The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 006
Episode Date: April 2, 2015Ransom Canyon, Texas. Recorded from the Llano Estacado, Steven Rinella talks with hunting dog experts Ronny Boehme and Ed Arnett, along with MeatEater producer Janis Putelis. Subjects discussed: the b...est all-around hunting dog; whether guys who hunt with dogs like dogs more than hunting; Steve's three very different experiences hunting wild pigs with dogs in Hawaii, New Zealand, and Florida; "rescuing" a dog vs. just going to the pound and getting one; the legality and ethics of trailing a wounded big game animal with a dog; Faith Hill; the experience of getting licked by a dog who just ate the unmentionable; the bare minimum of time to put into a dog to ever expect to have a hunting dog that isn't going to embarrass you in the field; marked vs. blind retrieves; and how finding the right dog is like finding the right wife (or husband, for you ladies.) Guests: Janis Putelis https://twitter.com/LatvianHuntr Ronny Boehme Dancing Duke Kennels Host of the Hunting Dog Podcast Ed Arnett TRCP Other links: Instantly download episodes of MeatEater Connect with Steve and MeatEaterSteve on Instagram and TwitterMeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YoutubeShop MeatEater Merch Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
Discussion (0)
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All right, everybody.
This is the Meat Eater podcast coming to you recorded
from the Llano Estacado or Staked Plains of Texas.
We're in a canyon called Ransom Canyon,
which is a sweet name,
in a rental house that has a lot of personal flourishes of the owner around it.
We're down here.
We're not going to talk about why we're down here too much yet
because we're going to talk about that at another point.
It has to do with a big, tall bird.
It tastes real good.
Instead, what we're talking about right now is something that I've been troubled by
and puzzled over and anguished over my entire life,
and that is the purpose and functionality and also some practical business
having to do with hunting dogs.
And I've always maintained that dudes who hunt with dogs like dogs more
than hunting and i have a couple of dog a couple of dog experts sitting here today and also uh
yannis putellis you're owned a dog yannis nope and also a man who's never even owned a dog. How have you
never owned a dog? We had one
growing up, so it was a family dog.
I'm counting that. And then when I got
married, I got a two-for-one
package. But she was just like a house
dog. She was a family dog. What's it mean to get a
two-for-one package? I got a dog with the marriage.
Where's the dog now? She passed
away. From what? Old age.
Alright, so Giannis lied.
He's actually had several dogs.
They're all dead now.
And we're also joined right now by Ronnie Bame,
who's the main dog guy that I know.
Most of what I know about dogs besides just dogs I've owned
has come from Ronnie.
And Ronnie, I'm going gonna have you talk about ronnie but like you ronnie judges dogs and breeds dogs yeah you used to breed these really
violent dogs i let's not call them violent but anyway mean-spirited i started out like not pit
bulls but when i first moved to michigan 26 seven years ago i got a german short
hair and it was a nice dog and you know a little hyper strong little little goofy and i didn't know
jack shit about training i i couldn't get the dog to sit but i but you wanted it for a hunt
yeah and this dog was a good grouse dog a good woodcock dog and i took it to south dakota
but other than that i was just i got lucky just this dog just like oh grouse dog and a good Woodcock dog. And I took it to South Dakota.
But other than that, I got lucky.
This dog just like, oh, out of the box.
It just did everything.
You mean Zygon?
No, no.
This is Queenie.
Long time.
I remember that dog.
Yeah.
The white and brown.
So that wasn't the violent kind.
No.
No.
And then when I thought- But it was a pointer.
Yeah.
It's a pointer.
All my dogs have been pointing.
You've always been into pointers.
I want to real quick.
Hunt dogs occur in what three categories?
Let's say you got just like laid us out.
Basically, you got a pointers,
retrievers and trackers.
Is that how you categorize hunting dogs?
Well, we call them pointers, flushers,
and then there'd be tracking dogs,
which would be in the hound group.
Like lion dogs or coon dogs.
Coon dogs, bear dogs.
So pointers, flushers and trackers is fair to say.
Yeah, it's fair.
All right.
And you've always been into the pointers, right?
And that's good because I know it adds into the flushing breed.
Retrievers.
Retrievers.
But as far as a field work, it's a flushing dog.
Yeah.
Yeah, but he mainly uses it for it to go pick up dead
stuff. That's true, though, which
we'll get to this in my opinion
is that useful dog. You
could have the main thing a dog
can do is I would leave it in
its kennel until I couldn't
find something and I would go
home and get it and have it find it. Yeah.
All right, but
anyways, so your dog, you don't you do like your Go home and get it and have it find it. Yeah. Yeah. All right. But anyways.
So you're doing your life through dogs.
I made one of those mistakes. I jumped in with both feet, and I started reading too many articles,
and I got a German wire-haired pointer.
That dog hated me.
It was a good hunter, but it had no cooperation.
This is Zygon.
No, no.
This is Zygon.
This is way before you met Zygon.
His name was Hasco.
He's a black.
I remember that dog.
Black wire hair
which is a little rare at that time.
He had all the talent in the world
and I had no skill level
to train the obedience.
Some dogs
when they're really high desire
and really
there's a top shelf dog
it needed to be
it needed to be told
who was alpha.
It needed a boss.
Yeah.
And you were man enough to do that.
I can't get my wife to listen to me.
I couldn't get this dog to listen to me at all.
This dog, I took this dog to Canada when he was like four or five years old
to hunt sharp-tail grouse.
And I only shot grouse over my buddy's griffin.
My dog hunted like over there and over there
and shot, retrieved birds for other people.
The dog hated me.
That's what my, that's funny
because my hate of hunting dogs,
my kind of hate of hunting dogs
comes from people telling me throughout my life,
this is going back to high school,
people being like, oh, I got this great hunting dog.
We're going to take my great hunting dog out and go hunt.
And you open the door or open the back of the truck.
And as some of the bitch takes off and he's like, yeah, sure.
I can't contest that.
He's not a great hunting dog.
Who knows what he's doing wherever he is.
He might be hunting up a storm, but it's not happening around me.
Right.
And then you spend your whole time trying to get the dog back in the truck.
And hollering at it and blowing a whistle.
And it's aggravating.
You were with me with some of the dogs I had.
I remember some.
Yeah.
Your dogs now are different.
Right.
Right.
Yeah.
So then you got into the mean ones.
That was the German Wirehairs.
Yeah.
And those dogs are meant for killing.
They're very good at it.
Yeah.
They'll kill a raccoon, whatever.
See, in germany when they
started the versatile breeds the wire hair was put together it was a poodle pointer which is not
a poodle but it's a another wire haired dog schticklehaar a short hair and um can't remember
the other breed but anyway there was like four basic breeds put in there, and they wanted a dog that would not only point a bird,
they wanted to track blood,
and because everything was privately owned,
all the biggest states,
in Europe, only the wealthy hunted back in the 1800s.
Yeah, and they wanted the dog to kill a poor guy
if they caught him hunting on their land.
No, no.
The dogs like people.
They do.
But what they were expected to do,
and they still do,
and I don't want to say a secret society dog club.
I won't mention it.
But this breed of dog, if you have one that's still registered in Berlin,
it has to kill before it's allowed to breed a full-grown raccoon.
Where do they get the raccoons?
By itself?
No help from the owner.
No, no, no help. No, I mean, no other dog. No, they let the raccoons? By itself? No help from the owner. No, no, no help.
No, I mean, no other dog.
No, they let the raccoon.
Mano y mano.
They trap a raccoon in a have a heart trap.
Hold on a minute.
There's raccoons in Europe?
No.
No, but there's a similar.
The point is here.
The dog?
No.
Yeah, it's like a little two-pound stove thing.
I think it's a guinea pig.
They have to kill a guinea pig.
No.
No, what they've done is they've used a raccoon here
because that's what we have here.
But the point was that dog was expected to get rid of vermin
out on these estates.
Oh, I got you.
While it's hunting, if they come across a skunk, a polecat,
whatever they call them.
Anything that's going to eat bird eggs.
Exactly.
Anything that, they basically made this like sterile environment
where game birds and game animals, rabbits and game animals would flourish.
By that dog, it might have done it.
I mean, they've been, they'll be running down the woods,
going through, looking for grouse and stuff.
And all of a sudden, wham, there's a raccoon that was like nested up by a log or a skunk.
One bite on the back of the neck, it's done.
Really?
And that was desirable.
That's what the Germans wanted.
Doesn't work so good when you come to America, you go to a farmer, knock on his door,
and it takes two of his yard cats out of his barn.
And it was his best mousing cat.
But anyway, so i had this desire
to have this this headstrong can i see a question though about the raccoons that's some hardcore
shit because when we were florida pig hunting oh we saw a raccoon a pack of dogs fighting a raccoon
well that that was a pussy dog no these weren't well we did see one of those dogs get gouged bad by a pig
but still i'm saying that's amazing that they kill you know what i'm saying is you remember
there's a lot of german wire hares in this country yeah there's different registries with them if you
stay to this one format it's called vdd gna and if stay that format, your dog has to pass certain performance tests
before you're allowed to breed the dog.
And the dog has to be in front of a breed warden to make sure it's the right height,
the right size, the right teeth.
