Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bear Hunting Magazine Hunt Cast with me
Speaker 1: Koby Morehead. We're gonna nerd out on bears hunting in
Speaker 1: the outdoors. We'll tell stories, talk biology, tactics, gear, and
Speaker 1: the fight to protect the pursuits that we hold dear.
Speaker 1: So grab your bino's, lace up your boots, load up
Speaker 1: your barrels, and gather the hounds as we venture on
Speaker 1: this journey together. All right, welcome to another episode of
Speaker 1: the Bear Hunting Magazine hunt Cast. Today, we're joined by
Speaker 1: my buddy Heath up in Virginia. Big old plot.
Speaker 2: Guy was, I'm running those hosts tens. Now, I get
Speaker 2: a little I get a I get a little hate.
Speaker 2: I get a little hate from it. But yeah, I
Speaker 2: plots are near and dear to me. That's what I
Speaker 2: started hunting. That's that's what got me into hound hunting,
Speaker 2: and they do hold a special place in my heart.
Speaker 2: But right now I'm I'm sorry, I'm running the tricolors.
Speaker 1: What did all your friends say?
Speaker 2: Uh? Well, the group that I hunt with now, they're
Speaker 2: all we're all running kind of mixed up dogs. I mean,
Speaker 2: we got a little bit of everything, but none of
Speaker 2: us are running. None of us are running like a
Speaker 2: registered plot. Got some of them got some plot mix.
Speaker 2: And the guys in West Virginia that we were just
Speaker 2: talking about I hunt with now they have a couple
Speaker 2: of plots and they're they've crossed the plots with some
Speaker 2: English dogs, so they're they're running that. But nobody in
Speaker 2: my immediate group actually has one at this point in time.
Speaker 1: Are right, Well I misspoke. The guys that I talked
Speaker 1: to your buddies with the are all plot guys.
Speaker 2: Well that's again, that's where I got my start. You know,
Speaker 2: that takes this all the way back to you know
Speaker 2: Fielder back in ninety seven. That was when we first met,
Speaker 2: when I was running my little plot female Brandy and
Speaker 2: he was hunting Wrangler. And that's I mean, so yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, it's it's there. That's the footprint of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well I never said your last name that we're
Speaker 1: talking today with Heath Hyatt and a few issues back,
Speaker 1: Bear sar Gooser wrote an article about the benefits of
Speaker 1: cross training, and Bear's a busy guy right now. So
Speaker 1: the person that came to mind whenever I was thinking
Speaker 1: about who can talk about this? You jumped into my head.
Speaker 1: A lot of people might not know talk talk about
Speaker 1: your podcast, like you have a hound podcast that you put.
Speaker 2: On, Yeah, so you supply Yeah, you can catch us
Speaker 2: over on the W network and Kobe and I was
Speaker 2: just talking about this. I'm still nameless. We call it
Speaker 2: What's Up Wednesdays. That's just to us to hang us
Speaker 2: there until we can come up with the title that
Speaker 2: we're looking for. But yeah, we talk about dog training
Speaker 2: and we talk about it in all types of venues,
Speaker 2: which is leading us into this podcast. You know, I'm
Speaker 2: a police canine trainer. That's what I do for a living,
Speaker 2: is is train and do the maintenance work and do
Speaker 2: schools and get dogs up and running in the law
Speaker 2: enforcement world. And I try to incorporate that into the
Speaker 2: hound hunting and bring some of those tricks and techniques
Speaker 2: and tactics into the training that I do with my hands.
Speaker 2: And I will say, and I know we'll go over this,
Speaker 2: but it has made my hunting so much more enjoyable
Speaker 2: by just doing a few of the small things that
Speaker 2: make the relationship between you and your and your hunting partner,
Speaker 2: your hound. And you know, most guys are running a
Speaker 2: handful of dogs. I mean, my typical number that I'm
Speaker 2: carrying with me at a time is about six. That's
Speaker 2: my that's my sweet spot. And I know some guys
Speaker 2: run more than that, some guys run a little less
Speaker 2: than that. But when you go to handling six dogs,
Speaker 2: it can be tough. And the podcast that that we
Speaker 2: talk about I have, I have people from all over
Speaker 2: the world. In fact, today, uh, which is a Wednesday,
Speaker 2: we had I had a lady on from Boswana and
Speaker 2: we were talking about hunting leopards with hounds. How they
Speaker 2: do it, the stuff that they're looking for in a dog.
Speaker 2: You know, they're using a whole pack, and they're using
Speaker 2: that pack strategically. They've got two dogs that trail. They've
Speaker 2: got two dogs that put the pressure, which are plots
Speaker 2: colby the pushing pressure on the dog. They're using some
Speaker 2: some some of the old gasking type dogs. So they're
Speaker 2: using a mix and match of dogs to put their
Speaker 2: pack together so that it can work as one unit.
