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