If the coat's not right, they'll only let you breed it to a coat that's going to complement it.
It's, how do I say, it's like a lot of whiskey, whiskey tube mentality.
And that's the way they are and those dogs that i thought i
wanted and i stuck with for 15 18 years um wasn't more than i could handle but it was like a penis
extension dog no it wasn't my corvette it wasn't a corvette dog or nothing like that but it was i
thought it'd be cool to have a dog that could do all that, but you didn't realize how nasty that could get sometimes.
Yeah, like you didn't realize what it really meant.
Yeah, like my buddy's dog come off the tailgate.
I'm putting a collar on my dog.
Most dogs sniff ass or at least tiptoe and look at each other before they fight.
This dog just jumped off the tailgate and went,
and I was like, you're so embarrassed you're like so anyway so then that's yeah that's
where i that was my predominant breed for the center of my dog here and at that time you were
involved with the same organization right the same organization it's called navda north american
versatile hunting dog association and ed what uh we haven't really even introduced Ed Arnett yet,
but just real quick, what's the organization you're involved in?
American Kennel Club.
AKC.
AKC.
Oh.
As a judge.
As a judge.
That's what I'm associated with.
But that's what you, I mean, you sort of measure dogs by that standard.
By the hunt test standard.
Yes.
That there's also field trials have you heard
i mean are you aware of north american personal hunting dog association absolutely yeah i help
with a lot of guys that have pointers too so so navda you're involved in navda now but you were
involved in navda when you had wire hairs right even before i became a judge for him i was involved
with them and you know try to learn and glean everything I could from the other trainers and the other breeders and everything.
And all the dogs that you've talked about, Queenie.
Yeah.
Was a what?
Queenie's a short hair.
Then a German Wirehair.
Hasco and Zygon.
And then now the new kind of dogs you tangled up with
have all fallen under versatile hunting dogs.
Yeah, versatile hunting dog is a dog that,
if you look it up in a dictionary,
it's a dog that's going to hunt and point
and do work before and after the shot on land and on water.
That's basically the description of it.
Yeah.
So what we want is a dog that will basically perform in any terrain.
And if water's a terrain, water's a terrain.
An ATD.
What's that?
All-terrain dog.
I didn't get that.
So real quick, rattle off a handful of species that would be ATDs.
And then what kind of dog you're messing around with now?
Well, the most common ones everybody knows
of is German Shorthairs, English Pointers, Britneys, English Setters, Poodle Pointers,
Vichelas, a lot of Vichelas getting real popular,
Munsterlanders, which is like a setter-looking dog from Germany.
There's, I think, 22 of them now in our registry in Navda,
so I can't think of every one.
Is a Weimaraner in there?
Weimaraner's in there also.
This gal that used to live down the road,
do you remember the Johnson family?
Sort of lived across Middle Lake from my sister.
Yeah.
They had a dog that they named Nipper.
A Weimaraner named Nipper,
but it would always bite people.
And they got to thinking that the reason it bit people
is because his dog's name was Nipper,
and he was just fulfilling his name.
And then they changed his name to Bowser.
Did it help? i can't remember but that was the first little hunting dog or not
no it's they're they're they are in the they are in the cl basically all the european breeds
that point are considered versatile hunting dogs yeah they're not over the years a lot of them
become specialist dogs so they like like an english setter is going to pretty much be your predominant grouse woods
dog up in the north yeah a pointer we're in texas right and a pointer is going to be a predominant
bird down here in texas for quail for quail and because it's a shorter coated dog it's not going
to get hot you know it's, that would be a predominant.
They are still in the versatile category,
but for generations they've been bred as a specialist.
Yeah.
So to take one and transition it into a water dog
is a little more difficult than it is for a dog.
I follow you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But to transition any versatile dog into a water dog,
you just take their field desire and push it into the water.
They find that the water has the animals in it,
just like the field has the animals in it,
and they're just excited as hell to go out into a marsh and look for a duck.
But they're probably not equipped to stay warm.
No, that's a fault with them because very few of them have a really good dual coat
that will protect them in cold, cold sun.
Because the lab's like a seal.
Yeah, they'll come out of the water look i don't need a towel yeah well we're gonna tell no but i got one last
thing for you though yeah the dogs you're into now which is a reasonable dog right it's kind of
dog does face hill still have one yes they have like three or four of them. I don't lust after women besides my wife, but
I just don't.
I go to Las Vegas.
I go to Las Vegas every year
for this thing. For the last
two years in a row, in all the elevators,
there's an ad for
a Faith Hill concert.
It's just
such an
intoxicating ad campaign. I have no
desire whatsoever to go see her in concert
but when I'm standing in the elevator, which is all
you do in Las Vegas is ride up and down the elevator.
She's always
advertised there and I'm always looking at her thinking
about your dog because you told me that she has one.
Yeah, she has several or
I think it's Tim's more than hers, but
is that why you sell your dog so fast
like before they even hit the ground out of the bitch?
I'll bet you hardly anybody knows they have them.
Oh, really?
Yeah, I mean, the Brocco people have them, but know that.
So Ronnie's now tangled up with a dog called a?
Italian Brocco.
Brocco Italiano.
Brocco Italiano.
Depends on how you want to say it.
And it's a very houndy looking dog.
When people see it, when I'm in Virginia, there's a very houndy looking dog it's a very it when people see it when i'm in virginia
there's a lot of bear hunters in virginia it's like more bear hunter there's more bear in virginia
than any place i've ever been and people come to make guests i was at prince whale's island
you're right a lot of bears and people will come up to my external dog box, and they'll be standing by my tailgate.
What kind of bear dog is that?
God, I've never seen one orange before.
Yeah.
And then you've got to tell them it's a bear dog.
And I just say Italian pointer because they're like,
Rocco, what?
Yeah.
So I leave that out.
But it's just a versatile dog,
but it was really never bred for the versatility in Italy.
It was pretty much an upland
bird yeah but then again so were most english pointers and that's a dog you could actually
bring into your house without killing your kids yeah and it won't it doesn't kill animals it
doesn't you know it doesn't have that fur drive because the italians over all these centuries
just wanted to hit hit birds with them Yeah. So they used these dogs.
I understand.
I've never seen it, never been to Italy, but there are supposed to be frescoes from the 14th century
with very, very close pictures that resemble the brocco.
Yeah.
Which was either the, I can't remember the other Spanish pointer,
but all the same thing.
Very, very long ears, a nose like Jimmy Durante on it.
And so there's like, they've been pretty much breeding true to type for what's 14 from 600 years yeah and the dog is
very docile it's like ed's labs i mean i told that you know watch my dogs well what are they
gonna do he says you're right he says well if you're out there having a smoke just keep an eye yeah they just come up and i finally have this dog that's a
pointing dog that acts like ed's labs yeah they're like hi you know they just come up and now they'll
but they would run out of the driveway like right now if i let my dogs out they'd be gone they'd be
not gone far but they'd just be gone at this 100 or 200 yard range and
i'd have to be screaming and panicking and everything yeah yeah yeah they're melt the last
the last lab you know danny had that dog for a while yeah like my brother danny had a duck
hunting dog recently he went down to a an adoption like a dog i don't know when all this like bring
in human terms came the dogs used to go to the
pound and get a dog. Now you're like I rescued the dog.
It's like I don't know what about people been rescuing dogs all as long
as people go into the pound and pick it up a dog. So he went to a rescue
place right, you know and weird the dog. He picked out his cry. His criteria
for picking out a dog is it's just a building.
It's a it specializes in labs. It's
a pound for labs
and he went in there and every lab
and a lab rescue. Yeah, lab
rescue. He went in there and every lab
in the room except one stood up when he
walked in and he's like, I'll take the one that laid
didn't get up.
I sure it's a good
great dog. It was a great dog. It died just Get up. I'm not sure if that's a good barometer or not.
It was a great dog.
It was a great dog.
It died just recently.
I met it.
Yeah, he was cool about it when it died,
but a buddy of his was saying how he was real depressed, man,
when his dog died.
Yeah.
Tig.
Like Tig Welder?
Yeah.
Yeah.
They're like your kids.
Yeah, he thought so.
All right.
We'll be right back to talk a lot more about labs and other
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Speaking of labs,
I want to tell one other lab story
before we talk to Ed about labs for a minute,
just to get the breakdown on labs,
because,
well, two things.
The only dog I ever really liked,
we had many, many dogs.
Many of them would just vanish.
I thought you just had that one lab
that was there forever.
No, man.
We had dogs.
We had Mike, Kayla, Snoopy,
and we had dogs.
I didn't even know what all dogs we owned,
but they would never last.
My dad would just get rid of them.
One time,
we were,
this is awful to admit.
He's dead,
so no one's can prosecute him.
Did he have him rescued?
Yeah,
he had him rescued
like from life,
but we're going down the road one day
and we were going rabbit hunting.
I was a kid.
We're going rabbit hunting
and lo and behold, there's a beagle on the side of the road.
That dog became our dog.
I mean, it was like, what timing was like?
He took that dog and that dog was Bobo was his name.
And that dog became our dog.
