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Ducks Unlimited Podcast is a constant discussion of all things waterfowl; from in-depth hunting tips and tactics, to waterfowl biology, research, science, and habitat updates. The DU Podcast is the go-to resource for waterfowl hunters and conservationists. Ducks Unlimited is the world's leader in wetlands conservation.
Chris Jennings: Today, I've got a friend of the show, friend of Ducks Unlimited. We've got Mike Stewart, the owner and operator of Wild Rose Kennels. Mike, how are you?
Mike Stewart: Good afternoon, Chris. I'm great.
Chris Jennings: Now, where are you at these days? You're out west, aren't you?
Mike Stewart: Right now, I'm sitting at 9,000 feet in the Rocky Mountains. Beautiful, cool weather in the morning, beautiful trout stream running right through the training property, so pretty well have it made.
Chris Jennings: That's awesome. That's a big change from the 200 feet of elevation there in Oxford, I'd imagine.
Mike Stewart: Well, those guys are still going at it. You know, we have three locations across the country right now, Oxford, Mississippi, our largest facility. They're running early in the morning and they're done by two o'clock in the afternoon. So we run to a really early morning shift. Texas, a place in Dallas, they even start earlier. They're running out at four and five o'clock in the morning, and then they're through by lunch. But now Hillsborough, North Carolina, our third location, it has a bit more elevation. We're north of Raleigh, and they get a nice mountain breeze up there. So they're still on the standard operating times of eight to four, seven to four. So they're doing pretty well right now, but we'll change those times, weather conditioning changes all that.
Chris Jennings: You know, and that's why I wanted to get you on the phone here because that really leads into the conversation that I've had with other people and even other trainers and yourself many times. But we're talking about summer training. And I know I've got an old dog. She's going to be 11 this year. She's she's a big girl. I'm not saying she's overweight. She's a big girl. But she doesn't handle the heat, especially as well as she used to, but really, you know, the heat is tough on these dogs. Can you kind of explain some of the things that you're doing, and even at different locations, because I think it gives our listeners a pretty good perspective, different locations, things that you're doing to keep these dogs active, but also safe as far as avoiding heat stroke and avoiding, you know, hurting their paws on concrete, things like that. So, what are you guys doing?
Mike Stewart: Well, I think it's a great subject. It's the perfect time of the year because people sometimes are just not aware of what heat does to many of these water dogs. That's what we're really talking about with a lot of those sporting dogs. And they're bred to run in cooler weather, whether you're talking about porters, spaniels, labs. And then when you hit these hotter, high humidity days, that really whacks them. So the first thing you've got to look at is the body conditioning. You mentioned that the age of your dog and the weight of your dog. If the dog is overweight, the dog is older, you've got to be really, really careful. So first thing we're going to do is we're going to start dropping that weight really slowly, about a half a cup a day until we drop that weight down. And then we're going to do a lot of trying to get the dog more in physical conditioning and weather acclimated. You know, a lot of the dogs live inside, under the air conditioning. That's what Deke, he's become like a semi-retired kind of guy. He's laying out in the air conditioning all day long. He gets out and looks outside and says, you're just hot, let's go back inside. You know, so we gotta get our dogs weather acclimated, so we need to keep our dogs outside some. And then the best thing to do for the physical conditioning, try to build up the strength and endurance is water work, keeping them cool. Put that, get them in the water swimming, lots and lots and lots of swimming. You gotta think about also is hydration. We think about the food. All the dogs out in Colorado right now and in Texas and other places that are very hot, we hydrate them with the food. We feed them. We feed them once a day in the afternoons after work, after working. Some people still keep their dogs on twice a day, and I really don't like that because think about it for a second. You just ate. You remember in the old days, mama wouldn't let you go swimming for 30 minutes. Well, next thing we know, we've got kibble inside the dog's stomach and gut, and his body's trying to digest it, and the digestion process creates heat itself. They have to keep the dog warm in the winter, but it's really detrimental in the summer and your dog's out there running and exercising. That's really detrimental to the dog. So we put our dogs over afternoon feeding. Well after exercise, we float that food. I don't mean just fill the whole pan full of it, but take the water, cool water up to the top of your kibble and let them lap that up. They'll drink it right up because the grease and the oil on the outside of the food sort of makes a gravy and that helps hydrate your dog. The dog just simply don't drink enough water.
