Retriever Summertime Training Basics

In this episode I (Justin) talk about summer time (off-season) retriever/waterfowl training. It's all about going back to the basics. Going back to the basics and re-affirming your retriever foundational training, makes for fire proof upcoming waterfowl season. We talk, Sit, Stay, Eye Contact, Place board, bumpers, whistle sit ext....so sit back and enjoy!

Sponsor's:

• Kevin's Fine Outdoor Gear and Apparel
• John Kholer & Assoc.
• Eagle Ranch Kennels
• Flat Creek Lodge

Transcript

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Hey, I'm Justin. And I'm Debbie. And we are the host for the Cleve Outdoor Podcast Channel where we talk all things upland and waterfast. Sit back and enjoy. Hey, hey, hey. This is Justin again with Cleve Outdoor Podcast. Thanks for tuning in to another episode. This is going to be a solo ride episode. Debbie is at work still today, and I had some free time in during today, and I decided I wanted to record another podcast for you. And I know it's been a little bit uh since the last podcast dropped, and I want to keep the audience kind of up to date with everything that's been going on. But before we do, I want to give a big shout out to all of our uh podcast channel sponsors, first and foremost, John Kohler and Associates, uh, based out of um Tallahassee, Florida, but really, I guess, in the Lamont area where his plantation is of Lick Skillet. But John Kohler and Associates, he specializes in recreational reality. Um so if you're looking for any type of recreational property, whether it be for hunting, whether it be just for a uh plantation or for uh maybe a new home. I mean, sometimes people purchase recreational real uh real estate just for a home purpose, but it uh primarily they're typically used for um recreational use, such as quail hunting or upland hunting or waterfowl hunting or deer or turkey or whatever have you. So if you're in the North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, Florida area, he does all over, uh, but those are the areas where he is most potent at. And from my understanding, he's one of, if not the leading recreational realtors in the U.S. of A. So you want to definitely check out John Culler and Associates. Next is Kevin's Fine Outdoors Gear and Apparel. They're based out of, well, their first brick and mortar was in Tallahassee, Florida. They opened another one up, downtown Thomasville, Georgia. And um, if you've listened to my podcast um and you haven't made a uh a trip there, I'm telling you, you're missing out on an amazing experience on um or in in the realm of waterfowl, uh, upland, um, safari, hunting in general, anything for uh ammunition, guns, clothing, but not just on your hunting needs, but even home decor. Um, man, it is it is crazy. You can go to uh kevin'scatalog.com and everything that's in the store, you can check it out there. That's kevin's catalog.com. Uh, it's called Kevin's Find Outdoor Gear and Apparel. Next is Flat Creek Lodge. It's where I've spent um 98% of my guides this past guiding year. They are an amazing, an amazing lodge hunting preserve in the Swainsboro, Georgia area, just uh kind of northwest of Statesboro. I think they're about an hour and 10 minutes, if that, away from Augusta, Georgia, so south, southeast of Augusta. And uh they just had a whole bunch of people, because Matt the Masters was last week, and they just had a whole bunch of people stay there and drive the hour to get to Augusta to watch the Masters. So you can, if you're looking just for a getaway, a weekend getaway with your family, they got 17 ponds on the property stocked, amazing fishing. So if you're not even into the hunting world, whether it be um upland hunting or deer hunting, um, you can just book it, book a room, book a lodge for the weekend with your family. Um, man, it is so beautiful there. They also do wedding venues, um, they support corporate um reservations as well. There's been a lot of people there that have uh corporate businesses that have booked it out to do some of their annual meetings or semi-annual meetings. So if that's kind of up your alley as well, you'll want to check them out. But one of the main things we do is quail hunting. Quail hunting is, man, top notch. The dogs are amazing. The guides are great. Um, and um, I can speak from experience. Although, yes, I am a guide there, and I have my dogs that are there, but uh the other guide and guides that uh run there with their own dogs, but also the preserved dogs, it is just a phenomenal, phenomenal hunt. It's not like your typical preserve release program, although we do release some birds if needed. We do have a lot of wild coves there, and the texture of the land, the landscape is some rolling hills and long-leafed pines. It is just, man, it is beautiful. Um, it's not your typical flat, flatland hunting, although there are some areas that are like that, but um a lot of it has a lot of texture to the land, rolling hills as we're hunting. The coveys don't get up every 20, 30 yards. It feels like you're actually on a real hunt. And that's the experience that Flat Creek Lodge wants, and that's something that we will keep on doing. The guides and the owners working together hand in hand uh to make sure that our experience is just like you're hunting, even though it's at a preserve. It's not, again, I can't over exaggerate this enough, is that it's not like you're going 25, 30 yards, the dog is pointing, five, six, eight, ten birds get up in a covey, you shoot them, and you go another, you know, 15, 20 yards, another covey's there. A lot of your places are like that. Um, it is a real hunt experience. Um, it is beautiful. So check them out, Flat Creek