Just as simple as opening the door of the truck and the dog called the dog in the truck.
Probably stole someone's dog. And then Bobo lived with us for a long time
because my dad had a good be no collar, no tag.
I don't even remember.
You did just look at my dad.
He's like, we're going to have on.
Apparently, here's, you know, here's this dog.
We should get a bagel.
So we had that dog.
We had that dog for a while.
Bobo because it reminded of my dad of a good.
He's done a lot of cottontails in Illinois.
Illinois.
But the one lab story I want to tell,
it's just funny,
I want to tell just because Ronnie's here.
Me and Ronnie went,
I don't know how it happened,
we went on a guided...
That was the first guided hunt
I've went on in my entire life.
Yeah.
Went on a guided snow goose hunt
for a couple of days
in which I got one snow goose, I think.
And I got none.
And at a point, the guide,
if you call him that,
we're out there at 2 in the morning
because we have set out thousands of decoys.
And at one point, the guide goes to take,
he goes to relieve himself.
He goes to take a growler.
And he goes just right behind us.
You know what I mean?
You can smell it.
He's right behind us.
And the trees were only another 150, 200 feet, I smell it. He's right behind us and it do the trees. The trees were only another hundred, so a hundred feet
right behind us and we're in a little more in layout blinds. Okay, so you
just stuck in a layout blind and as they're comments, here's his lab back
there. I know where this was going
right back there, toilet paper hanging out of his mouth yeah you know clean it up and and you're
he's stuck in these blinds and in the lab all morning is going up and down the line of guys
trying to kiss and lick everyone's face because he's just friendly he's been doing that all
morning but now we know what he was doing he's, if a human being ate dog shit and it came up to you and said,
give me a kiss.
No, no, no, no.
Just give me a kiss.
Just give me a kiss.
Why?
It's nothing.
I ate it.
Just give me a kiss.
All morning long.
Yeah.
Oh, God.
And it didn't matter.
So, Ed, you love Labradors.
I do.
Yeah.
And I do, like, I do too.
I like them too.
But, Ed, Arnett, I know Ed from TRCP,
Theater Roosevelt Conservation Partnership.
We met, like, at things, events.
Yeah, events.
Formal events.
I don't know, formal, informal events.
Media summit and stuff.
You can go to a lot of hunting events and meet a lot of guys who don't do a lot of hunting. It's formal, informal events. Media summit and stuff, yeah. You can go to a lot of hunting events
and meet a lot of guys who don't do a lot of hunting.
It's possible, you know.
But Ed and I hit it off.
This is the first time we've actually gotten together to hunt.
But I know that you, just judging by your trailer alone,
you're a dog man.
You got like a polished dog trailer.
Have you always been into like retrievers, labs,
or did you do the whole pointer
thing too?
I got an interesting story on how it happened because I really got into duck hunting when
I moved to Oregon and I've shot birds since I was, I started hunting when I was 10 years
old, but I never hunted with a dog.
What state were you born in?
Illinois.
Illinois.
Oh really?
You've been out west for a long time, right?
Yeah.
Right out of high school.
Montana, Colorado, Texas.
I was cliche and went west as a young man, right out of high school.
Colorado and then moved to Montana, Wyoming, Oregon.
Oh, so you've been all over.
Spent a good chunk of time here in Texas and then now I'm back in Colorado.
I never hunted with a dog, though, or even anybody with a dog and when I was going we were talking today about uh you know hunting uh in the
east gallatin hunting spring creeks and jump shooting or hitting pheasants but also jump
shooting mallards I'll just go pick up everything myself and or at least try to or at least try to
exactly that's like here comes the funny part of the story so so we'd go out you know the uh like
the septic ponds that were out there in Belgrade? Oh, absolutely. We'd go out there.
You were talking about jump shooting some of those.
We'd go out there and jump shoot those.
I'd take a fishing pole and throw a big-ass snagging hook.
Oh, to try to retrieve your ducks out of there.
To pull the ducks in if you didn't kill them on land.
So you do that for a while, and you think, boy, this seems silly.
And then I got to Oregon, and I went hunting with a guy, and he had Chesapeakes. And I really was impressed with how well-behaved the dog was
and how great it was to have a dog going out and getting the birds and everything.
So we hunted on opening weekend.
This was back in like 1991 or something.
And so I go hunting after that opening weekend,
and I put a stock on some mallards in a reservoir in Oregon
and I doubled on greenheads and it was
great and they all fall out in the lake and I'm
like, alright, now how the hell am I going to go get them?
They're right out in the lake.
So I stripped down naked and I swam
out and got those two mallards
and I said, I'm buying a freaking dog after this.
That's a true story and I
started looking and I went and got a lab that winter.
I totally understand it, man, because the times I've hunted like we
used to jump shoot a lot of ponds in Michigan and in Michigan, you have a lot
of cattails around duck ponds, you know, and the problem with jump shooting
ducks is like over decoys are coming toward you and they usually land closer
than where they were when you hit them.
Everything goes right jump shooting going away.
Yeah, they're already far away, and then they're going to be farther away by the time they land.
You got these seas of cattails, and you're like, bam, that thing
starts going down and it goes down, and you just get like a sink
of feeling like I will never never find that you can you look
and look and look, and you go out there, the dog and that some
bitch just runs over and like sticks his head underwater and
pulls it out. That made me a believer, just not like you go out there with a dog, and that son of a bitch just runs over and sticks his head underwater and pulls it out.
That made me a believer.
Just not.
If they made a dog that you could put in a thing in your pocket
and just get it out when you needed it and put water on it,
and it turns into a dog.
Chihuahuas aren't good retrievers.
No, they're not.
Well, I don't know how Ronnie feels about this,
but I can remember a handful of retrieves.
Not a handful, maybe two or three handfuls,
but you remember the special ones?
I do too.
And to that point, I dropped a duck way back in a marsh,
and I sent one of my females.
She's gone now, but I sent her, and she went.
And she came back.
She hunted short, and I gave her a back,
and you can't handle a dog on a blind retrieve and that stuff I mean it was really thick and nasty so I got her over
the river because she didn't mark this bird I just gave her a hard back and I
let her go and about ten minutes later she came back with that damn desire
takes over exactly yeah so so that's why I got it that's how I got into it I
didn't want a Chesapeake for no particular reason.
I just liked labs.
A little bit of German wire hair personality issues.
Yeah.
So in your hood, you mainly expect your dog to find downed critters.
No, I expect my dog to mark and go get it.
And then find cripples as needed.
And if I need to, handle them to a blind on a blind retrieve
but mostly after the shot's been taken that's correct in a perfect world you know you want a
dog that's in your blind like sage was today when we were hunting cranes i took the dog today because
we had good enough cover to hide it yeah and he sat there nice and calm while those birds came in
and and he didn't see a couple of them but you know so we
just lined him up and yeah and sent him out but um he marked a few of them and and then we walked
over and picked up a couple so yeah but you know you want a dog for a retriever you want a dog that
sits there you know nice and quiet obedient doesn't doesn't you know break and run out when
the geese are coming in or when you pull up the shotgun.
You want them sitting there so they actually mark the bird when it falls down. Have you always been into retrievers?
Yeah, that's the only breed I've ever owned.
Are there more kind of retrievers than a lap?
Yeah, so if you go by AKC rules, if you will, the retriever breeds are Labradors golden retrievers chesapeake bay retrievers
and then for the retriever hunting test which i judge for and you judge after akc i judge akc
and ron you judge for navada i have a question for you about that i there is an akc equivalent
for pointing dogs correct yeah akc has uh several tests yeah that that we transition right into. They just don't blend the water in with the test day.
Right.
Yeah.
But they also have an AKC water test, like a little, just to show that your dog can go do water retrieves.
So, yeah, AKC covers a real lot, a big gamut.
Yeah.
So the hunting test program started with NARA, the North American Hunting Retriever Association,
and then NABDA is the equivalent.
So this was some old field trailer guys and duck hunters that kind of got together and said,
we just want to go out and test these hunting skills of these dogs.
So they created this North American Hunting Retriever Association.
How did you become a judge doing that?
Well, I just got into the dogs.
Putting your own dogs through it?
Yeah, exactly.
I got my first dog after I did my famous swim after my two mallards.
Got this dog, and I started reading books.
Started with Richard Walter's Water Dogs.
That book is everywhere, man.
Everywhere.
We had that dog because of our lab.
Absolutely.
And I'll say, we wound up with a great lab because we lived by a Coast Guard station,
and a woman who was in the Coast Guard was getting restationed somewhere.
She couldn't bring her dog.
What, I said you got her?
Yeah, put an ad in the paper, interviewed a bunch of people, came out to our house.
We had kids.
We liked to hunt.
We lived on a lake.
She gave us the dog.
And that dog, we had that dog a long time.
Turned into a. I
mean just as far as obedience, the only problem she was white, so it's hard to
hide her in the duck woods. You're always putting. We always had those
army wool army blankets cover up and always trying to layer on there, you
know, but she would spot birds in the air that you didn't see and had a noise
you'd make in the back of her throat, and when she made that noise there was
a bird in there. She was like,
Yeah, it was just like you do.
It was like, there's a duck.
