My Dog Blue

In this episode, I’m diving into a question I’ve been getting a lot how do you pick the right Labrador for duck hunting?

First off, thank you to everyone listening and reaching out. This one’s for you.

We break down the full process the journey of choosing a dog, what to look for, and the real differences between buying a trained dog versus putting in the work to train one yourself. There’s no shortcuts here, just honest perspective.

Then it gets real…

You’ve got to look in the mirror are you ready?

Because it’s not just about the dog. It’s about your consistency, your discipline, and your willingness to show up every day. Forget chasing motivation build habits. Give that dog every opportunity to be great.

And understand this…

If you want a great dog, you’ve got to be great too.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

All right, everybody, thanks for joining me on the Duck Dependent Podcast, episode 15. Guys, I'm so fired up to be here. This is another one for a listener. They reached out to me and said, hey, shoot us straight on on dog training or your experience with it. What's the process? Give us some harsh reality because they're getting ready to get into this journey. And so I thought, what a what a great episode to talk about my journey with dogs. I've trained them. I've purchased one kind of trained already, so to speak. So I'm going to hop into totality of my experience, my opinions, my my thoughts on how to train a good gun dog. And this, in this case, a good duck dog. But before I get into that, I've got to talk to the sponsors. They make this thing go, help this thing go. Retail USA, guys. You've heard me talk about it before. One of the baddest inertia shotguns on the planet. 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Okay, so I had a listener, and I'm very thankful because they're starting to come in, and this gives me ideas, great stuff, great content for the offseason. But I had a listener say, hey, why don't you talk about your journey with dogs and training? Because from Instagram and some of this stuff we see, the dog, your dog blue looks amazing. I'm getting ready to get into this journey. Shoot me straight. You know, don't sugarcoat it for me. What's the journey? What's the process of training your own? And have you purchased? So purchase your own, ready to go. And so I'm going to dive right into that because I've done them all. And I'm going to hop into kind of my first legit gun dog, I would say. I was going to school, right? So you're out of high school, you're going to college, you're doing your thing. And the reality is, man, I was, I don't believe I had the time. And so I went down the journey of looking for a breeder or a dog trainer. And I actually had a good buddy that was kind of doing the same thing. And so we found a kennel. And I'm just going to talk about what the difference is for me, but I'm going to kind of hone in on how this experience was. So the trainer had a black lab and a Chesapeake Bay retriever, and they were up for sale. And so we, you know, we had lots of conversations. I encourage you to do that. Do your do and find out everything you can about them. Have multiple conversations. But overall, the process was amazing. So my buddy purchased a black lab. He was a little further along in the training. I uh purchased a Chesapeake Bay retriever. And uh man, she was amazing. Um what I'll say the difference is that I've noticed to kind of hop forward and hop back and forth is um it takes time to build rapport in a relationship. What I mean by that is the trainer let us know hey, if you're gonna purchase a dog that's already trained, it's it's a couple years old, it's been around my family, before you even train, you need to build trust with that dog. So uh we took it to heart. He kind of gave us some instructions, which was amazing. So I'm talking like the first couple months, we didn't really do much retrieving. Um it was all about sit, stay, go for walks, um, you know, lots of love with the dog and and introduce him to your family and friends and get everything comfortable and then start doing easy retrieves, right? It's it was almost like a like a puppy, but it obviously they had the skill already built. Um and so me and my buddy did that, and guys, I'll tell you what, that was an amazing experience. Um, if you want to talk about a dog ready to go, um, that's not a bad method. It um cost-wise, I'll get to that later, but the cost is probably the same on how much time you're gonna put in on yourself to train a dog. But uh, that was a great dog. Her name was Bertie, and uh my buddy's black lab was his name was Rambo, and man, we hunted them hard for a lot of years, and they were just a part of the family, and they were housebroke, and they were they could go in and out, and you know, they were amazing dogs, and I and I think for that time in my life it was the