Speaker 1: Welcome back to another episode of Cutting the Distance podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Dirk Durham and this week I have a filmmaker
Speaker 1: with me here, Matt Gagman joining me.
Speaker 2: Welcome Matt, Thank you, Derek, thank you very much for
Speaker 2: having me. I'm very excited to be here with you today.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, thanks for coming on. You've man.
Speaker 1: We've been trying to get together for the last I
Speaker 1: don't know month, I think trying to get together.
Speaker 3: It's like either you're on the road traveling or I'm
Speaker 3: on the road.
Speaker 1: Travel and it's been kind of tough to get together
Speaker 1: and connect.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's always a hectic fall and obviously with Hanan
Speaker 2: and filming. Yeah, I'm glad we I'm glad we could
Speaker 2: lock this in. It's a long time coming.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. So how'd you get into filmmaking?
Speaker 2: It's a great question. It was kind of a little
Speaker 2: bit later in life career change. I kind of started
Speaker 2: my career in engineering, spent a lot of time in
Speaker 2: the field and always had a camera with me, and
Speaker 2: then kind of hit a point where I wanted to
Speaker 2: get into more of a creative role and yeah, kind
Speaker 2: of quarter let crisis. I had sold my home and
Speaker 2: moved out West, and I brought some money, gear and
Speaker 2: a camera with me and just kind of made a
Speaker 2: run of it. So it was a sort of a
Speaker 2: trial and error to get started. Still did some contracting
Speaker 2: for some companies back east while I figured out the
Speaker 2: film side of it and started working on some small
Speaker 2: projects down in Salt Lake City, kind of more commercial
Speaker 2: stuff that Salt Lake's got a pretty big, you know,
Speaker 2: sort of film and commercial world. And then yeah, I
Speaker 2: eventually worked my way over to Meat Eater and worked
Speaker 2: with all of you guys there for a little while.
Speaker 2: And yeah, probably back in twenty twenty two, launched my
Speaker 2: production company and I've been, you know, stead away at it.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Nice. So are you doing this full time?
Speaker 2: Yes? Yeh, full time, So running Timeline Media and doing
Speaker 2: a mix of pretty some of my own stuff and
Speaker 2: then filming some some sort of hunting television content for
Speaker 2: some other shows as well.
Speaker 3: Oh that's really cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Do you do you find it it's easy to stay
Speaker 1: busy as a filmmaker.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've been really fortunate. I think that I kind
Speaker 2: of built up a pretty good network and built up
Speaker 2: some good relationships early on, so I've been I have
Speaker 2: no shortage of work, particularly on the TV side of things,
Speaker 2: you know, filming some some hunting television shows. I think
Speaker 2: once you kind of get established in that world and
Speaker 2: make some connections and people know that you can tag
Speaker 2: along on a hunt and sort of be an asset,
Speaker 2: then there's a lot of work available. But yeah, took
Speaker 2: a little bit to build up that network, but definitely
Speaker 2: stay busy.
Speaker 1: Sure, sure, probably a lot of word of mouth that
Speaker 1: goes on there. You know, once you do a few
Speaker 1: gigs and they're like, yeah, that guy's great, and he
Speaker 1: knows when to move and when not to move, and like,
Speaker 1: hunting is so different than filming other projects.
Speaker 2: I'm sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's multi fi.
Speaker 1: Said, your inclement weather, you're trying to stay hidden from
Speaker 1: an animal, and then once the SHOT's made, then sometimes
Speaker 1: it's not over right, you know, whether it's tracking animals
Speaker 1: or packing animals.
Speaker 3: It seems like it's it's.
Speaker 1: A pretty pretty pretty pretty big deal. Like it's it's
Speaker 1: not just you know, turn on the camera and pushing
Speaker 1: the go button.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're definitely a part of the hunt more so
Speaker 2: than you get you know, you're filming other content or
Speaker 2: you're filming other projects. You're sort of outside of it,
Speaker 2: but filming hunts, you're very much there. I mean, whether
Speaker 2: it's a you know, spotting stock couse hunt. I filmed
Speaker 2: an archery couse hunt in Arizona last year and that
Speaker 2: was incredibly challenging and we were successful in the first day,
Speaker 2: but it was that was one of the hardest ounts
Speaker 2: I filmed. And then one of my proudest camera moments
Speaker 2: is actually, you know, stalking in five hundred yards on
Speaker 2: a bedded buck with the guy filming and getting into
Speaker 2: twenty eight yards and making the shot like you're very
Speaker 2: much immersed in the hunt, or you're sitting in a
Speaker 2: stand with a guy for twelve hours hanging in a
Speaker 2: tree waiting for a deer to come by, and you
Speaker 2: know all the stuff that goes along with that, being
Speaker 2: quiet and being stolen stuff. So you're definitely, you know,
Speaker 2: you're definitely very much a part of the hunt instead
Speaker 2: of just a sort of outside observer. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well I was, well, I follow you on Instagram and
Speaker 1: I saw where you were promoting a film, you know,
Speaker 1: your latest film called Tracking, a Canine Film. So then
Speaker 1: I got on YouTube and I gave it a watch,
Speaker 1: and man, it was a really cool, really cool film.
Speaker 1: And I've I've had lots of like interest and questions
Speaker 1: about tracking dogs over the years, like as a as
Speaker 1: a longtime hunter, you know, and I've hunted with a
Speaker 1: lot of people and I've hunted a lot myself, and
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes shots are not ideal and they go,
Speaker 1: you know, no matter how hard you try for like
Speaker 1: the perfect close shot, something happens. You know, you can
Speaker 1: hit a limb or whatever. And you know, if you're
Speaker 1: on one of those kind of track jobs, you're just
Speaker 1: like wondering, like, man if I had a track dog,
Speaker 1: like tracking dog, what what could he?
Speaker 3: What could happen? How effective are they can? Man?
Speaker 1: I wish I had one, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So watching that film, I was like, oh, this is
Speaker 1: so cool. So I thought I definitely wanted to reach
Speaker 1: out and kind of pick your brain about tracking dogs.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, And I appreciate you watching the film. That
Speaker 2: was definitely a you know, a passion project. I have
Speaker 2: a I have a Belgium my own law that in
Speaker 2: conjunction with developing the film, I taught her out of
Speaker 2: blood track. So I got this dog and you know,
Speaker 2: looking for a task and purpose for her. This breed
Speaker 2: in particular kind of needs a job. Otherwise there they
Speaker 2: can get a little unrule week. And so I had
Speaker 2: actually filmed a track with Mark Nny and that was
Speaker 2: the first time that I ever saw tracking dogs in action.
Speaker 2: We were down in Alabama and Mark made a good shot,
Speaker 2: but this buck just piled up and disappeared in the
Speaker 2: brush and we brought in some dogs to track it.
Speaker 2: I just I thought it was the coolest thing I've
Speaker 2: ever seen. It's such an incredible resource. And then the
Speaker 2: handler sort of dog relationship I think is really incredible.
Speaker 2: And you know, I grew up with hounds, you know,
Speaker 2: on quenhounds or raising couonhounds, but this, you know, sort
Speaker 2: of a relationship with these tracking dogs, I think it's
Speaker 2: way more intimate. And Yeah, it's just an incredible resource.
Speaker 2: And through the film, I wanted to just highlight that
Speaker 2: to a broader audience. I want people to know that
Speaker 2: these resources are available and that people us as handlers
Speaker 2: are just really excited to work our dogs. We're really
Speaker 2: passionate about it and we want to help people cover stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 1: It kind of showed through it, like there was some
Speaker 1: interview sections through there, and you know, different handlers talking
Speaker 1: about their dog or why they how they got into
Speaker 1: it and stuff, which was really really interesting. So you
Speaker 1: have a tracking dog, I do what breed is it?