She'd see it, and she would find ducks,
and she would find ducks you didn't shoot.
You'd go out the second morning of season,
waiting for her to get light out.
Get some of the cripples.
And you'd look, and she'd be standing there with a duck in her mouth,
and the duck would be looking around.
Like she went and found some duck that wasn't even dead.
You didn't find her on light out.
She's standing there with it.
She was a great dog.
She wound up getting...
That's the one you hunted the most with.
Oh, that's the only dog we ever had a legitimate hunt with.
Yeah.
Two things happened to her.
One time, we were on one of those floating land lakes.
Yeah.
You know the time it has the false bottom?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yep.
And we knocked some geese down in the early season in Michigan,
and there was a wounded goose, very much alive,
out on some floating land.
And she swam out and climbed up on the floating land but her four legs poked through and that goose
beat the shit out of her man and she would never touch another goose again after that the second
bad thing that happened she got hit by a van we were out working on our BMX bikes and I don't
want to say who did it but a guy down the road hit her in a blue van, carpet van, and busted her all up.
We got a lot more years out of her.
Eventually, she got where she couldn't even stand up.
And then a friend of ours, Ben, took her out in Chippewa National Forest in the UP.
And we had to dig a hole and shoot the dog down in the hole and bury the hole.
It was just terrible.
And I've never had another dog since then.
Well, back to how I got into yeah yeah kc um judging so i i ran the
hunt test when my dog became of age and and i wanted to do the hunt test field trials are very
as a handler the hunt tests are very different than the field trailers and the reason they put
those programs together was to test dogs hunting abilities and like for like in i want to get
keep going but i want at the end of this i want to explain like
in youtube i just want to forget to ask you this do you think that a test the can you test the dog
in a way that actually demonstrates how that dog will perform in the field just keep that in the
back of your head sure sure but don't even do it now just remember later well i was really into
this new this new dog i got and I trained her almost every day.
And you need to when they're really young.
You train her with an eye toward the test.
Well, yeah, I kind of got into the test.
But everybody starts off saying, I just want a good hunting dog.
Or you go to a test sometime, and you see a dog perform.
You're like, I've got to have that.
Exactly.
I've got to have that.
I have a Nova, but I really want a Cadillac.
A Chevy Nova?
Whatever.
Pick your favorite beater car.
Oh, I thought maybe you had a Chevy Nova.
Yeah, no, no, no.
I mean, pick your favorite beater car, but you want the Maserati when you see them run.
So the field trials is different than the hunting test.
The hunting test, you are judged against a standard.
You set up a test, and if the dogs pass it no first second third place
or nothing that's the field test field no hunting test again under different field scenarios in a
field trial they it's a winner take all right so first second first second third placement
and some of these field trial dogs now i mean they'll they'll mark readily out to 400 yards
that's not a realistic hunting situation.
You'd land 400 yards away and that dog's going to look at where it is?
If he can see it.
If he can see it.
But he could be handled to 400 yards probably, couldn't he?
Right.
But if you were in a situation where you were high enough
and the dog actually could see it,
there are many dogs that could actually run out and mark it
if they have been trained to deal with the terrain, the wind,
all these factors that play into their mental memory.
And that's what labs have.
Labs have that marking memory.
Like most pointing dogs do not have that marking memory.
A lab will, like you can, and you guys train it.
You'll pull these different retrieves.
Well, your average dog, 99 of them are going to go get that last thing you threw.
Oh.
And you go, no, you're going to go get the second thing I threw.
Yeah.
You remember that?
Oh, Ed can talk.
I mean, I did it with one dog.
Real quick, can you guys define mark?
Oh, go ahead.
Sure.
A marked retrieve is when the dog actually sees the bird
or is supposed to see it.
Yeah.
And a blind retrieve is when they don't see the fall
and you give them hand signals.
You send them on a, I send it on back.
You're guiding them, but he's blind.
You're guiding them.
Yeah, he has no idea where the bird's at.
Exactly.
So it's a teamwork.
What's the call when neither of you knows where the bird's at?
Lost bird. lost bird but he
might go out and find it it's that's well well that somebody's got it still roughly guided yeah
yeah i got you well you know an ethical hunter will watch those birds until they're completely
out of sight i've seen many so you can give them an approximation of where it is and he'll look
around exactly and if i don't think i could handle them to a bird i don't send my dogs on very many blinds quite frankly in hunting situations you go over there yourself to
go over there and get the dog on the bird make sure or make sure you find it in the area of the
fall if it's practical to send them i've sent them on several but you know more often than not
you're walking them out there to to find a cripple wellle. Well, going after the cranes, the dog just knew, though.
Yeah, he saw him.
And also, the dog's...
He saw him, or let me just finish real quick,
the one that Ronnie, you shot today
and landed on the bank,
he didn't see it, but I lined him up.
Right.
And I just lined him,
and he could see it right there.
So then when he saw it, I locked him,
and I sent him back.
But even if he couldn't have saw it,
Ed lined him up, and he learns from that key of ed's hand that's right you put your hand over
the head dog's head and that dog's gonna follow he knows he's supposed to look in that direction
and pay attention he saw the bird laying there now had he not seen it i would have said back and
then when he veers off course you hit him with a whistle we give them a handle back so this is this quick
question then i got some more but just try to answer as quickly as possible because this is
something i think a lot of people come up with and you guys probably encounter all the time
is like people there are so many dudes out there who got a dog that was going to be like the big
hunting dog and it winds up not it winds up not being you know and when that happens i typically
think you know maybe the dog didn't have
talent, but I typically think they didn't have the time
due to
obligations or laziness.
They didn't take the time to train the dog.
Let's say a fellow goes out and gets
a puppy. What is the bare
minimum days,
put it by in terms of days a week, days
a month, whatever. What is the bare minimum you
better be prepared to put into that dog
when you bring it home to ever expect to have a dog
that isn't going to embarrass you in front of your buddies
or that isn't just going to be a detriment to your hunting?
I think probably more like hours a week.
Well, yeah.
To me, it's more repetition than it is length of time.
It's more short-duration training sessions than a few long ones.
Yeah, that's what I'm trying to teach my kid to shoot his bow, my four-year-old.
A little bit off.
If you did 15 minutes every day, exactly.
No, that's much better than, like, one Saturday a week.
And it's particularly important, in my opinion, the first year is critical.
I mean, you know, little babies' brains are like a sponge, so is a dog. week so and it's particularly important in my opinion the first year is critical i mean you
know little babies brains are like a sponge so is a dog yeah um you know and they want to work
they want to they want to please you so how many hours how many hours a week i know it's hard to
answer that way but what would you say you know um you know i probably spent more than i more than
i should have but it was probably ed you know probably 15 hours, 10 to 15 hours a week.
And then there's some dogs.
It's a considerable investment, though.
Yeah.
It's a considerable investment.
If you want a basic, now back to your question, which was just a basic obedience dog.
You don't want to be embarrassed by it.
Yeah.
That's a bad way to put it.
You could get away with a half hour a day.
Oh, yeah, exactly.
Three or four hours a week.
And if you spend a half an hour a day, you're going to have a dog better than the guy who doesn't spend a half hour a day. Oh, yeah, exactly. And if you spend a half an hour a day,
you're going to have a dog better than the guy who doesn't spend a half hour a day.
Yeah.
But one of the other biggest things, this is my biggest gripe with all dogs,
and I'm sure Ed knows it too,
is there's seven inherited traits to a pointing dog,
and I guess there would be six to a flushing dog you know there's desire pointing
cooperation tracking um well that's embarrassing i can't remember your principles but but anyway
there's a hair we look it up for you my books in the other world there's inherited traits that
this dog comes with in a in a packageherited me like out of the box.
Out of the box.
Right out of the mama.
And all you got to do is expose it a little bit
and just like, holy cow, my dog's holding point.
Oh, I'm with you now.
You know, where there's other dogs.
Your help would bring out stuff that's just there.
It's just there already.
Yep, that's right.
Enhancing the instincts.
And so then the training,
you could get one of those dogs out of a litter.
It's just what we call a natural.
You know, you natural athletes in high school.
The guy that could play all the sports and I couldn't run.
They'd have culled me.
Yeah, it's like the dog we're talking about.
We cycled through as a family.
There you go.
Many dogs.
And all of a sudden, here comes this dog.
And no one knew anything about it.
It was just like this dog, one, cared what you thought about it. And two, liked. Many dogs. And all of a sudden, here comes this dog. And no one knew anything about it. It was just like, this dog, one, cared what you thought about it,
and two, liked to find dogs.
And that was all we were looking for.
And that's where my hallmark for a dog is I can have a lower desire dog,
but it's got to have a high cooperation.
Yeah.
And my wire hairs didn't have it.
Well, one of them did, but most of them didn't.
My short hair, you know, the shoe's okay.
But natural cooperation in a hunting dog is like an unspoken teamwork.
Yeah.
They've got to be trainable.
You get stuff from them.
Then the training's easy because they're like, oh, this isn't.
There's dogs that I don't care who the trainer is.
And you've seen people have made a lab get a title that don't deserve a title.
You know what I mean?
I'm sure you've seen it.
I probably passed a few of those.
