Speaker 1: You're listening to the Sportsman's Nation podcast network, brought to
Speaker 1: you by Interstate Batteries. Now, it's that time of year
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Speaker 1: dot Com awesome company. Check them out. So I will
Speaker 1: regret forever the crosses that I did not make with
Speaker 1: you with them. That's a good statement right there. You'll
Speaker 1: never regret across that you did make as you can
Speaker 1: correct it, or you do regret the crosses that you
Speaker 1: didn't make because you're gone. You're gone. I mean, the
Speaker 1: list goes on. There's no other animal in the world
Speaker 1: that has to be bred to such a consistency of
Speaker 1: high caliber as what a trailhound. A big game is
Speaker 1: into me, and and and so far no one has
Speaker 1: contradicted that statement. By the way, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: a show dog has to look for it in the ring,
Speaker 1: you know, but that's a legal run hounds. You can
Speaker 1: turn your pots after him. My name is Clay Nukeleman.
Speaker 1: I'm the host of the Bear Hunting Magazine podcast. I'll
Speaker 1: also be your host into the world of hunting the
Speaker 1: icon of North American wilderness. We'll talk about tactics, gear, conservation,
Speaker 1: but will also bring you into some of the wildest
Speaker 1: country on the planet. Chasing bear on this episode of
Speaker 1: the Bear Hunting Magazine podcast, where again with plot breeder
Speaker 1: Steve heard of Bluff Creek plots and we're specifically talking
Speaker 1: about breeding big game hounds. You're gonna really enjoy this
Speaker 1: podcast with Steve. What a character. Hey, I want to
Speaker 1: draw your attention to our actual print magazine, Bear Hunting Magazine.
Speaker 1: Bear Hunting Magazine has been in print for twenty years.
Speaker 1: We're the only dedicated bear hunting print publication in the world.
Speaker 1: It's true in Bear Hunting Magazine, if you're not familiar
Speaker 1: with it, you would see bear hunting displayed in all
Speaker 1: its majestic forms, from hunting with hounds to hunting over
Speaker 1: bait to spotting stock hunting in the West, the black
Speaker 1: bear is an incredibly diverse animal, ranges and incredible places,
Speaker 1: and we hunt them in all different ways. And the
Speaker 1: Bear Hunting Magazine we're trying to show the full gamut
Speaker 1: of bear hunting. And also we have lots of grizzly
Speaker 1: and brown bear stuff and occasionally even stuff from from
Speaker 1: Russia and to other parts of the world, action packed
Speaker 1: how to adventure based recipes, uh pound and bear hunting
Speaker 1: advocacy stuff and uh we we dedicate a lot of
Speaker 1: our life to this magazine. And you could do us
Speaker 1: a favor and do yourself a favor by becoming a
Speaker 1: subscriber to Bear Hunting Magazine at bear dash hunting dot com. Secondly,
Speaker 1: the second thing that you could do to help us
Speaker 1: would hate give us a review in iTunes or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to podcasts, like a like a written review,
Speaker 1: even anything you say would be great. And uh also,
Speaker 1: you know there's those five stars, and I'm not trying
Speaker 1: to twist your arm, but it would be great if
Speaker 1: we could lean far to the right on that line
Speaker 1: of stars. Right in that five star region. But that
Speaker 1: helps us with Google and you know, the Internet and such. Hey,
Speaker 1: if you're gonna enjoy this podcast with my friend Steve
Speaker 1: Heard Colt, Welcome to the Bear Hunting Magazine podcast. We're
Speaker 1: here again with my good friend Steve Heard Colton Heard.
Speaker 1: And as you heard from the last podcast, we we
Speaker 1: talked about these plot dogs that Steve has been uh
Speaker 1: involved with his whole life, and we talked about we
Speaker 1: had all kinds of stories and all kinds of history
Speaker 1: about his dad and all these is a super neat,
Speaker 1: super neat conversation that we had. What I want to
Speaker 1: do on this podcast, though, is let's hone down our
Speaker 1: our focus to something that I think you've got some
Speaker 1: well you've got a lifetime of history with that. I
Speaker 1: also think you have some unique insight. And beyond unique insight,
Speaker 1: I think that you're able to articulate a very nuanced
Speaker 1: subject that probably there's a lot of great dog breeders
Speaker 1: in the country, animal breeders even this isn't even just
Speaker 1: about dogs even, but but I find that maybe they
Speaker 1: just aren't willing to tell what they know. But but
Speaker 1: but you are, and no, you're able to articulate some
Speaker 1: of the things that that you have done and have
Speaker 1: seen and have experienced and have had the the time
Speaker 1: to evaluate. I mean, so it's not just like me
Speaker 1: going out and having the litter of pups and two
Speaker 1: years later making big assumptions about dog breeding. But what
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about is breeding big game dogs and um.
Speaker 1: And so you wrote an article for Bare Honey magazine
Speaker 1: several years ago that had a lot of interest and uh.
Speaker 1: And you know what, I appreciate somebody that's just willing
Speaker 1: to say what they think, Steve. I find that a
Speaker 1: lot of people, if they have strong opinions, they're afraid
Speaker 1: to say them because they're fearful that people will think
Speaker 1: they're being prideful. I agree with that, well, but I
Speaker 1: but I do it anyway. But that's that's not no, no,
Speaker 1: what you're doing to me. It is right. You're just saying, hey,
Speaker 1: this is what I do. I've built, I've done this
Speaker 1: for a lifetime, this is what I do. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying it's the best. I'm not saying it's the only way.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying it's the right way. I'm saying it's
Speaker 1: the way that and and maybe I can help guide somebody.
Speaker 1: Maybe I can help guide somebody, but but do it,
Speaker 1: you know, do it your own way. If it succeeds. Okay, now,
Speaker 1: and once again, maybe some of it was maybe some
Speaker 1: of the first of it was luck. But also but
Speaker 1: when I knowing what I knew from the from the
Speaker 1: past history of the dogs, when I made my bouncer
Speaker 1: to Donna and bouncer to suit crosses, I thought, how
Speaker 1: can it go wrong when all those old timers have
Speaker 1: put all their time into this effort of breeding this
Speaker 1: kind of a dog. And then I have exactly what
Speaker 1: I'm looking for right here in front of me. So
Speaker 1: if I breed them together, surely it will turn out
Speaker 1: that way. Well. First off, for you to ever, if
Speaker 1: you're ever going to breed anything, which is like you say, horses,
Speaker 1: game chickens or whatever. Hey, your history and we didn't
Speaker 1: touch on it last time, but you you breed horses,
Speaker 1: they're rich. Irogen steak candas right now, and there's something
Speaker 1: too before you even dive in, because I know you're
Speaker 1: gonna jump in, and that's exactly what I want you
Speaker 1: to do. I want to say that I have I
Speaker 1: you know, when you think about breeding dogs or breeding animals.
Speaker 1: You think that you're dealing with things that are like
Speaker 1: really tangible, but oftentimes it's the intangible characteristics qualities of
Speaker 1: these animals that people that just have a knack for
Speaker 1: breeding animals understand. And by a knack for breeding animals,
Speaker 1: anybody can put two male and females together and make
Speaker 1: a litter puss. But to breed animals that have long term,
Speaker 1: consistent deduction of the qualities that you're after. Okay, here,
Speaker 1: here's here's something I hate to say, but you have
Speaker 1: to say you you are probably born. You are probably
Speaker 1: born with an instinct to either be able to do
Speaker 1: it or not. Okay, So I believe that that there's
Speaker 1: there's natural human beings that are I call him master breeders,
Speaker 1: and some people don't like that term, but but I
Speaker 1: believe there. Gola Ferguson was the first master breeder that
Speaker 1: I know. Okay. He he took a bunch of animals
Speaker 1: and each generation got better. Okay, and I'm I'm still
Speaker 1: using dogs from that generation, those generations of his. But
Speaker 1: but first off, I had to say that you probably
Speaker 1: you may have it the ability, you may not have
Speaker 1: the ability, but if you do have it, you have
Speaker 1: to hone it. So Colton originally started out, you just
Speaker 1: didn't want the puffs that he was picking, okay, because
Speaker 1: they're they're the big, slumpy, the funny one that you know,
Speaker 1: the one that you want on the porch and you
Speaker 1: want to lay on your lap or stuff. But I mean,
Speaker 1: my granddad was a great breeder of draft horses and
Speaker 1: mules and all sorts of stuff and showcattle. Okay, so
Speaker 1: Colton headed in there, but he had to hone that.