Speaker 2: But just I had her on today. You know, I've
Speaker 2: had some some of the world renown and police canine
Speaker 2: trainers on who I've become friends with, some of them
Speaker 2: who even meant toor me, uh for what I do.
Speaker 2: We have those guys on. We've had retriever guys had
Speaker 2: Jim roncourse uh with Drake Waterfowl on. You know, I've
Speaker 2: had Jason Carter and Jeremy Moore, and I'm sure I'm
Speaker 2: forgetting some other bird dog guys Tyler Smith. We've had
Speaker 2: a lot of bird dog guys on. So anything that
Speaker 2: I can learn and I can bring to the table
Speaker 2: for the listeners, that's what the podcast is about, is
Speaker 2: picking up different training techniques and methods to enhance your
Speaker 2: relationship with your dog.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that's really good. I mean, if you
Speaker 1: get stuck inside of just your segment, it's dangerous to
Speaker 1: get into that group think and you never really like
Speaker 1: are going up inside of your I guess like maturity,
Speaker 1: you're limited to the people you keep around you. And
Speaker 1: I don't know, I think there's a lot of benefit.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you think about an MMA fighter, no
Speaker 1: person that is just versed in one particular style is
Speaker 1: going to go out there and dominate, Like they have
Speaker 1: to have a balance of you know, they've got to
Speaker 1: have the ability to get down and grapple, to stand
Speaker 1: up and throw hands and stuff like that. I mean,
Speaker 1: I could see where it takes different disciplines to have
Speaker 1: a super well rounded hound.
Speaker 2: You know. And I was thinking about this after you
Speaker 2: and I talked today on the way home. I'll think
Speaker 2: about you know, my so I you know, I've been
Speaker 2: in the hand world thirty years, so I've actually owned
Speaker 2: and raised hounds for thirty and the first the first
Speaker 2: set of dogs that I had and won't even talk about.
Speaker 2: You know, Brandy, my plot female like, she was a
Speaker 2: natural and the only thing I did is put boot
Speaker 2: leather in her. Like hunted. I hunted, and I hunted
Speaker 2: and I hunt. I was hunting six nights a week,
Speaker 2: and I mean that's all I did. As far as
Speaker 2: the training part of it, I had no clue what
Speaker 2: I was doing. None, And even into some of the
Speaker 2: first bear dogs that I ended up with. I had
Speaker 2: a dog named Frosty, and Frosty like taught me about
Speaker 2: bear hunting, like he taught me where to go find
Speaker 2: bear like I had no I had no clue. And
Speaker 2: I was an avid hunter, but I did not understand
Speaker 2: the woods until I started fallowing a hound. And that
Speaker 2: was in my early twenties. You know, I was in
Speaker 2: my early twenties. But all the dogs that have been
Speaker 2: really good dogs and made me look like a really
Speaker 2: good handler and trainer. They were naturals. I didn't do nothing.
Speaker 2: I took them hunting. I did very little correction with
Speaker 2: them because the style of correction correction that I was
Speaker 2: applying was basically not working or the dogs were so
Speaker 2: strong that the damage that I was doing to them
Speaker 2: by the wrong correction, they just went on about their business.
Speaker 2: They shook it off and went on and that takes
Speaker 2: a certain style of dog to do that. But it
Speaker 2: wasn't until I got into the actual training aspect for
Speaker 2: the law enforcement side, which is going to be about
Speaker 2: twenty ten, so that's fourteen years ago. That's when that
Speaker 2: kind of lifted lid off of my box. Like you
Speaker 2: just said, the realm that I was in, like I
Speaker 2: had no clue. I had no clue what I was doing.
Speaker 2: Dogs hunting and a hunted hard like I did. I
Speaker 2: stayed in the woods. That was that's my life, that's
Speaker 2: my passion. That's what I did. But the dogs made
Speaker 2: me look good. I didn't make them look good because
Speaker 2: I didn't have a clue what I was doing. I
Speaker 2: didn't understand you know, behavior, I didn't understand drives. I
Speaker 2: didn't understand the methods and stuff that we used today
Speaker 2: on how to tweak things. And I get some I
Speaker 2: get some blowback on well I don't want to hear
Speaker 2: what a police trainer has to say. I get it.
Speaker 2: You know, if you're closed minded, then it doesn't apply
Speaker 2: to you, and I'll you know, but it does apply
Speaker 2: to you. There is stuff there is nobody that knows,
Speaker 2: drives and stuff like these guys that are actually make
Speaker 2: not making that are asking a dog to go apprehend
Speaker 2: a human being. The dogs are domesticated, we've been they've
Speaker 2: been domesticated for thousands of years. And you're telling that
Speaker 2: dog that, hey, here I'm feeding you, human is feeding
Speaker 2: you human. Are good, But now I need you to go.
Speaker 2: I need you to go apprehend this guy. So learning
Speaker 2: how to get the dogs to operate under that, for
Speaker 2: me at that point in time was overwhelming, Like it
Speaker 2: was so much information that I couldn't take it all in.
