May 12, 2025 • 25 mins
Brent’s joined by his colleague Tony Peterson, host of MeatEater’s “Houndations” podcast, for an informative discussion on the overlap of hounds and upland dogs. They exchange tips on what to look for when picking out puppies and working with older dogs. They also share the criteria for judging a dog's ability to learn and how to gauge and assess progression. For two completely different types of hunting dogs and the environments they work in, the similarities are very interesting.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to this country life.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'm your host, Brent Reeves from coon hunting to trot
lining and just general country living. I want you to
stay a while as I share my experiences in life lessons.
This country Life is presented by Case Knives on Meat
Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best outdoor podcast the
airwaves have to offer. All right, friends, grab a chair
(00:29):
or drop that tailgate. I've got some stories to share.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
This Dog Week's special episode is brought to you by Shields.
Head to your local Shields for all your sporting dog needs.
Tony Tony Peterson, Welcome to this country life.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Thanks for having me. I'm buddy man. This is a
new project we got going. Something's been a lot of fun.
Something that you and I both do when we're not
on camera or we're not being recorded all the time,
we're talking about dogs. You got the Houndation's project going.
How's that going?
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Man? Uh?
Speaker 3 (01:11):
It is so much fun because I get to learn
a lot about dogs and I'm really enjoying it.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Well, this is kind of different for for for this
country Life the listeners out there. We're going to do
some video stuff here and Tony and I are going
to be talking about something that's very near and dear
to me, and that is the overlap of hounds and
retrieving dogs, upland birds and coon dogs like we hunt
down South, and there's a lot of overlap there. And
(01:37):
when you and I got to talking about this stuff
earlier when we were in Bozeman, however many months ago,
it was this came up. There's a lot of overlap, right,
tell me, I mean, what are your what is your.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Your views?
Speaker 2 (01:51):
What what is your thoughts on the overlap?
Speaker 1 (01:55):
And how common is it? Really?
Speaker 3 (01:57):
You know, way more common than people would think. And
you know, I'm kind of a retriever guy at heart.
I love all dogs, but I like retrievers, and so
I kind of look through that lens. But when you
start to spend time with people who are running dogs,
like we've been coon hunting, and that is that is
a world that you know, if you look at what
my dogs do in the pheasant field and then you
(02:18):
look at what your hounds are doing in the woods
at night to go tree a coon. On paper, people
be like, that's not the same thing at all. But
when you when you boil dogs down, you kind of
distill it down the foundational level of their performance, you know,
out in the field with whatever we're asking them, and
then at home or on the way to the field
(02:38):
or on the way to the soccer game or whatever,
they're they're just dogs, and so their job is different.
You know, their temperament might be a little bit different,
you know, their their work ethics, discipline, drive, whatever however
you want to look at that, but generally they're not
that much different. And most of what makes a good
dog is sort of ubiquitous across all dogs. And that's
(03:00):
what I love about it, is like, you know, if
you want a dog that's really awesome at whatever pursuit,
hunting ducks or whatever, you've got that upper level stuff
that you got to train them because that's jobs specific,
but dogs specific stuff like good dogs, that's just they're
just good dogs and you kind of get them there
the same way.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
And it starts.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
It all starts from their puppies once, you know, with
I've trained a few labs way back in the day,
back when my brother and I were running a guide service.
So it's been I've been out of that game for
a long time, but I do know this the foundations
of what no pun intended, of what you're working with
starts early, way before you ever hit the woods the
(03:40):
first time I know with like with Whalen. That dog,
that's my coon dog I've had. He sealed be six
years old this year in August. I got him when
he was six months old. And I looked for six
months before I found a dog that I ever went
and looked at phone calls, text messages, searching the internet,
(04:03):
talking to making phone calls to people that man, I
got a friend of a friend, here's his number, call
him and it just nothing ever triggered my desire to
get up and go look at a dog until until
that one. And it was a video that I saw
on Facebook, marketplace of all things. And I've got this
dog that I've had out there now that I for
(04:24):
the last five and a half years, that I wouldn't
trade for anything.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
What did you see on that video? It was.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
I talked, I saw people had sent me pictures, people
sent me videos of dog with It was something about
this one and he was barking at a coon in
a cage.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
A Chihuahwah will do that.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Any kind of dog will bark at a coon in
a cage that doesn't do anything other than it let
me hear what the dog sounded like as a young pup.
But there was something about it that triggered, you know,
I'm gonna go look at him. And when I went
and looked at him, it was have personalities just like people.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Right.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
He was real susceptible to talking to to looking at
me when I was talking to him. And I put
a lot of stock in that to a dog that
will look. If a dog is looking at you when
you're talking to him, he's trying to figure out what
is that you want him to do. Have you found
that to be the same with with upland dogs.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Big time eye contact is huge, you know. And I'm
I'm running dogs that are working close you know. I
mean you're you're running dogs when you train them, when
you live with them, right, that dog's looking you in
the eyes and then it's going off to do its job.
But that is like a fundamental component of your relationship
with them. And so I actually encourage that with as
soon as I get a puppy, I'm working on that dog.
