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Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, Welcome to The Houndation's podcast. I'm your host,

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Speaker 1: Tony Peterson, and today's episode is all about dealing with

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Speaker 1: the attrition of hunting skills when we leave the training

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Speaker 1: grounds and head out into the fields and on the

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Speaker 1: water with our dogs. If you haven't yet gone through

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Speaker 1: what I'm going to talk about on this show, you're

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Speaker 1: either the best dog trainer on the planet, or you

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Speaker 1: have the best dog on the planet, or you're blissfully

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Speaker 1: aware of the reality when you actually hunt. All three

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Speaker 1: would be great, but only one is very likely. The

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Speaker 1: truth is, we train our dogs for a lot of

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Speaker 1: real world scenarios when it comes to hunting, but those skills,

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Speaker 1: as sharp as they can be off the field, will

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Speaker 1: often just dull up out of nowhere when the wild

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Speaker 1: birds start flying and the guns start going off. There

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Speaker 1: are some ways to nullify the atrophy of skills, though,

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Speaker 1: which is what I'm going to talk about right now.

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Speaker 1: You know that fellow who used to be a pretty

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Speaker 1: big deal in basketball. He goes by a name Michael Jordan.

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Speaker 1: Have you ever seen the video of his first dunk

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Speaker 1: attempt in the NBA way back in the mid eighties.

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Speaker 1: If you haven't, I'll give you a quick synopsis, but

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Speaker 1: first I want to break down a few things. Jordan

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Speaker 1: played in one thousand and seventy two games and scored

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Speaker 1: thirty two hundred and ninety two points in his career,

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Speaker 1: averaging just to shade over thirty per game, which, if

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Speaker 1: you don't know much about basketball, is a lot. His

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Speaker 1: shooting percentage was right at fifty percent, which means that

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Speaker 1: every time he put the ball up, it was a

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Speaker 1: coin toss on whether the scoreboard was going to change.

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Speaker 1: Maybe that doesn't sound that great, but it is considering

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Speaker 1: he was playing against all professional athletes, many of whom

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Speaker 1: were quite a bit taller than him. Jordan is known

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Speaker 1: for a lot of things, like being so fiercely competitive

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Speaker 1: that he will bet on just about anything and is

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Speaker 1: not a fan of losing, well anything. This mentality spawned

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Speaker 1: a work ethic, when mixed with the hell of a

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Speaker 1: lot of athleticism, led him to a pretty incredible career.

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Speaker 1: The high points are many, but most folks, at least

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Speaker 1: folks around my age, probably think of him during the

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Speaker 1: nineteen eighty eight Slam Dunk Contest the All Star Weekend,

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Speaker 1: where he went up against Dominique Wilkins to take the

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Speaker 1: title once again, but this time he did it by

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Speaker 1: leaping from the free throw line to solidify his reputation

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Speaker 1: as Air Jordan. That dunk led him to sell about

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Speaker 1: a trillion dollars worth of Nikes and helped him earn

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Speaker 1: enough to be considered a billionaire several times over. By

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Speaker 1: all accounts, Jordan had the mentality in the mindset to

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Speaker 1: be a champion, and he was. But his first dunk

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Speaker 1: attempt was a little less glamorous. In fact, he got

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Speaker 1: called for traveling but went up for it anyway, and

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Speaker 1: not only did he get stuffed by the rim hard,

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Speaker 1: he hit the court like a sack of wet concrete

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Speaker 1: and stayed there for quite a while. It's hard to

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Speaker 1: say how many practice shot he took in his life,

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Speaker 1: but hundreds of thousands is probably not much of a stretch.