Lodge. The blunts own it. They are an amazing people, Christian folk. They are really good. Last but least, but not the least, I save sometimes the best for last, is Eagle Ranch Kennels. Brad Trouer and his wife um do an amazing job at breeding quality pedigree German short hair pointers. I know because I own one. I know because I I stay in touch with him. He lives in Statesboro, which is only an 18-minute drive from my house now. I used to live in the Gulf of Florida around the Keaton Beach Steenhatchie area, but now I've God has brought my wife and I up here. I pastor Elam Egypt Baptist Church, and um man, it's it's just great. It's great to uh be that close to him. I had purchased my short hair from him um just shy of two years ago, and we've only been up here nine months now, so I just God brought that together, and it's awesome because now I'm only 18 minutes away away from him. My wife doesn't like that too much because that means I'm really close to dogs and puppies, but uh nut but nonetheless, they produce amazing, pedigree, proven, proven, pedigreed germatured hair pointers and the Navda world and the AKC hunt test world, but yet their demeanor make amazing family home dogs as well. In fact, I just went up there for a puppy pickup day, not for myself, um, uh, but for somebody else, a guy that I know. I referred him there. He lives close to me, and um, I'm gonna help train his dog, his short hair, and went there on a puppy pickup day this past weekend and just got to relive the experience all over again from when I picked up my short hair from Eagle Ranch Kennels from Brad and his wife. Um, and it they just do a great job. You leave with a three-ring binder that is full of puppy how-tos. They are all chipped, micro-chipped, uh, they're already certified. They, you know, you get your AKC information. Um, a lot of his breeds uh or a lot of his uh puppies um also are already registered. Not all of them, but some of them, depending on the litter, are registered, pre-registered with Navda already. So um, I mean, Brad knows what he's doing, and uh he has proven champions, champion bloodlines, um, but they're not your crazy German shirt her pointers. When they when they're at home, their demeanor is just sweet and and um something you would allow to be off the leash, out of the crate, inside your home. So you definitely want to check out Eagle Ranch Kennels in Statesboro, Georgia. Well, here is today's podcast episode title Retriever Summertime Dog Training. I want to touch on some things here in this episode in regards to summertime dog training, but specifically on in the waterfowl retriever world. Um, as you know, some of my retrievers, I have crossed into also being flushing dogs and also being, well, I guess you they could still still consider flushing dogs, but pheasant dogs as well. Um, I do that. I don't I don't let my pointers or my short hair I uh run on pheasants because uh as of right now, because they're still working towards some of their um hunting tests. And a lot of times, if you've ever been pheasant hunting, they are one of the birds that will run a lot. And your your pointing dog will get on point on it, and then the scent will get less and less and less, and it the dog will start creeping forward. There's nothing wrong with that unless you're running hunt tests at the same time. It tends to kind of ruin the dog progress. Um, and so um, I'm trying to still work for some of the uh uh higher level uh senior and master hunter uh um tests uh in the AKC world with uh my dogs, and so um they got to be steady to wing, shot, and fall. They also have to back. And a lot of times if you run them on pheasants during that time period, it kind of reverses the training. Um and that's just my experience, okay? Um I I am I am I am not the the the best top, you know, top tier, top five, ten trainers in the world. But just speaking from experience with this, um my own experience is that you tend to have to do a lot more dog training to keep your dog steady to wing shot and fall, um, especially on the point as well, when you're working them on pheasants. They want to work the pheasant, which is awesome when you're out pheasant hunting. My dogs will do that, but just for the time period right now, since I'm working them towards senior and master, um, I want to keep them away from creeping. But um back to it, my my um two of my three retrievers are now flushing and also um pheasant dogs. They quarter fields, they work within 10 to 15 yards of us. I taught them to quarter fields, and um, so that so they do that. This is just strictly, though, working on your retriever as far as it comes to um the waterfowl world. So uh uh I've named it retriever summertime dog training, but how I typically do it is I go back to the basics. Now, a lot of times, sometimes it depends on where you are living at. There are some hunt tests that'll run all summer long. Um, I don't need to do that with my dogs anymore, but um my dogs will be ready to rock and roll come a handful of months down the road road when um duck season's back in, and I want to make sure that they're ready to go. How I do that is I go back to the foundational, fundamental basics of retriever work. Uh, it doesn't matter if your retriever has got all the titles in the world. Um I think going back to the basics, and you'll he and you'll hear what the basics are here today, I think that that is I think it's smart. Um, and uh not just in the summertime, but we do tend to have a lot more time when our dogs aren't actively working or hunting. And so I always like to go in the in the off season, go back to the basics. So the first basic foundational work that I do with my dogs, and I do it j just well, pretty