Chris Jennings: Man, that's a really good point. For as much as I've talked with you about all of these different training aspects and even nutrition, I don't think I've ever heard you mention that you fill up the dog's bowl with water and food as a source of hydration during these hot times. That's a really good… good tip for people and I may start doing that with my dog.
Mike Stewart: Just stay away from morning feedings if you're going to exercise the dog. Do it late in the afternoon after all the exercise and then it's going to take them about 12 to 16 hours to digest that food. I've seen dogs actually regurgitate in the morning and they don't have solid kibble still in there. So you think your dog's running around with his kibble trying to digest it out in the field, and you're trying to keep the dog cool. So keep the dog in the water, get him weather acclimated, and hydrate the food. That's just some simple things. And then I want your listeners to be very aware of what heat stroke looks like. And we need to talk about that before we get off.
Chris Jennings: Oh, no, absolutely. And one thing before we get onto that, and this can definitely lead into it, you know, I've talked about even doing water work, you know, where your dog's out there swimming, especially down here in the South where I am and in Oxford, you know, where your main facility is, the water temperature is not cool enough to really cool them down. So, people still have to pay attention for heat-related issues in their retrievers, even though the dog's swimming. Am I correct in saying that?
Mike Stewart: Absolutely, and old country boys always know about that because you're fishing and you get really hot and you jump in the lake and you feel the thermal line. It's about waist deep, it's really warm, and then below waist is really cool. Well, your dog is up at the top part of the water, which is above the thermal line, so it's just hot water. He's just swimming in hot water. So you think he's cooling down. Now in Colorado, I'm running in some really cool water out here. This is all runoff water coming off the mountains. I'm still looking at snow on the top of the mountain, so it's really, really cool. That's an advantage, but if you've got shallow water you're trying to swim in and train in, then you're not getting a lot of the cooling down of the dog, but you're getting hydration. I mean, evaporation, excuse me, but you're getting evaporation, which is about 5% of the cooling. So a dog cools by panning about 80, 90%. 5% or so, is evaporation. The dog is wet and the water is evaporating. And the third place they cool is about 5% goes through their pads. And you mentioned that on hot surfaces, asphalt, concrete, or really hard dirt like plowed ground, it's very hot. and the ground is hot out there, so he's losing 5% of his cooling right there. And then guess what? You're losing a massive amount of cooling because you won't even care if a bumper's around in his mouth. He can't pant, and that's their main cooling sources. So the evaporation does help, even though it's warm water.
Chris Jennings: As people are out there and they're working their dogs this summer, even if it's early in the morning, and one thing that you've always stressed is kind of keep these training sessions short anyway when it's that hot. But what are some of the early symptoms of heat stroke, any kind of heat related illness that you should, you're advising your trainers or anyone out there, our listeners to keep an eye out for in their dog.