Speaker 1: So craft yeah, yeah, so he so he his little
Speaker 1: eyes watched his I said, well that looks kind of
Speaker 1: like Reno, and that kind of looks like scar and
Speaker 1: and they see that look in her eye. Well you
Speaker 1: know this pup here, this looks like the right pup.
Speaker 1: So he picked Usher and that was that was the
Speaker 1: very first time that he passed. You know, he passed
Speaker 1: in flight. So on the previous podcast we talked about
Speaker 1: how so Culton's here with this Culton's Coulton is a
Speaker 1: Steve Sun twenty one years old. And then you picked
Speaker 1: up you picked this dog Buster. So that's why your Ferr,
Speaker 1: which turned out to be a great dog. And there
Speaker 1: was the test. There was something that just jumped into
Speaker 1: the podcast. You said, son, do you see the same thing.
Speaker 1: I see. There's a nine nine pups, and you picked
Speaker 1: the one that your dad I think. I think I
Speaker 1: actually used to just pick the biggest one, the biggest
Speaker 1: puff out of the litter, you know, the biggest. I
Speaker 1: think that's what there are people do that and then
Speaker 1: sometimes they always picked the smallest. But the you need
Speaker 1: to pick pick the one that that that acts the
Speaker 1: most and looks the most and resembles the most to
Speaker 1: the to the best dogs you've had in the past past.
Speaker 1: So so that's part of it, okay, But then breeding
Speaker 1: it's it's you have to use the word gut feeling
Speaker 1: in my gut when I when I made that those
Speaker 1: first two crosses here, I was some kid that you know,
Speaker 1: from from a from a good family, you know, Dwayne heard.
Speaker 1: But but I had a gut feeling that if I
Speaker 1: did this, it was gonna work, okay, because I had
Speaker 1: seen the Judd dog and that's the way he was read.
Speaker 1: And so my gut told me if I did the
Speaker 1: same thing that the other people have done, I was
Speaker 1: gonna it was gonna work. And it did, and it did, okay.
Speaker 1: But there you were using you were using pedigrees, Yes,
Speaker 1: very much, and you still do. When somebody tells me
Speaker 1: they don't give a ding about a pedigree, And I
Speaker 1: would mention some very famous plot me in from the
Speaker 1: past that said they didn't give a rats rear about
Speaker 1: a pedigree. And guess what, they never read for more
Speaker 1: than one generation. They would breed and they sell, and
Speaker 1: they never produced. They never produced three generations ever. And
Speaker 1: it's extreme. I've said it in my article for your myazing.
Speaker 1: It's extremely hard to breed for three generations and and
Speaker 1: not lose what you started with. Because people make bad
Speaker 1: decisions because they're gut told them to do something that
Speaker 1: probably shouldn't have been done. Okay, but there's just there's
Speaker 1: there's there's tangible deals. Uh, so many things. The color
Speaker 1: of a dog can make a difference because that that
Speaker 1: dog inherited that color coat from some dogs in the past.
Speaker 1: So were those lighter brintle dogs, were they as good
Speaker 1: as the darker brintle dogs. Well, history tells you know
Speaker 1: they weren't. So you first off, you have to know
Speaker 1: the history of what you're doing, whether you're breeding horses
Speaker 1: once again or anything. And and see that would be
Speaker 1: a little bit of a controversial thing, right Exactly. A
Speaker 1: lot of people say, well, color doesn't matter at all. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: but but for each strain it does. Okay, if you're
Speaker 1: if you're gonna go, if you're gonna go buy you
Speaker 1: a milk cow and you wanted a lot of production,
Speaker 1: You're not gonna go buy a Herford cow. You're gonna
Speaker 1: go buy a cow with great, big white cow with
Speaker 1: big black spots on them. Okay, because you know why
Speaker 1: that color is a holsting and they produce milk indicator.
Speaker 1: It's an indicator. Well, And and once again I had
Speaker 1: Dan Wagner's a good buddy of mine, and we talked
Speaker 1: genetics all the time, and even and he he doesn't
Speaker 1: want to agree, kind of Daniel, you'll enjoy this, but
Speaker 1: but he but he does, but he does, you know,
Speaker 1: agree that somehow I see something that other people don't see.
Speaker 1: And and there's just certain things in a dog. And
Speaker 1: if I there's a certain look to a dog, and
Speaker 1: if I see it could be the color could be
Speaker 1: a little bit handy looking, feet might be a little
Speaker 1: bit spreadled, and and that I exclude that dog from
Speaker 1: from my from even my possibilities. Okay, and so someday
Speaker 1: down the line, said Stella died five weeks breakdant to
Speaker 1: Bold said, you know, maybe somewhere down line, I'm going
Speaker 1: to trip up, and I'm not gonna be able to
Speaker 1: find that dog I need to great, although I think
Speaker 1: there's a lot of possibilities out there still, Okay, and
Speaker 1: uh So it's it's what do you if we could
Speaker 1: even dial it back, Okay, go ahead, what would you
Speaker 1: say the fundamentals of uh and and and maybe that's
Speaker 1: what you've been talking about. What what are the fundamentals
Speaker 1: of good three? The greatest dogs I've ever seen were
Speaker 1: from the greatest pedigrees that I've ever seen, and those
Speaker 1: and a great pedigree means that these dogs were. But
Speaker 1: when you when you look at a pedigree, when you
Speaker 1: look at Judge pedigree, you saw, you know, one of
Speaker 1: the best reproducers in the nation right there, You're you're
Speaker 1: looking at the greatest the greatest female. Uh the greatest
Speaker 1: two females in the nation at that time. We're right
Speaker 1: there and so and they were all complete really related
Speaker 1: cousins to each other. So how could you how could
Speaker 1: you not be right by attempting to do this. Now,
Speaker 1: I have made my mistakes, but I buried my mistakes. Okay,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, some of those gut feeings didn't
Speaker 1: quite work out, but even them, even then, sometimes those
Speaker 1: gut feelings, I knew, I'm not sure about this, but
Speaker 1: let's give it a try. And sometimes it just flat
Speaker 1: didn't work. And and sometimes you can take two dogs
Speaker 1: that are really well bred, but they share a common ancestor. Uh,
Speaker 1: my Cindy female was really hyper well. One time, accidentally
Speaker 1: we made it a daughter of Cindy to a mail
Speaker 1: to uh, to a female of Cindy. And and somebody
Speaker 1: thought that would be a wonderful petigree. It should look
Speaker 1: It looked good on paper, but I knew that's if
Speaker 1: you put Cindy in there that close twice, that something
Speaker 1: was gonna work. So so I would I would wish
Speaker 1: like heck that I could have talked to Golda Ferguson,
Speaker 1: because he said that with each generation he started, he added,
Speaker 1: he added a high tan, kind of a black and tan,
Speaker 1: but not a like a registered black and tanbit he
Speaker 1: ordered added a high tan into his plot family and
Speaker 1: produced the saddleback plots, which would have been North Carolina,
Speaker 1: Tom and Nichols, Stormy and all those. And with each
Speaker 1: generation his dogs got a little smaller and a little darker,
Speaker 1: and eventually they were all There's no there was no
Speaker 1: light colored dogs lifting there. Okay, so the light daughter
Speaker 1: the light. There's be a lot of people listen to
Speaker 1: this plot, people that say, well, you know, my dogs
Speaker 1: are light colored and they suit me fine. But they're
Speaker 1: from a different strain than what I'm talking. Okay. And
Speaker 1: if you had an Isaiah kid dog or Croctitter crocodigle,
Speaker 1: they're gonna be light because that's what color they were. Okay,
Speaker 1: So if you want to go catch a hog and
Speaker 1: you want a Tator crocod dog, they're gonna be lighter
Speaker 1: colored dogs. And that I'm not taking anything away from them.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying the wams Bluff Greek strain did as
Speaker 1: falls and strain. They what you were doing your best
Speaker 1: dogs with the darker dog and then the color of white. Uh. There.