much in this order. Um, I and I work a week to two weeks with them on each one of these. I don't do multiple things, I just go to the to one training session focused on one thing. They all build on top of each other, so by the time you get to session two, three, they're still doing what you did on the first day or the first session, but um it's it's kind of a compounding training session, but you really want to focus on keeping it simple back to the basics during this time period. The first thing is just your typical sit, your your typical sit work. Um I I work with my dogs with uh treats, uh, well, not really treats, dog food. Your dogs just by the way, your dogs don't know the difference really in treats and dog food, um, especially you have a good quality dog food. So my wife, I was uh when I was at the puppy pickup day with this uh couple and their kids, uh, I told a wife, I said, just be prepared to find dog food in your washer or dryer. Because my because I told him my wife is constantly getting on me for having clothes being washed, and then she's finding dog food inside there because I always put a handful of dog food in my pocket every day. I'm always training my dogs at random. I'll be walking through my house and just look at one of my dogs and tell my dogs to sit. And they'll sit and I'll walk away and I'll tell them here, or I'll call their name and they'll run to me. I'll tell them to sit again or heal, and then I'll give them a dog treat. And by the end of the day, I've done forgotten how many dog tr dog dog foods are still inside of my pocket. And of course, that's how when I go to bed at night and I change clothes. Um, and uh those clothes throughout the day that I've wore are now in the hamper. Yeah, dog food tends to stay inside of there. But that's that's uh I always do that even during hunting season. I just take a half or handful of food and just drop it in my pocket and keep it there. And at random throughout the day, I just stop and just do some drills whenever I'm around the house. If I'm coming home from church, on the office or whatever, or maybe I've been counseling or coming home from the gym, whatever it is. I I just stop and sit or stay or whatever the case may be. So the first basic fundamental training is just to sit. Work on your sit for a week. Just make that your focus to where you have your dog sit. And then have your dog not just sit, but sit and stay there. Not just for five seconds, ten seconds. Try to work up to 30 seconds a minute. And I know that sometimes that takes, you know, after a while, you know, you you got things you gotta do. But when you're in a nothing is worse. Two things I can't stand in a duck blind, or a duck boat, or if you're not in a blind, and whatever the case may be. It's just a duck, uh duck hunting scenario. It's a dog that whines, can't stand that. And a dog that is constantly moving around, getting off his placeboard, not sitting, and is jittery and moving around. This is why the going back to the basics is so important. Reinforce your sit. And an old trainer taught me this. Your dogs don't understand full sentences or even fragments. Use one to two words with your dogs when you're training them. Sit. Now come here, boy, now have a sit, you know. No, no, no, sit. Stay. Heal. Call their names. Use one to two word commands. Dogs aren't humans in the mindset of them understanding English or whatever language you speak, and you start talking to them in sentence or sentence fragments. They don't understand it. In fact, we believe it confuses a dog. So keep it simple. One to two word commands. So sit. Let your dog sit and stay there. And I guess that would be a two commands at the same time. Sit, stay. Sit and stay. And work on that just for a week. A couple times a day. After you've, you know, after they've held, you know, sit and they've stayed for 30 seconds, call their name, let them come to you. If you worked on heal with them already, you can say heal, let them sit down next to you, give them a treat, and walk away. And about a minute later, or maybe another rep right after that, you look at them, sit. Stay. And just pause and hold that awkward silence. If your dog moves, sometimes I'll use the word sit again. Sometimes I go uh and then just sit. I've also learned that you get in the dog's space, meaning if they're not sitting and you got an antsy pup or something where their butt's wagging, or they want to not fully sit, you walk up slowly, nice and tall, hands behind your back, and you and you put yourself square in front of them. If they move to the left a little bit, you just keep on getting in front of them, and you get a foot away from them, and you're over top of them. Sit. Sit. When they sit, stay. And then just pause, don't do anything and wait. And after 30 seconds to a minute, you call their name. Or whatever your release command is. I say here. Or I normally use their name. I'll say reef or whatever the case may be, or cove, or or you know, or skull, or grizzly, and they'll come to me. So that's the first week. Sit and stay work. Sit and stay for a week. Just go back to that basics. Second one that builds on top of that is I'll work on eye contact. Um, another same old trainer taught me this is spend time just sitting with your dog on the front porch of your house, on the back porch of your house, especially, well, uh a couple weeks ago, but it's still happening right now. Birds are flying everywhere, primarily all across the U.S. They're just, it's spring going into summertime, and birds are flying everywhere. You want your because we're talking about waterfall dogs right now. You want your dogs to learn to look, not just to be staring at you in a duck