Calvin Redhouse: The Navajo Houndsman

Calvin Redhouse, from the Chuska Mountains in the Navajo Nation Indian Reservation, joins hosts Bryce Matthews and Steven Basham to talk about his journey as a houndsman. Calvin has a unique approach to his hunting style and how he uses his hounds to help his community. This is an episode that you will not want to skip over!

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Canines are our passion.

(00:10):
They are our addiction.
They are our way of life right down to the very core and without them we would be lost.
The canines of this world really are something to behold.
They assist us at work, they accompany us at home, and they perform for us in the field.
No matter where we go, they are by our side.

(00:32):
Canines really are a ride or die and for that we are grateful.
This podcast will showcase working canines of various breeds and disciplines as we search
for those canines and their handlers who are always striving to be the best at what they
do.
Those who are always grinding.
Those who are always pushing the limits.

(00:52):
Those who are always dogging.
Join us on our adventures as it is sure to be a wild ride.
I'm your host, Bryce Matthews.
And I'm your co-host, Stephen Basham.
And this, this is Semper Doggin.

(01:23):
The Semper Doggin podcast is proudly presented to you by Froggy Bottom Outdoors.
Froggy Bottom Outdoors is the newest outdoor and hunting supply, habitat management, and
livestock feed provider in the Midwest.
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who are eager to provide their customers with an unparalleled shopping experience, you will

(01:45):
not have to search any further than Froggy Bottom Outdoors.
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Visit froggybottomoutdoors.com today and follow them on Facebook to see how they can help

(02:10):
you.
Not finding what you're looking for online?
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Feel free to give the store a call at 765-330-2098.
The team at Froggy Bottom Outdoors is excited to get to know you and will be glad to answer
any questions you may have.
All right guys, welcome to another episode of the Semper Doggin podcast.

(02:34):
Welcome, welcome, welcome.
We are glad to have you here.
Today I've got your co-host, Stephen Basham, and we are joined by our brother down in the
South in the Chuska Mountains, Mr. Calvin Redhouse himself.
Mr. Calvin, how are you?
Great man, great.
Loving life.
Glad to have you here, Basham.

(02:55):
How are you?
Are you working hard or hardly working, Calvin?
Hardly working.
If only we all could be like him, Bryce.
I know it.
We'd be living large.
What have you been doing up to, Basham?
What have you been up to?
Anything good?
Just same old same old.
Still working down here in Elizabethtown and got my room kind of set up.

(03:15):
It's not perfect, but I'm not driving 63 miles.
The dad's house is one way every single morning and every single afternoon.
So I'm about 12 minutes from the job site.
So we're down here building a battery plant.
So we're still rocking and rolling and doing that thing.
Heck yeah.

(03:35):
Well guys, I wanted to bring Calvin on here.
I know you guys have heard him on a couple other podcasts, but we want to do things just
a little bit different here.
We like to do that over here at Simp4Dog and I really just wanted to feature Calvin this
week.
I was able to go down there and hunt with Calvin a couple of years ago.
Actually, I was just looking through some pictures earlier, Calvin.
And man, I was fat when I came down there hunting with you.

(03:56):
That was bad.
What's changed, Bryce?
Hey, now the ending's changed.
Man, you guys are tough.
No, I was sitting there.
I was just showing Nikki some pictures about it and I was like, man, it was beautiful when
we went down there hunting and just really wanted to be able to showcase that and get

(04:17):
you here on the podcast and give some of the listeners who maybe haven't heard you before,
haven't been able to follow you on Instagram, Rez Hounds.
Is Rez Hounds where they can find you?
Yeah, they're at Rez Hounds on Facebook and then I believe it was Rez Hounds underscore
16 on Instagram.
Pretty much those are all two social media sites that I post to all the time.

(04:42):
I do have a YouTube channel, but that kind of fell on the back burner and I just haven't
picked it back up.
I think I posted like two videos and then after that, I kind of just like, you know
what?
I'm all right.
I don't need those.
I don't need YouTube right now.
I'll just stick with, you know, Facebook and Instagram.
Yeah, I'm not big time like Brian need all these different channels.

(05:04):
Maybe one day will be big time brother.
Maybe one day, but we're trying.
We really did just want to sit down here with Calvin tonight and just get to introduce you
to him and who he is and what he does.
He does things a little different than a lot of us out here in the East.
He's got different circumstances.
He's got different terrain.
He's got a different way of becoming a houndsman and we really just want to showcase that.

(05:25):
Calvin, why don't you go ahead and give it a listen.
There's just a little short bio on who you are, where you came from and maybe a little
bit of time before you got into the hounds.
All right.
Hey, no problem.
Uh, like I'm right.
Say my name is Calvin Redhouse.
You have born and raised here on the nation.
Um, now when it's from the reservation, if you don't know where that's at, that's right

(05:47):
near the full corners.
Uh, the reservation is not like a lot of place, other reservations, you know, you drive on
and drive on the reservation and then 10 seconds later, you're off the reservation.
Um, our reservation is 7 million acres of, uh, Navajo trust land that was given to us
by the government.

(06:08):
And I've lived here all my life, you know, um, went to school here all the way up to
high school, did a little bit of college.
Um, after that, I realized that I didn't, I didn't appreciate homework too much.
So I left and joined the brain core right, uh, a year after nine 11 and never looked

(06:30):
back.
Yes, sir.
Um, did 10 years, 10, 10 and a half years, you know, deployed five times, one time to
Iraq, four times to Afghanistan.
Um, that's, uh, my whole time in the Marine Corps was, you know, Yuma, Arizona, then San
Diego, um, you couldn't, Japan, um, a lot of times the 29 palms, a lot of times in Okinawa

(06:57):
a lot of times spent over there, you know, Guam, Philippines, you know, it was pretty
much the, you know, and, and Island jumper, you know, just hopping from Island Island,
we're working on all kinds of stuff.
And then from there I went to North Carolina and there in North Carolina is when I, you
know, decided to call quits.
The war was over.
They were pulling out of there and I just got put into a position where I was constantly

(07:25):
babysitting in 24 seven, you know, come Monday morning, didn't matter.
Got my, you know, got in my service alphas and waiting in front of first sergeant's office.
It's like, yep, I know somebody messed up today.
So might as well just stand here and wait to get yelled at.
And then, you know, I just got tired of being a glorified, you know, overpaid babysitter.