Speaker 1: I went to plot the in m p A h
Speaker 1: A National Plot Hand So yeah, m P h A
Speaker 1: about five years ago, and what I saw in the
Speaker 1: grounds was earth shaking. It was I just saw dogs
Speaker 1: of every color. I would see one litter of puppies
Speaker 1: out of a Grand Knight Champion mail and there was
Speaker 1: seven pups in there, and there was six different colors
Speaker 1: of pups in the litter, and white all over them.
Speaker 1: Well that white. Some of the plots back in the
Speaker 1: past had some white in them. But I have a
Speaker 1: whole stack of pictures right here in front of me, okay,
Speaker 1: And if you look through them, and I show you
Speaker 1: all the all, the very best, the very best twelve
Speaker 1: and the very best twenty, there's not one dog, not
Speaker 1: one single dog with excessive white on the on their
Speaker 1: They have a lot of them have white on their
Speaker 1: on their on their chest, but up their legs. Never,
Speaker 1: not once ever that shows impurity. It always has. And
Speaker 1: by the way, when my dad got in, dad loved
Speaker 1: those dogs and he kept thinking he needed more of them,
Speaker 1: and he got several dogs from several people. I have
Speaker 1: the pictures in here right here. I'll show them for
Speaker 1: you before you leave. And and and the ones that
Speaker 1: didn't look like plots, did not hunt like plots. The
Speaker 1: ones that had the white all over them, and they
Speaker 1: were there was it. You just went backwards immediately. So uh,
Speaker 1: And there's there's just there's a lot of just little
Speaker 1: teeny things that I believe makes the difference between breeding
Speaker 1: good dogs and breeding exceptional dogs. But most of it
Speaker 1: is eyesight, and a lot of us is hunting, and
Speaker 1: a lot of it is you know, when you send
Speaker 1: the puppies out, let everybody, let's let you know, like
Speaker 1: your ferm female, I need to know exactly how that
Speaker 1: letter turned out, Okay, And would I make it again?
Speaker 1: Of course I would, you know if if if buster
Speaker 1: was still a love, of course I would. So, So
Speaker 1: what talk to me about line breeding? And you're because
Speaker 1: that's that's something that maybe a lot of people wouldn't
Speaker 1: you know, have steered away from a lot of people
Speaker 1: would probably it was totally familiar with it. It It was taboo.
Speaker 1: Linebreeding originally was taboo you want unrelated dogs. Well, when
Speaker 1: as soon as you did, you just killed whatever you had, Okay,
Speaker 1: I mean by killing, I'm talking about you killed the genetics,
Speaker 1: so what you had. So then later it was became
Speaker 1: what they kind of called liebreeding, which would you bread
Speaker 1: a cousin to a cousin, which means that you know,
Speaker 1: three generation pedigree. You'd have maybe two dogs and there
Speaker 1: who were either brother and sister or were similar or whatever.
Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden we found out that
Speaker 1: maybe the closer you bread those dogs, the better they did.
Speaker 1: And then we started doing inbreeding, which was you know,
Speaker 1: bare Pats Gunner to to to Becky. They were both
Speaker 1: by the same daddy and their mother. There were three
Speaker 1: quarters sisters, and we breed made that cross and oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, the pups were better than anything before. So
Speaker 1: so when you when you keep adding real good stuff
Speaker 1: to the mix, it doesn't dilute the mix. It increases
Speaker 1: the chances of that of the mixed working. And so
Speaker 1: what people the kind of the colloquial knowledge I guess,
Speaker 1: if that's a good way to say it of inbreeding
Speaker 1: would be that you'd produced dogs that were inferior in
Speaker 1: some way and that five legs and run back have
Speaker 1: real big health problems. Let me let me I would
Speaker 1: like to make a statement about that, because my some
Speaker 1: people have had my my uncle got a Schnauzer. They
Speaker 1: were big into Schnauzers. They bought these schnauzers and they
Speaker 1: bought them from a reputable breeder quote unquote, quote unquote,
Speaker 1: and the dogs end up having health problems when they
Speaker 1: were older, and he found out that they were bred
Speaker 1: real clothes, and he said, yeah, inbreeding is bad, or
Speaker 1: you know, slide breeding is bad. The difference between what
Speaker 1: that breeder was doing with Schnauzers and what you guys
Speaker 1: are doing with bear dogs is that these dogs are
Speaker 1: being bred based upon performance in the field over the
Speaker 1: lifetime and so health problems. I mean, point me, and
Speaker 1: those Schnauzers were just bred to be house dogs and
Speaker 1: have these phenotype or just this external look. You guys
Speaker 1: are breeding for physical performance and if they don't have it,
Speaker 1: you you're limited. You don't So that that to me
Speaker 1: makes rational sense of how and then all these dogs
Speaker 1: aren't physically have some problem and and and once again
Speaker 1: back to the article. If folks, if you haven't seen
Speaker 1: the article, you really need to read it as you
Speaker 1: as you read your dogs really close. If if you
Speaker 1: do have a physical fault or something shows up, then
Speaker 1: you can eliminate it from the gene pool. Okay, I
Speaker 1: mean you're harvesting off the bed jeans and and eliminating
Speaker 1: sometimes and this isn't what you're doing over and over
Speaker 1: every time. I mean, it's a the most I don't
Speaker 1: want to I want to say that right away. It's
Speaker 1: an extreme case where you would breathe as close as
Speaker 1: the gunner back across. Yeah, And you know I haven't
Speaker 1: done it again, but I would, if you know, if
Speaker 1: I thought yeah. And I just want to make that
Speaker 1: clear because somebody you're not saying you're breathing brother and
Speaker 1: sister together all the time. No, no, no, no, no
Speaker 1: no no. But but don't do not not make a
Speaker 1: cross because you're afraid to do close. Give it a try,
Speaker 1: give it a try again. And once again, my famous
Speaker 1: statement is I never regretted across I ever made, because
Speaker 1: I could eliminate it if it didn't work. But I
Speaker 1: so desperately I'd never read the jud dog to Sue,
Speaker 1: and they were half brother and sister, and I wish
Speaker 1: I would have, but people thought it was too close.
Speaker 1: And so I will regret forever the crosses that I
Speaker 1: did not make with you know, with them. That's a
Speaker 1: good statement right there, that you'll never regret across that
Speaker 1: you did make because you can correct it. But you
Speaker 1: do regret the crosses that you didn't make from because
Speaker 1: they're gone. You're gone. Yeah, Dad had a chance. Dad
Speaker 1: had a chance to take real grand Trouble to Cape Gerard,
Speaker 1: Missouri and breed to Rag Nicholas's world famous stormy dog.
Speaker 1: It was her uncle. Most people thought it was too close,
Speaker 1: But had he have done that, it would have been
Speaker 1: the strongest bloodline cross ever made in the plot breed
Speaker 1: as far as I know. Okay, it would have been
Speaker 1: nor it would have been a smokey Cubby on top
Speaker 1: bread to a daughter of a smoky cubby onto a
Speaker 1: daughter of of plots Fanny and Lady. But it would
Speaker 1: have been the strongest pedigree of all times. And it
Speaker 1: would still you would still be seeing it in pedigrees everywhere. Okay,
Speaker 1: so we're what we do. Dennis Fawlson was one of
Speaker 1: the originators. I hope Dennis is still alive, but we
Speaker 1: wish you could hear this. Uh. He taught me some things.
