Inside the Kennel: Journey into Gun Dog Training with Clark Kennington

The training ponds are over full , coming over the levees , uh , and I just drove home with my son there's a little not scared of storms but scared of driving , and there was lightning everywhere and we had the boat and it's been uh , it was one of those pop-up storms that was just massive . So , yeah , I'm good . So can wet .

Maybe that should be a question we ask at the end , if you had to pick from all your dogs which and you can only pick four to go in the shelter ? Oh , I can't do that , it's tough isn't it ?

I just tried to do a little jiu-jitsu on her , messing with her , and she was not happy about that . Um , she's been to the physical therapists and whatnot . But yesterday I was at the gym and I ran into my insurance agent and I was like , hey , man , listen .

Uh , I know we just got done with all this tornado stuff , but uh , I've been talking to your office all day because Bethany's cars totaled . So thankfully it was not her fault and the other person has great insurance , so we should be good . But it's been a the year of state farm for me .

Yeah , it's gone , it's gone , she's literally . I left the keys to the old one there for you , thank you , but no , I .

We had just had this conversation where we both just said , look , we're just going to drive , we're going to drive this Yukon till the wheels fall off , right and show enough , both front wheels were you literally fell off , completely turned in . Yesterday she was like , look , honey , I get a new one . Yeah , you said to the wheels fall off .

You said it happened . It wasn't her fault , man , I don't . I don't want to go into the long version of it , but I was on the phone with her and I told you it all happened .

She screamed and you kind of know it's like either she dropped the phone and it fell through every seat or she just got in a bad wreck and you could hear a lot of banging around and uh , and then I could hear her breathing , struggling . I could hear the clicks of the blinkers and what happened was she couldn't open her door more than about 10 inches .

Well , she's a , she's a little thing , so she was able to like squeeze through it and that grunting was her getting out of the car ? Well , I just heard like heavy breathing and then it just went totally silent , other than the blinker .

Of course I'm on my end like Bethany , you know , screaming her name , trying to just maybe if she hears me through the phone she'll say something . And uh , anyway , I ran , got my truck and I made it about three miles down the road before she called me and uh , whoof .

Her phone was in the passenger side door , in the little cubby hole down there , so she couldn't find it . It was wild , wow . And the sheriff came and he was looking at it and he was like man . He was shaking his head , really looking at the front of the car where , like , the motor mounts were broken and all that .

He looked at me like dude and I was like man . I think it'll buff out . That was the first time she laughed after all of it . So anyway , yeah , well , you're up in Kansas , missouri , is the house in Missouri or Kansas ?

He goes in at 5am . He takes care of all the dogs at Lyle trains and our puppy room , boarding room . I'll go in at 6am and take care , get all my dogs aired , kennels clean , load it on the trailers taken care of .

And then Lewis will go in at 7am and from 7 to 8 , he's got the air and yards to take care of everything and at that time we're ready to go to the field and train . And it's kind of our typical morning . Um , we'll train all day .

We typically try to get done around 4 , 30 ish , uh to four , uh , because we want to rotate out those air and yards again . You know we've got so many dogs and we want to make sure they're taken care of and we're meticulous about how clean the kennels are . Um , that is like one of my pet peeves and liles Like once a dog is there in yards .

There's air and yards to be picked every single day . We don't want to sit in there . We want to look like the day we put the gravel down every day . Um , and we spend a lot of time cleaning as well . Uh , but that's our typical day . You know .

The kennel will get fired up around 5am and typically the kennel is not empty as far as people , while I still six 37 o'clock every night .

I mean , this is , uh , we've got rolling hills , we've got two ponds on this property as well , and we have access to a couple other places we train on .

Yeah , just because the hillside and we get a lot of wind as well . So it's really a blessing to have this area and what we have to train on .

So that is bizarre and really awesome to see , see how it's working out and , uh , see how awesome it is and to work with you guys .

So , uh , if you don't mind , for those , I have people that I mean there are a lot of people that will , without a doubt , click on this thing because they know your name and they follow your training , Uh , but I have a lot of folks that listen to the lab and we'll listen to the lab who probably aren't super sure about your background .

So I'd love for you just to spend three , four minutes going through , like when did you get into dog training ? What has that journey been for you to get to where you are now ? And , um , and if you don't want to share them , I will .

What are some of the , some of the accomplishments you've had that really , uh , set you in my mind up as as one of the most accomplished hunt tests , uh , guys , in this country .

I never knew anything about the competition side of dogs all through high school . I was introduced to that in college and a friend of mine introduced me to it . I was really hesitant , to be honest with you because I told him I just want a dog that'll go get my ducks and bring him back . I don't care about ribbons .

But he told me he said , look , you just need to go , I think you'll like it . And I fell in love with it . I mean to say I dove head first into it would be an understatement . It's kind of how I got into it and it's snowball from there . You know my first dog . I was extremely blessed . He passed away 15 years old .

I've been doing this 17 years now and he had seven grand passes , was in HRC Hall of Fame , was a master hunter and multiple SRS placements . And you know , looking back at it . I truly didn't know anything . I just I was really blessed to have an amazing animal , despite my lack of knowledge as a trainer .