(07:46):
So I said, you know, this is it.
I'm getting out of here and call the quits.
And that was in 2014, I believe it was.
So it's been a minute since I've been out.
April.
We're about to hijack this post and it's going to turn into, you remember tool that,

(08:07):
oh, what was it?
Bryce, Kim tool man, Taylor, where they go, oh, yeah.
Now we're going to, I mean, he was going to just sit here and talk about the Marine Corps.
I got out in 2014.
Okay.
Sweet.
Yeah.
Let's see.

(08:27):
After that, you know, it was about six months before I decided to get out.
And my brother lost who is a game warden here on a never reservation was, you know, sending
me pictures and he was sending me pictures of, you know, him holding mountain lions that
he's what on depredation calls for and whatnot.

(08:48):
And you know, he asked me and he's like, did he do a lot of about coon hunting out there
in North Carolina?
And I was like, yeah, I was like, yep.
They do it religiously out here.
And he's like, well, do you think you can get a get some dogs from out there and bring
it back?
I was like, yeah, not that's not a problem.
So I met this old man right outside of the right outside of the East gate of in there

(09:12):
in Camp Lejeune.
And you know, I spent like two weekends with him.
He wanted to he wouldn't sell me the dogs.
He wouldn't sell me any pups until, you know, I spent some time with him and he pretty much
interviewed me and asked me what I was to do with his line, what they're going to be
chasing, how get to know me as a person, as an individual to see if his dogs would actually

(09:35):
be well taken care of.
And he tried to, you know, take me out coon hunting.
I went two times the first time wasn't so bad.
You know, we went towards we went in the evening times where I could see the ground.
I'm not I'm not too big on snakes.
So so the evening time was OK.
The other time we went at the sun went down.
It was like 11 o'clock.

(09:55):
He's like, all right, let's go.
We went out there and we started walking and it was dry, dry, got muddy.
Next thing you know, I was like ankle deep in water and I was like, where are we at?
He goes, oh, we're in the swamps, the dogs treated down by another three, 400 yards.
I looked around, I saw a snake, you know, cruising the top of the water.
I was like, no, my way for you.

(10:15):
I'll wait for you back to the UTV.
I'll wait right there.
So he went on and I went back to the truth.
We're back to the UTV and I stayed there and ever since then, I was like, no, no, I'm good
at coon hunting.
I'm not built for them or the swampy mess, man.
So something about the North Carolina Swamps is you can you don't wear hip boots in North

(10:38):
Carolina.
You wear tennis shoes because it don't matter.
It don't matter what you're walking in.
You're going to end up with a boot full of water.
Yeah, man.
I mean, I remember like a couple of times we were going out or morning zero six PT run
and going right down the fitness trail.
Next thing you know, everybody's jumping off to the left.
There's a damn alligator in the goddamn path and you're like, no, no, that's it.

(11:01):
Turn around.
Let's go back to the main road.
So that was the case, you know, and you got to we got to know each other pretty good.
And he said, all right, well, what what do you want?
I was a wall, take a male and a female.
And you know, he he let them go and I brought him back with my family.

(11:23):
It was me, my wife, my wife and my son at the time was just three.
And we drove packed up the truck from North Carolina, drove south because this was the
snow was pretty bad in the the middle of the country.
So we decided to drive down south to Florida and stay down low all the way back to Arizona.
So we made a good old, I don't know, like a week trip coming back across.

(11:47):
You know, myrtle beach stayed there, you know, Jacksonville, Florida stayed there.
New Orleans stayed there.
San Antonio pretty much made a big old vacation out of it all the way back with two little
puppies.
That was that was pretty interesting.
And I'm back.
Oh, yeah, it was it was pretty long.

(12:11):
But, you know, we were able to talk with the the hotel and they were able to, you know,
when we decided to go out to go sightseeing and whatnot, you know, the clerk was like,
yeah, of course, they're two little walker puppies and everybody likes the way they look
when they're when they're puppies.
So the clerks were like, yeah, yeah, you can bring them down downstairs and we'll watch

(12:32):
them behind the desk.
So they want to have a day.
I don't think that would fly today.
I mean, hotels are not that nice about dogs anymore.
Well, if you look at what is it called, the kinta, they're really big on unwelcoming dogs.
I'm going to have to check into that.

(12:53):
Likita.
Yeah, Likita.
And it's based on dogs.
So that's so that happened.
I got back to the reservation and I had two less about this time was right around nine
nine weeks old pups and just introduced them to the rest of the pack that my brother in
law had already going and just tagged along and tagged along and learned everything.

(13:19):
My brother in law became my mentor and he was fishing wildlife.
So he pretty much taught me everything I knew.
How did he get into it?
Yeah, I was going to say, how did your brother in law get into that?
Because I thought I must have had my memory wrong because I thought that you and you and
him had started things together.
I did remember he was fishing wildlife, but I thought you guys started the hounding together.

(13:42):
No, no, he started a way before me, like at least a year and a half before me, I believe
it was maybe even longer.
Well, anyway, he does a lot of depredation calls here on the reservation with bears and
mountain lions attacking the domestic livestock, sheep, horses, cows.
And when that happens, you know him and if he was lucky enough, he'd have a partner go

(14:09):
with him and they would sit in the sheep pen or whatever it is that the livestock owner
had at the time, sit in there and wait for that predator to come back, spotlight him
and then shoot him that way.
And a couple of times when they spotlighted them, you know, you only have maybe two, three

(14:30):
seconds before that animal figure out what's going on and bolts out of the other corral.
They wounded the animal and they had to go in there and track it, you know.
And a couple of times, you know, the mountain lion, mountain lion of the bear, I remember
one story he told me he was walking and they were looking on the ground searching with

(14:54):
the spotlight back and forth, back and forth.
Next thing you know, you know, he felt something hit his hat and he looked up, trying to lighten
the tree and he had ran into that bear's foot.
That bear was sitting right on top and they walked right there.
They were looking on the bottom, bottom on the ground for that bear because they thought
it was dead and he had crawled the tree and they ran right to the rear paw.