Speaker 2: Since a Belgian mallin law's kind of a like a
Speaker 2: German shepherd point a year, a little bit smaller, little
Speaker 2: little spicyer. They're kind of feisty dogs. But uh yeah,
Speaker 2: so she's just uh, you know, they're used in protection
Speaker 2: and tracking and law enforcement. But for the for this purpose,
Speaker 2: she's incredible. She's got an unbelievable nose, and she wants
Speaker 2: to work. She's got really high drives, so that helps
Speaker 2: immensely with the trackie. She wants to go find stuff
Speaker 2: and she's got no quit.
Speaker 3: How old is she?
Speaker 2: You know, I rescued her so that I think she
Speaker 2: was probably about four when I got her, and so
Speaker 2: now just under five years old. I've had her for
Speaker 2: about eight months now, Okay, yeah, so she had a
Speaker 2: whole life before this. I have no idea she was.
Speaker 2: She was picked up on the streets in Wisconsin, totally
Speaker 2: yeah when he got her and then you know, kind
Speaker 2: of started chaining with her right away. But she's I
Speaker 2: don't know much of her history, but She's taken to
Speaker 2: it really well, thankfully.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, that was gonna be one of my
Speaker 1: next questions because they say you can't take yourn old
Speaker 1: dog new tricks, and I was wondering how old.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: I'm sure ideally, you know, if you had a pup,
Speaker 1: you know, start training them.
Speaker 3: But you know, if someone listening.
Speaker 1: Had a dog who's you know, several years old, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe it's not too late to start training and working
Speaker 1: with the dog on that.
Speaker 2: No, not at all. I mean people will start puppies
Speaker 2: at eight weeks and they'll do you know, deer liver
Speaker 2: drags to get him interested in tracking. Both with her,
Speaker 2: you know, and I do a little bit of other
Speaker 2: sport works and sort of Chairman Dodgsports stuff, IGP and
Speaker 2: American shoots, and there's a component of tracking to that
Speaker 2: that I started working with her. So you kind of
Speaker 2: lay a little track out and there's a big reward
Speaker 2: at the end, and you just start reinforcing that sort
Speaker 2: of defined it and the and the you know, the
Speaker 2: will to track, and then switch that over to Blood.
Speaker 2: So I had a little bit of experience with tracking beforehand,
Speaker 2: but nothing with Blood or kind of any animal stuff. So,
Speaker 2: but she took to it extremely quickly. I think, I
Speaker 2: you know, you show these dogs are incredibly smart and
Speaker 2: you just teach them the game, show them that there's
Speaker 2: a really high value reward at the end of it,
Speaker 2: and they'll work for it, you know, as long as
Speaker 2: they've got a little bit of drive and they can
Speaker 2: understand what you're asking to do. I think you can teach,
Speaker 2: you know, I don't think there's a limitation to what
Speaker 2: dog do you and teach the track?
Speaker 1: Okay, now you mentioned laying out a trail and then
Speaker 1: but it wasn't necessary a blood trail. Could you give
Speaker 1: an example of what that would be.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely so with the sort of the American should
Speaker 2: Center IGP tracking. These again, these are like what do
Speaker 2: dog sport organizations. You'll use their favorite treat and in
Speaker 2: my case, she gets to a raw only diet. So
Speaker 2: for her, it was just dehydrated beef liver, just little
Speaker 2: chunks of liver and you make a footstep and you
Speaker 2: kick your heel in and you just put a little
Speaker 2: treat in that heel. Layout a track and normally we'll
Speaker 2: start with like a circle track, so maybe you do
Speaker 2: twenty paces in a circle, there's a treat in each footstep,
Speaker 2: and then at the end there's a big pile of
Speaker 2: treats or like a hotdog or you know, some sort
Speaker 2: of high value reward. And then you just show them.
Speaker 2: You just point to the footprint, they sniff, they indicate that, hey,
Speaker 2: I know something's in there, and they go to the
Speaker 2: next and you just start running that circle track, so
Speaker 2: they get the idea that hey, if I follow this track,
Speaker 2: there's a big prize. And then from there and you
Speaker 2: go to straight tracks where you may run it out
Speaker 2: one hundred yards in a straight line. Then you start
Speaker 2: adding some angles and then from there that's when the
Speaker 2: blood came into it. So like, you know, she kind
Speaker 2: of understood tracking, and she knew that there was a
Speaker 2: valuable thing, and that's when I started introducing the blood
Speaker 2: for her to kind of make that the thing she
Speaker 2: would seek out.
Speaker 3: Oh that's that's really interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I in my mind, I was trying to think,
Speaker 1: you know, what that would all look like, and it's
Speaker 1: completely different than I had anticipated in my head.
Speaker 3: So no, that's really cool. I have I've got labs.
Speaker 3: I've got a a black lab.
Speaker 1: Who's like seven years old, and I got a yellow
Speaker 1: lab who's about eight months old.
Speaker 3: And I've always.
Speaker 1: Wanted to work at like trying to train them things
Speaker 1: to be blood trailers, and unfortunately I would whenever I
Speaker 1: go to hunting camp, my dogs are always home. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't take them to camp because they I don't
Speaker 1: want to have to sit at home at camp by
Speaker 1: themselves all the day, all day by themselves, and they
Speaker 1: can be long days and sometimes inclement weather.
Speaker 3: You know, maybe it's hot as heck.
Speaker 1: You know, you don't we don't want them overheating or
Speaker 1: or you know whatever.
Speaker 3: It can't be unattended.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I've been one to kind of train my
Speaker 1: dogs to be able to do that. But that's a
Speaker 1: really cool way to get them started. Now on the video,
Speaker 1: I noticed one of the dogs that looked like they
Speaker 1: were training it with like a patch of deer hide
Speaker 1: or something like doing a hide drag or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that'll be the that'll be the prize at
Speaker 2: the end. So when we start laying, you know, practice practs,
Speaker 2: but out in the real world, we'll use a piece
Speaker 2: of hide and uh, you know, we'll try to we'll
Speaker 2: try to get a hide with a little bit of
Speaker 2: like meat left on the back or something like that,
Speaker 2: and that's what they find at the end, so they
Speaker 2: know they're kind of looking for that. They're they're stepping
Speaker 2: the blood. And then when they get close they can
Speaker 2: smell that hide, and that's the reward. They get to
Speaker 2: tear that thing up. They get to chew on the hide,
Speaker 2: you play tug with it, you get them super exciting
Speaker 2: about it. They can peel some of that meat off,
Speaker 2: and that's the big prizes. They get to carry it
Speaker 2: around at the end, and that's that's to get them
Speaker 2: to kind of go to the final distance. So like
Speaker 2: they you know, set to the blood all way, and
Speaker 2: then here's the hide, here's the inneck and then that's
Speaker 2: so well indicate on it and let you know where
Speaker 2: it is. Because I early on I had her walk
Speaker 2: past a few pieces of hide. She followed the track perfectly,
Speaker 2: and then she just kept going and I didn't lace
Speaker 2: enough value on that hide. And then you get it
Speaker 2: out play with a teacher that that's a fun thing
Speaker 2: and a good thing, and now she'll go right to
Speaker 2: it softle trial and error.
Speaker 3: But yeah, yeah, yeah, she.
Speaker 1: Had to understand that was the goal, right, yep, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the price.
Speaker 2: There's that's the fun thing at the end, or the
Speaker 2: tasty thing. She's super food driven, so for me, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: Like I started feeding her her dinner at the end
Speaker 2: of the track, so she gets the track and then
Speaker 2: there's a big pila you know, beef liver and chicken
Speaker 2: parts and all that stuff, and that's that's her big
Speaker 2: win is food at the end.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: So then she's probably like, man, can we just track
Speaker 1: someuth that I'm hungry?
Speaker 3: I want to eat all the time.
Speaker 2: Whenever we're out, she's always sent me, you know, like, yeah,
Speaker 2: we've got a ritual. When we start our track, I
Speaker 2: put a certain harness on her and we kind of
Speaker 2: go through a ritual. I said some stuff I say
Speaker 2: to where probably I don't know if saying anything matters
Speaker 2: for me. It gets me excited to track. But I
Speaker 2: go through a ritual and then she quicks over to
Speaker 2: tracking mode and it's like go time. But whenever we're out,
Speaker 2: she's always scenting. She just got a great nose and
Speaker 2: she's always looking for something. And we've got a ton
Speaker 2: of deer on where I live, so she's always keyed
Speaker 2: in on them.