perfect thing to do because I was really pushing myself hard to keep grades up, and and and obviously you're looking for that next chapter in your career, and I wanted to kind of hit the job or hit the ground running when it which I did, and I you kind of have a bird dog, and and you guys know duck hunting is a big part of the life, so there we weren't gonna miss a season. So um that is a a way to do it. Um, like I said, the cost is is now pretty substantial to do that, but it's cost or time, you guys know the deal. Um, and I'll get to what I prefer at the end. But um, so my journey, I would say after Birdie, um, as she was growing up and getting older, you know how dogs do, they don't last forever, and it just hurts your heart. Um, but I did purchase an another pup, uh uh a black lab named Ace, and this is what I'll say what I've learned over the years. Um I'm not with these guys at all, but I went through Southern Oak Kennels for blue, and I did not with Ace. And I'll talk about the differences that I've learned over the years. But I went with a black lab, the best pedigree that I knew of, right? And once again, I'm gonna admit when I trained this dog, I was not educated enough and did not do the homework so that I could train the dog to its potential. That that's my opinion, and that can happen because I believe your dog has the pedigree is a big deal. Uh their potential is through the roof, as long as you allow them to do it and show them what to do, they they can skies the limit. But you have to train yourself and get yourself educated. But I'm gonna dive in that. But so I got Black Lab, uh, his name was Ace. What I've learned is, guys, once again, this is just my opinion, you can probably be get good dogs all over the country. Uh, the reality that I learned is I would say when you look for a lab, and there's um, I would say, I'm not trying to put anybody down, but like a backyard lab or a papered lab, and you don't know much about them, and they're in your kind of the surrounding area, and a lot of time that's convenient. But what I've learned is um when you don't have the highest bloodlines, pick of the litter and all that stuff matters, right? And there's gonna be less likely of that litter dogs to probably grow up to be great. And what I'm learning is a lot of these smaller kennels, they don't like competition, and so they'll the females are more and you can't breed them, and you gotta sign these paperwork, this paperwork. And I, you know, for the longest time I thought that was how you did it. That's that was normal. The the guy I bought it for him had the same kind of old school mindset, and uh, yeah, these are the best dogs, and and and but you can't breed them, and the females cost more. So I thought that was normal. Hindsight, that's not when you meet these top-end breeders, these high-end guys, they don't care. It's your dog, you bought it. They believe in their product, their bloodlines that much, it doesn't bother them. So that is a uh just a tip. If you start to hear those, I'm not saying it's a total red flag stop, but just look around, maybe find someone that's not not so concerned about that, not so concerned about you know those kind of things. But anyway, so I purchased um Ace. He was a great puppy. Um, he was a big dog. When I say big, not a tall dog, but he was super stocky. He was like a 90-pound lab, um just absolute monster retriever. But I want to talk about the journey in training. This was, once again, a rookie Dion, uneducated as far as training. I got some material. Um, but what I learned is, and my mindset's changed and evolved. Um, and I wanted I'm really pointing this out to all the listeners, but the one in particular that that reached out to me, how does this journey start? Because it sounds like he's had some issues with his first dog before as well, and now he's getting to a second one. He doesn't want those same things. And so what I'll say is I trained Ace uh to the best of my knowledge, and what I kind of was lost on is and this isn't for everybody, but it could be for you. I wanted the most gung-ho dog, a fire pup is what we call it, all go, no lock, no off switch, almost kind of a little bit of a bonehead. I mean, he had the heart of a lion, he would he he could hit any kind of water, um, and I trained him. And what I did not realize is they can have an off-switch. You need to train that dog to have an off-switch. And I will say it depends on their temperament. I will agree with that, but that comes into that breeding, and that comes into the the family tree and the bloodline, and I'll get to that later. But Ace was an awesome hunter, but I did not equip him, equip him, excuse me, with proper etiquette, right? Like, he was pretty steady. Well, you don't want a pretty steady dog, you want an absolute rock solid, steady dog. And in my mind, I was like, well, that's alright, you know, because we're hunting the