(05:39):
You you look me in the eyes because we're going
to solve problems together our entire life, right, And I
want you to know, you know, because everything that I'm
going to train is going to have a verbal command
and a hand signal with it, because I don't I
don't like to make noise when I'm out there hunting
if I don't have to, So I like a hand
signal for everything. Plus, if they get out and it's
windy and they they're not gonna be able to hear me,
they'll be able to see. You know, I this exaggerated
(06:01):
hand signal. But I'm always working when those pups are
young to make sure that they look me in the
eyes and they know that I'm a source of direction
and they can trust that because I want that throughout
our entire relationship because it's so important. And then you
see that, you know, you know this when that dogs
hits a snag somehow, when you're training something and it's like,
(06:23):
can't get through this drill for whatever reason, you introduce
something new. If you have a dog that's like I'm
gonna look at you, boss, you help me out here,
it's like it's you're having a communication with that dog,
like you're talking to them in a way that's way
more important than you'd think.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Trust is key.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Trust is the first thing that if that dog trust
that you're going to take care of him, that you're
going to look after him, and anything that new comes up.
You know, it is my belief forever that the dog's
inherent desire is to please the person that feeds them,
the person that takes.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Care of them, the alpha in that relationship.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
And I've always thought that if that dog's inherent desires
to do what I want him to do, if he's
not doing what I want him to do, I have
failed in explaining to him how it is.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
And I think you go at that. People go too fast.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
I get calls, and I get a lot of text
messages and emails and social media messages like I've got
this five month old dog, I've got this six month
old dog or eight month old dog.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
How do I get him treating coons like whalen is?
Speaker 2 (07:30):
And man, you know you're talking that's like getting a
toddler to ride a Harley. It is you got to
go slow. And patients has always been the key for
me to get out of a dog what I want
to get out of it, And the patients may be
me figuring out how I've got to communicate with him
(07:51):
to tell him exactly what it is I want him
to do.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
You find that to be absolutely And something you said
there I think is just it's so important is when
you're developing a dog, we're so impatient, you know. And
it's like if you have somebody who's like, why can't
my six month old do what your six year old
can do? That's just insane. It's like when you talk
(08:15):
about your hound dogs and getting to watch them work coons.
I feel the same way when I watch my dog's
work a pheasants, sleugh or something where it's like they
have a certain amount of reps. They have to get
in out there doing that before they can be You
can't get there any other way.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
You can't.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
You can train a dog really well, but if that dog,
if your hound dog doesn't have exposure to raccoons that
know how to get away from them and know how
to play the game and swim across the river and
do all kinds of stuff, they're never going to be
well rounded. Just like if I don't get bird contacts
with my dogs, all the training is great, I might
have a dog at home that's amazing and really well socialized,
(08:54):
handsles itself however, right, but it will never be that
just banging hunting dog unless gets those reps, and like
I look at that, like, you know, if Tiger Woods
came up to me and he showed me how to
swing a golf club, that would be great instruction, right, right,
But it wouldn't change a whole lot until I swung
that golf club fifty million times, you know, under pressure,
(09:17):
you know, in the backyard on the simulator.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Or whatever, like they could do it the correct way, right, No,
because I always say, you know, practice makes perfect, but
that's not correct perfect practice right, perfect.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
Right, And we we look at our dogs. This is
this is the hard part. So you know, people people
ask me about my dogs, you know, like they'll ask
you about your dogs. And I always tell people I
give my dogs like two hard years of training. And
I'm not talking like I work them to death, Like
I want my dogs to love me and work for
me like you're talking about before, Like I don't. I
don't want a dog to work out of fear. I
(09:50):
want it to work out of love.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Right.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
But I still look at it and I go, we're
doing two years of training every day I'm home, and
it might be multiple lessons a day. They might only
be a couple minutes. But it's just that repetitive nature.
And it's like once you start getting into like two
three years old, and they those those false positives go
away and they know what you're asking of them. That's
(10:13):
when you start to move into like, now I'm going
to get you as many reps on woodcock and on
ducks and on grouse and on pheasants and everything that
we can in a variety of different environments. So when
that dog slides into that middle aged prime years, I
can train to kind of keep things sharp, but that
dog knows what it's supposed to do at home and
in the field. And we look at that and go,
(10:35):
you know, if I tell you that, or I tell
somebody that, it's like, oh yeah, two years, no big deal.
It's like, okay, now go do that for two years
because that's what it takes. It's kind of a discipline
thing on our part. But if you do that, then
you have you know, seven, eight, nine, ten years of
a prime dog before they really start to age out,
you know, at least seven or eight years.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Yeah, routine is you know, if trust is first, routine
has got to be coming in there close somewhere.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
A second, A dog.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
That is, if you feed him at the same times
every day, if you work him out at the same
times every day, at the same at the same level,
doing the same things. You know, a good lesson for
a young dog for me is going out. When I
go out, is him coming to me obviously when I
call him? And I'll do that at the beginning with
(11:34):
feed I'm calling her name, his name, whatever when at
feeding time, and I'm letting them eat when.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
You know, when they get there.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
So that's the associating me calling them to them with
something good, which is food. And I'm doing that every day.
And then once I get that down, I'm going to
add another little step into it.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
You know, I'm going.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
To call him from across the yard, or I'm going
to feed him on the tailgate of the truck and
get them to go into the to the kindle or what.
And it's just stacking those lessons up, those routine things
you do every day over a long period of time.
That is what it's going to build. You're building off
that foundation, that trust foundation, and you're praising a dog
(12:14):
when they're doing right, you know, and the praise may
just be a simple pat on the head.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
You know, or a rubbing on the ribs or whatever.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
But you stack all those up on top of each other,
and eventually you've got a dog that you can call to,
you can load him up, and you can go to
the woods. And that's when are the fields, and that's
when you start applying the other stuff. So once you
get that stuff going and he knows he's doing it right,
he knows what or she knows what's what's expected of him.
(12:41):
And when they're doing good, everything's going right. You only
do it once. You don't have any repeats, no do overs.
