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What's going on, everybody?
And welcome to another episode of Gun Dog It Yourself.
Ah, sort of.
Hey, it's Lone Ducks, Gun Dog Chronicles.
It's me, Bob.
I appreciate you tuning into this one.
A little bit different style than we've ever done before.
We've never done this.
I was invited on the Gun Dog It Yourself podcast with Nick Adair and Jeremy Moore from Dogbone.
Jeremy and I had a debate on e-colors and force-fetch versus not.
And in truth, it was a difficult conversation.
There were parts of it that I felt like I did a good job describing the way we trained,
the way I trained.
He did a good job describing his way.
We saw eye to eye on some things.
We didn't see eye to eye on others.
And when you can have a discussion with someone that you respect and can appreciate their
methods, it does open your eyes to things to say, I could tweak this.
I could tweak that.
So I had a lot of takeaways from this conversation.
One of the big pieces that I do regret, and I'll be interested if you want to make a comment
or send me a direct message, I do regret one portion of the conversation.
And I think it just comes down to it's a conversation.
It's live.
It's unedited.
It's raw.
And in the moment, it felt like, yeah, no.
I get a bunch of dogs that are screwed up already because someone else worked with them
and now I got to fix it.
And that's like a common thing for us to sort of feel.
But we both Jeremy and I ended up making a comment where it was like, folks like yourself,
listeners can't do a good job with their dog.
And I almost swore, but I really, really regret making that comment because I don't
agree with that.
I think this podcast, YouTube courses, everything that people are putting out there for you
all to digest, learn, grow, develop is to better you and your dog's relationship and
better your skill set.
And people were really, really hard with their dogs and don't want to screw it up.
And so I feel bad.
That's the one piece I wish I could take away and redo and say, no, you know what?
I don't agree with that.
And people make mistakes and I've got to fix them.
Yep, that's why I got a job.
But everyone's going out there putting their best foot forward with their dog, doing the
best they can and trying to learn.
And we are here to provide you information to try and do it better.
So take that with a grain of salt.
I wish I could take that comment back because we are here to help people and we are here
to make mistakes less and I make mistakes and I'm not perfect.
And I wish I could change some of the things that I've done with dogs and tweak and learn
and grow.
But I hope you enjoy this conversation.
It's from Nick Adair's podcast called Gun Dog It Yourself.
If you don't listen to it already, be sure to go look at it, subscribe.
If you enjoy this episode, do me a favor.
Leave us a comment in the comment section of the podcast and tell us what you thought.
Shoot us a DM on Instagram.
Tell us what you thought.
And I hope you enjoy the show.
It was spicy at times.
There are some F-bombs.
So if you're listening in the car with your kids, probably not the episode for them to
be tuning in with you.
So fair warning there.
But without further ado, enjoy the episode from Gun Dog It Yourself.
Recap here on the loan D, baby.
So the main question before we get going is how did this episode come about?
And Jeremy, I'll let you take it from here because ultimately you're kind of the one
that reached out and got this party started.
Sure.
Well, thank you, both of you guys, for doing this.
I'll be honest with you, man.
I'm just tired of listening.
I listen to podcasts all the time and I really like them.
I listen to you, both of you guys.
And a lot of other ones.
What I'm really tired of is it seems like whenever I listen to stuff, there's always
good topics, but they're always real one-way conversations.
And man, if I could only be in the room at the time because I got questions about them.
So I listened to your two latest podcasts.
It was Nick, your podcast that Bob was on.
It was discussing Bob, your course, your force, force, force, force course.
And in that conversation, you had mentioned something about, man, we really struggled
to get people on the other side to talk.
They want to have certain rules and I'll ask them.
I don't know that I qualify to be getting the other side, but to that extreme, but I
was like, damn, dude, I'd do it.
I'm getting a heartbeat.
I think it'd be great.
And so I reached out to you, kind of bounced ideas.
And then I think it was great that we were all kind of able to come together with the
idea.
But I really feel like you get more value when you have two-way conversations because
I want to challenge Bob.
I just think it's fun to do that.
But I think Bob will challenge me and I think we have respect for each other.
I like what he does.
I don't know if he likes what I do or not.
But I feel like we would get along really well if we were in a hunting camp, but we're
not going to agree on everything.
And I, goddamn, guys, that's life.
So why don't we talk like that on podcasts?
So that was my hope with this and we'll see what happens.
And that's great because you called me and pretty much exactly what you said.
You said, hey, I actually enjoyed the episode.
There was some good information, but there are some things that I disagreed with and
would like to share my opinions.
And then you reached out to Bob.
We talked to Bob and it was fun to, uh, that everybody agreed to come on here because we've
all been in this, this space for a little while.
And we all know the old saying the only thing you can get two trainers to agree on is that
the other, the third one doesn't know what they're talking about, right?
And so I thought this was going to be a blast.
Uh, anybody that listened to the episode with Bob, they kind of know, like you said,
he has a force fetch program here.
And so we're obviously, uh, with both of you guys as reputable as you are, I'm, I'm excited
to kind of kick this off because I think this is going to be a fun, uh, way to respectfully
have an honest discussion and show that people can disagree in this world without going to
blows ultimately.
So Bob, what was your initial reaction when Jeremy reached out with his idea?
Uh, I thought it was a great idea and the thing that I'm really excited about is both
Jeremy and I respect each other and that's going to play a part in agreeing and disagreeing
and methodologies.
Um, the other thing that I feel like I'm hoping to be able to bring to the table is when I
first started reading books at 16, I've read a few books before then, but dog training books,
it was the wild rose way, it was Robert Milner, it was very British, uh, methodologies of
how I was developed and brought up, um, as well as a lot of like Caesar Milan, behavior
modification, reading body language and being in tune with the animal.
And I think the British methods, um, which Jeremy, would you kind of say that that's
kind of like majority of your background?
I don't want to put words in your mouth.
I think it's definitely my, yeah, I would say it's my preferred style for sure.
Okay.
Yeah.
I mean, I feel more, yeah, probably no way more about it than, than the alternative,
you know, you know, cool.
So I feel like I bring at least a, a dangerous level of understanding of why and how and,
and I do a lot of things in my training of developing a great duck dog and competition
dog that the British methods had taught me early on in my educational sponge stage before
I even had a dog to do it with, um, watched Mike Stewart's DVDs 25 times.
I mean, I could almost tell you what he was going to say, but, you know, because I've
watched it so much.
Right.
Um, and so I feel like I'm, I'm going, my goal with this discussion is to be able to
put the shoe on the other foot and listen and understand what I hope that the listeners
get is it's not one president versus another president and they can't agree on anything
and they just bash each other.
That's not what this is about.
This is two guys that are already friends, respect each other and just do it different
ways and we can work through problem solving and, and create maybe an idea of how you want
to take your dog to the next level, knowing that there's no wrong answer really.
Yeah.
I hope it brings some clarification, quite honestly, because I think there's, you know,
Nick, you did a great job asking questions to Bob, but like I think of it differently
than you did.
Like you, you were, you were necessarily coming from a different angle.
You were, you know, bringing out information to share with viewers.
So like I look at it, I listen to that podcast and I, there's points in it where I go, I
don't want to ask him this right now.
I want to ask him this right now.
Yeah, but this.
Yeah, but that.
And so that's where I see there.
That's where I see like value and the idea of, well, let's go back and forth on some of
this stuff.
Yeah.
And that's, that's kind of the, the main benefit of podcasts and long form audio engagement
or discussions is that you're getting full context, but for somebody that was in your
shoes, Jeremy, it's very hard when you, you're kind of want the conversation or certain questions
be asked.
Obviously you can't jump in and do that.
So this is obviously kind of a meat in the middle and ultimately I wish that we had time
to kind of go into your entire full program, just like, you know, similarly to what we
did with, with Bob.
But ultimately we're not going to have the time on this episode to do that.
Maybe we do that on another episode.
But right now I think unless you guys have any other opinions, I think there's really
nowhere else that we can start with besides the terms and the definitions of things because
we have to get on the same page with the vocabulary before we go anywhere else.
And so Jeremy, let's start with you.
And while obviously this whole episode, as I, as I already talked about, is going to be
focused on force fetch and some e-collar stuff, let's define what force fetch actually is.
What does force fetch mean to you, Jeremy?
I don't want to throw a curveball at you right away, Nick, but like, so I don't think
I should be the guy to define force fetch because I don't know what the hell it is, quite
honestly.
I would, I think I could describe to you like what, what I do as an alternative in my reasoning,
but I think that's not necessarily what this is about either.
So like, can I reverse that and throw it back at you to start out this thing and be like,
let's say Bob defined what his force fetch definition is because I don't have one.
Yep.
Bob, go ahead.
Yeah.
Go ahead.
Bob, define what force fetch is to you.
Sure, force fetch to me for what everyone sees it as is having a dog that reliably delivers
to hand and brings you back a bird or a bumper on land and in water and delivers to hand
nicely without chomping the bird, flocking the feathers, crushing the bird, delivers
a nice, you know, firm but loose grip, if you will, like we talk about Labrador's having
a naturally soft mouth.
So deliver nicely to hand, hear, heal, sit and hang onto it until I take it.
And there's no option other than that.
What force fetch truly is, in my opinion, is teaching the dog how to learn, how to comply
quickly, how to turn pressure off, how to be motivated to do things with gusto.
And by following a strict program, from start to finish, you'll develop a dog that learns
how to do all those things by turning pressure off and succeeding and then learns how to
be successful and then strives to be successful.
And then if you have to make a correction for behavior, I've got tools in the tool belt
to teach that, to say, no, that's not how we do it here, neck here or something of that
nature, using indirect pressure.
So I believe it gives these dogs the understanding of how to be successful, but then when they
make a mistake, it's not earth shattering and I don't have to spend a lot of time on
it and I don't have to beat the proverbial dead horse because one little correction can
boom, they're back in action and they're rolling with it.
And it also doesn't because I've taught it over time and it's not a one week course,
it's four weeks on a quick dog and eight to 10 weeks on a slow dog.
They've learned how to manage the situation so that if I do make a correction, they don't
get their feelings.
They're like, oh, yeah, my bad.
I got you or back in action.
So that to me is what force fetches, the art of delivering the hand nicely with good mouth
habits as well as learning how to be successful, learning how to turn pressure off and learning
how to cope with different situations that they find in the field and in the swamps.
Oh, and I'll add this to it also puts the tools in the tool belt to develop, you know,
the force to a pile, the tea pattern, quickly sitting on a whistle, running a blind retrieve.
Like, if you follow the program through and through and you skip force fetch, then I find
force to, you know, force to a pile, force to water, swim by a lot of those things.
When they make a mistake, you either have to repeat it a boatload or you could just make
one quick correction and move on.
And sometimes several corrections, whatever the case may be, but you have the tools and
the tool belt to develop the program.
Yeah.
And so ultimately to try and sum that up is you're using pressure, AKA force in this
instance, to develop those mechanisms and those tools that you may need to reinforce
a good quality and consistent retrieve and hand off every single time.
As well as the tools to build upon for future advanced training.
Yes.
So it's kind of like, it's too pronged for you.
You're getting the retrieve part and then I'll sum it up with the idea like my word to
sum that up would be delivery.
You could deliver, right?
Reliable delivery.
And it's also a gateway or an entrance into a philosophy of training going forward that
may or may not be related to retrieving.