I was in school at Mississippi State working for another pro and just decided at one point that I wanted to start training dogs on the side . And , you know , two led to four , four led to eight , eight led to 16 .

And before I knew it I had a full kennel and I had to make a decision I want to continue going to school at Mississippi State and racking up sheet of loan debt , or is this what I want to do ? And I said you know , this is what I want to do . So I jumped in headfirst into it and that's where I am now today .

He posts so many things about trades and developing a trade and you know , getting away from this idea that if you don't finish school or go to , not everyone will be , the guy says , hey , college is not important , or school I mean , it obviously is . For so many different paths .

I have a seminary degree , you know like I have a degree in religious studies and I own a dog kennel and cornerstone gun dog Academy with my friends . Like it is nothing to do . I officiated a couple weddings and a funeral in the last month . It helped me there . But you know , it's really cool that there are . To me it's truly a part of the American dream .

Right , going to college can definitely be a part of that . But you developed a skill you fell in love with the skill . You worked your butt off to get to where now that's providing for you and your family and has the longevity to keep providing for you guys in the long term . That's really awesome .

That's truly a well , truly part of the American dream , but I've said this a few times on here . People say you know , if you do what you love , you'll never work a day in your life . Yeah , yeah , I'm sure you still love training dogs .

It doesn't matter if it's a holiday , you know , christmas day , those dogs have to be fed and aired and , you know , taken care of and kennels cleaned , and that's something that a lot of people overlook .

And if you're going to do this as a living , you know you're going to miss a lot of things that people wouldn't miss normally , because you've got to take care of dogs . If you want to be competitive at it and you're like me , you know the way I'm wired . If I'm going to do something , I'm going to go all out .

I want to be the best I can be at it Then it's going to require a lot of work and a lot of sacrifice on other parts of your life . I mean , from February 1st till now , I've had two weekends that I wasn't either running a hunt test or obligated to teach in a seminar somewhere , so where the average person's had , you know , 40 days off .

That I didn't , but that's just part of this lifestyle .

And I was like , look , dude , for six years if I didn't let my dogs out , bethany let them out , and I'd be traveling somewhere with a church event or hunting somewhere and she'd be at home calling me because so and so slipped under a fence and oh man , it's got to have a wife that gets behind you for sure , or it's just not going to work or just don't

get married . Yeah .

It's super important and when Nicole and I got married , that was a discussion we had , I mean in depth about you know what I do for a living and what it requires me to be on the road a lot and you know it's that's one of those things that has to be understood and both of you on the same page .

You know she supports my dream and I'm going to support her in whatever dream she has . You know right now she's learning how to do CT scans at the hospital . That's really cool . 100% behind that .

You know , you know you have a dog that can go out there and get birds . Well , you know you have a dog that can run decent blinds because you've taught it to .

But when you start putting them in situations to where you have the tools to allow them to make mistakes and correct them and show them the correct response you're looking for , and then you start to see them process , that that's my favorite part , like seeing the wheel start turning and then figuring things out . You know , that's where I really learn .

Do I have a nice dog , a mediocre dog , or do I have something special ? And that that to me that's the most fun part of the whole job is when you do find that special dog . It's like wow , you know it's time to really get the ground running .

Or even sometimes you may not see that out of a dog at that certain time , but you can see glimpses of it and you just make you work harder because you want to see what more you can get out of them .

. And it's funny because you meet people of all sorts . You meet people who were like I love , six months old to eight , nine , 10 months old and you meet and that's my least favorite time , by the way , yeah , but you but you meet people that are just really good at that stuff .

You know , you've got a buddy that you had on a zoom recently who's like super good with the puppy stage . I think he has your pup right now . Right .

Yeah , so I just you know , chris and I are great friends and he does an excellent job man , would you mind doing this and he's actually filming a lot of the stuff he's doing with it .

Even more so , always respected you is you're willing to work outside the box and he's very much outside the box thinker . He talked a lot about that . For those of you listening the hunt test guide , we'll get to it in a second .

But within the hunt test guide , if you're a member , you have access to the zooms as soon as we get them posted , which we're a skeleton crew right now . So whenever we can get it online , it's online . But that one , I believe , is on .

So in the zoom , clark had his buddy , chris , on there and they talked a lot about things to do when you're training a high level dog by yourself and when you're training a high level dog and you have limited space and equipment and man , I think , for people pursuing this . I think there are a lot of people in that boat , right ?

Not a lot of people are like , hey , I have hundreds of acres and I have six guys that throw for me . People are limited .

That is what he heard of yeah , it's on himself living just outside of Chicago with limited access to grounds .

So he gets on Google Maps and he's looking at all these ponds inside apartment complexes and I'm going there to train and it's like you're going to get run off . He's like no , I do it all the time and he sends me all these videos of him running water blinds in the middle of this apartment complex . I love that he's strapping at water blinds .

I was like man . I just I feel like that I would get run off , but he's like no , I do it all the time .

