EP. 2 Seth Simpson

Back with another episode! This episode is Seth Simpson from Idaho, a terrier and decoying guy. Another episode full of great information and stories. Check it out!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Alright guys, we're back with another episode of Don't Run with Lighthounds. We've got Mr. Seth Simpson out of Idaho on the line. Uh Seth, why don't you tell us about yourself? Uh how old you are, where you're at, and kind of you got family and what's going on on your end of the world.

SPEAKER_03 0:18

What's going on guys? Yeah, my name is Seth Simpson.

SPEAKER_02 0:22

I am 30 years old out here in Idaho, born and raised out here, and have been into dogs quite quite a while. Uh wasn't raised on or anything. Uh got into it myself as I got in into and out of high school. Uh started out with basically the kid training my family border collie to hunt for me, and then I got into lab when I was about 16. A lot of waterfowl hunting out here, pretty much as good as it gets for waterfowl hunting, and did a lot of that. Fell in love with dogs and dog training uh through those experiences. And when I was 18, I started training dogs full-time for myself. So I guess around 12 years of that now.

SPEAKER_03 1:14

Uh I got into coyote dogs, decoy dogs. About the time I was, I'd say 17, 18.

SPEAKER_02 1:25

Um I'd seen, you know, about 15, 20 years ago especially, there was no no one was really recreationally decoy dogging. There's a few guys doing it. Uh some guys putting out some videos of that, which is where I saw it. And I was into coyote hunting at the time, but loved dogs and wanted to incorporate a dog into that. So I got a Craigslist special puppy and got lucky and ended up being a dog of a lifetime to introduce me to to those things and and kind of help me fall in love with this decoy dog and stuff. From there, uh, I mean, just living out here in Idaho, we have tons of public land, uh, a lot of opportunity on private land uh to hunt coyote. So no shortage of opportunity. And between that and having a good dog, uh is branched into getting some more dogs, and again, just got really lucky and and had some really amazing dogs come into my lap and bred off of them. And now we got uh a bunch of dogs and um raising some litters every year, training some started and finished dogs. I'm selling the guys. Kyle hunting is obviously getting to be wildly popular uh nationwide, and a lot of guys are starting to see the now as more people are recreationally decoy dogging beyond just the government trappers that introduced everybody to it. Now we're seeing a lot of material online uh on these decoy dogs, and guys are getting a little more familiar with it. Uh it's getting a little more popular, and I guess that's why we're talking today.

SPEAKER_01 3:17

Yeah, yeah, no, there's that's for sure. It's been uh every day I feel like I'm I come across more and more like content of the decoy dog and you know, I've I've kind of I think I was kinda like you, like I've seen it years and years and years ago, and I was like, that is freaking awesome. Like I, you know, I I call coyotes here and there growing up, you know, and kind of opportunistically spotlight them or whatever. But uh that decoy dogging has always been, you know, something that I was interested in.

SPEAKER_02 3:47

And you and then there's a there's a handful of other guys online that I you know kind of keep up with, and it's there's no shortage of cool, cool ass videos with y'all when it comes to the coyotes behave in a way you'd never get to see conventional calling, you know, looking for a quick opportunity to to get a quick shot off versus sitting back and and letting things play out and getting literally a show for five to thirty minutes or more of these dogs and coyotes going back and forth. And it's taught me a lot, and it's just it's just plain fun. Uh, you know, it's there's nothing real complicated about it. Here's playing off of these these denting coyotes and they're territorial and uh you know protective of their pups and their denting areas. So uh these these government guys that started it many years ago, I figure they just took out their trap line dogs, maybe on purpose, maybe incidentally, but probably didn't take them more than one experience or one guy to see dang this freaking works. And it was all all downhill for the cottage from there, and is a very very well known and and great tactic to manage tile populations, but is also just plain fun to to do recreationally as well.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

Yeah, there's yeah, there's no doubt. That so that first dog that you got, what what was it?

SPEAKER_02 5:20

Um growing up here in Idaho, uh just being in on and around different ranches, I had seen what we call an Idaho shag. And in the early two thousands, uh they were somewhat popular here around Idaho, uh, but not not popular as pets, you know, uh everyone was into golden doodles and such. And I just uh have been around these ranches seen these seen these dogs. Uh they always had my interest and about the time I figured all right I need to get a a dog to to do this with. Um I think I looked into like buying a Katahua from somewhere, and I think it like the litter didn't take or something, otherwise I would have ended up with a a Katahuula, but that didn't work out, so then I thought, oh, I'm just gonna hop on Craigslist and try to get an Idaho shag. Uh the first one we got, me and my wife, uh ended up being not much of a dog. The second one we got, we got them both kind of at the same time, a male and a female, and then the female or the male ended up being just an incredible dog and would literally do anything and everything that I ever pointed him at. And when it comes to like being a decoy dog, it like I don't know, you'll see a lot of videos uh online, it gives you a pretty good idea of of what's going on. But if a coyote comes into a call and a dog is standing there, there the coyote's gonna try to interact with the with the dog. Um there's always hunting spring and summer, there's always a benefit to having a dog on stand, even if the dog isn't doing much. Um but when I got that that young dog, that puppy, you know, I got him at you know 14 weeks old. He was like the as usual, all my best dogs have always been the last pick, uh, the one no one wanted, or the the just the last one. Uh, and sure enough, that was the situation there. But I took that dog and just uh from the first coyote saw, he just very prey a lot of prey drive, a lot of grit, uh, a lot of just drive in general. So he just very naturally took to it. Uh I definitely made a lot of mistakes early on in the exposure and the uh the first scenario that I showed that dog, and uh the mistakes definitely impacted like how he worked overall. But just like all of our first dogs, we made those mistakes that we never forgot, and we were able to continue to improve and and make better dogs uh based on the mistakes that we made on our our first dogs. Uh, despite all the mistakes I made, that dog uh was just just carried my team and and trained a lot of young dogs that went on to become even better dogs than him uh and really taught me a lot. So that was pretty cool. Always have a you always got a special place in your heart for your first dog. And then uh beyond that, uh I really just there obviously there's a lot of other guys that uh that that do this, a lot of government trappers. Um I had some government trappers give me some pups that ended up being really great dogs. Um there's some accidental breedings that happened between some hunting dogs and uh some other must that ended up being just exceptional dogs. And at this point I'm basically uh hunting dogs that are down off of six or so really special dogs that stood out to me. Uh early on, I was just trying any any dog that I thought might be good at it. I wanted to to try and see in you know everything from Rhodesian ridgebacks to border collies to towns, and through it all just kind of settled on not necessarily any any particular breed or even type of dog, but just some individual dogs uh that really set themselves apart to me and and how they worked and how naturally they took to it. Um and then with these decoy dogs, the when it when it really comes down to it, the job that they are doing is not real technical. Uh and a lot of dogs can at least halfway do it. Um I'm enjoying out here in Idaho, we have tons of other opportunities besides coyotes, a lot of bears. Uh, we can run bears from like now till the end of July and then through the month of September. And just being able to to utilize the dogs on a little bit of everything is important to me. And uh kind of what is at this point kind of what's setting the bar for the dogs beyond just the the decouring itself.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

So I so I would that was kind of one of my questions I had written down was I I've seen on your personal page you had a bear in a tree. So was that with your dogs?