(15:16):
Holy cow.
And after that, you know, they both, him and his, his partner's last friend at the time
talked about it.
Like there's got to be a safer way.
There's got to be a different way to do this than, you know, us, us doing this late at
night and waiting for this animal to get back.
And right around that time, they reintroduced, Hound Hunting's not big in this area, was

(15:45):
not big in this area.
They introduced it and they had a couple of guys that were coming around and Hound Hunting,
some non-natives that were coming around and using their dogs.
And when they would check these non-native hunters that would come onto the reservation
to hunt, some of them, you know, they didn't like the dogs that they had or what dog was

(16:09):
just getting too old and, or the dog was wounded.
And the, you know, the, the hunter was about to, you know, put the animal down, put the
dog down because it takes about four hours to get to any veterinarian from anywhere you're
at on the reservation.
You have to drive, yeah, you have to drive at least three hours off the reservation to

(16:32):
get to a veterinarian.
And then depending on where you're at on the mountain or on the reservation, it takes about
an hour to get to the main road from where ever you're at.
So about four hours to get to a, to a vet.
Yeah.
And I'm going to, I'm going to jump in for one second, like, and just paint this picture

(16:52):
for the listeners.
Like guys, where Calvin lives and where he hunts on a daily basis is unlike anything
I've ever seen.
It is rough.
It is rugged.
It's dangerous.
And it's out in the middle of nowhere.
When I went down there and pulled into his house that one time we went down there hunting
with you.

(17:13):
I was like, are we ever going to get there?
I mean, there's the main road is not really a main road, but we would consider here out
east.
I mean, it's rough where you live at.
So I can definitely see that if you've got to go to a vet or you've got to go somewhere
like right now, that doesn't happen right now.
It doesn't happen where you live.
Yeah.
And then that the whole, you know, idea of how humane are you going to be?

(17:36):
Are you going to let this dog suffer a three hour, four hour trip to get to a veterinarian?
Or would you rather, you know, if you know that, you know, the wounds are just too bad,
you know, he's not going to make the trip anyway.
You just put, do the humane thing and put that animal down.
So a couple of times that would happen and they were just didn't want the dogs no more.

(17:59):
And so my brother-in-law and his partner would just take these dogs in and they would, you
know, work with them, work with them.
And a couple of times before they had the Alpha 100 and the TT10s, they didn't have
no, didn't have no telemetry callers either.
So they would just let the dogs go and then, you know, chase the house like back in the

(18:21):
good old days, way, way back before both all three of our times.
And then spend countless hours out there running around shouting for that dog and looking for
the dog.
And so that's, that's how he started.
And he kind of brought the pack along to where now they were, they were, you know, decent,

(18:44):
they were decent enough.
They could get the job done.
If the track was warm to hot anywhere in between there, the dogs could get it done.
And I introduced my two, my two little walkers and we just built, brought in different bloodlines
from different places, brought in different dogs, brought in, brought in just about any
and everything, wherever we could get it from out here where I'm at is mainly either all

(19:12):
mixed dogs or straight blue ticks.
You can, it's pretty hard to find walkers out this way.
No, not a lot of people have walkers.
Why is that?
I don't know.
I'm not too sure.
You don't have to worry about going very far, very fast then, right?
No, we really, we really don't even the Bobcats.

(19:33):
Like you get a Bobcat jump or you get a Bobcat trailing.
Bobcats don't really get messed with around here.
No, here to dogs and go straight into the tree.
They hardly ever do any loops.
They don't double back.
They don't jump tracks.
They'll just go straight into the tree.
And if your dog can locate it's you're, you're, you're in a, you're in a good place, man.

(19:54):
Now why do you think that is Calvin?
Do you think that's because you're the area that you're hunting is so spread out and wide
that they're not getting pressured?
They're not used to being dog.
That's, that's, that's exactly it.
I mean, you, when you were out here, we never ran into another single hound her the entire

(20:16):
week you were out here on average, there's probably maybe like two hound hunters on the
reservation that will be out there during the single time.
And you're not going to ever run into that other hound her.
It's 7 million acres of what you would consider public land for everybody.

(20:38):
If you got a tag.
So if you got tagged, the land that you can hunt is the same land that I can hunt and
it's all public to you, the entire reservation.
There is no such thing as private property, private land on the reservation.
It's all one big Navajo trust land.

(21:00):
Now that would be nice that Navajos are allowed to live on.
They don't own it.
They just lease that one acre.
So you got, if you, if a Navajo wanted to buy a house or build a house, they asked for
land and they would get a home side lease and that home side lease will be just one

(21:23):
acre that would be theirs.
That's it.
And then if they want to plant or do other things, then they get a land use permit and
that one will be, you know, sectioned off for them and told, Hey, this is the land that
you have to use to grow or do with it what you will, but it's not yours.

(21:45):
And then the home side lease is where their house would be.
Yeah.
So it's definitely a different way of life.
It's interesting.
Whenever I was down there, you were trying to explain all that to me and trying to take
it all in and just think about how, like, I mean, you guys are super connected to the
land and where you live and everybody's just trying to help everybody out there from what

(22:08):
I could tell.
Maybe I was just an outsider looking in, but that's, that was my impression.
Yeah, it is that way.
Everybody kind of considers everything as, as everybody's, you know, that you do get
a few, you know, hotheads or hardheaded individuals that try to claim everything.

(22:31):
But you know, you, he tried explaining to them how the rules and regulations and laws
work as far as the Navajo Trust land, but you know, they say my grandfather's great
grandfather lived here way back in the day and this is our land and we claim it from
where the sun rises to where the sun sets.