Speaker 2: I've got notes and notebooks and stuff stacked up. I've
Speaker 2: watched videos, I bought DVDs like I was like a
Speaker 2: sponge and I still am. I still want to learn,
Speaker 2: I still want to make myself better. And just like
Speaker 2: you refer to the athlete. Like, if I'm just stuck
Speaker 2: in my zone here boom, then what I know is
Speaker 2: what I know, and I have to form. I have
Speaker 2: to pick out dogs that work under that that zone,
Speaker 2: Like if they don't fit in that zone, then they're
Speaker 2: not going to work for me because I don't know
Speaker 2: anything else. And I hunt, I don't hunt. I have
Speaker 2: several groups that I train with that i'm that I
Speaker 2: certify with or I certify their guys they use they
Speaker 2: use some techniques that are very old, but they have
Speaker 2: perfected their craft in that. But when they perfected their craft,
Speaker 2: they've got a certain type of dog that fits into
Speaker 2: that mold. And I think that is what has made
Speaker 2: me better is taking the sport dog world. The sport
Speaker 2: dog guys have so much control on their dog and
Speaker 2: they have not diminished to drive whatsoever. That is the
Speaker 2: biggest croc of baloney that I hear. Well, I don't
Speaker 2: want to shut the dog down yet. You can shut
Speaker 2: the dog down if you handle things wrongly. But if
Speaker 2: you understand drives, what motivates the dog, what the dog's
Speaker 2: working for, Like you're you can make that dog do
Speaker 2: anything you want him to do. You're not going to
Speaker 2: hurt him by putting a handle on him. And I
Speaker 2: hear a lot of people say that, like, you know,
Speaker 2: don't you know you got too much control of them dogs. Well, yeah,
Speaker 2: when when they're not out here doing what they're you know,
Speaker 2: what I want them to do, then I want them
Speaker 2: to be under control. I don't want them to run
Speaker 2: them up, you know. So I don't know, there's a lot.
Speaker 2: There's a lot that goes into it. I think taking
Speaker 2: different training methods and training disciplines, you know, like I said,
Speaker 2: you can look at the retrievers and the pointers. You
Speaker 2: look at the deer dog guys and the coyote guys.
Speaker 2: I'll give you I'll give you example of the coyote
Speaker 2: coyote gas. So I interviewed them a guy by the
Speaker 2: name Howard Owens, and he was talking about the dog
Speaker 2: swinging wide on a track and I had I was like,
Speaker 2: all right, so explain to me what swinging means. And
Speaker 2: he said, the dog goes wide, and you know, they
Speaker 2: lose some points and whatever. So this past this, so
Speaker 2: our season's in right now, you're not talking about that.
Speaker 2: My little female, my little Kate female, who is a
Speaker 2: kemp dog. I have noticed and I noticed this. I
Speaker 2: really noticed it. Noticed it last year's She turned five
Speaker 2: this year, so, but last year I really noticed it
Speaker 2: that she's always out. If you're looking at the garment,
Speaker 2: her track's going to be off to the side. She's
Speaker 2: not going to be right with the pack necessarily unless
Speaker 2: it's just caught and walking. If it's running. And I
Speaker 2: was up in West Virginia on Youth Day and I'm
Speaker 2: sitting there in my truck and I'm watching the iPad
Speaker 2: and she swings way wide and she comes right back
Speaker 2: into them dogs. And what he told me during that
Speaker 2: podcast was it was her like I realized that boom, like,
Speaker 2: this is my dog. This is what she's doing. I
Speaker 2: always seen her kind of mealing off or not melling,
Speaker 2: but off the track a little bit with the group,
Speaker 2: but she always was where she was need to be,
Speaker 2: and sometimes she would end up shortcutting those dogs and
Speaker 2: being in front. But I learned something from him. I
Speaker 2: understand it more because somebody else told me something that
Speaker 2: I didn't know.
Speaker 1: While you were talking, I was just thinking that we
Speaker 1: have to think about what our community is, and it
Speaker 1: seems like a lot of guys would just think their
Speaker 1: community would be bear dogs. Or tree dogs, or down
Speaker 1: to a specific breed. But what you're talking about is
Speaker 1: going out and encompassing the wider community of houndsmen, of
Speaker 1: dog guys and handlers. And whenever you do that, it
Speaker 1: gives you the ability to see things that are illuminated
Speaker 1: by the things that they're strong in. So basically, like
Speaker 1: their strengths are the things that they really have to
Speaker 1: focus in on, illuminate the things inside of your own hounds,
Speaker 1: and give you the ability to have a better experience
Speaker 1: with them, you know. So I mean in some guys,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think some guys like the chaos,
Speaker 1: you know, like some guys want the split trees, and
Speaker 1: they get the love from the that wild, chaotic like
Speaker 1: handle the thing, you know, like their handle is like
Speaker 1: I can step up wheneverything's happened that are outside of
Speaker 1: my control, you know, and I can go out there
Speaker 1: and handle it, and they get a lot of pride
Speaker 1: or or feel strength, or or they just like the
Speaker 1: excitement of it. I don't know, But you were talking
Speaker 1: about how having a better handle and having better training
Speaker 1: inside of your hounds makes the hunt more enjoyable for you.
