be, I'll definitely listen to that one for my own benefit.
Speaker 1:Uh, yeah, yeah but you know, josh, people like people reach out to me all the time with dog training tips and I'm like hey, I'm an amateur. Uh, I train my own dogs. I have some dogs also trained by pro trainers too, so I do both, but I refer them to Cornerstone Because I don't want to. A guy texted me last night. We did a TikTok Live here at the ranch and a guy messaged me and asked and I gave him a little bit of advice but I did the disclaimer hey, there's some tools to use. So I think people are starving for that information.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm glad you're doing that, yeah, the sound advice is important.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of bad advice out there. I see it all the time. I'm like man. That's not a good idea. But you know it's frustrating to see that too.
Speaker 1:I get it.
Speaker 2:I would hate to see someone's dog be derailed because of that, that's just because you I mean you can't get your time back. Your time is the most valuable thing you have and if you get this dog, you know my thing is don't leave it to chance your dog. You know, if you really love your dog and you believe that your dog's part of the family, you know you don't really want to risk that, you don't want to risk them turning out. Well, we'll see how it goes. You know, at least in my opinion, maybe some do, but I believe most of your listeners probably listen to this, probably think you know I want my dog to be the best that it can be. Yeah, and so.
Speaker 1:You know you say it best in some of your promotions, but you want a dog that you can be proud of. You know, it's just like yes 100%.
Speaker 1:It's like, well, go and watch your kid play a softball game or a football game, you know, when you're hunting with your buddies, you want a dog that you can show off. It's like, yeah, I'll train that dog, but no, I love that and I guess the lawyer in me. I'm always putting disclaimers on anything I say about dog training, because I'm not a pro trainer and my podcast is not about me and my knowledge of dogs. It's about the people that I get on here, like you, that I ask questions.
Speaker 2:Hey, and you know, it is about having a dog you're proud of. And I've heard people say and it's true, you're going to be proud of your kid no matter what. You're going to be proud of your dog probably no matter what. But the contrary is don't you think it would be better if you were out there not having to apologize for your dog's behavior?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it would be.
Speaker 2:Oh, you know, I just I didn't train them much this summer. Or do you want to be like when people are just like man? Who on earth trained that dog? Who did you pay to train that dog? Right, well, I trained that, I trained that dog, and that's. That's the goal. And that's the goal to have a dog that you're. Again, you're going to be proud of the dog either way, but have that dog that you could truly authentically be proud of is there's a whole other level there.
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 retriever. Listen, they have some of the best leashes I've ever found. It's stuff made in America, their leashes are and they source them locally. They have anything you want fast, friendly service, fast shipping, just good people. Retriever Training Supply.
Speaker 1:Josh, I've got a business idea for you guys. You know you all give me enough that I've used, so I've got one. I think we should have the chapters. You guys should formulate hunt tests, design your own hunt test, maybe along the British style, and each chapter hold a hunt test. Because here's the thing you know, I know you guys don't well, I know you're involved in that in a business sense and stuff too. But I love them. I've met so many nice, I've made so many friends at these hunt tests and it's fun for me, it's fun for my dogs when I pull the trailer up here at the ranch and my dogs know what we're doing, they know we're going to a hunt test and they're running and getting that trailer themselves. I don't have to do anything but open the door and when they're there they love it. I'm happy having a good time and it's bonding more with my dog. It's learning tricks that I can fix, maybe for hunting season. But yeah, maybe Cornerstone could have a chapter hunt test throughout the US at each chapter.
Speaker 2:I like that.
Speaker 1:I like the sound of that, I can see that, that I bet your members and I'm a member, so I can say that I bet your members would love it.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, I, I think I love, I love that idea.
Speaker 1:That's a good one uh, but no, no, I uh, but yeah. Well, like I said, I send you guys, I try always refer people to you and and I tell them. I also want to say there's all kinds of materials to learn, to train, and I said this on a show. Actually, josh, I don't know if you listen, I know you're busy, you probably don't get time to listen to all my podcasts and I don't blame you, but on one of my podcasts I was telling someone it was actually Wade Skeens.
Speaker 1:The thing I like about it is, and I tell people, you know I'm halfway adhd. You know I said I'm all over the place sometimes and I can't have 10 different resources to train. I'm gonna be reading, yeah, a ronnie smith book and a delmer smith book, or you know the old water dog book and whatever ben randall's book I read. I read that religiously and laura hill. But I have to have structure. I have to have structure, I have to have continuity and Cornerstone is a day by day, four day a week, step by step, found. You know way to train and if you, you don't go on to the next step or you shouldn't go on the next step until you've mastered that step and it it for my you know, for my you know, I guess, cognitive ability. It was the best thing that ever happened to me because I could do it in an organized fashion, if that makes sense. So if any, of y'all suffer.