river and the current, and I need to get a head start, and I was gung-ho about all the fire he had. And I'm here to tell you guys, I'm not bashing the dog. He was an amazing dog. He was a part of my family, he was a sweetheart. Um, but when I went through the training process, I just really thought that you had to be, you're a real tough guy, and you've got to, they've got to, you know, hit the water 200 miles an hour. When you get them home, they go straight to the kennel. Um, as I progressed, I learned actually through his life that he needs to be able to do multiple things because one day you could have kids, right? Or you can have a family or wife or whatever it is, and you want him to be able to turn that light switch off. And with Ace, man, he bless his heart. He he didn't have that off switch. You know, I I taught him to I house broke him and he could come in and lay down, but you know, you could just tell he was he was not at ease doing that. He wanted to be outside, he wanted to be on the go. If somebody moved, he wanted to go. Um, his manners were lacking, and I'm not pointing at the dog if you're just catching in. It was all me. I didn't show him those things because I wasn't educated, guys. And so I always encourage people before you hop in, and this is really hard because you don't know if you're educated enough or you know enough about training a dog, but I would really ask around, look it in the mirror and say, hey, I might not be ready for that type of dog, especially if you're working with breeders and and they're like, hey, these are high fire pups, these dogs are all go, they come from a bloodline of of high intensity, and and this is the style we've always bred, and and they're a field trial dog. You might want to pump the brakes and you want to ask yourself, okay, can I train this dog? How many times am I gonna go? Right? That that all kind of would make sense to to really evaluate and don't lie to yourself, talk to yourself and say, hey look guys, I hunt a Saturday or two a month, or I go every Saturday. You might not want the the what I would say the fire pub, an all-out kind of a dog, because the times that you're not, it's gonna probably bring some frustration on you and your family. And so I would try to find that best, try to find the best in between uh for somebody like that. But long story short, he had a great, amazing career, guys. He did, he retrieved so many birds for the team, and he was a very strong dog. There wasn't a river system current or anything that I was ever worried about putting this dog in. He was that strong, he was that physical, um, but he just did not have the background in training because of me. And so uh we missed those dogs, Bertie. She came trained, she was an amazing dog, she got tons of birds, she was a sweetheart. Uh, she was you could tell the difference between her and Ace because the professional trainer trained with that Chesapeake Bertie. There was a light switch there. I could bring her in and she could be a house dog for the week, two weeks. And that could be with the training and bloodline. I'm gonna get to that stuff later. Um, Ace, I did not do that with him, and he could not do that. And so I regret that because I think this dog had through the moon potential and physicality and athletic ability. Um, like I said, still a great dog. Anyone who's hunted with him, you guys know he man, he was a hunter, retriever, swimmer, but the manners were not there, and that's my fault. So um I wanted to talk about that's kind of some of the difference that I've gone through with my first experience on owning bird dogs. And I'm gonna save blue for last because I think it's the best, the best I've had, the best I've done, and that's because of the bloodlines, and then I got myself educated and had a realistic talk and look in the mirror with myself. So um so, in my opinion, guys, if you're gonna go down the road, the route, and this guy reached out and said, Hey, I'm going down the route, and I'm gonna train my own dog. So that's kind of what I'm gonna hone in on. Um, I'm not affiliated with any of these guys, but I purchased blue from Southern Oak Kennels. You can look them up. Uh they have a bunch of hubs everywhere, but I think they're based out of the head HQs in Mississippi. I also use Cornerstone Gun Dog Academy. I think it's about a thousand twelve hundred bucks. Um, but it's for life, so I can I can train multiple dogs, which I'm gonna use it for multiple dogs, but I can't say enough about Southern Oak Kennels and Cornerstone Gun Dog Academy. And the reason is before I even get into that, so when I was looking for a dog, I decided to do extensive homework, and Southern Oak came up as a top breeder for um, they were a British gun dog um company. And you know what, guys, after uh learning and going through these journeys or this journey, I just don't care necessarily what the dog looks like