(22:52):
Yeah, it's just, but there's no point in arguing with them.
It's just like, all right, well, let me just get my dog and get out of here.
I mean, it's just, you're just not going to win just because they're just so set in their
ways.
But so that's, that's kind of how it happened.
And I ran with my brother-in-law's dogs for about a good four years maybe until finally

(23:17):
right around the fourth year, Mark, he was like, Hey, you know, you know, you can make
money doing this, right?
Because I was, I was out there just, you know, hunting every day and then going on depredation
calls with him.
And he's the one that told me he's like, well, I'm because you can make money doing this
so that you don't have to pay out of pocket.

(23:39):
You don't have to pay out of pocket for dog food.
You don't have to pay out of pocket for vehicle maintenance, kennel maintenance.
You don't have to do that.
You can actually get paid to do this.
And then I was scratching my head, you know, I didn't, I didn't know anything about it.
He goes, well, you can become a guide and then take people out and they, and then they

(24:00):
pay you to take them out to go hunting.
And then you can use that money to, you know, dog food, maintenance on the vehicle.
If you now food hay for the meals and find a new, you know, new college for the dogs
and, and, you know, just making sure that you're, you have the best possible equipment for

(24:25):
the dogs and you.
So, and so he introduced me back into guiding again.
And it took me about another year before I was actually competent enough to be like,
okay, well I, I'm, I'm all right.
I can, I think I can take, take out somebody.
So I went in, got my guiding license and I only took two hunters that first time and

(24:51):
then they got their cats and they were pleased.
And you know, I liked it, you know, being able to take that first, take that hunter
to see their first cat or to be able to bag their first cat, you know, and just to being
able to be there to see them.
And, and it was fun.
It was, it was great.
And I, and I enjoy it.

(25:11):
And so after that, you know, I went from two hunters to five hunters and that's the most
that I'll take in one season is five hunters.
And the reason for that is to produce quality and not quantity, you know.
I know where we're going, Bryce.

(25:32):
Yeah.
So we, so that, that's how, that's how it is.
That's what I, that's what I, how many hunters I take every year is just five regardless,
you know, can I take more than five?
Oh yeah, definitely.
But, you know, it's just after that becomes a second job and nobody wants that.
Right.
Absolutely.
Nobody wants to get into another job.

(25:53):
Nope.
I understand that.
So what kind of dogs are you running now?
Whenever I was down there with you, you had a couple of blue ticks.
You had my girl star, she was your Walker dog.
And then you had probably my favorite dog, NOS.
He was a red tick English.
Are you still running any of those same dogs?
Yeah, this, this year has been hard, man.

(26:14):
Like I text you a while back.
I think it was two months ago.
This year has been hard.
We lost NOS during a, during a vet hunt with, with freedom hunters.
I took a veteran out and we went, um, blind hunting and dogs were treated on the side

(26:34):
of a, a ledge and we came up and crushed that heel, the line saw us and it jumped straight
down a 25 foot cliff.
And NOS just went straight off.
Kept on going and all the dogs figure way off that cliff and kept on going.
They retreat again.
I got to the tree and I guess when NOS landed, he broke both of his front arms and his, and

(27:00):
his shoulders and he was still trained.
That dog was, was amazing then.
And I pulled them off and by the time the other edge rental had worn off, you know,
he just, he just laid down and that was it.
He couldn't get back up.
So, yeah, I put him down there in the canyon and covered him, made a makeshift cross and

(27:22):
his collar still hangs right there in the canyon now.
So we lost NOS and then at the NOS, I lost a blue tick, um, uh, Magman and she was, he
was pretty good.
He was, he was a really good dog.
We lost him to a bear.
Um, I lost him to a bear this spring and he, dogs retreat.

(27:46):
I got down to the tree and I realized he wasn't there and I looked at the handheld.
He was about another 300 yards to the west of me and I was like, well, maybe he's got
another, he's got something else treed.
So I got up, got there and he was, you know, his, the bear had grabbed him and crushed
his entire chest.
His chest was completely flat.

(28:09):
Um, so lost him and, uh, star, she got really sick.
Like she, she, she contracted parvo and got really sick.
And by the time I got her to the bed, it was just, it's just too late.
You know, that part went already taken, taken effect and she was not, not, not herself,

(28:30):
you know, she'd be looking at you, but you could tell that she was, you know, she was,
she wasn't there.
It's like she was looking right through you type of deal.
So I lost her to parvo and then lost, uh, Rico, our dog, we lost Daisy to another mountain
line.
Um, that was this, that was, I think two, two months ago, we lost Daisy to another mountain

(28:53):
line.
He had, uh, they'd beat up and that mountain lion grabbed her, grabbed her neck and punctured
her neck really bad to where it had, um, slit one of her main, uh, main arteries.
By the time I got down there, she had already bled out and she was pretty much dead.
By the time I got there, she was barely moving.

(29:17):
And then Rico, the last one Rico, uh, just Rico was just old age.
You know, he was just around the house, you know, just being that old dog.
He, he would, uh, I take him out with me and he would just stay on the ring rail or in
the dog box and it was just my go-to dog that just stayed with me whenever I walked to the

(29:38):
tree.
But, um, one day I just came back from, uh, from work and he was curled up right there
inside the house, um, in the hot and, uh, and where the sun was shining right against
the house and yup, didn't move.
He was gone.
So I lost the five top dogs.
So now I've been slowly rebuilding and figuring out new dogs.

(30:00):
So that's where I'm at right now.
I've got some dogs.
That is, yeah.
So this, this past year I've lost the top five dogs.
So, so now I'm back down to six dogs, which three of them are coming along and they, they
can get it done in the snow.

(30:23):
And, um, one of them, which is a Snoop, he's a blue tick from, uh, I think he's out of,
uh, the line from, in a call big country.
Yeah.
Big country.
He's in the Coonhound world.
Ashley Ocidine, big country in John Strickland.
Yeah.
Yeah.

