0:00

What is up everyone and thank

0:03

you again for joining us on another

0:05

episode of the Lab . This

0:08

episode was super fun . I

0:11

sat down in the lodge , the

0:13

recent house

0:16

home for my friend and

0:18

guest , wally Shalau . So Wally

0:21

has become one

0:23

of my closest buds in this

0:25

journey of gundogs

0:28

and the things that they bring into our lives

0:30

. He and my friend Don run

0:32

the Great Lakes campus of

0:34

Southern Oak Kennels and I've learned

0:36

a lot about dog training from Wally . We

0:43

have fun training and running dogs together . Lots of banter , lots of back and forth . He's been here

0:45

at my place since mid-February working his

0:47

dogs in the water and we're going to talk a lot about

0:49

that , a lot about why

0:53

he does it , why he's down here , what he's hoping to accomplish

0:55

and some methods and some

0:57

thought processes that I think are beneficial

1:00

for anyone and everyone who seeks

1:03

to have a dog with a better water attitude

1:06

. So I hope you guys enjoy

1:08

this conversation with my bud

1:10

, wally , and I also

1:12

hope that by the time this podcast

1:15

airs we have not been hit by

1:17

another tornado . If

1:19

you guys who are listening are already members

1:22

of Cornerstone Gun Dog Academy , hope you guys are having

1:24

an awesome . Already members of Cornerstone Gundog Academy . Hope you guys are having an awesome spring

1:26

walking through the modules , maybe

1:28

just brushing up on some stuff in

1:30

the advanced courses . If you're not

1:32

a member , what are you waiting on ? Hope you guys

1:35

will consider hopping on our

1:37

website , cornerstonegundogacademycom

1:40

and checking out what all we have

1:42

to offer you , because I am sure that

1:44

we have at least one offering that

1:47

will help you to become a better dog trainer and

1:49

dog handler . So check it out . Welcome

1:53

to the Lab , a Cornerstone Gundog

1:55

Academy podcast focused on all

1:57

things gundogs , good times and

1:59

the great outdoors . I'm your

2:01

host , barton Ramsey . What's

2:10

up everyone ? Back with episode

2:12

number 15 . Waited till

2:15

the very last second possible

2:17

. I'm here with Wally Shalau

2:19

in the lodge in person hanging

2:21

out . What's up man ? What's

2:23

going on ? So Wally

2:25

has been here at well , here

2:34

is Southern Oak Kennel headquarters since the middle of February and we're recording this on April

2:36

1st and we have to start out by explaining

2:38

what April 1st means to us . I know it is April

2:41

Fool's Day , but for us it

2:43

is the anniversary of the great

2:45

tornado .

2:47

Surviving the tornado from last year ?

2:49

Yes , and we were in the lodge that was

2:51

incomplete last

2:54

year . We were hoping it would be finished

2:56

for Wally's visit . He ended up staying

2:58

in the guest room upstairs at my house the entire

3:00

what two months . Last year it was

3:03

two months , two full months in

3:05

the house , and then at the very

3:07

end we had some storms roll

3:09

through . I decided to leave

3:11

town and last minute

3:13

thought that the storms were past and came back

3:16

. What made you decide

3:18

last year to move your dog trailer ? I

3:20

never asked you that .

3:21

That's a great question . I just I

3:24

knew they had talked about . Well , maybe it had something to

3:26

do with the tree that fell on my truck on the storm

3:28

before that .

3:29

That's right , that's right . So last

3:32

year during the spring

3:34

cornerstone members weekend

3:36

, I was hanging out at a hotel

3:38

with Shane Kendrick and tornadoes hit

3:40

really close to here and

3:42

the winds came through here pretty strong

3:44

and knocked a tree over , hit

3:46

your truck and my dog trailer .

3:48

Yes , it brushed up against your dog trailer and was

3:50

laying against my truck .

3:51

Yeah , Didn't damage a lot , broke a light

3:54

off and then the following

3:56

weekend , exactly a week later , we

3:59

were home again . I left , wally

4:02

decided to move his dog trailer , which he moved again today

4:04

, but it was in the airing yard

4:06

and , for those who haven't been here , this is

4:08

a very wooded set

4:10

of acres I have here . It used

4:12

to be completely covered in woods , but our

4:15

airing yard is super wooded , lots of

4:17

trees , and wally's dog

4:19

trailer was out there . I had all my

4:21

dogs in my dog trailer . He had his dogs

4:23

loaded up in his trailer just because we

4:25

were in the I don't know how

4:27

they rate like the danger zone for tornadoes

4:29

, but we were in the worst , like it was

4:32

high risk yes , like high

4:34

risk was five and we were at six . And

4:37

while I went to sleep I came

4:39

home and I was watching TV . I've

4:41

told the story a few times but the

4:45

weatherman started giving very specific warnings

4:47

about where it was coming and if

4:49

you've ever been here , we're right behind

4:51

Camp Creek Baptist Church . And

4:53

at one point our weatherman shout out

4:56

to Matt Walbon . He said Camp

4:58

Creek Baptist Church , you have 90 seconds

5:01

. And I was like , dude

5:03

, that's my yard

5:05

. So I woke , wally up , I

5:08

don't think you touched the step the whole way down . No

5:10

, it was fast skidded down

5:12

and we could just hear trees snapping

5:14

like two by fours and

5:17

uh , power went out and

5:19

uh , yeah , we lost I

5:22

don't even know how many trees over 50 . And

5:25

somehow this lodge did not get destroyed

5:27

Somehow Miraculous

5:29

, because trees were everywhere over

5:31

here . It was surprising . Yeah , but

5:34

you've got this headlamp . What

5:37

brand is that ?

5:37

thing .

5:38

I'm not even sure what brand it is , wally

5:40

has this over there , wally , I don't think I've ever seen

5:43

you charge it . It says like headlight on

5:45

it that's all I know Like an Amazon special

5:47

headlamp that he wears that

5:49

I promise you wherever you're listening to this podcast

5:51

, if you just look our direction at night , you can see it . It's

5:54

visible from outer

5:56

space and he put

5:58

the headlamp on . I

6:05

filled up a Yeti cup full of bourbon and we just started walking around and

6:07

I didn't have a bright light so I couldn't see very much and I just kept hearing Wally say

6:09

oh man , you've

6:12

got damage . And right where

6:14

your trailer was , I remember what country it was .

6:17

I don't know if they're . What do you call those cypress trees

6:19

or uh , I'm not sure what kind they were

6:21

. Yeah , they weren't huge trees

6:24

, but they would have definitely made it difficult to

6:26

get into the trailer .

6:27

Yeah , yeah , right where his trailer

6:29

was was a tree . There were trees

6:31

on the fence so we had no airing yard

6:33

. Boy

6:35

, it was crazy . Kennels were broken . That

6:37

was a year ago . This year

6:39

we've had really no . We

6:42

had a storm with some wind the other day that did some damage

6:44

, but no tornadoes . And

6:46

that's pretty

6:49

rare , because how many years have ?

6:51

you been coming down here . I think this

6:53

is number six .

6:56

So that's crazy . So six years Wally's done a spring

6:58

trip down here and we've pretty much had some

7:01

tornado tornadic

7:03

activity . Every year 've had

7:05

to get in the the old storm shelter

7:07

with dogs .

7:08

I think I told don it's at

7:11

least two warnings , probably

7:14

every year . I think last year might have been three

7:16

, or even when I stayed at cory's place it might have been

7:18

three , yeah , last year was pretty rough last

7:20

year .

7:21

I think was the worst I can remember , but yeah

7:23

, so of course this year

7:26

we're recording this on April Fool's

7:28

Day , april 1st . You're

7:30

going to leave tomorrow , but I don't think you're going to be

7:32

. I'm leaving out of town tomorrow , I don't think you're going

7:34

to get to go and we have

7:37

tornado warnings tomorrow

7:39

midday , so we haven't gotten out

7:41

clear just yet . Knock

7:44

on some wood ? Not quite yet . Oh man

7:47

, I will say this has probably been the best weather

7:49

of any spring . I can remember

7:51

you being down here .

7:52

I agree the rain has

7:54

been timed out perfectly to where

7:56

if it was going to . I think I had one

7:58

day that I just said

8:01

forget it and went to town , did some errands

8:03

and everything like that . But other than that it's

8:05

been at least able to get a half

8:07

a day in .

8:08

Yeah , All right . So let's tell people what

8:10

you do down here . Uh , for those of you don't know

8:12

Wally , uh well , we'll

8:14

give a little bit of background . When'd you start training dogs

8:16

? Uh , tell us about your first experiences

8:19

training dogs and how long you've been doing that .

8:21

I got into it . I used to be big

8:24

white tail archery deer hunter and

8:27

I decided I was going to get a dog and

8:29

start waterfowl hunting and train that dog to do

8:31

waterfowl hunting to

8:33

keep me out of the woods until the time was right and

8:35

so happens I never really went back to

8:37

the woods . So that was probably

8:40

13

8:42

years ago . So

8:44

I've been doing it since then , trained

8:47

that dog and then , shortly after having that dog

8:49

, started training more dogs for

8:51

other people . So I've been

8:53

training for other people approximately

8:56

11 , 12 years and it's just

8:58

snowballed from there Lots

9:01

of other people now .