Speaker 1: So what's become more enjoyable about hunting with dogs that
Speaker 1: you have a new type of training and a good
Speaker 1: handling on it on them.
Speaker 2: Well for me, And I'm very particular. If you make
Speaker 2: it down here in December, you're going to see, like
Speaker 2: I'm very structured in my regiment, like what I do.
Speaker 2: I don't like dogs barking in the box, Like I don't.
Speaker 2: You know, if you're barking, you better be barking because
Speaker 2: you've got a big whiff of bar oder. I see
Speaker 2: a lot of guys driving around in boxes that the
Speaker 2: dogs are just the whole day, and I can't stand that.
Speaker 2: That's me personally, each to their own. I'm not against it,
Speaker 2: it's just not for me.
Speaker 1: Well, I think a lot of guys have given up
Speaker 1: on getting that team down well.
Speaker 2: And I tell one of my good friends this all
Speaker 2: the time. If you've got one that do it, does it,
Speaker 2: then you've got five that does it. Because it's monkey
Speaker 2: sea monkey do. Dogs learn from each other more than
Speaker 2: we give them credit for. But you know, just you know,
Speaker 2: and I know a lot of guys do this because
Speaker 2: I see it. I see it all the time. In fact,
Speaker 2: I've got to put this out there because I just
Speaker 2: watched the line Heart video today for Colorado, and you know,
Speaker 2: Josh Whitterkin and we're on there and these guys, you know,
Speaker 2: they saddle up their horses, they they have their dogs
Speaker 2: with them. They're riding along as as a team. Like
Speaker 2: the dogs are not acting crazy, and you know, they're
Speaker 2: not blowing through the country. Of course, this is big
Speaker 2: game hunting, not competition coon hunting, so it's different. We've
Speaker 2: got to differentiate what we're talking about. But just the
Speaker 2: dogs are just so a pleasure to be around. And
Speaker 2: you know, I come out of the woods the other
Speaker 2: day Monday, pouring down around. I got to the tree,
Speaker 2: I get my hands on two dogs. The bear slides out.
Speaker 2: I literally got two dogs in my hand. I can't
Speaker 2: get the other two. It's the skies opened up. I
Speaker 2: mean it monsoon rain. I'm miserable, Like you know how
Speaker 2: it is when you walk in wet I got to
Speaker 2: walk a half a mile back to the truck. But
Speaker 2: as soon as that, soon as I got my dogs
Speaker 2: off the tree, like I don't put a lead on them,
Speaker 2: like come on, let's go, guys, and they come out
Speaker 2: with me. And then you know, I had to drive
Speaker 2: around the mountain and walk another almost a half a
Speaker 2: mile into the secondary and same thing. As soon as
Speaker 2: I get my hands on a dog, it's gone. Man.
Speaker 2: And I'm sitting there with my dogs and I'm holding them,
Speaker 2: and I did put them on a lead for a minute.
Speaker 2: I walked them back about thirty yards, let them calm
Speaker 2: down for a second, and then I un snapped him,
Speaker 2: like all right, let's go. Now. It's still raining and
Speaker 2: I'm wet, But just being able to speak to the
Speaker 2: dogs instead of you know, screaming and yelling and all
Speaker 2: the time hooping and hollering like that takes that makes
Speaker 2: it more stressful than it needs to be. But it
Speaker 2: goes further than that cold. It goes into like training
Speaker 2: techniques like I'm doing then in print scent in printing
Speaker 2: program that I picked up from Miguel over in Spain,
Speaker 2: and I've been imprinting my puppies from five weeks old
Speaker 2: on scent up to I don't know I do. I
Speaker 2: do it kind of like I do my here. I
Speaker 2: learned this from the police stide. When I'm imprinting dogs
Speaker 2: for odor, I eat narcotics. Then I run through a
Speaker 2: process and I'm doing my hands the same way but
Speaker 2: I'm using Miguel's I'm using his method, but my technique
Speaker 2: to it from what I'm taking. So I'm taking his
Speaker 2: world in my world, putting it together. And I've got
Speaker 2: my puppies trailing odor at i mean eight weeks old,
Speaker 2: like they're taking tracks again, these are fifteen minute old
Speaker 2: tracks that are twenty yards, and then we build up
Speaker 2: and we build up, and then I've got them running
Speaker 2: an hour hour and a half two hour old tracks
Speaker 2: with humidity letter levels high. The temperature is in the
Speaker 2: mid seventies, like they're using their noses at an earlier stage,
Speaker 2: so the dog's mature faster. So I'm able to do
Speaker 2: more things with them in that me, I don't like
Speaker 2: to hunt my dogs before three a year old. That's
Speaker 2: me personally, But I'm able to do more things and
Speaker 2: build foundations with them. And you know, I've got my
Speaker 2: dogs loading in the truck at three and a half
Speaker 2: four months old. I mean they're jumping on the tailgate,
Speaker 2: they're doing you know, they're doing their things. They're you know,
Speaker 2: I'm tone breaking my dogs, you know, at four or
Speaker 2: five months old, using some of the methods that I've
Speaker 2: learned from my law enforcement side. It's just stuff like
Speaker 2: that that has helped me become better and it helped
Speaker 2: my dog, me and the dogs have a better relationship.