Because like you had mentioned here, Nick here, shortly after you had said that it's
a way for them to say how you say it again, where you say it's a way for them to learn,
a way for them to understand how to learn.
Is that how you describe it?
Sure.
Like how to, yeah, it's a good question.
So for that instance, I would use indirect pressure with the here stimulation here.
I'd say they're doing like a big loop as they're coming and delivering the hand.
You know, that's what I mean.
Are you connected to the and I don't, and I didn't necessarily, I asked that question
wrong.
Like I posed it poorly.
You earlier, you had said that this is a way for them.
The force fetch is a way for them to help them learn something like that.
Learning.
Yeah, exactly.
Great.
Thank you.
Learning how to learn.
So if they are learning how to learn through, I guess, like a compulsionary style of training,
then when I need to make a correction and then show them the correct way, it's more
black and white would be one way of putting it, I guess.
Now you had mentioned here, Nick here, as shortly after that, I think it was connected
or tied to that idea of teaching them, learning, having them learn how to learn.
In that scenario, would you be doing that in like, because I hear that and I go, are
you teaching recall essentially with the idea of this or is this kind of, or were you
referring it to it as the idea of during the retrieve?
Like, hey, you're not coming right back to me with the thing in your mouth.
I'm going to hear Nick here and now you're coming to me.
Or is that, or am I misreading that?
Possibly misreading it, but maybe you don't have enough information of my example of the
here Nick here, right?
So.
Yeah.
Before I force fetch, my methodology is I collar condition the dog first.
So I, to have everybody understand my methodologies, if you haven't listened to the previous episodes,
we teach first.
So I use treats when they're babies, you know, teaching, luring, like the obedience people
do, a lot of luring, a lot of positive reinforcement, getting these behaviors that I'm asking of
them.
Once they're doing that pretty well, then I move on to a lead, a slip lead, a choke
chain, whatever.
And now I'm starting to uphold the standard.
I'm not using treats anymore.
I've taught it.
Now my praise and or a retrieve type of thing is their reward.
And now I've got a pretty darn obedient dog.
They understand, sit, they understand here, they understand heal, they understand, kind
of, you know, the emotional slash place, and it's all positives.
It's all good, right?
With pressure from the lead.
Okay.
So they learned to sit by lifting up on the lead, but his ground relaxed the lead, right?
Pressure on pressure off praise.
Once they understand that, then I overlay with the e-collar.
So I do, I do here first.
So I teach, they already know here.
They already get trot, got treats for five months, six months with treats coming to me.
Life is good.
But what happens when they're going and chasing a rabbit across a road or something?
I overlay the commands that they've already learned.
So here is first, then heal, then sit, then kennel, and then I start pairing them all
together to create over the course of a two to four week process, a collar condition dog
that understands the leash means sit.
So does the stimulation level, and you can vary the stimulation levels depending on the
dog, depending on the infraction.
I like to scale up, so it's pretty uncomfortable.
But I also find their normal working level where it's basically a light tug on the collar
or choke chain or something.
Like just enough to get the behavior that I'm asking of them and have it happen quickly.
And then I want them to feel uncomfortable so that when they feel that later in life,
it's not stressful.
It's like, oh, it's just a bigger infraction.
And then it comes back down to normal working level.
And when I say that, I hope people understand that I'm not, they're not remote controls.
I'm not pushing it every time.
I'm not pushing it their entire life.
It's just during this process here, stimulation, continuous, it's uncomfortable.
They get to me, pressure turned off, praise.
Welcome back.
Do it again.
Do it again.
Do it again.
And all of a sudden you see that momentum, that little fire under their butt to haul butt
to me and then they're like, hey, I did it.
And they're like bouncing around and pumped up that they got me super quick.
And then I'll trick them where when I start seeing them get real snappy, turning that
pressure off, I will say it.
They beat the pressure so they complied so quickly with sit or here or coming back into
heel that the pressure's not there.
And they're like, wait a minute, the faster I go, nothing happens.
The more like, and you're just creating this snappy response.
Okay.
So, you know, we're just conditioning in a three minute nutshell.
How did we, oh, so now we were talking about here in a cure.
So if you had not properly collar conditioned, then I would say it's not fair to ever put
collar correction on a dog or that, you know, they're doing like a big loopy retrieve coming
back to you, right?
Or they run behind you 10 feet and then come into heel.
Those would be the examples I would maybe do it with.
So they understand here what the stimulation means get to me quickly and life is good.
And then because of the force fetch process, they understand all the mechanics of doing
it properly.
So when you give the here neck here, it doesn't freak them out.
They go, oh, I better hurry up to him.
And your big loopy return turns into a direct line and you might have to do it once or twice.
And then all of a sudden that little dog is bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, instead of
parading around and taking their leisurely time or showing avoidance behavior of like,
you know, sometimes we see it on tea pattern, they're bored.
It's monotonous, whatever.
And they'll just start kind of loping back to you or like shopping the pile a little
bit or whatever you want little here neck here.
And then the next several cents we got beauty.
So did that answer your question, Jeremy?
Yeah, probably more so than I was even really digging into there.
But yeah, I, okay, I'm just trying to have a clarification of an under clear understanding
on my end of some of the process stuff.
So I didn't mean to drag us on into the.
Well, I'm up.
I don't think it's off track because I want, if you have that question, 800 other people
or 8,000 other people are going to have that question.
And so without, and that's why I actually would like you to take a five minute segment, if
it is okay to maybe go over your process of your basic obedience and maybe like your
hold because that would be how we can sort of debate it so that people understand where
you get it to that level.
Yeah, that's where I was headed next anyway, Bob, Bob just took my job from me.
Sorry.
So your definition to me to recap it, your definition of force fetch is too strong to
its hey, I clean up my delivery.
I get a good delivery and I enter into this world of we're going to train going forward.
And maybe it sounds like prior to you've already prepped for this.
This idea of the way I want you to learn things is avoid this uncomfortable potential uncomfortable
thing that I'm going to do to you by doing the right behavior.
It's avoidance training with the idea of you get to me fast enough.
Eventually if this works, you get to me fast enough you don't get nicked.
Like, right?
That's what you said right at the very end there.
That's like, yeah, yeah, that's basically it.
You can beat this pressure by just doing what I ask of you.
Yes.
There's a process that they have to take that pressure prior to in order to get to where
you want them to be.
Correct.
So I personally look at it and I go, I'm just not comfortable with it.
I don't like the idea of that.
I don't like putting the dog through it.
I think there's, for me, there's issues that I see that would create bigger issues than
help in those situations.
For me personally, with the dogs and training.
Now, I like the idea you had asked, what about your obedience?
Because I do think that it's so built on obedience and it's so built on foundation.
Everything we're doing.
And I think we'll all agree on that.
Specifically to the idea of how it relates to delivery, which I've had to really think
about myself when preparing for this and quite honestly, for years, I've hated the idea
of force fetch.
I've watched enough people do it that I absolutely hate it.
I just hate it.
And it forced me to go and watch, look online and in preparation for this, I tried to really
find some force fetch videos.
And I do think it's hard to find the ones that I watched people do.
Because the ones that don't have cameras on them don't look like the ones that do have
cameras on them.
I'm being honest, that's my experience.
So that bothered me.
What really bothered me was seeing these dogs go through it.
I talked to the buddy about it and he said, yeah, because years ago it fired me up and
I really wanted to be a crusader.
I don't know if he built her, you ever hear it built her?
He's written some really good books.
There's a guy Mike Woolgrove to story about him.
It's called, he loved the dog, I'd recommend it.
Really, really good.
But he was a strong advocate against a lot of this force stuff early on.
He's a really interesting guy.
But so I read this book about him and I realized, he kind of fired me up with the idea of be
a crusader for these dogs.
Someone's got to represent these dogs.
But then I realized it's none of my damn business.
Like that's not my job.
I shouldn't be the guy to tell someone else how they should or shouldn't do stuff.
Because I don't want anybody telling me how I should or should do stuff.
So I kind of had to pull the reins back a little bit and be like, no, that's not what you
should do.
Focus instead on sharing what you're doing for those who maybe are interested in that.
Maybe don't want to do it that way that I don't like.
So I've had to, throughout this whole conversation, I'm going to have to really temper myself
at times because I'm going to have to turn the heat down because I'll get worked up.
You can tell already I'm an emotional person, man.
I cried at the end of Aaron Brockovich.
I'm really, really random movie to pull in.
It's true, man.
It's true.
It's true.
It's true.
So what I look at is I don't want to see the dogs go through that.
My dogs would not respond to it.
Well, I just don't believe that.
And I think it would hurt my relationship with the dogs big picture.
Okay.
So that's part of part of why I do this.
So for me, I realized I've really studied it and I've realized back in the day I would
have said you have to do something with every retriever.
Like there's never been a retriever that I would have said you can't not do something
formal to clean up the delivery.
Now my reasoning for it is not to teach the dog to learn going forward or prior to as
far as like other stuff that's non-retriever related.
Like when I say retriever related, I mean like they'll retrieve.
It is exclusively for me to polish up and really put a shine on a delivery, which means
eliminating some things that are pretty common.
Like dog, I had a dog recently that I did whole conditioning with because she would get
such momentum coming back to me.
She'd run past me.
I put up with it for a while.
I put up with her while.
She's pretty young and I liked her enthusiasm in fact.
So I didn't put it on.
I didn't, I waited that way.
Finally, I just got so tired of bitching about it because she just keep running past
me and I got to call her back to me and kind of regroup her and she would be too excited
towards the end there.
She would have come back in a little bit more control for me personally.
So I did whole conditioning with her and it slowed her down those last few steps and it
brought her in and she looked real pretty and it was nice and stylish.
I liked the look of it.
It's partly aesthetics quite honestly, but it's functional as well.
So for me, that's why I do whole conditioning.
Now what I realized was I just trained a dog, I just sold a dog, started to a friend of mine.
He was a little over a year old.
It's the first dog in 22 years of labs that I can, that I told him, I said, you don't
have to even hold condition them.
Not even fucking hold condition them.
I'm like, and he's no way.
I said, I'm telling you, it's a combination of a few things.
I've gotten way better at not making mistakes early on.
So like this is why I think this is such a great platform for this conversation is because
it's gun dog at yourself.
It's training it, training your own dog.
Like I think there's a distinct difference between how I'm doing this and how I would
be doing this if I was a pro trainer.
How many dogs do you have in training?
25.
If I had 25 dogs in training, I couldn't do it this way.
I just, I don't know that I could do that.
So there's a difference.
There's a big difference between us right off the bat.
But for me, I look at it with these dogs and I go, if I don't fuck this up in the first
place, I don't have to fix it.
Like I've learned that.
So with this little dog, I was so conscious of from literally like, probably seven to
eight weeks old when they were weaned off when puppies have gone home and now I'm focusing
on one.
It's not just this pack thing anymore.
These dogs first off, they had tendencies to carry stuff.
Most retrievers do.
So they carry stuff around.
I, right from the beginning, I looked at that and I went, I have to make sure that this
creates good habits.
So like I encouraged dogs to come to me carrying stuff and holding stuff.
I don't take stuff away from them.
They take my wife's expensive shoes.
I'm not hollering at that puppy for chewing up those shoes.
I'm making that dog think like it's him did something right.
He did it to me and it delivered to me.
So I look at every retreat very beginning as a real important tool.
I got your dog mad.
So so so I'm looking at that more important than ever.