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Speaker 1: He managed to miss thousands of shots in games and

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Speaker 1: turn the ball over plenty. He wasn't perfect, but he was,

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Speaker 1: by most accounts, the best there ever was. Now, think

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Speaker 1: about your dog. Your dog probably isn't the Michael Jordan

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Speaker 1: of dogs, even though in your heart you might suspect

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Speaker 1: that actually he is. He's not. Trust me, but that's

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Speaker 1: okay though, because if you're listening to a rando like

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Speaker 1: me talk about dogs, you're probably not the Michael Jordan

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Speaker 1: of hunters or of dog trainers. That's okay too. We

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Speaker 1: can all wallow in mediocrity together. We might not only

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Speaker 1: share average lives but also average skills. But for some reason,

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Speaker 1: it's easy to expect more out of our dogs than

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Speaker 1: we probably should. This is the first thing I want

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Speaker 1: to talk about when it comes to our dog skills

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Speaker 1: and how they translate to the field. The reality is

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Speaker 1: they're not perfect. While you can talk to hunters all

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Speaker 1: day who will claim their dogs recover one hundred percent

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Speaker 1: of the ripples and all that jazz, those hunters are

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Speaker 1: very likely to be suffering from selective memory. There may

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Speaker 1: be a few flawless performances each season, but more likely

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Speaker 1: than anything is that as soon as we get back

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Speaker 1: to the truck, our brains just clip out a lot

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Speaker 1: of the negative memories. But it's also true that we

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Speaker 1: often expect too much of our dogs. Young dogs, first

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Speaker 1: hunts of the year, different species of birds than usual dogs,

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Speaker 1: in different environments, changing weather conditions. There are a lot

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Speaker 1: of variables that come into play in the field and

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Speaker 1: They all affect our individual dogs' performances. The first thing

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Speaker 1: that we need to do is factor that stuff in

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Speaker 1: before we judge our dogs too harshly on his performance.

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Speaker 1: If you have an upland dog that is pretty solid

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Speaker 1: at flushing and retrieving birds and then you put him

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Speaker 1: in a duck blind for the first time, even after

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Speaker 1: training steadiness and blind marks and all that ducky stuff

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Speaker 1: throughout the summer, you know what's going to happen. That

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Speaker 1: dog is not going to deliver a perfect performance. It

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Speaker 1: doesn't work that way. There's going to be breaking or whining,

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Speaker 1: or miss marks or a whole host of things that

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Speaker 1: you just don't want to see. You can practice and

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Speaker 1: practice and practice, but it's never going to be exactly

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Speaker 1: the same as an actual hunt, just like how you

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Speaker 1: could run five thousand rounds a summer through your shotguns,

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Speaker 1: busting clays and still not shoot all that great on

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Speaker 1: wild quail or rough grouse the first couple times you

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Speaker 1: hunt them in the season. Giving our dogs some grace

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Speaker 1: is a good idea because if we don't, we instantly

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Speaker 1: make things worse. I had a situation last year with

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Speaker 1: Sadie where my buddy and I were bumping awful close

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Speaker 1: to our three bird limits here in Minnesota, when she

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Speaker 1: put up a rooster in front of me that swung

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Speaker 1: hard to my right over a frozen lake. Now, I'm

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Speaker 1: pretty deadly when they go straight away and somewhat deadly

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Speaker 1: when they go to the left. But a bird that

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Speaker 1: cuts hard to my right has made the best decision

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Speaker 1: he could. I still managed to knock that rooster down

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Speaker 1: on my first shot, and he hit the middle of

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Speaker 1: that lake, stood up and started running. Sadie, who's about

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Speaker 1: four feet shorter than me, didn't mark the bird because

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Speaker 1: the cattails are tall enough to block my view. So

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Speaker 1: I scrambled to the edge to point out the very

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Speaker 1: alive but wounded rooster pulling his best roadrunner moves on

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Speaker 1: the skating rink. I figured I was about to see

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Speaker 1: one of those oh so sweet moments when your dog

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Speaker 1: lays eyes on a rooster that's running real hard and

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Speaker 1: then takes off to tackle them, maybe fall over and

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Speaker 1: slip on the ice and all that cool jazz. What

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Speaker 1: I saw instead was a small black lab looking the

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Speaker 1: wrong way while I frantically yelled and screamed back, you know,

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Speaker 1: to her, in order to get her to look back

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Speaker 1: and run the way that she's been trained to run.

