October 18, 2025 • 38 mins
Mike Stewart, owner of Wildrose Kennels, hops on the DU Podcast to discuss common corrections for your retriever with host Chris Jennings. Stewart explains that there are several very common mistakes retrievers begin to make after a long duck season and that the spring and summer is the best time to correct these mistakes.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
VO (01:44):
Welcome to the Ducks Unlimited podcast, Reloaded. We
bring you the best of our pastepisodes. Whether you're a
seasoned waterfowler or curiousabout conservation, this series
is for you. Over the years,we've had incredible guests and
discussions about everythingfrom wetland conservation to the
latest waterfowl research andhunting strategies. In Reloaded,
(02:04):
we're revisiting thoseconversations to keep the
passion alive and the missionstrong.
So sit back, relax, and enjoythis reload.
Chris Jennings (02:16):
Joining me today on the show is owner and
operator of Wild Rose Kennels,Mike Stewart. Mike, welcome back
to the DU podcast.
Mike Stewart (02:23):
Great to be here. Thanks for having me.
Chris Jennings (02:25):
Alright. Now in with this show, we wanted to
kinda kick off our, you know,retriever training conversations
with something that is thatwe've talked about before you
and I have, but it's these arethe most common corrections that
retriever trainers have to makewith their dogs following duck
season. The bad habits that canbe learned during duck season
(02:50):
need to be corrected at thistime of year. You know, when
you're not in season now, you'refully focused on training. And
we've got several of these thatwe can list through, but but
these are really the most commonones.
And the first one, Mike, issteadiness. And we basically, on
the shot or breaking on livebirds. This is a a terribly bad
(03:14):
habit. It's unsafe, you know,for everyone involved. And and
and, you know, and it is anissue.
You know, I hunt with people whohave dogs who break, you know,
throughout the season, andsometimes it just gets worse and
worse and worse. Now's the timeto fix it. How are you going to
approach or how are you going toexplain to a dog owner how they
should approach fixingsteadiness during the off
(03:35):
season.
Mike Stewart (03:35):
First, I just wanna touch on a mindset.
Everybody's always down thistime of year. Hunting season is
closed. No more game. It's along time till the fall.
Actually, you're in preseasontraining. It's it's the start of
the season. So there's a lot ofthings to work on. I would call
them refinements to get the dogback into shape pre preseason.
(03:57):
So we're really in the preseasontraining, not post.
So that's really a mindset, andsteadiness is one of them. What
happens during the season a lot,especially if you have a really
good season, the dog gets a lotof independent action. The birds
are going down. He's we swim thedogs too fast. There's not a lot
of opportunity to study the dog.
It's about game recovery, notloo wanting to lose a bird.
(04:20):
Waterfowling, you see it quite abit. Three birds down. You gotta
pick them fast. Wind's blowing.
You don't have a lot of time toto to offer denials and delays
in your retrieves. Pheasanthunting on wild pheasants, you
pop that bird and that you seethose legs go down, and those
birds will run. They hit theground running. And if you don't
put your dog on the bird fast,you're liable to lose it. And,
(04:41):
of course, that's whatretrievers job is, is game
recovery.
So I realized we send the dogsfar too fast, and now we found a
situation that they're basicallyyou pull the trigger, the dog's
gone, or even snap the safetyoff, and the dog's gone. You
know, they're downrange, readyto make that game recover. So we
have to go back and refine that.So the question is how? We have
(05:03):
the three d's of steadiness.
Deny, delay, and diversions. Sowe're gonna practice all those
this postseason, preseason tuneups. We're gonna get offer a lot
of denials. We're gonna walkalong, throw bumpers. Nope.
No. It didn't get that. Walk outand pick it up and sell. We'll
do some short bird, long birdretrieves. We'll put out a
(05:25):
memory, for instance, droppingin the grass across the water,
go back, get on the other sideof the pond, throw a short one
in the water, and send them tothe lawn.
And then we don't want them tohave this short one. You can
either walk around the lake andpick it from the other side or
allow another dog to do it,which is called honoring. So not
every bird is theirs. Everybumper down this this spring and
summer is not the dogs. You'regonna offer a lot of denials.
(05:49):
A delay is we're using ourmemory retrieves versus marks to
build in delays. We placeseveral bumpers out, for
instance, and create a timedelay before it before we send
the dog box. We might put two tothree bumpers out in a circle
memory, circle back around, thebumpers are in cover or wood
(06:09):
line, maybe the edge of a watersource, and then we delay. We
sit there, wait, let the dog getextremely calm, and then we pick
the oldest bird to the newestbird. The shortest bird is the
one that we're gonna deny.
The longest bird is the one wewant. Those are the ones that
are likely gonna need to berecovered first. So we work on
that in our training is notsending a dog quite so fast as
(06:32):
that you would maybe practice inMarch. You fire the launcher and
immediately send them. Runmemories.
Place them. Build some time inbetween you putting the bumper
out or the cold game out, andyou're actually releasing the
dog for that recovery. So thatis a delay. Diversions, you have
a short bird, long birdroutines. The short birds, you
(06:55):
pick them up yourself.
The dog is coming back from aretrieve, we fire another
launcher or toss a bird, youdeny that one. You either go get
it yourself, allow another dogpick the bird up. So the short
bird, long bird, and delayedroutines will really put that
steadiness back in your dogpreseason.
Chris Jennings (07:12):
Yeah. And then you kinda touched on it, but I
was just getting ready to ask.So, you know, we've discussed
honoring, you know, where you'resending another dog. But, you
know, I was just sitting therethinking while you were talking
is is how do you teach honoringif you don't have another dog?
But I guess, like you said, youtake it upon yourself.
(07:33):
You go and get that bumperyourself so that the dog still,
you know, has that that mindset.Is am I correct? And that's kind
of what you explained.
Mike Stewart (07:41):
Right. You know, we we wanna work on honoring.
We're gonna find a a buddy tocome over and train sort of the
similar to we do that we do, andwe're gonna work together during
the summer, spring, summermonths. And what you wanna work
on is double dog. I really likethis routine.
I'll explain this one first. Youput a couple bumpers out, and
you send the first dog. When thefirst dog picks and is on his
way back, send the second dog.You need these dogs working
(08:04):
independently. And so these dogsare honoring each other.
Now if we put out a denial, forinstance, and we don't want the
dog to have it, there's only twoways to pick that up. Well,
three ways. One is you haveanother dog pick it up, but you
don't have another Okay? Thesecond way to do is you walk out
and get it yourself. Throw it inshallow water that can make the
splash, or you could you couldwalk out and get the if it's on
(08:26):
the ground, that's not a problemat all.
Walk out and get it yourself.The other routine we'll do as
we're alone is I was and I traina lot alone in Colorado. I'm I'm
by myself as the only trainerout there. I'll set up a memory
across the river on the on thewater, and I'll pick up a rock,
have it in my pocket, not in mypocket, but my game bag. And I
make a circle around.
(08:47):
The dog remembers that thatbumper across the river. I'll
send the dog, and then I'llthrow the the rock. And it makes
a big splash, but there'snothing to retrieve. And handle
them all fast, and that isnothing for you to go back and
get. Or the third way you coulddo it is you could toss the
bumper in the water, use yourshort bird, send for the long
bird, the dog recovers the longbird, returns.
(09:09):
Simply walk around the lake tothe other side and pick your
diversion, your originaldiversion, becomes a circle
memory. So you built a timedelay in. So, basically, you're
you're doing a delay now andjust pick it up that way.
Chris Jennings (09:22):
Yeah. No. That's a great way to do it. And and
you talked about that as beingsomething, you know, one of the
common mistakes or common issuesthat dogs come up with during
duck season is honoring. And canyou kind of explain that, like,
how that bad habit is created?
And then also how, you know,using these tactics to fix that
(09:44):
bad habit.