And I did not do a good job of this early on explaining how important it was for myself
and for anyone else that's doing this to not make the mistake in the first place.
If you don't create symptoms, you don't have to create cures.
And so I think that hold conditioning for me a lot of times was polishing the retrieve,
but a lot of times the things that it was fixing, which it might be a dog that wanted
to run off, might be a dog that wanted to run past me, might be a dog that wanted to
drop short, might be a dog that had a little bit.
Not a real nice hold.
And when I mean, when I mean nice, I mean like I'm picky about this shit right from
the start when the dogs come in and they have it out of center in their mouth.
If it's a dummy and they're carrying it out of center in their mouth, I'm not accepting
it.
We're going to reposition it.
And then I'm going to put it back in and then I'm going to ask them to bring it to me
again and bring it to me again.
And I'll get four or five when I say bring it between me.
I mean, they're standing there.
They just literally hold it.
And so as I reposition it and I make sure that that whole world is perfect, perfect, then
I take it from them and I tell them how good they are.
That is, if I do that from the beginning, there's going to be a point where with most
dogs, I do think I'll have to do some type of hold conditioning.
But this last dog that I did, I don't have to do it.
So is that you describe your hold conditioning for everyone?
Yeah.
So if I do a formal hold conditioning, I'm doing it very similar in looks to how you do
your hold.
It's exact.
I don't know if there's a lot of difference to it.
I elevate them because I want them to get up off their feet because I think it takes away
a little bit of confidence from them and it allows them to focus on me.
I start out with a wooden dowel only because this is a big thing I didn't do a good job
of explaining either.
I use a wooden dowel only because if a dog responds to this in a bad way, I don't want
to connect it to something I want them to like.
I don't want dummies in their mouths.
So I don't care if they don't like the dowel.
I do care if they don't like the dummy.
So I'm starting out with a wooden dowel.
And as soon as they take the wooden dowel and don't make a big deal out of it, I don't
have to stick with a wooden dowel.
I can go with whatever objects I'm going to.
And eventually I've got to use a bunch of different objects because if I want them to
pick it up, I'll put it in at some point during whole conditioning.
It's a really easy way for them to pick that up.
But I'm going to just simply put dummies into their mouths, put dowels into their mouths
to start out with until they start holding it the way I want them to, which is I want
their eyes on me.
I want their chins up because I look at it this way because they're elevated and they're
kind of eye level with me.
I want their chins up because when they're down on the ground, if their chins up, they
can't drop it.
Like I mean, it's used gravity to help.
If you open your mouth and your mouth is down and you open it, it'll drop.
So I don't want that.
So like I'm just real particular about the positioning of the dog and how it's holding.
And it's got to be really in a good state of mind.
Like I want this thing.
There's a big difference between your process and what I like to do.
And that was one of the things that this is just based on what I watched because I bought
Bob's video.
I've called Bob.
I told him to say, Hey man, I'm having a hard time going through this thing.
And so I ended, I bought it and I watched it.
I've watched it twice.
So when I, there's a list of things that I made like, ah, here's the thing.
Here's the thing.
Here's the thing.
One of the things that you said in it was I'm going to get 50 repetitions out of this.
I'm going to get a lot of repetitions out of this.
It's going to be, we're going to go, we're going to get a lot of reps on the table.
Because with one of those young dogs, Ash, maybe was the name of a dog, little, little,
little young dog.
And I look at it and go, I would rather have three good ones than 50 of them that are not
good.
To me, it's not about quantity.
It's about quality.
So like I would rather have that dog literally get up there and hold it two or three good
times.
It doesn't have to be long, but two or three good times is more valuable to me and get
out of it and be done.
So like that's, that's me personally.
So I'll get those little sessions.
I think I've, it's important to progress, to get their feet moving and holding these
things.
Like I'll do that for a while.
I'll put them, I'll move them to the ground for a while and move them.
I'll take steps away from them and recall them to me holding it.
This is all over a period of time.
Like this is how long do you think?
Every dog is so different.
I've had some dogs go through it very quickly.
What I consider quickly, meaning like from the day I put them up on the table, some days,
some dogs, I don't even put a dummy in their mouth or a dowel in their mouth the first
couple of days.
Right.
Yeah.
I just, so I look at it this way, like here's the, here's another different thing.
I want the dog to be sitting.
I tether him.
So I have a, I have a little, little tab that I tether them off to.
And I want them to be sitting because I find that they oftentimes will brace.
Like when they get up there, they're uncomfortable and they'll brace against it.
Like meaning they put a little bit of pressure to their neck.
I won't even think about doing anything until they literally come to a physical side.
Like.
And now all of a sudden I watch and that little tablets behind them went from this to this.
It just showed a little bit of bowl or flex.
And now I look at it and I go, well, the dog's ready to learn mentally.
He's ready there.
So I might, now if I go to make a move and I'll just, and they tighten back up, not,
we're not quite there yet.
So that stuff, some, depending on the dog, some are real uncomfortable with it.
Some settle in pretty good.
When I put dummies into their mouths, I've had some dogs where I do it for, for days
on end.
I've had some dogs where I can move forward in the next day.
Like it's just, there's, I don't, I don't know that I can tell you that it's a time on
average.
I would say from start to finish, maybe four weeks, like on average, I won't tell anybody
that because then they'll go once four weeks, I should move on.
Exactly.
So let me ask you a question to kind of begin the debate on you explained your process
very thoroughly.
I felt like I explained mine pretty thoroughly.
Should we get into like, you know, I understand hold that's you do it longer than I do, but
at the end, if the dog gives a crap, it's hanging onto something, brings it to you, doesn't
drop it, doesn't mouth it, doesn't chomp, doesn't spit, doesn't get out of the water.
Like the thing for me is having an understanding of how I do it, where I'll give an example.
Let's say you have a dog that brings the bumper to hand and drops it.
Let's say it is a repeat offender and you're just constantly staying patient, constantly
putting it back in their mouth, constantly popping them under the jaw, hold to happen
it on either hand, hold, maybe do a little here.
Is this during hold conditioning or is this during training?
Like this training.
Just you've done your hold conditioning.
You're done.
Yeah.
But it's just a repeat.
You wouldn't be done that.
Yeah.
No, I couldn't be.
So here's this is the thing about this is the thing about hold conditioning for me.
Once I make a commitment to it, so like I don't typically do it very early.
Like the dog that I was talking about that would run past me, her name is Bella.
So this was several years ago.
We filmed it.
We did a whole YouTube series on her.
So this dog, I hold condition here at about 14 months.
So for a year, I throw out a good way of holding conditioning.
So once I go to hold conditioning, I'm committed.
Like I probably put hold conditioning off more often than not because it's just not, I just
don't enjoy it that much.
Yeah, I get it.
Worried, right?
So I'm procrastinated with it.
But finally with this dog, I just got fed up of saying to the camera every day that we
filmed, I got to fix that.
I got to fix that.
Finally, I just said, why don't you freaking fix it?
Instead of talking about it.
So I said, let's do hold conditioning.
So we put her up and we did hold conditioning.
It didn't take that long.
We have a whole series on her of doing the whole conditioning in addition to her training.
So once I do it, I'm committed, which means once it comes off of, once I come off of
that freezer and I go to the ground, the dog can't drop it anymore.
Like she's not allowed to.
She's not allowed to.
But what if they do?
I go back on the freezer and I go, you went too fast.
Like if she's committing the habit, I didn't teach it to her.
So that's where I look at it and I go, I can't reinforce stuff forever.
I want conclusive training.
I mean, you don't make a mistake anymore.
So it becomes so habitual.
You can't do it wrong.
And then you come down and then we go to retrieve it.
And so when I come down to the ground, then I go to, I typically go to my front porch because
it's a nice little canal.
Then I go from the front porch to the other side of the front porch, where it's the yard,
but I'm still kind of using the exact same light, straight edge.
And then I moved to my opposite side of the yard.
Like I take these incremental steps that just kind of take, add a little bit more freedom,
a little bit more freedom, a little bit more freedom.
And it's more this idea of proofing what I've done to ensure that it's good.
And as long as it's good, we move forward, move forward, move forward.
And I become so damn patient with it, we just move forward real slowly.
And next thing you know, we're back into retrieving.
And when I go back to where I left off prior to whole conditioning, the dog comes in from
the retrieve and she slows up and she sits down and she holds her chin up to me and I
take the dummy from her and I go, God damn, I should have done that earlier.
Because that's what I needed.
So if I have a dog that drops later down the road, I'm not, I didn't hold condition.
I look at it as big mistake on my part, I obviously went too fast.
Okay.
I feel like this is a question that I get a lot where folks have either followed you
or followed Cornerstone or followed Wild Grows and did the no collar, no force fetch.
This is like where a lot of their struggles are, right?
Like dropping out of water to shake off and then either pick it up or don't pick it up.
And now we've got a, what do I do in that situation?
It's like, well, yeah, so those are things, right?
So that specific example is great.
So like, so back to prior to whole conditioning, like when I do it, when I start getting a
dog to retrieve out of water, like this is before I formally hold hold with them.
So this goes back to the idea of you shouldn't, I should not be doing whole conditioning until
I have done a hell of a lot of work before hold conditioning to make sure that they are
as close, close to the finished product that I want.
But it's inevitable.
There's going to be some of these hiccups.
There's going to be these dogs that just don't do it perfectly because we just didn't
necessarily put the polish to it.
But it's like starting with a block of wood.
Like you could start with a giant log or you could take a log that's been whittled down
to be the shape of a gun stock, but not sure.
Like I'm not going to start if you're, if you're building a new gun stock out of the
gun, it's a lot bigger project with a log than it is a blank that's been cut out and
in rough shape of that.
They're both not finished, but it's a lot easier to start with the one that's roughed
out.
So my job is to rough it out from day one, like retrieve number one and be super consistent
with it going forward.
The idea of when they come out of the water, you know how I get my, I love this because
people always talk about how your dog comes out and spits out of the water.
It's a natural thing.
I don't think they like the idea that water just run off of them.
So what do I do?
I go in the water with them and I retrieve forever in the water with them so that they
never even get their bodies out of the water to the point where they get so used to delivering
it to me where I'm, they never even got out of the water, then I take one step.
And so now the dog comes to the edge and they get to the edge of the water and it's literally
like one foot out of the water and here I am repeating the exact same thing we've done
multiple times before.
Good.
And I take another step and another step and as soon as they get to the point, so here's
the beauty of these dogs, they're so smart and so willing to do what I want them to do.
Beautiful thing.
They come to the edge of the water and they look to like they're going to shake because
I can read it.
I can see they're going to shake.
And they go, whoop, their eyes get big and they go, whoop, good.
Take it from you.
Now all of a sudden they get to this edge and they go, I got to get this to him.
Now, if I also think it's a sequential thing, like I'm not going to necessarily look for
a dog to come out of water and I'm 30 yards away from it at a young, young age and be
like, no, you're not allowed to do that.
So don't set them up to fail.
Go stand next to the water.
Right.
So don't do them the chances, screw it up.
Yeah.
So there's a couple of thoughts I have.
One, I find the dogs that I raise, right?
Like my puppies, they just tend to do the same stuff you're doing, right?
Because I take the time to do all the things that are right.
And so when I go to hold, man, they are like, I already have them as my four month old puppy
sleeping in a crate over there.
I'll piece them with a bumper as we're doing fun bumpers out in the yard.