Then you start adding the extra stuff in there, right,
And that's an overlap obviously between any kind.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Of dog whatever, whatever you're hunting.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
Right, you're talking about fair expectations, So not pushing that
dog too fast or not introducing something that's just you know,
like that that puppy example earlier, or the six month
old dog earlier. One of the things that people screw
up in that stage all the time is they're like,
my dog in the backyard can do this first try
trick every time, right, Like if I ask them to
do this, it's you know, heal is perfect or whatever, right,
(13:18):
And then the minute I try it when we're at
the soccer game and there's people all over, there's somebody
else walking a dog across there some kind of distraction.
Now the dog can't do that. It's like, yeah, that's
not a fair ask yet you haven't trained that dog
to do that around distractions, and so like fair expectations
and then that consistency you talked about, Like, man, you
(13:39):
if you look at any dog I'm talking hunting dogs,
house dogs, whatever, and there's a there's a hole in
their behavior game, almost always it's because it wasn't consistently enforced, right,
And you see this all the time. You know, like
a lot of times it happens the man will be
you know, of the household will train the dog, or
(14:00):
sometimes it's the woman or sometimes it's like the teenager's
dog or whatever. Whoever's kind of leading that dog and
kind of has ownership over it. Whoever else has some
level of control at some point of that dog. If
they don't stick to that whatever the standard is for
that dog, that dog is going to default to the
easier way to do it. And you see this in
the family dynamics a lot. And to be fair, we
(14:22):
do this a lot. Right, If I think that if
you looked at how dogs used to get trained before
we had cell phones and a constant distraction, I'm certain
that we, just as like a in society right now,
are less consistent just because of that. Because you take
that dog out and you're working those bumpers or whatever,
(14:43):
and we have a constant distraction. Those dogs are paying
attention to that stuff. Sure, and the minute that you
slide a little bit, you're asking them to do sort
of an unnatural thing, right, listen to something else, you know.
And the minute that you slip a little bit on
that and you're not consistent with it, that dog is
going to go to the it's going to default to
easy mode level that is that you'll tolerate. And that's
(15:03):
just I know that sounds like militant, like I'm a
like a dictator, but it's not. It's just like it's
a fair to do for the dog. So if you're like,
I want this behavior out of you, I'm gonna hold
myself accountable for like I'm gonna I'm gonna keep you
honest with that. If I don't do that for myself
and you slip, that's not on you the dog. That's
on me as the trainer. Yeah, and we see that.
(15:25):
I mean that is like that happens with dogs all
the time.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Well, I think a lot a lot of it comes
to if you've got the blood lines and you've got
the dog for whatever game that you're after, they're going
to have instilled in them the DNA or genetic code
to retrieve or point or tree all of that. If
you can start with that, you know, I'm not trying
(15:50):
to make a poodle into a coon dog. I'm going
with something that's that is bred for that over the
last one hundred and fifty years.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
So I've more or less got to show them what
I don't want him to do. You know, I don't
want him to chase a deer. I don't want him
to treat a possum.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
I don't want him to go to another dog. I
want an independent dog, you know, and I want I
want to I'm going to show him or more or
less give him the opportunity to do the right things
and then correct what I don't want him to do.
And absolutely with my dog whaling, when I started, he
(16:28):
treated his first one when he was nine months old,
and it was because I just kept giving him opportunity
after opportunity to go out. Sometimes our hunting trips, Tony
wouldn't be it would take me longer to drive. I'll
drive forty minutes to a place. And I turned him
loose and he did everything right. But he walked out
there and he just he didn't know what he was doing.
(16:49):
He hadn't figured out, he hadn't crossed the path of
that cooncent yet to figure out that was what was
interesting to him. But he may have bumped on a
deer and send him a message through a collar, you know,
a distraction, a little stimulus, and he's like, okay that
I didn't like that. That wasn't enjoyable, it wasn't painful.
It broke his concentration. He put his nose back on
(17:12):
his on the.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Ground to go look for something else.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
And when he chased that and it went to fruition,
and I get to the tree and there's a coon
up there. He's getting all the praise and he's like,
holy cow, where did this come from?
Speaker 1 (17:25):
This is good? This is great stimulus.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
I want to keep doing this and eventually, I mean
it doesn't take them long.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
They're going to.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Put that put that puzzle together and know that when
they leave the house and he's got that collar old
and we're traveling, it's getting dark outside.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Oh yeah, I know what I'm supposed to do.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
I mean what you're talking about there, that's, you know,
especially to the sporting dog crowd or the hunting dog crowd,
that's we kind of laser focus on, like what's the mission.
I love to pheasant hunt, so I get a dog
that should kick up pheasants and bring him back to
me when I shoot him. But when you talk about
that coup dog, like you go, you go, get a
specific kind of dog for this specific task. But when
(18:05):
you're taking them out there and when you're training, there's
a million different variables coming into play that are gonna
affect your time out there. So in your head, before
you get that puppy, you're like, I'm gonna I'm gonna
treat a billion coons with this dog and it's gonna
be amazing. But really, when you get out there, it
is that deer that jumps, and the fence and the
dog getting out there too close to the highway and
all of these other things that you're like, oh, this
(18:27):
is that dog wants to tree coons. I just need
to facilitate that and get them the reps that's gonna
that's gonna come because it's in the blood. It's like
my dog's my dog's from the jump, love pheasant wings
and duck wings, and like theyre they want to go
out and do that all the time. What I gotta
worry about is if we run into a porcupine up
in the big woods, can I recall that dog? If
(18:49):
that dog takes off after a rabbit out there, you know,
jack rabbit, when we're out somewhere hunting, can I call
that dog back? Like all of this extra stuff that
we sort of forget about is probably equally as important
as like that mission specific training, where like I want
you to be a dog that can be steadying the
duck line, take a perfect line, follow the hand signals.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
All that stuff's super important.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
But all the other stuff of like, okay, that duck
got so far out and it's diving and now we're
in two foot rollers and it's thirty five degrees out.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
You got to come.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
Back or whatever, Like all of that extra stuff is
just as important and we sort of forget it. But man,
it's just a part of the whole thing.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Yeah, it is, and it's a journey. It's a journey
for It's been a journey for me.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
I mean, a.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
Lifelong hound hunter from when I was just a little kid.