Speaker 1: You know, stack, stack all those good dogs that you
Speaker 1: possibly can, because what you're doing, you're filling holes in
Speaker 1: that pedigree, and you're replacing a weaker dog with a
Speaker 1: really really good dog, and when you get him anit
Speaker 1: or enough, you can kind of know what's gonna come
Speaker 1: out the other end. You were a kins what about
Speaker 1: you said something on the earlier podcast about you know
Speaker 1: you've got a If you want a stack of gold,
Speaker 1: you can't start with bricks and painted. I mean, talk
Speaker 1: to somebody that maybe give somebody some advice that's just
Speaker 1: getting started or wanting to create a dog. Don't ever,
Speaker 1: don't ever start a breeding program with dogs that are
Speaker 1: not as good as you possibly can get. Ahold of
Speaker 1: what Okay, let me let me throw some gasoline on
Speaker 1: the fire. What if you had a dog that had
Speaker 1: a really strong trait that you liked, but he was
Speaker 1: super weak and a bunch of other areas you said
Speaker 1: a bunch and that when when you said a bunch
Speaker 1: that elimited that dog? Okay, if you if you just
Speaker 1: said one maybe you know, maybe a a little bit
Speaker 1: shy here. Well then, because I think what happens is
Speaker 1: guys will guys will get a dog that's strong in
Speaker 1: one area. He likes this dog, but he's got weakness here,
Speaker 1: and so he'll breed another dog trying to create eliminate
Speaker 1: the weakness, but actually he just gets more of the same.
Speaker 1: You know, I keep I keep having to repeat myself,
Speaker 1: but in the bear hunting article in there, oh no,
Speaker 1: I just forgot my my trade of thought. I was
Speaker 1: watching the Clean the Table. H yeah, start overs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: back me up. Okay, what what I've what I've heard
Speaker 1: people say is don't breed a dog that you wouldn't
Speaker 1: want another one exactly. Yeah, I mean, don't don't breed
Speaker 1: dogs just to be breeding dogs, if you if you
Speaker 1: like you know, I want to know the buster. I
Speaker 1: want another Stella. And I told Colton on the way down,
Speaker 1: I've got a couple of crosses in mind, and if
Speaker 1: something works here in the next couple of months, we're
Speaker 1: gonna have another one of them supercrosses. Okay, and I
Speaker 1: already know how it's gonna work out. Okay, But but
Speaker 1: but I I want to I want to produce even
Speaker 1: higher than I have have produced, or at least that
Speaker 1: at least that good. And you know, don't ever, there's
Speaker 1: a I guess you'd call a famous strand of dogs
Speaker 1: bare dogs that started and then and the guy is
Speaker 1: a really good guy, and and he he tells that
Speaker 1: he began with a female that needed corrected in this
Speaker 1: and this and this and this department, like five or
Speaker 1: six departments. Okay, and guess what it's been. She's been
Speaker 1: dead for twenty five years. And that line of dogs
Speaker 1: still needs corrected, and also that you do you just
Speaker 1: if you're lucky enough to get started with the greatest
Speaker 1: thing you can possibly find, and if if you can't,
Speaker 1: then stand in line, get a pup out of it,
Speaker 1: out of what you're looking for, and then go from
Speaker 1: there do everything you can post. So have you ever
Speaker 1: done I mean, I guess you've done outcrossing that different times?
Speaker 1: When do you outcross? You know? You don't? You don't know.
Speaker 1: And once again that'll be an argument. You know, if
Speaker 1: we were sitting around guys, they'll say, oh, eventually you
Speaker 1: have to, but no, no, you don't know what you do.
Speaker 1: Why why would you if you if you had a
Speaker 1: bunch of dogs that you could we rate nine and tens,
Speaker 1: why would you outcross to another strain that's that that
Speaker 1: only produces sixes and sevens? Well what if they produce
Speaker 1: nines too? Though? It's I mean, but you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, I know what. They're not out there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, but they're not. I mean, I know I'm
Speaker 1: saying that. I'm saying that that each of us probably
Speaker 1: has our Well, I guess the question I'm asking is
Speaker 1: that if you had some really good dogs from another
Speaker 1: family dogs and he had another totally said, I mean
Speaker 1: they getting meat and tail way back, same breed of dogs.
Speaker 1: I mean that still may not work. Well, no, no,
Speaker 1: because there's you can have pure milk and you can
Speaker 1: have pure oil. Both of them are your necess necessities. Okay,
Speaker 1: but if you put them together, what do you got
Speaker 1: you gotta miss? So what I'm saying, I mean, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: And this is what it's worked for you. We said
Speaker 1: this at the beginning, but I like here and your
Speaker 1: unfiltered thoughts, because this is the way that you've done it,
Speaker 1: and it's worked for you. If you include I have
Speaker 1: all these pictures here, If you include dead's dogs, we
Speaker 1: have a living generations. Okay. And with that old trouble
Speaker 1: female is that that got out of the creek when
Speaker 1: I was four years old? Well who and you told
Speaker 1: me to just speak out, and I really kind of
Speaker 1: hate you. Who can claim the same that for sixty
Speaker 1: six years the very first dog you ever saw, is
Speaker 1: you you still have that line, that very same line
Speaker 1: of dogs eleven generations later, sixty six years later, that
Speaker 1: would be six years per strain. Nobody can say that.
Speaker 1: And by the way, we didn't have to keep jumping
Speaker 1: from one strain to another strain to another strainer to
Speaker 1: try to find him. Dad started with what he thought
Speaker 1: was the best, and we bread to the best, and
Speaker 1: we still have that same line of dogs right here
Speaker 1: and there is consistent. Is opened up a can of
Speaker 1: you know, viing a sausage. I mean, they're all just Steve.
Speaker 1: Have you could so with your history with breeding thirdbred
Speaker 1: horses and cattle and different things, are there any are
Speaker 1: there parallels? Are there anything that you learned? Well? Yes, okay,
Speaker 1: the the quarter horse people finally kind of made it
Speaker 1: okay to breed real close and nobody in the horse world.
Speaker 1: It takes too long to do. You know, nine three
Speaker 1: there in forty days for a baby colt to be
Speaker 1: born from the time it's conceived, and then you got
Speaker 1: another year before you get it all weaned and you know,
Speaker 1: started in training. Then you have another year before you
Speaker 1: find out what it's gonna do, whether it's a roping horse,
Speaker 1: a race horse, or whatever. It takes so long and
Speaker 1: so much energy and so much time too. You can't
Speaker 1: experiment like you can space with game chickens. By the way,
Speaker 1: game chickens where I still keep some around just for fun.
Speaker 1: And and they were the first people to really start
Speaker 1: learning how to breed animals. Okay, then the dogs, you
Speaker 1: can do that, because you can. You know, you get
Speaker 1: two letters pups a year. But they're afraid. There's the
Speaker 1: third red people in the quarter. Of course, people are
Speaker 1: still afraid to breed really really close. You just don't.
Speaker 1: You just don't see it happening. And I would like to.
Speaker 1: I think I'm getting too old to do it. But
Speaker 1: what I did when I took my I had a
Speaker 1: staying named Speeding Niuginski and and his dad was a
Speaker 1: famous horse from from uh He won the trouble crown
Speaker 1: in Europe. Okay. And what I did was I looked
Speaker 1: for for for mayors that were very close to him,
Speaker 1: and I took him from a slaughter truck. I was
Speaker 1: he was gonna get loaded onto hold of the slaughter
Speaker 1: and I made him the second leading stade in the
Speaker 1: state of Kansas for several years and his colts earned
Speaker 1: over a million bucks. Okay. And what I did was
Speaker 1: I bread two mayors that that had similar pedigrees to
Speaker 1: what he had. By the way, that would include Seattle,
Speaker 1: Slew and Secretariat. Okay, they came from the same family
Speaker 1: of horse. So using my knowledge of dog breeding, I
Speaker 1: and now I have another staying up there, and and
Speaker 1: I'm doing the same thing I'm trying to find. I'm
Speaker 1: trying to find clig kind of tired of reason over
Speaker 1: and pulling that we could tie them from seating. But
Speaker 1: uh but uh, you know what I'm doing with him
Speaker 1: is doing the same thing. I'm trying to find mayors
Speaker 1: that you so you took your dog breeding knowledge, and
Speaker 1: and we're gonna and we have we have a mayor
Speaker 1: right now that I'm gonna prag check money and if
Speaker 1: she's in full, we're gonna see just how far uh
Speaker 1: I mean, I think we're gonna have a tremendous horse
Speaker 1: that there's no reason for her not to Okay, and
Speaker 1: once again go back, Well, my speeding Agnski's horse, his
Speaker 1: sister won the Kentucky Oaks and she was she was
Speaker 1: purchased for three point four million dollars and took over
Speaker 1: to you know, Arab Emirates or whatever. So we we
Speaker 1: were in the right crowd at the time. But the
Speaker 1: Kansas doesn't you know, we're not real big in their
Speaker 1: red breeding up there, and most good horses, bread or
Speaker 1: bread in Kentucky. And once again, those people down are
Speaker 1: spend millions of dollars to breed and they still can't
Speaker 1: produce another their secretariat. Well, you know, people, a lot
Speaker 1: of people think they've produced another barre path of Gunner.