Speaker 2:That makes sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's so. I always tell people that there's lots there's there's lots of good training materials out there, and I'm not bashing anybody. And and yes, there are bad advice too there's bad of good training materials out there, and I'm not bashing anybody. And yes, there are bad advice too. There's bad advice out there too. But I've just for me, what was tried and true on several occasions has been the Cornerstone Gun Dog Academy system.
Speaker 2:I appreciate that and, yeah, you know I could talk about it too, but I think the best way is people like you sharing their personal experience. That's really what it's all about and that's what Built From here is. Those are people that have really used the course.
Speaker 1:And if you listen to people that have really used it they could, yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 1:Well, no, I'm sorry. Is it safe to say? If I'm categorizing this wrong, please correct me. To say if I'm categorizing this wrong, please correct me. Like, cornerstone, gundog academy is not for somebody who wants to go out and field trial or maybe run srs you know that's some highly complicated stuff. It's for the, the person, male or female, that wants to train their own hunting dog, as a lot of us hillbillies call it, a meat dog. You know a dog is going to bring the meat in, so you know that's more what it's geared for, correct?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, I would say yes and no, I'm not saying you can't do that, go ahead.
Speaker 2:Well, it's just. Those are two different worlds and it gets down to your methodology. The biggest difference in Cornerstone and that methodology is not necessarily the outcome of the behaviors, it's the methodology as a whole, the core, the root of it. And we could get deep in the weeds on that. But on a surface level, if I had to say it in one sentence, it's my dog does this because it gets to do it, not because it has to do. It has to do it and typically in the SRS and typically field trials and all that, you're at least in my experience everyone that I've seen that are typically running and mainly because it's run, typically all that is a lot of it's. There are amateurs in the game but it's a lot of a pro game and they are typically running a lot of dogs. So you got a dog with a truck with 20 dogs in it. You're rolling up. They're typically running a very specific program and it's really that has to do it program. It's not an optional for the dog and if it doesn't fit the program then it's out of the program. What that does produce is some dogs that can do some pretty awesome stuff, I would say for sure. I think if someone wanted to take Cornishawn and do some of that stuff. It's really a culture clash, honestly. It's not that the dogs aren't capable, but if you go and you embrace cornerstone and then you jump in and you're wanting to run in that world, it's not that your dog can't do it, it's you're in a culture clash, like I hear people all the time talking about. Uh, you know they're, unfortunately they're getting made and some of it's joking, but some of it at the end of the day, like, come on, guys, are we going to be like high school? I mean, they're getting made fun of for the whistles that we're recommending using because it's not what they use. To me, that's, that's such a like let's raise the bar. It ain't about what whistle I use, it's about what my dog can do and it's about that. I love this. I'm going off. I'm going off and I need to stay on track.
Speaker 2:But to answer your question, actually, no, we did not build Cornerstone to help people run field trials or to run SRS or do any of that. I would say, if you do use Cornerstone, I'm so confident in the method that we teach and the principles that we teach. You could. Confident in the method that we teach and the principles that we teach. You could do anything that you wanted to with your dog if you fully embrace it and you go down that road. But, like I said, it's going to be a culture clash and the way we do things isn't the way that that culture does things. And there's nothing wrong with that per se At the end of the day. It's just I just want to hit on that Like, hey, if you're buying this, I'm going to be a field trialer. Well, what's going to happen is you'll go through it, you're going to have a great dog, you're gonna have a great experience, but, depending on what stage you jump in that, you're going to be experienced a different culture, and that's really all it is.
Speaker 2:And it you look at our partners Lyle Steinman, clark Kennington. You look at their dogs. Some of the work they're doing it's very specific, it's very tailored work to that specific thing that they're accomplishing. And I've got, I mean I'll say, lyle and Clark. I mean they're arguably the best. I mean you start looking at their stats. It's competition man, and they're all in.
Speaker 2:But as far as what we do and all that, it's just two different cultures and uh, I but I will say you know, there's a, let me just go ahead and hit this there's. There's some people out there that would just frame it up. Oh yeah, that that's less than well, that is ignorance talking. You're not understanding that, then you don't understand the science and you don't understand the root of it. If you did, you would realize oh dang, it's actually kind of similar, it's just different motivations. It's gets to you versus has to. It comes down to core. One principle gets to you versus has to, and I'm not saying has to is wrong, I just like gets to better, because well, that's just what I like better when you're getting ready to go on your next hunting trip, make sure you pack the most efficient and reliable ammunition on the market.