SPEAKER_02 10:17

Yeah, I have a good buddy of mine that outfits here, and he has some dogs for me that he'll run with his hounds. Uh, you know, these dogs they don't they're not cold nose like a hound by any means, but when it comes to just putting pressure on a a bad bear or sticking with a bad bear, the heavy terrier influence really makes a difference there. And uh these guys are seeing a lot of success. Uh either adding adding dogs like this into their pack. Um, my buddy will strike off of baits a lot, and these dogs are can very easily strike a hot track off a bait and run and catch a bear. Um I'm to the point now where personally I have enough of a I guess a gene pool built up that I'm really excited to start throwing my dogs in on a lot more fares. Uh me and my buddy are actually just building a dog box built onto his pickup right now to get after it this year. Um, but again, it just is another thing. If if I'm gonna have these dogs, I want them to be able to do it all, and I've seen some that are ex excellent at doing it all, so I think the the standard should be high up there. I'm also uh in the in the winter and fall, I've got stag hounds or uh run to catch the coyotes, and I've been able to kind of multi-purpose the decoy dogs into trailing and jumping the coyotes uh for us as well, and getting them up for the stag hounds, uh lining them out, and just being able to to use the same dog to run to catch and then be able to tone them back and get them to do the back and forth with the coyote is uh again just being able to have the multi-purpose factor on the dogs allows me to to do more and and have more fun without having to have ten different types of dogs for a whole different aspect of hunting.

SPEAKER_01 12:14

Yeah. So so tell me how that works. So you'll like you'll cast the decoy dog, same the same kind of dogs, yeah, um into like thick cover or like ditches and stuff, and then try to flush coyotes out for the for the stags?

SPEAKER_03 12:29

Yep. I took uh like this past fall, I got a couple more stag hounds and really wanted to put effort into uh hunting them.

SPEAKER_02 12:40

Here in Idaho we have a lot of public ground, but it's all super rough country, either really steep or at the very least, very rocky, tons of badger holes. Uh definitely can't truck the dogs out across it. Um and then the agland we have is really broken up. Um, you know, not really, nothing like the Midwest. So the coyotes are there, but they're they're definitely tough to find and root out during the daytime. So I took a dog that my buddy has that's a winter mate to my best decoy dog. Uh he's been running, he was exclusively running bears with it. And after a season of bear hunting, he loaned them to me for the winter, and I just started running that dog with his brother and a couple of my other decoy dogs, and they took right to it. So basically just uh dropping them on the creek bottoms and brush patches, stage brush patches, uh, all the different places that the coyotes are holed up in, and basically getting them to start running that coyote, because in my experience, the coyotes are they know where to hide, they know where to go. So even if I can jump them up by myself in a vehicle or something, they just get right back into a hiding spot. But once the dogs run them for a mile or so, then the coyote decides it wants to cross country and go somewhere completely different and try to lose them on a long straight straightaway, and that allows us to catch them out coming across an open pivot and drop the stag hounds on them. So we were pretty uh had definitely had a lot of fun with that this year. I wouldn't say super successful, but we were successful and was pretty happy with how the dogs ended up performing, got my stag hounds to where they're casting out and going with the the decoy dogs, jump dogs, which has been uh pretty successful there. And yeah, just kind of had a lot of fun and was able to again just kind of utilize these same dogs for something in that in that off season, uh, so that I can still be running the dogs, stay on the coyotes. The coyotes aren't gonna decoy hardly at all in the fall, in winter, if they don't have pups, their sense of self-preservation is so high they aren't gonna engage the dogs very often.

SPEAKER_00 14:53

So just to keep them on coyotes on the day-to-day, uh switching it up to that strategy was pretty worthwhile.

SPEAKER_01 15:02

Yeah, no, it makes sense if you to keep it going. That that does the stag dogs you're talking about, are they full stag? Are they crossed up or what are they?

SPEAKER_02 15:13

Uh all my stag hounds except for one are heavy full stags. Um I have one that is uh a straight stag hound, you know, still a mutt, but all all sight hound behind him. He's related to the grandfather of the rest of my dogs, so they all kind of match up well and and run well together, fight well together, and uh got a good little set of dogs.

SPEAKER_01 15:38

Is he as hard as the bull crosses?

SPEAKER_02 15:41

Oh, absolutely not, but he is uh interestingly enough, he's very, you know, I'm s you've been around some stag hounds, and I'm sure you've noticed how I I say they're primitive, and he is as primitive and almost coyote acting as any stag hound. I got him older, you know. I've I had him at a year old and he hadn't been handled much. And he come came around to where like he handles, but he does not give a crap about people. And that's why I prefer the bull stags, uh, because I love a dog in a sighthound body with a pit bull's mind. Uh, not even for the grit, just the confidence and the easy-going demeanor, environmental stability. Uh, you just can't beat a pit bull in that regard. So that's what I really enjoyed is these is these bull stags. But then this other stag hound, uh, and I don't know if it's just because he does not care about people or want to be he wants to go with the other dogs. So from day one, I can I was casting him with the decoy dogs, and he had a couple catches this year way out ahead uh off the jump, and that was really cool. He started using his nose. You know, I can drop him on a coyote that I watch run over a ridge that the other dogs don't see, or that none of the dogs see, and just like the the terrier dogs, now he puts his nose down and will run the track and jump his own coyote, uh, which was interesting. Being the more timid dog, uh the more coyote-acting dog, he really has uh incredibly strong hunting instincts. Um, so he's really been an asset to my team. But I got him, uh, a female and some pups off of her. I had a really good dog up until last year. I lost him. Um, and then these pups are off of him, and the female is his niece. So some good line breeding out there, pretty consistent on the the bull stags. They got a good combination of speed and hardness. Uh hardness that the other dog doesn't have, but still uh they all they all had to the team. A lot different than the Terriers or or Hounds, but they're really cool dogs.

SPEAKER_01 17:51

Yeah. I've had just a small experience with like a stag cross last year, and and she was kind of hit or miss on whether she would be hard solo, sometimes she would, and then sometimes she would get to like a hog we're talking about dropping them on hogs, you know. And uh, you know, if she was by herself, she'd some might sometimes she might smash them and hang their ass, and then other times she would pay one. And uh but if ever with another dog, there was no quorum. Like she was as hard as it get, you know what I mean. If there was another catch dog on the ground with her, there was absolutely no fear. She locked on, yeah. Yeah, so it was I I didn't know.

SPEAKER_02 18:32

That's the playhound for sure, just kinda a little inconsistent, a little fickle, but that's just the way they are.

SPEAKER_01 18:40

Yeah. I could I can definitely see that. Whenever so there was one I might have messaged you and you you were decoying and uh you had a stag sitting next to you while you were trying to decoy. Was that the dog, this the straight stag you're talking about?

SPEAKER_03 18:57

No, the last year, up until last year, I was hunting just a single dog and I had farmed out my my females and some buddies to hunt.

SPEAKER_02 19:06

Then I lost that dog and had uh Indian give on a couple of my other dogs so I could stay in the stay in the game, but my friends are all cool and uh I know I'm gonna get them back. So I was able to uh to get these dogs back, but no, that was just a male dog that I had, and uh he was I'm he was very consistent on soloing coyotes by himself. Um and now April's rolling around, the coyotes are denting, dropping their whelping their pups, and now we're back to the decoying. So now I'm back to sending my decoy dogs to bring those coyotes back to us, and now we're sitting there with uh a couple sag hounds, a mother and her pups, uh, or this this male in in a pup and and running them uh instead of shooting the coyotes.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

So do you have whenever they're there with you, are they on lead or do you have a handle on them where you can uh when I say handle, not a physical handle.

SPEAKER_02 20:04

Yeah, yeah, I know I know what you mean, yeah. Uh, you know, I try to hold on to them. Uh I I do, I'll hold them, I'll leash them and sit next to me. Um they're such kind of like you said, with that with that dog you had, you know, it's easy to they're not very forgiving on like mixed signals. Um you know, I was just talking with my buddy the other day, and we got a coyote working on front of them, and they're kind of those young puffs are jerking on them and jumping around. They want to go to the coyote. He's telling them, no, no, sit down. And I'm telling him, shut up, quit telling them no, you're stronger than them, hold them back, let them want to go. Uh, you know, I'll I'll rein them in and put a handle on them when they're a little bit older, but I'm real careful to just encourage them to want to go, try not to take anything away from that, and then I'll put a handle on them. Uh, because they are very, I mean, they're pretty soft-natured dogs, very easy to to put a little pressure on them and and get them to yield a little bit. Um, so as they get a little bit older and I know that they are willing to sprint 500 yards to a coyote they saw run over the hill and and try to catch it out there, then I'll start telling them to sit quiet and and be polite, um, like their their father and uncle was. He'd sit there stone cold, quiet, watch a coyote dancing right in front of us, but then when I turned him loose, he was he was gonna go catch it if he could. Uh and so, yeah, I would say uh I I don't put a lot of handle on them until they're a little bit older. Um, but they're they're pretty easy to to rein in.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

Yeah, I mean I make first things first, make sure the dog's gonna do his job and then and then hone in the handle. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:50

You can always rein them in, but you cannot make them go, no matter if it's a lab or a stag hound or a terrier, you're you got whatever they want to do on their own, that's what you're working with.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

Yeah. No, that was that was one of the more interesting things I saw whenever I was, you know, looking at your stuff and you know, like you see the decoying dog, and you know, and they you shoot him and all that, that's don't get me wrong, that's freaking awesome. But uh being a being able to call one close and then drop the fence.