But it has been a journey with me of this
dog and watching the progression. I get the most enjoyment
out of watching the light bulb go off over their
head when they figure out what their purpose in life is.
Along with being a member of our family. It is
(19:56):
just an added bonus that he's a good hunting dog
or flushing dog or pointing dog. Either way, it's a
dual purpose thing that fills a big hole in everybody's life.
But it's hard, it's not easy. It takes time. It
doesn't take a lot of time, but it takes a
commitment every day, every day. There's no facet of having
(20:19):
hunting dogs that I don't enjoy.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
I enjoy getting up and going and feeding them in
the morning.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
I enjoy doing everything with them, spending time with them.
It is, but it's a commitment, you know, and I
get I see, you know, dogs.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
For sale all the time. You know, I just I
got him.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
He's a year old and I hadn't had a chance
to hunt him, right, You know and I but it's
somebody that wont that likes to hunt, but maybe their
job too much of a commitment and that they can't
spend the time necessary to train a dog. My advice
is always, look, they're started dogs everywhere. There's people that
make a living getting dogs started and going in that direction.
(21:02):
And I know there's upland dogs like that too, oh
for sure. Because you know, if you don't, if that's
not interest you, if you're impatient, if if you've got
any impatience whatsoever, the way to go is not with
a puppy, because not every puppy it's gonna make it right.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
You know.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
I got my friend Michael Roseman that I hunt with
all the time. He calls me the luckiest guy that
ever lived. Because when I brought that dog home, when
I brought whaling home, my wife Alexis and my daughter Bailey,
they were like, oh, he's here to stay, and I'm like, Jesus,
please let this dog tree a coon, otherwise I'm just
(21:40):
gonna be feeding him. Turns out he turned into a
pretty good coon dog. My advice would be to put
your keep your dog pen a long ways from the house,
so the so the wife and kids can't see him.
But people that are not committed to that or don't
get lucky like I did, then you've got a dog
that you've got to you know, you got to sell
(22:00):
somebody else, because you know, one man's trash is another
man's treasure. Somebody else can do something with that dog.
But my advice is always been I'm sure yours would
be too. To look after a dog that's been started somewhere.
It may be a little bigger investment, but it may
be a little cheaper in the long run.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Right well.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
And I mean, you know, if you want to, if
you want a dog where the odds are pretty good,
it's going to do what you want. That's all about
the bloodline, yeah, you know, And I mean you really
have to pay attention to that because you know, I'm
pretty good buddies with Tom Doc and the dog trainer,
and he's I remember when I went through two dogs ago.
I can't remember exactly how it came up, but he
(22:39):
was looking for a for a pup for me and
we were going to go look at a litter and
I had two year and a half old daughters at
home and my wife, and he said, listen, don't go
look at a litter till I find the litter that
you need to look at, because he's like, if you
go look at a litter of lab puppies, you're getting
a lab puppy. And he's like, it might not be
(23:01):
the dog you need. And you see that a lot.
You know, people get a little impulsive about it. You
talked about taking six months to find Whalen. I go
through a pretty good process to get my puppies because
I don't want, you know, when that dog comes into
my house with my kids and everything, like, that dog's
that's my dog's that's whatever I'm going to work with,
and so it's it is an important part of it,
(23:22):
but it's also just you just want to start working
with you know what you need to get the most
out of that dog. And you know, you said something
he talked a little bit about like how you you
love the aspect of every aspect of owning your coon dogs.
And I think that that's like, I think that's an
important thing to acknowledge. We look at them and go,
(23:42):
I want this dog because I love dogs. I want
this dog because I want to kill limited roosters every
day from October to December or whatever. But it's like
you have that dog three hundred and sixty five days
a year, and that dog needs you to do what
it wants to do, right, Like it wants to work,
it wants to like learn, it wants to do those things.
And if you embrace that part of it, that year
(24:02):
round things like, that's that's like the best part. You know,
the hunting is awesome, right, but just watching a dog
develop and figuring out how to work with it and
doing some you know, doing some drills or something that
you're like, I never thought a dog could do this,
or I never thought I would be able to train
a dog up to this level. That long game stuff
with it is what makes it so special. That's that's
(24:22):
when you get those dogs that you're like, yeah, you
want to brag to your buddies that they always treat
the coon or they always get the limited roosters, But
really it's for you and for that dog to have
that life together. That's just it's just at a different level.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
It is, for sure, and it's so rewarding. It's such
a pleasure.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
I get, I promise you I get more out of
watching that dog hunt and treat coons than probably he does,
and he acts like he really likes it.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
He seems to like it.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Yeah, he does for sure, Tony. I appreciate you being here. Man.
This is something new that me started.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
We're gonna have some other stuff on your feet, and
I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes. And come back.