Speaker 3: That's awesome.
Speaker 1: I used to have a yellow lab back in the day,
Speaker 1: and I did spend a little bit of time with
Speaker 1: her trying to get her to track blood. I would
Speaker 1: take like anytime we'd open a bag or like a
Speaker 1: wrapped up package of elksteak or whatever, then I would
Speaker 1: take it. But they had the blood on it, and
Speaker 1: I take it out in the yard and I kind of,
Speaker 1: you know, drag it out through the yard and then
Speaker 1: when she couldn't see me, you know, and then i'd
Speaker 1: have a little bit of elk me a little you know,
Speaker 1: bite sized tidbit of elk meat out there, and then
Speaker 1: i'd let her and I'm like, come on, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: try to put get her on this sentence. She would
Speaker 1: kind of find it. And then my brother hit this
Speaker 1: bowl and we were trying to track it and we
Speaker 1: couldn't find it. You know, the thing kind of ducked
Speaker 1: when he hit when he shot, and it hit it
Speaker 1: really high, kind of up in the high shoulder, and
Speaker 1: but we thought, well, you never know, there, it's probably
Speaker 1: not a lethal shot, but you never know. We have
Speaker 1: to try our best. So I went and got her
Speaker 1: and I put her on a leash. Of course, Idaho
Speaker 1: you have to have your dog on a leash, and
Speaker 1: and maybe that's the custom you know, for most states
Speaker 1: are customary for everyone anyway, tracking, I'm not sure.
Speaker 3: I'm not that familiar with it, but they're.
Speaker 2: A little wild. In the South, they can run them
Speaker 2: on GPS collars. We have to we have to be
Speaker 2: on lead in the rocky Mountain states, but down south,
Speaker 2: it's they get to have a little more fun. They
Speaker 2: can just send.
Speaker 1: Them okay, well yeah, yeah, yeah. And it took her
Speaker 1: a minute where you know, I walked her back and
Speaker 1: forth through the brush there kind of where the last
Speaker 1: blood was, and then all of a sudden, it just
Speaker 1: like a light bulb went off and she's like and
Speaker 1: just start pulling and just like I could, I couldn't
Speaker 1: hardly keep up, like she was running me through the
Speaker 1: brush like and it wasn't like once she kind of
Speaker 1: figured out what she was spoke, she ran like she
Speaker 1: was on it. And we crested this ridge and we
Speaker 1: got up there and there was a flock of turkeys,
Speaker 1: and that flock.
Speaker 3: Of turkeys just went everywhere and it was over.
Speaker 1: She was just like a turkey. All she had on
Speaker 1: her head was turkey's at that point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, over stimulated and yeah, yeah, high value prizes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we never did find that olk, but I'm
Speaker 1: I know it was a non lethal hit.
Speaker 2: I seen it, ye super high shoulder. But it sounds
Speaker 2: like she understood though, like what she was doing. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, they're they're very clear when they're tracking versus
Speaker 2: when they're on a walk about, you know.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I used to.
Speaker 3: I used to take her to camp a lot.
Speaker 1: She was really good to be by herself, and I
Speaker 1: could I could literally leave her in the back of
Speaker 1: my pick up all day. She'd sit back there and
Speaker 1: she'd had water, food, uh, shelter, and I could leave
Speaker 1: her in the back of my truck all day and
Speaker 1: I'd come back and she's there, you know. So one
Speaker 1: day I killed this bowl very close to the truck
Speaker 1: and I shot him and he expired, and like I
Speaker 1: didn't even go look for him yet, And I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know, this would be a great opportunity for to
Speaker 1: let her learn and and find that prize at the end,
Speaker 1: find that elk, And so I went and got her
Speaker 1: and got her on there, and man, she just she
Speaker 1: got right on that track and drug drugged me right
Speaker 1: down the elk. It was a pretty short blood trail,
Speaker 1: but it was funny. When we got to the elk,
Speaker 1: I let her off the lead and she's all sniff, sniff, sniff,
Speaker 1: and immediately she goes back to the hind quarter by
Speaker 1: the the by the the bung and grabs a hold
Speaker 1: of that that tender hide right there and just starts
Speaker 1: tugging like like it was instinctual that Hey, you start
Speaker 1: on your you eat. You need to eat an elk
Speaker 1: from this direction, like I've seen wolves do that on TV.
Speaker 1: I thought, Wow, how's this dang dog, the yellow lab
Speaker 1: know how to start at that in on an elk
Speaker 1: to eat it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, they've got that. Mine does the same thing. But
Speaker 2: super common to see that with the tree because we
Speaker 2: had to. We usually asked the hunter like, hey, or
Speaker 2: what are you gonna do with this animal? Are you
Speaker 2: gonna cat? And you're with Is it okay if she
Speaker 2: not on it for a little while? And they that's
Speaker 2: the spot that seems to be the sweet spot that
Speaker 2: they all go for it.
Speaker 1: As I broke that bowl down and whittled him down,
Speaker 1: and every time I'd have a little tidbit, Man, she's
Speaker 1: just sitting there right there waiting for it.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 1: She just got to eat or fill of little tidbits
Speaker 1: and scraps, so that was awesome. But I never did
Speaker 1: have another opportunity to get her on an elk, which
Speaker 1: I always regret. I thought, you know, dang it, that
Speaker 1: was you know, this is twenty years ago, but I
Speaker 1: regretted not having that opportunity. So with my new pups,
Speaker 1: i'd like to I'd like to do that again sometime.
Speaker 2: And it's pretty easy to get started. And we have
Speaker 2: a lot of people in our organization that have dual
Speaker 2: purpose dogs. You know, we've got folks that have bird
Speaker 2: dogs the blood track, and you know, shed hunting dogs
Speaker 2: a blood track as well, so they can sider a multipurpose.
Speaker 2: I haven't done any you know, other training with her
Speaker 2: other than blood tracking, but there are some folks that
Speaker 2: are really successful differentiating different disciplines with their dogs. So
Speaker 2: even if you've got a retriever, you know, you bet
Speaker 2: an oupen dog, there's a good chance he can teach
Speaker 2: with the blood track as well. And are there some
Speaker 2: people that would argue that, but you know, in our group,
Speaker 2: we've got we've definitely got some multipurpose dogs that do
Speaker 2: a really good job.
Speaker 3: Sure. Sure.
Speaker 1: I have a buddy who is an outfitter and he's
Speaker 1: got bear, bear and cat dogs right yeah, And he
Speaker 1: said there's a couple of them that will track blood.
Speaker 1: So but he hasn't put much effort into it. But
Speaker 1: I'll bet if he worked with him a little bit more,
Speaker 1: he could probably just have some really.
Speaker 2: Good success with that. Absolutely. Yeah. And those dogs are
Speaker 2: I mean, they've got so much drives. All you gonna
Speaker 2: do is, you know, teaching the rules and point in
Speaker 2: the right direction and they'll find it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Are there are there any particular breeds someone should be
Speaker 1: looking at for tracking, like maybe maybe a French bulldog
Speaker 1: wouldn't be the best, whereas another breed would be excellent.
Speaker 2: Well, it's funny to ask you this is like the
Speaker 2: most contentious topic. Can we send allanization in an our
Speaker 2: group about about breeds so that a really popular breed
Speaker 2: is not that far from your French bulldog which are docsins.
Speaker 2: So there is a ton of tracking there. You saw
Speaker 2: in the film a little Lucy there, that little that
Speaker 2: little Doxy that my buddy Scott owns. She's an incredibly
Speaker 2: accomplished tracking dog and she's tenacious. I mean you think
Speaker 2: a dog bad size would run out of steam pretty quick.
Speaker 2: She's like a little ferret through the through the brush
Speaker 2: and she's unbelievable. So so docsins are really popular. You
Speaker 2: see a lot of catahulas, You see a lot of
Speaker 2: the Bavarian mountain hounds and become a pocket but I
Speaker 2: don't know if you've see those. They were smaller around.