And he comes around and he grabs it, fetch the boy.
Oh, what a good dog.
He's carrying it around and I've had him just like you do.
You know, I'm, he's, I don't take it away right away.
I've had on my nurture, a natural hold.
So all the dogs that I raise, they have been nurtured in a way where as I take these sequential
steps in my program, man, they breathe through it.
It's not hard.
It's seamless.
The caveat I have and it's maybe not the right answer or I don't know how to word it the
right way, but I have four months to make a gun dog for someone and mind you, when I
get them, they, some of them have never swam.
Some of them have never done a fun bumper.
Some of them have never seen a duck.
Some of them have never been on a leash.
Some of them, I mean, they, they all ask it out and grab a bumper and then just keep
on going and take hot laps.
And so as much as I appreciate your methodologies and I think the gun dog at your cellfer who
doesn't want to send their dog to a trainer, you know, they learn these methodologies to
hopefully not have to train out bad habits.
Does that make sense?
Like legit Mike Stewart in his DVD, he says he wants to nurture good habits from the beginning
so that later on in life, he doesn't have to train them out.
And I take that to, to heart as well.
I don't want to play tug of war.
I don't want them to grab a stuffed animal toy that your friend gets you when you get
a puppy because that's like a cool, cute gift and the puppy shakes the hell out of it.
You know, and rips the squeaker out and pulls the stuffing out.
Like I just allowed them to do something that later on they, they, I don't want them to
do with a mallard dog.
But I don't have the luxury of raising all these puppies.
So I'm getting this raw block of log that we've got to now whittle down into a, you
know, gun stock in a four month period.
And so the beauty of this, the programs that I do is we can nurture retrieve drives.
We can nurture phrase.
We can nurture positive reinforcement.
We can nurture natural instinct.
But in essence, they still have a ton of bad habits that I've got to fix so that at the
end of the form on the program, they are steady.
They're quiet.
They're a pleasure to be around.
They're not jumping and barking at people.
They're, and they're doing their job appropriately.
Right?
And so I, I hear what you're saying and I appreciate the patience that it takes to go
from eight weeks old to 16 months old and have a dog that, you know, I would like to
see that 16 month old running land blinds, you know, not good ones with all honesty,
but they should be leaving my side and handling and, you know, steady and doing doubles and,
you know, really, you know, getting into some of the really fun stuff.
And I think some of that compulsionary style of training that we do can knock bad habits
out way quicker with a lot less stress, with a lot less patience, if you will.
But it's like, if I taught them how to do things the right way, when they don't do it
the right way, I can, instantaneously make a correction.
And then it's like, Oh yeah, I know how to do it the right way.
And it's done.
I don't have to wait months to get them to deliver nicely.
You know, as, as an example.
So, so this actually goes in perfectly with, with a clarification question, I was going
to throw out to both of you guys.
And Jeremy, I'll start with you earlier.
You said that after watching numerous force fetch programs and so on and so forth, you
think that your program results in less repetitions, right?
And compared to maybe Bob's and, and, and where he has to cram in so many reps within
those four months, you're kind of spacing them out over time.
I'm curious to get both of y'all's thoughts.
May I make a clarification on that many reps thing?
Cause I understood what he was saying.
I remember that video as well.
That dog I was trying to build momentum on, on it.
And maybe again, some of your critiques of my program, Jeremy are warranted and like,
we're, we're going to do one.
I think you were talking about Ash where she kind of squealed a little bit and you'd like
to see her get confident. We're going to add to our program so that people can see that.
But it depends on the dog sitting in front of me doing the task. If they're already super
snappy, then I'm going to have them slow down. It's like the old adage, a fast dog move slow,
a slow dog move fast. So in maybe that moment in that video, I wanted to see that dog get
in a rhythm of like boom, I feel this, boom, I do that, boom, I feel this, boom, I do that.
And I built this like momentum with them. And then you should, all right, now let's slow
down. Now let's think about things. Let's go slower. Let's hold a little more. Let's
walk up and down the table. Now sit. Okay, let's go again. So my methodology isn't always
many, many reps. It's quality reps, but sometimes to get what I want, I want to do more, slow
them down, do less, do more to build momentum, slow down and do less. So I'm just a clarifier.
I'm sorry. Yeah. And ultimately that's, so Jeremy's perfect example of getting out of
the water, him going in the water, taking a step back, taking a step back and it's very
sequential, is very progressive. You're building off of the previous step. But like Jeremy just
said, he might be doing this at 14, 16 months old. Whereas Bob, you're just talking about
you might be doing this at six months old and you have four months to cram it in. I know
it's generalities, you know, that this nuances. But overall, do we think that around about
on the average dog, it takes the same number of reps, whether you're spacing it out over
a year and a half or whether you're cramming it in within a four month program. Does that
make sense? It's all dependent on the dog. It's all based on the dog. Like I have six
month old dogs that will learn quicker than 16 month old dogs. It's all based on the IQ.
It's based on the natural inherent traits of the dog. So this is fucking great guys. I
love this stuff. So here's Bob, he brought up a very, very good point that has to be
addressed. It's in my notes on my phone right now. There's a difference in how you train
and how I train. No question about it. It's for reasons. So you, and I want to be very
clear too, I'm not trying to convince a professional trainer that's trained 25, 30 dogs in a
channel to do it the way I prefer to do it and to avoid and to stop doing it, how they're
doing. I don't care if you guys do it. I don't care. If you guys need to do that, do
it. I don't like it. I don't like it for the dog's sake. But here's the thing that has
to be understood. I'm not, when you are giving an instruction to people like me because I
bought your video. You're selling that video to folks with the intentions of what? Them
to train their dogs, right? Not for them to send them to you. So what I think has to
be understood is when we have professional trainers, it's this idea of influencers in
the world. We use the word influencers these days because of social media. But let's be
honest guys, since the beginning of time, there are influencers in the world who help
influence what happens and what happens to what why and how people do things. So before
social media, there was influencers. So we just, I think are in this bubble of it now
and it's so magnified. But all that being said, like, I think it's a responsibility
of us. I take it as a big responsibility. If I'm going to explain stuff, I'm not necessarily
doing it to tell you how to do it or how not to do it. I am trying to share how I do it
because I feel confident in the way I do it. And I got to correct this too. I don't have
a program. I know you've got, we've referred to it as your program. I don't have a program.
Like I've learned, I've learned so many different things from so many different people and hybrided
it all together. Like just recently I've watched this. I met with this guy that I'm doing some
stuff with and he spent some time over in England and he told me, said, here's one thing
that we do over there is we'll get down on our, we'll literally get down on our hands
and knees with these puppies and just put our hands behind the back when the puppy comes
in. I go, man, that sounds really good to me. Like it's a body language thing. So you're
down on your hands and knees, I get down and I put my arms out like this and I'm trying
to welcome them in. And that can be read by that dog to be a little bit pushy and they
want to move away. So he said, what do you do? Put your hands behind your back, hide
your hands and let the dog climb up into you. So he's doing that with his puppies all the
time when they've got dummies in their moms. I go, fuck, I love that, man. Then you work
your hand around, you start touching on their hind quarters a bit and we start putting
some physical feel to them. It has nothing to do with the dummy in their mouth and it's
just affection and this dog is starting to understand, I just bring my thing to him.
So we're bringing out what they naturally have. So my point with that is I'm learning
shit all the time. So we, I don't have a program, but what I'm doing is the guy who all the
dogs that I'm training right now are sitting in my living room right now. I can see them
all like they're all laying around me right now. So, and I'm for someone because I trained
clients dogs, I intentionally set it up. Now this is a terrible business model if you're a professional
dog trainer because you won't be able to do it this way. I don't put timelines on any of my training.
So when someone buys a dog from me, they pay for the dog when the dog gets delivered to them,
that's an agreed price. But before we even start, so if it takes me 12 months or it takes me 16
months or takes me eight months, and those are three different dramatic timeframes that I've done
and sold dogs for the exact same price. Because when that dog's ready, when that person's ready,
when I'm ready, that's when it goes home. Well, what does that sound like? It sounds like I'm
training my own damn dog because that's how I do it. And that's why Nick, your platform is so
intriguing to me and so interesting to me and so in, I like the idea of it. But I think what we
have to recognize is those who are influencing those who are trying to do it themselves,
GDI Y it, if we're looking at Bob's situation where Bob says, I got a four month window,
I have X, Y and Z that has to get done, and I got I got to have ways to do it. I think that's
logical. I don't like it, but I think it's logical if that's your business. But I think we should be
really, really transparent about that and go if you're a professional trainer at home and have a
four month window to do this with your dog, this might be the technique you have to use,
especially if you fucked it up from the beginning. Like if you made a bunch of mistakes in the
beginning, which they all do, I have a big hammer to fix that stuff. And I'm looking at it and going,
hey guys, you, I'm not, I'm not a channel like you, Bob, but you know what I wouldn't do, I'd
advocate for the idea of let's get all these people to do the right things in the beginning,
push as hard as I tend to make their time, their patient, they're not, I have people that are
retrieving and doing shit with dogs that call me all the time, they're doing stuff with six
months old dogs that I wouldn't be doing until they're 14, 16 months old. And I go, dude, you're
you're 10 months ahead of me. I'm pretty good. I'm not the best, but I'm pretty good. And I'm not
even near where you're doing trying to do with these dogs, but they're having the issues. And I go,
you know, why are you having issues? Because you're so far ahead of where you need to be.
Right. We got a great point that you're making. I find that the people were helping on social
media and these podcasts, they've already botched it or breeding or raising or genetics or education
on their end. And now they're drinking from a garden hose or a fire hose to catch up or fix the
holes in their training. A lot of things that we talk about is holes in training where the dog
truly doesn't understand what's being asked of them, which then as you progress, they
show themselves, right? Like they rear their ugly head that they're dropping it at the water's
edge. They're it rears their ugly head when they're running away from you with the bunker in their
mouth or whatever the case may be or taking a duck and eating it, right? Like there's so many
things that and you're right, maybe I shouldn't have come out with like a horse vest course first.
It just happens to be one of the main things people ask me about. So I'm like, I don't give it to her.
Totally. But totally how to raise a lot of the naming.
It's a nice question. Yeah. So I just think showing them the best way to actually raise the puppy
so that you don't have as many problems that you have to fix later is a great way to develop
a good retriever with with the cast of others. Yeah, go for it. But that stuff, the stuff that
is that is important to be done prior to the fix the problems type stuff. Do you think that stuff is
as a rule, would you call that easy or hard to do? Easy. Okay. They fucked that up already.
Now you're putting them now you're giving them the idea of now put physical pressure on the dog.
And some of this shit is pretty physical, right? I mean, let's be honest, yours is not that bad, Bob.
I watched your video. I hated when that little dog squealed like that. I will. I'll talk about
that later. But so the part that you're showing for people to try to do to fix the stuff they've
already made the mistake on, I think that's even harder. I think that requires better understanding
of feeling connection and trust and timing with the dog. And if they can't do the easy stuff,
how the hell are they going to do that to fix the stuff that's already fucked up?
Well, I think it's partially my job. I think probably have to bleep some of the stuff, Nick.