SPEAKER_02 22:17

Yeah, once the coyot once the coyotes engage those decoy dogs, like, you know, and you have a gun, you're gonna shoot it, even if it decides to leave. And at least out west here, you know, maybe in Texas, you know, it can fade off into the brush, and you don't get a shot at it. But here, if I'm perched up on a hill, I can see it leaving for a quarter mile, and uh, I'm gonna get that. I'm gonna get a shot. But with the stag hound, you know, there's no guarantees, and it just has kept it that much more interesting, allowed me to involve a whole nother type of dog and just a whole nother dynamic to what I was already having a lot of fun with. And now I feel like I've got it dialed to the point where it's always gonna be a low success hike, and that's just gonna keep it rewarding in the long run.

SPEAKER_00 23:02

Yep, yep, exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:05

I yeah. I've I've been there with like just hunting in general, you know, you work your way throughout life. Oh yeah. You know, you're shooting deer with a rifle and then you're shooting them with a bow, and then I'm tracking tracking wounded deer, and then now I'm yeah. I went thermal hunting for pigs for years and years, and then now I've you won't catch me with a gun when we're pig hunting now.

SPEAKER_03 23:29

Yep, yep.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

It's funny.

SPEAKER_02 23:31

It's funny how it goes, how it's all applicable. Yeah, it's applicable to all different walks of hunting, but it's just the the hunter in his progress.

SPEAKER_00 23:41

For sure.

SPEAKER_01 23:42

So you try to make it harder on yourself. Oh, dude, it's uh what uh that's uh we talked about this before, it's like the uh we we for some reason we love to put ourselves into situations where it's harder and and we we struggle and but at the end of the day it's that's what the struggle is what is what we're after.

SPEAKER_02 24:08

Absolutely. Those are the guys you want to hunt with, those are the guys you want to get dogs from, uh the guys you're making sure it's a struggle no matter what, to keep interact keep getting better at what you're doing.

SPEAKER_00 24:21

Yeah, no doubt.

SPEAKER_01 24:23

So uh on another on another video or something I was watching, you had you had dogs in the ground like pulling a coyote out. I was I was curious that did did y'all chase that coyote into a den and then pull him out, or did the dog scent the like the hole? How does that work whenever you've got 'em underground like that?

SPEAKER_03 24:48

Yeah, so in my opinion, you know, these the whole thing I'm doing is off of what these government trappers discovered and have been doing for 50 or 70 years.

SPEAKER_02 25:01

And very important part for them is in it in denting is is having a dog that will go into the ground and and work a coyote or pull pups out, you know, it is all part of the job. So I I love to see my dogs just being really ready to go to ground. And anytime I can get some work in in that area, I love love that. That particular scenario, uh, well, in general, you know, my dogs are, especially this time of year in the next couple months, we're finding a lot of dens uh as we're out and about. They usually are pretty dang deep, and I'm usually not in a scenario where I'm prepared or uh have the time to to dig in on a den. The other thing is I do most of my hunting, I would say, is pretty recreational, uh, rather just focus on the dogs and developing them. Um I do have a contract with a big ag corporation that uh runs cattle, and you know, year round I'm out there uh you know once a week, every other week, uh just try to put a dent in coyotes for them. And in those scenarios, if I find a den, you know, we're gonna put in the to get it taken care of, versus if I'm just out working dogs in the middle of some BLM in the middle of nowhere, and I find a den in that situation, I'm just gonna pin it and I'm gonna come back year after year and hunt that den, but I'm not gonna try to wipe it out. Uh the scenario there, we were we got called to to kill some coyotes on a farm that was having problems. So uh we had ran and caught a couple with the stag hounds, and on the the last run, uh one of the my buddies I I jumped a coyote with my uh terriers, they pushed it out into the open, he dropped uh his stag hounds, they got on that coyote and it headed for a hole and uh ran down into that den. So we had a bunch of buddies, not a bunch, but we have four of my buddies there. They're all the type of buddies you want where they see that scenario and they just are racing to grab shovels, can't wait to dig down to the dog, uh, which is awesome. And you know, I had a couple dogs there, but the stag hounds, the the site hounds, they're not gonna go down there and and do any damage. But a couple of my uh Terrier Cross dogs love that type of stuff. So we dropped them down in there. Uh and that was a I've done this, you know, more than a few times. Uh this is a first where we the dog went in there, we heard him, hit the kile, start fighting it. And that dog uh that we set entered first, uh, he's probably killed 10 kyotes in the ground. Uh nothing new for him. But we're sitting outside, we're listening, and you know, there's a lot of barking and tussling going on, which isn't too normal for him. Uh we're we can kind of see up in there, we see him draw it out to where we can see, and then uh it gets free and goes back up in there. So we started digging down uh to like where we estimated him to be, and we put two uh six foot just straight down holes down into the into where they were at. He we got that dog uh called off and pulled him out to take a breather, and I put another dog in. Uh he went in there and ripped the coyote out like nobody's business, and uh the other him them dogs killed it, whatnot. Everyone picks up that coyote, starts picking up the dogs to walk up the hill, back of the truck, and I look down, there's another coyote staring at me. And uh I'm like, guys, there's another coyote in here. Rick and my dog hears my excitement, turns around, hits that hole again at full speed, and uh another 20 minutes went by and we pulled that coyote out. Uh so that was a two for one, a first for me, but it was just uh so fun to get out there at the buddies and dig some holes and watch some some cowboy shit. Uh that was always uh that's just a nice little highlight. And again, fun to have dogs that are just ready for anything. You know, if you don't if you don't have a dog that wants to go down and fight to the death deep in the deep in the ground, then that's that. On to the next, but the fun just begins when you got a dog like that in the arsenal and just uh pays to have every tight.

SPEAKER_01 29:39

Yeah, I I I want to say the pitcher, it looked like you had like eight dogs or more.

SPEAKER_02 29:45

Yeah, we had freaking we had uh my buddy has three stag hounds, I had more my four stag hounds that were running, and then I had three uh terriers that we were using to jump. So we just had a pack of dogs, a pack of guys, the farmer was there, he happened uh you're like, oh, I want to see these dogs go, and lucky he picked that day to come because he saw some staghound catches, he saw some terrier work, it was just uh five hours of chaos. And I was just like two miles from my house, which was super cool uh being able to to have days like that just right out my my back door, basically.

SPEAKER_01 30:20

So I bet you got invited back to that place. Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, keys in the city. Typical. That's cool. So on the on the Terriers, like so I was I'm just going through, like, I'm not like a dog freaking. I can't like look at a picture and tell you exactly what a dog is. Your pictures got me so damn thrown off. I'm like, what is that? How does that mean I'm trying to like it's got a saddleback, but it looks like a hound, but it's kind of like a terrier, like what the I've got to I mean, if you don't mind, tell me about the moment.