Mike Stewart (09:45):
When we talk about honoring, we mean that the dog
will sit steady and quiet andhonor the retrieve of another
dog. Now what does that entail?There is no scuffling over the
bird. There's no chasing theother dog. There's no whining or
barking or making any squeakingnoises while the other dog
retrieves.
That's honoring. So we'll definewhat it is first. So off season,
(10:06):
one of the things we don't wannado is let the dog we have a
couple of dogs who have themplaying together or going to the
dog park chasing each other forexercise. Well, that's not
reinforcing what we're lookingfor. So by practicing our
arming, you got your body comesover, and one dog gets a
retrieve.
When he recovers back, the otherone gets a retrieve. And you
need to remember that dogs workfor they work for reward. What
(10:30):
is the reward? Well, the rewardfor a retriever is they get to
retrieve something. So rememberto reinforce and put a value on
the steadiness.
So if your dog sits reallysteady while another dog makes a
retrieve on a hunt or intraining, reach out and pet the
dog. Good boy. Good boy. Reallyreward that dog that that's
valuable. Put a put a put avalue on that steadiness, that
(10:52):
quad, man.
Chris Jennings (10:53):
Yeah. That's good. And, you know, and this
kinda leads into the the thenext issue that that needs to be
fixed sometimes, self hunts. Andthis is basically when the dog
you know, a lot of times duringduck season, you know, dogs have
really gotten accustomed, youknow, lots of retrieves. They're
they're they feel comfortable inwhat they're doing in the whole
(11:14):
situation.
And a lot of times, dogs decideto basically take their own
direction, and and that can leadto several different issues. But
this bad habit is something thatthat typically comes out of, you
know, like you said, if you hada good duck season, the dog's
getting lots of retrieves. Buthow can you slow down and
correct this self hunting?
Mike Stewart (11:36):
And usually, started, as you mentioned, as an
old becomes self employed outthere. He's on his in he's on
his independent activity. And hegets out there. You blow the
whistle a few times, try to gethis attention. He keeps hunting,
hunting, and then he'ssuccessful.
He finds the bird. Finally,you're just the guy that drives
him around and shoots the bird.He's gonna get it. He's not even
(11:58):
here not nearly as interested inyou as if you can put him on the
bird and so he sees you as apartner. So that's the kind of
the relationship we wanna buildand what the type of training
activities we're gonna do.
The dog is gonna have to becomeself reliant and get on you. So
we're gonna shorten up theretrieves. We're gonna build in.
(12:18):
One of the things we'll do is alot of time to lay memories.
We'll put out memories and maybenot come back to pick those up
for thirty minutes until thedog's not quite sure where they
are.
The second thing we'll do ismove them. Whether a assistant
or a buddy over training, amember of your family walk out
in a cover, some grass field,and toss in a bumper. Turn
(12:41):
around and walk away with thedog in heel. The dog's going
with you. He's paying attentionto you.
Your your helper runs in, grabsthat bumper, and tosses it to
another location. You send thatdog in. He's got he knows
exactly where it is. You'retargeting a member. He shoots
back into that cover.
Hunt, hunt, hunt, hunt. Hit thatstop whistle. If he doesn't
stop, he's not finding anything.So we're hit that stop whistle a
(13:03):
couple of times. If he doesn't,you're gonna go out there, You
need to stop.
Grab him by that collar, shakehim a bit, tell him, you're
gonna stop. Pete, pull thatwhistle, walk back, and then
cast him to the fight. And allof sudden, you're smartest guy
in the room. Wait a minute. Ithought the bird was here, but
you knew where it was.
So that's a that's a cool littletrick that works. The other one
(13:23):
we'll do is what I call hunt,stop, hunt, stop, hunt, stop. We
will toss in a bumper into a bitof a bumper. And this couldn't
work at a pond's edge too. Let'ssay you've got some really good
willows and some grass growingout water grass growing up at
the pond.
It'll work fine. Hust in thebar. Have this. You walk away.
The dog's paying attention toyou, not watching your helper.
(13:44):
He comes in and picks it up.It's not there anymore. I wanna
get three clean stops to thewhistle before he finds
anything. So if he finallystops, I put him back to
hunting. I stop again, put himback to hunting.
Third stop, put him back tohunting. When he's not looking,
the assistant tosses it back in.He finds it. All of a sudden,
he's not gonna find anything ifhe doesn't stop with that
(14:05):
whistle. Again, you become thesmartest guy in the room.
You can do this in the waters ofthe edge. We filmed this for
DUTV a couple of times with Deakand Rake. I'll have a assistant
across the lake, and I'll tossin a bumper to the far side of
maybe not it's not very wide.I'll say a lake, a little
channel, splashes on the otherside, big big duck, for
(14:27):
instance, a nice frozen duck, orthe big waterfowl dummy that
makes a big splash. I turn andwalk away.
The assistant runs in, picksthat rascal up, and runs down
the bank and drops it at anotherlocation. I send the mature dog
back, and he knows where it is.He's confident where it is, but
it's not there anymore. I getabout two good stops at that
(14:48):
location, and I cast him up ordown the bank. And they find
that along that bank's edgewhere I know it is, and he
doesn't.
All those are building theinterdependence, not
independence, butinterdependence with you, a
teamwork. I'm looking at thehammer to help me become
successful if I'm the dog.
Chris Jennings (15:07):
Yeah. And it just seems like, you know, with
that, he you're you're buildingconfidence or you're building
his confidence in you so that,you know, he's not like you
said, I think that's a good wayto good way to phrase it. The
dog is basically self employedhimself, and he's gonna go and
find it, he thinks he knowsexactly where it is. But with
both of those training tactics,you're really you're really
(15:29):
building that dog's confidencein in you to know where it is
better than than him. I thinkthat that's a that's a pretty
cool pretty cool little way toapproach it.
Mike Stewart (15:39):
All those are the little routines that we run-in
spring and summer to tune thatdog back up to get them working
with us back on the whistle andtaking those hand signals.
Chris Jennings (15:47):
Yeah. I mean, that that's a good transition
because that's that's kind of mynext one is, you know, hand
signals and focus. You know, asas the season progresses,
sometimes these, you know,sometimes these dogs and some of
these tactics some of thesetraining tactics may be very
similar getting the dog torefocus. But is there any other
little little tips and andtraining methods that you use
(16:09):
that will get the dog to refocuson these hand signals?
Mike Stewart (16:13):
What There's one of the thing conditions I think
is that maybe we're starting asdogs on our postseason. Coming
off of postseason, the dog's nothandling well. We're still
trying to handle it longdistances. I'm gonna shorten
things up. We're gonna go backmore to the basics.
It's like old Vince Lombardisays, my dog my I said, my dogs,
(16:34):
my players don't know a fewthings, but they know a few
things very well. And that'swhat I want my dog to do. I
don't necessarily need them toknow a whole gamut of but I want
them to know a few thingsextremely well. I'm gonna
shorten things back up. I'mgonna get my hand signals
cleaned up on the basic drillslike a walking baseball, walking
baseball extensions.
All those are in our book,Retriever Training for Sporting
(16:56):
Dog Retriever Training, The WildRose Way. You can pull those up
online on uklaps.com. I've gotloads of drills for you to do.
But instead of trying to runthose drills way across water,
away across along lands, I'mgonna move the skills off the
water back to the land. Refinethem on the land, get them
smoothed up, move them to thewater, smooth them up on the
(17:17):
water, such as switching ondoubles.
Can you put out two bumpers,walk around the pond, send them
for one stop and hound to theother? That's called a switching
on doubles. If you won't do iton the water, unless you're real
fond of swimming, you're gonnahave to refine it on the land.
Everything's refined on the landbefore we move it to the water.
(17:38):
So that's one tip.
Keep it short. Keep it close toyou and keep it on the ground
before you move it back to thewater. If you wanna practice
flooded timber for instance, howdo you practice flooded timber?
Quite simply go to the woods. Goto a hardwood.