blind. So just have sessions in the evening or early morning, whenever you're off work or before you go to work, and just sit for five minutes. Have them sit on the steps with you and just sit there, pet them, and just start looking your head, looking around and just use, you know, just look. Let your dogs get used to sitting with you and looking up and looking out and looking for objects that are flying around. Number one, it's a distraction to them. So if they move or they try to get up, no, it's uh sit. And that way you can work again on that sit command. Because again, nothing's worse than a whining dog or a moving dog in the blind. So spend some time with that. Spend some time getting on your back porch or front porch, whatever you have, and just let the dog get used to looking out and looking up. Plus, it's your dog, it's your buddy. You should want to spend some time with your dog, other than kenneling and doing work or you laying on the couch with your dog, and that's all great stuff. But it's also your buddy. I mean, depending on what type of breed you got, you got to go anywhere from 10 to 14 years, maybe 15 years with your dog. I mean, spend some quality time with your dog, and especially if it's a waterfowl dog, man. I mean, when you're in the blind, I've taught all my dogs this from a very early age. They sit with me on the back porch. And when you, if you've hunted with me or got it with me, or you're my friend and you went hunting, you'll notice every one of my dogs, when they're sitting quietly, no whining, in the blind, they're looking up and their head is moving side to side and they're looking for objects flying. They're looking for birds flying. Well, ducks flying around. And it also makes that also makes for a good retriever because they can, they end up marking birds a lot better because they're watching the bird fly. Remember, bumper work is phenomenal for your dogs, but ducks don't come from right next to you and fly up in the air. They're in the sky, coming towards you, from behind you, in front of you, from your left, from your right, diagonal. Birds don't, ducks don't come from your hip and are thrown up and out. I think that's a big mistake that most people make when training their retrievers is that they don't spend enough time letting their dogs learn how to look up and to look out. They only spend time bumper training with them. Even with a buddy, I'm telling you, I mean, I've been to hunt tests and a couple of my retrievers have really good eyesight. I don't know what it is, I don't know really how far they can see, but I mean they got really good eyesight and can see pretty far. And they know ducks don't come from a from another blind when a bumper is being thrown out there for a retrieve. They know the difference in it. But the reason why I believe they know the difference is because we spend time looking up and looking out, getting the dog just to sit next to me and watching for things flying around in the sky. So spend time doing that. And that's something you can do throughout this basic training throughout the summertime. Have the dog sit next to you and just watch for birds. But after you've done the sit and stay for a while, eye contact. I use the word look. When my dog sits when they're puppies and I want to transition from sit and stay, the next command I do is sit, stay, and I'll say look. And of course, when their puppies are looking everywhere, but as soon as their eyes look up and they hit my eyes, good, and I give them a treat. And I just repeat that and repeat that. Sit, stay, look. As soon as their eyes meet mine, boom, I give them a treat. And after a while, sometimes they just sit and they'll automatically. Look at you. But you want to work on that eye contact. Where the dog is looking at you, you got your full, they have your full attention. Or you have their full attention, rather. They're looking at you. Eye contact is vital when it comes to training. And when you go to, especially when you progress into later on in these basic trainings and you don't whistle sit and hand casting, they gotta know who you are. They got to know your voice, and they and they gotta learn to look at you. Or you really can't progress into any whistle. If a dog, if you blow a whistle and a whistle sit, a dog just sits and he looks over to the left, and you're 60, 80, 100 yards to the dog's right, and it just sat and is not paying attention to you. How in the world are you gonna how are you how are you gonna get that dog to cast right, left, diagonal? You're not. It starts off with the foundational point of getting your dog's attention to look at you. Very simple. And it's gonna it takes repetitions like everything else, but the dog will get it, especially if you're working with treats. Remember, dog food. You don't gotta buy them expensive dog treats, just dog food. They don't know the difference. Sit. Stay look, and I'll be looking at look, look, and as soon as their eyes meet your eyes, boom, you give them a treat. And I'll and I'll keep them sitting there. And they, you know, their attention turns to something else, and I'll say, look, boom, their eyes look at mine, I give them a treat. And I just work on that. So that's another basic dog, uh, fundamental, foundational, basic training to do during this offseason is work on the eye contact, the trust between you and the dog, getting your dog's attention. We all need to refresh our dogs in this. So sit and stay for longer periods of time, work on that for a week and the whole entire process. Sit with your dog outside and just watch, let the dog sit with you and watch for birds. But the next progressional, maybe a week, week and a half down the road, sit, stay, and