or because I think all of them are beautiful. The yellows and the blacks, they're all beautiful, but I'm talking about displacement, tall, lean, blocky head. If that's your thing and that's your opinion, and you want to spend your money on it, and looks are number one, I'm that's your thing, go do it. Uh what I learned is looks aside, but if you don't have the bloodline and the and you don't put the effort into it, it doesn't matter what the dog looks like. You're gonna be frustrated if he if you if he can't be a house dog, if he can't go retrieve ducks. That's just my opinion and what I've learned and what I'm gonna stick to moving forward. So those two things, Southern Oak Cannes and Cornerstone Gun Dog Guys, it was an amazing program. Um, but I'll tell you what. So I'll show you how I got my mind right on this. Um I was just constantly reading, and I have talked about this a lot on different podcasts, but I said, okay, if I get a gun dog, a bird dog, a black lab, and I want him to be great, and I want him to live up to the potential and the and the bloodline that Southern Oak Kennels produces, and I'm gonna invest in this uh gun dog academy, I need to have a chat with myself. And this is the chat I had. Forget the motivation, guys. Motivation comes and goes. One day you can wake up, you're ready to hit the gym, one day you're not. Consistency is gonna out w outwin or outperform everything, guys. And so I I really looked at it and said, okay, I have to be consistent. I found success in in my relationships. I found consistent up here when I work for the government about consistency has always brought me to the top or kind of ascending a direction. So that's what I did. I said, okay, if I get this dog, I've got to be consistent. Forget if I'm motivated or I'm mopey that day or I'm tired or whatever. That that you're gonna go up and down with that, and if you do that, your dog is gonna be up and down. Be consistent. And then also when you have to look yourself in the mirror and kind of have a talk to say, you know, we're all excited when we get the puppy, but I've had probably four or five, well, let's not exaggerate, Neon, let's probably three or four people in the time frame that I've got blue said, Hey, I'm pumped up, I'm gonna get this dog, it's gonna be the baddest in the marsh, and and then and I'm at this is not calling them out, this is what I'm trying to get the mindset is. That's because they're super motivated at that time. And guess what? None of those dogs and those things followed, they they didn't follow through with it. They lacked consistency and they lacked follow-through. And what I mean by that is, or why I bring that up, is when you get it, be excited about it, but just kind of even bring some of those that that expectation down a little bit and to relieve some of that pressure on you, because I think pressure's good, but when you put it out there in the atmosphere and you're putting it like, oh, this is gonna be the baddest dog, and and you're posting all over Instagram and you're doing these things, I think it brings unwanted pressure on yourself, and it can kind of bring you down. And I learned that by talking to some people, and they say, Hey, just be consistent and do that dog good faith and good favor. And I said, Okay, so um the journey with my dog Blue, once again, an amazing dog. I couldn't do Duck Dependent, couldn't do half the things we do, half the places we hunt without this dog. Um, there's rivers I cannot hunt without him. There's mud flats that I cannot go without him because I can't get in there and get out. And so um Blue's an amazing dog. He's he's he's a part of the crew, he's a part of my family. Um, but how this came about and how I changed was I bought the academy first. Okay, so I bought, went to Gun Dog, I got it, I read it. Guys, it is so amazing. Once again, I'm not affiliated with them, but they're this good. It's like a playbook, it's like going to school, and it's just lesson by lesson on how to do absolutely everything and these little nuances and these tips and tricks and some of the equipment you might need, it is just laid out for you perfectly, and I followed it to a T. And the cool thing about it is you can add your own flavors into it, you can add your own things. Maybe your scenario is a little bit different from when they're from where they're showing you or honey, but the really cool thing about this is they were actually training a dog new with you, if that makes sense. Obviously, it was pre-recorded, but it wasn't like a finished gun dog, and you know, it just looked so easy. No, the individual on corner on Cornerstone was actually training a pup, and he was going through trials and tribulations, because you will. Um and so I I educated myself before I went and did that. I f I I drove all the way down to uh Mississippi, I picked up the pup, brought it back, and instantly, guys, I knew