And I was like , okay , you know , I'll put a check cord on for a second . And then when that and I had the police called on me twice and both times they just came out and watched . You know they're like that's pretty cool . I was like , yes , sir , yeah , I appreciate you . No , just the outside the box thinking . You know , I think there are .

There are definitely reputations For for trainers who focus on hunt , test training , maybe even field trial training , that it just obviously there are programs you follow and that's important .

But every dog is different and guys being willing to say , hey , look , what works for you might not work for me , or what works for this dog or at this period of time , or whatever it is . It's always good to see people who are willing to hop outside the box just a little bit .

And Chris was in you , that , that zoom call that y'all did and the Q&A was super helpful . There's a lot of really cool stuff in there , so yeah , he can jump on again sometime , and yeah what's your pup's name ?

So when you were talking a while ago about that , that period after transition , you're you're running some some big boy , big girl blinds . You're letting the dog think for themselves , probably setting up some marketing scenarios where you got to see what the dog's made of . Have they really learned what you've taught ?

You've got a lot of client dogs and you've got a lot of people who probably at some point in the past bought a pup and said this is going to be my Grand Hunt Retriever champion pup and I'm going to send it to Clark Kennington .

At that point do you come to the conclusion with any of these dogs like , hey , look , this one is not going to be a Grand Hunt Retriever dog , this one is not maybe going to be a master hunter even , or maybe at least not going to go after a master national plates , and have to communicate that to those clients who have decided hey , I , because I have that

. People buy a puppy and they've already made up their mind what it's going to be when it's eight weeks old . Right , they got the next Kobe Bryant . Have you had to do some of that and how do you approach that and how do you notice that in certain dogs ?

This is what we're trying to build and I tell them upfront look , I know what you want . If at any point in time I feel like this dog's not going to accomplish the goals that you have set , it's absolutely nothing personal . I'm just going to tell you and I found that if you put it that way from the very beginning , things go a lot smoother .

If you get to that point and I always tell them we have to begin with the end of mine , you know we can't do anything between point A to Z that's going to hinder us from getting to Z , and I really have to harp on that .

Sometimes , especially when dogs start doing well , you know they start to see some progress . We're running some finish tests and the dogs doing really well and they want to run , run , run , run , run and push and I have to say look time out , we're getting a little loose here . We need to step back and train .

Some give it a couple of months and then start running again . Otherwise we're going to create habits we can't control . So it is something that has to be addressed a lot of the times , and the easiest way I've found to address it is one be upfront and honest with them about what their goals are and letting them know if it's not going to make that .

You know that's the last phone call I want to make quite honestly , Because I mean that's somebody's child , I mean it is literally their child . I mean it's like calling somebody and saying , look , your child was not good enough to get into the gifted program . Yeah , they take it personal , and rightfully so .

But when you explain it to them , look , these are the goals that you set from the get go . I'm just trying to be fair and honest with you to save your money and my time .

If this is what you want to do yeah , if that's the goal you want to achieve then we might need to look at either one this dog going home and becoming the family pet and hunting , or selling this dog and going a different route . It's the time people are 100% against selling the dog because that's their baby and that is okay .

But you know , just because it's not going to be a Grand Hunter and Tribal Champion , master Hunter doesn't mean it won't be a phenomenal hunting dog . Yeah , so you know a lot of people just choose to take them home and hunt them .

He ran seasoned and he had a few things at the line that we just weren't in a hurry to push him into finish . He can do everything off the line . All that was very clean and a little bit of movement . And then , like I told you , anytime you shuck the gun or anything that you did , he's looking at you . What are you doing ?

So wanted to fix some of that and Corey's done a great job and ran him . This last weekend we were talking and we were evaluating and like we were getting really nitpicky about different dogs .

You know , like I like this , I don't like that and he was kind of getting down about a few dogs and I was like , dude , like you realize this standard , you know , do ?

I think it could go and hold us on at the grand in this small group of people is a perfect conversation to have , but in the grand scheme of all gun dogs across all time , you're talking about an incredibly high standard , whereas for most people I mean you may have , I think you mentioned this on a live for most people that I talked to , when they describe

hey man , my last dog , dog of a lifetime , best dog ever on my life , and I'm talking about gun dog people , and they're looking for their next dog , and you start inquiring okay , well , what'd your last dog do ? And you realize very quickly , probably could not have passed a season test . Yeah , you know , and it was dog of a lifetime .

So that's not to say these dogs that can't be a master , national dog or a grand dog aren't also , you know , simultaneously capable of being a probably phenomenal hunting dog . I imagine it's pretty rare that that you get one that's not going to at least be able to be a good hunting dog . That's probably a pretty rare thing .

Yeah , we replaced all three of those dogs . So it's like , look , I'm sorry , this is a lemon . You know , just this shouldn't have ever happened .

A truck shows up and you know exactly what's on it , these five bikes and these shoes , and you know exactly what size they are and if something's wrong you call the company and they warranty it and they replace it . That sounds really nice . I got a mama dog pregnant . I got no clue what's in there . I have no .