Mike Stewart: Well, the first thing you'll notice that a real raspy looking breath, breathing, instead of a deep and shallow, it's really shallow, it's real raspy looking to watch their chest and watch the way they're panning. The second thing you look for is the curl of the end of their tongue. The tongue will run out more and then curl up at the end. Many times they're really frothy at the mouth, foaming at the mouth. Their eyes will look glazed and sometimes a little bit dirty side to side and they'll have a staggered walk. I've seen some handlers not recognize that and think the dog's just being disobedient, but he won't listen to you a lot of times anymore. And all of a sudden they fly and you're wanting to correct the dog and you've got to say, whoa, you need to read the dog and see what he's doing. Sometimes the mouth will go dry after, and then you're really getting the body temperature up is when his mouth starts, he's still rasping, still panting, but the mouth is not frothy anymore. Then you get really closer to the danger zone. So what you want to do is slowly cool the dog down. Don't throw the cooler on him. Ice water, you put him in a shock. You want to, if you have ice water, and that's all you've got, sort of dig a little hole in the ground in leaves, pour the water in it, and roll the dog in it. Cool the belly down. I've used cold or cool water enemas. I've taken a syringe, if you've got it in your vet kit, and put some cool water up the rectum. You can wade him out in the lake for heaven's sake, get him into water as much as you can. You want to offer them water, but most of the time they won't drink. So sometimes you just have to pour the water into their mouth. Be careful not to fill their lungs, of course, but try to wet that mouth as much as possible with straight water. Don't try to give them any Coca-Cola or anything with sugars or anything like that in them. stick with the water and try to cool that body temperature down as fast as possible. Another mistake outdoorsmen make is they'll put the dog in the crate and all that is gonna do is just build that body temperature. Dogs run at about 104 temperature anyway. When he gets to this level, he's at 106 or 108 and he's going into stroke. When he goes into stroke, it's really hard to revive him. And once they go into stroke, they tend to collect them. I always talk about collect. I've seen dogs heat stroke They tend to do it over and over again. They're very prone to it once they've done it. So we've got to be really careful about watching for the heat stroke.
Chris Jennings: Yeah, no, and that's a good point about throwing them in the kennels like that where, you know, people assume it's shaded, you know, we'll get them in the kennel, things like that. But maybe it's a good idea just, you know, let the dog lay out in the shade a little for a little while before, you know, taking the trip home or whatever, you know, you're really taking your time. And these are some important things for our listeners and people who are out there training to remember because you don't, you know, you don't want to put your dog in jeopardy just because of the heat.
Mike Stewart: Take wet towels, wrap them in wet towels, put them on the back seat of the truck, turn the air conditioner wide open and head to the vet fast as you can. Because what he's going to do is he's going to put them on IV. He's going to flush that system, get hydration into the dog. But I've had incidents or seen incidents, heard of incidences where they put them in the back of the truck and took them to the vet while they were dead when they got there. So you got to take that Get that dog as cool as possible and just keep putting, you know, if you got him wrapped in some towels, you can just keep wetting those towels. That's a good way to do it. Probably take off your T-shirt, you know, pop off your shirt and your T-shirt, wrap the dog and that whatever's around, whatever cloth around that you can grab, put water on.
Chris Jennings: Mike, you know, some other things as you're in the process of avoiding any heat-related injuries, there are some other kind of training aspects that you can focus on during the summer. I know I've spoken to you and we've even shot some videos about, you know, summer's a great time to add in some variations that they may expect to see during the season, you know, everything from dog lines to stands to, you know, and you can do these in the shade, you can do these, you know, it's not a ton of rigorous work. So, the summertime would be a good idea to introduce some of these. Can you kind of explain how, what are some of the best processes to introduce, let's say, a dog stand or, you know, even like a dog blind?
Mike Stewart: Yeah, we'll walk through that because I hear people write me about pre-season tune-up. Well, I've never taken my dogs that need a tune-up because I never stopped training them. It's just, it's a matter of, and you mentioned it earlier, duration and distance. Drop the duration, the amount of time you're training. Do it more frequently, but drop the amount of time and drop those long distances. You don't have to do the 300-yard blinds. They're going to take 10 handles to do. It's not the time to work on those. There's some things that you can work on. First thing, think cool and moist. That means primarily in the south, morning. You're going to have a lot of dew, and that's really good on the ground. Not so great for thinning, but it's going to really keep the dog cool. He's running and damp. And then cool time in the morning, and then alternate between land and water. If you've got a water source around, do one retrieve on land and one retrieve on water, or combine them. Say you're doing hand signals, I'll run the dog parallel to the water, stop, cast him into the water on the first one, then run parallel to the water. Alternating between land and water. You could incorporate your water. Other things you can do is not incorporate water, as I like to find shady areas, like woodlands. Get in the woods, at least you've got the shade going on. It's usually cool in the morning in the woodlands. And you're really practicing for flooded timber. I asked a group the other day, how do you train for flooded timber? Well, you don't have any flooded timber around, do you? No. So how do you teach a dog to handle in timber? Do it in woodland. So, it's great, you know, it's a great time for your practicing for flooded timber, go out and set you some short memories out, some circle memories and some short things that they can do and handle in those big, big timber. You're running your dog in cool and you're getting them ready for flooded timber later on.