from that day forward the amount of effort the mindset is I owe that dog for his life and and to for him to live up to his potentials is to be consistent. And so didn't say much about it, was really excited about having a a dog and and the pup. I just went to work. And um one thing that I learned, and I and I'm gonna kind of hop way for it, is what I've grown into is and and and you can once again this is this is my opinion. I don't I didn't really care what the dog looked like, right? They're all beautiful, like I said earlier, black or yellow labs, those are my favorite, but I went black again. They're all beautiful, um They're all smart, and when you get them from a high-end kennel like Southern Oak, let me hop to that first before I get going on that, is I started to get the education because it's almost a two-year process, right? So you put your uh another thing that I forgot. So you reach out to them and you fill a survey for Southern Oak Kennels, okay? And that's the first thing I talked about earlier, is you have to answer that thing honestly. If you they're gonna ask you how many days in the field you're gonna hunt. Don't be honest, don't be dishonest with that and be honest with yourself. If you're only a weekend warrior, that is okay, guys. I've done that my almost my entire life. You might not need a fire pup. You might not need the top drive. Um, if you're a guy who goes out two or three times a month, you definitely don't want that because you're not gonna be happy, and that dog is not gonna be happy either. It wants to go, it wants to go to work, and so it's not a good match. So be honest with yourself and say, hey man, I only hunt a couple days a month. Let's let I'm gonna write that down because what Southern Oak does is they want to match you with the right temperament and the right dog for you, not the best look that you want. You can go down that route, and I'll get into that later. I did that with Ace, and it didn't work out. I wasn't ready for a fire pup. I just wanted this big, blocky head looking lab, and that's that's it. I don't care about you know him being a fire pup, and he's and I wasn't ready for that at the time. Yes, I hunted a lot, but I went to school a lot, and so the training and all that sacrificed. And so, anyways, and so you need to when you fill the survey out for Southern Oak, you need to really answer it honestly. But even before that, I was asking myself, like, how often do I go? Well, guys, I go a lot. Um, whether it's uh when I'm when I was uh chief for the government hunting just weekend. But I had lots of times off lots of time off, lots of federal holidays. I was going a lot. I think the lowest time, lowest amount of days in the field is 35 days for me. That's kind of my benchmark. I want to get out 35 days. And so this year was more than that. We're pushing 50. So when you write that down, you need to match that because it could be the opposite, too. If you're a 50 to 60 day guy and you don't put that on there, like, well, I don't really know. I probably might not hunt that much. And you put, I'm only going to hunt a couple days a month, and you don't get the fire pup or the dog that has that stamina or that drive, you might not be happy. So you got to be aware of those kind of things. Um, I was, I knew I was all in on this, on this dog, and I'm gonna go, like I said, minimum of 35 this year, 50. And so I needed a dog um that was gonna have the drive. But what I learned is, guys, these great dogs with pedigree, they can have an off switch. And I'll get to that and save that for the end. But anyway, so I did all that process. I went to Mississippi, picked up the dog, and from that day, the day I picked him up to this day, I've been so consistent with this dog. And it's not, I'm not trying to just talk about myself, but guys, it is an amazing thing when you get a retriever and you can do that, and you can see his potential, and he lives up to it. And every time he does something well, you don't need a pat on the back or a clap because that's the reward right there. You see your dog do it, you see your dog steady, you see him take a hand signal. You won. You did a great job on that. So that for me um is is once again I hop all over, but that's some of the the thought that I had is my reward is that dog's gonna be successful for nothing else. I'm gonna go and hunt with myself, my son, my family, whoever it is, your daughter. The reward is that the dog's gonna be excellent for you, for your group, for yourself. So um I just I I I bring that up because I don't want to harp on that, but I just I I think people get overhyped, which I understand. I talked about just a few minutes ago about excitement. Just bring it down a lot a little bit so that you don't put yourself out there and put this unwanted expectation this was that you might not be able to fulfill because I've had guys while I'm training this dog tell