Just open open hardwood andstart running your drills in
that open hardwood, thentransfer it to your water
(17:58):
source. It's very hard tocorrect the dog, very hard to
get them to stop, hunt where youwant them to hunt when you're
not out in that water with them.So you can do it on the ground.
So we'll do it in the grassfields. We'll do it in open
ground.
We'll do it on plowed ground,and we'll move it to the we got
some really nice open hardwoods,excellent for that, to duplicate
flooded timber. Then youtransfer it to the water.
Chris Jennings (18:20):
Yeah. It's really hard to to duplicate that
flooded timber, especiallyduring the off season. But, you
know, that's a that's a verygood tip. That's a strong I I
really like that that you'rebasically doing everything on
land. When I think a lot oftrainers immediately a lot of
dog owners immediately thinkthey have to go to the water,
(18:41):
throwing bumpers into the water,you know, going to the local
pond where I think that's a gooda good tip that you bring out is
is really do everything on land.
It's a lot easier to handle thedog too and and control the
situation. Like you said, youknow, if if the dog for some
reason does not wanna retrievethe bumper that you just threw
into the lake, you're gonna beswimming for it if you wanna get
(19:02):
that bumper back.
Mike Stewart (19:03):
The the Wild Rose way is to refine or teach any
skill on land first, transfer tothe water, and refine any skill
on land before going beforegoing to the water. So if you
wanna teach water stands,working a dog off water stands
or any type of dog hide, teachit on land first and then
transfer it to your watersource. If you wanna get a dog
working out of a boat, we haveour boat on solid ground. Get
(19:26):
him working in and out of theboat, remove it to shallow
water, Get him working out ofthe shallow waters, deeper,
deeper, deeper, and then youhave him working in the boat.
Everything is progressive fromland to water.
Chris Jennings (19:36):
Yeah. And everything adds a step. There's
you know, once they once they,you know, can accomplish that,
you know, from land, it it seemsthat they're they're already
gonna know before you introducethis water. And it's a, you
know, that's a that's a that's agood tip for people to remember,
something for people to keep inmind as they as they start, you
know, making some some changesor having some expectation that
(19:58):
that the dog's gonna know how todo this, definitely do it all on
land. That's that's a good one.
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Chris Jennings (22:09):
You know, one of the other common mistakes that
that dogs start making duringduring dunk season is stopping
hunting. And I know this soundsa little counter, you know, to
exactly what they're doing atthe time, but they they're so
used to seeing the birds.They're so used to making these
retrieves one after the other,but they stopped using their
(22:32):
nose to find down birds. They'rereally relying on that, you
know, being able to marketvisually because they're sitting
maybe, you know, in a boat wherethey can see. And then they they
decide to not use their nose tofind these birds, and it can
really become an issue, and youcan lose a lot of birds this
way.
How are you correcting somethinglike this?
Mike Stewart (22:50):
We use a lot of sense. We have taken our frozen
birds, cold game. We take thewings off the birds that we
take, freeze them, pull themout, and take them to our
bumpers, or we put out coldgame. And then we also try to
teach our clients to work thewind, which way is the wind
moving. And so a lot of guysnever consider that, and they
(23:14):
don't put the dog in the rightlocation.
So we do put the dog hangbumpers and cold game and and
bushes and up on top of brushpiles and all different places
where a bird may not even be onthe ground. And the dog's never
been taught to win lift his headand win the up. If your dog
falls on top of a beaver dam orover on top of a levee, he's not
likely gonna pick it. So you andwanna practice all these
(23:37):
thinning skills and, again,start close and work back. So
we're gonna go longer and longerduring our off season training
and in preparation to send thedog farther and farther back
where you can stop him.
Let's go back to a couple of thetips. Put a bumper out, heel
back up the heels, have ourassistant walk in, pick that
(23:58):
bumper up, toss it over to theother side of a lane, send the
dog back, let him hunt a momentor two. Give them some time to
see if they can find, makeprogress, and they hit that
whistle. You hold the dog'sattention three to four seconds
and then cast the dog. So whenyou cast him, you're casting him
into the wind.
He's gonna pick that son up.Well, again, he's gonna make
(24:19):
that fight. So that's how we'reget that dog hunting. First,
very close in on high grass, intimber, and then we're gonna
move it to the water's edgealong the marshy grasses and
anything that you can find thathas places that are safe because
I know there's snakes out in alot of parts of the country. But
anything that is safe, it's beenchecked out really well, put
(24:40):
that dog in those marshes to getthem using those nose.
Because it's the nose knows, andthat's what these dogs are
about. What we're looking for inwaterfowling and upland hunting
dogs, gun dogs, is gamerecovery. It's about getting
that bird bite, not precisionhandling, not trying to
challenge the blind. If you'rerunning an unseen or blind, you
put that dog down the wind, letit hit hit it when he's in that
(25:00):
in that scent cone and cast himinto the wind, he's gonna find
that bird and really helps himget it get straightened out.
Another thing that people can dois and when take take all three
of these together, honor steady,handling, and hunting cover, and
hunting for game recovery, isput them together on a clay
(25:20):
course.
You're a member of a clayshooting course. You can go out
and work your dog on thosecourses. We just completed a a
series called the tacticalretriever series where each
participant shot over a case ofshells over three days with
their dogs in the field. And Ihad blinds out, feathered
bumpers out, launcher marks, allkinds of hunting situations from
(25:41):
upland, the duck blinds, the laydown blinds, the water stands,
the dog hides, decoys, the wholething. So off season, you can
practice hunting situations.
You just using a clay Oh, Idon't have a clay floor. You can
go down to the sporting goodsstore and buy a handful, freight
dollars and a box of clays, andyou're in business. When I see
those clays fly, shotguns aregoing off, blowing calls, put
(26:05):
out your flags, put your roboducks out, and duplicate that
hunting situation. Hide you somebumpers around, get that dog
handling with that intensity ofthe shot, the fall calls and
flags and dabblers and babblers,you can duplicate that off
season.
Chris Jennings (26:22):
Yeah. And that's one thing, you know, I I always
remember visiting your kennel inOxford that they, you know, that
there was always decoys out. Andthat's, you know, that's
something that, you know, a lotof trainers kind of forget. They
go out to these fields andthey're, you know, training.
But, you know, it's very easy tothrow out some decoys in a field
and let the dogs work around thedecoys and then just in the
(26:45):
field, not even having to worryabout underwater.
But it also gets the dogaccustomed to being around the
basically, the essence of, youknow, waterfowl hunting, you
know, the scenarios that they'regoing to eventually see. And and
that's all part of I think wedid last year, we did an
introduction show where wetalked about introducing some of
(27:06):
these things. So that's a that'sa good tip for people to keep
keep in mind for this spring.
Mike Stewart (27:11):
We just filmed a series for Ducks Unlimited TV
that'll start this summer, andyou may pick it up as well. And
we created absolute chaos andfilmed it, and it'll give you a
lot of we had flags and dabblersand dabblers and four dogs
running simultaneously. And eachone of them had a different spot
to work from, a brush pile, adog hide, lying under a goose, a
(27:37):
big goose shell. He was hiddenin the field. All kinds of
different things.
The first time your dog seesthese types of activities should
not be open in day at sunrise.You could practice these all
season and create these coollittle fun situations with you
and your friends and get the dogused to handling those
situations. So once you refineyour stop whistles, your walking
baseball, you hunt your cover, ahunt stop hunt that we
(28:00):
mentioned, amp it up. Put somedecoys out, put some spinners
out, shoot a few clays, and putsome intensity in there. Put a
little chaos in it and see howthe dog performs.
Chris Jennings (28:11):
Yeah. That's great. You know, that's a that's
a perfect idea for people to andyou get to play with all your
duck hunting gear during the offseason. You know? I'm I'm a big
gear guy.