(30:43):
Big country, big country Snoop is, was his name and that's on his paperwork that I got
from out of, uh, Oklahoma.
Okay.
Okay.
So I've got that.
And then I've got another here.
I guess you would consider him the niece to Snoop.
Her name is winter.
So she's like the niece to Snoop.

(31:04):
So there's two big countries.
And then, um, I've got a blue tick from smoky river out of Montana.
And then, uh, let's see what else.
And the rest that's three.
And then I've got a, another smoky river out of California and who am I missing?

(31:33):
Oh, I just picked up another one out of Tucson, um, from, um, the bigger staff line.
So that's, that's pretty much it.
Those are the dogs that I have right now.
So kind of going back, um, Calvin, obviously you've been doing this for roughly about nine

(31:54):
years now.
I'll just be your 10th year since you got out.
Um, you know, you talked about bringing, you know, those pups home and, and just kind of
starting out with your brother-in-law, you know, kind of going over what you knew to
what you know now, what's the biggest change you would say in your dogs, uh, whether it

(32:17):
be your training style or whether maybe it's just genetics within the dogs that you've
seen has changed from the time where you started to the time where you're at.
No, that's a, that's a, that's a pretty big question.
Um, a lot has changed, man.
Like me not knowing absolutely nothing.

(32:39):
I've grown up to not know any type of hunting to now I spend about five days out of the
week in the woods all the time.
You know, uh, my wife does always telling me telling the kids, you know, yay, your dad's
gone again.
He's in the mountains.
Um, to let's not typical, doesn't it?
Bryce?

(33:00):
Yeah, not bad.
And I think that's the thing of a hound hunter.
And then even telling my wife, telling me to tell my kids to shut up and she's not talking
about our kids.
She's talking about my kids and dogs outside from this barking and something.
So she's telling me to shut my kids up.
So I mean, everything's changed, you know, from what I didn't know back then to what

(33:24):
I know now, you know, um, yes, genetics plays a big role to help the dogs get trained, maybe
train faster, learn faster.
Um, just have that natural, you know, natural hunting instinct.
From dogs back then, I know I used to keep dogs at least two years before I would make

(33:50):
any type of decision on if I want to keep them or not.
Now anywhere between eight months to a year, I have an idea of if I need to cut this dog
loose and find it a new home or this dog's going to stay with me.
Comes from, you know, watching their tendencies, watching how they work, how their nose goes,

(34:12):
you have the interest is how well, how fast they're learning.
And it's just, it's just a whole new ball game from what little, what little, little
information that I know now compared to then, you know, if I mean, I don't know it all and

(34:33):
I don't say that I do, you know, you come to meet me and I'll talk all kinds of trash
about, you know, the dogs and everything else.
And the other person, you know, I don't know how to talk to me trash.
Yeah.
But to be honest with you, like I, I, I don't know anything.
Like I barely scratched the surface of, of hound hunting, you know, I mean, the other

(35:00):
day I was listening to you guys's first podcast and you guys were talking about, what was
it?
Strike points and what was it?
Tree points or I don't know.
You guys were talking about all kinds of points during your competition points in the end.
Man, I was, I was like, my mind was blown to think like, you know, it's there's more

(35:22):
to this hound hunting on the East coast than there is here on the West coast.
You know, on the West coast, you, yeah, you get field trials, but not as far as, you know,
what you guys have as far as the UKC and PKC and oh man, what is it like blue purple ribbons
and then PR purple ribbon dogs.

(35:44):
Yeah.
We live in a competition hunt.
Yeah.
See that that out here, like it doesn't even paper dogs out here are not even, it's not
really a thing out here, but it's two totally different styles of hunting.
You know, what we do is, and I'm going to, I'm just going to speak on the competition

(36:07):
coon hound side.
What we do is fast pace.
It's right here, right now.
And what you're doing, that doesn't always work.
The terrain that you're hunting is so different.
I was going back to these old videos showing Nikki right before we recorded the night about
the canyon that we walked down in whenever I was there and just trying to get down to

(36:30):
where the lions might be is an adventure in itself.
And it's not like that over here in the East.
It's not like that at all.
You've talked about, you've lost your top five dogs this year and four of those were,
you know, two hunting accidents.
And that is, I'm not going to say uncommon out here, but it's, it doesn't happen as much,

(36:54):
especially that rapid a timeframe as it does with you guys.
What you guys are doing is on a another level.
So it's different.
Pretty rare.
It's pretty rare to lose a dog during a hunting accident here.
You know, the biggest thing you have here is roads.
Every once in a blue moon, you'll have something, you know, a dog will fall out of a tree or

(37:16):
something like that.
But for the biggest majority, you know, the dogs that end up perishing during, during
the hunting cycle is usually just because of roads around here.
Yeah.
I mean, it, yeah, it's too big to two huge things, but you know, it's like I said, it's
just the knowledge I have of just hunting here on the West coast.

(37:40):
Like I just barely scratched the surface.
You know, there's so much more information that's out there that I don't even know, let
alone the competition side on the West coast or on the East coast that I don't even have
a single clue what's going on as far as that, you know?
And I have people asking me all the time, you know, how do you train these dogs?

(38:03):
You know, how do you, how do you start dogs?
How do you, you know, how do you get a rig dog?
How do you get a tree dog?
You know, and even as far as, you know, I don't carry leads into a tree.
I call the dogs off, call the dogs off the tree and they'll come right back to me.

(38:23):
Um, you know, the dogs will be trailing a bear.
They'll be right there with the bear.
Like maybe a foot off from the bear trailer on the ground.
I can call the dogs off of that bear and come right back to me.
People leave that bear come right back to me, you know, that the styles, the two styles
are so different.
I mean, I know you guys pretty much carry leads everywhere and you're pretty much, you

(38:48):
know, if you and Bryce were going out in the woods, you two would pretty much have like
six leagues between you two.
And for me, you know, on average I'll have maybe 10, 12 dogs with me while I'm out there
either bear hunting, bobcat hunting or mal-line hunting.
And I'm not going to carry that many leads with me.
Um, I need my dogs to, to know that, you know, Hey, I'm the pack leader.