Me too.
Me too.
I've given them the title.
Yeah, I've given a prize one dog, and I'm going,
I wouldn't put that dog in my truck.
But this guy has overwhelmed all the faults in this dog
with obedience.
This dog is just like
on pins and needles.
Oh.
But he's masked it
with obedience training.
But if you can get a dog
that's cooperative,
that means he wants
to work with you.
Yeah.
Like a little dog that
gets his first bird
and you get that puppy
grabs a bird
or whatever you throw
and he just brings it back to you.
You're like, we might have something here.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But the one that runs around the backyard,
and you're going, ah!
Even as a puppy, you're going, I got to work with this dog.
Yeah, and you have to work more with it.
So you're saying a guy can take the pep out of a dog
by pushing obedience too much.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah, you can definitely do an actor their
behavior can be different they can turn into little assholes but some of them need a need more
oh yeah and then there's other dogs there like that and more like that kid that went to school
that he did better at catholic school than he would have done at public school because the nuns
just got him every and that's what dog training is right i mean it's like timing the catholic nuns i had all my friends at the catholic school
you know i want to mention ronnie this is this is a digression then i want to get to some fast
questions i want to answer ronnie you're just not that old but in his public school and swimming
class the boys all swam that's the next episode on this podcast we're going to go to.
It just sounds so long ago.
We had that happen in Alaska.
We had that whole big conversation.
Nobody believed it.
But yeah, you're right.
I've never heard that.
No, they all swam.
Swimming class, all the boys had to strip down and swim naked.
Chicago Public High School, boys had no suits.
You swam naked.
And when I went to...
I love that. When i was being born the
last day of october second last day of october i was not as mature as the other boys oh yeah
there was no hair down there it was really like you should have got a toupee that is a digression
anyway real quick yeah back this because then what i want to ask some rapid-fire dog questions. So anyway, this is what I look for more in a dog,
is that natural cooperation.
It just makes the whole training thing easier.
Yeah.
The dog wants to please.
You can screw it up, but it makes the whole thing easier.
And it's easy to see in a puppy.
You can see cooperation issues all the time in a puppy.
You can usually pick out the wallflower
and the bull right and then the way you want one in between that's what you're looking for exactly
you don't want you don't want to drive but dependent on yeah yeah you don't want the one
that thinks i'm the boss yeah no i'm with you so yeah exactly i think it's kind of like that
finding a mate too man you might have something have something there. I might be honest.
I should write a relationship book.
No, Giannis, I want you to do something.
I want you to role play.
What are you doing on your phone there?
I'm trying to get a picture of...
Who's messing with their cord real bad?
Is someone fiddling with their cord?
Everybody hold dead still except Giannis.
Now do what you were doing.
Yeah, it's you. It's driving still except Giannis. Now do what you were doing. Yeah, it's you.
It's driving me nuts. Sorry. Not bad. Ed, a little bit. What are you doing on your phone?
We're wasting time. I want you to role play as a dude who likes to hunt a little bit of everything, asking a question about what kind of dog he needs.
I can do that because I was actually doing that earlier today.
No, no, no, no, no.
Yeah.
You're a fellow like Giannis, lives in Bowes, Montana.
A lot of hunting opportunities.
Upland, waterfowl, mountain lions.
I have two young kids. Two young kids that he can't
be having getting killed by dogs. His wife
could be really mad about that.
Police don't like it either.
Police don't like it.
What dog does Giannis
want?
I'm putting this to a pointer guy and a
retriever guy, but you guys find
consensus. You got to find consensus. I know I'm asking the question. I guy and a retriever guy. But you got to find consensus.
You got to find consensus.
I know I'm asking the question.
I want to interject one more thing.
A pointer guy has to... I think a pointer guy and a retriever guy are both chasing an ideal.
Right?
Sure.
A pointer guy dreams of that moment, right?
And there's the dog.
Lockdown point.
Right.
Shotgun at the ready.
The tail is just
slightly like a boner.
That's his image.
Oh, super stiff.
Not giving you a little
flag.
Really?
Just gotcha.
Not like flaccid.
Just ready to rock.
No flaccid windies.
That's his image.
Yeah.
I think the retriever
guy's image is
his dog
in flight
out of the blind
into the icy
cold water.
And he swims out
and brings you the duck.
That's a good vision.
I can see that's your magazine.
I just got my brother-in-law's chocolate lab, Sage,
who's also named Sage.
Interesting.
Yes.
She's a female.
Let me look at this here.
These guys are shooting just drakes.
This dog sits on the bow, and when he calls that dog's name,
that dog, with no running start, hits the water 15 feet out.
I mean, it's pretty amazing.
Yeah, see, that's the picture right there, man.
I mean, it's like, yeah.
Yanni's showing a picture.
This is your brother-in-law down in Tennessee.
Yeah.
He's got a black lab.
Chocolate.
Chocolate lab.
He's got a bunch of mallards hanging there.
Blowing Springs Kennel.
Kennels is where it's from.
That's where he bought it from?
Yeah.
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All right, so there's Giannis.
Just moved. Young strapping lad. Two young kids. Just moved to bozeman he's got upland waterfowl he goes he says to you guys he says ed first ed what kind
of dog do i want man i just want a dog that's ready to roll i don't even know what i'm going
to be doing give him your pitch i'm willing to put some time in training he's willing to put a
little money down not a lot you don't want to spend more than $1,000.
He still owes you $1,000.
Well, he owes me $1,000 for the bet.
Let's just also add this.
I excuse him.
I excuse him of his debt of $1,000.
Then I'll give him a dog.
And he doesn't want to spend any more than that.
He doesn't want to spend any more than that on a dog.
And that's absolute top limit.
He'd be a lot happier to spend $300, $400. Oh, he can't do that. Okay. $1,000. Okay. First of all and that's absolute top limit. He'd be a lot happier to spend three four hundred. Oh, you
can't do that. Okay, thousand bucks.
Okay, first of all, what's his
budget? I'm smart enough to know
that what I'm getting into is going to cost
a little bit of money. Just like you don't go buying cheap
range finders, right? You got
to spend a little money on it. So what? So that's
first question. It's also attended one word answer.
What's his budget? If he's
smart, his budget should be
a thousand minimum yeah ed thousand okay so now max that's what i'd sell my puppies to you for
all right so janice again we already know his credentials
says do you ask him just say it right now as your role play
ed can you do it in Latvian
nah
that's my name in Latvian
nah
I love it
si
si
yeah
yeah
that's what you're supposed to say
yeah yeah
I'm looking for a dog
that can really do everything,
as well as come inside at the end of the day,
hang out with my girls, and be a family dog.
I can put in 10 hours a week with it.
That's great.
Train it.
You're going to take that time?
That's a lot of time.
But that time comes away from your dog.
10's a lot of time.
No, we're going to do it together.
15 minutes a day would be best he's going to get.
He's doing it with his children, so you're not messing up his –
The first year, we can't do it?
Oh, you could.
If you're home enough, you could do an hour a day.
But you know what?
Not to stop the question, but you also got to remember,
a young dog, you don't do an hour a day.
No.
You do it in little segments.
Five minutes here, ten minutes here.
Three or five, ten, fifteen-minute sessions.
It becomes longer and longer.
And when I said 10 to 15 hours, I want to get there.
Here's my bias.
It's a biased answer, but the Labrador Retriever is, without exception,
one of the best dogs for all-around hunting conditions,
and they're really great family dogs.
But it can't find birds?
It can't find pre-shot birds.
It can't find alive birds. Oh, pre-shot birds they can't find a live bird oh sure that again he's not i'm not following that yeah they won't go out and find oh sure before
you shot them yeah yeah because you got out of the retriever you got under the retriever side of it
so you feel like they're pretty reliable to find oh yeah Oh, yeah. Flushing up birds. The dog that I hunted with today, Sage, my Sage,
that is one of the better pheasant labs I've ever had.
Finds them all.
I have killed many.
And it's not flushing up 75.
I'm playing devil's advocate.
No, no, no, no.
Steve, that's why I said earlier the dogs are divided into flushing groups.
I'm playing devil's advocate.
Okay.
No, no, no.
He's a good upland dog.
You have to train them on all of this stuff,
but they're good in the duck blind,
they're good on upland,
and they're great with the family.
But what, yeah, let me put,
what he will not do,
he won't point,
but there are pointing labs.
But you know what, I found,
we don't want to go there.
Yeah, I know.
Labs will in some way,
once you get in tune with their body language,
will in their own inadvertent way, alert you to the presence of a bird?
Sure.
Who did I tell this story to?
He's trying to find it, but you know by his body language that something's up.
It's getting close.
It's getting close.
I think I told you last night on the way back about Sage and the last two roosters.
He was telling me they're right here.
Yeah, Ed was out hunting.
He got real sick of walking and kind of stopped his dog like looked back from him from the top
of the hill kind of being like you have to be kidding me you have to come up here
this is so exciting and he goes up there and there's two pheasants but this is
the problem with the flushing breeds versus the pointers I ran my ass off
chasing that dog because he's really good on runners and he was chasing a
running cock bird.
If you want to put your tennis shoes on and chase a flusher after birds,
otherwise you do it gentlemanly and go to the point.