I mean maybe there's eight , maybe three or four stillborn . You know that happens , maybe . And then you know , maybe I'm , you know , accounted on most of this litter being black , because it's two black dogs that carry yellow and they had six yellow pups . That's happened to me and I got no idea .

I have a massive amount of questions for you . We'll never get through all of them , but a couple more for sure . Training questions Somebody buys a puppy , don't care where it came from , what background it has , what their plan is . I'm going to take this dog to Clark Kennington , to take it as far as he can in the hunt test world , hrc .

Let's say when do you want that dog and what do you want that dog doing when you get it ?

I don't care about it being steady . Honestly , I do not want it steady . I want it just going and getting something and I don't care if you got a twirl , a bumper around to get it to come back , but I want it going to get something . If it's warm enough , get them in the water , you know , get them to where they enter with the water .

That's the three things that I want the most . The biggest thing is getting them around as many different people , places and things as possible . The more socialized they are , the easier it's going to be for me to train them If they come in and all that they know is your house and they come into that kennel environment .

it's going to completely freak them out because they don't know anything different , they've never been subjected to it . But if you put them in all these situations and they learn to be comfortable with it , it makes my life a whole lot easier because literally , that can be the difference in .

This dog may have been an SRS champion , but it wasn't socialized correctly and we'll never get it there . That's how crucial the socialization part is in a puppy . So that's the most important parts to me Socialization , gray , drive and water .

If you can just bring me that , I don't need everyone wants to do 500 obedience commands and they can overdo all that stuff . We saw a lot of this during COVID dogs that just never got out . They never went anywhere . They were at home . I mean , obviously a lot of them were in states where it was locked down . They couldn't go anywhere .

Yeah , the , the you want to build as much prey drive as you can with the puppy and always tell people and this goes back to water dog stuff Like most of the people that have a dog of rib , water dog or seen it at some point in time and you should you don't want to bring that puppy out and just throw it till it stops . Throw something till it stops .

Retrieving . You know I always tell them throw it two or three times until they're just absolutely have to have it and take it away . Like always put them up wanting more and it goes back to making them think of the world's an awesome place . You know this needs to always be fun .

There never needs to be so much that they get tired of doing it and they stop themselves .

I mean you could not run a hunt test with her , like we were trying to run season , and the judge is walking behind us to watch and she ? She can't focus on anything , but what is this big guy behind me going to do to ? I ?

My kids are constantly messing with puppies and we want them to be handled all the time . Here are lots of sounds . You know my Lynn Reed raises all of our pups down the road here at headquarters and it's funny cause she'll send me like the checklist . She's like , hey , she's very , very protective of puppies .

She's my , she's my um , she has a lot of names , but she's like my dorm room mom . She runs the girls dorm and so she's very protective of puppies . So she'll text and say , hey , this is the week that we're going to do this particular vaccination . We got the safe car going and we're going to put them in the grass . I'm like , all right , sounds good .

And I'll get a text four days later . Hey , we're in the grass , everybody's happy . The next day , did the lawnmower check ? She'll . She'll ride a lawnmower like a hundred yards from them and like binocular , look at them Like , are they scared ?

And then she'll just get closer and closer and closer and she'll text me like the thumbs up , like I wrote the lawnmower by today and everybody's fine , you know . And then it's the ATV and then it's just constantly pushing to see like , hey , I want to make sure no one's nervous , right , I want to make sure that they're happy and super bold .

And when we take them in for those , those , uh , that first round of vaccinations at the vet , it's the best text I get . It's like , hey , uh , I let them out at the vet and they went nuts Like they destroyed the place and I'm like perfect , that's exactly what I want . I want them going on .

I don't want them scared of tile floors , I don't want them scared of the sounds of the vet . It's like no , they basically came and decided we own the vet today . And here we go .

Um , obviously , for those who don't know , you know myself , keith and Josh Parvin we have cornerstone gun dog academy .

I want to get in the story for just a little bit in a second , but , uh , clark and Lyle have been working with us and we are developing , uh , their program , which is called the hunt test guide , specifically designed at at helping trainers and handlers learn how to be successful at hunt tests . Um , which is an incredible journey .

Um , not not just learn how to train your dog , but hey , let's get into the nitty gritty about handling in hunt tests . Specifically for hunt tests . What are judges looking for ? Some super cool details that are included . And right now there are a lot of setups . You guys , the setups , they help me , they help everyone that I speak .

Everyone who sees your setups and messages us is incredibly helped . They're benefited by what you guys are doing . So that's awesome . There's also zoom conversations in there in the future , when we can get all the ducks in a row , we're going to have some incredible video program in there to show people , step by step , some actual modules .

I don't want to unveil too much of that and I don't want to get too deep into the weeds of training . Um , but the one thing that stands out the most when you talk about training , uh , when you talk about what you do , how you do it , um , actually there's there's two things , but the one thing that stands out the most to me is pattern blinds .

That is , yeah , you're laughing because that's the thing it's like all right . The pattern blinds . Yeah , I mean . Yeah , you were that guy . Like all right . What do you think about Clark Kennedy ? He loves pattern blinds . Uh , I would . There are probably a lot of people listening to this . There's some people who've never even run a pattern blind .