Speaker 2: They're really cool looking little dogs, and uh, that's getting popular.
Speaker 2: A few point of your dogs. You know, we've got
Speaker 2: a couple of German shepherds. I know there's a gal
Speaker 2: as a mall and loss so similar kind of the
Speaker 2: shepherd breeds. But there's a huge variety. I mean, people
Speaker 2: run like anything you can imagine. I mean you've got
Speaker 2: your your bird dogs and your retrievers. It's a big mix.
Speaker 2: But primarily you see a lot of Docssly enough.
Speaker 1: I watched a video shoot. I don't even know where
Speaker 1: I seen it, maybe on a forum. This was probably
Speaker 1: even before Facebook, right, this is on one of the
Speaker 1: hunting forums back when that's what we did. And somebody
Speaker 1: had put a posted a picture of their buck and
Speaker 1: the story how you know that they shot it? And
Speaker 1: it's just starts snowing like crazy. And it came in
Speaker 1: a huge snow that night, and it snowed like put
Speaker 1: down like a foot and a half two feet of
Speaker 1: snow and drifts. And they had called someone, a local
Speaker 1: person who had a tracking dog. When it shows up,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a long haired docs and right this
Speaker 1: this dog looks like it has no business being in
Speaker 1: snow number one or tracking anything, right yeah, And they
Speaker 1: made a little video about it. In fact, and this dog,
Speaker 1: I mean this, there's no way you're gonna find this deer.
Speaker 1: And that little dog it would just like sniffing, It
Speaker 1: sniffed and then just start kind of leaping, leaping through
Speaker 1: the snow. It could barely even get through the snow.
Speaker 1: It is the funniest thing to watch it work. And
Speaker 1: it found that deer. It was completely covered in snow.
Speaker 1: It didn't there wasn't even an antler sticking out. And
Speaker 1: it found that deer like a day and a half later.
Speaker 1: So I thought that was pretty incredible for such a
Speaker 1: neat little dog to be able to find that.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it is. It's remarkable just the time that
Speaker 2: silks are finding animals. After a meeting, we've got thirty
Speaker 2: and forty hour later tracks. It's just truly what these
Speaker 2: dogs can. You know, you can go online and try
Speaker 2: to look up there's all these statistics and figures about
Speaker 2: how much more powerful their sense of smell is, and
Speaker 2: I'm sure it's exponentially more, but I think it works
Speaker 2: in a different way than ours ours does too, you know,
Speaker 2: I imagine it's like someone put it really eloquently, as
Speaker 2: it's like they're they're like painting a scene in their
Speaker 2: mind every time they smell something, whereas you know, we
Speaker 2: smell something it's an odor, we try to correlate what
Speaker 2: it is there. It's opening up this whole visual to
Speaker 2: them and really watching these dogs track on very little signs,
Speaker 2: very little scent. You know, you may have a few
Speaker 2: spots of blood over a few miles, and these dogs
Speaker 2: can just find stuff. I mean, it's really that's the
Speaker 2: biggest part of doing this tracking is just watching them
Speaker 2: be successful. And it's just it's kind of otherworldly how
Speaker 2: good they are at it.
Speaker 1: So what's the best thing you can do with your dog?
Speaker 1: To like, the best thing you can do with your dog,
Speaker 1: whether it's like, okay, I noticed one guy on the
Speaker 1: film said, you know, it's imperative is spend as much
Speaker 1: time with your dog as you can. You know, maybe
Speaker 1: not even like working tracking, just getting to know each other,
Speaker 1: getting to know each other's quirks, personalities and stuff. Would
Speaker 1: you consider that be a pretty high I think like
Speaker 1: one of the best things you can do with your dog.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, whether you're tracking or whether you're
Speaker 2: just building a relationship. And you know, I'm part of
Speaker 2: a working dog clubs, so we spend a lot of
Speaker 2: time training our dogs. And in the beginning, when you
Speaker 2: get a dog, we say this over and over again,
Speaker 2: is just engagement. You're engaging with your dog. You know,
Speaker 2: before we do any kind of obedience or know, any
Speaker 2: kind of high level stuff, you're just you're playing with
Speaker 2: your dog. You're interacting with your dog, maybe as simple
Speaker 2: as like you're walking and you've got treats in your hand,
Speaker 2: and if your dog looks at you once they did
Speaker 2: a treat and then they start correlating, they're like, hey,
Speaker 2: you're the you're the provider of great things, and that
Speaker 2: bond develops. And then when it comes to tracking, I
Speaker 2: think that's the same thing. It's you know, run a
Speaker 2: lot of tracks, you know, practice tracks are great. Get
Speaker 2: get someone to run blind tracks for you. That's when
Speaker 2: I really started to make progress is getting other people
Speaker 2: to run tracks so I don't have that confirmation bias
Speaker 2: of like no, no, I know it's over here. And
Speaker 2: then it's just just time behind your dog. Like you know,
Speaker 2: there's some trappers that may be a little bit more
Speaker 2: selective later in the season, while the tracks they take
Speaker 2: just based on data collected from owners like oh this
Speaker 2: doesn't sound like a fatal shout out it's far away.
Speaker 2: But initially like I will take every tracking call. I
Speaker 2: don't care if they're like I see it dead. I
Speaker 2: just want to get behind her and watch how she indicates,
Speaker 2: how she moves, how she corrects herself, and how she
Speaker 2: corrects me. Like typically I think if the dog does
Speaker 2: something wrong, I just by to fall blame myself as
Speaker 2: the handler, like they know what they're doing. I'm interfering
Speaker 2: some way. So yeah, just the more time you can
Speaker 2: spend with your dog and then behind your dog on
Speaker 2: a track, you know, you just develop that trust. And
Speaker 2: that's like the key takeaway is just trusting your dog.
Speaker 2: We say that that's our mantra over and over again.
Speaker 2: It's just trust your dog they know what they're doing,
Speaker 2: or just along for the ride. And even we get
Speaker 2: some hounters that are like, I'm pretty sure it went
Speaker 2: to the left, and I'm like, he wants to go
Speaker 2: to the ride. I'm just gonna follow her. If I
Speaker 2: start questioning her, this isn't gonna work. So I'm just
Speaker 2: gonna go with my dog and you know, we can
Speaker 2: meet back up whatever. And she she's not wrong. Yeah,
Speaker 2: So it's just it's just trusting that and being able
Speaker 2: to like kind of, you know, advocate for your dog.
Speaker 1: Now as you're tracking, are you like, are you like
Speaker 1: coaxing the dog, encouraging the dog? Are you just like,
Speaker 1: once she gets the scent, you're like, Okay, I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna let her work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm just along for the ride. I try not
Speaker 2: to to. We have some little stuff and you know,
Speaker 2: I'll and I'll add a caveat to this whole thing.
Speaker 2: This is my first whole season tracking, so I'm relatively
Speaker 2: new to this. We've had some great recoveries, we've had
Speaker 2: some non recoveries that turned out to be non fatal.
Speaker 2: But I'm still learning this process. But I'm really fortunate
Speaker 2: to have a great network of people that I've trained
Speaker 2: with and then have helped me. And you know, early on,
Speaker 2: i'd once in practice tracks and you're like, hey, you're
Speaker 2: pushing your dog. So I track on a thirty foot lead,
Speaker 2: and if I'm not at the end of that thirty
Speaker 2: foot lead, I'm I'm probably pushing my dog. So like,
Speaker 2: if she's you know, she stops and she's air scenting,
Speaker 2: or if she's indicating or sniffing and I walked up
Speaker 2: on her, there's a potential that I'm going to push
Speaker 2: her forward and kind of break her concentration off that track. So,
Speaker 2: you know, once I give her the command I used
Speaker 2: to you know, geremany command Sue could go find it,
Speaker 2: she takes off. I let her run out to the
Speaker 2: end of that thirty feet she starts tracking. I put
Speaker 2: a little back tension on it just to kind of
Speaker 2: keep her drive up. She's pulling a little bit, and
Speaker 2: then I just stay back and let her work and
Speaker 2: if she needs to, you know, if she needs to,
Speaker 2: you know, go to the edges of the scent pool.