But I get worked on it. I got it. No, I, I think you shouldn't believe it. I love it. No, I think
so to maybe back myself up on why I think that's why I think it's so important to give them one,
give them a course where dogs aren't doing it perfect, where I'm doing it with the dog for the
first time. So that little dog ash that was squealing turns out that she was more of a,
like on anything, she was more vocal on anything. She just was more likely to let out noises or
whatever. That was her personality. And you saw you had, man. That dog was super sweet.
Yeah, she turned out freaking awesome. Two videos of her, right?
Thanks. And I kind of rushed it to a few. Remember, like she did so good.
Hold on. I'm not for video purposes. Let's get after it. Yeah. I don't want to, I see I'm getting,
I'm cutting off. You're good. So, you know, for video purposes and to teach people, like,
I think this little dog is crushing it. Let's see how she responds to this. And she responded
adversely. And I ended up after like a five, 10 minute session with her. She was opening her
mouth reaching for the bumper. But the first few times she felt that uncomfortability on her toe,
which was very light. She was like wiggling out. And how did I corral her? How did I make her be,
show her how to be successful? How did I get her to turn that pressure off of the toe? And
to Jeremy's point, one of his criticisms was I, he wished he saw that dog three, four days in a row,
so that he could have seen that little dog start hammering it and be confident and not feel
stressed. And I wish I had shown it because she was a prime example of someone who
ended up breathing through the force-atch process quickly with a great attitude.
She had that little dog was super good, like younger than she should have been through my program
and was great. So did she have a little hiccup? Sure. But I guess it gave people the opportunity to
see like this could happen to you. This is how I helped them. This is how I get them to be successful.
So what I hope that people don't get the gist of the podcast today is like Bob's hard on dogs.
Four-sthatching e-colors are super hard and dogs have a poor attitude afterwards. And I know that,
I almost wish Jeremy and you could train together so you could see 25 dogs come off my truck and
maybe three of them have crappy attitudes. I can think of two at least. And it's who they are. They
got poor work ethic. They don't give a crap. If it's something fun, they love it. So I had to do
things in a process to show them you may not like it but we got to do it. And then I'm hoping as they
mature that that light bulb goes off that this is fun too. Where some folks that we get phone calls
and emails and Instagram stuff, it's like, you know, that dog just give it away. Give it to someone
else as a pet because it's or we have to go through and really build that up. I think it's
have realistic expectations. Don't you? Having realistic expectations? Yeah. So I really,
I love this conversation because this is, I am not a pro trainer. I am that average
Joe Schmoe that figured it out on my own, Jeremy, that you're talking to. And ultimately,
I kind of agree with you overall on this topic to where the way me to. The important information
for the average handler is to do it correctly from the puppy on up. But like you guys alluded to,
the average person screws it up. And I was one of those people when I first started out,
I screwed it up because the quote unquote influencers, the people that were out there,
it was so hard to gain that information and learn that information without putting your
hands on the dogs. It was extremely complicated. And so ultimately, what I find interesting is I
agree with everything you just said. I want to get your take on something to where we talk about the
intangible benefits to something like force fetch. And I'm your perfect example of this
to where I didn't necessarily understand how a dog learned and how it avoids pressure or progression
or building off the previous step until I attempted force fetch. So I was the guy you're talking about
on my first dog to where I was a screwing it up left and right. And I just gritted my teeth and
got through it. And then when we got on the table, it was like a light bulb went off in my head to
where I then understood how to sequentially and progressively go through steps with these dogs.
So I agreed in the fact that you ideally in a perfect world, we want these people to understand
that information before getting to force fetch. But it is extremely hard when we talk to as many
people as all three of us do on a daily basis through social media, patreon, emails, whatever.
You guys know as well as I do, when you're talking to the average person, their eyes glaze over when
you start talking about crate training, leading into place training at the food dish and all that
other stuff. They want to get into the sexy stuff immediately. And so what's your suggestion? I guess
both of y'all what's your thoughts on how do we do a better job getting that information and making
people prioritize this because all three of us just agreed on the same exact point.
Yeah. Hell, I think it's easy to be honest. I mean, it's not all about fondness.
Retrieving. You create a lot of with a retriever, you create a lot of these issues with too much
retrieving, in my opinion. Like I just think that's that's that's easy to see. I think that we have
to like Bob and Bob, I'm not picking on you. I know you got thick skin so I can say shit like
this, but you in your video, you with ash, the second session you did with ash is the same day.
It was a few minutes later, I think you said, and you said, normally I won't do this,
but she did so well in that first session. I'm going to go into the second one and I'm going to
put togech on it and put togech on it. And I look at that and I go, you telling me that those people
that are watching that aren't I've heard people tell me how good their dogs are and how quickly
they pick up on stuff and how smart they are. And I there's six months doing what I'm not doing
at 16 months. So I know they're fast to start out with. So I guarantee you that people watch that
and he did it. Look at this dog, I'm going to do it too. It's do as I say, not do as I do. And I
don't think that that's how we should do this. I think we need to be honest with people. I'm
it's you were on the risk of sounding like an old man and being boring. And guess what? I listened
to Dwight Yocum. Like I'm not I like that old stuff, but I'm I'm slower. And so do I have to
explain it and be honest about it and say, this shit takes a lot longer. If you're going to do
yourself, it takes a lot longer. I also think you should say, Hey, I'm a pro. I got a four month
window and I got to get a hell of a lot of stuff done. And it's not very easy to do. It's very
challenging to do. And I'm going to put your dog through some things that that the other guy
that doesn't do it this fast is not going to subject them to make the so I just would ask you
to be careful of saying subject them to right because then it puts a negative connotation on
this methodology. What would how would you describe it? I'm going to do stuff that the other guys
not going to do with them. I'm not different method. It's just a methodology. Sure. So a lot of
what I would say, I don't have to nitpick a dog. I don't have to. I don't I feel like some and
maybe this is me putting words in your mouth or other people's mouth in my opinion of what I see
a lot of folks having to do. And it's it's not always creating the dog who's fired up and eager to do
it. It's like this is boring. Maybe I'll get to go. Maybe I'll get to do this or that. And I'm
that I'm not pointing fingers at you, by the way, on this stuff. I'm just no, I think this is the
first thing that yeah, it's just the first thing that came to my mind. So not a point in the finger
moment. But I want to have a dog that's so excited to go to work every day with a positive attitude.
And I think that when you say things like you're subjecting them to an e-collar, when you're
subjecting them to force that it puts a negative spin. And what I would love to dispel that it's
not negative. It really helps dogs learn. And it also helps dogs when they get to advanced levels
where they're on a 200 yard blind retrieve and they try and cheat a corner of a pond. I can make
an instantaneous correction that changes the behavior, shows them the right way to do it. And now I don't
have to do it all the time. I don't have to walk out there. I don't have to show them 30 times that
takes some of that drive and fun away from it. Like the proverbial beating of that horse. And so I think
go ahead. Explain to me that last example. I don't have to go out 200 yards because they cheated a
corner of a pond to make a retrieve. Explain to me the scenario there. And it doesn't have to be in
great detail. But what are you training for at that moment? So for me, I'm training for competitions.
So in order, yeah, again, that's a little bit apples and oranges. You nailed it right there.
And not to cut you off with it. But like, that's a very specific thing that you're training for
competition. And so no different than a pro trainer versus an amateur trainer. What you're
training for, what is the objectives? Like, I don't compete with my dogs. I hunt with them. I
know some people compete with their dogs and hunt with them. And I know some people just compete
with their dogs. I think that it makes total logical sense with a lot of these philosophies.
If you're going to ask your dogs to do things that are in competition, it's a faster way to
teach what I feel is somewhat of an unnatural thing. Like,
100% of natural. Yeah, I totally think that makes sense. I don't think it makes sense
for the guy who's training a hunting dog. And when I say a hunting dog, a lot of times it's
just a hunting dog. And I smack that guy right back. And I don't literally do it. But I get so
pissed off when you say it's just a hunting dog. Fuck you. What are these dogs made for? They're
not made. We did not develop dogs to find, to get us ridness. We developed these dogs to hunt them.
What were hunting trials and competitions designed for? Originally, they were originally for
selective breeding, picking the ones that do the stuff best for hunting, correct? I mean,
that's what our original for. But now what we've done is created a totally different world of it,
which good, better and different. I'm not going to say it one way or the other. I think it's an
important thing in certain situations. But I also think we have to have it in perspective. When
we have to say, if you want a field trial dog, you've mentioned genetics before. And that's on
my list things too. I feel we have bred dogs to be steered down the path of some of these training
styles intentionally because of those who are influencing that part of our world. And who is
doing that? The guys who are competing with field trials. I don't want a dog. I think it's smart
for a dog to use its nose out to a point of fall. And because there could be other game or the game
could have moved. I've never shot a bird at 200 yards. Do I need my dog to be able to go 200
yards? Yeah, I think that's probably pushing reasonable. But I don't need to go beyond that.
And I don't need them to be under such stress and pressure that if they take a foot out of the water,
they're freaking out because of the pressure that potentially is coming associated with that.
But I don't think they do. Right? So that, okay, I'll circle back to their original. But I don't
think if the dog has been taught properly, that when they do make a mistake, that it becomes
earth-shatter. And I think that's why following such a pathway towards that, none of my dogs are
going to sulk because they made a mistake. They shouldn't. Some of them do, but that's to me
is genetics. That's like their personality. They sulk if you scowal at them, they just, that's who
they are. But the ones that are the average dog to above average dog, when they make a mistake,
they understand the mistake and they move on. It's not stressful. It's not Audi. It's not
mean. And it doesn't have to be hot, right? Like everyone maybe thinks that all of a sudden,
because that dog made a mistake, I turn the collar all the way up and get them. No,
whatever necessary, least amount of pressure to get the desired response is how I phrase it.
Even if I just yell no and the dog jumps back in the water, hell yeah. Now let's run it again,
or tomorrow set up a similar scenario and see if they learn their lesson.
The other caveat I have with the just a hunting dog discussion is all but one of my dogs hunts.
Everybody goes out hunting, fizzing hunting, duck hunting, whatever. I think that in essence,
to train in this, I don't mean this in a mean way, I think to train a regular steady hunting dog that
can go 60, 70 yards on land and water and pick up a bird or two is pretty easy. And so,
and so yeah, so when you get to that level and you're like still hungry to do more,
you and the dog are still hungry to do more. It's fun to say or like one of the things I
remember as a kid going, I want to see how good I can make a dog. I want to see how like could I
take up order Kali and take it to a sheep trial and win it or go to a farm and herd cattle. Like
I want to take a dog and bring out the most potential in it and see how far I can take that dog. And
so my first dog, I taught him how to run blind retrieves. I taught him, you know, I taught him how
to do all these things and I thought he was the best. Still probably number one hunting dog I've
ever owned. But then I got better. The dogs got better. I got better. The dogs got better. I got
better. The dogs got better. And it's like, if I would have kept my learning, I would have
capped the dogs ability and I would have capped the amount of fun we have because it's kind of
badass to send a dog on a 400 yard mark and watch him fall butt and hit the water and swim like
nothing stopping him and get out on land and hold the hillside and bomb him into the next pond. And
it's like, did you just see that dog? Holy crap. And it's like, back in the day, I never even
wanted a thought a dog could do that. And so as I've progressed, how come? How come which part?
How come you don't think how come back in the day you wouldn't have thought that they could do that?