Speaker 2: Like I said, I'm I come from an old school
Speaker 2: method of training, and it was all compulsion. And if
Speaker 2: your listeners don't know what compulsion is, it's you do
Speaker 2: as I say, or I'm gonna make you do it,
Speaker 2: and if you don't do it, I'm gonna make you
Speaker 2: do it again. And you know, that's what I knew.
Speaker 2: That's how I was raised, That's how I was brought up,
Speaker 2: That's what I saw in my early years as hunting,
Speaker 2: and I quickly learned that there's a thousand other ways
Speaker 2: to do it. And when you can motivate that dog
Speaker 2: to do things that you're wanting him to do, it
Speaker 2: just makes everything ten times better. Does that make sense
Speaker 2: what I'm saying? Yeah? I think.
Speaker 1: So what are some of the things you would say,
Speaker 1: like maybe the top three things that you're training to
Speaker 1: a dog that are just non negotiable for you to
Speaker 1: now you know where it's like, these are the three
Speaker 1: top things that you really focus on recalls?
Speaker 2: First one recall which means the dog has to come
Speaker 2: to you.
Speaker 1: How are you calling them back as a voice or tone.
Speaker 2: Or so I start out with voice. In fact, I
Speaker 2: did a podcast on these guys. You can go to
Speaker 2: What's Up Wednesday listen to it. So first I start
Speaker 2: out with voice, and I always use food as the motivator.
Speaker 2: But then as the dog's mature a little bit and
Speaker 2: you start adding in distractions, then the food motivator is good,
Speaker 2: but it's not the end all be all, So you've
Speaker 2: got to add some type of correction into it. Their
Speaker 2: pairs start paying the tone to it, and I'll tell you, you know,
Speaker 2: I'll give you a prime example of this. So if
Speaker 2: I if we're on a mean bear, a bear on
Speaker 2: the ground training season especially, you can't do nothing with it.
Speaker 2: You just got to get your dogs. If I can
Speaker 2: get in to where my dogs can hear me, like
Speaker 2: if I holler at them, hey, and most of them
Speaker 2: will come to me. There's a couple that I have
Speaker 2: to tone because they are stubborn and hard headed. But
Speaker 2: that's also what makes them a good bear dog. That's,
Speaker 2: you know, that determination that makes a good dog. But
Speaker 2: if I can get in where I can see them
Speaker 2: or or talk to them, I can get In fact,
Speaker 2: this happened to us a couple of weeks ago, and
Speaker 2: that's exactly what I did. I started, I hate y'all,
Speaker 2: come here. I ever of them, and the last two
Speaker 2: I had to tone, which I knew I was gonna
Speaker 2: have to tone her because that's what she always does.
Speaker 2: But recall is them. That one of the main things,
Speaker 2: even in the police world, the narcotics dogs, they don't
Speaker 2: have to have a whole lot of handle on. They
Speaker 2: just need to get out of the car and they
Speaker 2: need to run a search pattern and they need to
Speaker 2: get it back in a car. But the one thing
Speaker 2: that they must have on them to recall what happens
Speaker 2: if that lead slips and you're on the side of
Speaker 2: an interstate a dog runs out in the middle of the road.
Speaker 2: You got to be able to get him back. Same
Speaker 2: thing with the hounds, that you know, the dogs need
Speaker 2: to come back when they're called. When I was in
Speaker 2: Canada back in June, Sarah and Nick, that's one of
Speaker 2: the things they commented on is my dog was a
Speaker 2: little over. It was sixtenths of a mile in there.
Speaker 2: Now again we're in Canada, it's flat in Virginia. You're
Speaker 2: not calling no dog back over a mile. You're not
Speaker 2: going to do it. But I hollered a few times
Speaker 2: and it was with you know, fifteen minutes later, he's
Speaker 2: standing there at the buggy looking at us, and Sarah's like,
Speaker 2: I can't believe you called that dog, Like, well, yeah,
Speaker 2: if he hears me, he better come to me. That's
Speaker 2: what he's taught to do. But recall recalls number one.
Speaker 2: Number two if we're talking about Haunds is no loose barking,
Speaker 2: no barking in the box, no babbling, nothing like that.
Speaker 2: That's something that that I don't like. I would rather
Speaker 2: train that. Well. I'm very fortunate. Remember when I said
Speaker 2: I got dogs that have made me look really good.