SPEAKER_02 31:03

Yeah, you know, not so much uh in like when people ask me like what breeds are this, and you know, and I tell them, but I preface it by saying, as any good dog breeder knows, and I just learned over the years that you know the there's no magic uh concoction or combination. You really are just if you're gonna breed anything legit, you're gonna be breeding off of dogs as individuals, uh, not based on what you speculate that they might be. And I just got really lucky in like, for example, uh a guy named Devin Staker. I don't know if you guys have talked to him, he's out in Colorado. Uh he's raised uh his his version of coyote dogs for for a long time and has crossed all different sorts of stuff. Uh he sent me a dog that ended up being just a phenomenal all-around decoy dog for me. Uh not super hard, but incredible range and just intelligence to work through things I necessarily wasn't good at, but figured out. Um there was uh an accidental breeding between like a jag hound type and a band dog that produced a litter of dogs that were basically aces all the way across. Uh I had a sister, still have a brother. Uh my buddy who's the outfitter has a litter mate brother that he runs specifically on bears. And those are also some dogs that just had an incredibly high drive, um, but very balanced, very environmentally stable, uh, just kind of awesome do-it-all dogs. Uh between that dog from Devin Staker and the female from that litter, uh, had a couple really awesome litters uh from them two dogs that I kept, but also sent out to be decoy dogs and bear dogs, flood dogs. Uh uh a buddy of mine is out in West Virginia and he's got his running bobcats pretty well. Um then I had my uh my Idoshag, he's uh he's gotta be mentioned. Uh I call him my three-legged dog because he was three-legged for the last seven years of his life. He got hit by a car at three, and uh he was just uh uh above all an everything dog, just the cow dog intelligence in him uh made up for any skills he lacked, and he would run coyotes, decoy coyotes, tree hard, go to ground, retrieve ducks, uh but nothing he couldn't do. Um he crossed on uh those dogs I I just mentioned incredibly well. Um then there uh there's a guy named Jordan Hassler. Uh he's a freaking legend. If you can ever get him on, uh he's forgotten more than most will ever know. He's not even that old, but he's got some really incredible. Uh Hassler is H-A-F-L-E-R. He's out of Utah. He's on that uh Blood Origins film they did on Hound Dogs a couple years back.

SPEAKER_04 34:14

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:14

And uh he's got a dog mentioned in that in that film is Hawk, uh, a hound he has, who by all report.

SPEAKER_00 34:25

He also had a little half cross between a he crossed those three dogs that you're Joe, is he breaking up on your hand? Yeah, I didn't break up on my own. Can you hear me?

SPEAKER_01 34:42

I hear you now. Uh you didn't hear you for probably 30 seconds or so.

SPEAKER_03 34:47

So Jordan has this uh hound called Hawk, who's just a crossed up dry ground type dog. Terrier and a chemmer out of striker lines.

SPEAKER_02 35:02

And uh he crossed those two dogs a couple times and got some real really consistent uh in looks and in how they hunted. But I had a a pup out of that, and she was one of my best ever dogs. I called her Rona, and not real gritty, but just a phenomenal tree dog, uh great at decoying, tons of range, you know, hunted like a hound, but the mind of the the cur. Um and she crossed really well. A lot of these dogs you see uh that I think you mentioned, like just kind of the they look a little houndy, a little terrier. Um I crossed her with the band dog cross dogs, and those are the dogs that I'm using both as decoy dogs and is as like run-to-catch dogs. My buddy's using one of the bear dogs uh very successfully. So now I've got uh, you know, and there's a couple other dogs in there that I didn't mention, but now I have four or fifth generation crosses uh down off of those dogs, and finally getting some consistency. You know, obviously when you're cross-breeding random ass dogs, you're gonna be getting random ass results. But uh by just breeding, breeding, calling hard, getting them to really good people that tested them hard, told me what I got. Now I've kind of settled on a type and getting some consistent lines. I just posted a picture today. I bred my uh my dog Cage to his granddaughter and got a carbon copy son out of him uh that I'm pretty excited about, but that's kind of what it took was creating some dogs to breed to him specifically, and now I'm kind of reproducing what I'm been hoping to reproduce for a long time, and therefore now I'm ready to roll on the bears and and anything really, because I have the gene pool built up.

unknown 37:00

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 37:00

And that's that saddleback orange dog, orange and black?

SPEAKER_02 37:03

The set yeah, yeah, the saddleback uh tan red dog, he is a litter mate to the black dog that has brown points. They both look really houndy, but pretty big heads and uh and a little bit terrier looking, and yeah, they've got they've got all the bottom and grit of the terrier, but with the happy-go-lucky attitude of the hound dog, you know, they have no dog aggression whatsoever. Uh, but they're pretty pretty ranked, pretty tough uh on the fight. The two of them can kill a coyote by themselves, no trouble. Um they'll go to ground. They don't they don't uh draw underground, but they will go to ground. And their their pups are kind of getting a little bit harder than they are, so I can hopefully get back to having dogs that'll draw out of the ground type hardness. Um but just really universal do everything type dogs that I can have fun. They're not gonna be the best at anything, but they're gonna keep me in the game of of whatever I want to do out here. And uh there's always some fun in in a little bit of added added fun, I guess, and using your dogs that you've bred, even if they fail and and even if they suck, you still uh can take a little pride in them and and enjoy that.

SPEAKER_01 38:21

Yeah. So forgive my ignorance when you say draw them out of the ground, what do you mean by that?

SPEAKER_02 38:27

Like, I mean it's one thing to go these these younger male dogs that we just mentioned, they'll go into any hole and they'll get right up into Kyle's face and scrap with it, you know, bark at it, but they aren't gonna lock onto its top jaw while it locks onto their lower jaw and yank it ten feet out of the ground with everything they've got like the like the other dogs will. Um and it is kind of uh luck of the jaw and that that level of hardness. But like I said, it's uh that type of hardness is sure no fun when you find a porcupine uh or you know, there can be I've had some bad wrecks, but uh when you do hope to have it and it's there, it sure is fun to have that sort of sort of dog to get the job done.

SPEAKER_00 39:11

Yes, we we all met a lot of badgers too. What's that? I I said, do y'all uh do you run into a bunch of badgers out there too?

SPEAKER_02 39:22

Yeah, here in Idaho, up until I'd say five years ago, uh we had the highest concentration of the badger population in America. Uh we have a ton of ground squirrels here in the Snake River Plain. Um they're like a I mean, there's all different types of sorts of ground squirrels, but these are like really, really small. They look like little rats. And up until five years ago, there's millions of them every spring. Something happened. Uh I think some uh the bubonic plague or something came through, and they got killed off, and then they kind of came back. But man, this year, for some reason, uh in the area that I live, they are gone, literally extinct. And the badger population in the last 10 years has dipped with them, but now it's gonna crash even harder. Um, ten years ago, we could cruise out on a coyote hunt and even without thermal, just like spotlighting, see 15 to 20 badgers. Uh, there's been nights thermal hunting where I'm coyote hunting, and we saw 30-40 badgers on a low estimate, and uh now we're just not seeing hardly any. Um, our soil out here is this coliche dust, and it is really tough to dig in. So there's not much opportunity to dig to badgers, but running across them above ground or getting into them in pipes and culverts is uh always happening, and they're a great, great way to test a dog. You know, if I got a dog that I think is is pretty hard and I want to find out, the badger is gonna show me. Um, but then once you have a dog that is fully tested, then you're like, man, I don't want to see any badgers. Uh my best dog had an experience where he spent about 45 minutes in a 14-inch culvert with a big badger, and it was like the classic scenario where you see in the in the European guys with their badger dogs, where the badger gets into the lower jaw of that dog and just does some serious damage. Uh, that was a learning experience for me. And uh after doctoring that up, we can doctor anything. But at some point you get to where you're like, man, I don't I don't need to be running into any badgers. Um they're just such a American badger is such a especially a big boar is literally just a walking suit of armor, and uh they're so strong and so tough. I love them to test a dog, but I don't uh like when my dogs are a half mile out on a coyote and they get into a badger and it takes me 15 minutes to get out there. They'll about have the badger stretch, but they got as much blood on them as the badger have as a zone. Uh so they're a blessing and a curse. But super cool animals. I badgers are one of my favorite animals.