Maybe now that you've been down here, Kona and I
can come up there and we.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Can we can do something up north. Yeah, you should
come up.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
You might fall through the ice, but it'll be it
won't be that deep, buddy.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
Okay, I'll go.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
I appreciate all right, thanks brother, Okay,
Welcome to this country life.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'm your host, Brent Reeves from coon hunting to trot
lining and just general country living. I want you to
stay a while as I share my experiences in life lessons.
This country Life is presented by Case Knives on Meat
Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best outdoor podcast the
airwaves have to offer. All right, friends, grab a chair
(00:29):
or drop that tailgate. I've got some stories to share.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
This Dog Week's special episode is brought to you by Shields.
Head to your local Shields for all your sporting dog needs.
Tony Tony Peterson, Welcome to this country life.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Thanks for having me. I'm buddy man. This is a
new project we got going. Something's been a lot of fun.
Something that you and I both do when we're not
on camera or we're not being recorded all the time,
we're talking about dogs. You got the Houndation's project going.
How's that going?
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Man? Uh?
Speaker 3 (01:11):
It is so much fun because I get to learn
a lot about dogs and I'm really enjoying it.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Well, this is kind of different for for for this
country Life the listeners out there. We're going to do
some video stuff here and Tony and I are going
to be talking about something that's very near and dear
to me, and that is the overlap of hounds and
retrieving dogs, upland birds and coon dogs like we hunt
down South, and there's a lot of overlap there. And
(01:37):
when you and I got to talking about this stuff
earlier when we were in Bozeman, however many months ago,
it was this came up. There's a lot of overlap, right,
tell me, I mean, what are your what is your.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Your views?
Speaker 2 (01:51):
What what is your thoughts on the overlap?
Speaker 1 (01:55):
And how common is it? Really?
Speaker 3 (01:57):
You know, way more common than people would think. And
you know, I'm kind of a retriever guy at heart.
I love all dogs, but I like retrievers, and so
I kind of look through that lens. But when you
start to spend time with people who are running dogs,
like we've been coon hunting, and that is that is
a world that you know, if you look at what
my dogs do in the pheasant field and then you
(02:18):
look at what your hounds are doing in the woods
at night to go tree a coon. On paper, people
be like, that's not the same thing at all. But
when you when you boil dogs down, you kind of
distill it down the foundational level of their performance, you know,
out in the field with whatever we're asking them, and
then at home or on the way to the field
(02:38):
or on the way to the soccer game or whatever,
they're they're just dogs, and so their job is different.
You know, their temperament might be a little bit different,
you know, their their work ethics, discipline, drive, whatever however
you want to look at that, but generally they're not
that much different. And most of what makes a good
dog is sort of ubiquitous across all dogs. And that's
(03:00):
what I love about it, is like, you know, if
you want a dog that's really awesome at whatever pursuit,
hunting ducks or whatever, you've got that upper level stuff
that you got to train them because that's jobs specific,
but dogs specific stuff like good dogs, that's just they're
just good dogs and you kind of get them there
the same way.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
And it starts.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
It all starts from their puppies once, you know, with
I've trained a few labs way back in the day,
back when my brother and I were running a guide service.
So it's been I've been out of that game for
a long time, but I do know this the foundations
of what no pun intended, of what you're working with
starts early, way before you ever hit the woods the
(03:40):
first time I know with like with Whalen. That dog,
that's my coon dog I've had. He sealed be six
years old this year in August. I got him when
he was six months old. And I looked for six
months before I found a dog that I ever went
and looked at phone calls, text messages, searching the internet,
(04:03):
talking to making phone calls to people that man, I
got a friend of a friend, here's his number, call
him and it just nothing ever triggered my desire to
get up and go look at a dog until until
that one. And it was a video that I saw
on Facebook, marketplace of all things. And I've got this
dog that I've had out there now that I for
(04:24):
the last five and a half years, that I wouldn't
trade for anything.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
What did you see on that video? It was.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
I talked, I saw people had sent me pictures, people
sent me videos of dog with It was something about
this one and he was barking at a coon in
a cage.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
A Chihuahwah will do that.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Any kind of dog will bark at a coon in
a cage that doesn't do anything other than it let
me hear what the dog sounded like as a young pup.
But there was something about it that triggered, you know,
I'm gonna go look at him. And when I went
and looked at him, it was have personalities just like people.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Right.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
He was real susceptible to talking to to looking at
me when I was talking to him. And I put
a lot of stock in that to a dog that
will look. If a dog is looking at you when
you're talking to him, he's trying to figure out what
is that you want him to do. Have you found
that to be the same with with upland dogs.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Big time eye contact is huge, you know. And I'm
I'm running dogs that are working close you know. I
mean you're you're running dogs when you train them, when
you live with them, right, that dog's looking you in
the eyes and then it's going off to do its job.
But that is like a fundamental component of your relationship
with them. And so I actually encourage that with as
soon as I get a puppy, I'm working on that dog.
(05:39):
You you look me in the eyes because we're going
to solve problems together our entire life, right, And I
want you to know, you know, because everything that I'm
going to train is going to have a verbal command
and a hand signal with it, because I don't I
don't like to make noise when I'm out there hunting
if I don't have to, So I like a hand
signal for everything. Plus, if they get out and it's
windy and they they're not gonna be able to hear me,
they'll be able to see. You know, I this exaggerated
(06:01):
hand signal. But I'm always working when those pups are
young to make sure that they look me in the
eyes and they know that I'm a source of direction
and they can trust that because I want that throughout
our entire relationship because it's so important. And then you
see that, you know, you know this when that dogs
hits a snag somehow, when you're training something and it's like,
(06:23):
can't get through this drill for whatever reason, you introduce
something new. If you have a dog that's like I'm
gonna look at you, boss, you help me out here,
it's like it's you're having a communication with that dog,
like you're talking to them in a way that's way
more important than you'd think.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Trust is key.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Trust is the first thing that if that dog trust
that you're going to take care of him, that you're
going to look after him, and anything that new comes up.