Chris Jennings: Yeah. And, you know, even when they're standing in the timber, you can even get them on a, like a tree stand or a stand that they would normally be hunting in, you know, in that timber come season time.
Mike Stewart: Take your duck blinds down there, take your dog hides down there. We've got an old boat sitting on the ground at Oxford in the timber, right at the edge of the water. We work out of that a lot. Actually, we've got a tree stand there, a duck boat sitting there, we've brushed out, and a dog blind, all within a stone's throw of each other, and that's where we run them, and it's all under timber. We've done a lot of videos, production limited in that particular area, but some people can go back and look in your archives, which are excellently done, and see some of the things that we do up in the cooler parts. But what you want to watch is being out in the open ground, a lot of heat, a lot of distances that are going to require a lot of exertion, and build that body temperature. And then you do it again and again, and all of a sudden, your dog is really not learning anymore. He's just trying to survive. So you alternate between woodlands. Other things I like to work on is close in hunting. I'll take some cover and hide a bumper in it and tell him hunt lost, hunt dead. Practice those kinds of things, getting in and out of duck blinds. You can build a little blind at your house made out of pallets and work out of that. If you're going to be hunting on lay down blinds and dog hides, early season goose in Canada, if Canada will let the let us travel there this year, that was a big deal, but if you're going there, that's a great time to do it in the backyard, in a shady area, get your dog out, lay down blind, put some memories around in your yard, just make some short retreats.
Chris Jennings: Yeah. No, that's a, that's a great idea and something that people should do. I know one thing that I always noticed, um, when I visited your kennels there in Oxford, you always had full body decoys, like all over this little yard. And I was, I was like, why, you know, is he just, this is just decoration. Like, what's he, he just, he misses duck season more than I thought. But, uh, you know, it's actually part of the training process and it's something that people can tie in during the summer as well as having your dogs maneuver through, full-body decoys. I've actually hunted with people who, when the wind started blowing and those full-body decoys started rattling a little bit, some of the dogs got a little spooky. They were almost afraid of the decoys.
Mike Stewart: Well, and you could take your decoys and practice other kinds of things. Set your dog up on the water stand and walk around the yard and just throw your decoys. Now what are you practicing? Putting out your decoys early in the morning. Have you ever seen dogs break when you start throwing your decoys out and just start getting tangled up in the decoys? You can practice little simple things like that that are going to pay dividends to the dog blind. You know, just simple things you can do. It's too hot to do that. Get them out in the field. Do a little exercise like that in the backyard. Getting in and out of the dog hide. Well, I don't have a dog hide. All you got to do is take a travel crate, brush it out a little bit, put some brush on it. I think we get them going in and out of that, set you out a couple of little memories, send them out of the dog hide, bring it back up, get back in the dog hide. Little things that you can practice off season that it's going to add into your training in the fall, you incorporate it. You can do those now.
Chris Jennings: Absolutely. Now one question, we kind of talked about hydration and you hit a little bit on feeding. What are some other kind of nutritional tips for people to look at during the summer, you know, as far as protein and, you know, what are you doing with your feedings at this time of year?