Speaker 2: She may you know, track a little bit to the right,
Speaker 2: in a little bit to the left to kind of
Speaker 2: get where that concentrated sign is I just letter work
Speaker 2: through it and then off we go. So yeah, I
Speaker 2: try not to. I try not to. I try not
Speaker 2: to interfere, you know, if not much or if not all.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I wondered about that long tracking lead too, because I
Speaker 1: noticed in that film a lot of the dogs had
Speaker 1: a really long tracking lead.
Speaker 3: It's like, wow, that's that's a.
Speaker 1: Lot longer than I would have anticipated. But but I
Speaker 1: don't know a thing about it. So that's interesting, which
Speaker 1: makes sense. You want to let you want to kind
Speaker 1: of you don't want to interfere it, right, you don't.
Speaker 1: You want to let them kind of figure it out
Speaker 1: and not distract them.
Speaker 3: So that's good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And we all have our biases, like you know,
Speaker 2: all of the like you know, uh, got your iDeer
Speaker 2: goes to water every time we'll get out to Uncle
Speaker 2: Uphill and there's all it's like weird little you know,
Speaker 2: we kind of get a bias. You look at the
Speaker 2: landscape and you're like, well, it probably went that way,
Speaker 2: but we don't know that at all. So if you're
Speaker 2: up and you're pushing your dog, you could be pushing
Speaker 2: them off the track simply because you think you know
Speaker 2: more than you know, a dying elk or a blood
Speaker 2: tracking dog. So yeah, getting back that, you know, getting
Speaker 2: back at thirty feet and just letting them work through,
Speaker 2: and I think just gives them all the opportunity to
Speaker 2: get to kind of make the right decisions and figure
Speaker 2: it out on their own.
Speaker 3: Sure.
Speaker 1: Sure, what what do you think would be the worst
Speaker 1: thing you could do for your dog or do to
Speaker 1: your dog if you're trying to train this dog to
Speaker 1: track blood.
Speaker 2: Well that's a great question. I think probably running super
Speaker 2: complicated tracks to begin with, and then your dog not
Speaker 2: winning is probably a huge one. You know, people have this.
Speaker 2: I don't know if this is true, but I've seen
Speaker 2: a few folks try to run these really complex long
Speaker 2: tracks with a bunch of right angles and crossing, you know,
Speaker 2: different mediums, going from grass to gravel to woodland, and
Speaker 2: then the dog doesn't find it, and then they get
Speaker 2: super discouraged. There's no reward at the end. And then
Speaker 2: if you reward them for not finding it, and you're
Speaker 2: creating this terrible habbit of like oh if I just
Speaker 2: if I'm out here, something that is going to happen
Speaker 2: instead of I have to work for this. So I
Speaker 2: think people and I was guilty of this when I started,
Speaker 2: and I waghed a few good one hundred yards straight tracks.
Speaker 2: She did great, and I'm like, cool, we're going for
Speaker 2: five hundred yards and I'm gonna throw some turns in it.
Speaker 2: And they was not good, Like it just did you know.
Speaker 2: She just didn't. She didn't learn the rules early enough,
Speaker 2: and so yeah, I had to kind of put an
Speaker 2: end to that very quickly. But it's not not making
Speaker 2: it too complicated in the beginning, like you must have
Speaker 2: a bunch of victories over and over again and reinforced
Speaker 2: that good things happen if you complete this correctly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's good advice.
Speaker 1: I would I would definitely be the first one to
Speaker 1: be like, all right, cool, you found it. Let's let's
Speaker 1: make this interesting, you know, let's really learn. But but
Speaker 1: like you said, let's give them lots of little victories
Speaker 1: and then maybe work up to that slowly, let's work
Speaker 1: up to those long ones.
Speaker 3: Huh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think that's what ball dog training, whether
Speaker 2: you're training a bird dog or anything like that, it's just, yeah,
Speaker 2: you just gotta make it super fun and super rewarding
Speaker 2: for him. Otherwise they're not dumb. I mean, they get bored,
Speaker 2: they realized that they could break the rules. So it's
Speaker 2: just yeah, you've got to like really reinforce that in
Speaker 2: the beginning.
Speaker 1: Okay, now, how how often are you working with your
Speaker 1: dog training on this or is it like once a
Speaker 1: day once a week.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I do a like obedience training with her
Speaker 2: and just some some detection stuff every day. Just with
Speaker 2: this breed, they're they're a lot of they're a handful.
Speaker 2: If I don't train her every day, she gets sable
Speaker 2: probably get my couch. So I do about an hour
Speaker 2: of obedience training every day that's going to I've got
Speaker 2: a baseball field that I train at, So I take
Speaker 2: her to the field and we do some healing and
Speaker 2: you know, down commands and just some some basic obedience
Speaker 2: stuff and then i'll lay a track. Nowadays, probably twice
Speaker 2: a week that I'll do a little bit of a
Speaker 2: longer track with her, and that's just to reinforce. I
Speaker 2: might throw a you know, like a right hand turn
Speaker 2: or two into it. But we're tracking a lot this season,
Speaker 2: so I haven't been you know, I was doing daily
Speaker 2: tracks in the beginning, you know, kind of some short
Speaker 2: just some short quick tracks that go you know, lay
Speaker 2: it in the morning and then take route four hours
Speaker 2: later and launch and run the track and she wins
Speaker 2: and to reinforce. But yeah, with the season being busy
Speaker 2: and we've been on the road quite a bit, yeah,
Speaker 2: maybe once or twice a week, I'll actually do a
Speaker 2: practice track with her and then otherwise just every day,
Speaker 2: you know, our kind of fun obedient stuff. I'll throw
Speaker 2: a todd we'll play a little play fight and stuff
Speaker 2: like that, and that keeps her engaged and happy.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, that makes that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 1: I want to switch gears here for a minute, and
Speaker 1: we're gonna do the Pendleton Whiskeys Q and A. This
Speaker 1: this section sponsored by Pendleton Whiskey and And normally I
Speaker 1: read a question from a listener, or play a question
Speaker 1: from a listener, or I get something off of Facebook
Speaker 1: or Instagram. But this one this week.
Speaker 3: Is for me.
Speaker 1: This is a little self self serving here this week.
Speaker 1: And plus I didn't have enough time to like put
Speaker 1: anything out any quite any feelers out to see if
Speaker 1: anybody wanted to ask you a question.
Speaker 3: But so this one's for me as a hunter.
Speaker 1: What are some things to do or not to do
Speaker 1: if you've hit an animal, you can't find it, and
Speaker 1: then you think, you know, I want to get.
Speaker 3: A dog to recover it for me? What what?
Speaker 1: What are some things you should do and what are
Speaker 1: some some things you should definitely should not do before getting.
Speaker 3: A dog on that track?
Speaker 2: That is a million dollar question. That's the perfect question.
Speaker 2: There's so much you can get right in this situation,
Speaker 2: and there's a lot that you can do wrong that
Speaker 2: can impede the dog. So we'll start with the right stuff.
Speaker 2: You know, mark all of your blood. You know, if
Speaker 2: you're using on X, it's off a point. Make sure
Speaker 2: you get the hit side, first blood, last blood. You know,
Speaker 2: be really specific about where you're finding stuff, and then
Speaker 2: take photos of the blood is a huge one. You know,
Speaker 2: if you're if you're tooting archery, if you recover the arrow,
Speaker 2: take pictures of that, like you know, kind of play
Speaker 2: CSI crime scene tech. Take a lot of photos, take notes,
Speaker 2: mark stuff. The more data we have when we start
Speaker 2: the track, you know, I think the better off we are.
Speaker 2: You know, reach out and reaped out and be prepared
Speaker 2: to answer some questions. We're going to ask you stuff
Speaker 2: like how far are you away from the trailhead, how
Speaker 2: do we get to you, Where are you? You know,
Speaker 2: how many people are you with? When did you shoot?