You know, it is my belief forever that the dog's
inherent desire is to please the person that feeds them,
the person that takes.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Care of them, the alpha in that relationship.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
And I've always thought that if that dog's inherent desires
to do what I want him to do, if he's
not doing what I want him to do, I have
failed in explaining to him how it is.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
And I think you go at that. People go too fast.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
I get calls, and I get a lot of text
messages and emails and social media messages like I've got
this five month old dog, I've got this six month
old dog or eight month old dog.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
How do I get him treating coons like whalen is?
Speaker 2 (07:30):
And man, you know you're talking that's like getting a
toddler to ride a Harley. It is you got to
go slow. And patients has always been the key for
me to get out of a dog what I want
to get out of it, And the patients may be
me figuring out how I've got to communicate with him
(07:51):
to tell him exactly what it is I want him
to do.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
You find that to be absolutely And something you said
there I think is just it's so important is when
you're developing a dog, we're so impatient, you know. And
it's like if you have somebody who's like, why can't
my six month old do what your six year old
can do? That's just insane. It's like when you talk
(08:15):
about your hound dogs and getting to watch them work coons.
I feel the same way when I watch my dog's
work a pheasants, sleugh or something where it's like they
have a certain amount of reps. They have to get
in out there doing that before they can be You
can't get there any other way.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
You can't.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
You can train a dog really well, but if that dog,
if your hound dog doesn't have exposure to raccoons that
know how to get away from them and know how
to play the game and swim across the river and
do all kinds of stuff, they're never going to be
well rounded. Just like if I don't get bird contacts
with my dogs, all the training is great, I might
have a dog at home that's amazing and really well socialized,
(08:54):
handsles itself however, right, but it will never be that
just banging hunting dog unless gets those reps, and like
I look at that, like, you know, if Tiger Woods
came up to me and he showed me how to
swing a golf club, that would be great instruction, right, right,
But it wouldn't change a whole lot until I swung
that golf club fifty million times, you know, under pressure,
(09:17):
you know, in the backyard on the simulator.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Or whatever, like they could do it the correct way, right, No,
because I always say, you know, practice makes perfect, but
that's not correct perfect practice right, perfect.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
Right, And we we look at our dogs. This is
this is the hard part. So you know, people people
ask me about my dogs, you know, like they'll ask
you about your dogs. And I always tell people I
give my dogs like two hard years of training. And
I'm not talking like I work them to death, Like
I want my dogs to love me and work for
me like you're talking about before, Like I don't. I
don't want a dog to work out of fear. I
(09:50):
want it to work out of love.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Right.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
But I still look at it and I go, we're
doing two years of training every day I'm home, and
it might be multiple lessons a day. They might only
be a couple minutes. But it's just that repetitive nature.
And it's like once you start getting into like two
three years old, and they those those false positives go
away and they know what you're asking of them. That's
(10:13):
when you start to move into like, now I'm going
to get you as many reps on woodcock and on
ducks and on grouse and on pheasants and everything that
we can in a variety of different environments. So when
that dog slides into that middle aged prime years, I
can train to kind of keep things sharp, but that
dog knows what it's supposed to do at home and
in the field. And we look at that and go,
(10:35):
you know, if I tell you that, or I tell
somebody that, it's like, oh yeah, two years, no big deal.
It's like, okay, now go do that for two years
because that's what it takes. It's kind of a discipline
thing on our part. But if you do that, then
you have you know, seven, eight, nine, ten years of
a prime dog before they really start to age out,
you know, at least seven or eight years.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Yeah, routine is you know, if trust is first, routine
has got to be coming in there close somewhere.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
A second, A dog.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
That is, if you feed him at the same times
every day, if you work him out at the same
times every day, at the same at the same level,
doing the same things. You know, a good lesson for
a young dog for me is going out. When I
go out, is him coming to me obviously when I
call him? And I'll do that at the beginning with
(11:34):
feed I'm calling her name, his name, whatever when at
feeding time, and I'm letting them eat when.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
You know, when they get there.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
So that's the associating me calling them to them with
something good, which is food. And I'm doing that every day.
And then once I get that down, I'm going to
add another little step into it.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
You know, I'm going.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
To call him from across the yard, or I'm going
to feed him on the tailgate of the truck and
get them to go into the to the kindle or what.
And it's just stacking those lessons up, those routine things
you do every day over a long period of time.
That is what it's going to build. You're building off
that foundation, that trust foundation, and you're praising a dog
(12:14):
when they're doing right, you know, and the praise may
just be a simple pat on the head.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
You know, or a rubbing on the ribs or whatever.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
But you stack all those up on top of each other,
and eventually you've got a dog that you can call to,
you can load him up, and you can go to
the woods. And that's when are the fields, and that's
when you start applying the other stuff. So once you
get that stuff going and he knows he's doing it right,
he knows what or she knows what's what's expected of him.
(12:41):
And when they're doing good, everything's going right. You only
do it once. You don't have any repeats, no do overs.