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Speaker 1: If you want to know how to communicate with your dog, stark,

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Speaker 1: raving lunatic isn't the best persona to adopt. In fact,

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Speaker 1: it was just a miracle that I saw exactly where

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Speaker 1: that rooster went into the cattails before I went ass

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Speaker 1: over apple cart and slid along on my face for

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Speaker 1: a while. When I finally got stood up and got

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Speaker 1: over there, Sadie had already taken my cue and was

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Speaker 1: well on her way to rounding up that bird from

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Speaker 1: a snowdrift. In the moment, I was like, well, I

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Speaker 1: have the dumbest dog in the world, But in reality

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Speaker 1: I had a dog that didn't know where the bird

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Speaker 1: was because she really couldn't, and instead of calmly getting

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Speaker 1: her attention and sending her in the right direction, I

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Speaker 1: did everything I shouldn't have. What looked like a lack

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Speaker 1: of skills on her end was entirely a mistake on

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Speaker 1: my part. Give them some grace because they are trying

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Speaker 1: and they might not know you know what you want

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Speaker 1: out of them or how to do something, but also

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Speaker 1: pay attention to what they absolutely should know that they

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Speaker 1: won't do anyway, For upland hunters, this tends to manifest

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Speaker 1: itself and recall issues a lot of the times. If

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Speaker 1: you haven't hunted with someone who has a dog that

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Speaker 1: doesn't understand anything about range, oh boy, just wait. There's

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Speaker 1: nothing more frustrating than a dog that just doesn't understand

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Speaker 1: any connection between it and the right distance to the hunter.

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Speaker 1: You know, some of this stuff can be excused away

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Speaker 1: through hunt jitters and excitement, but most of it is,

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Speaker 1: once again an issue on our part. Is where it

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Speaker 1: gets muddy though. If you deal with this, you have

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Speaker 1: to ask yourself how much you trained it in them.

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Speaker 1: If it was a ton and they disobey, you've got

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Speaker 1: to get them under control. You know, it might be

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Speaker 1: a one and done issue just from the excitement that

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Speaker 1: they'll shore up quickly throughout the first hunt, but if

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Speaker 1: it keeps happening, it's not actually an attrition of skills.

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Speaker 1: It's a light shining on what the skill level actually is.

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Speaker 1: This is a big deal, and it's something that every

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Speaker 1: bird dog trainer understands. You train for realistic scenarios, then

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Speaker 1: you go out and pay real close attention to the

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Speaker 1: dog's behavior in the field and on the water. This

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Speaker 1: will show you where the holes are in your game,

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Speaker 1: because they know that you can't show up everything in

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Speaker 1: the backyard no matter how many bumpers you toss. Now,

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Speaker 1: another issue that happens a lot is confusion over wounded birds.

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Speaker 1: Here's the thing about this. You can set up as

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Speaker 1: many hunt dead scenarios as you want with bumpers and

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Speaker 1: wings and whatever else you know in the yard and

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Speaker 1: the CRP field, in the woods wherever. The more you

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Speaker 1: do this, the better off your dog will understand the

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Speaker 1: job when that command comes out. But even Tom Docin,

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Speaker 1: who has made more realistic training dummies than anyone, has

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Speaker 1: yet to make a bumper that will run and hide

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Speaker 1: and possibly fly if a dog gets too close to it.

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Speaker 1: This is a skill issue that can only be resolved

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Speaker 1: by working real birds in the places real birds live.

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Speaker 1: But it's also true that we often don't do our

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Speaker 1: dogs any favors on this front. I think about this

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Speaker 1: a lot, and it's one of the many reasons I

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Speaker 1: rarely upland hunt with more than one other buddy, and

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Speaker 1: never more than two or possibly three, which usually ends

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Speaker 1: up feeling like one or two too many intends to

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Speaker 1: result in me finding a reason to go hunt solo

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Speaker 1: for a while. The more people and dogs we get involved,

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Speaker 1: the more some dogs will lose their abilities to perform

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Speaker 1: due to distraction. But where this gets untenable is when

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Speaker 1: a bird is down. Now, a couple of good, seasoned

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Speaker 1: dogs looking for a wounded bird is usually a gift

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Speaker 1: because that bird is generally in trouble when the smart

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Speaker 1: noses start to work it out. But what if you

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Speaker 1: aren't with a couple of seasoned pros, or what if

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Speaker 1: your dog's just never trained around other dogs. What if

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Speaker 1: it's just you and your dog and it's second season

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Speaker 1: and for whatever reason, the rooster you hit isn't where