I got to say,
I almost don't want a lab just because
everybody, not everybody,
now I know somebody that doesn't have a lab.
You don't want a common dog.
Everybody's got a lab.
What do they run and lab you? I have no idea. I want a common dog. Everybody's got a lab. What do they run in Latvia?
I have no idea.
I took that out.
Cur's.
Cur Hounds?
All right.
Something that runs pigs.
You already know the question.
So there's Giannis.
He's going to give you an abbreviated version of the question in Latvian.
Tell me why.
I would say that what you need.
No. medium sandhill cranes i would say that what you need no if i was going to sell my breed of dog to you i would say the shortcomings in my dogs would be oh that's a that's tactful start with the
short that because then he's gonna close in with a big cell you live in bozeman montana and if you
are going to do a fair amount of winter foul waterfowl hunting
then you don't want one of my dogs because you're gonna have to put a vest on it's gonna
it has a very short coat i do have one male that goes through cedar you know cedar creek
walks that creek and that creek runs through my veins man that yeah he walks right up to
january 1st when we have to quit he walks
that creek doesn't get cold but most of them they're gonna be shaking like a and that's a
cold ass place too yeah i mean you're like ducks show up they're really good in december and that
stuff's frozen my thing would be like if you think you're gonna do more duck hunting then you want to
get something with a really good coat and you can't get a better coat
than a lab i well maybe jesse i don't know yeah i think it's if you really get a good lab coat
jesse's her top duck dog no doubt yeah but i mean they got they're warmer than a lab
yeah they're denser i think probably but i think i'm kind of digressing here but
what ed faces and a lot of pointing breeds face
is so many people have bred these dogs
without the concern for coat and confirmation.
You're getting labs that don't have a good coat.
Oh.
You know what I mean?
Because they've been breeding them as house dogs.
House dogs and show dogs and everything else.
And so that makes a difference.
But the breed I have now, the Braco Italiano,
that is, it's a couch potato.
It is a, I absolutely, you'd find upland birds with it.
You could jump shoot ducks.
You could go out, break some skim ice,
shoot a few birds, put a vest on it.
But if you're going to really be out in the cold a lot
i would i would go with a dog with a better coat either another versatile dog if you wanted a
pointer or a lab and we kind of both kind of laughed about the pointing labs as ed yeah
ed's been around them for years i'm sure and in navda our our kind of joke is when somebody says well our pointing lab's ever
going to come into navda and one of the leaders of our group goes a pointing lab is a fault
it's a flushing dog why why why would you want a pointing dog that didn't hold point
yeah why would you want a flushing dog that stops in
the middle of what he's doing well you know yeah it's like it'd be like if you met an exotic dance
he's a good cook
yeah that's a good idea my very first lab actually i wouldn't say she was a pointer by any means but
you know she's she got up on the bird and she's
she knew it was there saw it smelled it so i just tell her to stay right i'd walk up and just say
get them and she'd dive in and birds would come up if those i would love to have one of those
yeah you know but she was a flusher that plain and simple i would never call her people have
started try to just make this new breed of pointing labs and And I'm sure they're not – I don't know how –
how do you feel about it?
How long have we been going for?
53.
And I got a bonus question.
We got a bonus question, and you got to give me the pitch.
And he wrote down a question that he hasn't answered yet.
Okay.
Anyway, my pitch would be if you wanted a pointing dog
that would be a great family dog i'd have to agree with
my breed of brocco italianos or possibly some uh griffin wire haired pointing griffon
maybe a vishala back to the short haired those breeds are not well there's the other two are
kind of popular but they're a little bit more on a docile side.
A German wire hair is a little crazy.
German short hair is Weimaraners.
And again, if people hear this, they're going to go, oh, you son of a bitch.
I'm saying just in general.
Oh, because people will fight.
It's like arguing over rifle calibers.
Yeah, exactly.
Whether they're 20 gauge, 12 gauge.
They're going to be 20.
Everybody's got to breathe.
I've been on websites where people defend pit bulls.
Now, I'm sorry. I don't want one next to me. I know there's some sweetheart pit bulls out there. I just don. Everybody's got to breed. Well, I've been on websites where people defend pit bulls. Now, I'm sorry.
I don't want one next to me.
I know there's some sweetheart pit bulls out there.
I just don't want one next to me.
So when I say general statement,
you'd want one of the more docile pointing breeds
that are known for being a little more laid back.
With the family.
Yeah.
And if you want to run big CRP.
But you're not giving a good sell.
You've devoted a huge portion of your life to these
dogs and you're basically telling a guy I'd go get a lab.
But no, if you want one, get a docile one.
No, I know there's more in you because if it wasn't, you wouldn't have.
This is all you've ever been like, like since you know me when you're
besides your work and your family this is
what you love and you're not you're not telling the boy yeah but see i don't i don't like hard
sell a dog i just can't do it yeah i'm with you you know you got too much yeah it's too much
morals and stuff yeah it's just like well it just depends on what you want right i i would just
that's it's just not the right question to ask me because i want more information about what you
want and i'm gonna say hey i'll tell. I don't think it's for you.
You said all around.
When you say all around, that means all kinds of
hunting and...
My bonus question is,
you all know, I'm much more of a big game hunter
than I am small game,
waterfowl, birds, whatever.
I don't even know if it's legal in Montana. You can't do it
in Colorado. But if I had a...
Trail of wounded animal, a dog.
You know, in Montana, I don't know.
Michigan, you can.
Michigan, you can.
I think you used to not be able to.
Then all of a sudden, you became able to recently.
Yeah.
I think –
I totally –
If you've –
I know it's hard to figure out.
If you've hit and wounded a dog or hit and wounded a –
Not a dog.
Hit and wounded a big game animal, I don't –
I think that anything you can throw at it to find it,
you should be able to throw at it to find it.
And I haven't heard both sides of the story.
Maybe there's a great argument.
Why not?
I just don't see how would the retrieval of game ever be a negative.
I just can't picture it.
I agree.
Well, the reason it's illegal is because people would run them.
Yeah, I know.
You're heading people.
That's the problem.
You're heading off abuse.
Yeah. You know what I mean? It. That's the problem. You're heading off abuse. Yeah.
You know what I mean?
It's so hard to discuss laws and legal stuff.
My brother has a rule.
When he discusses this stuff, he's talking about what's the goal of the legislation rather than how people are going to get around it.
And so I support the goal.
And personal ethics here.
Yeah, I support the goal of it.
That's a good way to think about it.
We want to find that.
Yeah, first and foremost, if someone needs to retrieve that deer,
what is going to help them retrieve that deer?
And look, that dog is not going to be with you on that bow hunt.
You're not using the dog to help you on the bow hunt.
No, let's say you make a, you know, your shot's not quite right on.
You're not going to spend a day, 24 hours looking for it, exhausted,
and go, okay, it's time to go home and get the dog
because all we got is pin drops for half a mile.
Well, if I was going to speak to what you're looking for then,
and I know labs are used for tracking.
I mean, they can do a great job of tracking.
They'll find a wound here.
You can train them, though, if you really wanted to.
Yeah, they can certainly do it.
Yep.
But the versatile breeds, again, this would not be maybe my breed,
although I have one guy that works for Bear Archery
that tracks a bunch of deer with his dog all the time.
With a Braco.
With a Braco.
But some of the versatile breeds tracking recovery of crippled game
was their biggest, biggest. that was their barometer there's
an old saying when it comes to pointing breeds the germans want a tracking dog that will point
and the americans want a pointing dog that will track so can i cut in real quick montana it's
legal to track with a leashed dog, which I think is pretty good.
That's a great compromise. That's a smart compromise, yeah.
But most states, I think it's leech, most states.
That's reasonable.
He's not going to be out killing other stuff.
Now, is that reasonable to ask that of the dog?
Can you pull it off?
Oh, absolutely.
Oh, my God.
Absolutely.
That's where it comes into the demeanor of not being crazy.
It's like, okay.
And you train them that way.
You train them on the leash.
You do blood drops.
You train them so they know what their job is.
That's exactly right.
And so they just know that leash is not a big deal.
I know I'm pulling my dad along, but he's not going crazy.
And, yeah, I've seen dogs do.
That one wire-haired black one in Haskell we talked about,
he tracked several deer.
He killed a couple deer.
So to the point of being able to.
We'll have your pants over here, Mike.
Oh, he's got them.
He's got them.
We are in a small house in West Texas.
You just don't know what you're going to see in a rental house in Texas.
The cameraman is mooning us right now.
Earlier, Steve asked him if his buttocks hurt.
All right.
So just to wrap – I want to wrap a couple things up.
Your bonus question is taken care of?
Ed should answer it briefly.
What was the question?
He also loves big game.
Yeah, I love big game.
It would be great if my dog – if I could train my dog to do that.
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
And you just said that.
No, you can train him to do anything.
Just a quick side note, the dog we hunted with today, Sage,
I actually trained him to find dead bats and birds under wind turbines.
I used to do research on windmills and fatalities of wildlife.
Where were you doing that work?