9:02

Lots of other people . You guys started working

9:04

with southern oak kennels . Oh

9:06

, man , that was 2015 , 16

9:09

, 16

9:11

, yeah , before I moved to oklahoma . Yes

9:13

, so yeah

9:15

, eight years ago or so . Uh

9:18

, wally and um , his

9:20

compadre , don collier I

9:22

might have don on the podcast one day I don't know if I

9:24

can get him to talk , but uh don's a quiet

9:26

, quiet fellow , I think he'd do it . Uh

9:29

. But they started working with , with my

9:31

kennel . I mean , honestly , it was

9:33

around like maybe a year before josh

9:36

keith and I started cornerstone . Yes

9:38

, uh , yeah , because the first summit we did

9:40

, y'all were there and it was like a new thing .

9:42

We announced you guys in the next summit we announced

9:44

cga . Um yeah

9:47

, so start training dogs and

9:50

tell everybody where you're from and

9:52

, uh , what it's like training

9:54

dogs in the wintertime up there so

9:58

don and I run the southern

10:00

oak kennels great lakes now in michigan

10:03

and when

10:05

we first joined on , being from Michigan

10:07

, it was always a great idea to

10:09

come down south

10:11

and get a couple months head start on

10:14

the training season . Since it's still

10:16

the frozen

10:18

tundra or we have eight inches of snow

10:20

on the ground , water's frozen

10:22

, eight inches of snow on the ground , water's frozen , and even if the water's not

10:25

frozen it's

10:32

usually about 35 to 40 degrees temperature wise , with the water basically too

10:34

cold to get young dogs started up with the water training . So we decided it was a good

10:36

idea for us to start doing a south

10:38

trip and Barton was more

10:40

than willing to have us come down or have me

10:43

come down and start doing some spring training down

10:45

south , which allows me to get a

10:47

probably a good two month

10:49

headstart with the dogs and

10:51

some of the water work that they need .

10:53

Yeah , yeah , I remember that first

10:55

one . We had just finished the lodge

10:57

, so that would tell me that was 2018

11:00

. Yeah , we finished it in the summer

11:02

of 17, . But really got it like livable

11:05

winter of 18 when you came

11:07

down . So , yeah , that would be six .

11:09

Yeah , and I think the first trip down was only a month

11:11

. It started with a month , and then it went to

11:14

a month and a half and then now it

11:16

varies from close to

11:18

two months , yeah , when the warm up starts to happen

11:20

up there .

11:22

And you talked about getting young dogs in . So

11:24

you've got a trailer

11:26

. I mean , tell us a little bit about the string of

11:28

dogs that you have with you usually down here

11:31

and like , what's your goal in

11:33

the spring when you come down south , like what's the

11:35

? You know , obviously you've got plenty of land , you guys have

11:37

40 acres , you've got space to train .

11:39

What's your goal when you come down here in the spring , when

11:42

when I first started coming down here , it was almost all

11:44

young dogs , so

11:47

the major goal was to get a lot of them in

11:49

the water . Since I can't do that

11:51

up in Michigan Now it's

11:53

kind of strung out to where I have

11:55

a good mix of dogs , where half of them

11:57

are either hunt test dogs

11:59

or dogs coming in for a second round

12:01

of training , and then also I have dogs

12:04

that have been with us for three

12:06

, four months in the winter time and now it's

12:08

time to get them in the water . It

12:10

allows us to keep a constant

12:13

flow of dogs and make

12:15

it justifiable to keep the dog in

12:17

for training , cause I'm going South to finish

12:19

up , say , the last two months . I can do

12:22

a lot of water work down South , so the main objective of coming

12:24

down here is obviously I can do a lot of water work down south . So the main objective of coming down here is obviously

12:26

water . Yeah , lots and lots

12:29

of water work . Yeah , I've been laughing

12:31

.

12:31

So I've got a little tech

12:33

pond behind the lodge . Uh

12:36

, while he has been in the lodge this year , kennels

12:39

are right here . It's all walking distance . I think

12:41

you've run almost

12:43

every angle imaginable

12:46

. You've set up at places . I've come

12:48

home from town and I look over

12:50

. I'm like that's a great idea . I

12:53

never thought to set up over there and

12:55

it's been . Yeah , you've been in

12:57

the water . I mean , there've been very few days

13:00

that you haven't been able to have the dogs in the

13:02

water since you got here , which is pretty

13:04

awesome .

13:04

I would say it's the most on these

13:06

south trips . It

13:09

is the most water training I've been

13:11

able to do .

13:12

So let's talk a little bit about first

13:15

the kind of the younger dogs . So you got

13:17

these dogs and let's say they're two

13:20

, three months in . They came here

13:22

and maybe they didn't even know their name

13:24

. Maybe somebody used

13:26

Cornerstone and they knew some basics , right , a lot

13:28

of people do that . They were retrieving , basically

13:31

steady , maybe delivering a hand or something . With

13:34

those dogs you're

13:36

here . What's your goal in two months ? Let's just

13:38

say they've never even been in the water . What's

13:40

your goal in two months with a dog like that coming

13:43

down here in the spring ?

13:45

And this depends on the dog

13:47

. The biggest goal is one

13:49

get him in the water , get him comfortable with the

13:51

water , get him swimming . The

13:54

end goal is going to be the dog needs

13:56

to be de-cheated . The dog should

13:58

be comfortable with , at

14:01

least started on , some whistle stops in the

14:03

water , some casting in the water , and

14:06

the great thing about starting them on a pond , like

14:08

you have at a young age , is

14:10

entries exits

14:13

. It becomes nothing

14:15

to the dogs because you have so many options

14:17

for re-entries and exits

14:19

on the water that it's not a big deal

14:21

for them at all . So

14:23

the biggest deal for them is to get

14:26

them comfortable swimming , get them comfortable

14:28

with exiting the water and reentering the

14:30

water , all kinds of marking

14:32

concepts for them , very

14:34

cheaty marks to

14:36

being very simple marks After

14:39

being here for two months , if the

14:41

dog has never been in the water , usually after two months

14:43

they are doing some very difficult

14:46

and very cheaty marks and

14:48

understand what I say the rules of the water

14:50

.

14:51

Yeah , let's go into that , Cause that's going to transition

14:53

in some of the advanced dogs . Um

14:55

, on the podcast I'll try to get a drone

14:57

pick , at least get a picture of the tech

15:00

pond that I have . Um , when

15:02

we say tech one , just a piece

15:04

of water that's been kind of intentionally

15:06

designed for dog training

15:08

. Mine's a real tight

15:10

, kind of small . I don't even know how big

15:12

that is maybe

15:15

an acre , Half to three quarters of

15:17

an acre Perfect for teaching , yeah

15:19

. So the way I did mine is I've obviously had

15:22

limited space , but I wanted to be

15:24

able to teach the concepts

15:26

without having to have really long

15:29

swims , Because when

15:31

you're trying to get through 12 , 15 dogs

15:33

in a setup in a day , you

15:36

got a long swim that's going to take forever

15:38

, Right ? So you can teach this . By concept

15:40

, I mean things like Wally just said , so getting

15:42

in and out of water or not

15:45

getting out of the water , and

15:47

we'll talk about what those rules are in a second . But the

15:50

pond is intentionally designed

15:52

. I tell people , even with young dogs , like hey , you

15:54

can come over here and you can accomplish a lot in a short

15:56

amount of time . Over here in

15:58

the water . There's not not any really

16:00

huge swim . In fact I've seen you do all

16:03

the way down the gut of the pond several times

16:05

and even that doesn't take a

16:07

minute and a half . You know two minutes to get down there

16:09

.

16:09

So it's more than enough distance . So yeah

16:12

, judge what the dog is going to do .

16:14

Yeah . So when you say , teach

16:17

them kind of the rules of the water , you've

16:21

got a lot of dogs that you're you're wanting to train

16:23

to a high level , high standard , probably

16:25

a lot of dogs that are going to run HRC

16:27

finish level , um , you

16:29

guys have I don't even know how many every

16:31

year that you run but a lot of client dogs and then

16:34

even the ones that aren't , especially

16:37

when it comes to water work and blind retrieves . You're still

16:39

really training to that standard with your dogs . Um

16:42

, what are some of the rules

16:44

of a water that you hope we

16:47

talked about it this morning when Marty Haynes was here

16:49

. You hope they're looking out

16:51

and seeing stuff . What

16:55

are the rules that you hope that they're naturally understanding after you've had them here for their

16:57

spring ?