(39:13):
You come listen to me.
You know, I tell you to come here.
You better get over here.
You know, um, sometimes, you know, a little bit of stimulation from the handheld is, is
needed, but not a lot, especially when you have the older dogs that listen and you know,
monkey see monkey do the younger dogs will follow the suit.
Oh, he got called.
He broke out the tree.

(39:33):
Well, I'm going to do the same thing type of deal.
So it's just a whole different style of hunting.
Yeah.
I think the difference between, you know, what you guys do out there.
So everything for you guys, um, handle means everything, you know, they're about to, you
know, chase a bear over a cliff or whatever they're getting in dangerous territory.

(39:55):
Whereas for us, especially on the competition side, um, you can actually put too much of
a handle on a dog to where it hurts you in the competition world.
So I think a lot of us do it re, you know, religiously every night for the most part,
our dogs have a handle on them, um, for the most part.

(40:16):
But like I said, you, every dog's different.
So you play that fine line of what's too much of a handle and what's, you know, the right
amount when it comes to the competition world.
Right.
So there's one thing that, that Calvin carries that we don't, you know, he's talking about,
we carry all these leads and all this stuff.
What Calvin carries is a fricking sick camera setup and Calvin gets some awesome pictures

(40:41):
and some awesome videos of those dogs, man.
I'm telling you guys, if you haven't checked out Rez hounds on Facebook and Instagram,
you need to, cause they are some of the coolest pictures and I don't know how much time he
has editing in those pictures, but they're sick.
Yeah.
I mean, I took a couple of classes, you know, in, in, in, uh, college, but, um, a lot of

(41:05):
this stuff was just like everybody else.
You too talk, you know, Hey, how do you take this?
How do you take a picture like this?
Okay.
Well, I'm gonna start doing that.
You know, how do you prove from this angle?
And, and let's see after about two, no, about five years in, I met Mr. Gary Robinson with
carnivore TV and he was out here hunting and he had seen that my camera set up, you know,

(41:30):
it was the greatest, but it got the job done.
And, you know, he offered me a job.
He's like, Hey man, why don't you become, you want to become a cameraman for me and
we'll review the footage.
And if we like the footage, you know, we'll air it on national TV underneath of my show,
carnivore TV.
And so that's how I got to know him.

(41:51):
And we ever since then we've been working together and every, every spring I go down
to Texas and do a little bit of hog hunting and then we finished buttoning down all the
rest of the shows for that, that season.
So that's, that's where it is.

(42:13):
I've only killed me myself.
I've only placed one tag on one cat.
That was my very first mountain lion.
That's the only cat I have ever killed with my tag.
All the other tags that I've carried since then, I've, I've had tag soup.
I've treated plenty of cats and I've couldn't have filled it numerous times, but I've always

(42:37):
had tags, tag soup every single season just so I can train the dogs for me.
It's about the dogs.
It's not really about killing the animal training, training, training, training.
I enjoy training.
I enjoy being out there and that was one of my big stress relievers when I left the Marine
Corps and my whole, you know, everybody, everybody talks about, you know, you need to find your

(42:59):
stress reliever for PTSD.
You know, I had, I had some of it coming back out and being in the mountains, being with
the dogs and just being out there was what helped me.
And that's the reason why, you know, I still do it now is because it's a huge stress relief
for me to just be out there and enjoy the outdoors, you know.

(43:21):
Yeah.
And then, you know, that fact that, oh, go ahead, Bash, I'm sorry.
I said first and foremost, you know, from one veteran to another, and I know Bryce echoes
this, you know, definitely want to appreciate your service and what you've done and, and
the time that you spent overseas doesn't, doesn't go unnoticed whatsoever, especially

(43:42):
for us here at Simper Doggin and what we're trying to do and help veterans to cope with
that PTSD, you know.
I'm in the same boat, you know, as you are, you know, I did six deployments.
If we, we got down the timeline, we were probably over there at the same time, quite a few times.
I went in and, I went in in 2002 and got out in 2014, so.

(44:09):
Yeah.
2004, 2014.
You know, it's, it's, it's awesome, you know, and the fact that you're still doing some
hunts for freedom hunters to help other vets, you know, that's just another act of one vet
helping another one in, and that you're able to use your hounds and what you've learned
on the beautiful country that you live in to help another vet is, it's, it's inspiring.

(44:30):
And it really is.
And I don't just say that because I really do think it's a great thing.
And I've been on a freedom hunters hunt as well.
Went on a bear hunt down in Virginia with Heath High.
You guys have heard me talk about that before.
And I think it's a great organization, you know, and that's kind of why Basham and I
have kind of partnered up a little bit with Hometown Hero Outdoors is to help out around
here where we can just a little bit.

(44:50):
So a lot of good things going for vets and the fact that you're able to take your dogs
and in the country you live in and help out with that organization.
I mean, it's a good thing.
So appreciate you for doing that, Calvin.
I want to, I want to go into a little bit more now though, about like where you're going
with your hounds.
So we know where you've been.

(45:11):
We know the season you've had, where are you going?
All right.
So the ultimate goal of any hound hunter out west that hunts the mountain lines, the ultimate
goal is dry ground hunting.

(45:32):
Can you talk to any line hunter out west?
They enjoy hunting in the snow with that, with a passion, but the ultimate goal for
anybody who is a true hound's been out west and that really enjoys being with the dogs
is dry ground hunting, being able to do it on dry ground, no matter, you know, no matter

(45:58):
what you just, just getting it done on dry ground.
That's where that's my ultimate goal.
Yes, I have achieved some goals, one that will never ever be achieved by me ever again
is the one that I did last spring, last year, last spring.
And the dogs have to pack split up.