Speaker 1: But the truth is nobody else has. And we may neighbor,
Speaker 1: you know, we're still trying, okay, And of course Colton
Speaker 1: thinks that Buster could have still ran every step of
Speaker 1: the way with him, and guess what, we'll never know.
Speaker 1: And he might have, He really might have. But they
Speaker 1: don't come by. It's not like picking apples off a tree. Okay.
Speaker 1: There really exceptional ones of anything are are very rare,
Speaker 1: you know. And you know, and once again in on
Speaker 1: the plot boards, you know, when we've done a lot
Speaker 1: of arguing, some people say, oh my god, the dogs
Speaker 1: are so much better than they used to be in
Speaker 1: the horse are better than the used tob I said, well, secretary, record,
Speaker 1: we're set in nineteen seventy three. All three of them,
Speaker 1: the Preakness of elmat in the Kentucky Tory. They've never
Speaker 1: been touched, no one's ever run close to them. So
Speaker 1: and hey, that is a good question that I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people ask, probably on all the forums
Speaker 1: for any kind of dog, is that, Yeah, do you
Speaker 1: think the dogs are getting better? There's more good dogs.
Speaker 1: There's more good dogs because people in this day and
Speaker 1: age won't keep the junk, and a lot of times
Speaker 1: people just kept junk. A lot of people just kind
Speaker 1: of like to have a dog tied out there. But
Speaker 1: but there's I don't know where to go lay my
Speaker 1: hands on another Gunner or another Stella or another Buster
Speaker 1: or another you know, uh time X of Joe Hudson's
Speaker 1: or you know those super dogs. I don't I don't
Speaker 1: know where to go find one right this minute. Okay,
Speaker 1: I mean we're all hoping we have that we have one.
Speaker 1: But if you haven't seen exceptional, you don't know how
Speaker 1: to rate exceptional. Okay, that's that's that's something else that
Speaker 1: we say. Joe Hudson, I say the same thing. If
Speaker 1: you haven't seen it, you don't really know what you're
Speaker 1: talking about. Yeah, you think you do, So would you
Speaker 1: say that you're trying to like hold the line though,
Speaker 1: I mean, like if you think about no. But but
Speaker 1: once again, we're producing at such a high level that
Speaker 1: each person that gets them thinks it's the rest of
Speaker 1: redist dog they've ever had. Once again, the Jackpot, you
Speaker 1: know up there, Stubby Ryan, stubble Phils Jackpot is just
Speaker 1: an exceptional dog. Okay. And and they're out there there,
Speaker 1: I mean even you know, there's several of that of
Speaker 1: that generation out there. Talk to me about the differences
Speaker 1: between dogs and the literacty because you know, we all
Speaker 1: know that not every dog, I mean, even a well bred,
Speaker 1: well bred litter, not every dog is going to be
Speaker 1: a phenomenal dog phenomen as they So you know, you're
Speaker 1: trying to as a breeder. One of the key things
Speaker 1: in breeding, I believe because I've seen it in other
Speaker 1: breeders as well as that you've got to keep your
Speaker 1: eye on a whole litteral dogs. You know, a lot
Speaker 1: of guys and other different uh disciplines of dog. Uh.
Speaker 1: You might have a litter of pups and sell these
Speaker 1: pups and lose track ups, so you don't really know,
Speaker 1: you don't get that feedback. Bear hunters are very good.
Speaker 1: Big game hunters are good keeping dogs close or keeping
Speaker 1: keeping reports, getting reports back on dogs. And yeah, when
Speaker 1: I sent you know, and you can breed back to
Speaker 1: really good dogs, like, for instance, that when I got
Speaker 1: my fern from you that June, well, I was Bold
Speaker 1: in June when you ended up, you know, keeping track
Speaker 1: of Bolden June. And then you know, Bold ended up
Speaker 1: being a dog that you wanted to bring back into
Speaker 1: And so if you had just been a guy just
Speaker 1: not keeping track, you would have never known about that. No, No,
Speaker 1: I know. I when I set a pup to somebody,
Speaker 1: they have to report in you. And the truth is
Speaker 1: if they don't, then they you know, they called me
Speaker 1: back four years later. I know. You know, that's why
Speaker 1: I text you at eleven o'clock at night. And Travis
Speaker 1: Staves has always been wonderful. He you know, he just
Speaker 1: Travis said a lot of my dogs and he texts
Speaker 1: me from the tree all the time. He used to
Speaker 1: thrill my mom and dad to death. I would be
Speaker 1: in New Mexico or Alreader or Utah or West constin
Speaker 1: Michigan and call them from a tree. The dog's barking
Speaker 1: in the background, and my dad would just be thrilled
Speaker 1: to death. Mom said, you ought to see me actually
Speaker 1: like a little kid over here. You know the worst
Speaker 1: they got that bear tree. Listen to this. You can
Speaker 1: hear that just I mean, and he never got to
Speaker 1: go to a tree. Joe Hudson told me that if
Speaker 1: I would bring him up there, you know, a year
Speaker 1: before he passed away, that he would carry him to
Speaker 1: a tree. Said if if if we treat a bear,
Speaker 1: I'll carry all the way. So and I wish, I
Speaker 1: wish we would try to, you know, get a one
Speaker 1: of them travois or whatever the Indian people'head, you know,
Speaker 1: get him to the trees so you get the And
Speaker 1: to go back to what I was saying. And I
Speaker 1: don't know if there's a real question inside of this question,
Speaker 1: but like like, uh, differences in a litter, Like if
Speaker 1: you have pups, there's gonna be one of them. That's
Speaker 1: that's good. And yeah, Colton and I I'm not saying
Speaker 1: Brenda because brand has been living on his own for
Speaker 1: a long time, but Colton has been at home all
Speaker 1: this time, and we there's there's an odd and I've
Speaker 1: been asked this question, why is it that out of
Speaker 1: the eight pups in the litter, that the two that
Speaker 1: you keep are always the best. And I've seen that happens.
Speaker 1: It's because they get to run loose on the creek.
Speaker 1: They get, they get given every everything in the where
Speaker 1: and then I'm gonna I have to say it again.
Speaker 1: We don't use electricity on our dogs. We do not
Speaker 1: use it. Uh. My strain of dogs has always been
Speaker 1: wide open. Some people tell me now that they're becoming quiet,
Speaker 1: and the reason they're becoming quiet they can't stand that
Speaker 1: shock there that they still want to hunt, but they're
Speaker 1: afraid to open your mouth because they're afraid somebody's gonna
Speaker 1: bust them. You know what I'm saying, And I so
Speaker 1: what what I'm hearing you say, though, is good. You're
Speaker 1: you're letting these litters run loose. And if so, you
Speaker 1: guys are watching these dogs. Yeah, and that's why when
Speaker 1: we take them anywhere, that's why, when we take them anywhere,
Speaker 1: they're always in shape. Our dogs. You'll never see them
Speaker 1: behind because they've been running loose for so long. They're
Speaker 1: they're slender, and they're ready to get. The very first
Speaker 1: time we hunted with Joe, Jenny and Bernie and Travis
Speaker 1: and all those guys, what what whether What they wrote
Speaker 1: on the plot site was what we were so surprised about.
Speaker 1: Steve drove all night long, slept from four o'clock in
Speaker 1: the morning till seven o'clock in the morning three hours
Speaker 1: got up the next day, the dog still on the
Speaker 1: dog box and went hunting, drump loose and Steve dogs
Speaker 1: still ran on the front end, and they said, how
Speaker 1: does that happen? First off, their coon dogs, and they've
Speaker 1: been in to create all this, all the way up here.