16:57

season , the one I usually

17:00

like to start with is , besides

17:03

the obvious , of de-cheating . So

17:07

that basically means if there's a sliver of water between

17:09

the mark and where the dog is

17:11

, they need to understand , they need to go through

17:13

the water and they also need to return

17:15

in the water and on

17:17

your pond . It's pretty simple to do . You can do

17:19

a bunch of hand toss , you could cut a bunch of corners

17:22

. So once we get through that , the

17:24

first one I like to start with is stay

17:26

in the water . I like to set up a lot

17:28

of white posts or pattern binds on

17:30

the pond that are set up to where

17:32

it might be down the shore . They

17:34

have to be comfortable getting in the water , staying in

17:36

the water all the way to the white

17:39

post and then getting back in the water

17:41

. That's the one I like to

17:43

start with . It's usually

17:45

the most difficult for the dogs because they usually

17:47

like to pull the land anyway Once

17:50

I get through , with most of them being comfortable with

17:52

staying in the water . Now we're going

17:54

to go to exits and

17:56

reentries . It's

17:58

going to start with simpler stuff of just

18:00

over one peninsula . Then we move to going

18:03

in and out over two peninsulas or maybe one . You have

18:05

two islands out on the pond , so they may have to go over one peninsula . Then we move to going in and out over two peninsulas or maybe one . You have two islands out on

18:07

the pond , so they may have to go over one of the islands

18:09

. And again , a lot

18:11

of this is pattern blinds , or set

18:13

up for a mark to run the mark the way I want

18:15

them to run the mark . It can be done either way

18:17

. Those are the two

18:19

main ones . Stay in the water

18:21

, or exits and re-entries

18:23

, and then you could just make

18:26

them more advanced as you go , or there's tighter

18:28

re-entries and just

18:30

what you expect the dog to do for that day

18:32

yeah .

18:33

so a lot of the times , when you first get here

18:35

, a ton of the marks

18:37

and the , the white posts , blinds

18:40

, especially some of the blinds that you're repeating

18:42

um , it's

18:45

way more of a 90 degree entry

18:48

and re and exit and re-entry

18:50

, which is a super clear picture , right

18:53

, take this straight line . But

18:55

then you get to today , which is

18:57

, I mean , like you're about to leave

18:59

, so you're , you've got the I would call

19:01

more advanced dogs out there and I I mean

19:04

it is far from 90 degrees

19:06

, it's a very , very tight angle

19:08

, right ? Yes , tell

19:11

us a little bit about that . As far as if

19:13

you're a guy out there and you really want a dog that

19:15

runs , I mean what I would just call straight

19:17

out , straight back , right , the straightest possible

19:19

line to the mark and to the blind

19:22

and the straightest possible line back , how

19:25

are you teaching that dog , not on a blind , but

19:27

, let's say , on a mark . You have a mark with a very

19:29

that middle mark . Today that you ran , you

19:31

had a pretty normal

19:33

entry , but then you had this angle exit

19:36

and then an angle re-entry in a really small

19:38

sliver of water . The

19:41

dogs I saw ran it really well , but

19:43

they've been here a little while how are you teaching

19:46

dogs to run those particular re-entries

19:48

and those exits on water ?

19:50

when it comes to marking , I would say

19:52

it starts with building it from the very

19:54

beginning . You have to start really small and

19:56

that starts with the de-cheating portion of

19:58

when I say de-cheating , again , like you

20:00

talked about , it's going to be 90 degree entries

20:03

, a very clear picture . We're

20:05

going to start , for instance , throwing one onto

20:07

the peninsula and they have to swim

20:10

straight across and then re-enter back in the

20:12

water and come to me , and then we usually

20:14

give them less water

20:16

to work with as we make it

20:18

skinnier water as we work through that

20:20

stuff . So , and then from there

20:22

, I would say that's when we start working on the angle

20:25

entries . Um , so

20:27

we start throwing the , the marks instead of a straight

20:29

90 degree entry into the water , which

20:31

the dogs , depending on the dog

20:33

, some of them still try to square off those

20:35

entries . So it's a little bit of work to get them

20:37

to do that , but once

20:40

you know that they understand what they're supposed

20:42

to do . We

20:44

talk a lot about not trying to interfere with the dog

20:46

on marks , but a lot of the stuff

20:48

is sometimes easier to

20:50

teach with a mark , but the

20:52

dog also has to be handling

20:54

at that point in time so that's a

20:56

big if you're going to start

20:58

teaching really complex marks

21:01

I feel like the dog needs to be

21:03

handling , it needs to stop on a whistle , it

21:07

needs to understand why it's being stopped and most of my

21:09

dogs , after being here for a month , even

21:11

understand the rules of the water

21:13

and they usually understand why they've been

21:15

stopped because they have made a big

21:19

adjustment one way or the other to go around

21:21

the water , the

21:28

other to go around the water . So to talk about that , to build on that is when we're teaching the

21:30

dog . The de-cheating portion is we usually will walk them back around . If

21:32

they didn't come back through the water or they didn't

21:34

go through the water , we'll recall and resend

21:36

. So I

21:39

would say it's complex , there's a lot to

21:41

it , but the easiest way is to start it with

21:43

the de-cheating process and start small

21:45

and then build on it .

21:47

Yeah , and when you say start small , you really mean start

21:50

big , start with lots of water , yeah

21:52

. Start with an easy choice , yes . And then

21:54

by the end it becomes hey . And

21:56

I want to illustrate what you just said , cause even

21:58

like a month ago , you were running a mark

22:00

from up here closer

22:03

to the lodge and it was definitely a cheaty

22:05

entry , and you had

22:07

a dog what's that ? Aussie pup , axel

22:09

, axel , yeah , super nice dog

22:11

, really like him . And

22:14

he obviously knew

22:16

where he was supposed to get in and he

22:18

made the decision to and a lot of you listening to this probably have this type

22:20

of dog . He made the decision to and a lot of you listening to this probably have

22:22

this , this type of dog . He made the decision

22:24

to try to go around and

22:27

wally hit the whistle and

22:29

he spun around to stop and

22:32

then immediately just dove in the water , like

22:34

I know , I know , I know you

22:36

caught me , yeah , you caught me , and so

22:38

what was great about that was he's

22:40

learned . He's learned . You know , he may have not taken

22:43

it right then , but it was a great lesson for

22:45

him of oh shoot , yeah , I know I've

22:47

. I have learned in my month here , five

22:49

weeks here , I got to go get in that water

22:51

. You know , and I think ultimately

22:53

you want to . You

22:56

want these dogs that are seeking

22:58

the water .

22:59

Yes , seeking

23:05

the water . Yes , as you've seen , as we get towards the end of this trip , I do tend

23:07

to throw marks to where sometimes they don't always go as far as I want them

23:09

to . And technically the line would be

23:11

is it fair

23:14

for them to take the land ? Yes , it is . But what

23:16

I want to see out of the dog is make that

23:18

choice of when they have the choice

23:20

of land or water . I'd like to see them make the

23:22

choice of water now

23:24

on a mark like that . Obviously , I'm not

23:26

going to completely punish the dog for choosing

23:29

land as well , but I'm going to help them through

23:31

and try and make them , get them to understand what

23:33

the right choice is going to be for them

23:35

yeah , I've seen a lot of that and , yeah , we've

23:37

we've had a few that the wind caught a

23:39

thunder bumper

23:41

and maybe the gas didn't

23:43

didn't air up quite as much as we thought and

23:45

that landed .

23:45

You're like , oh yeah , that's a tight

23:47

line . Um , let's

23:50

talk a little bit about attitude , because I think that's super

23:52

important . And you had , you

23:55

had one dog that , um , we

23:57

were talking about last few days that you had out today

23:59

and she's doing the water work . Just , your

24:02

concern is she wasn't just super , super pumped

24:05

about getting in the water . Uh

24:07

, you had a half sibling of hers who

24:09

kind of started out that way and

24:11

now he's you've got videos of him doing , you

24:14

know , 10 , 12 foot water entries . Um

24:16

, and they're not always going to

24:18

have a big entry , and a big entry is not necessarily

24:20

always the what you want anyway , but

24:23

you do want , you're wanting

24:25

to have a positive water attitude

24:27

. Uh , what are some

24:29

things that you do early on

24:31

? I'm specifically thinking about when you're teaching

24:33

them to go to those back piles to

24:36

encourage , um , a

24:38

positive attitude when it comes to water so

24:42

mainly when to build

24:44

onto the back piles .