Speaker 2: I've got dogs that are that have got sense. And
Speaker 2: if I get one, especially the puppies, the one or
Speaker 2: two puppies here here now, they'll start doing it in
Speaker 2: the box. I'll I'll do a light stem if I
Speaker 2: need to, I can fix it, no problem. I've even
Speaker 2: got a piece of para cord that I run run
Speaker 2: out my window into the to the slide of the box,
Speaker 2: tied it to their collar, and if they start barking,
Speaker 2: it's just tap tap tap tap tap tap, just something
Speaker 2: it's very very subtle. It's just hey, I don't want
Speaker 2: you to do this. I don't do that driving down
Speaker 2: the interstate going to the woods. But when I'm on
Speaker 2: the dirt road. Dogs are creatures a habit, just like
Speaker 2: human and a lot of dogs when they start hitting
Speaker 2: that dirt road, they know the funds is getting ready
Speaker 2: to start, right because dirt roads were always smelled at,
Speaker 2: mister bear. So a lot of dogs when they hit
Speaker 2: that dirt road, man, that's when they start getting a
Speaker 2: little nancy. They're you know, they're whimpering and they're whining.
Speaker 2: So I'm more tendency to do it there. If it's
Speaker 2: on the interstate, I'm not having something hanging out the
Speaker 2: window and people, what is that idiot doing?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: So I'll use the collar if I need to. But
Speaker 2: everything that I do is very subtle, very very subtle.
Speaker 2: I don't I feel like sometimes maybe people don't understand
Speaker 2: that you can accomplish more with less that you know
Speaker 2: you can do more with.
Speaker 1: So well, I mean like you can do that with horses,
Speaker 1: you know, horses and mules. It's just light pressure and uh,
Speaker 1: that's good. Whenever you have a dog that likes toub
Speaker 1: Barker gets really excited when you get it out of
Speaker 1: the box. Is that something that you try to train
Speaker 1: out to too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and again I'm I'm going to tell you some
Speaker 2: of my my my law enforcement training that has went
Speaker 2: into my handworld. So I've made really good friends with
Speaker 2: Henny and Rude and they're from they're from Holland or yeah,
Speaker 2: they're from Holland. So they've been in the Dutch police
Speaker 2: force for thirty forty years and they've come over. They've
Speaker 2: taught seminars, they've been to my house, we've we've they've
Speaker 2: taught us. One of the things that I learned from
Speaker 2: them is a dog in a commmind can accomplish more
Speaker 2: So if that dog is jacked up on speed, you know,
Speaker 2: then he's not in it. He's in not right, he's
Speaker 2: not in the right front of mind to work and
Speaker 2: do what he's asked to do. So I start this
Speaker 2: like I've got pups out here that are three months old,
Speaker 2: and I started this probably a month ago. When I
Speaker 2: go to the kennel to let them out and they're
Speaker 2: bouncing around and then I stand there and I stand
Speaker 2: there and I stand there until they get calm. And
Speaker 2: once they're calm and they're looking at me like, all right, dad,
Speaker 2: what's what's the problem. I opened the gate real slow.
Speaker 2: I don't say a word to them, and I let
Speaker 2: them come out. I don't like them busting over me,
Speaker 2: like you know what I'm saying, dogs running out of
Speaker 2: the dog box, running over the top of you. So
Speaker 2: I start that process when they're puppies. If I was
Speaker 2: to get a younger dog or dog that done that,
Speaker 2: just like you said, comes out of the box and
Speaker 2: all hippy yippy yippi, then he would stay in the
Speaker 2: box until he's calm. And I know a lot of
Speaker 2: people don't have patience for that, but it doesn't take
Speaker 2: them long to understand what you're asking them to do,
Speaker 2: and they have a clear mind when they come out,
Speaker 2: and when they come out, they can get right on task,
Speaker 2: and things happen a lot faster when they're you know
Speaker 2: the three or four or five or let's just say
Speaker 2: a week or two that it takes you to accomplish
Speaker 2: that task, Well, you just set yourself up for the
Speaker 2: next six or seven years of hunting with a dog
Speaker 2: that's that's not acting a full per se.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So that's number three, you know, that would be
Speaker 3: that would be number three is I don't like dogs
Speaker 3: running over top of me, like I don't you know,
Speaker 3: I'm not having them busting out of the box on me.
Speaker 2: And I've had that before and it'll koby. I've actually
Speaker 2: got rid of some pretty decent dogs over you know,
Speaker 2: the last ten fifteen years that were just like what
Speaker 2: you were saying, is they were too hyper for me. Like,
Speaker 2: I don't need that dog wired for sound twenty four
Speaker 2: to seven in my pen, in my box into the woods.
Speaker 2: And I haven't had one recently, but that's something that
Speaker 2: I didn't know how to fix it before and now
Speaker 2: I know how to work on it. And some dogs
Speaker 2: are still wired for sound. They're still going to be
Speaker 2: wired for sound no matter what. That's just not my
Speaker 2: style of dog. I like the dog that lays on
Speaker 2: the front porch and when you say all right, let's go,
Speaker 2: they shake off and they're like, all right, let's go,
Speaker 2: and they jump up in a truck and there, you know,
Speaker 2: you see that enthusiasm, You see that come to life.