work on the looking, the eye contact. After you built that up, then it's time to work on the placeboard. Go then go to placeboard training. A lot of guys use the word kennel. Yeah, a lot of guys use the word place. I use the word up. It's not conventional. I like to use a couple different words with my dogs. Um, and people have hunted with my dogs. I just let them know here's you know one or two commands that you probably don't use these words when you're hunting with a dog. And if somebody does hunt with my dogs, I tell them. Because I like to keep it simple. Up means get up on an object. Whether it be a placeboard, some of my dogs' crates are, I have the roughland kennels that are stackable. So some of my dogs got to jump up in their kennels or their crates, and I'll say up and they'll jump up. Typically I'll say crate up. The ones that are on the ground is crate, they run right in their crates and they turn their heads and wait for me, and I give them a, I give them a like two or three dog food pieces, and I throw it in there and I shut the door. Or the dogs that are stacked up, I'll say crate up and they'll jump up inside the crates. And I'll throw two or three little pieces of dog food inside there and then shut the door. Or for a flip place board, you can use the word place, use the word crate, kennel, whatever. I just like to word, yeah, I like to use the word up because when I want to get when I want them to get up in my side by side, when I want them to jump up in my pickup truck or jump up in the bed in my pickup truck, I use, you know, or I say up. Because, you know, a kennel or crate is not my truck. A kennel or crate is not the bed of my truck. So I just use the word up and it, it it works. It works for me. Um, and that's the same thing for the placeboard. I don't, I don't, I don't use place or anything like that. Use the word up. Or whatever the word you use. If it's if it's if it's place, okay. Work on placeboard training. Um, you can buy placeboards, you know, from any of your waterfowl um um online stores. Um here's the thing. Try to use the one that you're gonna typically use when you're out hunting. Now I know that that will change depending on, and here's another up command as well, and your boat. All right, your boats aren't flushed with the ground, they got to get in the boat. So I say up, and they can jump in the boat. But sometimes when you're in a marsh, you have like a deer stand, like a climber kind of looking placeboard where it attaches to the tree. So whatever the case may be, whatever type of hunting that you are going to do, use that placeboard. If it's a typical placeboard that has got four legs, use that. If it's one of those that have the kind of kennel look to it, then use that. If you do both, use both. If you have a third one where you tie it to a tree, the board that kind of sits out like the old tree stands that just kind of tie to the back of the tree, and the butt of it or the top of it ties, and the butt of it, it it rests on the bottom of the tree, and there's another strap right there, and there's like a two foot by two-foot platform or whatever, two foot by two and a half foot platform, use that as well. Get the dog's used to it. You can use a kiddie pool. Um, they're cheap. Go buy a kiddie pool, fill it full of water, put it at a base of a tree. The dog is used to standing in the water and then jumping up from the water on top of the placeboard. But work on your placeboard or where you up or place and they and they go up there. You jump, sit, stay. And here's the thing walk away from them. Walk in the middle of your yard. Spend some time where you're let your dog spend time on the placeboard. Why? I don't know about you. I've only been on a handful of hunts. I can count it on one hand, and less than one hand, where it was, and most of it's been just been wood duck hunting, where my dog, we had action constantly. And I really I can't think of any other hunt besides a wood duck hunt where it was just crazy for 15, 20, 30 minutes, where it was just constant flying in of ducks. But normally, your normal hunt, you're sitting there and you're waiting. Remember the two things that most duck hunters hate that that own dogs that go hunting with them, but that I do not like is a whiny dog that whines or barks in the duck blind, or one that is jittery moving around, and you constantly, constantly, constantly got to sit, sit, sit, or tell the dog to up or place. How do we combat that? Basic foundational off-season summertime training. Work on placeboard. Put them up on the placeboard, whatever your command is, and tell them to stay and walk away. Turn your back to them and walk away. If they get down, uh-uh, crate, or up or place. Get them back up there. Get them used to sitting there. And this is long, this is gonna be longer staying time than your typical sit command that we just worked on the last week prior to this or two weeks prior to this, depending on how often you want to do it. This you'd want to try to grow in minutes upon minutes, 10 minutes, five to five, ten, fifteen, twenty minutes where your dog is sitting there. A buddy of mine told me in Florida how he worked on his dog on he would, he would put his uh hunting placeboard out there in the middle of the yard, and he would get his dog up there, his chocolate lab up there, tell the dog place, it would place, and he has uh he had to, at that time when the puppy, when it was a puppy, I think he had two girls, and he'd go and play in the yard with his girls. And the dog loved the girls and wanted to get off that placeboard. And every time it jumped off to go play with them, no, up, or place, and the dog would get back up there and taught the