Speaker 1:Migra ammunition brings you the most diverse loads on the market. Migra's patented stacked load technology is the epitome of efficiency Two shot sizes stacked together to create the most diverse and efficient line of shot shells in the industry. It doesn't matter what flyway, what state or what the weather. The standard remains the same At Migra reliable loads that perform in any condition. Every single time. We're proud to have Migra Ammunition as a sponsor for Gun Dog Nation. Josh, that's an excellent assessment. I love that and you know, like you said, those two guys you just mentioned, I spent three days at Clark and Lyle's place up there in Missouri and you know, here you got Clark with the most SRS crowns Incredible and then Clark with the highest grand pass rate, and I've trained with them for three days trying to learn to be a better trainer myself and man, I don't know that I could ever get to that level. And they were getting ready to go to an SRS and they'd just come back from one.
Speaker 2:Well, I'll let one of their secrets out of the bag right now and it's not going to be what everybody's going to want to hear. It's hard work, hard work. Those guys I don't remember how many days Clark was saying he worked, but it was some number like 330 days last year. Yeah, in the last year. I mean, frankly, are you putting in the hours, are you putting in the time? No matter what method you're using, there is no secret to make this the easiest thing ever. It just requires work.
Speaker 2:So let me say what I'll quote Lyle here too, because I really think this is a good quote for what those guys are doing. And to them I don't believe they're viewing it and I'm not going to speak for them, but I'm speaking as I've heard them speak. So maybe you'd have them on and they could speak on this, but I'm just going to speak on the peripheral of what I've heard. It's a lifestyle, it's not a. This isn't a job. You know, that's what I've heard Lyle say. And so when you start looking at all that like because they're putting in that time, they just love it and they're just enjoying it. So when you're putting all that time and effort in now, I'm sure there's some days where you don't love it, but that's like with anything great. You know you got to put in the time. But if I had to say the one thing I've learned from them and it lines up with what we've done here at Cornerstone and what I see Cornerstone members doing the one key to success. There's no magic to it, there's no secret sauce. It's diligence and hard work and consistency. And I'll say that even on your podcast consistency, diligence. I don't know anybody more diligent, more hardworking and more consistent than Mr Ken Witt out here crushing the podcast. I mean, you're relentless, you just get those episodes out and you crush.
Speaker 2:So when you start looking at the traits here and their success, it's going to be consistency day in and day out. Are you showing up or are you doing it? And I've thought a lot about this too and I'm just going off the rails. So please forgive me, I'm just enjoying this.
Speaker 2:But when you start looking at exercise and you start looking at people getting fit and you start looking at all of that, if you add up your days that you can work out okay, seven days a week, 365 days in a year, typically someone's probably not gonna work out, I can tell you. I just would be shocked if someone's working out twice a day, 365 days a year. But even if you did that twice a day, 365 days a year, what are you doing more than exercise? You're eating. You're going to eat. Most people, I would imagine, eat two, three, four times a day, and not including snacks. So when you start thinking about snacks, consistency impacts the outcome. Your inputs impact your outputs. So consistent hard work and being consistent I would say that might be even more so than hard work. Consistency is key. Consistency is key. What you put in is what you get out, and I've seen those guys work. I mean, they work, they work hard, they work hard.
Speaker 1:Josh, I guess we're probably up in the high 30 episodes on my podcast that you guys have created for me. And I ask every pro trainer that I've had on here and I'm talking from Belgium, Ireland, England, Canada I ask them what's their best piece of advice and it's almost 99% of the time the first thing that comes out of their mouth is consistency, and that's where we're talking about training. And you know I'll say my last words without beating a dead horse about you know, being up there with Clark and Lyle. Hey, those guys worked me to death, I mean, and they were making me work. I was just with them standing. I mean, you talk about some guys earning their money. You know it's nine, ten hour days, it was hot and humid, it was miserable weather. It doesn't matter the weather, those guys are out there getting with it.
Speaker 2:They're the opinion of work pays off. That's what I love about our members and you. You think about you and the people that have used the course. It's not necessarily that you're out here grinding it out with a course, because I mean, let's get real, if you're a family person, you've got a job and you have even maybe a couple of other hobbies and interests, even outside of retrievers. Like, let's say me, I love fishing. If you start in music, I'm into music. I mean you share that common trait. We send guitar videos back and forth to each other. Ken showed me some new guitars. I mean we love that. I mean you've got deep, deep music roots. You've got deeper roots than that than I do. But when you consider all of these loves and passions we have, it would be unrealistic to say, well, I'm going to go grind it out, I'm going to go train an hour a day every single day, I'm going to train two hours a day every single day. And if you try to do that, that's fine, if you love it and that's your passion, your interest. But when you start looking at it, it's. I love that.