Speaker 2: That's my style of dog. So I don't want a
Speaker 2: dog that's wired for sound twenty four to seven that's
Speaker 2: I can't. I can't handle it.
Speaker 1: Do you do the same thing inside their kennels? Is
Speaker 1: there something that you do to keep your hounds from
Speaker 1: barking there at the house?
Speaker 2: Well, unfortunately this is something I have to talk all right.
Speaker 2: So I live right beside a horse farm, and literally
Speaker 2: my kennel backed right up to the fence and the
Speaker 2: horses will come up. As when the dogs are younger,
Speaker 2: I have to stay on on quite a bit to
Speaker 2: keep them barking from the horses. As they get older
Speaker 2: and mature, then I don't have that problem. So it's
Speaker 2: like a phase. But I think too just keeping the
Speaker 2: dogs active and busy, like we like where I live,
Speaker 2: I can let my dogs out, I don't you know.
Speaker 2: I can let them out, let them running in the yard,
Speaker 2: and let them, you know, kind of do what they
Speaker 2: want to do. My puppies like from the time they're
Speaker 2: win six months, seven months, seven fix six seven weeks
Speaker 2: old untill I mean my other pups are twelve, they're
Speaker 2: three months old, when they run loose from daylight little dark, like,
Speaker 2: I don't put them up until dark. I let them
Speaker 2: out in the morning until they start running off, and
Speaker 2: then I put them up when when I go to bed,
Speaker 2: So that helps too. That really helps with the dogs
Speaker 2: being able to mature a little faster, get to go
Speaker 2: out and explore and things are not as it they're not.
Speaker 2: They don't get as excited over the small things because
Speaker 2: they already know what it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, do you I mean, and this is something that
Speaker 1: I don't think somebody could prove. But whenever you breed
Speaker 1: that calmness coming out of the box with your hounds,
Speaker 1: do they seem to pick up a track and work
Speaker 1: it out the right way? Or do you have Do.
Speaker 2: You feel like.
Speaker 1: Them not coming out as anxious kind of helps them
Speaker 1: maybe not backtracked as much.
Speaker 2: Yes, but there's gonna be a caveat to that. If
Speaker 2: I dump all six of my dogs out, then there
Speaker 2: is a chance that somebody's gonna shoot off with it backwards.
Speaker 2: Even though they're not coming out like banchees. You know
Speaker 2: they're they're coming out and like, oh okay if it's
Speaker 2: a red hot, scorching track. In fact, in fact, this
Speaker 2: happened to me one day this week. I don't know
Speaker 2: what day, but I had a pup with me, a
Speaker 2: year old, and struck off the rig and I turned
Speaker 2: him down first, he was in the box, turned him
Speaker 2: out and turned my other two young but my two
Speaker 2: year olds out, and they went up above the road
Speaker 2: and made a circle and come back and below the road.
Speaker 2: Well they struck. Well, he went up the road up
Speaker 2: above the road with him. Well, he just kept going.
Speaker 2: They went down below the road and struck and took
Speaker 2: the track. Then I put the two older dogs with them,
Speaker 2: and you know, gos Man, I think he run that
Speaker 2: thing back to where it was born. Like I spent
Speaker 2: four hours trying to catch a sucker. But he's young,
Speaker 2: and most people would have gotten mad at that. But
Speaker 2: as I was sitting there waiting on him to and
Speaker 2: he actually he's pretty good about backtracking himself back to
Speaker 2: where he got turnloose. So that's for a year old dog.
Speaker 2: I'm pleased with that trait. But I was thinking about it.
Speaker 2: I was sitting there working on him. I'm like, man,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm pretty aggravated that he didn't. He didn't
Speaker 2: get right. But it was my fault because I turned
Speaker 2: him loose with very little experience on him. It's my
Speaker 2: fault I turned him loose. He took the track and
Speaker 2: went on and I could be mad at him. But
Speaker 2: the thing that I told myself the positive ab out
Speaker 2: of this was I dumped four dogs out them screaming
Speaker 2: out of there. He should have been with them, but
Speaker 2: he had enough mind of his own and enough will
Speaker 2: to continue to do what he thought was right at
Speaker 2: the time, even though it was wrong. So I know
Speaker 2: when I get that dog straightened out and I will
Speaker 2: that he's going to be something I can depend on.
Speaker 2: He's going to be dependable. And I think sometimes we
Speaker 2: get so immersed in the dog doing something he shouldn't
Speaker 2: be doing that we get sidetracked on saying, okay, let's
Speaker 2: look at this dog. You know he took the track.