24:45

When I get the dogs down here , obedience

24:49

for the most part , or steadiness I should say

24:51

, not necessarily obedience . I do have really loose

24:53

obedience with a lot of the dogs . I try not

24:55

to have a bunch of rules with them . When it comes

24:58

to water being a new thing , I

25:00

feel like we have to loosen up the reins a little bit

25:02

, let them get comfortable with it and

25:04

build up that comfort level . So

25:07

I do a lot of loose obedience . It may not even

25:09

be requiring them to be steady , but when I throw the

25:11

bumper I may be saying their name as I throw

25:14

that bumper for them . So

25:16

that's the biggest thing that I do for them right now

25:18

is there's a lot of fun throws into

25:21

the water and with

25:23

some dogs it may take a month to build

25:25

up that attitude . Some it

25:27

all of a sudden might change in one week . So

25:30

the one dog that you're talking about in particular she's

25:32

been here for the whole two months was

25:35

a little bit hesitant the whole time and

25:39

her water attitude hasn't turned

25:41

her I wouldn't say it's turned around a

25:43

ton . It's better . But

25:47

with most of the dogs I

25:49

would have 20 dogs down here I'm

25:51

going to say right now , like Barton said , the entry

25:53

, the jumping is not necessarily a sign

25:55

of the water attitude . If they crash and hit the

25:58

water hard and they're excited about going

26:00

in the water , that's what we're looking for . I

26:02

would say , out of 20 dogs , 15

26:06

of them have a jumping . Yeah

26:08

, some type of jumping entry and a lot of them did

26:10

not when you got here . Oh no , not at all

26:12

. There's a , there's a number of them that

26:14

would tiptoe into the water , yeah

26:17

, and be very , very cautious of it

26:19

. And now they're crashing and hitting the water

26:21

. So it does start with a lot of fun retrieves , a lot

26:23

of fun throws , and if I'm teaching a

26:25

dog first off in the water , I'm

26:28

probably going to try and find , like your pond towards

26:30

the back has some lunging water . That's

26:32

perfect if you have that not a

26:34

requirement , but it is . It

26:36

does make the dogs more comfortable

26:38

. Their feet are touching the ground . They're still

26:40

going through water . But the biggest

26:42

thing thing I do is I will preload the piles

26:45

, I will have them sit there right next to me

26:47

and I will throw bumpers over to that white post

26:49

. I may spin them in a 360

26:51

and then send them . I may not , but

26:55

what I want to teach them is like , hey , you're going to go to that

26:57

spot , you're going to learn that back

26:59

command . So I'm going to toss them over

27:01

there and learn that back command . So I'm going to toss them over there . And

27:03

then now we're going to start teaching the back . Yeah , and which does confuse

27:05

some new owners on when to

27:07

use back or when to use their name

27:09

, and so I try to tell everybody . If it's anything

27:12

that leads to the teaching of running a

27:14

blind , we use back , even

27:16

though they're sitting right next to me and I threw

27:18

a bumper over there . We're

27:20

teaching the fundamentals

27:23

of running a blind . Yeah , it's a building block .

27:26

Yeah , I've noticed that that's something that , um

27:28

, I mean , even at the old house

27:30

, I remember standing out and

27:32

trying to , you know , running

27:35

that off that peninsula in the pond back there

27:37

the old house had a tech pond that we

27:39

stumbled upon by accident and were able to train on

27:41

, which was pretty awesome . It was very

27:43

simple pond but it worked . And

27:45

uh , I remember walking

27:48

. Uh , maybe it was you and me and stone

27:50

and you were helping him with a dog that just

27:52

would go to the first time

27:54

and then just wouldn't go that

27:56

second time and , um

27:59

, the dog would go

28:01

out a little bit , turn around and look back at stone

28:04

and it would frustrate him and

28:06

you were like , just throw another one , you know , and it's

28:08

all about like , yeah , he's going to go get

28:10

it . You know , he's out there in the middle of the field , you're not going to almost

28:12

like a fire drill in the mark , you know .

28:14

Hey , hey .

28:15

And building up that like

28:17

, hey , when he says back , I can go , it's going to be

28:19

there . You know and I noticed a lot of that when you

28:21

first come down here with these dogs

28:23

that a lot of them have never run a pile

28:26

, you know , or they've run real simple

28:28

tea drill with you right here in the yard and

28:30

you're asking them to do , you know , piles

28:32

off a point in the water to a cove

28:34

, you know , missing another point , and

28:37

I see that a lot the first few weeks

28:39

of just you throw

28:41

in the dummy and then sending them back , or

28:45

sending them back , and when they give you a good

28:47

water entry , throw in one right over

28:49

their head , where the direction

28:51

they're looking . A dummy goes flying through the air and that

28:53

really picks up their momentum

28:55

. And I think what

28:57

you said is super important . I

29:00

think some people might be

29:02

scared to let a little bit of the

29:04

steadiness go , but

29:07

you can , you can , you can always reign that stuff

29:09

back in yes , especially if they've

29:11

already .

29:13

I have one or a couple of them that have been

29:15

using cga and they're they've sent us

29:17

videos of the dog being steady , uh

29:19

. But when they get to me I just don't feel like

29:22

they have that . All their drive

29:24

is not coming out , all their excitement's not

29:26

coming out yet , and so I do

29:28

forewarn them when they get videos , like I'm

29:30

not going to require your dog to be steady right

29:33

now . I want to see them , I want

29:35

to see their full potential come out . Once I feel

29:37

like they started showing me their full potential

29:40

or their full excitement , their full drive

29:42

coming out . Now , like you said

29:44

, I can rein them back in .

29:45

Yeah , man , I think that's so

29:47

important for people to hear and

29:49

it's a it's an issue that I saw happen

29:52

before Cornerstone

29:54

. It went really when people would just get

29:56

a smart puppy and they're like , oh

29:58

my gosh , this dog's learning all

30:00

these things so quickly . And

30:03

then with Cornerstone , we

30:05

give everyone a roadmap for

30:07

how to train this dog and I

30:09

think that , like me , I mean

30:12

a lot of us can get ahead of ourselves and we're like , okay

30:14

, I got to see how many things I can teach this

30:16

dog , and it kind of becomes a race . You

30:18

know like , oh , how fast can I get this dog

30:20

? And I've said this , actually , at several

30:23

member weekends and I've said it in the Facebook

30:25

group several times You're really not

30:27

in a big hurry , you know . Slow it down

30:29

and let the dog , you know , realize

30:31

its own potential and its own drive

30:34

and its energy . You can go back and do

30:36

not necessarily the how

30:38

your dog learns stuff . That stuff's important

30:40

when they're young , and you do a lot of that with food , right

30:42

. Yes , you

30:46

, how your dog learns stuff . That stuff's important when they're young and you do a lot of that with

30:48

food , right . You heal and that's all fun too . You know . It's when you start really reinforcing the obedience

30:50

at

30:52

a really young age , you can take a lot out

30:54

of a dog . You can . You can

30:56

kind of zap the . It's almost like putting a wet blanket

30:59

over them . You know , and I see some

31:01

dogs come in where people just they

31:04

over emphasize obedience and they've

31:06

not got the dog just amped up

31:08

. And I tell people

31:10

all the time if you are , if you're bringing us a dog

31:12

to train , and you

31:14

give me the choice between a six-month-old dog

31:17

that's completely obedient

31:19

but just kind of walks

31:21

out for retrieves , is steady but

31:25

knows all these commands and just not

31:27

not really super amped , or a dog that's

31:29

just absolutely jacked to retrieve

31:31

but barely knows its name all

31:33

day long . I'm taking the second one 100%

31:36

, yeah , all day long , cause you can go back and

31:38

do the obedience . You know that that part's there

31:40

and now you've got all this drive to use to

31:42

teach the obedience , yes , which is so

31:44

much easier to me well , especially

31:46

if they're driven over a bumper .

31:48

But yeah , I like to start with the food and everything

31:50

with the dogs when they're young and

31:53

teach them how to learn with the food

31:55

and all that stuff . So , but yeah , to

31:57

get a drivey dog , one that just is fired up

31:59

to go out and retrieve , that's%

32:01

the best thing that you could bring in . Yeah , and

32:03

that's why I say the loose obedience , and you

32:06

could teach them all that stuff with the CGA

32:08

. But I try not to

32:10

require long sits or long

32:14

sessions . It's going to be really fast . Yeah

32:16

, so for me it's going to be their meal , yeah

32:18

, yeah . Yeah , I don't use treats or anything , I

32:20

just use their kibble .

32:22

Yeah , and it could be a five

32:28

, ten minute quick little session with the dogs . That's what we encourage a lot of people to do and I

32:30

think people have really picked up on that . You know we posted those videos a few years ago of uh who

32:32

was it ? Like ice and boone , and you

32:34

had a couple young ones and we were just doing heel work in the

32:36

parking lot . You know that was

32:39

that three or four minutes , yeah , you know

32:41

, of heel and recall and uh

32:43

and the whole time they're like super excited , yeah

32:45

, super excited and super focused on you

32:47

, that's the biggest thing yeah , as you

32:50

.

32:50

If they're not super hungry , then , or

32:52

you get later in the session , then they start losing focus

32:54

and at that point you've lost the dog . Yeah

32:56

, it's better to just let it go .

32:58

Yeah , we have a drill that we named after you

33:00

, called the wally drill . Uh , it's

33:03

I . We haven't had a lot of young

33:06

, young dogs here for this trip , so it hasn't

33:08

been as a major part , but for

33:10

several years it was the drill in the parking lot

33:13

with youngsters . Uh , for

33:16

those of you who haven't seen it , if you're not inside

33:18

cornerstone , we have a little casting drill

33:20

called the wally drill that we we have it in a lot

33:22

of our puppy modules for people to see , because

33:24

I think that that drill captures what you're talking

33:27

about . So walk us through that real fast

33:29

. The the casting . Uh , because

33:31

they're . Obviously those dogs are not running blind

33:33

retrieves yet , right , 100

33:35

, they're puppies . But what are you trying

33:38

to accomplish with ? Or what things are you trying to

33:40

accomplish with a fun drill like that ?