So I would love for you to take people through . What is the pattern blind ? What are the benefits of running them ? What do you use them for in your training program with your dogs working through from you know transition all the way through running big boy blinds ? And , lastly , do you ever go back and revisit them ?

Well , the way that I , that I do training , uh , and these were all dogs that were like season level and up everything hinges off of what I'm going to teach in pattern blinds , even when I get into marking and teaching dogs how to do a mark correctly , because you can do a mark , just because your dog can wander out there and find a bird Doesn't mean it did

it correctly . So there are steps that I teach them . Um , what a pattern blind is ? Just a tall blind . It is a tall destination the dog's going to go . Um , typically I like to start with three and they're shaped in there . They're in a shape of a V .

So I'll have three blinds picked out that I'm going to start and I'll initially start teaching one , and it may be 125 yards , it may be 150 . I'll teach one and that's going to be one of the longer ones , and then I'll teach the second one . So we've got one here and one here and they're about the same distances and I identify it with a white bucket .

I want a very visible visual , because you're teaching so much in the pattern blinds . You're not just teaching them to run to a destination , you're teaching a lot of communication at the line . So I want something they can visualize . So when they look where I want them to , I want to be able to communicate good right there .

Good , and that's all going to be built in . When you start running cold lines at communication , when you're looking where I want you to , I'm going to communicate good right there . So I'm building that as well .

So once they can line those two long ones , I'm going to put a short one in between it and make like a V , and the sole purpose of that short one is just to create suction to cast out of to the longer ones . So , send them to the short one .

We'll let them pick it up , we'll send them halfway to it and then I want to get an angle back , cast away from there to the , either the right one or the left one . I don't use a lot of pressure in this . You know from the E-collar there's a lot of attrition . Are they giving me a wrong cast ? Cause we're teaching , they don't know anything yet .

Tweet no here . And if I have to call them back six , seven times before I get that cast and what you're looking for is that light bulb to go off , it won't let me go there . And I finally go this way .

And then I see that white bucket out there and get it , and once you'll start to see , once they're really good with it , all it takes is one cast and they'll just turn and dig and go there or this direction . And now you've got a dog that you have taught how to cast out of suction . So what suction is is ?

I mean , it's a place that a dog wants to go . We've created this , this short , patterned , blind , with a white bucket , a bunch of white bumpers around it . They can see it there . They want to go get them , but we're getting them to go where we want them to go .

And the basics of a blind is pretty easy you got to go when I tell you to go , you got to stop when I tell you to stop and then you've got to go the direction I tell you to go . If you can do those three things , you can . You've got a blind whipped .

So you're teaching so much in that there's so many people that just go out there and start running a blind retrieve with a dog without ever really teaching them how to cast out of suction or how to carry a cast distance . And that's where you create those dogs that get a lot of popping no casting . They'll go a little ways and they'll stop casting .

Go a little ways and stop because they've never built up the momentum of just turning and digging . And then I use the pattern blinds to teach them how to run a blind in conjunction with a mark . So I'll just pick one , say the right one is what we picked up there , and we'll teach them how to run a blind .

We'll have a gunner out there and throw a mark away from the line of the blind and we'll run a blind behind the gun . And we'll do it in three stages . We'll gradually take it out and then we'll turn them and we'll throw it toward the line of the blind and the bird will be just outside the line .

We'll pick it up , run the blind , then we'll do one under the arc and then we'll do one through the fall and once you've done that , there's not a single blind that you have not shown that dog how to run in conjunction with a mark . Just show it to them so that way when you go to the field they at least have seen that picture before .

So it just helps them to be successful when you start taking them into the field . And all of that's going to come into play . As you see , some of these courses will put out of how it builds off of . There was a drill that I taught up there about how to teach dogs how to pick up a mark correctly .

And what people fail to realize is the most crucial point when you send a dog on a mark is in that first five to 10 steps . Dogs naturally want to run at the gun . That's what they want to do . They're lazy creatures . That's what they are .

So dogs naturally yeah , a guy standing out throwing a bird this way at 150 yards , they're naturally want to run at that guy . Well , I want to teach them for their first five to 10 steps to be away from that guy toward the bird , and the reasoning for it .

If a dog misses a bird under the arc , a dog's natural response is always going to be to hunt into the gun , always . But if you can condition them to come in from the outside of it and you miss it , guess what ? The first response is going to be go in , you're going to get it better than anybody else there .

So there's a drill that I used to teach that and it all goes back into casting out a suction . What is that ? Gun suction ? So until I've taught this in pattern blinds , I can't utilize that training . So that's why I'm so key on the pattern blinds . Everything to me builds off of .

So many people think they need to start using collar pressure on that . Well , they've been ingrained with collar pressure . Their whole life is either stop or go most of the time , or dig . No , the problem is they're not changing directions Right , that is the problem .

So the easiest way to fix that and the best way to fix it without creating other residual issues go back to pattern blinds and cast out a suction . Just go back to it . Build momentum with changing directions . Yeah , change in directions .