Speaker 2: What did it sound like, what did the animal do?
Speaker 2: What are you shooting? So we'll collect a bunch of
Speaker 2: data as well, so kind of be prepared to answer
Speaker 2: some questions and then some stuff not to do. And
Speaker 2: the biggest thing is don't call twelve of your best
Speaker 2: buddies and grad search for five hours, because you've taken
Speaker 2: any of that cent and you've dispersed it over this giant,
Speaker 2: kind of giant area and it's a really confusing for
Speaker 2: the dog. I mean, I've watched her. Someone walked out
Speaker 2: to a hit site in an alfalfa field, stepped in
Speaker 2: some blood and walked back to their truck. And I
Speaker 2: started around at back, and she followed that straight through
Speaker 2: the truck, followed those bloody bootprints right back to the truck.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, all right, we got to restart. And
Speaker 2: I let her run it. I don't you know, I
Speaker 2: didn't want to pull her off. But yeah, the more
Speaker 2: people you get out in, the more time you spend
Speaker 2: kind of grid searching and stomping around, you just spreading
Speaker 2: scent all over the place, and they can work through it,
Speaker 2: but it just adds a ton of extra work for
Speaker 2: the dog. So you're better off kind of going into
Speaker 2: a clean so you know, mark everything back out and
Speaker 2: then just this is common hunting stuff, but just don't
Speaker 2: push it. We've had a lot of animals get pushed
Speaker 2: this year after you know, liver shots or like kind
Speaker 2: of a single lung you know, you know, quartering away,
Speaker 2: shot it in the pocket, hit a long maybe hit
Speaker 2: the far shoulder, and people are going in super soon
Speaker 2: and bumping them. You know. We ran a track this year.
Speaker 2: It was a three and a half mile track with
Speaker 2: just a little bit of blood at the hit site
Speaker 2: and then maybe we found one drop of blood a
Speaker 2: mile in and then we hit a meadow when this
Speaker 2: thing was gone. So three and a half miles seems
Speaker 2: like a long way to track, but for a wound oul,
Speaker 2: because that's up and moving, that's minutes, right, Yeah, So
Speaker 2: just that like back out, be patient, you know, like
Speaker 2: liver shot, it's okay to way twelve hours, we can
Speaker 2: come the next day in track.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: I think that's it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's great advice because I think I
Speaker 1: think a lot of times people by the time they think, oh,
Speaker 1: this is our last resort is to get a dog
Speaker 1: on it.
Speaker 3: We've grid searched for hours.
Speaker 1: That's that's like the wrong The wrong mindset I think
Speaker 1: is having all your buddies cover every square engine. Then
Speaker 1: call the dog, like when it looks like it's a
Speaker 1: bad hit and it's not going to be a great
Speaker 1: blood trail, like you said, back out and get a
Speaker 1: hold of dog. And then the way they have fresh,
Speaker 1: fresh trail to run and it's probably going to be
Speaker 1: a lot more effective.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. And another thing, don't worry about weather. If it rains,
Speaker 2: it's better for the dob Wow. I don't know the science,
Speaker 2: but whatever recosts to use or intensifies the sense. So like,
Speaker 2: don't worry about weather, don't panic if it's raining or
Speaker 2: drisaline or a little bit of snow. You know, the
Speaker 2: dogs can still track. And for your example, that that
Speaker 2: little dots from you know, leaping like a kyo through
Speaker 2: the snow. They the weather doesn't foller them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's man, that's awesome. That's that's good information.
Speaker 3: I think.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of folks would would definitely not
Speaker 1: do that, you know, they would definitely try to grid
Speaker 1: search and all that before they found it. So that's
Speaker 1: good information.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so everyone you want to find your animal, I understand.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah me give it a smart about it.
Speaker 3: Yep, give me some time.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So during that film we talked a lot about this
Speaker 1: organization called Rocky Mountain Big Game Recovery and it sounds
Speaker 1: like a network of blood tracking folks. Can you can
Speaker 1: you talk to talk about that a little bit?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Absolutely, And you know, we touched on this in
Speaker 2: the film. My friend Scott started this organization back in
Speaker 2: twenty nineteen, uh, you know, and it's the catalyst was
Speaker 2: him seeking a tracking dog and you know, kind of
Speaker 2: getting to experience and it started training his own dogs,
Speaker 2: and it was a way to get a group of
Speaker 2: people together that are really passionate about tracking and make
Speaker 2: it more accessible to the to the general public at large.
Speaker 2: You know, Like I think for a long time, tracking
Speaker 2: was just hey, I know a guy, I know, a gal,
Speaker 2: sort of word of mouth, people advertising at their local
Speaker 2: hunting shop and stuff like this. But with Rocky mount
Speaker 2: Big Recovery, it's uh, you know, on on the website,
Speaker 2: we have a map that says find a tracker and
Speaker 2: you can put in your zip code and it'll show
Speaker 2: a map with the nearest tracker and their contact information,
Speaker 2: so you can reach out and request the track. But
Speaker 2: the nice thing is we all keep in contact. We
Speaker 2: all have a WhatsApp running and a private Facebook page.
Speaker 2: So if I say, like I can't track and share it,
Speaker 2: and I've got another track of Jannah tracker of Janna
Speaker 2: who's just a couple of hours away, I'll just say Janet,
Speaker 2: can you come take this? And she'll come on the track.
Speaker 2: So we've got a pretty robust network growing and very
Speaker 2: seldomly are we not available to track for folks. So,
Speaker 2: and it's just it's a lot of really good people.
Speaker 2: You'll see some of them in the film where we're nerds.
Speaker 2: We're really passionate about our dogs. It's a yeah, we're
Speaker 2: a little bit a little bit crazy about it, but
Speaker 2: uh yeah, we love working our dogs, we love helping hunters.
Speaker 2: We're all hunters. I mean, we're a hunting organization, and
Speaker 2: so I think it's just a uh, you know, it's
Speaker 2: just an active service that we all really enjoy being
Speaker 2: a part of.
Speaker 3: That's really cool.
Speaker 1: Now I've seen like some ribbons and like sort of
Speaker 1: do you like do you and your dog get certified
Speaker 1: before you become like a member of the of the
Speaker 1: trackers per se the network.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can. So there's an organization, United Blood Trackers,
Speaker 2: and so they're kind of a bigger organization. They've got
Speaker 2: folks all over the country, big presence in the Midwest,
Speaker 2: and they do do certification programs. And you've got three
Speaker 2: levels your UBT one, two, and three. One's pretty basic,
Speaker 2: two's definitely a more challenging, and three is nuts. There's
Speaker 2: like water crossings and stuff hidden in rivers and backtracking
Speaker 2: and all kinds of it's sort of a I don't
Speaker 2: know how many threes there are, but a lot more
Speaker 2: prival ones for the UBT ones and twos, and so
Speaker 2: you don't necessarily have to have a certification to offer
Speaker 2: your tracking services. But when you do get your certification,
Speaker 2: it shows up on the map that you're a certified tracker.
Speaker 2: So I think it's a good way to let folks
Speaker 2: know all that you're serious about it. And then I
Speaker 2: also just think it's fun to kind of run through
Speaker 2: Downce your dog just to go have that experience. And
Speaker 2: the judges are phenomenal, you know, we do. We did
Speaker 2: our first annual Seminar LA I believe it was last
Speaker 2: March down in now Bailey, Colorado, and so we ran
Speaker 2: it out a big scout camp and we brought in
Speaker 2: trackers small over the country. We had people drive all
Speaker 2: the way from Florida, the Upper Midwest, the East Coast,
Speaker 2: stayed at this branch and we did a bunch of certifications,
Speaker 2: ran a bunch of dogs, and then did a big workshop.