(46:21):
One took one went to the north, half the pack went to the south and I wasn't too sure.
You know, there wasn't no snow on the ground.
So I wasn't sure what was going on.
I knew one had the backtrack going on, was going the right way.
So I was like, you know what, we'll see what happens.
The dogs went to the north, they were taking the backtrack.
Dogs that went to the south, they had taken the right track and the south dogs treat the

(46:47):
north dogs had kept on going and they had made a loose like maybe three quarters of
a mile away.
Went over there, picked them up, got them turned around and they went down south to
the other dogs and they treat and I had to walk maybe like 400 yards, you know, came
up to the edge of the cliff and looked down.

(47:08):
I was like, oh, okay, well, sweet, man, there's a bear right there.
Cool.
So, and I couldn't get down that cliff.
So I had to backtrack and come down and around around the edge.
And just as I came around the edge, there's this huge boulder right in front of me.
You know, I came crashing over the top of that boulder, saw the bear right underneath
that bear.
I'm not even kidding.

(47:29):
Like four feet below that bear is the mountain lion.
The dogs put a bear and a mountain lion in the tree, the same tree.
Oh, wow.
And it's, and I couldn't believe it.
You know, I had, I carry a camera that was given to me by Carnivore TV, a $3,000 cam
quarter in my pack.

(47:49):
I carried that with me no matter what.
And then I carry my DSLR camera and I didn't know what to do.
You know, I was so shocked.
What did I end up using?
I used my phone.
You know, I was so excited, you know, adrenaline.
I just broke out my phone.
And that's the reason why I got the pictures that I had.
I had all this gear at $5,000 worth of gear in my pack.

(48:10):
I never took any of it out.
And I used my phone to take pictures because I was so excited.
You know, I was just in the moment.
You know, I had, so this, so mountain lion season is six months.
It goes from October 1st all the way to June 31st here.
So it's, so it's roughly, what is that?

(48:33):
Eight months?
Yeah.
That's longer than six months.
Yeah.
It's like, I think it's like eight months.
So that's what that is.
And then spring bear overlaps the lion hunt by two weeks.
So that last two weeks timeframe, you can either hunt mountain lions or bears.

(48:55):
And I had to tag for both of those animals.
And what did I end up doing?
I called my brother-in-law.
I had to say, I called my brother-in-law and I was like, hey, and his name's Titus.
I was like, Titus.
He's like, yeah, what's up, man?
He was still at the house because he was getting ready to leave to go to work.
But he was doing some other stuff, but he was still at the house.

(49:16):
And I was like, um, you're not going to believe what just happened.
He's like, what are you talking about?
I was like, uh, so I'm thinking about filling my tags today.
He's like, what do you mean you're filling your tags?
He goes, you have a bear and a mountain lion tag.
How are you going to fill them both?
I was like, uh, because I got a bear and a mountain lion in the tree right now.

(49:40):
The dogs put them both up in the same tree.
He's like, shut up, send me pictures.
And I was like, no, I'm serious.
He was like, no, you better send me some pictures.
I'm not going to believe you.
So I took some pictures.
I sent it to him.
So he, he's just like, it just, the phone just went quiet for a while.
I thought we got disconnected and he was just puzzled looking at the picture, man.

(50:02):
And of course I had to make sure I took the selfie with me, the bear, the mountain lion
and then dogs right below the tree.
And he was shocked and he was, he didn't know what was going on.
And then he hung up.
Yeah.
He hung up and then he FaceTime me because he wanted to see if it was real or not.
So connected through FaceTime.

(50:25):
And I sat underneath of that tree FaceTiming him and he was watching the whole thing on
and I went live on Facebook live just so there was no if and for, buts and about what, what
was going on with me.
So that was, that was the main, main goal that, you know, that I was the one, not I,

(50:45):
but the dogs accomplished with me behind them.
And there's, I will never ever see that again in my lifetime that I'm pretty sure of that.
There are people that say they've done it or no people that done it, but I've never
seen pictures of it being done.
So I mean, I don't know.
I'm not going to say that I'm the first.
I'm pretty sure it has happened before, you know, way back in the day when they didn't

(51:10):
have cameras, maybe, I don't know.
Bryce is that like one of the same tree for us?
Yeah.
But that's not near as cool.
We don't hold a candle to that.
I just can't believe I'm telling you guys, I've been sitting here this whole podcast
talking up his pictures and videos and he didn't even get a good one.

(51:31):
All he got was cell phone pictures, Calvin.
You're killing me, man.
But I do remember that Facebook live.
I actually watched that Facebook live.
I saw you went live and I wasn't busy.
I don't know what I was doing.
And I watched that live.
I couldn't believe it myself.
That was awesome.
But it's just pure adrenaline and excitement, man.
That's not something you see every day.

(51:53):
Yeah, I've had two bobcats in a tree.
I've had a female mother lion with her two kittens in a tree.
I've had a sow with cubs in a tree.
I've had two boars in a tree.
It's exciting, but not a full grown, you know, mountain lion and a full grown, you know,

(52:14):
boar in a tree.
I sat there for about a good, I don't know, 15 minutes before that boar started moving
around.
That boar actually laid down on the limb and just pretty much took a little short little
nap and that mountain lion was the only one that was afraid because he had a boar above
him and he had 10 dogs below him barking up the tree.

(52:38):
And both of them had, you know, blood all over their snouts.
And the only thing I could think of was the dogs trail to the kill and both of those two
were sharing the kill and they just got jumped straight into the tree.
That's the only thing that I can think of that happened.
I never stayed around to look for a kill because, you know, I treat both animals and I just

(53:02):
wanted them to, you know, continue eating.
I just got stopped.
I just kind of stopped what I was doing and loaded the dogs off and just letting me after
that.
That's the only thing that I could say that is probably the only way that it did happen.
After a while, you know, the bear started moving around and walking back and forth on

(53:24):
top of the lion and that lion got agitated and bolted out of the tree.
And yeah, the dogs all left after that mountain lion.
And here I am, four feet from the tree, looking out at this board and the board was looking
at me like, yep, I think I can take you.
I came running down out of that tree and I was like, oh shit.
And I turned around and I high tailed towards the dogs and the board came down that tree

(53:47):
and went the other way.
So
Well, man, that is an awesome accomplishment.
And you know, like you said, I don't know that you'll ever see that again, but it's
awesome that you did, you know, you got to experience that, especially with your hounds
and I know how much those hounds mean to you, man.
So I really do feel for you losing your best five this year.
Nobody wants to hear about that.
And you know, I just know how attached you are to them, but I want to wrap this up here.