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Speaker 1: he's supposed to beat. This is where patience and a

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Speaker 1: zen mindset comes into play, because it's very easy to

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Speaker 1: be frustrated with a dog that misses what looks like

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Speaker 1: a gimme retrieve in almost all situations, even a hell

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Speaker 1: of a lot of them that involve ducks, If the

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Speaker 1: dog doesn't have a good chance to use his nose,

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Speaker 1: he's not going to find the bird. When we send

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Speaker 1: a dog into the thick stuff or a down rooster

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Speaker 1: or rough or whatever and he doesn't find it right away,

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Speaker 1: our first instinct is to go in and look. I

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Speaker 1: see this every time someone new when we're in the

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Speaker 1: late season cattails, and every time it drives me crazy

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Speaker 1: because the odds of us spotting a down rooster about

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Speaker 1: as low as the odds of cow waking up one

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Speaker 1: day and just deciding he's going to shave his mustache off.

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Speaker 1: It's not gonna happen. So we think our dogs are

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Speaker 1: good at this stuff because in training they are successful,

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Speaker 1: but in the field they suddenly aren't. So we move

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Speaker 1: in and add a whole bunch of scent and urgency

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Speaker 1: to the scene, and that only makes it worse when

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Speaker 1: that dog's trying to nose up that down bird. Now,

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Speaker 1: as a deer hunter, I've started thinking about how bucks

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Speaker 1: really kind of just see with their noses, and I

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Speaker 1: try to equate that to our actual vision. It helps

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Speaker 1: me figure out where to hunt deer. But on the

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Speaker 1: dog front, thinking about them using their noses that way

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Speaker 1: just helps me visualize what they might need. So look

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Speaker 1: at it this way. Your dog needs the wind and

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Speaker 1: it needs time to work it. If you don't give

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Speaker 1: him both, he won't do very well. If you send

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Speaker 1: him in from the wrong direction, or you wade into

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Speaker 1: the exact spot you expect the sun to be. It

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Speaker 1: would be like trying to look for something that blends

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Speaker 1: in really well while someone else shines a bright flashlight

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Speaker 1: in your eyes every few seconds. Yeah, sure you might

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Speaker 1: find that thing, but it would be a hell of

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Speaker 1: a lot easier if someone wasn't shining a frickin light

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Speaker 1: in your eyes. But what if you don't screw that

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Speaker 1: part up? But your dog mostly stays where the grass

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Speaker 1: is short and it's easy to walk in and skirts

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Speaker 1: the thick stuff where that rooster hit the dirt, Then again,

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Speaker 1: that's not necessarily an atrophy of skills. It's a lack

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Speaker 1: of skills. Your dog hasn't learned that the thick stuff

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Speaker 1: is where the magic happens, and he's no dummy, so

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Speaker 1: he's staying where the living is easy. It's back to

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Speaker 1: training time there, but also time to encourage him in

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Speaker 1: the right direction while hopefully the wind feeds him just

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Speaker 1: enough to coax him into the morass again. Hunting with

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Speaker 1: our dogs is a great way to see in real

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Speaker 1: time the issues that need work during training, but it's

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Speaker 1: also a time for you to learn your dog and

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Speaker 1: for your dog to learn you. Scratch that your dog

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Speaker 1: already kind of knows how you operate, but not necessarily

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Speaker 1: how you operate in the field. You might be a

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Speaker 1: relaxed kind of fellow during summer time training sessions and

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Speaker 1: then be a keyed up lunatic when the ducks starts circling,

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Speaker 1: or the opening bell for the morning rings and it's

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Speaker 1: time to wade into the waist high grass for the day.

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Speaker 1: Your dog is used to you in one aspect but

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Speaker 1: maybe not the other, just like how you know exactly

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Speaker 1: how good your dog is during training, but suddenly it's

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Speaker 1: like having a whole different dog when you go out

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Speaker 1: into the field. That shit flows both ways, but we

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Speaker 1: rarely look at it from the dog's point of view.