me, hey, this dog right here is gonna be the baddest in the state. Well, you know, to this day, once again, not a shot, it doesn't even hunt. So I just temper that and do your thing, and when you get there, then you can celebrate. But um so anyway, so you got the dog, you got cornerstone, and guys, it was the consistency. Um what I mean by that is I train six or seven days a week, and here's the cool thing before you be like, oh my gosh, I can't do that, you get to adjust your lesson plan for you once you have the layout, once you understand how to do this through Gun Dog or whatever training system, I don't want to just harp on that. Whatever you use, you get to kind of incorporate your style, your mindset through it. And what I did was when I say I trained them every day, guys, it was less than 15 minutes on some days. I was practicing to the kennel to the placeboard all the time as a pup. And they did a and I used a food thing, you just one pebble and a clicker. But guys, I trained every day like that, and it was really easy. I brought him in the house, I had my family around, and what I was didn't even realize that was happening is he was understanding that light switch. I'd bring him in and I'd have him go to his, I did all placeboard when he came into the house. So go to the placeboard, click, here's your food. He you could just see the demeanor would calm down. And I started to catch that because I noticed that, because then when I brought him outside and I was doing into the kennel, I would put him on his placeboard in a retrieve, his excitement would come up. So I feel like we were, I was almost building this light switch unintentional. When you came in the house, it was just to the placeboard, and I would make him stay there a little bit longer than normal, right? So he would I would wait till he would get at ease and then I would reward him. And so it was just almost this organic thing. And guys, I'll tell you this moving forward. Um, now that I've grown and and uh and I feel like I've I've grown as a hunter and as a dog trainer, that's the dog I want. And you can have a dog like that. It doesn't have to be um all out, excuse my language, balls out all the time, and that's the only way to be a good hunter because what I've learned is blue, and and I credit the bloodlines. I credit Cornerstone Academy for helping educate me and getting him trained, and I and I credit Southern Oak Kennels to produce this kind of bloodline. But moving forward, this is the type of dog I want. He has a massive off switch. And when I mean massive off switch, I could put him in the house and he can sit there for six hours and sleep. I could put him on a placeboard in my garage and go cut the grass and go to the back and he'll never move. And it's just a testament to three things bloodline, me being educated, the the the the lesson plan, the education that I followed, and then my own consistency. And I and the listener that brought this up, that's what it takes, man. It's up to you. Most of the dogs have great potential. It's up to you being consistent. Don't worry about the motivation that's gonna come and go. You're gonna hear me repeat that. Just be consistent with them. Understand that you don't have to do 45-minute um dog training lessons to for this dog to be great. You just it's a progression, and I'm not gonna go through it all, but that anything, any um piece of material that you use to train your dog, you'll see it's a progression thing. Um, but what I loved about the one that I used is there was also benchmarks. And the cool thing is is you don't have to be 100%. So, like, I'm just gonna make this up. Uh, we were working on blind retrieves at a certain point of his life, and they're they're okay with being you being 80% and moving on to the next one. Because you're gonna all this is gonna tie into when you start doing simulated hunts and blind retrieves and all this. So, man, it was an amazing thing, and it was really cool to check the boxes, and there was a great team out there that you could reach out to, and you could even log in and chat, and then owners and people that work for Cornerstone to reach out, but that to me um are my two biggest takeaways, and I'm gonna be a little bit on repeat mode, but bloodline and academy and yourself um when that motivation, but I knew from right away uh that blue was gonna be an amazing dog because of the effort that I was putting into him and the understanding and guys the patience. I'm gonna touch on that because I don't think I will we, I'm not gonna speak for anyone else, I wasn't as patient as I needed to be with Ace. And that was probably because I didn't know better. No excuse. Like once again, you're gonna hear me keep saying it. I just wasn't up to par as a trainer. And when you have a dog that's all go, that's what they want to do. And if you're not controlling that or trying to show them there's other