33:43

The main focus of the drill is to

33:45

have fun . The dog's got to be

33:47

excited about a bumper for the most part , and

33:50

so you're just going to keep the dog's focus

33:52

with that bumper and you're playing with that dog

33:54

, you're running , you're moving fast

33:57

, you're keeping the dog moving and

33:59

this is the only way

34:01

I teach the dogs how to stop on a whistle

34:03

. And I will tease them with the bumper

34:05

and I'll blow the whistle and I'm holding that bumper where

34:07

they can see it . And then , once they stop or

34:10

sit down , then I will go ahead and throw the bumper

34:12

to the right and I'll give them an over , or throw it to

34:14

the left and give it over . To

34:17

be clear , I'm not requiring that dog

34:19

to stay in that sitting position

34:21

. This is a throw , an immediate

34:23

reward for stopping or sitting

34:25

, and it depends on the dog whether I require

34:27

just a stop or a sit . Most

34:30

of the time , when they get older , I don't require a full sit

34:32

. So , yes , it's a quick reward

34:34

. So we'll start with a right over and as

34:37

I throw it to the right , I'll say over , I'll

34:39

throw it to the left and say over . And

34:41

it's a constant game of playing , teaching

34:44

or having them chase you with the bumper

34:46

. I may be running away from them , maybe

34:48

running next to them , hitting the whistle , and

34:51

I'm basically teaching them to

34:53

stop on the whistle and I'm and I'm introducing

34:55

them into casting . To what now

34:57

? We're doing right overs , we're doing leftovers . If

35:00

I stop them , I throw it back with my right hand

35:02

. I'll say back and , and they should turn

35:04

that direction . Or I'll stop them and

35:06

throw with my left hand and they'll turn that direction

35:08

. So , in a fun way , now I

35:10

am teaching that dog one to pay attention

35:12

to me , two to have

35:14

a good eye on my hands and what they're

35:16

doing , and then introducing them into casting

35:19

. Yeah , and they have zero idea

35:21

they don't know any .

35:23

They don't know any .

35:23

It's not like they think they're in class yeah

35:26

, it's just completely out playing , playing

35:28

and having fun and it actually it

35:31

works . Yeah , I take

35:33

dogs through the formal t drill after doing

35:35

that with them for a while and they

35:37

already know yeah , they halfway

35:39

know what they're supposed to be doing yeah , I

35:42

love it because um , we've talked about it but it develops a dog that sits what they're supposed

35:44

to be doing .

35:44

Yeah , I love it because um , we've talked about it but it develops a dog that

35:46

sits because they're excited to work with you

35:48

and not because they're scared about what's about

35:50

to happen . Very true , and you see that with

35:52

your dogs when you're running drills , even though

35:54

even if the dog has an

35:56

e-collar on to reinforce

35:58

a sit if you need it , or reinforce

36:01

whatever command if you need it , your dogs , whatever command , if you need it

36:03

, your dogs are not sitting . I don't

36:05

think I can recall any dogs you've had who sit

36:07

scared that . You , if you're

36:09

listening to this , you've seen it . You've seen dogs that they

36:11

turn around on a blind and they look nervous because

36:13

what's about to happen to me . But I think

36:15

, because of that drill , and even when you

36:18

get dogs back in , you run fun stuff like that

36:20

with them when they sit , they're

36:22

pumped back in . You run fun stuff

36:24

like that with them . When they sit , they're pumped , they're . They're not even the ones that really

36:26

want to keep going . Yes , they're like I'm okay with the . Their tails are wagging

36:28

, their ears are up because that drill teaches

36:30

them . Okay , we're playing this game . I got

36:32

to look at him . That's where the reward's going to come from

36:34

and , yeah , I love that drill

36:36

I build off that drill .

36:38

also , when I do start the formal t , I

36:41

will usually keep a bumper in my hand

36:43

, and we've already done driving

36:46

back to back piles . It has been introduced to doing

36:48

single piles and pile work

36:50

. But I will also continue

36:52

on with that drill of stopping

36:54

them and instead of just giving them a right

36:57

over to a pile , I will stop them

36:59

and I will throw a bumper and tell them over

37:01

. So it's just a building block to

37:04

keep them confident and , like you said , keep them engaged

37:06

and happy to stop , because now , hey

37:08

, they know they're going to get a reward and I

37:11

will start doing it with almost every time

37:13

I stop them and then it will slowly start

37:16

going away to where I don't throw one for them

37:18

anymore .

37:19

Yeah , and they're anticipating whatever cash you're

37:21

going to do next . And

37:29

it usually gives you a more , a better and quicker response to your cast as well , because

37:31

they're just more excited to take it . Yeah , yeah , I love that

37:33

. I love that , and I think one of the things I've seen

37:36

people do since I started

37:38

training dogs is just

37:40

throw too many meaningless

37:42

retrieves with puppies to the point where they get

37:44

bored . Yes , and a

37:47

lot of times it's just sit here and chunking

37:49

it right . Sit here chunking it . Well

37:51

, that drill is a really fun way I

37:54

feel like to give your dog , because I think a lot of people

37:56

are just trying to burn off like puppy energy , you

37:58

know , because they're crazy , you know they got to get it out , but

38:00

that drill is a fun way to do that in a way that they

38:02

stay really engaged .

38:04

Yes , because they don't know what's coming next and

38:06

, like you said , it's not meaningless . You're actually

38:09

teaching while you do it .

38:10

That muscle memory is pretty . I

38:12

did it with Ray and have done it this past

38:14

season with Honey and

38:25

it's pretty wild to see , even after like four or five times of playing that that

38:28

little fun drill , if you stop them and you just start raising a hand , they twitch back that way

38:30

. Yeah , it's like they just learn . Okay , I know

38:32

what the hands mean now and that's man to

38:34

teach a young dog that and it almost becomes

38:36

just ingrained to where they're

38:38

not even thinking about . I mean , truthfully

38:40

, if we're gonna get , we're getting

38:42

to talk about blind retrieves . I really don't want

38:44

a dog thinking about my casts . I

38:47

want them just taking my cast right . I

38:49

don't want them to . You're not doing

38:51

geometry , you know . I just want you to go the way

38:53

I send you and so , yeah

38:55

, that muscle memory of just quick , snappy

38:57

, yeah , whichever way his hand goes , that's the way I'm

38:59

gonna . I'm gonna go right now . That's

39:02

to me better than goes . That's the way I'm going to . I'm going to go right

39:04

now . That's to me better than the dog . That's like actually I got an idea , which

39:07

is a lot of dogs , that does happen . Yeah

39:10

, so you have a dog that you've

39:14

kind of let a little loose by

39:16

the water . You've given them

39:18

a little leeway , you've made it fun

39:20

for them and their excitement starts

39:22

to increase . Leeway

39:25

you've made it fun for them and their excitement starts to increase . How do you transition

39:27

to having that dog out with multiple

39:30

dogs ? And here's why I'm asking

39:32

this is the thing that I think blows

39:34

more people's minds than anything

39:37

else that we do here at Southern

39:39

Oak Kennels is we almost never have

39:42

one dog out unless you're working a young

39:44

dog on like pile work or stuff . But if you're running

39:46

a set of pattern

39:48

blinds or a set of marks or

39:50

a setup with marks and blinds , you've

39:53

usually got anywhere from two to four

39:55

, maybe five dogs out , typically on a MoMar

39:57

stand . What's that transition like to

39:59

you ? Because for some reason that tends to blow

40:02

folks' minds that they sit there . They're

40:04

quiet . Every once in a while my daughter's

40:06

out here with a stick . Miriam

40:08

, my youngest , has just turned nine a

40:11

month and a half ago and she comes out as Wally's assistant

40:13

. A good bit If we can't find her

40:15

, we know she's just out helping train dogs but

40:18

she stands there with like a school teacher trying

40:21

to keep it . But even without Miriam there

40:23

to help , they sit pretty still . How

40:25

do you develop ?

40:26

that it is like you said , with

40:28

Miriam being out there . If you do have somebody

40:30

else out there to help and kind of keep an eye

40:32

on them , I usually like to start

40:34

them and usually

40:37

I won't do this until I know the dog

40:39

has been steadied up and it

40:41

can be reliably steady when you're

40:43

running it by itself , but I like

40:45

to have somebody out there with me . If I don't have

40:47

anybody out there with me , I will

40:49

put them on a slip

40:52

lead and possibly tie them to the

40:54

MoMarsh , but

40:57

I'm going to stay close by and then if

40:59

they jump off , then I can catch them real quick

41:01

and then just put them back on there and have them place

41:03

. Now , when I do this , when I'm

41:05

first introducing a dog to being out there

41:07

with other dogs , I have more

41:10

experienced dogs out there . Yeah , I'm

41:12

not going to have intermediate dogs

41:14

and a newbie

41:16

, so I really try to make it easier

41:20

on myself personally . Yeah , I have dogs

41:22

that were 100 great with this

41:24

and then I can have a newbie one

41:27

. It helps the newbie because everybody else

41:29

is staying steady right . If you have two or three

41:31

out there , yeah , it turns into a rodeo

41:33

. It can get pretty hectic . I've experienced

41:36

you can lose mole marshes in the water pretty quick

41:38

. Yeah , so , but yeah , that's

41:40

the way I like to start . It is and

41:42

it can be started as simple

41:44

as just doing hand tossed retreat excuse

41:47

me , hand tossed retreats for the more experienced dogs

41:49

and making sure the young one stays on

41:51

the stand .