dog, you have to stay on that spot until I give you the command to get off. And what that correlates immensely into duck season hunting. Because once again, you want your dog on the placeboard to sit there naturally, because it's been trained, to sit there for 10, 15, 20 minutes before the next ducks fly in. And when it does fly in, and you guys shoot 100% of them like we always do, it's like, right? But you shoot some of them, then you give your release command, which should be the dog's name, for the dog to run off. And so at the end of your placeboard training, you use your recall. I always use two words on my recall. I call their name, and then I it it actually depends. On a retrieve, it's a double blow on my whistle. Because my whistle sit is about a two-second long, just steady and they'll sit. But once once they get that bumper, and this this is I'm getting ahead of myself, but since I'm talking about it, once they get the bumper, as the dog is about a foot away from the bumper, and that's kind of hard to judge when it's when it's out there 100, 200 yards, but do your best of this. That's why it's good to work on the basics when it's close. 15, 20 yard bumper work during your basic training, your off-season training. So you can you can also work on this because a lot of times, a lot of times a dog's mistake isn't because of the dog, it's because of the trainer. So you need to work on your eye contact, whistle. So as soon as your dog gets a foot or two feet away from that bumper, boop, boop, or whatever your command is for that dog to come back so that knows it hears the area where it's got to return to. So as soon as that dog gets almost its mouth on that bumper, boom, you give them that recall and they turn back around, they grab the bumper, they turn right back around, and they make a B line right for you. So the way that however you want your dog to on a placeboard, I don't use my whistle because the whistle is always for um a retrieve. So I just give them a command of if it's let's just use cove, for instance, I'll say cove here, and she'll jump off and she'll come running to me. So that's the second stage is placeboard work. After your placeboard work and you've done that for a week or two weeks and you've grown in time, meaning your dog has sat there for 10, 15, 20 minutes and doesn't get off of there, then start working on bumper basics. You don't got to throw them far. 20 yards, 35 yard throw with a bumper. Work on your training with the dog, the proper whistle timing with your dog, get him up on the placeboard, throw out a bumper, start with one. Oh, well, you know, my dog's a seasoned vet. That's okay. That's okay. Start with one bumper. Again, we're going back to the foundations. You want to make sure if if you build your house on a faulty foundation, everything above it's going to be off. So if your dog bobbles one bumper, what's it going to do on two, three, four, five bumpers? Right? So just take a couple days of training where you're just working with one bumper at a time, or you're tossing it out there 20, 25 yards. The dog is steady. You've clapped your hands real loud, or if you've got a cat pistol, use that. Or if you got one of those, I have a pistol, a blank pistol. I also have um I also have the 22 blank that shoots the bumper as well. So I'll mix it up during this time and let the dog release. I'll just, one word is I'll use the dog's name. I get my hand in front of their head, right, get them lined up where their head's looking at it. I put my my my uh hand um right above their right above their head, right in front of their nose, and I just call their name and they take off. And right before they get to that bumper, I mean a half a second before their mouth is on that bumper, I hit that whistle. And I grab that bumper and I turn back around and make a beeline for me. And I work on, you know, eight, ten throws of that, and I call it. I make that a session. I just work on that throughout the week, two or three sessions during that week. The next week, I'll start second bumper, two or three bumpers at a time. So you take a couple weeks just to work on and build up the number of bumpers. And I made an episode a while back on on um how to train your dogs with uh uh decoys, because I've had a lot of guys asking me questions about man, how do you how do you get your dog to uh not be distracted when deep with decoys? So you have to go back, look for that uh episode. It's a really good episode um in in how to work your dog with with uh um decoys. But let's say you've already done that, your dog's okay with decoys, then you start putting decoys out there five, ten decoys, and you start, you know, 20 yards and work that progress. Short, left, behind it, short, right, far right, and then short, land it in the middle, land it past the decoys, and just work on that. But all the while you've already worked on your basics, so the dog is sitting properly, it's staying properly, and it's placed properly. Here's the thing also work your dog's patience. Throw a bumper and don't send the dog right away. Throw the bumper and wait 10 seconds. So a lot of times you'll see your dog, if you don't give your dog the release command of their name within five seconds, the dog will start creeping and want to jump. So you want to work that out of the dog. Hold them there. Not with your hands, unless you have to, you know, just gently hold their collar. But wait on them. I think sometimes we can rush that process where we throw a bumper, we watch it land, boom, we send our dog. Well, in reality, a lot of times that's not how it happens when you're duck hunting. You shoot one, and then you notice two, or you shoot two or three ducks, you