Mike Stewart: Well, in the old days, we believed we would switch to feed the foods back and forth, but Perena has done some extensive research on that with athletic sporting dogs. That's one reason I like the Perena brand so well, the ProPlan brand, because it's designed for sporting dogs. So they found that it takes anywhere from 12 to 16 weeks for the body metabolism to switch over to another food. So what they're recommending through their research is don't switch the food at the end of the season, the beginning of the season, because about the time you switch it, you need to switch it back. So the body never really accumulates itself to indigestion to using the food source. So what they recommend is just decrease the amount you're feeding and increase the amount you're feeding. So if you're feeding four cups during the season and I would start going to three and a half, three down to two and a half to keep the body weight down and then start going in the season, I'm going to start raising that back up again. So the dogs I got out to Colorado, they have not been running. They've been laying under the air conditioning in Alabama, North Carolina. They weren't acclimated to the heat at all. I come out here, I'm at 9,000 feet. and the air is really thin. I can tell it when I get here and the dogs can tell it. So running on thin air. And all of a sudden their body weight is dropping within a week like a rock. And I've gone up a half a cup every week since I've been here.
Chris Jennings: Okay, so you're feeding more. You're just, you know, the dogs are just working so much more and they're actually burning through it.
Mike Stewart: And they're running on thin air and cool weather. So it's got to do with where you are and what your activity of your dog is. Just read that body weight. versus trying to say, okay, I'm going to go to a different food content. Let's say you're running a 30-20, 30% protein, 20% fat. You could drop to a 26-16. That's okay, but it's going to take a while to process it in, maybe 12 weeks. And the next thing you know, now we need to go back up to a hotter food to get into teal season and duck season and pumpkin season. Well, it's gonna take another 12 weeks for them to process the food accordingly, so it really doesn't work. So it's better just to drop the amounts you're feeding and keep right on with the same food source of your protein and fat balances. And of course, your omega acids are good for coat. And then, again, I stress feeding in the afternoon after you're finished with your training. gives that time for the digestive system to turn that food source into energy. And that takes about 12 to 16 hours.
Chris Jennings: Wow, that's impressive. I mean, just the amount of information there. I'm trying to even jot down what you're saying as you're saying it. And then to throw in the digestion time at close to 16 hours, that's something that I didn't really think about. And I'm sure a lot of people didn't either. kind of, let's say we're getting out of the heat, it's too hot, trainer doesn't feel like training today, we're going to stay inside, maybe an air-conditioned, you know, living room or maybe an air-conditioned garage. What are some of the small little tips and little training aspects that you can do in the house if we're going to stay in the AC?
Mike Stewart: Well, I'm assuming we're talking about a trained dog that knows his skills. If you don't have a trained dog, let's say it's a pup, we can do whole conditioning. We can do a lot of things inside in a cool that's really an advantage because it's harder to teach hold condition when the dog's panting. So, let's take an older dog. I'm really big on place running. My dog's not even Deke. He does not get free run of the house. He's got place. Now, how many places he has, wherever. In our different locations, he has a place everywhere and he knows where it is and he stays on it. Right now, I've got two dogs in here I'm working, a young pup and Deke. Both of them have place. And when it gets hot, I put them on place, and they stay there. Then you can do some denials. You can do denials outside, and I strongly encourage people doing that in hot weather where your dog can't make many refrees. A denial is simply, you're throwing bumpers around, getting your dog to watch those bumpers, and you're picking them up yourself. Or if you have two dogs or three dogs, each one gets a retrieve and the other's honor. You can do a lot of that in the summer, but who says you can't do that in the house as well? If you've got a nice big basement area, you can toss some bumpers around and he gets one out of five. It's simple things like work on your hole conditioning. Put their dog on one side of the room, place a bumper in his mouth and say, here, and let him jump back up on his dog bed. You can take a water stand in the house, set the water stand up in the middle of the living room, the wife's gonna love this one. and have them return and hop back up on that water stand. The dog hide, put it at the end of the hallway and teach the dog to go in and out of the dog hide, and you're sitting by them. Think about it, most people train their dogs standing up over them, but you're not gonna be shooting that way in a pit or lay down blind. You're gonna be sitting beside your dog right at ground level. So do some of that in the house. Get him to come and, and it's fun, I'll do this at workshop. I'll have everybody sit down by the dog. Well, guess where the dog ends up? In the lap. So you want to get the dog acclimated to you sitting shoulder to shoulder to him and working your dog. You do that now. Sit on the floor, work your dog, have him come back. Deliver the hand, come back to heel, but not heel, but come back to sit by your shoulders and be quiet.