SPEAKER_00 42:14

I have a history with them, and they're super cool. I love badgers.

SPEAKER_05 42:20

Yeah, when you when you get a bottom jaw peeled, it's a it's a different kind of injury. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:26

Luckily I was there with uh a very experienced dog man to say the least. He just happened to be there, and my dog came out of there, and I hate to hate to say it, this is uh oh not too long ago, but I had not seen anything like that before. I was like, oh my gosh, and he said, Oh, don't worry, son, I'll tell you what to do. It'll be alright. It's always good to have somebody live. Oh man, yeah, Scott has saved my ass so much. And uh yeah, five days after that, I was even thinking it was gonna be worse, but man, he healed up. Uh I don't know if you guys have ever heard of granulex, um, but that's where I learned about granulex. Yeah, now it's discontinued, but my wife uh looked up the ingredients. It's only three ingredients are uh castor oil, trypsum powder, and balsam of Peru, which is like uh oil of some sort. Uh mix those three things together, and man, it is magical healing power. I've never seen anything like it. Um, but that was very helpful as well.

SPEAKER_00 43:31

That's pretty cool stuff.

SPEAKER_01 43:33

So that that particular situation, you either start from the bottom and sew your way up to the top, or what?

SPEAKER_02 43:40

No sewing really, you know, that it's such a dirty wound and it's just hamburgered that there's nothing you can do besides uh luckily this dog is just dirty tough. And we brought him inside. I got one of those uh uh water picks for your teeth, like flossing your teeth, but it squirts water. Hold off the the constricting end and just the the pressure coming out of the little tiny water line was enough to get just a little bit of pressure to kind of irrigate and wash out the dead skin and the stuff that was kind of slowing off. Um and then just oiling it up with this uh basically castor oil, it's just an oily substance. Granulex is in a uh aerosol can, um, but when you mix up the homemade version, it's just a sauce. And uh yeah, just dribbling that up into there. Uh, and the dog being able to just stand there and take the the pressure wash twice a day and doctor him up with that ointment. And man, he was hunting again in like a month and a half. I could not believe how fast it it healed up. Was it looped after after he healed up, Steph?

SPEAKER_05 44:50

Was it looped on the bottom? Oh, oh man, I yeah, he did it flop.

SPEAKER_02 44:55

That scar tissue. Well the it he so it healed up really well, but that scar tissue is so delicate that you know now if he gets in, he fights the head really well, and uh it, you know, if he if he's the only dog on a on a badger or one of the only dogs, um, he can he'll end up just taking damage on his cheeks and chest, uh, and it won't get up into his face, but God forbid he ends up in a pipe or a den with another badger and does that again because it'll be the whole thing over again. Uh that darkness is real delicate.

SPEAKER_05 45:30

Yeah, remember that we're gonna go. It was all like, yeah, it always bonds back, but yeah, it just comes apart like nothing.

SPEAKER_02 46:06

It's uh really really annoying. And I guess that's why they have to retire those dogs in in Europe, you know, at three or four years old, because they just don't have that much uh in them. And I guess that's why they like the looser, a little bit uh softer dog to use their voice a little bit and not just lockjaw on a badger. I mean, this dog that yeah, and then this dog, you know, he's 55 pounds versus a 25, 30 pound Boar Badger, and uh it took them all 45 minutes to drag it out of that culvert. It was a long culvert. He was probably up in there at least 20 or 30 feet, but uh in that 45 minutes it took him to drag it out, it was game over for his for his chin.

SPEAKER_01 46:48

I gotcha. That's pretty freaking hard for for a dog to stick to that and then come out with it, to me.

SPEAKER_02 46:55

I mean Yeah, I mean he's not uh a bulldog by no means, but he's uh he's just kind of that perfect he he's he's not too hard where like I don't think he's gonna ever get himself killed. Uh, you know, he's he's certainly not game, but he's definitely hard enough to get it done for me in any scenario that that I've had him in. I won't put him on bears. Uh I put him on uh accidentally put him on a a live bear one time and it wasn't uh it wasn't a hundred percent. It was uh wearing a bullet in its leg, but it jumped out of a tree and him it was only like a hundred pound bear, but him and uh two other dogs locked all down its throat and killed it. And uh that was cool, but I know I if I ever show him another bear, it'll probably be the last thing he sees, so I gotta be pretty careful of uh what we're getting into out here in in Idaho. We got mountain lions and bears and stuff, and it's pretty easy to hunt the lower country and avoid it, but we do get up into the the higher stuff, so I try to try to be a little careful with him.

SPEAKER_00 48:01

Yeah, I can imagine.

SPEAKER_01 48:04

Have you ever have you ever like been able to tone a dog back out of a hole like that?

SPEAKER_02 48:10

I mean, like you're running collars on him and like the collars for some reason as soon as they go into a culvert, as soon as that collar dips out of sight of the sky, you lose connection. And uh I can call uh like that dog out only like the other day on those two he was down in in there fighting those two coyotes for 30 to 45 minutes, maybe, and about the time uh I mean probably the 30-40 minute mark, I started calling to him and I was able to get him to back out to me just enough. I could grab onto his tail and then he backed out for me, and we entered the other dog. But that's kind of the thing. Like once they once they go in, they're in, or at least a dog like that, like they're in. So you really gotta uh size up the situation, check out the ground, make sure you got some shovels or a plan. Uh, because yeah, I've I've had uh I have a little bull rustle, and he's got stuck a couple times in in places, and you're like, man, this is seemed like a great idea, seemed like it was gonna be a lot of fun a minute ago, and now we aren't having much fun, and now we're dealing with the problem. Uh so yeah, a few a few of those scenarios taught me to be real careful and check out the scenario before dropping a dog, because once they go, they're in it to win it.

SPEAKER_01 49:30

Yeah, I could see that being troublesome and like you said, you get in there. Well, that's like even for like my little dogs that I'm trying to hog hunt with right now, like they're not gonna they're not gonna go two miles. They'll go a mile, you know, here and there on a on a track, like or or on a like a you know, when they jump, you know. But I was talking to my buddy Cody this morning, we went and I was like, man, it would be really cool to have a dog that would hit a trail and go two miles or or jump one and go, you know, go until it was over with, right? Like a real true dog dog, what I would say. Uh but for me, I would just end up somewhere where I shouldn't be or across the river. And it may be my excuse for not having, you know, sure enough good dogs, but like in my mind, I would just I would I would be just in more trouble. Oh, I'm with you, man.

SPEAKER_02 50:29

I'm with you. And that's part of the reason why I've uh been slow to run my dogs on bears, because you know, bear hunting is popular out here, and I'm sure it's the same with hogs, where an animal that's been run before and knows that it might get killed, they'll just leave the country. And a lot of this stuff in Idaho is bar none, it's the roughest country in the lower 48. Uh, I mean, some of Arizona can can rival it, but it is just steep and rough and a mile away, and your dogs are off the GPS, and now you're predicting where you think they're gonna go. Um, and it's not necessarily the bears will kill your dog, but we got a lot of wolves and uh a lot of people, and there's just so many things that can can happen, but it's just kind of part of the game. So you gotta be you gotta be ready when you sign up for it, but again, you gotta keep challenging yourself and can't uh at least in my situation, I can't shy away from it for some lame excuse like that. I need to need to go run. I think I'm getting the sense that you're gonna be a bear houndsman before long. Well, it's tough because our bear season starts now and runs all the way through June, which is prime decoy dogging, but we have a lot of bear, and you know, I could either on foot or horseback uh cruise through a lot a lot of country that's gonna maybe we're gonna get into a coyote den and work some coyotes, maybe we're gonna jump a bear and run a bear, uh, and kind of have potential for both. But just like we were saying earlier, just in the name of of making better dogs, uh, I'm willing to to ease off the coyotes a little bit for for some bear hunting and just for the sake of of making sure the dogs are up to par and and improving if they need to.