41:52

Yeah .

41:53

I like to start it off that way with the dogs

41:55

, but I will tie them up . A

41:57

lot of them don't have to be . It may

41:59

be just a slick lead wrapped around them and not

42:01

tied to the stand , so they know it's there . Yes

42:03

, yeah , but for me also

42:05

it's not a huge punishment if they jump off

42:07

. It's going to be like , hey , let's get back up here

42:09

and stay on the stand .

42:11

I've noticed that it's never , especially

42:14

in that early bit . It's never a freak out , it's

42:16

just no , no , look up here . How

42:25

do you think that training in that way impacts ?

42:26

um just , their overall steadiness and demeanor . I think it has a huge impact

42:28

on it . There's let's put it

42:31

this way , when we run test , I

42:33

always get to a test and maybe the dog's

42:35

first finished test , and

42:38

I'm like man . I never even put this

42:40

dog on a honor bucket , but

42:42

they been sitting out for

42:44

months watching other dogs

42:47

work and I never usually have a problem

42:49

with it . They're so used to it , they're so used

42:51

to watching another dog run . Um

42:54

, but other than that , to

42:57

me it's important for another dog

42:59

to sit out there and watch other dogs work

43:01

. I know when I hunt

43:03

, we hunt multiple dogs

43:05

. I

43:08

know a lot of people that hunt multiple dogs Almost every hunt that I went on this season

43:10

. So the dog has to be comfortable

43:12

watching another dog retrieve . Yeah , and

43:15

also for a lot of these dogs it's

43:18

a workout in itself to sit there

43:20

and watch for the dogs run it

43:22

. People don't realize how much that

43:25

can wear a dog out . Yeah , just mentally

43:27

especially and it turns a , I

43:30

mean your land setup might be a five minute session

43:32

for the dog , but if you're running five , six

43:34

dogs , that turns into

43:36

a half hour to 40 minute session

43:39

for them , sitting out there honoring and watching

43:41

as well , which is cool because let's

43:43

say you're running a land or a water setup

43:45

and you've got four dogs out

43:47

, okay , so , like today's setup , you had three

43:49

marks and two blinds .

43:50

It's a total of five retrieves all

43:53

in . I bet it took your dogs what

43:55

? Eight , nine minutes each to run that

43:57

. Yeah , less than 10 minutes . But

43:59

you have four . So they're out for 40 minutes and

44:03

they ran five retrieves

44:05

and they watched another 15

44:07

. Yes , so they watched 15 . Other

44:09

retrieves happen . They're

44:12

always processing it . You can tell , or they're

44:14

you could . They're looking . Some of them are looking

44:16

at me like you think I could get down and eat

44:19

some of this grass right here . Can I come ? Let you love

44:21

on me , you know , but they're , they're there

44:23

and they learn that . And man

44:26

I , I encourage people , even last weekend

44:28

at the member weekend , just to try

44:30

your best , cause you have some people that show up at

44:33

like a member weekend , or like Marty here today

44:35

. He had a bear

44:37

and Coda and they sat there

44:39

. You know they sit behind but it's a little more difficult

44:41

for them . But he trains by himself a lot with just those

44:43

two and when you add more dogs into the mix

44:46

, you know that's a big .

44:47

That's a big shake up for a dog mentally if they haven't

44:49

done it and uh if you have the

44:51

opportunity to get into some group training

44:53

, that is , I would say , the the best

44:55

thing for the dogs that's what I tell people

44:57

is .

44:58

You can find you know Facebook

45:01

, I mean , look especially in either the

45:03

CGA member group or the SOK Society

45:05

hey , man who

45:08

lives within an hour of St

45:10

Louis or Wichita or wherever you

45:12

might be , and

45:14

you can find someone to go . And

45:17

even if your dog is not at the level of

45:19

running whatever setup they're running , do

45:21

some easy hand , throw marks for the dog and put them

45:24

on a stand and let them honor other dogs

45:26

. Because I don't know about you , but

45:28

in my experience you can really tell when you

45:30

go on a hunt which dogs

45:32

have learned how to do that and which dogs

45:34

lose their mind because

45:36

another dog is there .

45:38

Well , we see it quite a bit . I mean , you have

45:40

quite a few people over here once in a while . I know

45:42

back home in Michigan we have people

45:45

that come out and it does baffle

45:47

them sometimes how we can have so many

45:49

dogs sit out there and watch

45:51

other dogs run and not

45:53

have a single problem .

45:55

Yeah , was it last year that Adam came and trained

45:57

with us ? That was the Adam Campbell Two

45:59

years ago . When I say that , that's it two years

46:01

ago adam came to train with us . Um

46:04

, it was great , but , like

46:07

his number , one thing he wanted to see

46:09

was do all these dogs really sit there ? You

46:11

know , how do they really sit ? Still , while

46:14

we , uh , while you guys , run these setups and and

46:16

I do understand , for some people there's a thought

46:18

of , um , I

46:20

don't want my dog to see the

46:22

marks before they run the marks . I

46:26

don't necessarily feel that way . I'm also not running

46:28

a bunch of hunt tests . Um , the

46:30

blinds I know don't matter . I

46:32

I mean , look you . I think

46:34

there's a misconception . I've heard people say like , is

46:37

that dog learning from what the other one did ? And I'm like , no

46:39

, that I can run 20

46:41

dogs on a blind and 19

46:44

of them could watch me run the first one

46:46

and when I get to dog 20 , other

46:49

than maybe being some drag back scent , they're

46:51

never going to be like . Well , I saw where the other ones went

46:54

, I know where I'm going . They just they don't think

46:56

that way , they don't process I've had a few

46:58

that you think might like .

47:00

Ashley yeah , sometimes she would watch so

47:02

intently and she'd come up there and just line the blind .

47:05

But she was just a special dog yeah , just

47:07

a really good line . And dog too , yeah . On the marks

47:09

, maybe . Maybe they figure out they're also at a different

47:11

vantage point . You know they're not right .

47:22

The biggest thing is it's not advantageous because they're like you said , they're watching

47:24

the mark from a different angle . Yeah , so in the end , the thought process I think for the most part is

47:26

is it's not doing the dog any favors by having it out watching

47:28

the other marks because it could cause them

47:30

to make a wrong decision or see the mark

47:32

from a different point . I

47:35

still don't think it really matters that much . Personally

47:37

now I will say that if

47:40

you do run a lot of hunt tests , something I'll do once

47:42

in a while is I still may have my three or

47:44

four mole marshes out there , but I can get dog hides

47:47

, yeah yeah , and set them up

47:49

all that and especially I recommend that for

47:51

people that have a dog that is used to sitting

47:54

out , but then you may go to a hunt test and they're

47:56

a little bit wild behind a hide , I

47:59

will set hides up and make

48:01

the dog sit back there behind the hides .

48:03

Yeah , yeah . That's a yeah

48:06

, that's a great idea , Cause I do think I

48:09

have seen dogs myself included

48:11

, uh , dogs that I've run . I mean

48:13

, I've seen dogs where they were really

48:16

good at sitting out and very steady

48:18

and quiet long as they could see what

48:20

was going on . And you take that vision

48:22

away and they're like wait a second , they're

48:24

peeking around the corners or trying to

48:26

creep and see what's going on . Yeah , and

48:29

I've also seen back to the steadiness thing

48:31

. I do think that the benefits far outweigh the

48:33

any negatives when it comes to just having them out

48:35

. Um , but I've seen

48:37

some dogs who , when

48:40

I think hunting

48:42

dogs together and having a very

48:44

steady , quiet , calm dog and

48:47

taking a hunting with a dog who's not steady

48:49

, not quiet , not calm , does

48:51

more damage for the steady dog

48:53

Because somehow

48:56

I've seen them . Those are behaviors I think

48:58

that they can pick up . I've had

49:00

dogs that I never would have

49:02

assumed would break and on a hunt

49:04

with a dog that was breaking and after

49:06

the third or fourth time my dog broke and

49:09

it was almost like they're like well , if that one gets to go , I'm

49:12

going , which you wouldn't think they would process

49:14

that way , but they just like a fight

49:16

for who's going to get there first , and it

49:18

definitely depends on where they're set up as well

49:20

too .