(54:10):
It's getting late.
You know, we are doing this on a different time schedule than usual, trying to get our
time zone matched with your time zone, East and West.
But I got one question.
Are you hunting with mules now?
Because whenever I was down there, you were starting to train a mule.
Yeah, I do.

(54:30):
I do hunt with mules.
That's just me myself.
As far as taking clients out on mules, that's a whole different ball game because I'm going
to, I need it.
I'm going to have to get insurance to cover in case the client falls off the mule.
So that's a whole different ball game again.
So I'm not sure if I want to introduce that to clients, maybe a little bit further down

(54:55):
the line.
But as of right now, it's mainly been just me or a friend on mules and we just follow
the dogs and it's, well, hunting with mules is a way different, man.
I mean, you can cover a lot of ground that you normally couldn't cover with a vehicle.
Granted, there's a lot of roads here on the reservation that, you know, two track roads

(55:18):
and logging roads, old logging roads that you can travel down and get relatively within
a half a mile or a mile depending and be able to walk that distance.
But with a mule, it's a totally different game.
And it's just another tool, the toolbox to help me train these dogs a lot better.
But yes, the ultimate goal is dry ground hunting.

(55:42):
So if I can get away from having to need snow to tree mountain lines, I'm going to do it.
I'm going to work on it.
And the thing that I'm going to need is cold nosed dogs.
And I'm in the right place to look for cold nosed dogs.
The problem is being able to save up enough money to buy cold nosed dogs.

(56:09):
And even a cold nosed pup is still going to run like between 15 to $2,000 at times probably.
So but it's going to happen.
I'm going to make it happen.
There you go.
It's just going to be a lot of dedication.
You're definitely going to have to get together at some other point in time, Calvin, and go

(56:32):
over our some military stories.
Oh, yeah, man.
I've got so many with I've got so many of those stupid stories that it's just ridiculous
that not a lot of people will understand and appreciate that haven't served or doesn't
know the lingo as to the type of relationships we had with one another as far as you know,

(56:58):
being different races, different backgrounds, different, you know, from different parts
of the country and being able to come together and treat each other as if, you know, we grown
up together all our lives, you know, it's just a whole different ball game, just like
I was telling my son the other day, I will drink with another Marine and be able to trust
that Marine to take care of me if I block out.

(57:21):
I cannot trust my brother or my family members to take care of me if I block out.
Yes, sir.
My son was like, what are you talking about?
That's that doesn't sound right.
And I was like, sir, that's just the way it is.
I said it is just the type of brotherhood and bond that we have as being it mean, mean
Marines, I said.
And he was like, oh, OK, I think I understand.

(57:43):
So I mean, Bryce is lucky we didn't hijack this whole podcast and just go into our military
career and talk about deployments.
I think he I think he made a box of tissue that wiped all those tears because we just
leave him alone in the corner all night.
Well guys, we might have to get back together and do that sometime because I think that

(58:04):
those stories would be interesting.
And, you know, I think our listeners would too.
But we're going to wrap this up.
It's getting late.
It's almost 11 o'clock here.
So, Calvin, thank you so much for joining us.
You got anything else you want to add on here before we sign off?
No, man.
I mean, any time you guys need me to run my mouth and come on your show and help support
you guys, help support veterans, help support, you know, how honey, I'm all pro 100 percent

(58:29):
to, you know, promote how and hunting and keep this tradition alive.
I mean, I understand that I'm due to this tradition, but I'm all for it and.
That's some you good.
All good, but we appreciate you for coming on.
Obviously, keep doing what you're doing.
You know, you're making that and we don't do it to make a name for ourselves, but you're

(58:51):
making the name for yourself, not only, you know, for being a veteran and doing what you're
doing, helping veterans out, but also in the hound hunting and being able to train dogs
and make your mark on the dog industry.
So we appreciate you.
We look up to you.
And until next time, bud, just keep training those dogs.
Sure.
All right, guys.

(59:12):
Well, thank you for listening to Semper Dog.
And once again, if you enjoyed this episode, even with a little bit of audio discrepancies
here, we got a little bit of feedback, but we're going to try and clean that up in post
production.
If you enjoyed it, make sure you give us a like and a follow.
Leave us a review.
We really do appreciate those and they really do help us out, especially just getting started

(59:32):
here with our mission.
I want to say thank you to our sponsors, Froggy Bottom Outdoors, Never Satisfied Off Road,
Hometown Heroes Outdoors, guys.
It's another great organization, just like Calvin mentioned with Freedom Hunters, just
another great organization.
We are now live on YouTube.
We're live on all of your audio listening platforms.
We even have a LinkedIn account.
We're getting professional.

(59:53):
Sir, let's make sure we give a shout out to Rez Hounds.
Go look him up on Facebook, watch him like share his page and on Instagram, which you
need.
You need to get on that, Bryce.
Hey, I'm already there.
We're working on it.
So I just haven't told you about that yet.
But guys, I appreciate it.

(01:00:15):
And Calvin, once again from Semper Dog, and thank you for everything you've done.
Really appreciate having on here and really appreciate the brotherhood that you know,
you've showed to me over the last couple of years.
Hope to make it out there and see you again sometime soon, buddy.
So if you guys are good, we're going to sign off here.
We're good, man.
Thank you very much.
All right.
See you guys until next time.

(01:00:35):
Keep dogging.
Yep.
Take care.
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(01:00:58):
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(01:01:22):
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(01:01:44):
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