Too big to grand a scale to to chat. Yeah, like I did. I didn't know I could challenge myself or
the dog to do something like that. And so was this how is this is this connected to pre-using
force fetch and the the gateway into additional training using? No, so I
forged him in the collar condition of that dog as well. I did. But I just didn't think I was good
enough. I didn't think the dog was good enough. I didn't even know people did it, right? Like,
my world was small at that point 13, 14 years ago. And so I look at it like when someone gets a
dog doing simple doubles, hand thrown or from like one of those little shooter dummy launchers.
And they're like, boy, this dog's having fun. What else can we do? It's like, there's so much
we could do. And so I like, I like the idea of advancing that quote unquote meat dog,
quote unquote hunting dog to say like, what kind of cool stuff can we teach this guy?
Agreed. But what I'm getting at, I think what's we're missing here is the idea of,
does that require a different type of training? Like, I don't see the connection there like,
I.
So all right. Can I ask this question? And maybe let's have a clarification. Let's say,
me and you are running our dogs in a training scenario. And we've got three birds down,
one lands across a pond, one lands over here, off to the right of the pond,
and one lands in the water in a little cove. And we got to go pick them up.
Well, you send the dog, the go bird is the one in the cove. Dog goes, gets it.
Next bird is the one off to the right. Dog goes and gets it. Now having the guts and the glory of
punching through the water and driving out the pond to get that other one, right? Up the middle.
If everybody's kind of envisioning this. Let's say that dog cheats the bank. What if the suction
from the other bird on the right hand side that was landed on land, the dog goes back to the old
fall? What if they run the bank and now they're in no man's land and because their death perception
on taking that straight line, now they're hunting way off into no man's land, how do we handle those
situations? A without an e-collar and would you, you know, I don't know that does that make sense?
Like, these are some of the things that we're doing. I think that's great. Let me try to
re walk through this because there's a lot of stuff in some of the terminology I don't use. So
three dummies, one goes across the pond long, one's in a in a cove, another direction, an angled off
direction. And then the third one's in the water before it would have to go in the same line or
similar line that it would have to go to the longer bird. Is that I had it off to the right on
land, not even have that situation? Okay, so I look at it and I go, well, it sounds first off,
we set up for shit like that all the time because it sounds like that sounds to me like a fairly
realistic hunting situation. So that works. What I look at it is I would assess the situation
and how it unfolded. So if I send the dog on the short bird that's in the corner in, they take the
line, they swim out, they get it, and they bring it back. Good. Then they go and pick the second one,
which is not quite so far. And then they bring it back. Good. Now the third one, you said,
it either runs the bank or it's sucked to an old dummy. That's how it looks. So I look at it and I
go, well, what's my problem here? Is my problem that the dog is running the bank? Like, if that's
the case, I look at it and I go, okay, I have an issue with my dog not wanting to enter the water
and carry the line. Is that right? I mean, that's what we got. So I look at it and I go, okay,
I dog just showed me we've got a little hole in our little hole in our training here. So what I'm
going to do is stop the dog and call him back to me. Like I'm not going to let him run the bank.
I'm not going to give him the reward, let him do that and bring it back. And no, let's not
reinforce the idea of it. So stop him on the whistle and call him back to you. And I'm going to take
a couple steps closer to wherever that line is to that. And if I had to get them right to the edge
of the water where there's no option for them to veer off and take the bank, I'm going to literally
start them in the water. And they're going to take that line. If they can't take that line,
what the hell am I running this for? Because we're way over that. What we're
out of what we're capable of doing. So I'm going to send the dog, let him make that pick and bring
it back. Then I'm going to say, we're not Bob, I'm not setting that one up again because my
dog is not ready for it. So now what I do is I add it into my list of things this week. What do I
need to do? I need to set some stuff up where I've got some birds across water and I've got some
tempting banks for them to run. Now I'm not as picky about that shit as you guys are,
because realistically I look at it and I go, if I send my dog and it's very cold and my dog's got to
make a long swim across the water and I got a dog that could run the bank and pick the bird
and it's really not like if I timed them, this one does it like in half the time that the one did
in the water. I'm looking at it and going, I don't know, it kind of makes sense to me. I don't necessarily
like the idea of him doing it. If I asked you to go across the water, I don't want you to make
your own decisions independently like that. That's kind of a coin flip for me. So I don't get too
bent out of shape for it, but I look at it and I go, well, if that's something I really want to do,
I'm going to have to set some drills up to work on the idea of don't take the don't veer off and
don't take the easy route to the bank. So no different than if a dog won't come back to me through,
I just posted a video about this. It's soybeans and this dog made a retrieve and wanted to skirt
around the soybeans. Friction, it was friction. If you don't want to run through the friction,
you want to go around it. So what did I do? I went and stood in the beans. I said, you don't
have an option. You got to come through the friction until you get comfortable going through that
friction and understanding. And then I look at it and I go, well, now what I have, I have a real
issue with the lining part. So I'm going to go do more lining drills to make sure that the dog holds
the line better instead of flailing out when it sees a shadow or a different change in cover.
So I assess this question and I go, let's fix the problem. But yes, in the moment, I'm not fixing
shit. I'm getting the dummy and I'm getting out of there and I'm going, let's go fix the problem
before we set these things up again. All right. I agree with all that. What about a dog after you
know here? I'm a few times and now they don't want to get in the water. After I know here. So they
run the bank, you step up, you, you call them back. Yep. And then you move forward a little bit,
you send them again, they transcript the bank, know here. And now they're like, I don't really
remember it. I don't have, I mean, this is a legit thing that I would run into once in a while,
where it's like, now I don't have the guts to go into it. I would ask, why do you think they're
no here in me? Are they confused? I would guess that they're probably confused. If you don't, my
dogs, we work on a lot of memory stuff. So I don't know that it would be a memory issue.
Because my dogs, we work on a ton of memory stuff. So I don't know that the dog would forget the idea
of the of the dummy, maybe. But then I would look at it and go, how strong is my lining? Like,
do do they believe me when I point in a line and say, go back, they get better, they got to go back,
because they, but what if they don't? I look at it and I go, let's why, why don't they go back?
Why aren't they? What's that? Why aren't they? So, so I guess I'm trying to come up with a good
scenario. In that in that moment, I am absolutely not fixing that, not in that scenario. I'm looking
at it and going, let's go line up and send them through. Let's focus instead of having all these
other distraction birds and send, is it the other birds that were the distraction? Is it an issue?
Is the dog, what is the reason the dog's not going? Is my bigger question?
Right. The idea of the dog that doesn't go, because my dogs don't ever, I don't know that I,
I don't know that I ever run into dogs that like I hear people say no, go all the time on
its social media. They'll, what are you going to do when your dog no goes? What the fuck does that
mean? Why would they not go? And we can do. Yeah, you can feel that much. Are they, are they
timid? Are they afraid of what's going to happen? I don't know. I don't see it happen. I don't
have a dog just, I had one dog that was sticky. She was an old dog of mine. She was real sticky.
And I found that the reason she was sticky, like I'd have to say her name a couple times. I,
Taylor, go back. Taylor, Taylor, Taylor. I'd have to change my tone to get her to go. She was sticky.
And I've got a ton of videos on our, on our pages about this. Yeah. She is, she's nine years old right
now and she's no stickiness anymore. She's way better than she was in her prime. And the reason is
because I hardly ever work her. And so when I send her, I think when I worked her so often and was so
insistent on, we're going to make you better, we're going to make you better, we're going to make
you better. It created a little bit of a heck up in her head. She got a little bit sticky on me.
So I slowed down on not doing so much with that old dog because it wasn't half the shit I was
trying to do with her really wasn't benefiting her much. It was real repetitive. So I look at
it as I got older, she got way less sticky. Right. Yeah. So the example,
yeah, I mean, again, maybe it's because I've got so many examples sitting in a kennel that are
having been developed, you know, what, like their personalities are iffy, like,
probably a lot younger, Bob. Your dogs are probably a lot younger when you're running into this.
And I just, I don't, I don't want to, I don't want to assume is probably one of them. So I think
that there's a reason why, right? But is this one that I would say would? No, that's, it's not in
that window. This is the four month window is a basic gun dog study gunfire, birds, water, land.
As they advance in training, you know, that kind of compulsionary style with the collar and what not
and the steps we take to teach them how to do it properly. You know, one of the things we'll do is
quote unquote, forced to water. So they learn that quicker, they go the quicker they get in the
water, life is good. They get their bumpers. Like we do a ton of things to build that kind of like
you're lining, you know, but there's a consequence for not going. And so I look at some of the things
that we have, like this debate around is what happens if, and even though I respect what you're
saying of if you've done things properly from the beginning, or maybe you've got to take 10 steps
backwards to rebuild and reteach and whatnot, where I would say, well, it'd be easy to take one step
forward here, Nick here, indirect pressure. I've taught the dog. And in that moment, I've taught
the dog that that not going isn't an option. We have to do this. Now let me reward you for
completing that behavior. And then we'll repeat it and see, but I've given them a consequence
for not complying. I've given I've taught a system in place of, this is right, this is wrong,
this is right, this is wrong. I praise you when it's right, you're happy when it's right, when you're
wrong, I'm going to show you how to do it. And I'm going to motivate, you know, I've got a tool in
the tool belt to create that. So it's not that I disagree it. I don't disagree at all with anything
you've said in terms of memory drills, lining drills, confidence on going and doing these things.
But it's in the moment where they think they don't have to, or they think an easier way to do it,
versus doing it our way, what we're asking of them. It's in those moments where I've got the tools
in the tool belt to say, no, do it this way. They understand it because I've taught it,
and then they go and do and then you're like, yeah, and they're like, oh, that was okay. Right? So
you have to kind of create that in my head. Am I explaining that right? Like, I want a consequence.
I want consequences. It's like kids that you ask them 10 times to get off the furniture because
you're at Grandma's grandpa's house. I don't want to say it nine times. I want to say it once,
because they have consequences. And that doesn't mean I'm mad at you, that doesn't mean you're
going to get your butt kicked, that doesn't mean, but they understand that there are rules and
boundaries. And I am expected to do this. And if not, here's a consequence. And then I'm your
biggest advocate when you did it right. Right. And so I look at a lot like that. It's just,
I totally, it totally makes sense to me. I think here's the difference. It is a complete different
philosophy and mindset. And that's where I'm totally uncomfortable with that. And you are
comfortable with it. And a lot of people are comfortable with it. And a lot of people aren't
comfortable with it. It's a totally different school of thought. And I look at it as like
motivator. Okay, I am a motivated person by someone who incentivizes as opposed to threatens.
Like that's just how I am. Like you give me a project to do and you say you do a good job,
you get a bonus. I'm going to do a better job than the guy who says you don't do a good job,
you lose your job. Like I just guarantee you I won't take the risks. I won't put the extra,
I'm not going to do that. It's my mentality. I am motivated by incentives. And so I think dogs,
I prefer to work with dogs in that way. I don't like, I'll be honest, I don't like the look. This is
this is personal stuff. I don't like the look of dogs wearing collars. I just think they look
robotic. I think they look sticky. I think they look stiff. I don't like the way they look. I don't
like the way they run. I don't like the way a dog looks when they run that's been on a collar.
I think they carry themselves very different. I think it's very easy to pick that out 99% of the
time. I love the beauty of a natural style in the dog. I love the way a dog carries themselves.
So when we start looking at, and this is like on the hunt, this is on the send. So like for me,
personally, it's a philosophy thing. And I want to get dogs to pursue it. I want to get the same,
I want to get very similar results, but I want to get it in a way that doesn't put literally
like, I mean, I, I, and this is where Nick, you had brought up the idea of talking about collars.