So anytime you can get decoysout and clays and, you know, any
of that, I'm I'm all down forthose types of training
scenarios for sure. You know,one thing that that you are are
a big proponent of and and most,you know, professional trainers
(28:34):
are, But something that youraverage, you know, retriever
owner may miss out on here andsomething that they really need
to keep in mind going into whatyou're basically saying is
preseason training, notnecessarily postseason. But
following duck season, peopletend to let their dog lay
around, not get not be near asactive. And one thing that
(28:56):
people should really keep inmind is the conditioning of the
dog. And this is something thatthis time of year is when you
really you know, you shouldn'tbe taking your foot off the gas
here.
You know, the conditioning ofyour retriever should be a year
round thing. So kind of explainhow you would recommend to
people to get their dog from youknow, who may have been laying
(29:16):
around a little bit. Do you haveany kind of tips to get that dog
back into shape?
Mike Stewart (29:21):
I absolutely do. And you're quite right. It's
important to keep them inphysically physically in shape,
keep the weight off of them,keep the muscles moving, keep
them engaged just like you worka gals. You don't stop in the
summer or off season. And alsomentally engaged, thinking,
learning, having newexperiences, keep that that
dog's mind engaged.
(29:43):
Of course, we're gonna be givinghim a routine of exercise. You
have to be careful about theheat, especially in the South,
and heat exhaustion. So you'regonna do a lot of swimming if
it's midday or doing some earlymorning training is what we like
to do. So watch about the heat.Keep what you got keep that dog
physically agile, keeping himmoving, keeping him running, but
you may have to shorten thedistance of your retrieves.
(30:05):
You can't do maybe 300 yardretrieves. You can maybe shorten
them up to a few 15 to 25 yardretrieves and get more of them.
And then you can use a lot ofwater, and you can use early
morning training. And that'sespecially in our kennels in
Wilderness, Texas. They facethat.
They start really, really earlyin the morning, and by midday,
they're finished because justbecause of the heat, humidity,
(30:28):
and so on. Our secondconsideration is weight. Our
friends at ProPlanet, Purina,did a lot of really valuable
research on nutrition. And a lotof the guys and myself included
used to change our mixture ofdog food from the protein fat
content all season. They foundthat was really ineffective.
(30:51):
It takes about twelve weeks forthe the dog's metabolism to
adjust to a new a combination ofdog food that they're that
they're actually ingesting. Sowhat you wanna do is actually go
down on that amount of the dogfood, not change the particular
mixture. Let's say you'refeeding Pro Plan thirty twenty
Sport. That's a really good feedfood during the season because
(31:13):
it has a a good bit of fat init, and that's what keeps it all
that's what keeps his energylevel Not the protein, it's the
fat that that he's burning.That's his that's the gas.
That's the diesel fuel. Mhmm.But in the summertime, if one of
these short retrieves, he'sinside an air conditioning,
guess what? He's gonna gainweight on that diet. But instead
of switching it to a twenty sixsixteen, which is a great dog
(31:35):
food, but it's gonna take him along time to adjust to it.
And then we gotta readjust himon the backside in August and
September to get him back upback in the season. Just
decrease the amount. Justdecrease the amount. Don't
change the food. Then keepingthe dog mentally stimulated,
again, all the things we'vealready talked about in this
program are valuable for that.
(31:55):
Keeping the dog thinking,keeping the dog working for you,
problem solving, giving thingsto figure out. Agility, go you
you can go down to the park andfind all kinds of little agility
that the kiddie park, things forhim to go over and crawl
through, more things tocondition the dog to problem
solve. Create a dog that's notjust a machine that's responding
(32:16):
to something, but reallyanalyzes things and can really
solve problems.
Chris Jennings (32:20):
That's awesome. That's a that's a good tip. You
know, some of the the localparks, there's little
playgrounds and things like thatthat you can do some really
interesting agility training atthose things, you know, running
up and down little hops and andbeing able to, like you said,
really think through some ofthese situations, which kinda
leads me to a last thing herethat, you know, as part of
(32:40):
conditioning, one thing that youalways stress is, you know,
conditioning, you you get getthat in your mind. It's kinda
like people on a treadmill. Youknow?
It's pretty boring to just runon a treadmill. And just having
a dog run for no reason is isnot really that productive. But
when you're conditioning, you ithas to come with a training
focus. And and I know you reallystress that. But, you know, kind
(33:04):
of explain maybe a couple shortlittle tips for people to do
some, you know, small introconditioning things but in a
training regimen.
Mike Stewart (33:13):
Well, of course, I've already mentioned swimming.
You can do let's let's take acouple of our adventure dog
situations. We have a acertification program for
adventure dog where a dog becometrail rated. Adventure dog
certified, our our mastertracker. Deke, the DU mascot, is
a master tracker.
I do things all season with him.I teach him to hunt sheds. He's
(33:34):
a good little shed hunter.That's a real close in. Early
morning activity for this timeof year, he can go out and find
shed along fence lines.
He thinks that's really that'sgrand. Swimming by the kayak,
swimming up, getting in and outof the kayak and going kayaking,
that's that's gonna duplicate apoke boat or lay down blind,
being still in the kayak.Swimming by a canoe, going out,
(33:57):
and just swimming at a distance.Those are all good activities
that you can do. Running,jogging, just have to be very
careful about the heat and thehigh impact.
Mountain biking, take a bike onthe trail. All these kinds of
things are mainly engaging tothe dog, and you're burning
energy. You're you're keepingthe body condition and going,
and you don't have to go out andjust throw bones. This is a lot
(34:19):
of things they could do. Anotherthing we found out that I think
of people that really ignore isthe dog if you if the dog is
concentrating and having to workhis mind and sitting there, for
instance, being still and steadyas another dog works and then
it's his turn to work or has topick multiple bumpers in certain
orders, like the oldest bird tothe newest bird or the longest
(34:39):
bird to the shortest bird, he'sactually burning energy.
Think about if you're taking atest, a really difficult test.
You go in and you sit down, andtwo hours later, you come out of
that test exhausted. What haveyou done? It's all mental. But
that dog is burning energy herethrough memory conditioning.
He's not he's certainly notworking his muscle, but he's
working his mind. And you canexhaust that dog through just
(35:00):
thinking and problem solving. Itdoesn't have to be high impact
running all the time.
Chris Jennings (35:05):
Mhmm. Yeah. That's that's fantastic. That's
some great tips and some youknow, we I like to kind of refer
to that as almost like a a resetbutton for retrievers, all these
different training drills thatyou mentioned and and kind of a
refocus on, you know, the postduck season errors that your dog
may have picked up. But, hey,Mike, I really appreciate it.
(35:27):
This has this has been alearning experience for me, and
I think, you know, all of ourlisteners out there, you know,
they can visit uklabs.com orducks.org and really dig into
some of these different trainingsessions that that you've
created, you know, kinda laidthe groundwork for a lot of
these, you know, trainers to tolook at and say, oh, yeah. I'm
gonna try this drill. Like youmentioned, the baseball drill
(35:49):
and and hunt stop, and, youknow, there's tons of drills out
there for for all of ourlisteners to go ahead and check
out. But I appreciate youjoining me on the show, and
we'll have to have you back onhere very soon.
Mike Stewart (36:01):
Thanks. Really enjoyed it. I'd like
Chris Jennings (36:04):
to thank my guest, Mike Stewart, owner and
operator of Wild Rose Kennels,for coming on today and giving
people a little intro into kindof a reset button for retrievers
this spring. I'd like to thankClay Baird, our producer, for
putting the show together andgetting it out to you, and I'd
like to thank you, the listener,for joining us on the DU podcast
and supporting wetlandsconservation.
VO (36:25):
Podcast, sponsored by Purina Pro Plan, the official
performance dog food of DucksUnlimited. Purina Pro Plan,
always advancing. Also proudlysponsored by Bird Dog Whiskey
and Cocktails. Whether you'rewinding down with your best
friend or celebrating with yourfavorite crew, Bird Dog brings
award winning flavor to everymoment. Enjoy responsibly.
(36:45):
Be sure to rate, review, andsubscribe to the show and visit
ducks.org/dupodcast. Opinionsexpressed by guests do not
necessarily reflect those ofDucks Unlimited. Until next
time, stay tuned to the Ducks.