ways, they're gonna go and they're gonna frustrate you. And even with blue, I had limit limited frustrations, and here's why. It was the mindset I changed it and just said, hey, he's a pup. Just like your kid in baseball or whatever, they don't know what they're doing until you show 'em. And so I I can honestly say there was a few times, probably less I can count on one hand that I was actually truly a little bit irritated or frustrated. There was one time when I did water introduction and I was kind of frustrated of like, why are you getting this? And it was simply I had to check myself and say, Alright, calm down. But you didn't show him those things in totality. You didn't do the introduction properly. And so those are things that I took away um from training blue, but in totality, from pup to finish, it doesn't stop. And so I I I talked to all the listeners and I and I thank you for listening about dogs, and and if you're in this journey or you're doing it, it never ends. But guys, it's the most rewarding thing. I have a dog right now, Blue. The time has flown by. I can't believe he's already gonna be six years old at the end of April. It doesn't stop, guys. But what I'll tell you this is what a family dog we have now. Um I go about three days a week, sometimes four, to just do I do simple retrieves. I we walk every day almost, whistle, uh, you know, blow the whistle, some of those things that you've built up through all that training, and you get to reap the benefit and the rewards of just staying consistent, and it's not as intrusive to your life now once you get it done. Right? So those first two fifth uh that first fifty-two weeks, I'll be honest, I I I did it like it was my job. And there is no regret. And the next one that I do someday, you know, I want blue to live forever, but I'm a realist and I understand that that's that's not the case. We we love these dogs, but and they just don't last as long. But um I'm gonna do the same thing. Expectation of the pup go way down. They don't know you're gonna train them and you're gonna go through this progression. And guys, I can tell you right now, you reap the benefit and what it is by you're hunting with your cousin or your buddies, they're like, hey, that's the baddest dog I've hunted with in the marsh. Or man, oh my gosh, I want my dog to be like that. That's the reward that you get to be, you get to hear and consistent. It's like you're proud of your kid. And that only comes from you being educated, you being patient, you being a realist, and holding yourself accountable. Because the dog, if you get from a if you get high bloodline, that dog's gonna be phenomenal. And so, guys, once again, not to go off on this, I don't want to talk at anybody, but I really appreciate the listener asking me, hey, shoot me straight. What does it take to have a good gun dog? And guys, I hope I laid out some of that stuff. Uh moving forward when they start to get older, your training needs to change, right? So I don't do as long as sessions as I would probably have done when he was two to four. Now that he's going to be six, I shorten the workouts three, four days a week. I do a lot walking, kind of keeping the joints going. You start adding that some stuff for his joints and his food, or maybe even a powder. Um, but yeah, right now it's super consistent. It's three, four days a week. You know, you can still do the 200-yard retrieves. I still do those, you all the whistle trains, you just don't need to do it as long. They've got it. You just want to keep them sharp. Um, a big one for me is steadiness. Guys, nobody nobody hates it more than any of us duck hunters when a dog breaks on a flock of mallards. Make sure they're steady, work on that till the day they can't hunt anymore. I still do it. I'll put them on a place, bird, and I'll go walk and play catch and do something else and make sure he is absolutely rock steady. I don't want them walking all over in the blind. You don't want them to do that. You want them to be in a safe spot. Like blue's never in the blind with us. He's always off on remote stand. They don't go and get the bird until you say their name. You make sure all everything's crippled. We've done it a lot, guys, and I'll talk about a scenario real quick. We have this big river system, and sometimes cripples happen, not very often. But when they do, if they get way out there, I don't even send them anymore because you're gonna chase, they're gonna take him way out there, and then you're gonna have to recall him, which is fine. But what I'm saying is having the ability to do those things. He's not gonna move till you say his name. And then the ability to finally call him off that bird when you whistle him back is an amazing thing to have with your dog. Because in the past, I've not had that. They go and that's it. Hopefully they come back, right? Obviously, you're calling them, I'm just