SPEAKER_01 52:18

Yeah, I mean uh to me it's like you I mean you can say it's conquered, but like I feel like you've pretty well conquered the decoy dogs and stuff, so now it's another challenge that you're seeking.

SPEAKER_02 52:32

I like at this point, you know, what like you will see on TV or YouTube, you know, the the age-old strategy of of basically having the dog sit next to you or be out there in front of you, calling coyotes in and the dogs engaging what it sees come in. Uh I'm having, especially this year, a ton of success just taking these dogs. They've been free casting the coyotes all winter. Uh now I'm taking them out to the desert and just sending them down a random canyon or draw and just kind of easing along behind them. And instead of and the coyotes are gonna work the dogs a lot better the closer they are to the den. So instead of me posting up on some likely looking spot and trying to get the coyotes to come to me, if I can get the dogs to to work out and push to the coyotes, locate the coyotes in their bedroom, and then show up and blast the pup distress a little bit, uh, I'm gonna be way more successful. The cows are gonna work way better, um, way more opportunity to have them come in on a string on the decoy dogs for my stag hounds to to go out and run. Um, so that's kind of uh the last couple years, and especially this year, um, kind of my go-to method is still kind of still trying to free cast these dogs to the coyotes, but then again, having them be uh all these dogs that I free casted to the coyotes this year, they decoyed before, so I've already uh in the last couple weeks put them back on some decoy situations, toned them back, and they showed me that they're ready to to switch gears and and do that too. Um, but I would say that's kind of the the next level for me to really be consistent on with the decoy dogging. But overall, it's it's not that hard of a like a a dog hunting venue, you know? Uh compared to you know trying to walk my dogs through the woods and have them trail strike and and jump their own bear is gonna be much better, much better dog work overall, and just another reason why I need to pursue that.

SPEAKER_01 54:39

Oh I totally make sense. I I I I agree. I've never done the decoy dog in and or you know, I've I've seen it, but I've never done it personally. But you're you know, you're kind of you're calling that coyote into their lap and then and then you know, having them work the coyote as opposed to them finding the coyote, working the coyote, killing the coyote.

SPEAKER_02 55:02

Yeah, exactly. Because you know, the coyote is going to like you might have a coyote who has been shot at out of the airplane, he's been trapped, he's been called, he's seen it all, he's not gonna respond to somebody calling him in any time of the year, any time or place, except when he thinks that his pups are in danger, or especially a female, you know, not just a male coyote, but a female coyote. And just instinctively, they can't help but respond to that. Uh, you know, even if you don't have a dog, it's it's pretty pretty easy time of year to kill coyotes. Uh, if you do have the dog, it makes it that much better. But like I said, you gotta be careful if you're if you're out there for dog work that you aren't just giving your dog layups and freebies uh handing it coyotes at the call. Um, once the dog figures out what's going on, the ability to utilize the dog uh and and increase your success is there because especially out west here with all this public land, we get tons of coyote hunters. Uh this time of year, the coyotes, you know, I can be even 500 yards from their den, sneak in there, winds right, they haven't seen me. Uh, I start playing pup distress, and they they'll perk up and they'll sit on their den and look at the dogs out there 500 yards, quarter mile, and have no inclination to come because they're smart enough to know that their pups are little, they're down in the den, whatever's going on out there isn't applicable to them. But if I go out there and I don't turn on my call and I just sneak in a low spot and my dog picks up the trail of where one of those coyotes was returning to the den and trails them up all the way to their den, it's on like Donkey Kong at the den. Then I can see on my GPS, my dog goes from straight and lined out to a bunch of loops and back and forth. I know if I hustle over there, I'm gonna have that great action that I wouldn't have got, just trying to guess the spot and plop out randomly in the sagebrush ocean and try to call those coyotes to me. Um they will use their dens year after year. So this time of year, I'm especially this time of year, going off my memory of all the different dens I've found over the years and trying to go park on top of those. Uh right now as the pups are freshly dropped and get my my young dogs uh into that. Because I have a couple real broke dogs that know the game, and then I have a whole bunch of a whole crop of young dogs that are good at following them, but don't really know what's going on yet. So those those puppies can use the layups, but uh if they can get into the layup following the older dog who finds it for them, that's that much better.

SPEAKER_01 57:40

So speaking of like age and stuff on the will you what about like yearling coyotes? Like I, you know, over here, like they're way easier to call in, they're dumb and and whatever. Yeah, yeah. Do you try to purposely go after them with like even your young dogs?

SPEAKER_02 57:56

Yeah, no, honestly, every time I every time I go out there and I'm calling, I'm targeting the biggest, meanest, baddest coyote out there, the dominant pair. And typically they'll always be uh, you know, an an aged pair of coyotes that have been together for a while, raise some litters. They will keep, especially those older dominant coyotes, they will retain what we call helper bitches, uh, female pups from the previous years that are A, just learning how to raise pups from their mother. But interestingly enough, like if that mother coyote gets killed, those helper bitches will start lactating and nurse those those coyote pups. So on a situation like that, you know, if I if I get on that den, all of a sudden I have four or five coyotes on my dogs, uh, that's a a dream scenario because all the coyotes give each other confidence, uh, that's where the best action comes. Um, however, if coyotes are so persecuted, especially out west here, and in this wide open western country, especially, they get flown a lot, uh, even into the spring, targeting those pregnant and dentning coyotes. So if the coyotes weren't so heavily shot up and they were able to maintain their population, every single female coyote wouldn't get bred. But as it is, there is so much uh of a harvest on the population year to year that pretty much every female coyote gets bred and has pups. Uh so I will notice that those younger females, they don't have, and a lot of times those younger females are gonna be like a solo uh parent. They didn't they didn't find a male or their male was young and got killed himself. Uh and so those females aren't going to be real aggressive, they aren't gonna run in and fight the dogs, they're just gonna bark and make a lot of noise and run back and forth. Um but overall, uh if the coyote doesn't have pups uh or isn't a part of a a community raising pups, they aren't gonna work the the dogs. Um the only the only uh uh outlier to that is we will see bachelor groups of coyotes uh that are living out the summer avoiding the the pears, you know, because the pears are very aggressive in their areas. And you'll get some really mean uh pears or triples or even quads of uh like young male coyotes that are you know adults, not pups by any means. You know, they're a couple years old, but they're they didn't get to breed, they didn't get to raise the litter, and sometimes those bachelor packs are pretty nasty. Um but overall, every time I go out there and sit down and call, I'm trying to call a mean, angry, nasty coyote that's mad about the dogs being there. Um, because any adolescent, uh non-dominant coyote is not going to interact with the dogs at all. And they'll they might come in, take a peek, and they're just gonna turn and slip out as fast as they came.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:05

Yeah, after I asked that, I was like, well, it's kind of common sense, dumbass.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:10

Well, yeah, yeah, whatever it's not gonna come back.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:13

Yeah, yeah. Even in the breeding season, you know, January, February, we'll get some really good decoying, especially in the dark and the thermal, um, with those adult coyotes there. Yeah, they're a little hungry, uh, but I've had pet coyotes, and it's amazing. Coyotes aren't uh viable, uh sexually viable, males and females, except once a year in that January, February time frame. So even the males go into heat per se. Uh, and so I just see this change in the coyotes, they just get so mean and nasty to each other, and that's why the fight sounds on the coyote calls work so well, is they hear a coyote fight and they just want to come join in and kill another coyote. Um, and so if I get those coyotes coming to sounds like that, and on the way in, they're just thinking about the ass they're gonna kick when they get there, uh, and they can roll up on my dogs, it's pretty easy to get them to say, oh, these aren't coyotes, but they can get it this just the same and they'll roll on my dogs.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:17

Um, but that's uh typically at night um and just a little bit less consistent than when they're denting.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:27

Yeah. Oh, that was another I've seen where you had a video and it looked like there were six or eight coyotes on a couple decoy dogs, and it was through a third. Oh yeah. Yep, yep.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:39