They came and just like wanted to hang out and train with the Southern Oak Kennel crew , which was super cool and the dog finally gave him the left angle back . He had been just digging , digging straight , digging straight , digging straight , always turning the right direction , but just straight back .

Finally gave him the left angle back and then within maybe 10 , 12 yards was across the line and the guy hit the whistle real quick to give him a right straight back . And , yeah , adam was like no , like carry it , like let him , let him go forever , let him be rewarded for taking it . Let him go .

And if you have to give him five right overs to finish that blind the and Adam Campbell said something that was very important to me . He said the goal here is not getting the bird , the goal is to teach the dog we're training .

All right , I got stopped , I got to get over there because you think , well , I got to get them there as soon as possible , as efficiently as possible , without thinking about man . I just ripped the rug out from under the momentum that dog had from saying , hey , my guy back here is letting me just truck . So I guess I did something right .

You know I'm because they know that . You know they know that and that's from that attrition you're talking about especially just yeah , I mean .

I mean always what a great subject .

When they try to veer off to pick up that bird , maybe sometimes I'm sure that's okay .

I want to set them up to get a correction for doing what I know they're liable to do .

There's no reward for that correct response , and that's one of the biggest things I try to teach people . If you give a correction , the dog gives you the proper response you're looking for . There should be a reward for that .

So if I have to give a dog correction and it gives me the proper response I'm looking for , like it's trying , it's giving me effort , when it gets back to me I'm going to throw in a happy bumper and pep it up like good for giving me that effort . If you do that day in , day out and your dog expects that , then these corrections become less of a thing .

Like they just know okay , I got it . And then they immediately start processing okay , what does he want me to do ? Because I want to get that reward . I want him to be happy with what I did . Or even there's two types of dogs , in my opinion . There's dogs that do it for you and there's dogs that do it for themselves . There's really no in between .

Even the dogs that are doing it for themselves and not you , they want that happy bumper when it's over , so you can still get that out of like . Reward them when they give you a correct response to a correction yeah and or harsh the correction is and they give you a response the more reward there should be , in my opinion .

I had not had my hair or beard cut in months . I looked like the Wolverine , except for not in shape .

I did that a lot for several years and you're shooting these live birds but you're walking like one field trial . We walk like three and a half miles so you can't just set the birds on the ground . So they got to have somebody me and a couple of other guys with these big sacks full of birds that are we're shot in the trial .

Actually , they shoot rabbits too and they have their Labradors retrieve rabbits . That's a real thing over there and they call them hairs and you'll just hear a gun or a judge scream out hey , shoot it off the ground , dog goes and gets it . First time I was , I was with my wife Bethany . We were over there .

I was with my good friend Laura Hill and she was a judge and I had been given maybe five or six rabbits and I'm talking about like . These things were like 12 , 13 pounds and we're not small and I had them in my little sack around the back of me . This is so foreign to anything . I'm literally wearing a tie with a button up shirt .

Okay , I'm wearing it at five degrees . I'm sweating my butt off and I look down and my pants are soaked , not from sweat . I mean like like I jumped in a pool . And I look at my friend Laura I'm going to do a podcast with her , I'm bringing this up and I said hey , and she looked at me and she goes literally this is the most British thing ever .

She goes haven't you stripped the piss ? And I was like , excuse me , she know what she was like stripped the piss and I was like of what ? And she was like the bunnies . So she pulls a rabbit out of my bag People can't see this thing , just hear it .

But she takes her hand and starts running it down the belly of the rabbit and P just starts going everywhere . Oh my God . So what's happened is these rabbits have died . Nervous got in my bag that I'm carrying and as I walked they just let the P go . So I'm covered .

It's actually my boots are full of rabbit P pushing and I got to walk another two or three miles carrying these things . It was not ideal . I mean , I was like no , I didn't strip the piss . I've never carried a rabbit in my life . I don't know what you're talking about . You know I was mad . Yeah , I did it in my boots , can't you see ?

Yeah , I was like I'm carrying with a brace of grouse , you know , hanging off , or barber pants , looking all like a barber model just carrying two birds around . I was like I had the hard job I'm carrying all the bunny P . Anyway , obviously we have a very , very different background and super different like paths in this gun dog world .

I think for most people out there who are like in your world or my world , we would probably probably be unlikely friends . But I'd love to hear , like , your perspective on getting out .

I don't want to hear you tell people why we're friends Don't get me wrong , I'm not trying to , I'm trying to pat myself on the back here but like your perspective on in general , just that and get again outside the box .

Like , at some point I imagine on your journey and on my journey , we probably didn't necessarily respect what one another did , and here we are 2023 . That's not the case . I have very much respect what you do . I think you have a good understanding and respect of what I do , which is very different .

But , like , how did you come to that and how is it that we're , how is it that we're doing a podcast and that we I talked to you as much as any dog trainer out there . You know how is it that we came to this point .

You know , for people who are listening , who think , why in the world is Clark Kentington on a podcast with Barton Ramsey ?

And the thing that I always come back to is who am I to judge what somebody wants to do with their dog ? You know , as long as they're happy and doing their dog , you know I'm 100% for them in any shape , form or fashion they're doing . And you and I have had this discussion before .