Mostly back east in Pennsylvania. So you'd go into a make wind farms see if they are really are not if they killed bats and
and mostly bats but uh but birds as well but i actually trained him and i got him trained in
five days and he'd go out and in our trials he he found over 80 80 percent of the trial bats
really so we were pretty confident that he was doing good but exactly it's the desire to find something you just turned it you've channeled i'll tell you
how we did it channeled it yeah exactly i just took the bats some frozen bats and i'd set them
out there somewhere who doesn't have and when he actually found them well let's not get into that
so and when he found it i'd give him a food treat, and I'd throw it. But more importantly, I'd throw him a bumper.
The retrieve is the ultimate.
Oh.
So then you reward him with being able to do a retrieve.
And then you just phase out.
And this is with any kind of training.
You just phase out of that after a while.
Then the game or the command or whatever it is
becomes the reward.
My buddy, Brant, who I mention often,
did the same thing.
He's a researcher like yourself.
Trained his dog to find nests.
I had one.
That dog got very good at finding nests.
My very first one.
Which he said, if you don't have a dog out there,
and you don't have a hen who's wearing a tracker,
it is extremely difficult to find duck nests in high grass.
He just knocked it out of the park to find them with that dog.
I did the same thing with my first lab duck nest.
She wouldn't get there and destroy the eggs.
She'd get there and be like, right here it is.
The same note, that's why they do all the banning of woodcock and grouse with pointing dogs.
Is that right?
Because when they come into the scent.
He won't get in there and crush it.
Right.
Yep.
So it's like, can't move.
And you're right there with the dog.
Tell the dog to whoa.
It's got to be trained dog.
Then you can do all the work with the eggs or the.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
So to your bonus question.
You can train these dogs to do those things.
But what dog more out of the box is going to want to do it?
Probably some kind of, well, it would probably be a bloodhound, right?
It would be like a lion dog.
That would be their instincts, yes.
That would be, I would say, yeah, if all you wanted to do was track.
The problem is with the hound group, you want to say bloodhound,
very few bloodhounds ever get any competition and are
trained for tracking anymore it's a great old dog but they're not real active um then if you were
how are these family dogs just quickly bloodhound i've never had one in the house i don't know i
think bloodhounds are experienced with that yeah but i know the other dogs that would track better and faster would be your blue ticks and your uh all the coon dogs
but but they it's my sales pitch they don't they don't listen good they're very independent
who's this now bear dogs and coon dogs yeah, that you were lying them to be lion dogs, Floyd's line dogs and kill you
really do like the whole lines and they got to fight lines. Yeah, yeah,
those dogs are ready to fight. One dog will go fight a lion.
Wow, it's it's like he'll he would rather die than pull out of the fight.
I've never seen that.
Those dogs do not snuggle.
Yeah, see, my dog.
Probably don't want that one for your kids.
Really?
And it sounds like they're being like.
Floyd would die if he knew I was saying his dogs would kill you.
I don't mean they kill you.
I'm just saying like those dogs think about one thing.
They think about their group dynamic, which is very complex
because there's a bunch of them.
You've got a dozen dogs or whatever.
They think about what they got going on,
and then they think about how does that relate to catching lions.
And that's not a dog you want for the house.
So really, I think if you want to concentrate on blood tracking,
I would say pick one of the versatile breeds
because it's probably more in the gene pool.
But I also know that my new son-in-law,
his family in Pensacola, Florida,
they have a hunting camp in Alabama,
and their two blood tracking dogs are their labs.
Are they good at finding deer? Yeah, they are.
Will they find pigs?
I don't think they've ever done it, but that's
the guy that bought the dog for me and became
my son-in-law.
He ran his Brocco
with the labs and
now his Brocco's tracking blood.
I've never
trained one to track big game, but I'm sure you can do it.
Yeah.
Because the way I train for trailing for pheasants is you buy a pin raised pheasant and you kill it and you drag it.
Right.
And you drag it through a field and you plant it somewhere where you know it is and you get the dog out and put him on the sand.
Right.
And work him until he finds it.
You know what's kind of a,
I don't mean to offer this as a wrap-up,
but what's interesting is the first time I ever went hunting pigs with dogs,
they had classic trackers, you know, like hounds.
Then they had pit bulls in Hawaii.
Oh, okay.
And they had pit bulls.
I think they were pit bulls.
Or they looked like a pit bull.
Yeah, they had pit bulls.
They had a dog that would track the pig.
Then they'd have a dog that would catch the pig and anchor it.
And these dogs knew to grab that pig by the ears,
and they would hold that thing to the ground.
Right.
So the dogs worked.
Come hell or high water.
And these guys, like, that's just how you do it.
Then I later did that in New Zealand,
and they had a dog that looked like a toned-down greyhound.
And they even had to whip it in them.
They bred whip it in them for speed.
And these dogs were great pig hunters,
but they wouldn't actually fight the pig.
They would just harass the pig.
They couldn't manhandle the pig.
They would not anchor a pig.
They would harass it and corner it and keep it busy
while you went and caught up with it.
The end result is you've got to get in there and fight the dog. dog you got to fight the pig a little bit more right but that little thing would
do the third time i ever went did this was in florida what y'all stopped about earlier whole
other deal whole different kind of dog no pit bulls no whippets well what was it down there
how some kind of smaller hound dog but they had one big, I can't remember her name, but there was that one big cur that
looked like it.
Oh, they did?
Yeah.
Remember that big-
Remember the dogs that all got in the huge fight with the raccoon?
I remember the dogs-
She was in there.
That bore charged that dog and laid it open good.
Yeah.
And they had small, those dogs were small, most of them.
Like 40 pound or-
No, probably bigger than that.
50 pound.
No, maybe 45 pound.
Yeah, probably 45 pound.
But there was one that was like a 70, 75 pound.
I don't remember that dog.
Big chested.
Was that the one that got ripped open by the pig?
No, I think it was one of those little ones.
What's funny about this guy, what?
No, he said big chested.
I said, oh.
This guy, his dog gets, you know, he's got dogs.
They're getting fights with pigs all the time.
Yeah.
And I said to him, I said, man, I said, what's got dogs. They're getting fights with pigs all the time. Yeah. And I said to him,
I said,
man,
I said,
what's your vet think?
You guys bringing in these cut up dogs.
Does your vet think that it's like,
does he get mad?
He like,
it's abusive to put these dogs in these situations.
He goes,
no,
I went and found a vet that likes to hunt pigs.
I like that.
That would certainly help.
Yeah,
that would help. All right. Where are we at with time? help. Yep, that would help.
All right, where are we at with time?
We should probably... We're there.
All right, so the logical conclusion of this
is you need to go buy a Braco Italiano in a lab.
Very dog.
You need a budget of...
What do you need for a budget?
They're a little pricey.
Ron has a thing.
They're a little pricey.
Ron's got a dog that's a fat like you're
not this you're not gonna take offense by this you got a dog that's a fashionable dog not
fashionable it's unknown it's rare and people want it for novelty and he has even sold dogs
a handful of them more than a handful of them to people who have no intention of hunting that dog right how can you do that well it's easy it's called twenty five hundred dollars for a eight week old puppy that just
says i did the same thing when there's no yeah no one knows if it's any good or not
about three quarters of my dog you gotta realize went went to pet and answer me this how many lab
how many labs you think are in this country lots Lots. I have no idea. How many people?
Millions.
How many people per family?
Just divide that by...
Okay.
So let's just say right now...
How many American families are in this country?
I'm going to say there's 5 million labs in this country.
Or let's just say a million.
That's a safe number.
There's 300 million people.
Let's just say 500,000.
I'll bet you...
I can look it up.
It doesn't matter. I'll bet you only... I can look it up.
It doesn't matter.
I'll bet you only 2% to 3% of them ever put a duck in their mouth.
Yeah, for sure.
It's the same way.
If that.
If that.
If that.
So same thing.
This is a very esoteric dog.
It costs a lot to import.
It costs a lot to...
The price is going to come down
and they're all going to come down to the price.
But right now, there's somebody who don't know shit from Puddin'.
I sell them for $2,500.
So you don't feel any kind of moral thing where you've got to make sure they're going to hunt that dog?
No, I push them in my registry, in my breeding contract.
If they ever want to breed this dog,
then they have to do all the things I do.
They have to do a NAVDA test.
They have to have health tests, hips, eyes, x-rays, everything.
And I'm like, okay, then you're just as new as I was 25 years ago,
but you're going to do what I do.
And if they do that and the dog's got to pass a hunting test,
this dog's got the ability to do it, and I'm with that did you hear about what happened to matt recently he bought a guy gave him a cow
that you know for some reason was assumed to be infertile oh yes yes i did hear that yeah and then
i don't know how it happened someone brought a bull over and but this is my brother someone
brought a bull that could be mutil this story, but the basic gist is
the guy gives him a cow
that's supposed to be
not viable and fertile.
Somehow a bull comes over.
Turns out the cow
is not in fact infertile.
Has a calf.
Matt decides to get out
of the livestock business
and takes his cow-calf pair
down to sell them at an auction.
Gets in a little trouble with the brand inspector who wants the brand
papers, but has no idea what he's talking about because the guy just gave
it to him.
Because he's never had cows before.