saying. And so steadiness is a big thing for me, and being able to recall them is a big deal. So if you're listening, once again, I hope I didn't shoot you too too straight or too hard about that, but if you're gonna get into the dog, whatever you do, whether you buy one, I've had a great experience buying a dog trained. And I've had a really great experience now that I've educated myself, actually both times, because it was all a progression. It was an amazing time taking Ace. I took him all the time, I took him everywhere. And that dog was all go, and I love that dog. And then as I look now with Blue and my education and his bloodline, it is an amazing partnership. He's he's he's a part of the team, and he makes this thing go. So if you're out there getting ready to get into this journey and say, hey, I'm gonna get a dog, I don't know if I'm gonna buy one, I'll tell you this. If you paid yourself, I did the math, if you paid yourself 17 or 18 bucks an hour, by the time you buy the dog, um, all the stuff it needs, normal stuff. You're gonna have to do that whether you buy a train dog or not, but just the time in the field that I've trained him, it's probably gonna be actually cheaper to just actually buy a train dog ready to go, to be honest. If you're talking about paying yourself time, because time is money, we all know that. Um, but I always encourage everybody to at least do one or two in your lifetime, guys. We don't have 25 dogs in our lifetime, we have four, five, six if we're lucky, right? And so I always encourage everybody to go get a dog, train it. It shows what you can do when that dog was performing, right? He's got the bloodline, he's got the ability, an athlete, but you trained him and showed him it was an it's an amazing feeling. And there's no there's no way to explain other than you're so proud in your duck group that you're able to have, you know, your hunting dog build to perform that because you trained it and you stayed consistent. So I always encourage everybody to do at least have one or two dogs in their life that they trained. And um obviously life gets busy and and hey, you know, I'm going for my master's, I got promoted, or I've got these, I'm a traveling, I do concrete or whatever it is, it's okay. Um, I would still, once again, this is not a plug, I'm not with them, but I trust in in uh Southern Oak Kennels that they have finished gun dogs. I would reach out to them and and talk to Barton and the team and then look up Gun Dog Academy, they're amazing combination. And I'll say this moving forward, it's gonna be nothing but consistency for Blue, nothing but the best for him. And before I close it out, the one thing that I want to just emphasize, because I learned it, is they can do both. I have a Cadillac kennel outside, he's got a wood deck. Uh I built a deck for him with a plastic deck on top, a huge dog house, totally in close shade. But the cool thing that I did this time is his switch to come inside and just be a lap dog, a pup, or a house dog. He could do that the rest of his life. And as soon as I take him outside in the field, he has the huge, unlimited drive. And any of my hunting buddies and my cousin, everybody that's hunting with us, you guys can see that. I can bring them in. And guys, it is possible. You don't have to be, they've got to be, you know, rough and tough, and they can only you know be outside and do all these things. I learned that because I think that was my mentality, but guys, I'm here to tell you before I close this out, get the dog with the bloodline and have him have that off switch. Because it's an amazing thing that I learned over the years is it was very difficult to travel with Ace because of my lack of training. It was hard to get him in the hotel. He never wanted to sit still. And with my dog Blue, I can actually put him on his bed and we can go out to dinner, and he never moves. And I bring him in and air him out and go for retreat and have fun. It is an amazing feeling that I can travel anywhere. I could go to a bank, I could go to a store and just walk in and not worry about anything. And um I hope you guys do that and think about that when you go to train your dog that they can do both, and you could take him into the field, and this guy's got a monster drive. Um, but guys, thank you for this one. Episode 15, my dog blue. Um, thank you again for that listener to bring these things up. Guys, I I need these. Hit me up on any of these social media platforms I talked about. Once again, this thing doesn't go uh without Retay USA, the best inertia shotgun in the game, flight day ammunition, max payload, steel shot for life. Guys, Les Schwab tires, whether it's your boat, truck, trailer, you gotta have them. I trust them. Best tires in the game. And then duckdependent.shop, guys. Go check it out. I've got brand new hats. Uh they came out really good. Guys, and I'll catch you on the next one.