Welcome to the Ducks Unlimited podcast, Reloaded. We
bring you the best of our pastepisodes. Whether you're a
seasoned waterfowler or curiousabout conservation, this series
is for you. Over the years,we've had incredible guests and
discussions about everythingfrom wetland conservation to the
latest waterfowl research andhunting strategies. In Reloaded,
(02:04):
we're revisiting thoseconversations to keep the
passion alive and the missionstrong.
So sit back, relax, and enjoythis reload.
Chris Jennings (02:16):
Joining me today on the show is owner and
operator of Wild Rose Kennels,Mike Stewart. Mike, welcome back
to the DU podcast.
Mike Stewart (02:23):
Great to be here. Thanks for having me.
Chris Jennings (02:25):
Alright. Now in with this show, we wanted to
kinda kick off our, you know,retriever training conversations
with something that is thatwe've talked about before you
and I have, but it's these arethe most common corrections that
retriever trainers have to makewith their dogs following duck
season. The bad habits that canbe learned during duck season
(02:50):
need to be corrected at thistime of year. You know, when
you're not in season now, you'refully focused on training. And
we've got several of these thatwe can list through, but but
these are really the most commonones.
And the first one, Mike, issteadiness. And we basically, on
the shot or breaking on livebirds. This is a a terribly bad
(03:14):
habit. It's unsafe, you know,for everyone involved. And and
and, you know, and it is anissue.
You know, I hunt with people whohave dogs who break, you know,
throughout the season, andsometimes it just gets worse and
worse and worse. Now's the timeto fix it. How are you going to
approach or how are you going toexplain to a dog owner how they
should approach fixingsteadiness during the off
(03:35):
season.
Mike Stewart (03:35):
First, I just wanna touch on a mindset.
Everybody's always down thistime of year. Hunting season is
closed. No more game. It's along time till the fall.
Actually, you're in preseasontraining. It's it's the start of
the season. So there's a lot ofthings to work on. I would call
them refinements to get the dogback into shape pre preseason.
(03:57):
So we're really in the preseasontraining, not post.
So that's really a mindset, andsteadiness is one of them. What
happens during the season a lot,especially if you have a really
good season, the dog gets a lotof independent action. The birds
are going down. He's we swim thedogs too fast. There's not a lot
of opportunity to study the dog.
It's about game recovery, notloo wanting to lose a bird.
(04:20):
Waterfowling, you see it quite abit. Three birds down. You gotta
pick them fast. Wind's blowing.
You don't have a lot of time toto to offer denials and delays
in your retrieves. Pheasanthunting on wild pheasants, you
pop that bird and that you seethose legs go down, and those
birds will run. They hit theground running. And if you don't
put your dog on the bird fast,you're liable to lose it. And,
(04:41):
of course, that's whatretrievers job is, is game
recovery.
So I realized we send the dogsfar too fast, and now we found a
situation that they're basicallyyou pull the trigger, the dog's
gone, or even snap the safetyoff, and the dog's gone. You
know, they're downrange, readyto make that game recover. So we
have to go back and refine that.So the question is how? We have
(05:03):
the three d's of steadiness.
Deny, delay, and diversions. Sowe're gonna practice all those
this postseason, preseason tuneups. We're gonna get offer a lot
of denials. We're gonna walkalong, throw bumpers. Nope.
No. It didn't get that. Walk outand pick it up and sell. We'll
do some short bird, long birdretrieves. We'll put out a
(05:25):
memory, for instance, droppingin the grass across the water,
go back, get on the other sideof the pond, throw a short one
in the water, and send them tothe lawn.
And then we don't want them tohave this short one. You can
either walk around the lake andpick it from the other side or
allow another dog to do it,which is called honoring. So not
every bird is theirs. Everybumper down this this spring and
summer is not the dogs. You'regonna offer a lot of denials.
(05:49):
A delay is we're using ourmemory retrieves versus marks to
build in delays. We placeseveral bumpers out, for
instance, and create a timedelay before it before we send
the dog box. We might put two tothree bumpers out in a circle
memory, circle back around, thebumpers are in cover or wood
(06:09):
line, maybe the edge of a watersource, and then we delay. We
sit there, wait, let the dog getextremely calm, and then we pick
the oldest bird to the newestbird. The shortest bird is the
one that we're gonna deny.
The longest bird is the one wewant. Those are the ones that
are likely gonna need to berecovered first. So we work on
that in our training is notsending a dog quite so fast as
(06:32):
that you would maybe practice inMarch. You fire the launcher and
immediately send them. Runmemories.
Place them. Build some time inbetween you putting the bumper
out or the cold game out, andyou're actually releasing the
dog for that recovery. So thatis a delay. Diversions, you have
a short bird, long birdroutines. The short birds, you
(06:55):
pick them up yourself.
The dog is coming back from aretrieve, we fire another
launcher or toss a bird, youdeny that one. You either go get
it yourself, allow another dogpick the bird up. So the short
bird, long bird, and delayedroutines will really put that
steadiness back in your dogpreseason.
Chris Jennings (07:12):
Yeah. And then you kinda touched on it, but I
was just getting ready to ask.So, you know, we've discussed
honoring, you know, where you'resending another dog. But, you
know, I was just sitting therethinking while you were talking
is is how do you teach honoringif you don't have another dog?
But I guess, like you said, youtake it upon yourself.
(07:33):
You go and get that bumperyourself so that the dog still,
you know, has that that mindset.Is am I correct? And that's kind
of what you explained.
Mike Stewart (07:41):
Right. You know, we we wanna work on honoring.
We're gonna find a a buddy tocome over and train sort of the
similar to we do that we do, andwe're gonna work together during
the summer, spring, summermonths. And what you wanna work
on is double dog. I really likethis routine.
I'll explain this one first. Youput a couple bumpers out, and
you send the first dog. When thefirst dog picks and is on his
way back, send the second dog.You need these dogs working
(08:04):
independently. And so these dogsare honoring each other.
Now if we put out a denial, forinstance, and we don't want the
dog to have it, there's only twoways to pick that up. Well,
three ways. One is you haveanother dog pick it up, but you
don't have another Okay? Thesecond way to do is you walk out
and get it yourself. Throw it inshallow water that can make the
splash, or you could you couldwalk out and get the if it's on
(08:26):
the ground, that's not a problemat all.
Walk out and get it yourself.The other routine we'll do as
we're alone is I was and I traina lot alone in Colorado. I'm I'm
by myself as the only trainerout there. I'll set up a memory
across the river on the on thewater, and I'll pick up a rock,
have it in my pocket, not in mypocket, but my game bag. And I
make a circle around.
(08:47):
The dog remembers that thatbumper across the river. I'll
send the dog, and then I'llthrow the the rock. And it makes
a big splash, but there'snothing to retrieve. And handle
them all fast, and that isnothing for you to go back and
get. Or the third way you coulddo it is you could toss the
bumper in the water, use yourshort bird, send for the long
bird, the dog recovers the longbird, returns.
(09:09):
Simply walk around the lake tothe other side and pick your
diversion, your originaldiversion, becomes a circle
memory. So you built a timedelay in. So, basically, you're
you're doing a delay now andjust pick it up that way.
Chris Jennings (09:22):
Yeah. No. That's a great way to do it. And and
you talked about that as beingsomething, you know, one of the
common mistakes or common issuesthat dogs come up with during
duck season is honoring. And canyou kind of explain that, like,
how that bad habit is created?
And then also how, you know,using these tactics to fix that
(09:44):
bad habit.
Mike Stewart (09:45):
When we talk about honoring, we mean that the dog
will sit steady and quiet andhonor the retrieve of another
dog. Now what does that entail?There is no scuffling over the
bird. There's no chasing theother dog. There's no whining or
barking or making any squeakingnoises while the other dog
retrieves.