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Speaker 1: It's kind of like how when you're married for a while,

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Speaker 1: it's pretty easy to see the flaws in your spouse,

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Speaker 1: while not so easy to see the good stuff that

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Speaker 1: they do. With our dogs, we actually see that positive

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Speaker 1: stuff during training because we can train to nearly one

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Speaker 1: hundred percent success, but that isn't possible while hunting and

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Speaker 1: hunting is a blood sport with prey animals that simply

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Speaker 1: don't want to die, it's a different beast from training altogether,

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Speaker 1: and it require of us and our dogs something that

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Speaker 1: we just don't bring to the table when we are training.

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Speaker 1: So let's break this down again. Even though hopefully by

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Speaker 1: this point of the season your dog has been in

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Speaker 1: the field more than a few times and it's starting

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Speaker 1: to get things figured out, you have to expect some

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Speaker 1: level of atrophy in their skills. It's hard to pin

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Speaker 1: down because it's just sort of this ethereal reality where

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Speaker 1: your dog's skills actually live. But you should know what

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Speaker 1: your dog has down really well when you get to

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Speaker 1: the field. If there is some confusion when those skills

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Speaker 1: come up, that's okay. How they react and how they

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Speaker 1: perform throughout the hunt or just the first few hunts

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Speaker 1: will tell you a lot. There's also the fact that

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Speaker 1: they sometimes just decide to blatantly ignore you when they

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Speaker 1: are having fun out there, which is a different issue altogether.

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Speaker 1: That's usually a dog that just needs more training and honestly,

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Speaker 1: probably more time in the field, so they aren't totally

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Speaker 1: willing to risk it for the feathered biscuit. Every time

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Speaker 1: you get out there. We owe it to them and

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Speaker 1: to ourselves to be brutally honest with their performance and

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Speaker 1: ours and to at least try to be fair to

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Speaker 1: them about the issues that crop up, because they are

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Speaker 1: there for a reason, and rarely is that reason because

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Speaker 1: the dog is throwing up a metaphorical middle finger to

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Speaker 1: you just because it can. They more often than not

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Speaker 1: just lose their minds a little and often don't know

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Speaker 1: exactly what you want, or worse, they know what you want,

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Speaker 1: but are totally perplexed in how to deliver that result

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Speaker 1: to you. Getting angry or ignoring these moments has a

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Speaker 1: snowball effect that won't work in your favor later on.

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Speaker 1: It's best to be aware of that stuff now and

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Speaker 1: except that you won't view a flawless performance, but we'll

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Speaker 1: have a chance to help your dog get better with

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Speaker 1: true on the job experience, And in that process we

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Speaker 1: also have a duty to view ourselves pretty much the

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Speaker 1: same light. What holes in our training game are blatantly

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Speaker 1: obvious now? Or how well do we handle going two

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Speaker 1: barrels deep a few times in a row without touching

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Speaker 1: a single feather while our buddies snicker and make Stevie

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Speaker 1: Wonder jokes. That's how it goes, and it's up to

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Speaker 1: us to take those lessons and reframe them for ourselves

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Speaker 1: and for our dogs. If we do, the atrophy and

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Speaker 1: skills on their part will become less and less, and

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Speaker 1: you'll get to that sweet sweet spot with your dog

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Speaker 1: where the mistakes are few and far between, and you'll

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Speaker 1: get to witness a peak dog doing what peak dogs do,

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Speaker 1: which is something I hope we all get to see

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Speaker 1: in our lives. So do that, Think about that, and

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Speaker 1: come back in two weeks to listen to more talk

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Speaker 1: about the dogs we love and how we can have

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Speaker 1: the best life with them. That's it for this week.

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Speaker 1: I'm Tony Peterson. This has been The Houndation's podcast. I

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Speaker 1: want to thank you so much for all of your support.

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Speaker 1: I have never worked at a place where we had

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Speaker 1: a better audience than we do here at meat Eater.

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Speaker 1: We truly appreciate you guys showing up for us. You

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Speaker 1: consume so much content and we love it. If you

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Speaker 1: want more content, or you're maybe missing something out of

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Speaker 1: your life, maybe you want to just watch some films

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Speaker 1: with the family at night, Maybe you need some new

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Speaker 1: podcasts listen to on your drive to work. Whatever. The

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Speaker 1: medeater dot com we drop new content every single day.

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Speaker 1: There's tons of good stuff on there go check it

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Speaker 1: out