Uh a lot of times we're getting the the bigger packs during at night. Um they're just so much more active and vocal, uh hunting together. Uh on my Instagram page I have a video pinned where I have seven coyotes on two dogs, and that's a good video, and and maybe you guys will get a kick out of this information. But uh a lot of people ask, you know, what's the risk of the dogs uh or the risk to the dogs, how often you have dogs get wrecked by the coyotes. And I'm pretty confident, in my opinion, of when the coyotes roll up on the dogs, again, the coyote's sense of self-preservation is very, very high. And no matter what, they're gonna they're not gonna roll up on a dog and hit it uh without second thought. They'll do that to other coyotes. I've had uh you know, call in two packs of coyotes and they both come in at the same time, convene on each other, and it is bloodbath on site. But when they see the dogs, they come in and they kind of feel them out a little bit and and see what they're working with. And as long as the dog doesn't think it can be beat, the coyotes, no matter how many there are, are never really gonna close with it. So even if you got multiple coyotes, three, four, five coyotes on one dog, as long as the dog stays up, keeps fighting, doesn't start yelping, doesn't start cowering, doesn't start running, the coyotes will just keep nipping. Uh to the point where like there isn't even any injuries besides maybe some tiny little tooth marks when the dogs get back to me. Um they really just want to nip the they kind of want to hamstring the dog and and get them by the nuts, and so they're really on the dog's ass. And as long as the dog keeps fighting, keeps spinning, uh, they can then start making their way back to me. And in that video, you can see uh at one point the pack of coyotes splits and they have both the dogs kind of pinned down for a second, but both dogs kind of rise up and shake them off, and the other dog runs over and helps his buddy out, and then they bring this pack of seven coyotes on a string right to us. And uh just kind of goes to show that and another reason in the dogs I breed, I I wanna I don't want to deal with dog aggression, I don't want to have a uh, you know, level of hardness that's problematic, but I do want to have enough terrier in these dogs that they just think they can't be beat, because then I can cut them loose and hear some crazy chaos over the ridge way far out that I can't get to, and I don't have to worry that you know my dog's in trouble.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:19

So on that typical or that scenario that you had there, whenever I'm assuming you shot the dog the coyotes, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:05:28

Like or you try to shoot as many as you could, or yeah, we got ARs, and it's funny. In that video, you get you hear my buddy, and he's all he's hype. He's like, Alright, David, we're gonna call him right in and mow him down, here we go. And we get these seven coyotes on in front of us, and I freaking dump two and wound one, and he misses all all his shock. It's just he got too excited and coyotes and dogs and chaos. Um, but just another reason where it's like, Man, I'm glad I was shooting 'cause like a lot of times if if It's a spot where in a lot of the country here we just can't run the stag hounds. It's too rocky, uh too much brush, but I know the coyotes are there. So I'll I'll go and I don't care to shoot them, so I'll let my buddy shoot them. Uh but then if my buddy misses, I'm like, dang, bro, like uh you I can't come all the way in here and and you miss. Now the dogs get nothing. I might as well just have brought my stag hound and let them at least try because they had as much of a chance as you did for missing, apparently. But uh yeah, it overall, like I I at this point I could care less if we kill the coyotes. And just like with hog dogs or or bear dogs or lion dogs, you know, good dogs are gonna grind whether you're killing for them or not. Like they're in it for the chase as much as the kill. And I don't really notice the my dogs do better or worse depending on how many cops are getting killed for them. Uh one every now and then is more than enough.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:56

Yeah, I was I was thinking about how much you trusted your friend to be shooting at different dogs in a thermoscope.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:03

Right, man. Yeah, and knock on wood, uh if I when it when I say I'm letting my friend shoot, that's daytime. Nighttime, if my buddy's shooting, it's a buddy I know and trust. And really it just comes down to understanding, like, alright, we got chaos going on in front of us, but these coyotes, especially at night, are not leaving. Like, we're gonna get a shot at one. So keep your finger off the trigger, just relax, you know, wait till till I'm telling you it's time to shoot, and until then, just enjoy the show. And if you're getting antsy and making me nervous, I'm freaking you're you're off to the side and not coming back. But I have some good buddies and they've done it enough with me to kind of know know what's up and I can trust them.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:43

Yeah, I'll know which one's a coyote and which one's a dog. Yeah. Yeah. Especially with a doc, you know, I got a bunch of docks.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:51

Yeah, it helps me to dip dogs' tails or docked, floppy ears and short hair contrasting the coyotes pretty well, but still you gotta be real careful. That's a damn thermal. That's uh the age old story is the unintended targets.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:07

Yeah, no, I came damn close one night and uh Yeah, we were just basically running around shooting pigs and stuff, and if we're in a if we're in a wheat field and coyotes are out there, well, you know, opportunistic, we'll go up and shoot 'em, you know. And uh there was one night we had one and I was like, we got pretty close. I was like, man, so ain't right. Like that you don't I mean it looked like a coyote, but he was just acting silly, you know, and and uh yeah, good thing I thought about it because it was definitely a little Ozzy.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:40

New healer or something on there.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:42

Yeah, we were pretty close to we were we were decently close to this trailer park that was down the road and probably had a collar on it. I'm glad I didn't trigger.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:55

I preached that to my buddies. Thermal's so popular, everyone's getting into it. It's like new retards better be watching and checking and learning the mannerisms of the coyote because trigger happy and excitement lead to mistakes. I freaking hate that. My my biggest qualm with with thermal is is that issue right there.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:16

Yeah, there's been uh there's definitely been a handful of uh young cows, calves get shot around here thinking pigs.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:25

Especially where you got pigs out there, yeah, that's even at least if we just have coyotes here and dogs and deer get mistaken, but you got pigs out there and yeah. A freaking pig in a cheap thermal, pretty hard to tell the difference between that, a big pig and a small cow.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:43

Yeah, and they they get amongst the cows quite a bit, like a lot of cows will be standing through, and they're just they're just hanging out together. Yeah, and if you don't know what you're doing, you could probably booger that up pretty easily. Yeah. Well, that's cool, man. So if for somebody that was trying to get into decoy dogging, like what would be what would be some advice you would give to somebody who's just like just starting out?

SPEAKER_02 1:10:11

Uh I would say number one, you wanna you wanna get into coyote hunting. Like, if you're gonna decoy dog, you gotta be able to call coyotes. A lot of guys look at it, see it, and think that that's gonna be uh like a level up for them to get the dog, now they're gonna kill more coyotes, but you really have to rely on your knowledge and in of coyotes and and coyote calling to be able to expose that dog to coyotes uh or know country well enough to know where the coyotes like to live where you can cast your dog out to where those coyotes are gonna be. Um and then when it comes, you know, counting is so popular uh and we have such different terrain across the United States, uh, you know, there's a variety of different scenarios and in ways that uh like one dog might excel really well out here in the wide open west and not do so well in the thick east of the Mississippi. Um but when it when it comes down to, like I said earlier, it's really not that uh hard for a dog to be able to do. And I see a lot of guys just going out with the dogs that they have and and seeing some success. Uh the best advice is what anybody would say if you're asking about getting any sort of hunting dog, is to get get dogs that are doing the job in the place that you want to hunt, and that's gonna be your your best bet. Uh decoy dogging is getting popular enough that there's enough guys doing it. I feel like it's uh it's fairly possible for anyone to source a puppy out of proven decoy dogs, but uh you know, especially down where you're at, you got all these hog dogs, uh, catahula, curs, um those are very popular for decoy dogging. And if a dog is got the range and the grit and the nose to be a hog dog, then it probably could be a a decoy dog too. Um so if you got the the coyote calling knowledge and and you want to try it, your best bet is just to get your hands on some sort of gamey, trashy dog and and start showing it coyotes. Uh there's really no training or or you know uh artificial scenarios that you can set up to show the dog, introduce the dog, it really comes down to again just getting out there and showing it coyotes. That's the the only foolproof way to to get that progress. So getting getting your hands on a dog, and I like to take them out like six to eight months old. Um you know some guys say that's a little bit early, but I figure if you're if your young dog is potentially getting in trouble because it's going too far, that's a good problem to have, and you can cross that bridge when you get to it. But just exposing that dog uh to the hunt and getting used to the call and the gunshot and all the sights and smells of a coyote hunt that it's going to see getting used to all that that it can focus in and notice uh and work a coyote when it comes in instinctively is is the biggest thing. Um don't overthink it, but highly recommend it.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:15