That's honoring. So we'll definewhat it is first. So off season,
(10:06):
one of the things we don't wannado is let the dog we have a
couple of dogs who have themplaying together or going to the
dog park chasing each other forexercise. Well, that's not
reinforcing what we're lookingfor. So by practicing our
arming, you got your body comesover, and one dog gets a
retrieve.
When he recovers back, the otherone gets a retrieve. And you
need to remember that dogs workfor they work for reward. What
(10:30):
is the reward? Well, the rewardfor a retriever is they get to
retrieve something. So rememberto reinforce and put a value on
the steadiness.
So if your dog sits reallysteady while another dog makes a
retrieve on a hunt or intraining, reach out and pet the
dog. Good boy. Good boy. Reallyreward that dog that that's
valuable. Put a put a put avalue on that steadiness, that
(10:52):
quad, man.
Chris Jennings (10:53):
Yeah. That's good. And, you know, and this
kinda leads into the the thenext issue that that needs to be
fixed sometimes, self hunts. Andthis is basically when the dog
you know, a lot of times duringduck season, you know, dogs have
really gotten accustomed, youknow, lots of retrieves. They're
they're they feel comfortable inwhat they're doing in the whole
(11:14):
situation.
And a lot of times, dogs decideto basically take their own
direction, and and that can leadto several different issues. But
this bad habit is something thatthat typically comes out of, you
know, like you said, if you hada good duck season, the dog's
getting lots of retrieves. Buthow can you slow down and
correct this self hunting?
Mike Stewart (11:36):
And usually, started, as you mentioned, as an
old becomes self employed outthere. He's on his in he's on
his independent activity. And hegets out there. You blow the
whistle a few times, try to gethis attention. He keeps hunting,
hunting, and then he'ssuccessful.
He finds the bird. Finally,you're just the guy that drives
him around and shoots the bird.He's gonna get it. He's not even
(11:58):
here not nearly as interested inyou as if you can put him on the
bird and so he sees you as apartner. So that's the kind of
the relationship we wanna buildand what the type of training
activities we're gonna do.
The dog is gonna have to becomeself reliant and get on you. So
we're gonna shorten up theretrieves. We're gonna build in.
(12:18):
One of the things we'll do is alot of time to lay memories.
We'll put out memories and maybenot come back to pick those up
for thirty minutes until thedog's not quite sure where they
are.
The second thing we'll do ismove them. Whether a assistant
or a buddy over training, amember of your family walk out
in a cover, some grass field,and toss in a bumper. Turn
(12:41):
around and walk away with thedog in heel. The dog's going
with you. He's paying attentionto you.
Your your helper runs in, grabsthat bumper, and tosses it to
another location. You send thatdog in. He's got he knows
exactly where it is. You'retargeting a member. He shoots
back into that cover.
Hunt, hunt, hunt, hunt. Hit thatstop whistle. If he doesn't
stop, he's not finding anything.So we're hit that stop whistle a
(13:03):
couple of times. If he doesn't,you're gonna go out there, You
need to stop.
Grab him by that collar, shakehim a bit, tell him, you're
gonna stop. Pete, pull thatwhistle, walk back, and then
cast him to the fight. And allof sudden, you're smartest guy
in the room. Wait a minute. Ithought the bird was here, but
you knew where it was.
So that's a that's a cool littletrick that works. The other one
(13:23):
we'll do is what I call hunt,stop, hunt, stop, hunt, stop. We
will toss in a bumper into a bitof a bumper. And this couldn't
work at a pond's edge too. Let'ssay you've got some really good
willows and some grass growingout water grass growing up at
the pond.
It'll work fine. Hust in thebar. Have this. You walk away.
The dog's paying attention toyou, not watching your helper.
(13:44):
He comes in and picks it up.It's not there anymore. I wanna
get three clean stops to thewhistle before he finds
anything. So if he finallystops, I put him back to
hunting. I stop again, put himback to hunting.
Third stop, put him back tohunting. When he's not looking,
the assistant tosses it back in.He finds it. All of a sudden,
he's not gonna find anything ifhe doesn't stop with that
(14:05):
whistle. Again, you become thesmartest guy in the room.
You can do this in the waters ofthe edge. We filmed this for
DUTV a couple of times with Deakand Rake. I'll have a assistant
across the lake, and I'll tossin a bumper to the far side of
maybe not it's not very wide.I'll say a lake, a little
channel, splashes on the otherside, big big duck, for
(14:27):
instance, a nice frozen duck, orthe big waterfowl dummy that
makes a big splash. I turn andwalk away.
The assistant runs in, picksthat rascal up, and runs down
the bank and drops it at anotherlocation. I send the mature dog
back, and he knows where it is.He's confident where it is, but
it's not there anymore. I getabout two good stops at that
(14:48):
location, and I cast him up ordown the bank. And they find
that along that bank's edgewhere I know it is, and he
doesn't.
All those are building theinterdependence, not
independence, butinterdependence with you, a
teamwork. I'm looking at thehammer to help me become
successful if I'm the dog.
Chris Jennings (15:07):
Yeah. And it just seems like, you know, with
that, he you're you're buildingconfidence or you're building
his confidence in you so that,you know, he's not like you
said, I think that's a good wayto good way to phrase it. The
dog is basically self employedhimself, and he's gonna go and
find it, he thinks he knowsexactly where it is. But with
both of those training tactics,you're really you're really
(15:29):
building that dog's confidencein in you to know where it is
better than than him. I thinkthat that's a that's a pretty
cool pretty cool little way toapproach it.
Mike Stewart (15:39):
All those are the little routines that we run-in
spring and summer to tune thatdog back up to get them working
with us back on the whistle andtaking those hand signals.
Chris Jennings (15:47):
Yeah. I mean, that that's a good transition
because that's that's kind of mynext one is, you know, hand
signals and focus. You know, asas the season progresses,
sometimes these, you know,sometimes these dogs and some of
these tactics some of thesetraining tactics may be very
similar getting the dog torefocus. But is there any other
little little tips and andtraining methods that you use
(16:09):
that will get the dog to refocuson these hand signals?
Mike Stewart (16:13):
What There's one of the thing conditions I think
is that maybe we're starting asdogs on our postseason. Coming
off of postseason, the dog's nothandling well. We're still
trying to handle it longdistances. I'm gonna shorten
things up. We're gonna go backmore to the basics.
It's like old Vince Lombardisays, my dog my I said, my dogs,
(16:34):
my players don't know a fewthings, but they know a few
things very well. And that'swhat I want my dog to do. I
don't necessarily need them toknow a whole gamut of but I want
them to know a few thingsextremely well. I'm gonna
shorten things back up. I'mgonna get my hand signals
cleaned up on the basic drillslike a walking baseball, walking
baseball extensions.
All those are in our book,Retriever Training for Sporting
(16:56):
Dog Retriever Training, The WildRose Way. You can pull those up
online on uklaps.com. I've gotloads of drills for you to do.
But instead of trying to runthose drills way across water,
away across along lands, I'mgonna move the skills off the
water back to the land. Refinethem on the land, get them
smoothed up, move them to thewater, smooth them up on the
(17:17):
water, such as switching ondoubles.
Can you put out two bumpers,walk around the pond, send them
for one stop and hound to theother? That's called a switching
on doubles. If you won't do iton the water, unless you're real
fond of swimming, you're gonnahave to refine it on the land.
Everything's refined on the landbefore we move it to the water.
(17:38):
So that's one tip.
Keep it short. Keep it close toyou and keep it on the ground
before you move it back to thewater. If you wanna practice
flooded timber for instance, howdo you practice flooded timber?
Quite simply go to the woods. Goto a hardwood.
Just open open hardwood andstart running your drills in
that open hardwood, thentransfer it to your water
(17:58):
source. It's very hard tocorrect the dog, very hard to
get them to stop, hunt where youwant them to hunt when you're
not out in that water with them.So you can do it on the ground.
So we'll do it in the grassfields. We'll do it in open
ground.