Then you start adding the extra stuff in there, right,
And that's an overlap obviously between any kind.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Of dog whatever, whatever you're hunting.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
Right, you're talking about fair expectations, So not pushing that
dog too fast or not introducing something that's just you know,
like that that puppy example earlier, or the six month
old dog earlier. One of the things that people screw
up in that stage all the time is they're like,
my dog in the backyard can do this first try
trick every time, right, Like if I ask them to
do this, it's you know, heal is perfect or whatever, right,
(13:18):
And then the minute I try it when we're at
the soccer game and there's people all over, there's somebody
else walking a dog across there some kind of distraction.
Now the dog can't do that. It's like, yeah, that's
not a fair ask yet you haven't trained that dog
to do that around distractions, and so like fair expectations
and then that consistency you talked about, Like, man, you
(13:39):
if you look at any dog I'm talking hunting dogs,
house dogs, whatever, and there's a there's a hole in
their behavior game, almost always it's because it wasn't consistently enforced, right,
And you see this all the time. You know, like
a lot of times it happens the man will be
you know, of the household will train the dog, or
(14:00):
sometimes it's the woman or sometimes it's like the teenager's
dog or whatever. Whoever's kind of leading that dog and
kind of has ownership over it. Whoever else has some
level of control at some point of that dog. If
they don't stick to that whatever the standard is for
that dog, that dog is going to default to the
easier way to do it. And you see this in
the family dynamics a lot. And to be fair, we
(14:22):
do this a lot. Right, If I think that if
you looked at how dogs used to get trained before
we had cell phones and a constant distraction, I'm certain
that we, just as like a in society right now,
are less consistent just because of that. Because you take
that dog out and you're working those bumpers or whatever,
(14:43):
and we have a constant distraction. Those dogs are paying
attention to that stuff. Sure, and the minute that you
slide a little bit, you're asking them to do sort
of an unnatural thing, right, listen to something else, you know.
And the minute that you slip a little bit on
that and you're not consistent with it, that dog is
going to go to the it's going to default to
easy mode level that is that you'll tolerate. And that's
(15:03):
just I know that sounds like militant, like I'm a
like a dictator, but it's not. It's just like it's
a fair to do for the dog. So if you're like,
I want this behavior out of you, I'm gonna hold
myself accountable for like I'm gonna I'm gonna keep you
honest with that. If I don't do that for myself
and you slip, that's not on you the dog. That's
on me as the trainer. Yeah, and we see that.
(15:25):
I mean that is like that happens with dogs all
the time.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Well, I think a lot a lot of it comes
to if you've got the blood lines and you've got
the dog for whatever game that you're after, they're going
to have instilled in them the DNA or genetic code
to retrieve or point or tree all of that. If
you can start with that, you know, I'm not trying
(15:50):
to make a poodle into a coon dog. I'm going
with something that's that is bred for that over the
last one hundred and fifty years.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
So I've more or less got to show them what
I don't want him to do. You know, I don't
want him to chase a deer. I don't want him
to treat a possum.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
I don't want him to go to another dog. I
want an independent dog, you know, and I want I
want to I'm going to show him or more or
less give him the opportunity to do the right things
and then correct what I don't want him to do.
And absolutely with my dog whaling, when I started, he
(16:28):
treated his first one when he was nine months old,
and it was because I just kept giving him opportunity
after opportunity to go out. Sometimes our hunting trips, Tony
wouldn't be it would take me longer to drive. I'll
drive forty minutes to a place. And I turned him
loose and he did everything right. But he walked out
there and he just he didn't know what he was doing.
(16:49):
He hadn't figured out, he hadn't crossed the path of
that cooncent yet to figure out that was what was
interesting to him. But he may have bumped on a
deer and send him a message through a collar, you know,
a distraction, a little stimulus, and he's like, okay that
I didn't like that. That wasn't enjoyable, it wasn't painful.
It broke his concentration. He put his nose back on
(17:12):
his on the.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Ground to go look for something else.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
And when he chased that and it went to fruition,
and I get to the tree and there's a coon
up there. He's getting all the praise and he's like,
holy cow, where did this come from?
Speaker 1 (17:25):
This is good? This is great stimulus.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
I want to keep doing this and eventually, I mean
it doesn't take them long.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
They're going to.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Put that put that puzzle together and know that when
they leave the house and he's got that collar old
and we're traveling, it's getting dark outside.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Oh yeah, I know what I'm supposed to do.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
I mean what you're talking about there, that's, you know,
especially to the sporting dog crowd or the hunting dog crowd,
that's we kind of laser focus on, like what's the mission.
I love to pheasant hunt, so I get a dog
that should kick up pheasants and bring him back to
me when I shoot him. But when you talk about
that coup dog, like you go, you go, get a
specific kind of dog for this specific task. But when
(18:05):
you're taking them out there and when you're training, there's
a million different variables coming into play that are gonna
affect your time out there. So in your head, before
you get that puppy, you're like, I'm gonna I'm gonna
treat a billion coons with this dog and it's gonna
be amazing. But really, when you get out there, it
is that deer that jumps, and the fence and the
dog getting out there too close to the highway and
all of these other things that you're like, oh, this
(18:27):
is that dog wants to tree coons. I just need
to facilitate that and get them the reps that's gonna
that's gonna come because it's in the blood. It's like
my dog's my dog's from the jump, love pheasant wings
and duck wings, and like theyre they want to go
out and do that all the time. What I gotta
worry about is if we run into a porcupine up
in the big woods, can I recall that dog? If
(18:49):
that dog takes off after a rabbit out there, you know,
jack rabbit, when we're out somewhere hunting, can I call
that dog back? Like all of this extra stuff that
we sort of forget about is probably equally as important
as like that mission specific training, where like I want
you to be a dog that can be steadying the
duck line, take a perfect line, follow the hand signals.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
All that stuff's super important.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
But all the other stuff of like, okay, that duck
got so far out and it's diving and now we're
in two foot rollers and it's thirty five degrees out.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
You got to come.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
Back or whatever, Like all of that extra stuff is
just as important and we sort of forget it. But man,
it's just a part of the whole thing.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Yeah, it is, and it's a journey. It's a journey
for It's been a journey for me.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
I mean, a.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
Lifelong hound hunter from when I was just a little kid.