notice you got a cripple out there, so you're shooting, and then you got to shoot it again, and you ask your buddy, hey man, I don't you shoot it because I ain't hitting it. And so if your dog has not worked on its patience of being able to sit there on the placeboard until you've given the command, this sometimes can be 10, 15, even sometimes 30 seconds if you're shooting cripples. You don't want your dog to jump and to break. So work on that. In fact, while you're doing this, take the cap gun. Take the 22 blank that you just shot the bumper off of it, load another blank inside of there, and just shoot a blank. You'll know if your dog is not steady. Why? Because it'll take off. You need to work on these things because this is reality when you're hunting. You're not, no, uh, not every duck is gonna die right away. You're gonna have to shoot it two times, maybe even three times, and sometimes four or five times, and you're just wasting shells at that time. But you get what I'm saying. You want to try to create a scenario with your dog and the basics at this point, at this point, where you're adding, you're trying to get the dog to mess up. So you can train the dog through that. So don't just send your dog right after right on the bumper. Make him wait there and wait there and wait there. And so after you've done that, then take the next couple weeks and work on whistle. The dog is sitting there, you send him out there, or you work on a T pattern, cross pattern, a baseball diamond, whatever that, you know, what whatever you've done or whatever you're familiar with. And if you don't know what I just said, you can look it up on the YouTube and YouTube a T drill, retriever T Drill, Star Pattern, um, baseball diamond. You can look that up in in no time, and YouTube has tons and tons of videos out there with it. Um and you start working on that. I always just work with the backpile first and basic training. And when I'm training a dog as well, but remember, we're just in basics. So I put a backpile out there, and I stay and I had the dog sit about five feet in front of me. Or sorry, not five feet in front of me. I'll start with the dog at heels, sitting on the placeboard, and I'll give her this command to take off. I'll call her name, Cove, and she'll take off running, and I'll be and she'll boom, she'll sit and she'll turn around and look right at me. And I'll wait a couple seconds and I'll give her that my right hand. I'll just put it straight up in the air and say, back. And she'll spin and she'll take off, go to the bumper, grab it, and run back to me. And I'll have five or six bumpers laying in that, laying in that uh uh pile, and I'll repeat that and repeat that and repeat that until uh, you know, I'll repeat the drill maybe two times. So she's she's she's I got five bumpers out there, she's had five whistle sits. I'll play with her a little bit for about five minutes, I'll place her back up, and then I'll run the drill again with the five five bumpers out there, and then I'll call it. Typically takes about 15 minutes or so to do that, 15, 20 minute session. If you're adding in your five-minute playtime in between, to get five bumpers in a proper amount of time because you're not rushing it, it's gonna take you about five minutes, five, eight minutes. So you add that five, eight minutes together, 16 minutes, six, fifteen to twenty minutes to do that. Plus, you got your five-minute, you know, kind of play in between the two sessions. Boom, you're up to 20 minutes there. You may hear some you may hear some dogs barking in the background. They're getting ready to play. I got uh Reef, my yellow American field lab around, and I also got Willow. Reef, no, no, good girl. I got Willow, who's my English pointer. She's uh orange and white, and then I got uh Cedar, my short hair, she's just sleeping by my feet right now. Um but if you hear some toenails on the floor, some barking or messing around, my dogs are in the podcast room with me. So once you've gotten that done and you've worked on that, then you can work on your right pile and your left pile and your back pile. But typically I don't even do that. I have a back pile and I have a right pile. We just worked on back first. So the next week I'll have the back pile and I'll have the right pile. And I'll line her up, I'll call her name, she'll take off, beep, she'll turn around, boom, and sit down and look at me, and I'll cast her to the right. Took my right hand out, completely uh horizontal to the ground, straight out, over, and she'll take off to the right. If she messes up, I'll blow the whistle again and she wants to take off to the back pile. I only give one mistake. If she, if she if she takes off to the back pile, I'll blow the whistle for two seconds, she'll turn around and sit, and I'll hand cast her to the right. If she doesn't, I'll recall her, set her back up. And if she consistently wants to go to that backpile, how I how I do it, this is my personal preference. I'll clip my lead on her after I've sent her out. So I the lead's not on her. If she's messed up more than one time, I'll I'll set her back up like we're about to do the, like we're gonna run the drill, the back pile and the right pile. I'll send her out, I'll blow the whistle, stay. I'll take the lead, I walk to her, I clip it to her collar, and I'll walk in front of her to where she's looking at me, and I'll hand cast over and I will walk the dog to the bumper, and then I'll walk her all the way back to me. That typically handles that. Typically. If you have to do it again, that's okay. Do it again. And then when the next time I go to send her, she's sitting, she's on her placeboard to my left of me, and I'll line her up and I'll