Chris Jennings: Oh, that's great. No, those are, those are good ideas. Something that people can do, you know, if you've got 10, 15 minutes, even you can do these short little training sessions inside. Um, and really it's all, it all goes back to, you know, most of the, the same fundamentals of, you know, waterfowl hunting, really, you know, you want to kind of recreate some of those similar scenarios, just like you said, sitting next to the dog, um, you know, even honoring, you know, we see, I see a lot of that hunting. I don't, we don't really hunt with multiple dogs often, but we do on occasion, and there's very few dogs that I've seen who honor well, and I think that's a very good aspect of summertime training that people should really focus on.
Mike Stewart: If you got one more time for a tip, I'll give you another one.
Chris Jennings: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Mike Stewart: I'm doing this one right now, and we're doing it really in our workshops. We'll line up all the dogs. and call them out of line by name. Now, most of the time I stress, don't call a dog off set. Always go back and get him so you don't create a creeper that creeps all the time. But I want to get the dog acclimated to their name. So yesterday I took all the dogs out, I lined them all up, six of them, and I call one by name, Deke, and I heel him around in a circle and all that, have to sit still. The next one I call by name. What I'm doing is getting them acclimated to only respond by their name. So, when the birds are down and you've got three dogs in a duck blind and you say, back, all three are gone. You've got three birds down and you say, deke, only deke moves. Deke will practice a lot of this in this warm weather.
Chris Jennings: Now, that's great. Absolutely. That's an awesome tip for people who do hunt with multiple dogs.
Mike Stewart: If you're working multiple dogs, get the dogs queuing on their name, not back, but they don't move unless they hear their name.
Chris Jennings: Perfect. Well, Mike, this has been great. This is extremely informational, educational for all of our listeners out there who are probably spending more time training their dogs this summer than they have in years past, hopefully. And I'm sure the dogs are appreciating, and I'm sure they'll appreciate it. Come hunting season, it'll probably pay off. But thanks a lot for joining me today.
Mike Stewart: Yeah, and I would invite all our listeners to down on your world's website, which is well done and a wealth of information on dogs on there and hunting dogs. But please check out UKLABS.com, look under our video library. We have about 120 to 140 complimentary films on there. Some are done for Upland, others are done for Waterfowl, many are done by our friends at Ducks Unlimited. which they do an extraordinarily good job of. We have the Purina ProPlan series on starting your pup. If you've got any recent pup, there's 16 lessons. It's an Emmy Award winning feature. Please take a look at that and follow along and train the wild rose way.
Chris Jennings: Yeah, and you can find that step-by-step kind of video instruction that you did with one of our great partners, Purina. You can find it on ducks.org, on YouTube, at Wild Rose Kennels YouTube, and also it's just on uklabs.com. So lots of resources.
Mike Stewart: If you need the training manual, of course, we've got Sporting Dog Retriever Training the Wild Rose Way with the forward written by Ducks Unlimited. So we'd love for you to take a look at our training manual as well. And that gives you the instructions from the basics all the way up to upland waterfowl and destination traveling with your dog. But thanks for having me.
Chris Jennings: First of all, I'd like to thank our guest, Mike Stewart from Wild Rose Kennels for joining me and bringing us information on summer retriever training, summer conditioning, just some very good tips for people to start focusing on this summer. I'd like to thank our producer, Clay Baird, for doing a great job putting the podcast together. And I'd like to thank you, the listener, for joining us on the DU Podcast and supporting wetlands conservation.