Speaker 1: And he gets them out and let some potty and
Speaker 1: stuff a little bit, and all of a sudden they're leading. Uh.
Speaker 1: We took Nelly and Reno up there and and put
Speaker 1: down on a bear. There was seven seven seven trucks,
Speaker 1: dogs hanging out everyone and and Joe Jenny led me
Speaker 1: in there and we put those two dogs down. And
Speaker 1: I said, why do you want these coon dogs to
Speaker 1: start the bear? And let's just see what they'll do.
Speaker 1: And I did and and he said later when he
Speaker 1: was running, said, by the way, we'll never see this
Speaker 1: where he always disappears. And later that day we killed
Speaker 1: that bear. They run him out of the forest, run
Speaker 1: him up the tree. He came down two or three times,
Speaker 1: and he said, that's the first time we've ever seen
Speaker 1: this bear. We've running but we never could see. And
Speaker 1: I brought those but the once again. So you're you're
Speaker 1: keeping dogs based upon merit when they're young? What are
Speaker 1: you looking for? Because I gotta reel you in here,
Speaker 1: Steve so because we were talking about how because you
Speaker 1: guys are sending out all these dogs, and people say,
Speaker 1: how do you guys end up with the good ones?
Speaker 1: You're watching them when they're young? Yeah, what are you
Speaker 1: looking for? What are you looking for in a pub?
Speaker 1: Just the best thing in the living? Yeah? Everything? You know?
Speaker 1: I mean, what your dog bringing those dead rabbits and
Speaker 1: there's somebody's not shooting those rabbits for that dog that
Speaker 1: dogs run me into a hole and getting them, digging
Speaker 1: them out and bring them up there and kill them.
Speaker 1: But okay, the Stella's litter Jinga Darrell uh Stella sender
Speaker 1: uh Michigan Todds wonderful female might be one more anyway,
Speaker 1: at four months and three days old. I have a
Speaker 1: picture of them treat on squirrels in a bluizzard. Now
Speaker 1: I have the picture, and they're they're all treat and
Speaker 1: nur's about six inches of snow on the ground and
Speaker 1: it's snowing hard, and they are locating a con in
Speaker 1: the top of a cottonwood tree. So there's not a
Speaker 1: dead couirl a squirrel, a squirrel, not a bear, not
Speaker 1: a not a mountain lion, but a dang squirrel. Why
Speaker 1: was a squirrel at that? So as a breeder, you're
Speaker 1: you're watching there every day, Yeah, I see you're watching
Speaker 1: on a given day. I handle my pups ten times,
Speaker 1: twelve times. You know what I'm saying. I mean they
Speaker 1: were they go with me, you know, they and and
Speaker 1: um the best pup out of the Reno litter, out
Speaker 1: of Banjo Cindy. He got killed when he's four and
Speaker 1: a half months old. And his name was Banjo too.
Speaker 1: I can't believe I named a pup after his daddy already.
Speaker 1: Banjo was only fourteen months old when he died, and
Speaker 1: this puff was four months a half months old. Dad
Speaker 1: came in the driveway, brought it, brought a coon in
Speaker 1: a cage. We put it out there. The pupps had
Speaker 1: a scream and fit about it. Uh once again to
Speaker 1: that whole litter, and they all turned out to be
Speaker 1: fantastic dog. So when we got all done, and when
Speaker 1: Dad took out there in the old Chevy pick up,
Speaker 1: he threw that coon the back of that thing. And
Speaker 1: he come back in about ten minutes, and I said,
Speaker 1: what's the better? He said, look at this pup. He said,
Speaker 1: this pup was tied onto my bumper. He said, I
Speaker 1: drove halfway to town. He said, this pup won't quit,
Speaker 1: and and and and when he took the pup out,
Speaker 1: the pup run around behind the pick up again and
Speaker 1: start baying on that tail gate that pick up. Now,
Speaker 1: the other pups were bark a little bit, but this
Speaker 1: pup went crazy. Well, that pup tried to take a
Speaker 1: female away from a full grown male dog and was
Speaker 1: killed right there, four and a half months old. But
Speaker 1: he was he was in the Dad said, that's the
Speaker 1: next very pass gunna right there. So I had already
Speaker 1: picked that pup out of that litter to be my replacement, okay,
Speaker 1: and then when he died, Reno stepped up. Okay. But
Speaker 1: but once again, when you get to see it there,
Speaker 1: it's it's unfair advantage for us to be able to
Speaker 1: do this, but that's how we're able to. So you
Speaker 1: don't you're not selling pups when they're six weeks old,
Speaker 1: you know, I just can't. I can't stand to because
Speaker 1: how you don't know you don't know what you got,
Speaker 1: so you like to sell him at what or you're
Speaker 1: not selling five five or six months? Attributed him at
Speaker 1: five or six months, And that's good. That's a good
Speaker 1: word for you after you've watched him. Oh yeah, because
Speaker 1: I can tell you I can already tell you exactly
Speaker 1: what's gonna what's gonna happen, you know, I can tell
Speaker 1: I can tell you that that little ferns gonna start
Speaker 1: trading and she's gonna start treating and all that sort
Speaker 1: of stuff just run away. So yeah, okay, well, and
Speaker 1: that's a that's a notable thing with uh for a
Speaker 1: dog breeder to be able to do that, to be
Speaker 1: able to watch the dogs that long and you learn
Speaker 1: so much. You know, what I hear you saying, is
Speaker 1: that as because we're you know, on this we're trying
Speaker 1: to talk about breeding big game dogs, is that you've
Speaker 1: got sixty years of history and you've you've noted different
Speaker 1: characteristics about these dogs that and the best ones, the
Speaker 1: best ones from each generation. There were certain traits like
Speaker 1: like Buster, there were certain traits that you you want
Speaker 1: more of those? You know, I want ten more like
Speaker 1: that right there? You know, instead of saying well, I
Speaker 1: guess I'll try to cross and see if I get
Speaker 1: one good puff. That's the way you do. And and
Speaker 1: once again, when you can't do it, then you should quit.
Speaker 1: And and some people some people won't quit. What the
Speaker 1: reputation that the Bluff Creek line has um is consistency.
Speaker 1: And you know exactly exactly you get you get ups
Speaker 1: even like me, uh several years ago, didn't We described
Speaker 1: this on the last podcast. But I have two dogs
Speaker 1: that I got directly from you, and uh and I
Speaker 1: described my dog to a guy and he knew it
Speaker 1: was a Buff Creek dog and he could have told
Speaker 1: me the same thing, and he just said, most of
Speaker 1: those dogs are gonna be like that, you know. And
Speaker 1: uh so so producing that consistency is a significant thing
Speaker 1: with anything. By the way, if you can be consistent
Speaker 1: at whatever you do, if you're a basketball player and
Speaker 1: you can shoot three poinners consistently, that's that's a big deal,
Speaker 1: you know, instead of just saying, hey, I hit one
Speaker 1: last game. You know, so, consistency is extremely important. But
Speaker 1: once again, the only way to be consistent is to
Speaker 1: is to breed your dogs so tightly that there's no
Speaker 1: escape tunnels. There's no way of of of losing that
Speaker 1: stuff unless and unless it's unless it's a frequent nature
Speaker 1: accident or something. You know, we can't have this podcast
Speaker 1: too without hearing you say what you're breeding for, Steve.
Speaker 1: And and let me say that, I I believe that
Speaker 1: you're breeding for a really balanced town, a natural balanced
Speaker 1: town that's got a good nose, that's fast, that's gritty
Speaker 1: enough to pressure a bear, but not so greaty to
Speaker 1: get exert exactly, um, that has intelligence, intelligence and locating
Speaker 1: well smaller framed dog. And then but you I want
Speaker 1: to hear, I want to hear you say. You just
Speaker 1: said it every bit of itself. And I'm only gonna
Speaker 1: just say no. But you you have to have why
Speaker 1: would you want a dog? Why would you want a
Speaker 1: dog that that can't outstrike the other people's dogs and
Speaker 1: can't out run the other people's dogs, and he's just
Speaker 1: gonna quit and come out, But or you go ahead
Speaker 1: and find them dead on the ground. I don't want
Speaker 1: that either. And so you want that dog to live
Speaker 1: tenures so you can have a lot of fun with
Speaker 1: it and reproduce. Uh, you know you don't want a
Speaker 1: coward dog. But but I want. I want. I want
Speaker 1: something difference than a lot of true bear hunters do.