And I thought, man, this is kind of a whole other thing. But I see where you were with connecting
these two. Like, let's be honest, what is what is a dog when you when you shock a dog, what are you
doing? You're shocking them, right? With electricity, it's static electricity, static electricity,
still electricity, right? Is that true or not true? I don't know that answer, because there's no like,
if you push the button, the way I look at it is if it was real electricity, you couldn't use it in
the water. Then what is the minute? Hey, I use the word stimulation. It's yeah, if you go to a
physical therapist and they put the stuff, no, listen, I'm not PC, man. I'm not trying to be PC.
But that's that's what it feels like. Hell, I, but it's not lightning bolts going through.
Okay, so I bought a collar because I got this set up up. I don't want to go on that rabbit hole,
but I got this capabilities of using it for training. I didn't intend to use it. I bought it for GPS,
but I thought the same price is on with training. So I bought it with training with the fear of
that I may have to break this dog off a deer. That was my concern with it. I fixed that without
having to ever put any electricity on the dog. Any stimulation on the dog. But so I put that
collar on my hand on the meat of my hand. Okay. And I couldn't feel it at one and I couldn't feel
it at two or three, I could feel it. I couldn't get over a six. I, no way, get that thing off.
Yeah. No, went up to 18 or something like that. I put it on my hand. I want to put it on somebody's
neck. I want to have, I want to put it on someone's neck and I want to put it in someone else's
hand that doesn't know what they're doing, that had a hard time training. And then I want to have
that person be helpful with the idea. This bothers me. That bothers me a lot because I'm not against
you using it, Bob, because I think you use it right. But the problem is, is the people you influence
to use it don't. I don't know if that's necessarily true, man. And I think it's my job to teach them
how to use it properly. And so I'll double back on discussing it's not lightning bolts going
from prong to prong. So it's not true electricity. It's a signal from a computer in the little hand
held thing to a computer in the receiver on the dog's neck that can vary levels. I also think that
there are good e-colors and bad e-colors that are, and what I mean by that is when I push the button
at the number I push it on, I want it to deliver instantaneous stimulation at the level I intend.
So high quality collars are very consistent in that level. So for instance, mine goes from one to
eight and I can do a low one, medium one, high one, low two, medium high two. So I can finesse this
thing very slowly. So I can vary it. And most of my dogs are on a two high to a three high. And when
the time is needed, I may scale up and get a quickie that is tougher. Again, a more advanced dog,
scale back down to their normal working level just as if you're tugging on a leash. No, no,
peer, no, no, get in the water, no, no, whatever. And the how I equate it to people is it's like
a tens unit at a physical therapist. It just pulsates the muscles and the higher you turn the dial on
your falsating muscle thingy, the more your muscles go like this, right? And so it's an uncomfortable
situation. I don't know how to describe it, but
then the second thought of putting it on, yeah, I know it hurts, but
you don't need to use it at its highest level, right? And then two, the dog's neck is not our skin.
They've got a coat, they've got thicker skin, they've got thick muscles.
It's just different. So I don't think not as much as I used to. You know,
old buddy, but I think it needs to be taught properly because I'm tired. So dude, you know what,
like take out e-colors. How many times you have people call you and say, I've got a gun shy dog.
There's thousands of videos that you've done and I've done on how to introduce dogs to gunfire
properly. And they still screw that up. So that same dummy is going to screw up an e-collar that's
going to screw up driving down the road and get in a car accident. Like cars are dangerous,
people still drive. So I think if they are, if they have an advocate that teaches them how to use
it and responsibly use it, then it's just another tool. Just like a choke chain can be used improperly,
just like your hand can be used improperly. No question. I think the difference with that is though,
so I will put this out there. I have, especially in bird dogs now that I've gotten into some bird
dog stuff. I have seen some guys use collars very effectively and very well, they use them very
well. Like I have no issues with how they use them at all, none whatsoever. Now they're pros,
but I have zero concern with how they use them. I'm not going to use one. It still bucks me,
still drives, nope, not going to do it. But I know it can be done. But here's the thing,
but when you talk about a misuse of your hands, if you talk about misuse of a lead
or a slip chain or any type of tool like that, yeah, they can be totally overused. I overuse
them at times on it. Damn it. I recognize it very quickly. You know how I recognize it very quickly,
a combination of two things, how the dog responds and how it feels to me. Because when I get a nice
sharp fraction, I feel it. Like me, I feel it. I'm the one who pulled on it. When you push the button
where you feel it internally, like, Oh, I was in, you know, and you hear the dog respond. You push
the button. There's a one or a 12 or a 50. It's pushing the button and you're 100% dependent on
you know how many people use these things. And again, it's misuse of the tool. So my my issue is
not the tool. It's the and I'm not against. Some guy want to call me out to do a debate on the ban
of e-colors because he knew I didn't use them. The last thing I want is legislation telling us we
don't have rights to do shit. We want to do like that is not my intentions. What I think the problem
is, is what I have an issue with is the misuse of them, I think is much greater than we think
and admit to is. And I think that I want there are a hell of a lot of people, Bob, that do not want
to use them. And they think they have to. And I think it's a combination of really good marketing.
I think it's a combination of I hate to say this because this is not personal. But when companies
pay other people to do say stuff, they say shit. And I look at it and I go, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, that that to me is, I don't like that. And I think it's a rapid thing. It's not just in the
dog. It's not just in the way it's every industry has that. But it drives me, it drives me nuts.
And I look at it and I go, okay, who pays the price on all this? It's that poor dog that the
guy that doesn't have the patience, the guy that doesn't have the self restraint, the guy that's
frustrated. But he's going to be the same guy that's going to swap the dog. You know what I'm saying?
Like he's still going to be the guy who's going to be a panel at dog. Yes, I agree. But if he does,
he physically has to do it. And goddamn it, that's another layer of checking yourself to say, man,
if you beat up dogs, you have a problem, whether it's with a collar or a leash or your hands, you
got an I don't know that we can help that. But what I can help is the idea of, but I think they're
out there. I don't really want to do this, but I think I have to. No, you don't. Right.
I don't think you have to either. Right. I don't think you have to do. I mean, again, remember in
the beginning of the podcast, I talked about reading those books and watching the wild rose way.
I don't think you have to. What I do believe is that I can deliver instantaneous communication
to the dog of what is right and what isn't wrong when they understand it. And because I've taught
the process, it shouldn't be like, I don't even like using the word correction sometimes because
it's not that big of a deal. Right. And I think that's the misconception that folks have is it
shouldn't be life altering. It shouldn't change the behavior, but it shouldn't change their attitude.
If you notice that it's changing their attitude, we've got to reevaluate just like the example of
you gave of the dog doesn't like going through the soybeans. We're going to reevaluate. We're
going to make them do it. Well, I'll tell you what, I got plenty of dogs that would look like doggy
do do. If I made them do that over and over again, because they don't want to do it. Right. And so
they're going to like salt having to go through the soybeans. They're going to salt having to go
into the cat tails again. Like they just, it's like their personality. Right. So it's not,
I want to have a positive attitude out of the dog. I want to deliver good timely corrections that
are fair and easy to understand at any distance, whether it be at my side or be out at a great
distance like running blinds or long marks. Right. And so if it's a tool that allows me to do that,
I think that's great. I do agree with you that in the wrong hands is not a good tool, but same
with the choke chains, same with the healing stick, same with anything, man, anything. So
I look at it like some of our debate that we really didn't get into is like,
if this happens, how do I handle it? Well, I can fix it right then and there very quickly,
very abruptly. And then it's not typically an issue again. And or I might do it three or four
times, put the dog up, revisit it the next day, and then say like over time, I've built this
understanding of come out of water, don't drop the duck, just like you have. But I can do it in one
day, right? I can do it literally in one or two days where it's just like, no here, they pick it
back up off the ground, toss it back out like a funsy, they pick it up, they drop it, no, you know,
fetch, no here. And then after three, four, five times, they're like, I get the gist. Just like you
taught me, I can't do that day one of four steps. I can't do that. That's like at the end where
that dog fully understands what I expect. I give a consequence for dropping. I praise when they do
it right, I repeat, I show them, I repeat, I show them. And all of a sudden they're like,
if I don't drop it, nothing happens. Life is good, done. It's the same as we did it on the table. It's
the same as we did on walking fetch. It's the same as jumping on and off a dog stand. And it's the same
coming in out of water. Just hang on to it. And I've only had to make maybe three or four corrections
versus no hold, no hold, you know, stuff like that. I totally agree with you on that. Like, I
I don't think the answer is constantly correct for a lifetime of no hold, no hold, no hold. Like,
no, that's not that's not a problem. But I, but so, I mean, do you, it sounded like I caught
maybe indirectly, like, you find it to be a quicker or a faster path.
So when I say quicker or faster, I understand what you're saying. I do, I think you can get the
job done faster. What I mean by it is, I don't have to nitpick a dog because I can do it once
and mean it once and show them, like, I've already built the foundation, right? Like, I think any
dog needs a great foundation. So because of those things, one correction might be the only time in
that dog's life that I ever have to do it. Versus if I didn't have those tools in the tool belt,
it may take 50. And I think sometimes dogs that have to see it 50 times, they can just be like,
man, this isn't so fun. Where I can jump right back into the fun stuff because I made one
correction and now we're rolling. Does that make sense? Yeah, I hear what you're saying. I
disagree with the idea that I think I think you have to recognize as a trainer that you can't
bore. So like, I can't just, I can't just be, no, we're not going to do it. We're going to do the
same boring thing again. This is slow, my dog. If I started reading that, hell, I don't want to do
that either. But I also, but I also look at it and I go, quite honestly, majority of the dogs of
these days, whatever they're coming from, that's the beauty of dogs. Here's, here's a blows my mind.
You can do the stuff you're talking about doing to these dogs and do they know where that pressure
is coming from or not? That's where these pointing dog guys have impressed me with. They actually use
their collars like non connected, like the dog doesn't even know where the pressure is coming from,
which I think is smart. Like, I don't want that dog knowing that it's me on the other end. But
even when they do know it's you, here's what blows my mind. They still wag their tails. They still
love us. You put them through that and they, I mean, what a damn it, we owe these dogs a lot
for being willing to put up with us to do that to them and they still, it's just a testament to how
impressive this species is. But I also have to realize that you can't, I can't bore them either.
You can't bore them and neither can I. You can't, you can't put, I have to be careful because,
because I'm not a, I'm not going to be all rainbows and butterflies either. We're not, I don't wear a
fanny pack full of kibble. I don't, I don't do that. So I play sometimes. I don't, I don't.
I feel really corny doing it, but sometimes I do. I use correction. I use pressure and I use
praise. And I think it has to be both. I just think that the slippery slope comes in to this idea of
a push button society of it's quicker or it's faster and it, you don't feel shit. But I'm telling
you right now, they do. And I don't like that. Now that we'll chase ourselves, we'll chase our
tails in a circle here about that. And I don't want to do that because I do respect what you're
doing. I do respect what, understand the idea of it. I just look at it and I go for me, no way.
And for a lot of people I'm finding. So here's what I feel like we should do.
I don't want to force fetch their dogs. That's why they send them off to people.
Because they don't want to be the one that has to put them through it.