Like what you've done with Cornerstone Gun Dog Academy and 52 weeks plus and everything else there , it is one of the , it is the best program for the average guy that has no idea about a dog like none , like you can take a dog and make a nice season dog If you just follow this program and I commend you for that .

Like I can't today look outside of the box from what I do as far as to do things the way you do , and there's nothing wrong with that , or you know , it's just what I've grown up doing and been told .

But you know I see a lot of the dogs that have come through your program that may have never had a collar around their neck , but they're obedience as good as any dog that ever has have one of their neck .

And if you can't look at that and be respectful of them and be like , wow , that's pretty amazing , Then you probably need to find something else to do . In my opinion , Like , the day that you stop learning from other people is the day you're dying .

You know , in my opinion , as far as a trainer is concerned , I watched some of your videos and you got 20 dogs sitting out looking at you .

If I get my 24 dogs off the trailer and try to get them to sit there , maybe in a week , maybe I might have gotten them to sit there , but it's just different and you got to respect the two different types of training there are , and that's the first thing . I always start with a seminar when Montana .

I tell him look , I'm going to show you the ways that I know and what worked for me . It's not the gospel . I'm not telling you I'm right and this guy's wrong .

I'm just telling you this is what's worked for me and I always tell people just because I do it this way and the other guy does it this way doesn't mean that I'm right and they're wrong or vice versa . It's just what has worked for them . So I mean , I just look at it from a respect point of you love animals , I love animals .

What you want to do with them is a little different than what I want to do and you can accomplish the goals you want to accomplish and you have great dogs . It's just a little different than what I do . So how is one right or one wrong ? Yeah , what a person wants to do with them ?

You know , there's a lot more to life . That's what we're getting mad about , you know . And same thing where I was like , look , I don't train dogs necessarily like Clark does , but he says some things that cause me to learn a lot .

And in what you do as far as , especially in particular , the grand I know you're probably still a little salty about this last grand and you're , you know you had , he still had a good passing percentage compared to the average , but your , your grand passes per dog entered it over the course of your career is just insane .

And for me to see that and say , oh , this guy , I don't know what you're talking about , I mean , yeah , right , yeah , obviously you have a lot to offer for people who are pursuing that discipline . And so I've even had people who are like , I can't believe you , your friends are that guy . Like you guys do things so differently .

I'm like , yeah , we , we train dogs differently . Or like , we have different goals with dogs , but you wouldn't believe the amount of things we have in common and to me that's such a bigger deal . Hey , like we have a pursuit of excellence , you know we want to do excellent . Everything that we do . We really care about family .

Family is is a thing we have a common love of bourbon now , yes , I want to hate you for that , but Sorry about that . Yeah , sorry , nicole , you know it's . You know Clark , clark's gotten into trying to find anytime . I get a text midday from Clark , I'm like he's traveling . He's found some bourbon somewhere . You know he's , I'm man .

That's like a very British thing to have a lot of dogs out at one time , and that that's the reason that Adam Campbell wanted to come train . He's like I want to see this , you know , like , do they actually , do they actually sit ?

I mean they just do , but if I'm going to throw a bird at 500 yards and they're going to swim 300 , they got to have a little crazy in them , that's right .

There's always going to be people that talk negatively about you , no matter what you do . It's just part of life , and I always break it down to them like this , like you can't be against somebody doing something just because it's different than you . So let's always tell them . Let's , let's analyze the situation .

What is what Barton's doing with the cornerstone gun dog program and 52 weeks plus ? Well , they don't know . They never seen it . I said , well , how can you judge him ? And then my next thing to him is you remember when you didn't know anything about a dog ? Never have one in your life .

Well , yeah , that is what it's built for guys , built for you're trying to make a master hunter . So put trying to make it something it's not and appreciate what it is . Yeah , cause if you looked at it and watched it in its entirety , you would respect it a lot more , and it's always people that have never looked at it that way .

When you have someone on some Josh ratio and I talked about this on the podcast when you have someone on social media who is talking negatively , talking trash , it's often it used to be a lot more than it is nowadays Josh Parvin's always like he'll go in and search to see , like , have they watched any of this ?

And the most negative ones are the ones who , like we've never heard of their name , they're not in our program , there's no way they've seen a single video . And , yeah , you are right , like it's not . When you have guys that are like , how many master hunters is your program produced ? I don't know .

I honestly think , before the hunt test guy came along , I think that number is somewhere around like six or seven , which is insane to me because it was never made to do that . Like it never .

There are so many specific things about training a master hunter , like very specific , that are only going to be found when you're even not going to be found when you're just training an HRCH doc . There's just a difference . There's different things you've got to do and when you're designed to do that ? That's awesome . Our design was always the same .

That's awesome . Our design was always to teach someone how to train and handle a dog . Period Like I've got a dog I don't know what to do .

You know , I want a dog that's steady , delivers to hand , confident in the blind , can run through decoys , can mark , can run a blind out to I don't know 100 , 150 yards and proficiently get a bird , and again goes back to that standard .