Speaker 2: We did everything from like, you know, we have a
Speaker 2: woman in our group as a veterinarian, and she did
Speaker 2: a how to care for your dog and gear breakdown
Speaker 2: for stuff that happens in the field, a bunch of
Speaker 2: regulation stuff, you know, different tracking training, and so yeah,
Speaker 2: we're going to run down again in this spring and
Speaker 2: try to bring people out and certify some more dogs
Speaker 2: and get some more teams on the map.
Speaker 3: Oh that's awesome.
Speaker 1: I was looking at the website and I noticed that
Speaker 1: it said that the date was to be determined still.
Speaker 1: But yeah, if anyone's interested in attending that, then do
Speaker 1: they have to sign up ahead of time? Probably once
Speaker 1: they determine what the date is, that probably be a
Speaker 1: way to sign up and get your name on the list.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think we should be sending that out
Speaker 2: pretty shortly. I think we'll give them Mother's Day weekend.
Speaker 2: So sorry everybody in the club if I was wrong
Speaker 2: about that, but I know we had talked about it
Speaker 2: in our last monthly meeting. And then yeah, you'll register.
Speaker 2: And what's nice about this camp is it's got just
Speaker 2: a ton of different cabins, so there's actually you can
Speaker 2: get a place to stay. You can bring a camper,
Speaker 2: you can bring an RV, you can pitch a tent,
Speaker 2: but they've got cabins available, so you can run a
Speaker 2: cabin out, have a place for you and your dog
Speaker 2: and all your gear. And then there's the big main
Speaker 2: hall where we do all the you know, workshops and lessons,
Speaker 2: and then from there we'd run the tracks. It's all,
Speaker 2: you know, a bunch of private national forest and we'll
Speaker 2: run tracks and people will go certify. And you know,
Speaker 2: we've got some folks that are going to go for
Speaker 2: their Level one and two in the same weekend, so
Speaker 2: they'll run two tests and I think we've got maybe
Speaker 2: one or two folks that are going to go for three,
Speaker 2: which I'm going to film that. That's going to be
Speaker 2: a spectacle. It's a crazy long track with a bunch
Speaker 2: of obstacles and yeah and looking forward to it.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's that's incredible. It's just crazy how smart and
Speaker 1: good dogs can really be at like following tracks, or
Speaker 1: you see the drug dogs and all these different working
Speaker 1: dogs that use their nose is to detect different things.
Speaker 2: I've liked.
Speaker 1: I've seen a thing where dog you were using a
Speaker 1: dog to detect like sicknesses, different kind of sicknesses in
Speaker 1: some way, it's like if they had cancer or something.
Speaker 1: But it's just crazy or incredible that dogs. And I
Speaker 1: always say this, like, I feel like people always estimate
Speaker 1: underestimate dogs of how how intelligent they really are, and
Speaker 1: I think this just really proves it absolutely.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just, uh, you know, I think we try
Speaker 2: to parallel what we can do versus what dogs can do.
Speaker 2: Let sure, we smell things, but I don't I don't
Speaker 2: think it's in the same league by any margin. When
Speaker 2: these dogs are smelling, I imagine this whole world is,
Speaker 2: you know, being created to them. They're they're seeing visually
Speaker 2: what the scent leaves behind, and you know it's hard
Speaker 2: to quantify that in our brains, but they just yeah,
Speaker 2: and again, to watch these We've had some long tracks
Speaker 2: where we've gone miles and you're starting to lose hope
Speaker 2: and you're you're you're doubting your dog, and the hunters
Speaker 2: are like, there's no way this is going to happen.
Speaker 2: And then all of a sudden, there's a little drop
Speaker 2: of blood on a log and you're like, this is
Speaker 2: the smartest animal that's ever lived, Like, no question. It's
Speaker 2: an incredible feeling to watch that happen.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: So if I wanted to get a hold of a
Speaker 1: of a tracker, I get on your the web Rocky
Speaker 1: Mountain Big Game Recovery's website, I go to the map,
Speaker 1: I type in my zip code, I try to find
Speaker 1: a local somebody. What if there's nobody close by, how
Speaker 1: far will a tracker go to? Like there's like five
Speaker 1: six hours is out like out of the question.
Speaker 2: No, in fact, so you know, in conjunction with producing
Speaker 2: this film, I was out in Colorado with some friends
Speaker 2: at a camp and we were tracking from there. So
Speaker 2: we basically all go in a central location and we
Speaker 2: go off and there's a guy at a Missouri that
Speaker 2: cashkill drive twelve hours to track to track where you
Speaker 2: literally you'll go from like Steamboat, Colorado to mo app
Speaker 2: in one shot to go track an animal and then drive.
Speaker 3: Back like he's the wholy cow.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, well, you know we've done I've done some
Speaker 2: good like three hours one way track all day, drive
Speaker 2: three hours back, and we just don't mind it. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's it's just uh yeah, it's it's probably unhealthy, but
Speaker 2: we get a lot of sask On satisfaction out of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well yeah, you want to try probably take every
Speaker 1: opportunity you can to get that dog out there and
Speaker 1: let him do his work because it's probably really fun
Speaker 1: for the dog.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's her favorite thing and they deserve but I
Speaker 2: mean she deserves to work. That's like, you know, she's
Speaker 2: brought a lot of way in my life. She's an
Speaker 2: incredible companion, and it's just the least I can do
Speaker 2: is give her an opportunity to do something that she
Speaker 2: loves and that she I mean again, when I put
Speaker 2: on her tracking arm, as she transformed, she becomes a
Speaker 2: little Tasmanian devil. So she'll hid her harness on and
Speaker 2: I'll be holding her back and she's just digging the
Speaker 2: trench because she just wants to go and knowing that
Speaker 2: she loves it that much. It's just h yeah, there's
Speaker 2: no too far to drive for that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's that's good. That's good news.
Speaker 1: That's good news because I could see somebody looking at
Speaker 1: the map and be like, ah, that's like three hours away.
Speaker 1: It probably they're probably not gonna I won't bother them.
Speaker 1: I don't want to call them.
Speaker 3: That's too far.
Speaker 1: But yeah, chances if they're available, they probably would come.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I would recommend just reach out to somebody
Speaker 2: on the map, because again, we all communicate with each other.
Speaker 2: You know, there's I think there's a little over four
Speaker 2: hit time of filming. We have about forty tracking teams
Speaker 2: and the sort of Rocky Mountain West. We're all on
Speaker 2: what's app. So if a track comes in, we push
Speaker 2: it out to the What's Apple, put some details in
Speaker 2: there and like, hey, who can take this, and we'll
Speaker 2: we aise with the or if we need to connect
Speaker 2: them with the tracker. But even if you don't see
Speaker 2: one nearby, just pick a person on the map, send
Speaker 2: them a message and we'll get it out to the network.
Speaker 2: I mean, we really do want to recover recover this
Speaker 2: stuff for folks. We'll do everything we can to get
Speaker 2: out there.
Speaker 3: That's that's so awesome.
Speaker 1: Every year I see on social media where somebody will
Speaker 1: like on a like an ELK page or whatever, they'll say, hey,
Speaker 1: does anybody know anyone that has tracking dogs? Or sometimes
Speaker 1: somebody will send me a message and be like, hey,
Speaker 1: I shot a bull and you know this is you
Speaker 1: know what I've been finding and any any ideas what
Speaker 1: I should do next, and kind of try to walk
Speaker 1: them through like if I were to be looking for
Speaker 1: that animal, what I would do. But it's good to know,
Speaker 1: like have that resource to recommend, say, hey, reach out
Speaker 1: to these folks and see if if anybody can come
Speaker 1: and help you. What what do they normally charge someone
Speaker 1: to do that, to come out and try to find
Speaker 1: you up for you or your deer or whatever it
Speaker 1: is you're looking for.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we don't charge. We do work depending on
Speaker 2: what Some states we can't do this, So depending on
Speaker 2: where it's legal, we can accept it. You know, we
Speaker 2: can accept a gratuity if you're happy with our service
Speaker 2: and you want to you know, provide a tip, gas money,
Speaker 2: stuff like that, we can will graciously accept it. Again
Speaker 2: if it's legal. Some states it's not in that case,
Speaker 2: if you feel inclined, we do have a you know,
Speaker 2: we're a nonprofit, so you can donate on the website
Speaker 2: if you find the service valuable. But you know, we
Speaker 2: don't charge, we don't have set rates, we don't have
Speaker 2: a price list or anything like that. We'll come out,
Speaker 2: we'll come out track for a candy bar if we
Speaker 2: need to.