But it has been a journey with me of this
dog and watching the progression. I get the most enjoyment
out of watching the light bulb go off over their
head when they figure out what their purpose in life is.
Along with being a member of our family. It is
(19:56):
just an added bonus that he's a good hunting dog
or flushing dog or pointing dog. Either way, it's a
dual purpose thing that fills a big hole in everybody's life.
But it's hard, it's not easy. It takes time. It
doesn't take a lot of time, but it takes a
commitment every day, every day. There's no facet of having
(20:19):
hunting dogs that I don't enjoy.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
I enjoy getting up and going and feeding them in
the morning.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
I enjoy doing everything with them, spending time with them.
It is, but it's a commitment, you know, and I
get I see, you know, dogs.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
For sale all the time. You know, I just I
got him.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
He's a year old and I hadn't had a chance
to hunt him, right, You know and I but it's
somebody that wont that likes to hunt, but maybe their
job too much of a commitment and that they can't
spend the time necessary to train a dog. My advice
is always, look, they're started dogs everywhere. There's people that
make a living getting dogs started and going in that direction.
(21:02):
And I know there's upland dogs like that too, oh
for sure. Because you know, if you don't, if that's
not interest you, if you're impatient, if if you've got
any impatience whatsoever, the way to go is not with
a puppy, because not every puppy it's gonna make it right.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
You know.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
I got my friend Michael Roseman that I hunt with
all the time. He calls me the luckiest guy that
ever lived. Because when I brought that dog home, when
I brought whaling home, my wife Alexis and my daughter Bailey,
they were like, oh, he's here to stay, and I'm like, Jesus,
please let this dog tree a coon, otherwise I'm just
(21:40):
gonna be feeding him. Turns out he turned into a
pretty good coon dog. My advice would be to put
your keep your dog pen a long ways from the house,
so the so the wife and kids can't see him.
But people that are not committed to that or don't
get lucky like I did, then you've got a dog
that you've got to you know, you got to sell
(22:00):
somebody else, because you know, one man's trash is another
man's treasure. Somebody else can do something with that dog.
But my advice is always been I'm sure yours would
be too. To look after a dog that's been started somewhere.
It may be a little bigger investment, but it may
be a little cheaper in the long run.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Right well.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
And I mean, you know, if you want to, if
you want a dog where the odds are pretty good,
it's going to do what you want. That's all about
the bloodline, yeah, you know, And I mean you really
have to pay attention to that because you know, I'm
pretty good buddies with Tom Doc and the dog trainer,
and he's I remember when I went through two dogs ago.
I can't remember exactly how it came up, but he
(22:39):
was looking for a for a pup for me and
we were going to go look at a litter and
I had two year and a half old daughters at
home and my wife, and he said, listen, don't go
look at a litter till I find the litter that
you need to look at, because he's like, if you
go look at a litter of lab puppies, you're getting
a lab puppy. And he's like, it might not be
(23:01):
the dog you need. And you see that a lot.
You know, people get a little impulsive about it. You
talked about taking six months to find Whalen. I go
through a pretty good process to get my puppies because
I don't want, you know, when that dog comes into
my house with my kids and everything, like, that dog's
that's my dog's that's whatever I'm going to work with,
and so it's it is an important part of it,
(23:22):
but it's also just you just want to start working
with you know what you need to get the most
out of that dog. And you know, you said something
he talked a little bit about like how you you
love the aspect of every aspect of owning your coon dogs.
And I think that that's like, I think that's an
important thing to acknowledge. We look at them and go,
(23:42):
I want this dog because I love dogs. I want
this dog because I want to kill limited roosters every
day from October to December or whatever. But it's like
you have that dog three hundred and sixty five days
a year, and that dog needs you to do what
it wants to do, right, Like it wants to work,
it wants to like learn, it wants to do those things.
And if you embrace that part of it, that year
(24:02):
round things like, that's that's like the best part. You know,
the hunting is awesome, right, but just watching a dog
develop and figuring out how to work with it and
doing some you know, doing some drills or something that
you're like, I never thought a dog could do this,
or I never thought I would be able to train
a dog up to this level. That long game stuff
with it is what makes it so special. That's that's
(24:22):
when you get those dogs that you're like, yeah, you
want to brag to your buddies that they always treat
the coon or they always get the limited roosters, But
really it's for you and for that dog to have
that life together. That's just it's just at a different level.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
It is, for sure, and it's so rewarding. It's such
a pleasure.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
I get, I promise you I get more out of
watching that dog hunt and treat coons than probably he does,
and he acts like he really likes it.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
He seems to like it.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Yeah, he does for sure, Tony. I appreciate you being here. Man.
This is something new that me started.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
We're gonna have some other stuff on your feet, and
I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes. And come back.
Maybe now that you've been down here, Kona and I
can come up there and we.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Can we can do something up north. Yeah, you should
come up.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
You might fall through the ice, but it'll be it
won't be that deep, buddy.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
Okay, I'll go.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
I appreciate all right, thanks brother, Okay,
Host
Clay Newcomb
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