You won't regret it.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:18

Yeah, and and so another point that I was like thinking of was the having a dog that is not too big to scare a coyote off, but big enough to hold his own. Is that right? Like you don't want a giant dog out there that that that a coyote would mess with, or what's your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_02 1:13:40

Uh I say uh the quick answer is yes. Um but you know, there's like I mentioned uh Devin Staker, he's been rebreeding coyote dogs for quite a while. He prefers a smaller dog, smaller than I prefer, uh, because the smaller dog is just less uh intimidating to the average coyote, and you know, throughout the breeding season or even year-round, you're gonna have more luck with a dog that's smaller than the coyote. Uh myself, I want a dog that's as big as the coyote at least. Um I feel like that dog's gonna again be able to hold its own against a whole bunch of coyotes and be able to kill a coyote if it's wounded uh and they're they're tracking. I want them to be able to kill it on their own. Um, but on the other hand, when it comes to the bigger size, like whenever the that question comes up, I always point out an experience I had where uh I killed a wolf and it was a big male, and I came back to the same spot the next night, and as I got into the valley, uh right as it got dark, I could hear a coyote just going off, challenge howling at the end of the valley. And just in my experience, I figured that that was either it was barking at a lion, a bear, or a wolf. And I got out there, and the coyote is dogging a wolf, the female, and she's looking for her mate, and she's just doing big circles around this meadow, and the coyote is right on her ass, nipping on her heels, barking, howling, pissed off, and she acted like it wasn't even really there. She was just so focused on sniffing around. Uh, and I got her shot too. Um, but it just goes to show I've that was my personal experience, but I've seen probably a half dozen videos, probably mostly in Yellowstone, uh, where coyotes are uh dogging and harassing wolves out of their area. Uh I've seen a couple more videos of coyotes doing it to grizzly bears. Um so if you are near their den uh and you're a predator, they are gonna come out and let you know. They might not be able to beat your ass, but they're gonna harass you out of the area if you're like a big dog or something. So, and then I see like there's a kid I sold a pup to here recently, and he's decoying with a big ass dog, and the dogo is fairly soft, and he doesn't really push on the coyotes much, and so those coyotes are all over him, uh right up in his grill, nipping at him. Yeah, big white target. And you know, we were talking to him about it. He's like, I don't know if it's if it if I'm hurting things. I said, No, I mean, especially since your dog is kind of on the softer side, uh, he really is is perfect for the job. Um, you know, the bigger what it comes down to me size-wise is I want a dog that can travel, and we're hunting in the heat of the summer, you know, we're hunting a hundred degree days, a lot of days in in the summer, and that 45-pound dog is kind of that fine, just like any running dog, deer dog, hog dog. Uh I mean, closer to coyote size, I guess, right? The coyote is the perfect example of the perfect proportions, perfect confirmation to be able to run all day long. Uh, and I I found that those little bit uh lighter muscled 45-pound dogs are great to be able to handle business but still have great stamina uh and heat tolerance. Anything above that, I know it's just even just 10 more pounds, it falls off fast.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:15

Right. That's cool, man. I learned a lot.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:20

I like I said, I've I've done the coyote stuff, but I've never, you know, never done the decoy, and then you know, I've I've kind of chit-chatted with guys on Instagram, like the coyote karma guy, Brock, like I always he sends me a lot of videos, and I'm always kind of shooting the shit with him and and a couple others, and it's just something you know, it's just another another deal that intrigues me that I you know it's usually I bring guys on here that I don't know what the hell they're doing. Like I I uh I'd rather listen to you talk about something I have absolutely no clue about than you know, bringing your tracker on that I kind of feel like I have a decent idea about. So man, it's and I I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:03

Yeah, I'll tell you what, one thing I didn't mention, but worth mentioning and and what I want to offer you is uh you've seen some videos where I'm out here with my kid and she's yelling and screaming at the Kyos, and they don't give a shit, and they are still working the dog. So bring your bring your family out, bring your kids out, and we'll sit them down and and show them a show. Uh that's that's one of my favorite things. I mean, I'm a new father, so uh it's all new to me, but being able to not have to change up hardly at all, uh, and be able to hunt the same exact way, and like it's still equally successful is just crazy to and and probably one of my favorite things about it now. Uh just being able to bring people along and let the dogs do the the work and kind of hack to the whole scenario where in in what realm can you have a loud ass kid on a coyote stand and still be killing the coyotes? Pretty cool.

unknown 1:18:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:58

That's kind of how I got under the hog dogs. Yeah, that's okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:01

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:02

Anything you can do with your family, that's that's on the money right there. I think that's what changes a lot of us guys that we've been doing this for a long time. You know, we start out as we're trying to apprehend this game that we're after. Then it turns into we're trying to build this custom dog that we want. Then it turns into how can we involve our family in this as well. And right.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:28

And they're it's awesome because then it like takes yeah, it takes once you really uh hit that stride, now you care, you still care about the quality of your dogs, but like if your if your dog messes up, you know, you're like, well, my kids don't know no different. And if they can, they'll just talk shit when they're old, they'll make it more fun. Like, you know, we're out we're just out here to have a good time. And as long as you yeah, you adjust your your expectations and suddenly you can't have a bad day.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:56

Yeah, because you know, ten years ago we fitness dumping it because it's our dog, you know, we we made the mistakes.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:06

100%. That's the that's the part of it there too. It wasn't even the dog to begin with. It was just that we weren't noticing.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:15

I don't know. That was oh yeah, yeah. I never would have to do that. That's that later up there or everything for me about it. So I think where where you're at with it now and for many years from the area world.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:03

Yeah, you know, so uh I think you see my yeah, my young dumbass transforming a little bit.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:14

I'm one of the old guys. You know, uh 50 dogs in 2008. And started messing with all the carriers and just kept going and now you know, but like you did. I got all kinds of different dogs, and but it's all about having a good time with your family. And and and people out there listening, I highly recommend going out there and hunting with the y'all go for that.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:43

Yeah, if you uh if you're interested in uh in checking this out, uh hit me up. Uh love to love to share it. Or if you're just interested and got some questions, you know, this is uh this is for everyone and and I don't know much, but I do get to do this every day, and that I'm busted with that opportunity. It allows me to learn a lot in a short amount of time, and I'd love to just share with anyone who's who's interested, uh hit me up.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:10

That's awesome, man. What uh so for every anybody that's listening, what's your handles on Instagram, Facebook, and all that stuff? Yeah. Can they come check you out?

SPEAKER_02 1:22:21

Yeah, yeah. For uh for the Facebook folks, I'm Seth Simpson on Facebook, pretty easy to find. Uh Dead Wolf on my profile picture. Uh Instagram, uh Seth Simpson is my personal Instagram, but I got a private page where I post all my dog stuff, and I just call that decoy dogging, and uh you can go on there and see all the the dogs in action. Um but yeah, like I said, you got any questions, reach out. Uh love to chat. And yeah, even if even if you if some old guy's listening right now and uh has a story to tell or something to tell me, I'd love to hear that too, even if it's uh not necessarily a question. Reach out.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:03

Heck yeah. Man, I I really appreciate you coming on. I learned a lot and uh I appreciate you.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:08

Yeah, I appreciate your your guys' time and uh working with me. I didn't make it the easiest. So I really appreciate you guys uh getting me on here and uh and taking the time. Uh it was a great chat.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:18

You bet, buddy. Well, good luck this spring and y'all hammer their asses.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:22

Yes, sir. You too. Catch you guys later.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:24

Have a good one. See you.