We'll do it on plowed ground,and we'll move it to the we got
some really nice open hardwoods,excellent for that, to duplicate
flooded timber. Then youtransfer it to the water.
Chris Jennings (18:20):
Yeah. It's really hard to to duplicate that
flooded timber, especiallyduring the off season. But, you
know, that's a that's a verygood tip. That's a strong I I
really like that that you'rebasically doing everything on
land. When I think a lot oftrainers immediately a lot of
dog owners immediately thinkthey have to go to the water,
(18:41):
throwing bumpers into the water,you know, going to the local
pond where I think that's a gooda good tip that you bring out is
is really do everything on land.
It's a lot easier to handle thedog too and and control the
situation. Like you said, youknow, if if the dog for some
reason does not wanna retrievethe bumper that you just threw
into the lake, you're gonna beswimming for it if you wanna get
(19:02):
that bumper back.
Mike Stewart (19:03):
The the Wild Rose way is to refine or teach any
skill on land first, transfer tothe water, and refine any skill
on land before going beforegoing to the water. So if you
wanna teach water stands,working a dog off water stands
or any type of dog hide, teachit on land first and then
transfer it to your watersource. If you wanna get a dog
working out of a boat, we haveour boat on solid ground. Get
(19:26):
him working in and out of theboat, remove it to shallow
water, Get him working out ofthe shallow waters, deeper,
deeper, deeper, and then youhave him working in the boat.
Everything is progressive fromland to water.
Chris Jennings (19:36):
Yeah. And everything adds a step. There's
you know, once they once they,you know, can accomplish that,
you know, from land, it it seemsthat they're they're already
gonna know before you introducethis water. And it's a, you
know, that's a that's a that's agood tip for people to remember,
something for people to keep inmind as they as they start, you
know, making some some changesor having some expectation that
(19:58):
that the dog's gonna know how todo this, definitely do it all on
land. That's that's a good one.
VO (20:11):
Stay tuned to the Ducks Unlimited podcast, sponsored by
Purina Pro Plan and Bird DogWhiskey after these messages.
Chris Jennings (22:09):
You know, one of the other common mistakes that
that dogs start making duringduring dunk season is stopping
hunting. And I know this soundsa little counter, you know, to
exactly what they're doing atthe time, but they they're so
used to seeing the birds.They're so used to making these
retrieves one after the other,but they stopped using their
(22:32):
nose to find down birds. They'rereally relying on that, you
know, being able to marketvisually because they're sitting
maybe, you know, in a boat wherethey can see. And then they they
decide to not use their nose tofind these birds, and it can
really become an issue, and youcan lose a lot of birds this
way.
How are you correcting somethinglike this?
Mike Stewart (22:50):
We use a lot of sense. We have taken our frozen
birds, cold game. We take thewings off the birds that we
take, freeze them, pull themout, and take them to our
bumpers, or we put out coldgame. And then we also try to
teach our clients to work thewind, which way is the wind
moving. And so a lot of guysnever consider that, and they
(23:14):
don't put the dog in the rightlocation.
So we do put the dog hangbumpers and cold game and and
bushes and up on top of brushpiles and all different places
where a bird may not even be onthe ground. And the dog's never
been taught to win lift his headand win the up. If your dog
falls on top of a beaver dam orover on top of a levee, he's not
likely gonna pick it. So you andwanna practice all these
(23:37):
thinning skills and, again,start close and work back. So
we're gonna go longer and longerduring our off season training
and in preparation to send thedog farther and farther back
where you can stop him.
Let's go back to a couple of thetips. Put a bumper out, heel
back up the heels, have ourassistant walk in, pick that
(23:58):
bumper up, toss it over to theother side of a lane, send the
dog back, let him hunt a momentor two. Give them some time to
see if they can find, makeprogress, and they hit that
whistle. You hold the dog'sattention three to four seconds
and then cast the dog. So whenyou cast him, you're casting him
into the wind.
He's gonna pick that son up.Well, again, he's gonna make
(24:19):
that fight. So that's how we'reget that dog hunting. First,
very close in on high grass, intimber, and then we're gonna
move it to the water's edgealong the marshy grasses and
anything that you can find thathas places that are safe because
I know there's snakes out in alot of parts of the country. But
anything that is safe, it's beenchecked out really well, put
(24:40):
that dog in those marshes to getthem using those nose.
Because it's the nose knows, andthat's what these dogs are
about. What we're looking for inwaterfowling and upland hunting
dogs, gun dogs, is gamerecovery. It's about getting
that bird bite, not precisionhandling, not trying to
challenge the blind. If you'rerunning an unseen or blind, you
put that dog down the wind, letit hit hit it when he's in that
(25:00):
in that scent cone and cast himinto the wind, he's gonna find
that bird and really helps himget it get straightened out.
Another thing that people can dois and when take take all three
of these together, honor steady,handling, and hunting cover, and
hunting for game recovery, isput them together on a clay
(25:20):
course.
You're a member of a clayshooting course. You can go out
and work your dog on thosecourses. We just completed a a
series called the tacticalretriever series where each
participant shot over a case ofshells over three days with
their dogs in the field. And Ihad blinds out, feathered
bumpers out, launcher marks, allkinds of hunting situations from
(25:41):
upland, the duck blinds, the laydown blinds, the water stands,
the dog hides, decoys, the wholething. So off season, you can
practice hunting situations.
You just using a clay Oh, Idon't have a clay floor. You can
go down to the sporting goodsstore and buy a handful, freight
dollars and a box of clays, andyou're in business. When I see
those clays fly, shotguns aregoing off, blowing calls, put
(26:05):
out your flags, put your roboducks out, and duplicate that
hunting situation. Hide you somebumpers around, get that dog
handling with that intensity ofthe shot, the fall calls and
flags and dabblers and babblers,you can duplicate that off
season.
Chris Jennings (26:22):
Yeah. And that's one thing, you know, I I always
remember visiting your kennel inOxford that they, you know, that
there was always decoys out. Andthat's, you know, that's
something that, you know, a lotof trainers kind of forget. They
go out to these fields andthey're, you know, training.
But, you know, it's very easy tothrow out some decoys in a field
and let the dogs work around thedecoys and then just in the
(26:45):
field, not even having to worryabout underwater.
But it also gets the dogaccustomed to being around the
basically, the essence of, youknow, waterfowl hunting, you
know, the scenarios that they'regoing to eventually see. And and
that's all part of I think wedid last year, we did an
introduction show where wetalked about introducing some of
(27:06):
these things. So that's a that'sa good tip for people to keep
keep in mind for this spring.
Mike Stewart (27:11):
We just filmed a series for Ducks Unlimited TV
that'll start this summer, andyou may pick it up as well. And
we created absolute chaos andfilmed it, and it'll give you a
lot of we had flags and dabblersand dabblers and four dogs
running simultaneously. And eachone of them had a different spot
to work from, a brush pile, adog hide, lying under a goose, a
(27:37):
big goose shell. He was hiddenin the field. All kinds of
different things.
The first time your dog seesthese types of activities should
not be open in day at sunrise.You could practice these all
season and create these coollittle fun situations with you
and your friends and get the dogused to handling those
situations. So once you refineyour stop whistles, your walking
baseball, you hunt your cover, ahunt stop hunt that we
(28:00):
mentioned, amp it up. Put somedecoys out, put some spinners
out, shoot a few clays, and putsome intensity in there. Put a
little chaos in it and see howthe dog performs.
Chris Jennings (28:11):
Yeah. That's great. You know, that's a that's
a perfect idea for people to andyou get to play with all your
duck hunting gear during the offseason. You know? I'm I'm a big
gear guy.
So anytime you can get decoysout and clays and, you know, any
of that, I'm I'm all down forthose types of training
scenarios for sure. You know,one thing that that you are are
a big proponent of and and most,you know, professional trainers
(28:34):
are, But something that youraverage, you know, retriever
owner may miss out on here andsomething that they really need
to keep in mind going into whatyou're basically saying is
preseason training, notnecessarily postseason. But
following duck season, peopletend to let their dog lay
around, not get not be near asactive. And one thing that
(28:56):
people should really keep inmind is the conditioning of the
dog. And this is something thatthis time of year is when you
really you know, you shouldn'tbe taking your foot off the gas
here.