Speaker 2:Our members are consistent and it's not that they're here trying to work, outwork anybody, they're just showing up day in and day out, and that is really what hard work is consistently inputting effort and doing it. You know 20 minutes a day, 30 minutes a day, 10 minutes a day and four days a week. And we built the Cornerstones course is not built on a six-day regimen, a seven-day regimen, it's built on four days. If you can consistently input four days a week, even if they're not segmented maybe they're every other day or maybe you're training more on the weekends and like once throughout the middle of the week If you can do that, you have a very good chance.
Speaker 2:If you're willing to stack that up over a whole year, you have a very good chance of having a good dog. You've got a very good chance. Versus if you, if you show up inconsistently, what you're going to experience is inconsistent results. It gets back. That is the secret formula. I'll let it out of the bag, take that formula, run with it and that will. If you're consistent and you work hard, you're good.
Speaker 1:You're going to do well and you know the thing is it's implementing that. You know there's so many days, we have many things to do and you don't feel like doing that. And, um, you know, especially here in texas and I'm sure anywhere in the south, it's hot in the day and if you don't do it early morning or late evening, you know you can't. And right now here it's our mosquitoes and gnats are about to take us off.
Speaker 1:I feel like I live in louisiana, you know oh man so I have to come in and shower at night because I feel like I smell like off bug spray, because you can't train dogs with gnats going in your ears and anyway, there's probably too much information. But well, josh, I knew that we could do this. We set out and just thought we'd shoot from the hip and we pulled it off. We came.
Speaker 2:We made it somewhere, we and we pulled it off. We made it somewhere. We started and we had a destination. We didn't know what our destination was, but I think the destination turned out better than even we hoped.
Speaker 1:I love your assessment on the training for the two different things and that was excellent. You might go back and re-listen to this and write that down.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's a reminder for me and it's one thing to know it and it's another thing to do it and I need to be reminded of that. So I love talking about this stuff because it reminds me I don't have it all figured out. We know a little bit about training, right, and we know enough. We've helped a lot of people, but I never, ever, want to be at a place that we think we've got to figure it out. Always be at that approach like I'm here to learn. I'm here to every day. I've got some, in fact some, buddies above me Navy SEALs big into doing some cool stuff. You can see them. Jared Hudson he's been on the Sean Ryan show. He's a huge, I think, maybe the number two, number one podcast in the world, maybe number two, but they do some incredible stuff. They do some incredible stuff, but that consistency, that hard work, it all pays off.
Speaker 1:Yeah, All those guys are a different breed and they all have a work ethic that's off the charts most of the time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I appreciate you for having me on, ken and giving me the opportunity to share. I hope your listeners have enjoyed this and given me the chance to share a little bit about Retriever Training Supply. A lot of people don't know that Cornerstone owns Retriever Training Supply, but we do and we're passionate about helping people in all aspects, whether it's connecting in community, whether it's step-by-step courses or whether it's the gear needed to train your retriever. So that's we just want to help people have a better experience. That's it In a nutshell. We just want to see people have fun with their dogs and create memories that last.
Speaker 1:Well, josh, I appreciate. You know I always try to have goals and I'll be 57 years old next month and I still work at goals. Yeah, it's hard to believe man, really hard to believe. Well, I might look at it but I don't feel it. But I've always had goals all the time. And my new goal is I do want to take a dog to the grand that's my expectations and pass twice and get a title. So I'm going to do what it takes.
Speaker 2:I'm not going to fail. I'm confident you'll do well. Yeah, You'll do well. I've seen your work ethic. If you've got that goal, I'm confident you'll reach it, because it's again. We talked about the secret here, that consistency.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. But I think and before I get off I kind of like the Grand because it's a combination of strong obedience with the you know kind of crazy hunt skills and I'm learning all this stuff, but it seems to be the happy medium for me and a dog that I want to own.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you get that, I mean that's a feat to accomplish, that is a big deal. Yeah, that's a big deal.
Speaker 1:That's why the pass rate's 23%.
Speaker 2:Isn't that crazy. That's serious, that's serious.
Speaker 1:But hey, tell your dad be ready, I'm going to get him on here. He escaped this time, but I'm going to come find him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm confident I'll let him know and thank you, Appreciate it.
Speaker 1:All right, josh, thank you. Hello. This is Kenneth Witt with Gun Dog Nation. I'd like to encourage all you listeners and viewers on our YouTube channel to check out patreoncom forward slash gundognation. For $10 a month you can become a member of our community and we'll have access to lots of stuff. Mainly, we'll do a monthly forum, an open forum, where you can ask me anything gundog related and we'll learn from each other in the community. Should be a lot of fun. Each month we will do that, so check it out. Patreoncom forward slash gundognation.