49:21

So if that breaking dog is running across

49:23

in front of , eventually , that other

49:25

dog might . It doesn't happen with

49:28

all dogs , but it's definitely . I've seen

49:30

it . Yeah , the dog that I've had , that is 100

49:33

, steady , and all of a sudden it's like where'd

49:35

you go ? Yeah , yeah , what

49:38

do they say ? They always say you never . Say my

49:40

dog has never been , oh

49:42

it happens .

49:43

I , I , uh , when we were filming , say , when

49:45

I was at Hooray ranch on the last day of the season

49:48

and I had read and I had literally

49:50

told um , the former owner

49:52

of Hooray , I was like , yeah , this dog is , he's got a lot

49:54

of drive , he's never going to break . And we were

49:56

just sitting on the edge of a big , big

49:59

pond shooting little geese and

50:01

a pair of honkers came in , and just two

50:03

of them , and we were shooting into groups of 100

50:05

little geese . Two honkers came in

50:07

and we just like

50:09

two or three shots , knocked them down . I looked

50:12

over to send them . He's gone and

50:15

I'm like how is it that all the birds and

50:17

we had shot hundreds of birds

50:19

that year over him that was the year he picked

50:21

up I four bands , you know it

50:23

was a great season but those two birds , two

50:25

honkers , that just he couldn't take it and they

50:27

did have a long approach . You know I couldn't figure out

50:29

what it was , but I was , I ate

50:31

my humble pie that day . I was like , yep , of course

50:33

they were .

50:34

all you know , this dog will never break

50:36

and I was like , dang , that's what I get for saying

50:38

it . You never brag on your dog , right ? You

50:40

never brag on your dog . They'll

50:43

make a liar out of you . Yeah

50:45

, what was it , hank ? When he was young , I think one

50:47

of the times I came over and trained with you guys

50:49

years ago , don

50:52

and I came down and he'd never seen

50:54

a hand launcher . Oh yeah , and

50:56

you guys started firing a hand launcher and this dog

50:58

has been steady for months and

51:00

he's sitting next to me . Somebody fires a hand launcher

51:03

he goes hand .

51:04

Well , you train with a lot of Thunder launchers . This

51:07

year in particular , I think , they've been out almost

51:09

every day . I

51:13

don't know how much gas map gas you've been through Between the Thunder

51:15

launchers and the one we use to light the fire pit , so

51:19

those can be tough for dogs , those plastic

51:22

dummies . Um , my buddy that

51:24

I hope to have on here , uh , at some point

51:26

soon . Um , mark Turner , I don't know

51:28

if you remember Mark . He trained with me for years and years

51:30

. Uh , he trained before I did and

51:33

, uh , he knows Keith and Josh . Well , he was part of

51:35

the group that really we all

51:37

started kind of running dogs together and I

51:39

don't know 2013

51:42

, 14 . Anyway , he

51:44

had a very nice imported uh

51:47

dog that was a field trial winner that

51:49

he brought to my house one day and I'd just

51:51

gotten my first the , the thunder

51:53

tens , you know , shot a pretty

51:55

simple mark and his dog went over and got in

51:57

the cover and put

51:59

his nose on it and kept on hunting and

52:02

, uh , he was so mad . Just I was

52:04

like dude , the dog probably not gonna go

52:06

pick up a piece of plastic , pvc and all

52:08

that stuff has to be taught you know , it's

52:10

not not easy and that's .

52:12

that's part of the for me . Anyway , when

52:14

I go through and start teaching the fetch command , when

52:16

I'm doing the treat training and we go

52:18

through fetch , I like to use

52:20

multiple different objects , anything

52:22

that you could probably use for dog training

52:25

. It may be a thunder bumper , it may be a

52:27

hand launcher bumper , canvas

52:30

, plastic . I like to run through

52:32

all of them . Dokens .

52:33

Yeah , well , you've seen it with mine out here with some of the imports

52:35

. Twig didn't want to pick up the plastic , oh yeah , went

52:37

right past the pile and looked at it like Nope , that's

52:40

not it , you know , and yeah , it's

52:42

good to do that . Um , let's

52:44

talk a little bit about that . I know we're coming close on

52:46

time , but your , uh , your

52:48

process is it's a very similar

52:50

process to mine and ours on like

52:52

a a fetch hold release process

52:55

. There's not a ton of force involved

52:57

. You , you're very , very

53:02

positive with your fetch and hold command . Um , I've seen you help Stone again early on

53:04

in his first days of training with um , oh

53:06

, scott's dog . I can't remember the name of that dog

53:09

Um , magis pup

53:11

, I'll think of it . A second Scott will kill me for forgetting her

53:13

name . Um , sage , sage , yeah

53:15

, so say Sage . Repeat it Uh

53:18

, but that dog didn't want to , didn't want to hold

53:20

it right , and the process

53:22

was not at all more pressure , that

53:24

was excitement . So

53:27

just what are you trying

53:29

to put into a dog's head ? When

53:31

it comes to reinforcing ? For those

53:33

listening out here , maybe you have a dog that you're just struggling

53:35

to get to hold a dummy and bring it to you . Um

53:38

, instead of going toward

53:40

more pressure angry I'm mad at you , fetch it up you go the opposite going toward

53:42

more pressure , angry I'm mad at you , fetch it up . You go the opposite

53:44

way . Why is that , and what are you hoping the dog learns ?

53:47

Well , I want to . At

53:49

the end of the day , the goal is it's a retriever that

53:51

you want them to want to retrieve , so

53:53

adding pressure

53:55

to it isn't the right start , in

53:57

my opinion . I want it to be positive

54:00

. Everything's going to be positive from the start . I

54:02

do use the food . I , like you

54:04

said , I think I do use a very similar process

54:06

to what you guys use , although I probably speed

54:09

it up a little bit , cause I do use a physical

54:11

touch on their muzzle or

54:13

rolling their lips up or just getting my

54:15

finger between their teeth Right , and

54:17

then , once I get them in there , first

54:20

it's going to be fetch , fetch , fetch , and

54:22

then , every time they do , it's going to be reward and

54:25

then , once you start

54:27

the hold , a lot of times

54:29

the fetch will go away . This is

54:32

this is a very a

54:34

process to where you have to really pay attention to

54:36

what the dog's doing and why they're doing it . If

54:38

If they're fetching it on

54:40

their own and then dropping it , I'm

54:43

fine with that . Once I feel like that

54:45

, every time I say fetch and they grab it , we're

54:47

ready to start having them hang on to it for

54:49

a minute . When I start

54:51

making them hang on to it . And now , when I say making them

54:53

hang on to it , I made hand on top

54:56

of the muscle and hand under the chin and

54:58

then just kind of roll my hands with them

55:00

. They might shake their head a little bit . I'm

55:03

not talking about a bunch of pressure , but I'm going to

55:05

make them hang on to it for a second

55:07

or two and then come out and what you're going

55:09

to notice , usually what happens is they

55:11

will stop fetching . So now

55:13

at this point is usually when I'll have to start

55:15

squeezing my finger in there between

55:17

the teeth and getting them . And now we're

55:19

going to carry over the hold . But all

55:22

this they're getting reward every time they do it

55:24

and then , once they get more

55:26

comfortable with the hold , the fetch command

55:28

comes back . That's the normal

55:31

process that I see happening with

55:33

it .

55:33

I think that's where a lot of people struggle yes

55:35

, when they start the hold and the fetch

55:37

goes away , yes , and then I , kind of my

55:39

dog , won't even pick it up anymore .

55:41

Yes , and that's the thing is . You have to be

55:43

I've done this a thousand times you

55:45

have to be comfortable with that position that you're in

55:47

right now . It will come back . Once they

55:49

get better about the hold , the

55:51

fetch will come back . Now

55:54

, for me it's to get them to fetch

55:56

again . Like I said , it is probably a finger

55:58

between the teeth because they don't want to bite

56:00

you , so they're going to open their mouth . I'm

56:03

not saying we're going to add a bunch of pressure , but

56:10

for me it's noticing the little signs of learning . It may go from having to stick your finger

56:12

in there to just putting your hand on top of their muzzle and then they grab it , or

56:14

maybe just having to roll the lips up a little bit

56:16

and then they grab it All

56:23

those little subtle signs that you see . I try to put less

56:25

touch on the dog each and every time and it will tell you whether the dog's

56:27

learning . Me and cory wages walk through this a little bit

56:29

and it's . It's a very

56:31

good process and I I feel like it would

56:33

probably it might do wonders if I I

56:35

try to produce a video of it .

56:37

Yeah , it's so difficult because it's over

56:39

days and days that it takes to

56:41

do this about this is we have our

56:44

, our whole conditioning , and then josh has a fetch

56:46

hold release and it's just um

56:48

, it's so much work

56:50

, it's a it's a lengthy

56:53

process , it's very detailed and

56:55

every dog's different .

56:56

Yes , it might . It may take three

56:59

days for some and it

57:01

could take three weeks for others .