Winds up he has to go to the guy that gave him the cow.
The guy that gave him the cow is not happy because he has like a protected
bloodline, right?
Right. Like a name he's got bloodline, right? Right.
Like a name he's got to defend, right?
He's got a reputation.
And here he gives one of his cows to someone who just goes and breathes it
with some bull down the road.
But he was told it was not viable.
Yeah, that's right.
Well, I know.
But anyways, he had to go talk.
He had to get himself out.
I can see that getting messy.
I can see that getting messy.
The long and short of the story is he was impressed by beef prices.
That's a good way to wrap that up.
He's out of the stock business now,
but he was in it pretty thick for a couple days there.
So, Ed, budget, dog budget.
If you get really high-powered field trial bred dogs,
they're going to push gonna push by that you mean
2000 field hot field those the sire or the dam or both have field trial champions so he knows
a good smart and the mom and dad went to harvard exactly it's cadillac the maserati but you know
a good average hunting dog is going to be a thousand bucks usually minimum 1500 i think the key thing to look for
um when i was breeding readily through brown dog retrievers when i had my kennel
my my advice to people if they couldn't afford it's like that's fine but if you buy one out of
the paper for three or four hundred bucks make sure it's got the health guarantees right a good
actor a good breeder is going to give you you know is going to have all the
certificates you need they're they're free of all known congenital diseases good hips good elbows
good eyes all that stuff and they will give you should do that now yeah that's right and they
will give you a certificate that if there's any of those problems that show up congenitally if
over a certain time i mean you don't wait for hips to you know show up with a 12 year old dog
with bad hips and say, I want a puppy.
It's called arthritis.
Exactly.
But that's what you're really looking for.
And to get a good, well-bred dog with the traits you want,
good health certificate, you're looking at $1,000.
I'm going to ask you another really tough question.
Let's say you go down.
I said my brother went to a lab rescue place.
Right.
Basically, randomly selects a dog.
If you had to put it in percentage points, what are the odds that he's going to walk out of there?
There's 10 dogs in there.
He randomly selects a dog.
Don't factor in health.
Okay, we'll just make an assumption about health.
What are the chances he's going to come home with a hunting dog that'll make him proud versus he gets one who's my dad are all the stuff you're talking about
i think he's got a good chance i'm gonna say probably maybe 75 percent that the dog
wants to do the work but he's gonna have to put the work into it
to train it to do it so he doesn't embarrass his buddies.
They're embarrassed to pay for his buddies.
That's the pound puppy.
They've got the instincts.
If it's a purebred Lab, they're all,
I mean, it's on a gradient, right?
You know, they're not all good.
Right.
And some of them are great.
To your point, you know, you pull one out of the Lab
or the rescue and you get a really good one.
That's because he has the drive and the instincts.
He may have been pretty well bred.
So he's got a 75 with a pound puppy.
What's he got with a dog who's got some credentials?
I'm saying with instinct that would actually go out and do the work.
He's got to train that in.
Maybe that drops to 25%.
If you're buying one from a lab in. Maybe that drops to 25% depending on who's...
You know what?
If you're buying one from a lab rescue, it might drop to 25% real quick.
When Ed said that, it reminded me of a saying a guy told me years and years ago.
When you talk about dogs, well, it's the best dog.
Breed best of the best.
Don't always breed best of the best.
You've got to say this dog's got a fault, that dog's got a fault.
Yeah, but they're both great.
No, they both got a serious fault.
And the same fault can repeat itself.
There's an old saying, the best boxer, heavyweight, lightweight,
middleweight boxer never stepped off a porch in his life,
never stepped into the ring.
He just didn't box.
No one knows.
So you get that dog like you guys got, that dog wasn't trained by any handlers.
That wasn't trained by nothing.
And that could have been one of the best dogs in the world.
And through great dogs.
Yeah.
You just never know.
So you never know who, you just don't know.
I think what you're buying.
So yeah, you got to answer the second part.
Okay.
What are this dude's odds if he goes through the whole,
jumps through the hooves, buys like a dog with all the paperwork,
diplomas, or the mom and dad have the paperwork.
Better than average? Yeah.
But you're already better than average. You said 75%.
That was instincts.
Okay, let me re-up. This is the last thing
we're going to talk about. I want to re-ask the question.
You got a guy.
He has everything it takes as a
beginner trainer.
He's going to go to the pound and get
a dog, and he's got the time. He's got
the time that is necessary to put into it. What are the odds he's going to pull a good dog versus
what I'm trying to get you to answer? You know what I'm trying to get the answer.
Does it actually pay? Is it actually worth your time to look and be like, who were the mom and dad, all that garbage? Is it just random, or do you really get something when you get that?
Now I'm going to maybe drop it to 50-50.
But the reality is I think most of the labs have good instincts,
but not all of them are going to be hunters right out of the box.
And it depends on their age, the old dog, new trick thing. but not all of them are going to be hunters right out of the box yeah and you know if you're it
depends on their age you know the old dog new trick thing i mean you can train old dogs but
your best your best bet is to start with a young dog and train and you didn't put an age in that
puppy yeah right right so if you had to get one that was old one that was old one was a puppy
you'd always go with the puppy yeah i would i would if i was going to train one yeah if you go down to rescue a six year six or eight year old lab they're kind of setting their
ways and you probably get the house dog yeah probably because yeah let me qualify those
percentages really you're not really you're not really comfortable answering that question
well it's just too much unknown i'm such a classic scientist it just depends you know
i can give you a little anecdote my brother-inin-law, who owns Sage, we just saw
pictures of, who was a
or is a
$2,000 plus puppy. I don't know exactly what
he pays. I know that
she just got bred at six years old for the
very first time and he's expecting
to make some dividends.
His first lap that he
trained very hard was a
rescue pound dog,nie amazing dog love that
dog he had no idea they just grabbed her he put the time in and it was an amazing lab yeah so
there you go he got both of them all right but you could spend that kind of money and
you know for a real high power lab and come out with nothing this is it oh no it's
late but um there's also if you want to buy a dog i think one of the best ways to do if you can do
it since your budget you're ready to spend a thousand or two thousand dollars on a dog go meet
the parents of those dogs spend some time with their breeder and then because if there's something
you don't like about either of them dogs,
you might get that in your puppy.
So that, but it's hard to do these days.
These dogs get sold on the, you know, through the internet.
I have sold dogs from coast to coast, north to south.
You deliver your dogs.
Most of them.
I shipped one to Greece.
Did you?
I did.
Yeah, a gal from Mykonos Island in Greece.
I say the same thing about spouses.
You know what I've been married for a long time.
People ask me advice.
I'm like, dude, go hang out with the parents.
Yeah.
Really?
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Are you kidding me?
I know people say that, but I don't know.
If you don't like your mother-in-law, there's not a real good chance you're...
I just can't picture it.
I can't picture it.
If someone had went and said...
Before you decide...
No, if someone had said to my wife,
oh, go hang out with Frank and Rosie,
and you'll find out what it's like to be married to Steve.
I just don't see how you'd ever get the...
I got to give you that.
I think you got to just find...
It'd be the idiosyncrasies.
It's not the real person.
It's a good point, you and Frank.
They're not the same.
We both like stuff real organized.
That's true.
And not a lot of garbage, like spent shotgun shells all over the floor and stuff like that.
Roddy thinks cup holders are little things that hold empty shotgun shells.
Why did he put that?
No, one is for non-spent.
Yeah, it's for spent.
Or maybe a mix.
The console is for
unshot. The little door
holders are for spent shotgun shells.
Alright, we gotta go.
This is actually like a two-part podcast
because we're going to do part two
later. Some other time?
No, we're going to do it real soon. And we're going to do part two um later some other time no we're
gonna do it real soon and we're talking about why we're here which is the real tall bird with the
real good meat we're gonna pick that up and hopefully we're gonna bring in a uh another guy
who shot a mountain of these tall good to eat birds hopefully this is all gonna happen i think
it's gonna happen but in meantime, thanks for joining us.
Tune in more.
Also, this is Media of the Podcast.
You can always, always, always watch Meat Eater, the TV show,
by getting yourself access to the Sportsman channel or go to Mediator.
I can never remember how that goes.
Is it VHXTV or TV.VHX?
Hold on a minute.
Don't go anywhere.
I really need to commit this to memory.
Hold on a minute.
My buddy set this thing up.
It's not.
I'm sure it's.
Hold on a minute.
Just stay tuned here a minute.
MeeEater.
Go to MeeEater.gov.
I'm not connecting. Something happened to my thing. Come on.
Help me out, man.
Someone.
I can't believe you guys aren't being helpful.
I don't have a phone.
We're not busting your balls about.
Okay.
Okay.
No.
Go to.
I'm going to commit to some memory right now.
Think of this.
TV comes last in life.
Okay.
With that thought,
me eater dot VHX dot TV. TV comes last in life. Okay? With that thought, meateater.vhx.tv.
Meateater.vhx.tv.
You can go there to stream and download episodes,
watch to your heart's content.
There's a code you put in for a discount.
Try Meateater Podcast,
but that might not be it.
All right, everybody.
Stay tuned.
Love you.
Ron loves you.