You know, the conditioning ofyour retriever should be a year
round thing. So kind of explainhow you would recommend to
people to get their dog from youknow, who may have been laying
(29:16):
around a little bit. Do you haveany kind of tips to get that dog
back into shape?
Mike Stewart (29:21):
I absolutely do. And you're quite right. It's
important to keep them inphysically physically in shape,
keep the weight off of them,keep the muscles moving, keep
them engaged just like you worka gals. You don't stop in the
summer or off season. And alsomentally engaged, thinking,
learning, having newexperiences, keep that that
dog's mind engaged.
(29:43):
Of course, we're gonna be givinghim a routine of exercise. You
have to be careful about theheat, especially in the South,
and heat exhaustion. So you'regonna do a lot of swimming if
it's midday or doing some earlymorning training is what we like
to do. So watch about the heat.Keep what you got keep that dog
physically agile, keeping himmoving, keeping him running, but
you may have to shorten thedistance of your retrieves.
(30:05):
You can't do maybe 300 yardretrieves. You can maybe shorten
them up to a few 15 to 25 yardretrieves and get more of them.
And then you can use a lot ofwater, and you can use early
morning training. And that'sespecially in our kennels in
Wilderness, Texas. They facethat.
They start really, really earlyin the morning, and by midday,
they're finished because justbecause of the heat, humidity,
(30:28):
and so on. Our secondconsideration is weight. Our
friends at ProPlanet, Purina,did a lot of really valuable
research on nutrition. And a lotof the guys and myself included
used to change our mixture ofdog food from the protein fat
content all season. They foundthat was really ineffective.
(30:51):
It takes about twelve weeks forthe the dog's metabolism to
adjust to a new a combination ofdog food that they're that
they're actually ingesting. Sowhat you wanna do is actually go
down on that amount of the dogfood, not change the particular
mixture. Let's say you'refeeding Pro Plan thirty twenty
Sport. That's a really good feedfood during the season because
(31:13):
it has a a good bit of fat init, and that's what keeps it all
that's what keeps his energylevel Not the protein, it's the
fat that that he's burning.That's his that's the gas.
That's the diesel fuel. Mhmm.But in the summertime, if one of
these short retrieves, he'sinside an air conditioning,
guess what? He's gonna gainweight on that diet. But instead
of switching it to a twenty sixsixteen, which is a great dog
(31:35):
food, but it's gonna take him along time to adjust to it.
And then we gotta readjust himon the backside in August and
September to get him back upback in the season. Just
decrease the amount. Justdecrease the amount. Don't
change the food. Then keepingthe dog mentally stimulated,
again, all the things we'vealready talked about in this
program are valuable for that.
(31:55):
Keeping the dog thinking,keeping the dog working for you,
problem solving, giving thingsto figure out. Agility, go you
you can go down to the park andfind all kinds of little agility
that the kiddie park, things forhim to go over and crawl
through, more things tocondition the dog to problem
solve. Create a dog that's notjust a machine that's responding
(32:16):
to something, but reallyanalyzes things and can really
solve problems.
Chris Jennings (32:20):
That's awesome. That's a that's a good tip. You
know, some of the the localparks, there's little
playgrounds and things like thatthat you can do some really
interesting agility training atthose things, you know, running
up and down little hops and andbeing able to, like you said,
really think through some ofthese situations, which kinda
leads me to a last thing herethat, you know, as part of
(32:40):
conditioning, one thing that youalways stress is, you know,
conditioning, you you get getthat in your mind. It's kinda
like people on a treadmill. Youknow?
It's pretty boring to just runon a treadmill. And just having
a dog run for no reason is isnot really that productive. But
when you're conditioning, you ithas to come with a training
focus. And and I know you reallystress that. But, you know, kind
(33:04):
of explain maybe a couple shortlittle tips for people to do
some, you know, small introconditioning things but in a
training regimen.
Mike Stewart (33:13):
Well, of course, I've already mentioned swimming.
You can do let's let's take acouple of our adventure dog
situations. We have a acertification program for
adventure dog where a dog becometrail rated. Adventure dog
certified, our our mastertracker. Deke, the DU mascot, is
a master tracker.
I do things all season with him.I teach him to hunt sheds. He's
(33:34):
a good little shed hunter.That's a real close in. Early
morning activity for this timeof year, he can go out and find
shed along fence lines.
He thinks that's really that'sgrand. Swimming by the kayak,
swimming up, getting in and outof the kayak and going kayaking,
that's that's gonna duplicate apoke boat or lay down blind,
being still in the kayak.Swimming by a canoe, going out,
(33:57):
and just swimming at a distance.Those are all good activities
that you can do. Running,jogging, just have to be very
careful about the heat and thehigh impact.
Mountain biking, take a bike onthe trail. All these kinds of
things are mainly engaging tothe dog, and you're burning
energy. You're you're keepingthe body condition and going,
and you don't have to go out andjust throw bones. This is a lot
(34:19):
of things they could do. Anotherthing we found out that I think
of people that really ignore isthe dog if you if the dog is
concentrating and having to workhis mind and sitting there, for
instance, being still and steadyas another dog works and then
it's his turn to work or has topick multiple bumpers in certain
orders, like the oldest bird tothe newest bird or the longest
(34:39):
bird to the shortest bird, he'sactually burning energy.
Think about if you're taking atest, a really difficult test.
You go in and you sit down, andtwo hours later, you come out of
that test exhausted. What haveyou done? It's all mental. But
that dog is burning energy herethrough memory conditioning.
He's not he's certainly notworking his muscle, but he's
working his mind. And you canexhaust that dog through just
(35:00):
thinking and problem solving. Itdoesn't have to be high impact
running all the time.
Chris Jennings (35:05):
Mhmm. Yeah. That's that's fantastic. That's
some great tips and some youknow, we I like to kind of refer
to that as almost like a a resetbutton for retrievers, all these
different training drills thatyou mentioned and and kind of a
refocus on, you know, the postduck season errors that your dog
may have picked up. But, hey,Mike, I really appreciate it.
(35:27):
This has this has been alearning experience for me, and
I think, you know, all of ourlisteners out there, you know,
they can visit uklabs.com orducks.org and really dig into
some of these different trainingsessions that that you've
created, you know, kinda laidthe groundwork for a lot of
these, you know, trainers to tolook at and say, oh, yeah. I'm
gonna try this drill. Like youmentioned, the baseball drill
(35:49):
and and hunt stop, and, youknow, there's tons of drills out
there for for all of ourlisteners to go ahead and check
out. But I appreciate youjoining me on the show, and
we'll have to have you back onhere very soon.
Mike Stewart (36:01):
Thanks. Really enjoyed it. I'd like
Chris Jennings (36:04):
to thank my guest, Mike Stewart, owner and
operator of Wild Rose Kennels,for coming on today and giving
people a little intro into kindof a reset button for retrievers
this spring. I'd like to thankClay Baird, our producer, for
putting the show together andgetting it out to you, and I'd
like to thank you, the listener,for joining us on the DU podcast
and supporting wetlandsconservation.
VO (36:25):
Podcast, sponsored by Purina Pro Plan, the official
performance dog food of DucksUnlimited. Purina Pro Plan,
always advancing. Also proudlysponsored by Bird Dog Whiskey
and Cocktails. Whether you'rewinding down with your best
friend or celebrating with yourfavorite crew, Bird Dog brings
award winning flavor to everymoment. Enjoy responsibly.
(36:45):
Be sure to rate, review, andsubscribe to the show and visit
ducks.org/dupodcast. Opinionsexpressed by guests do not
necessarily reflect those ofDucks Unlimited. Until next
time, stay tuned to the Ducks.
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