They don't want to screw it up. Yeah, they don't want to screw it up.
I think they don't want to be, I don't think, I think they don't want to be the guy over here
grabbing their ears and pinching them in here and I'm squealing.
Yeah, that could be too. I think it's one of those things where
if we could get our society to not just agree to disagree, I don't let the agree to disagree
anything because then you don't actually know what they're feeling or seeing or doing.
I feel like if you took the next three to five dogs because each one of them are going to be
different personalities and handle everything differently and you'll get a feel for it yourself,
not just doing one and being done. And I did the same. Let me develop this new puppy and not
color conditioner force fetch and see how far I can take it in a in one year. Like in one year,
let's see how far these dogs can go and and progress.
That's the issue though. You just me it's not an issue. It's just me.
I'll do it because I don't give a shit what the score is at the end of the first quarter.
Like I want to end the game that matters. That that's to me totally that you just that's exactly
what I'm saying. It doesn't matter to me. It matters. It does. I guess if whatever reason it
does matter to me, I think if if I can progress a dog to reach its full potential and then keep
building upon it, that's great. I'm all I'm just want to. But to me, that's a lifetime of the
journey. Like never anything. 100% agree with that. I 100% agree with that. I just I would love it if
we both took an opportunity to say, I may not always do it this way. I may go back to the way
I used to do it. But let me actually feel what that other person is feeling. Let me actually put
myself in their shoes and see what it's like. And if our whole society could do that, we'd all be
better off and understand each other more. And so I believe you know, one thing that I admire about
you is you you did, you know, jump into the course and watch it twice. You did go to other people
and watch them. I think we have to have the audacity in ourselves to say, I may not like it, but let
me try it. Let me just see how it feels. And you may say, boy, this isn't for me still. But at least
you can say at least I tried it. You know, like, I don't like I don't want to eat that steak. It looks
gross. Well, try it. And then all of a sudden, like, well, you know, I could eat steak here and there.
Right. And I think if, because I agree with so much of what you say in your methodologies and how you
handle yourself and the dogs, that it doesn't work. I don't, I'm not one saying it doesn't work.
If problems arise, I know how to fix them because of the way I do it. Where I probably would be
calling you and being like, Hey, dude, this dog is still struggling here. What should I revisit?
And you would coach me up on it. Where when they call me and they're doing this, I can say,
make sure you have these fundamental tools in the tool belt and let's progress.
But I just think it's one of those things where if you took a couple of your dogs and did a
light e-collar correct, you know, e-collar work, I bet you'd see a lot snappier delivery and a lot,
you know, pep in their step as they're running out to tee pattern and stopping on a whistle,
snappy and but I could be wrong. Well, so I want to, I have such an instinctive reaction to that,
but I want to think about it and count my count to three. I always tell people, oh, because,
because here's, I absolutely not. I'll be honest with you. Like, I would never do it.
It's because I feel that strongly about it. And it's not because I'm close-minded.
In fact, I had to open my mind to watch some of these guys that I'm working with and kind of
mentoring under to watch some of this bird dog stuff. And it was amazing to me to walk away from
their going, I can, I'm okay with that, man. I'm okay with what they're doing. They're very good.
And they are not abusing it. And they are, I understand why they're doing it and how they're
doing it. And I'll tell you why they were doing it. It's because it was faster. They were professionals.
They had people that were paying them and they had to get their dogs through certain points and
certain amounts of time. It made, it makes 100% sense. I get it. I don't have that,
I don't have that restraint. I got all the time in the world. I got, you know, I would rather
build my own house than hire a contractor. I'm that kind of guy. I, like, that's just how I am.
I like the old school. I hung over wooden decoys, man. I'm, I'm.
Yeah, I love it.
There's something, there's something about that to me. Okay. There's also something to me about
the look of the dog without the collar. There's also something about the attitude of the dog
and the way the dog moves without the collar. I like that. I think it's real pure. I think it's
real art. I think it's, it's beautiful. It's what has drawn me to them. But so would I, would I,
for the sake of understanding the other side, do it in that case? No, I'm not going to. But
that's not to say, I think it's, I'm not seeing you're wrong and I'm not seeing you're a bad person
and I'm not saying those other people that are doing it are. I think it has to go back to the
understanding of what do, what is your situation? What is the individual situation? So, and what is
my responsibility to those who aren't comfortable and don't want to do that? Because there's a lot
of them. And so I look at it and I go, that's why there are certain things you have to just dig
your heels and I'm saying, you know what? No, I totally agree with you. It's better to be
understand what the hell I didn't know what a bad, I used to work construction and I went,
all these guys bitch about their backs and I used to, I was a young guy and I was strong and I didn't
care. I just wanted to do it faster and work harder and whatever. And I was at Midwestern
Construction mindset and I had to, as soon as I hurt my back, I felt really bad for these poor
bastards because how did they even do their jobs? Because here I got, now I understand what it feels
like to have a bad back. That was real eye opening to me. That same mentality in mindset doesn't work
for me in dog training. I can't be about getting shit done faster because that little dog that I
have might not be capable of going that fast. And so I have found that in the big picture,
I get a lot further by slowing down. I don't do more, I do less better. That's something I've
learned. God, I love that. My buddy told me that. He said, you know why you didn't have the whole
condition of blue? Because you didn't do more, you did less better. I think it's completely true.
In the end, that dog is a pretty nice dog and had some really good things going for it
genetics wise. But it also, sure, you can screw up the best genetics with your culture
and you can screw up, you can write the ship of a really struggling genetic dog in the right
culture. And I'm looking at it and go, man, I got to do my best to provide bull. And that's where,
yeah, I mean, I don't, I think there's value in talking about all of that stuff because you've
got to have the perspectives. But no, I just I dig a man. I understand. And I completely respect
you. And I, I think that we had a really good Nick, is there anything other topics that we want
to knock out real quick? I've probably got five minutes. Man, I have an entire list, but we'll save
it. I've just been nerding out over here, man. I've enjoyed the hell out of this, honestly, it's
is, I mean, to listen to both of you guys and the fact that what we set out to do, I think we
really did a pretty good job or I should say you guys did a pretty good job discussing such
hot topic issues, polarizing issues within the dog world, respectfully, you know, people got a
little animated from time to time. But ultimately, there was no disrespect at any time or point in
this entire conversation at all. And one thing as the average DIY gun dog,
handler, that's what this entire podcast was built upon is I appreciate the fact that you too can come
on and talk about y'all's beliefs with such conviction that y'all truly believe 100% what
y'all are doing is the right thing for the dogs. But y'all understand that with different
perspectives and starting points and belief structures, different things are different
priorities to different folks. But ultimately, the thing that both of y'all focused on is y'all
use the word why throughout the entire episode. It wasn't just how it wasn't just how it wasn't
just how it was why. And to kind of Jeremy's main point in all of this is ultimately we do have a
responsibility as quote unquote influencers to precede all the information that we put out in the
most responsible manner that we know how. And I think all three of us go above and beyond in our
efforts to do so. Do we succeed in it every time? No, it's kind of an impossible task nowadays.
But I think we all try to and I, and I hopefully the listeners listening to this got something out
of this whether whichever side of the fence they fall on, I think just coming from my perspective
as somebody that just kind of bowed out of the conversation and nerd it out with what you guys
are going on. I enjoy the hell out of it. Thanks buddy. I just I'll end with like for me Jeremy,
it's it's fun talking with you because you're passionate, you're smart, you're good at your job
and you care about people and their dogs. And I will take away from this the added I already have
like a weight on my shoulders of helping people and making sure that I'm doing a good job. But
just having someone poke little holes in this could be explained better. This could be shown
better. This is your responsibility Bob to do it to the best of your ability really kind of that
to me rings the most of this discussion is that it's our responsibility if we're gonna
help people train to show it to to explain it to teach it as best as we can so that they don't
screw it up so that they don't use it improperly so that they find what works for them and their dog
that's sitting at their feet the best and I can look in the mirror and say there's a few times
where I probably skipped over or because it's so much how much I do it it's second nature almost maybe
where it maybe needs to be explained more and so I appreciate you being a advocate for the dog and
the people and and push me to be better at it so that's my main takeaway from this so I appreciate
you. That means an awful lot and I say that really sincerely because if there's I'm sitting
here thinking back on last whatever how long we were talking in two hours or whatever and I'm going
I don't want people to think I'm like soap blocks preaching son of a bitch because I
that's not that's not my intentions when you say that you can sense my passion and you you understand
how much I care about the dogs and the people that's it man like that is totally it for me and I and I
just Nick I really appreciate you willing to do this because this is awkward this is an uncomfortable this
is this hell this is one I wouldn't mind listening to I would like I would love to you know like if
other people because I get so tired of this one-way talk shit and we have to be able to discuss we
have to be able to be cordial but I do get worked up and I got to do better at that I got to I got
I got to throttle back a little bit sometimes but I get so damn worked up about it and it's because
I do really care and I really care about dogs are it to me but it's people that are really what
matter and oh that's why I want to do it with people like you because you I think you are as
sincere of a person and and and as committed to what your cause is as anybody and I appreciate
that that's the that's the shit I gravitate towards so for us to be able to do this together I think
I don't think anyone's gonna go man they agree on everything Nick you said something to me about
hey I don't want an echo chamber I don't think we gave you one yep and rightfully so so but
like yeah like shit man I had a whole list of stuff that like we don't even touch the tip of the
iceberg on but that's okay because one what I don't I think we did I think we did what we could do
in this amount of time and I'm really honored to have been able to do it and I appreciate you guys
I mean I appreciate you reaching out and and even suggesting the possibility of doing this you know
you're listening to an episode that if I went back and listened to it and Bob would probably agree
that it probably did turn into a bit of an echo chamber because I do tend to lean more towards
kind of Bob's method because that's how I was taught and that's how I'm learning and and that's
what you see most often right but you did make a lot of good stuff that I'm gonna leave here and
I'm it's gonna resonate and I'm gonna internalize a little bit more same it's it's discussions and
conversations such as this I think the dog world truly needs more of and and that's why like you
said it was kind of awkward you know what we were trying to have fun fun with it and I think
ultimately I still had some fun on it but ultimately I think that this is just invaluable and so
as awkward as it was you know trying to start this conversation and get it rolling I think you
guys went above and beyond with it and that's why if we do want to come back and start addressing
specific scenarios down the road if you guys think there's any value in that or the listeners
think so I'm open to it man I truly think that there's a lot of value in conversations like this
me too and I don't know if I would do it with many other people other than you because of how
much I respect you well I appreciate it man I appreciate it absolutely well I think Bob I
know you got to go we can stop this love fest and gosh darn it people like us okay guys it's
I don't know why but uh but yeah guys seriously uh let's uh let's circle back and and I'm excited
to get this out and for everybody to kind of get feedback because uh I don't I don't know of
another podcast or or a platform that has done something like this to this degree and I hope
I hope this is kind of the kicking off point to where more people do
awesome I my hope would be that it inspires some people because like talking and listening
talking and listening people need to at some point people got to take action and so I think
that that is that is something that all three of us we need to we need to try to to
when you have words man they're they're powerful whether you're writing them or talking them or
whatever we got it I think movement is what we need we don't need the head nodding we need the
move we need the movers so I'm hoping that this is this will this will do that for some people anyway
absolutely well guys I enjoyed it we'll we'll talk soon when this comes out and uh everybody
have a good day man thanks guys
you