Speaker 1: And some of them just want so much grit, and
Speaker 1: they they're you know, they're happy about about the vet bills,
Speaker 1: and I'm not. Okay, I can't be happy about vet
Speaker 1: bills because I can't pay them, Okay, So and then
Speaker 1: I just want. I just thought the point I was
Speaker 1: gonna try to tell you about it going. The hardest
Speaker 1: animal in the world to raise, to me, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm talking. A racehorse has to run a milk how
Speaker 1: has produced bilk. A fat hog has a show pig
Speaker 1: even has to just look good in the ring and
Speaker 1: then someone butchers him. But a hound has who has
Speaker 1: the nose to strike cold and the brains to run
Speaker 1: a track, and the the ability to pick up a
Speaker 1: loose and the the ability to locate, and the fact
Speaker 1: that they'll stay treed for a long, long, long periods
Speaker 1: of time, even under a rough tree, with rough with
Speaker 1: other rough dogs. And then when the game comes down,
Speaker 1: or if a dame the game does come down, the
Speaker 1: grit to stop it and hold it for hours and
Speaker 1: hours and hours, the endurance to be able to run
Speaker 1: for hours and hours and hours and and the toughness
Speaker 1: for deep water, cold temperatures, rough feet. I mean, the
Speaker 1: list goes on. There's no other animal in the world
Speaker 1: that has to be read to such a consistency of
Speaker 1: high caliber as what a trailhound, a big game hound
Speaker 1: is into me and and and so far no one
Speaker 1: has contradicted that statement, by the way. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: a show dog has to look pretty in the ring,
Speaker 1: you know, but that's all. He doesn't have to doesn't
Speaker 1: have to bark. So there's more specific traits that have
Speaker 1: to guess what that's your point that is, okay, And
Speaker 1: even a voice, a voice loud enough that you can
Speaker 1: hear him, and and and also a natural stream. You
Speaker 1: gotta have all these things that if there's one I'm missing. Okay. Now,
Speaker 1: once again, my dad did not invent that trait, and
Speaker 1: I didn't invent that trade, and every wellams didn't, but
Speaker 1: we knew where to go get him from the people
Speaker 1: who did, Okay, And what we were lucky enough to
Speaker 1: do is get that first breathing stock. And we we
Speaker 1: have been able to hold onto dogs that do everything
Speaker 1: I just told you all this time, and we didn't
Speaker 1: inve any of it, but we know how to hang
Speaker 1: onto do gut gut feeling and kind of stepping outside
Speaker 1: the normal way that some people breed animals. You know. So,
Speaker 1: but but never never never never stepped down, never stepped
Speaker 1: backwards and think, well, I'm gonna try this because you
Speaker 1: know this might work. I mean, try it. But if
Speaker 1: it doesn't work, please don't rebreath that, don't you know,
Speaker 1: just let it go. Yeah, let me. I'm gonna try
Speaker 1: to summarize, Coulton. You can, you can help me here.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm trying. I'm gonna try to summarize what I've
Speaker 1: heard you so is that you well, family line breeding
Speaker 1: or in breeding is a good thing if if done right,
Speaker 1: you you're never gonna produce traits out of a dog
Speaker 1: that it doesn't already have in it. Um. I've heard
Speaker 1: you say that you've got to you've got to breed.
Speaker 1: You've gotta inside of your breeding program, you've got to
Speaker 1: have access to the best dogs of the litters. And
Speaker 1: you've been able to do that by watching them for
Speaker 1: the first six months of their life, letting them run free,
Speaker 1: seeing how they respond to all the game that are
Speaker 1: running around your house. I mean, so you're you're not
Speaker 1: You're not having to see him chase a bear to
Speaker 1: know that he will chase a bear. Hold On, don't
Speaker 1: stop me. Hold On. There's three and then um, the
Speaker 1: fourth one is you can always amend a mistake in
Speaker 1: breeding by just not breeding again with those dogs, But
Speaker 1: you can never get back a dog that passes away
Speaker 1: that you never bred. You said you'll never You'll never
Speaker 1: regret you, You'll never you The only thing you regret
Speaker 1: is the crosses that you didn't make exactly so. And
Speaker 1: then long periods of time too. I mean, like this
Speaker 1: is like you you've you you're seventy years old, and
Speaker 1: you've been doing this for well, I mean you've been
Speaker 1: around it your whole life, right, and so just you've
Speaker 1: got to evaluate these things based over long, long periods
Speaker 1: of time and experience. Those four things are kind of
Speaker 1: big ones so much. You know, if you if you're
Speaker 1: if your experienced seeing those dogs in the woods every day,
Speaker 1: you kind of know what you're looking well. And you know,
Speaker 1: maybe a fifth thing too, that I heard you say
Speaker 1: that maybe needs a little bit of clarification is that
Speaker 1: you are looking for physical traits. I mean, like you said,
Speaker 1: like like a black a darker plot is what the
Speaker 1: Bluff Creek dogs. Historically, if your dogs have been they
Speaker 1: call them creakers anymore that you know Joe Hudder, Joe,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, Joe, Joe Walker, and he's dead. They said, well,
Speaker 1: this is like a creaker here and you can tell.
Speaker 1: And so for your you're not saying that the only
Speaker 1: good plots are black. That's not what I'm saying. So
Speaker 1: you're saying from your strain of dogs over since the
Speaker 1: years of evaluation, the best dogs were black. So why
Speaker 1: would you And you're saying, but dark, dark, brown, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: brown or black. You're right, So why would you breed
Speaker 1: to dog that wasn't that and expect to get But
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, okay, but once again, if you have
Speaker 1: a lighter brittle dog, uh, then breed to a real
Speaker 1: dark brintle dog and then keep the darker pops. You know,
Speaker 1: just brought the bat. When Colt went out there and
Speaker 1: sorted to see that litter that day, he sorted too
Speaker 1: light brintle males out and the three three female uh
Speaker 1: I think there was yeah, three or four, there was
Speaker 1: three females, and he sorted those pups out and only
Speaker 1: he left was five black, four black brittle pups, okay,
Speaker 1: And he looked through them and look through them, and
Speaker 1: pretty soon he picked up this one. He looked at
Speaker 1: me and I didn't I didn't bat my eyes, and
Speaker 1: he laid it back down. He picked up the next
Speaker 1: one over. He said, this one right here, and I
Speaker 1: said that too. That's that's the he said, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: call him buster. I said, that's fine, you just call
Speaker 1: him whatever you want to call him. Uh, well, that's uh.
Speaker 1: I think those five things and we could those that's
Speaker 1: what I'm here. And you say, which is is well, super,
Speaker 1: Start with the best you can find, Maintain the best
Speaker 1: you can find. Never be fooled, never ever, ever be
Speaker 1: fooled about a dog. If if if you're a dog,
Speaker 1: you think he's the greatest thing in the world, and
Speaker 1: you hunt with something that's way way better than you're
Speaker 1: probably don't have the best dog in the world, you know,
Speaker 1: so so you know yeah, And it's it's it's it's
Speaker 1: it's simpler. It's simpler than it seems. But most people,
Speaker 1: almost everybody, wants to change everything they get. They want
Speaker 1: to dog people want to change the colors, change the
Speaker 1: size chains the mouth, change this, and those old those
Speaker 1: old people had perfected. Don't change anything, don't change anything
Speaker 1: at all. Yeah. I heard you say that one time,
Speaker 1: and that you said, don't try to change your dog. Yeah,
Speaker 1: don't go get the dog. You can't. Yeah, you can't
Speaker 1: change your line of dogs. You just you know, if
Speaker 1: you get them like And once again, there's been some
Speaker 1: major strains that have been crossed together that both of
Speaker 1: them were really good lines. But very few times does
Speaker 1: it improve over either one of the strains. And in
Speaker 1: other words, I like a little different dogs. Somebody about
Speaker 1: else might have dogs that do just like mine, but
Speaker 1: maybe they're dogs would be really gritty, and maybe they're
Speaker 1: spend a lot of time at the bed places, and
Speaker 1: and I that's just a that's a day out of hunting.