57:02

Yeah , that's important to know because I

57:04

have people who will say I'm on day

57:06

12 and we're just not getting it and I'm like all right , stay the

57:08

course . And then some people say

57:11

, dude , it was like I didn't even have

57:13

to do anything . You know , this dog just

57:15

caught on real fast .

57:23

And some of that , I think , does have to do with more of a natural delivery where you don't have to get super

57:25

, super into it , but it is still important to teach them the command . Yes , and the thing for me also

57:27

that I'd like to do is like a stepping stone for the dogs when we're going through this process

57:29

. Again , for me it's all treat oriented , it's

57:31

all positive . Even though the dog

57:33

may have kind of a negative demeanor

57:35

towards it for a little bit , you can't get too worried about

57:37

it because we're being positive , we're giving them a

57:40

reward with it . There's another

57:42

stepping stone would be is like hey

57:44

, when we're doing the whole process , I may reach

57:46

in and grab some kibble . And usually

57:48

as soon as you grab kibble , what are they going to do ? They're going to spit

57:51

it out and it's all just building

57:53

blocks or stepping stones and knowing

57:56

what's going to make the dog drop the bumper

57:58

. But the end goal is to keep it all very

58:00

positive . By the time we're done with this , I usually

58:02

have dogs that will be doing walking fetch

58:04

. I'll hold the bumper above them . They'll stand on their hind

58:06

legs to go up and grab the bumper . We're

58:09

going to do is set the bumper on the ground

58:11

and the thing that baffles

58:13

you the most . You can put a bumper on the ground they know

58:15

what fetch means and they won't fetch it until you put one

58:17

finger on it . Yeah , you put one finger

58:19

on that bumper , they'll pick it up , yeah , but if you're

58:21

not touching it , they're like I don't know what to do . Yeah

58:24

, isn't that funny so , yeah

58:26

, the end goal is just having that positive

58:28

, yeah , all reward

58:30

based on a lot of excitement going .

58:32

I've noticed that and I've seen you last year

58:35

. You have more of these but , like even over in my shop

58:37

, you're you know , if you're trying

58:39

to imagine you've got a dummy in your hand

58:41

, a young dog , and in your other hand you

58:43

have their food bowl and

58:46

you're balancing this , fetch

58:48

it up , hold it All right , give it back , walk

58:51

around with me , be excited and then

58:53

giving them kibble in the process . And a lot of people

58:55

I think don't that's the way we teach it . And

58:57

a lot of people , I think don't believe it's possible

58:59

that they will say you have to get

59:01

rid of the treats in order to get a good hold . And

59:04

I don't think that's true at all . I think that when you can

59:06

teach the dog , hey , if you hold it well , you'll get this

59:08

.

59:08

I personally feel the treats make

59:12

the whole reinforce the hold more

59:15

because they want to spit that bumper out for

59:17

that food so in my opinion , when I

59:19

got a handful of kibble , I'm holding it right in front

59:21

of your nose and you're hanging on to a bumper now

59:24

you're really learning .

59:24

You're really learning like delayed gratification

59:26

, yeah , like all right , I gotta do this . Yeah , that's

59:29

a great point . That's a great point , that's

59:31

fun . I think all that stuff is . Uh , it's

59:34

important because you're not just , you

59:36

know , as a dog trainer , and this goes for

59:39

if you're out there and you're a pro , and you're out

59:41

there and you're training your first or second dog for fun

59:43

, you're not just teaching a set of skills

59:45

. I mean you're developing attitude

59:48

, you're developing the dog's

59:50

relationship with you , and that's a hard

59:52

part for what you do . I mean you've have , you have what you

59:54

have your boys here . You have 20 or 21

59:57

dogs here . We won't include Storm

59:59

.

1:00:03

Yeah , with Aaron bringing Arthur every once in a while . Yeah , it bounced between 20 and

1:00:05

22 dogs Probably .

1:00:06

That's a lot of dogs , uh , you

1:00:09

got to . You have to

1:00:11

focus on each one , on the relationship

1:00:13

with those dogs , and I will say

1:00:15

I mean this has been the most fun year for me having here

1:00:17

, mostly because you had your own place to stay . I

1:00:20

don't want you in in my house , but it's nice

1:00:22

. You know , I'm like all right , it's not everything's actually

1:00:24

put together and , knock on wood

1:00:26

, no tornadoes and everything was done

1:00:28

. But when you watch these dogs

1:00:30

, uh , out here , they're

1:00:33

excited to be around you . You know like they're . When

1:00:35

you air them all , one of the problems is

1:00:37

getting them to just leave you alone . You know , because they're jumping

1:00:39

everywhere , jumping everywhere , and that's to

1:00:41

me that's a great testament . And you know

1:00:43

, there might be days that are tough for some

1:00:45

of them . There's days where it's

1:00:47

like , oh , that was a battle . You know , I had to fight

1:00:49

that battle with the dog today , but the relationship

1:00:52

always comes first with them and you notice that when

1:00:54

you see these dogs and it's cool

1:00:56

to see , it's funny to see the setups like

1:00:58

today compared to

1:01:00

the setups like February 16th

1:01:03

. For those of you who don't know

1:01:05

Wally , for those of you who do , you'll quickly

1:01:07

agree , you'll be nodding your head . Yes , but you're

1:01:09

never the most positive guy on how a dog's

1:01:12

going to be at the beginning . Usually I'm like how's

1:01:14

that ? And you're like , oh , I don't know . It's

1:01:26

going to be okay , and then five months in it's like one of the nicest dogs you've ever seen and he's like , yeah , it turned out pretty good , you know , and turned out okay

1:01:28

, but gotta be a little pessimistic with them , yeah , yeah , and Wally's not going to say the dog's going to be okay until they're what most people will

1:01:30

consider dog of a lifetime status

1:01:33

, you know . So what's it look like now

1:01:35

for you as we wrap up You're

1:01:37

about to Don has already come down

1:01:40

and gotten nine of the dogs . Yes

1:01:42

, so you've got the trailer , the

1:01:44

bed slide , the gunner . You're

1:01:46

gonna load up , uh , the rest of them

1:01:48

at some point hopefully

1:01:51

hoping to be heading out wednesday

1:01:53

morning .

1:01:54

So we'll see . It's the buttoning

1:01:57

up that . This is always the part of trying to make

1:01:59

sure everybody got to see their dog . Everybody's got

1:02:01

the dog to me that needs to go back

1:02:03

to Michigan with me , yeah . So yes , I

1:02:05

got one that I got to pick up yet tonight .

1:02:07

Yeah .

1:02:08

But yeah , so going forward , it's get

1:02:10

back home . Honestly , my

1:02:12

dogs will probably get a couple of days off

1:02:14

They've already dry out

1:02:16

a little bit and

1:02:18

then maybe myself a day or two off . 'll

1:02:21

see , so you learn that

1:02:23

too , I don't think . I don't think you've taken a

1:02:25

whole day off since you've been here uh well

1:02:27

, when you're the only one taking care of the dogs , you

1:02:29

yeah , there's never really a day off , but

1:02:31

yeah , so and

1:02:34

get back at it . I mean , we got a lot of fun things going

1:02:36

on back home and a lot of things to

1:02:38

get buttoned up and get like

1:02:40

. We have hunt tests coming up right here in may

1:02:42

, so that's a cool advantage

1:02:44

for you geographically

1:02:47

speaking .

1:02:47

You guys's hunt tests are going to start before ours

1:02:50

, because I say that we start

1:02:52

in may too , but you guys will have some early ones because

1:02:54

you know it's not , you know it's just

1:02:57

getting nice out there . Uh

1:02:59

, where are ? And ? And a lot of the

1:03:01

guys I've talked to will

1:03:03

not run those earliest tests because

1:03:05

they're not , they haven't been in the water

1:03:07

yet .

1:03:08

Yes , and you've been down here in the water

1:03:10

, so it's . It shows , when you

1:03:12

go to those early hunt tests , the dogs

1:03:14

have been in the water and which ones haven't had

1:03:16

a chance , cause they're different

1:03:19

this year , but in normal years a

1:03:21

lot of guys up there have only had their dog in the water

1:03:23

maybe a handful of times , if they're

1:03:25

lucky .

1:03:26

Yeah , well , I'm excited

1:03:28

. I'll always miss you . I always post my Pablo Escobar

1:03:31

meme because it's lonely when you leave , but

1:03:33

it's been an awesome year . Thanks for hopping on

1:03:35

the podcast talk training and

1:03:37

for those of you that want to follow along

1:03:39

with Wally's dogs , they'll be training all

1:03:42

summer . He's actually gotten really good at making

1:03:44

Instagram reels . You can find

1:03:46

Wally Shalau on Instagram

1:03:48

or SOK Great Lakes

1:03:50

on Instagram and follow

1:03:53

along with those dogs . They get to train , honestly

1:03:56

, a lot more in the summer because it's not nearly as hot up

1:03:58

there where you guys are . So , yeah

1:04:00

, it's a it's a win-win for you . So

1:04:02

safe travels back . Thanks for hopping on

1:04:04

and I appreciate all you guys joining in

1:04:06

and listening to us .