Speaker 1: Man, that's that's remarkable. That's that that just proves you know,
Speaker 1: you guys are doing it for the right reasons. But
Speaker 1: definitely i'd feel awful guilty. So they drove four hours
Speaker 1: and spend half the night looking for my elk and
Speaker 1: then at least pay for their gas, definitely make a
Speaker 1: huge donation of some kind to the organization.
Speaker 2: So yeah, that's really appreciated. But again it's just a
Speaker 2: you know, like just one of my first tracks as
Speaker 2: a new tracker. I found it both up for a
Speaker 2: guy so I lived in myoming now over kind of
Speaker 2: a boy the big horns, and this poor guy he
Speaker 2: just he made a shot, he couldn't find it, and
Speaker 2: he was just he was really distraught. It was a
Speaker 2: nice elk. He'd been hunting that region his whole life.
Speaker 2: It's his biggest alchemist life and it was gone. And
Speaker 2: it's like a hot day thirty hours later, and it
Speaker 2: was it was a tough track. We had no blood
Speaker 2: at the hit site. He had a busted arrow that
Speaker 2: he's stuck in the ground about where he found it,
Speaker 2: and there was no blood we could see. It was
Speaker 2: kind of that that sag step. Yeah, and then grabbed
Speaker 2: the arrow. I poured water on it and let her
Speaker 2: kind of sniff it and just center and a long
Speaker 2: track kind of. I gave up a little bit, he
Speaker 2: gave up a little bit. Finally found a little bit
Speaker 2: of blood, and then we topped a rise and his
Speaker 2: elk was there. And just the the emotion that guy
Speaker 2: went through of seeing his elk that he thought he
Speaker 2: would never see again. He thought he wasted this beautiful bowl,
Speaker 2: Like that was enough for me. That was like she
Speaker 2: was so excited that she found it. This guy was,
Speaker 2: you know, over the moon that we recovered his elk
Speaker 2: like that. I probably felt just as strongly about finding
Speaker 2: that elk as this guy did, and just so proud
Speaker 2: of my dog and so happy for him. So I mean,
Speaker 2: that's that's really what that's what motivates us for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you guys are making a difference definitely out there,
Speaker 1: and I keep Matt, I hope, I hope some people
Speaker 1: hear this and listen to it, and number one want
Speaker 1: to maybe get involved and train their dog and become
Speaker 1: become a tracker, maybe become part of your guys's network.
Speaker 1: That would be really cool just to have more people
Speaker 1: out there doing it. And then I hope folks who
Speaker 1: are listening if they get a pickle and just you know,
Speaker 1: maybe lose an animal and now they have an alternative, like, hey,
Speaker 1: I get I can get a hold of somebody and
Speaker 1: we can recover this or have a good opportunity to
Speaker 1: chance to recover it.
Speaker 2: So absolutely yeah, and we could use more trackers. There's
Speaker 2: the demand is rising, and you know, like with this,
Speaker 2: with this film coming out, I think it's a really
Speaker 2: good glimpse into the world of what we do, and
Speaker 2: I just hope people see that they realize that resource
Speaker 2: is there. But then again, you know, we can always
Speaker 2: use more tracking teams. I think that as people become
Speaker 2: more aware that this resource is available, they you know,
Speaker 2: the demand's going to go up. And we'd love to
Speaker 2: be able to never turn out of track It would
Speaker 2: be great to be able to track everything everything that
Speaker 2: comes across the network.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now, if I wanted to come to your get together
Speaker 1: at the Rocky Mountain Big Game recovery, what did they
Speaker 1: call it, like just a rendezvous or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it'll be our twenty twenty five spring rendezvous.
Speaker 1: Okay, Now if I wanted to come, now, do my
Speaker 1: dogs have to kind of know what they're doing or
Speaker 1: or can people who are complete novices and don't have
Speaker 1: never trained their dog yet they just want to see
Speaker 1: what it's about bring their dog out?
Speaker 3: Can they do that?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Absolutely, I think it's a great way to kind
Speaker 2: of get introduced to the you know, kind of get
Speaker 2: introduced to tracking. And then for me, the biggest thing
Speaker 2: was just the people that are there that you can
Speaker 2: kind of count on as a mentor. Like I was
Speaker 2: really new. I went to this. I went to the
Speaker 2: seminar with just a little bit of training. I'd obviously
Speaker 2: never done any live recoveries yet, so I probably only
Speaker 2: trained her for gosh, that was maybe a month into
Speaker 2: having her in training her before we went out on
Speaker 2: this thing, and just following following other people on their tracks,
Speaker 2: like if you ask the handler, hey, can I just
Speaker 2: observe your your certification. You'll learn so much by walking
Speaker 2: behind that person and that dog, hearing the feedback from
Speaker 2: the judge, just learning you know, how to read the
Speaker 2: dogs and their behaviors. Yeah, if you're interested at all
Speaker 2: in tracking, I think it's a really incredible way to
Speaker 2: to Hey, just see what it's all about, see what's involved.
Speaker 2: But then be just a network with people, you know,
Speaker 2: maybe find a mentor find some people that might be
Speaker 2: nearing you that you can go train with. I think
Speaker 2: it's incredibly valuable. Even if you you know, you want
Speaker 2: to leave the dog at home and just some have
Speaker 2: that experience. I think there's a lot of value to that.
Speaker 2: But of course putting your dog. We love dogs, so
Speaker 2: you're more than welcome to bring them. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to definitely keep an eye out for
Speaker 1: that because that might be if if I don't have
Speaker 1: a schedule conflict, I'd like to maybe come come check
Speaker 1: that out come and see what it's all about.
Speaker 2: Oh, we'd love to have you, it'd be great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's see.
Speaker 3: All right, Well, I think that's gonna about wrap it up.
Speaker 1: We've we've been on here for for fifty minutes, almost
Speaker 1: an hour. If folks want to look you up, how
Speaker 1: do they how do they get a hold of you?
Speaker 2: Yeah, probably easiest. I'm on Instagram just at matt Yagin Photo,
Speaker 2: and then my website's time on at media dot com okay.
Speaker 1: And then the website for for Rocky Mountain Big Game
Speaker 1: Recovery is Rockymountain Big Game Recovery dot org.
Speaker 2: It looks like correct, you got it.
Speaker 1: And I snooped around on that quite a bit now
Speaker 1: so far. So yeah, if anybody is curious about that,
Speaker 1: get on there and check it out. Any any closing
Speaker 1: thoughts on on on Blood.
Speaker 2: Tracking, I'd just say if anybody wants to watch that film,
Speaker 2: I think it's really get intro to why we do
Speaker 2: what we do, and I think it does a good
Speaker 2: job of highlighting the relationship we as handlers have with
Speaker 2: our dogs. I mean that's the biggest part of it.
Speaker 2: That film is available on the on the Pelican YouTube page,
Speaker 2: so it's it's tracking in and it's sponsored by Pelican,
Speaker 2: and it's uh gosh. I launched a couple of days ago,
Speaker 2: so the film was out, and so far we've had
Speaker 2: some some really good feedback on it. So you have
Speaker 2: you want to learn more about the world of tracking
Speaker 2: and see some of the personalities behind it. Suggests to
Speaker 2: go take a look.
Speaker 1: Great, great, Yeah, I'll put a link in the description.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I encourage everybody to go watch it. I enjoyed it
Speaker 3: so so well.
Speaker 1: Thanks Matt, I appreciate you coming on, taking some time
Speaker 1: out of your day.
Speaker 3: To talk about dove tracking.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you so much. Jrek, I appreciating having me on.
Speaker 3: Yep, thank you.
Speaker 2: Never