Speaker 1: And that's you know, you're that's that's that's just not good. Now.
Speaker 1: The dude pup that I raised, very intelligent pup out
Speaker 1: of Butch and Stella, and he's in he's in a
Speaker 1: ventanry hospital in Idaho, right, and he got caught by
Speaker 1: a bead bear. But we don't it's really steep up there.
Speaker 1: I'm wondered he wouldn't in a canyon. I'll find out.
Speaker 1: And he couldn't get away because he normally you know,
Speaker 1: nips and nips and nips and bis and bass bass
Speaker 1: for our star. But he hadn't been caught that bad,
Speaker 1: but he got caught bad. So yeah, Colton thoughts on breeding.
Speaker 1: Final thoughts here before we close down. When you get
Speaker 1: when you get Steve heard talking about reading better. That's
Speaker 1: many words. I think one thing that was left out
Speaker 1: to it you had asked it before. When you're looking
Speaker 1: at the litter of pups too, I think that you
Speaker 1: you also look for extreme brain for a dog when
Speaker 1: you have a literal pups and out there, you know,
Speaker 1: you have some trying to you know, eat butterflies, and
Speaker 1: you know, kind of smelling the other dogs, you know,
Speaker 1: running around, but you kind of just have something that
Speaker 1: just kind of sit back and and have that look
Speaker 1: of out him, you know. And then when you you
Speaker 1: have all have them all together and stuff, and you know,
Speaker 1: there's just certain things that you look for, like that
Speaker 1: that show, that show that showed showed the intelligence of
Speaker 1: a Dogsbuster, when I looked at Buster's litter, Buster didn't
Speaker 1: you didn't. He didn't see him doing anything goofy, but
Speaker 1: he just looked straight at you just like he was.
Speaker 1: You know, he was ready for hunting when you turn
Speaker 1: him loose, when you when you turn him loose, and
Speaker 1: we were getting ready to turn him into a bear tree.
Speaker 1: You didn't. He wasn't sniffing dogs, he wasn't barking at
Speaker 1: random stuff, he wasn't sitting. He was focused, extremely focused
Speaker 1: on on on bear and that's what sets him apart.
Speaker 1: So I think I think brains has an extreme, extremely
Speaker 1: big impact on on when you're when you're picking out
Speaker 1: the right dog out of a litter. So yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's good, really good. Well closing thoughts, Steve Well, thank
Speaker 1: you for having us. I enjoyed talking and and I
Speaker 1: once again young people or even old people, people that
Speaker 1: that are in the need for something really special should
Speaker 1: know that there's still places out there to get it.
Speaker 1: And I'm not just talking about that bluff Greek you know,
Speaker 1: protection candidate. I'm talking about there are there are still
Speaker 1: people out there that are raising really good dogs. And
Speaker 1: and don't just because you can get something for fifty
Speaker 1: dollars don't mean you should go get it for figet dollars.
Speaker 1: And to try to find if you really want something good,
Speaker 1: expect you know, expect to go to go meet somebody
Speaker 1: and then ask a lot of questions. But but you know,
Speaker 1: there's still people out there produced really good dogs, and
Speaker 1: everybody deserves a really good dog. If if if you
Speaker 1: deserve a good dog, then then you know, if go
Speaker 1: find it. And and uh, it's like like when you
Speaker 1: got firm. Okay, you know you guys deserve your you
Speaker 1: and your family. I thought you deserved a really good dog,
Speaker 1: So I sent you a really good dog. And she
Speaker 1: turned out to be that way. That's just the way
Speaker 1: she turned out to me. That's what she was supposed
Speaker 1: to do, you know. And then and then Todd Boswell
Speaker 1: up there. He showed me some pictures on the flock
Speaker 1: news side and there was a lot of off color
Speaker 1: dogs and I made a little comment. I said, uh,
Speaker 1: where's the brintle in this picture? And he was not
Speaker 1: very happy with that, and he said, well, I'll be
Speaker 1: honest with you, I can't find one that I like. Okay.
Speaker 1: So I sat there out though. That's not right, So
Speaker 1: I said, I called him, said, Todd, I got a pop.
Speaker 1: I said, it's out of Nelly and Reno, and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna send you this pup. Well, how much. I said,
Speaker 1: I'm giving it to your kids. Well, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I guess so, and I sent it up there and
Speaker 1: he still calls me. He still says, Mr Herd, I
Speaker 1: am so indebted to you. I am so indebted because
Speaker 1: I my kids and me finally got to see what
Speaker 1: everybody else was talking about. And he said, I can't
Speaker 1: go into stories because I got a lot of friends.
Speaker 1: I can't tell you what all I've seen. But he said,
Speaker 1: it's incredible. So that's Stella's litter. Okay, God, I wish
Speaker 1: I had them back mercy. Anyway, I don't wanna get tarried.
Speaker 1: I want to get teared up here. So anyway, yeah, great, Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks again guys for it. Thank you, thank you for
Speaker 1: driving all the way out here. And this has been
Speaker 1: it has been super fun. And uh yeah, I just
Speaker 1: want to reiterate too, I said at the beginning, I
Speaker 1: said it again. I've seen a lot of people in
Speaker 1: the hound world. They're afraid to just say what they
Speaker 1: think because they're afraid it will come across as arrogant
Speaker 1: or like they know it all. Man, it does no
Speaker 1: good to to well, if you're trying to have a conversation,
Speaker 1: for somebody to hold back, and you know, when you're
Speaker 1: not afraid that they're not saying, and there's no I
Speaker 1: can't lie to you, So there's no reason for me
Speaker 1: to tell you something I don't believe. And the truth
Speaker 1: is everything I told to you, I do believe. And
Speaker 1: it has got me through so many generations. And I
Speaker 1: hope for at least two truthtre more I've got, I've
Speaker 1: got across, I've got a special cross coming, and I
Speaker 1: you know, I just I hope it works. I think
Speaker 1: it was. We're gonna use the last semen of the Butch,
Speaker 1: the less strow the Butch seemen, and we've got a
Speaker 1: female out of Stella. I don't have her, but we're
Speaker 1: gonna get her back. And I think we're gonna have
Speaker 1: another one the supercrosses well. And and here's the thing
Speaker 1: that I want to say too, is that I could
Speaker 1: have another. You know, there there are other there are
Speaker 1: other guys that have had long standing strains and dogs
Speaker 1: that have had success, tremendous success, and they did it
Speaker 1: their own way, and then they might be setting here
Speaker 1: and say something slightly different. They may hear this and say, Nope,
Speaker 1: that didn't work for me. What he said, And so
Speaker 1: people have the right to hear this information and evaluate it.
Speaker 1: Take take what works for them. What you're saying, it's
Speaker 1: worked for you. That's what it worked for me, worked
Speaker 1: for you. And I'm just telling you I'm late. That's
Speaker 1: how I laid it out. And I studied one dog
Speaker 1: and one pedigree, and I'm still here from my cheane
Speaker 1: seveno until now from from land there on the floor,
Speaker 1: Brandon was you were born seventy Okay. He was just
Speaker 1: a little cheeny baby when I did all this, and
Speaker 1: uh and it's still after all these years from that
Speaker 1: one old dog taught me that much. So keep your
Speaker 1: keep your mind open and learn learned what you can it.
Speaker 1: It worked for me, So it worked. We might name
Speaker 1: this podcast it worked for me. I like that. I
Speaker 1: like that. I like that. Yeah. Well, okay, as we
Speaker 1: always say at the end of the podcast, keep the
Speaker 1: wild places wild because that's where the bears live exactly.
Speaker 1: And then if it's legal, run hounds. You can turn
Speaker 1: your plots after him. Okay, good to you.