Most people are going to be like dang , this is the nicest dog I've ever had in my life , because their expectation was we've all seen it the dog that just runs around like crazy , you know , and never sit still , and the guy that yells the whole duck hunt at his dog . And our goal was to help those guys and I think we have .

We've helped a lot of those people and it was awesome when you and Lyle reached out and when you and I first started talking to say hey , like I am never going to make a hunt test program unless something changes in my life and I got run a whole bunch of hunt tests Because why I'm not qualified ? I'm , I'm .

I'm in no way pretending to be qualified in either . Would Josh to go teach people how to run a hunt test . So it was awesome because when you guys reached out and we all started chatting , the evolution of the relationship there was you guys are super good at that part , like you got a niche right . It's it's unbelievable talent and really good communication .

And there are some similarities , Like I do feel like as different as they are and you guys do .

I mean , obviously you guys force fetch all your dogs right , you guys use e-colors on every dog , you guys have corrections , but I do feel like you guys have an understanding that dogs learn better through doing it right than doing it wrong and you try to build big momentum with your dogs through that .

That , in and of itself , is such a similarity in philosophy that it was a just a real natural road to say hey look , we're not going to run anything regarding hunt tests as far as teaching people , but the some of the best two dudes in the world at it Want to hang out with us and help teach people how to do the next thing .

That's awesome , because we graduated so many people out of Cornerstone and they don't know where to go . They're like , all right , well , now I am a dog trainer , now I can . I've got my second , third dog and they're crushing it in the duck . You know duck blind . But I want to go to the next step , the same as your progress .

If somebody says , hey , we're progression through all this , hey , you want to go run a test ? Well , cool . Well , where do we send them ? We don't really have anywhere . So this is so . I think we're going to go ahead and get started . So this is such a cool project for us to tackle with you guys , and I'm very excited .

I've already been super excited to see people's responses , the messages that you send , the messages that I read on social , where people are like hey , man , like this is making a difference in my life with my dog and I'm really excited to see that progress in the future with everyone . It's going to be really cool .

I'm excited to see people start getting the wheels turning , thinking , thinking about how dogs perceive things and that's what people miss and that's what we want to teach people is like it's not just a point to a point B thing , it's a lot about , you know , getting the dog's thinking and making correct decisions on their own , and that's different than having a

good dog or a great dog . And you know , if you're pursuing the hunt test game , I don't know very many people that get into it and say , you know , I'm okay with a senior hunter . Most people are like okay , now I got the senior , I want to make a master hunter . And once they get a master hunter , like , I want to go run the master national .

I mean it's just like a never ending thing and you always want to get better . And the discussions we had was there was nothing out there for that niche .

And the longer I do this , I mean I'm 17 years into my career now and I can quite honestly tell you I still enjoy running dogs , I still enjoy competing with dogs , but I enjoy teaching more than I do competing or running them .

Now I mean , when I go to a seminar and teach , that is my favorite thing to do To watch not only the dogs start to see things click from day one to day three , but also the owners start to see

things click Also . The owners start you asking questions and I never want to give them the answers . I want them to answer them to me as we get further along . And if they give me the correct answer , then I want to know why is that ? Because I've got to get people thinking about why they're doing what they're doing .

Not just this is a cookie cutter thing , because if you don't understand the why , you're never going to be a good trainer .

It's like , hey , they're figuring it out .

Well , what's awesome is you've taken your experience of getting dogs through that right , you getting these dogs that are in transition or just past it and seeing the light bulb go off and going from there to hey , we're passing the grand , we're earning Grand Hunt , retriever champion titles , we're passing Master of National , we're running SRS and placing , winning the

crown . You have taken your experience and seeing what those light bulbs going off can do , and now you're using that to see the light bulb go off in people . And it's the same . It's people .

And when and I see that excitement in you when you share something with us , or when people are on a zoom , when you see the light bulbs click and it's like , oh man , they just came to a new understanding that is going to improve the depth of their dog training . So kudos to you , man , for seeing that and dogs and seeing that in people .

And look , I know a lot of dog trainers , several who are friends of mine who are very good at communicating with dogs and not so good at communicating with human beings .

So I very much commend you and appreciate your ability to communicate clearly and your willingness to just really want to help people man , it definitely comes through and how you do your Q&As and the videos we do , and just your drive and desire to do something for people out there that want to run hunt tests with their dogs .

That's one of the things we discussed is , you know , let's help them get there . I want to . Nothing would make me happier than to shake the hand of four or five hunt test guide members coming off the upload at the grand , getting the grand title .

Yeah that would mean more to me and then passing every dog I took there like that would just mean the world to me and I hope when we get to that point , I think we will .

Remember when he said this yeah , now it's happening . I love it . Well , man , I really appreciate the time . We could probably do 50 of these and never announce stuff to talk about , but we're definitely like an hour and 20 into this thing , so I appreciate the time on a weeknight .

I know you got an early morning with dogs and , for those of you listening , I'm sure and hopeful that you gained a lot of knowledge from Clark and our discussion and hopefully you guys have an awesome rest of your week out there working your dogs in the field as well .