Speaker 2: Dogs were screaming. So I know when this dog gets
Speaker 2: to trailing, I want him to and the dogs get
Speaker 2: to messing up, or dogs get to barking in the box,
Speaker 2: down down where somebody's park or something, he's gonna keep
Speaker 2: on going. I know that's what he's gonna do. Like
Speaker 2: I already see that trait, and I was okay with that.
Speaker 1: It seems like with a lot of training different critters
Speaker 1: that the real aspect of training and mainly handling, it's
Speaker 1: really an outflow of the handler. A lot of times,
Speaker 1: and it's not as much about the animal and their attributes,
Speaker 1: Like there might be some things that are harder to
Speaker 1: bring back to a point of like center balance, but
Speaker 1: just it seems like awareness is really important of each
Speaker 1: individual hound, you know. And I've heard people talk about
Speaker 1: like that raising their kids, like I have to respond
Speaker 1: this way to this kid, I have to respond this
Speaker 1: way to that kid. I have to get on this
Speaker 1: kid hard, and this kid, I've got to gently point
Speaker 1: them the right way, you know, and not get down
Speaker 1: hard on them. And I've seen that in different dogs
Speaker 1: that I've had not as much of, like for hunting
Speaker 1: and stuff, but just like dogs around the house, it's
Speaker 1: like some it's like you get onto them and you
Speaker 1: can tell that I mean, they've never been beat, but
Speaker 1: they like they have been. It's like they just can't
Speaker 1: take that correction, and uh, you just had I had
Speaker 1: to be softer with them. And you know, I think
Speaker 1: most hunting dogs probably aren't that sensitive, at least the
Speaker 1: ones I've seen haven't been.
Speaker 2: But yeah, and those are probably the ones that're wired
Speaker 2: for sound too.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Look, you know, if you if you look at
Speaker 2: the dog's personality and you know that's that's the doll
Speaker 2: that could care less. I'm just gonna do it. I
Speaker 2: don't care mm hmm.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well this has been good. I think we'll have
Speaker 1: to come up with some more stuff to talk about
Speaker 1: in the future. But uh, I'm looking forward to December.
Speaker 1: I'm really hoping that that everything comes together and I
Speaker 1: can make it up there.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Man, we'll have a good time.
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, I think it'll be. It'll be my first
Speaker 1: time following try dogs.
Speaker 2: Hey, you'll never be the same.
Speaker 1: Well on bear on bear, I've had treeing walkers for
Speaker 1: coons growing up. Yeah, it'll be good.
Speaker 2: Well, I'll say, you know when you talk about like
Speaker 2: the benefits of cross training, and I tell people this
Speaker 2: all the time when I teach classes, like when I'm
Speaker 2: when I'm teaching a cane out of school, Like if
Speaker 2: you look around this room, somebody in here knows something
Speaker 2: you don't, and why would you know? Knowledge is power? Right,
Speaker 2: Like we always say that why would you not take information?
Speaker 2: Did somebody else knows that? You don't put it in
Speaker 2: your toolbox and use it if you need it. If
Speaker 2: you don't need it, just file it away and keep
Speaker 2: it there until you do need it. You know, That's
Speaker 2: the one thing that I've learned from the cross training
Speaker 2: is I am ten times more patient than I ever was.
Speaker 2: I don't get so excited and jacked up in sideways
Speaker 2: when the dog makes a mistake. I don't rush the dog.
Speaker 2: I know dogs go through phases. I know dogs. You
Speaker 2: know I've learned dog's behaviors. I've learned so much more
Speaker 2: about what it means to be a handler and trainer,
Speaker 2: and those two things go together. I tell my canine guys, like,
Speaker 2: when you start a school canine school with me, you're
Speaker 2: a handler, you're not a trainer. Like I'm teaching you
Speaker 2: to handle this dog, and I'm trying to teach you
Speaker 2: how to read this dog's body language and its behavior
Speaker 2: so that you can do your job by interpreting what
Speaker 2: he's telling you. If everything will just slow down in
Speaker 2: your training, in what you're doing, and give the dogs
Speaker 2: a little grace, a lot of times, you're going to
Speaker 2: come out on the better end of that deal. And
Speaker 2: I think you know the pack that I have now,
Speaker 2: that's probably why it is where it is is because
Speaker 2: I have slowed down and I don't get sideways when
Speaker 2: something don't go right, and I know that I'm looking for.
Speaker 2: I'm looking for a long term goal with dogs. I'm
Speaker 2: not looking at what this dog can do tomorrow. I'm
Speaker 2: looking for this dog at four years old to six, seven, eight,
Speaker 2: nine years old to be a dog that catches bear consistently.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I think a lot of times people get short
Speaker 2: sighted on it and not look at the long long term.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, cool. Well I think that's all great. Let's
Speaker 1: call it all right man.
Speaker 2: Well, I really appreciate you having me on COVID. Thank
Speaker 2: you for listening. The Bear Hunting magazine Hunt Cast is
Speaker 2: recorded by a bear hunting magazine and produced.
Speaker 3: By Mountain Gravity Media.
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