say, Cove, she'll take off running, I'll whistle sitter, and she'll look at me, and I'll give the hand cast to the right over, and she'll take to the right over, and she'll come back to me. And then I'll went next time I'll switch it up. I'll go one after I whistle sitter, after I've sent her, and I'll whistle, beep, and she'll stop and turn. I'll say back. The same thing. If she takes it, awesome. If she doesn't, I'll blow that whistle again. So she's looking at me and I'll give her a hand cast back. If she doesn't go back, if she wants to go to the right pile, I recall her, I'll blow the whistle, beep, she'll stop and look at me, cove, here, and she'll come running back to me. I'll line her back up on the placeboard, send her out. I'll whistle sit her and then I will stay. I'll walk to her, clip the lead on her collar, walk in front of her, back, and I will walk her to the back pile and then walk her back to the placeboard and tell her, up, jumps up, I'll take it out of her mouth. And that's how that's how I typically do it. And if you've already trained your dog to whistle sit, um you shouldn't have a problem with this. You shouldn't have a problem. Now, again, you had to go back to the whistle sit podcast and all that type of jazz to kind of look on that, to kind of uh, or to listen to that to find out how to properly train a dog to whistle sit. But this is assuming your dog is already whistle sat. It already knows the whistle and what that means. And then I'll make it complicated after that, the weeks after that, and I'll, you know, I'll throw blinds and work on blinds with the dog. And I'll line them up and send them back so there's no bumper piles out there. They know there's no bumper piles out there. Um, and I will I will make the dog work, make the dog work through the whole entire process. So that that is your retriever basics. Sit and stay. After sit and stay, eye contact. After you worked on sit, stay, eye contact, then your placeboard, whether it's place or kennel or crate or up, you work on that all the while as you're spending time with your dog a couple nights out of the week or a couple mornings out of the week, and you're sitting there. And I like to do it in different lighting conditions because you're not shooting ducks just in broad daylight. You're gonna shoot them when, you know, the the the um it's it's the sun's just coming up or the sun's just setting. And also alter your training during that time as well. Because it does look different to a dog in mid, you know, early morning and or or late at night, um, especially if a dog that maybe not had the you know great eyesight, then you want to work your training around, you know, try to simulate hunting sessions. Try to simulate, especially if you have a good morning and you're off work and you and you know there's a fog gonna be in there, work your dog in the fog. You'll really know if the dog knows your voice and whistle. And just the commands back or over doesn't really work, back does, but over, they don't know if you're telling them over to the right or over to the left. But work on that. Work on the timing of the day into which you're gonna hunt. So sit and stay, sit, stay, eye contact, sit, stay, eye contact, placeboard, sit, stay, eye contact, placeboard, one bumper. And then two bumper, three bumper, and then whistle sit back for a couple days. Then whistle sit back. Back and to the right, and whistle sit back to the left. And then you can put it all together. Whistle sit, and then you have your right pile, your left pile, and your back pile. Then if you train your dog to do diagonals, then you can do the diagonal to the right. And then next week, diagnose to the left. And just work on those things. You don't have to do it all at once. Even if your dog is a seasoned veteran, you want to go back to the basics during this time, make it fun. Make it fun. This training should be fun. This is your buddy. This is your dog. So take time with your dog. Make sure that you spend quality, quality time and try these basics out this summer. And I truly believe that come hunting season, you're going to have a solid dog ready to rock and roll. Most guys start a month before. Why not start all summer long? Getting in preparation for it. If you're like me, the day, my not even the day, not even the next day. The minute duck season is over, and we've shot limit, or we haven't shot limit, but we're done hunting, and we know, well, that's it, boys. That's it, babe. You know, if it's my wife and I, I am already depressed that duck season is done, and I'm already looking towards next duck season. Well, I mean, you don't have to wait a month before duck season comes in. Spend the summer training your dog. Work on these basics. So when duck season does come, you're not rushing into it and well, how many, you know, I got to get decoys, or I got to get a couple more decoys, or I got to fix my boat motor, or I got to get this, or uh all that stuff happens every single year. The last thing you want to do is to be worrying about all that and not having enough time to get the rust off your dog. If you take in the summertime training seriously and just gone over the basics, you don't, that's that's a massive thing that you don't have to worry about come the month before duck season. You can work on your boat motor, work on your boat, work on, you know, retying your decoys or whatever the case may be. You can get all that stuff ready knowing my dog's ready to rock and roll. All right, hope this helps you out. This is Justin with Cleve Outdoor Podcast. God bless. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Cleve Outdoors. Hey, could you do us a favor? Subscribe and share. God bless.