Canines are our passion. They are our addiction.
They are our way of life right down to the very
core. And without them, we would be lost. The
canines of this world really are something to
behold. They assist us at work. They accompany
us at home. And they perform for us in the field.
No matter where we go, they are by our side.
Canines really are a ride or die, and for that,
we are grateful. This podcast will showcase working
canines of various breeds and disciplines as
we search for those canines and their handlers
who are always striving to be the best at what
they do. Those who are always grinding. Those
who are always pushing the limits. Those who
are always dogging. Join us on our adventures
as it is sure to be a wild ride. I'm your host,
Bryce Matthews. And I'm your co -host, Stephen
Basham. And this, this is Semper Doggo. Welcome,
welcome, welcome to another episode of the Simper
Doggin Podcast, guys. I am your host, Bryce Matthews,
and today we are joined by Mr. Stephen Basham
and Mr. Jeremy Cox. How's it going, gentlemen?
What's going on, guys? Good, good. Man, that
is awesome. You staying awake over there? I'm
trying, dude. I'm freaking snoozing. You know,
Nikki's been working me like a dog. And then
starting a new job. I know, man. Yeah, we're
slinging campers now. RV sales is getting wild.
We had to go chase some money here. It's about
that time of year. I'm telling you, it's nonstop.
I mean, from 7 .30 in the morning to 5 o 'clock
at night. I forgot to eat lunch today. It's crazy.
I need to eat lunch every now and then. Oh, man.
Something I didn't realize until we were talking
before we went on air was... I guess in my head,
I'm thinking of just like a normal car salesman.
It's whoever comes in. And Bryce is sitting here
telling me that he sold one to a lady in Washington
and then one to a lady in Texas. So I guess I
just didn't understand the concept of why would
someone from Washington buy a camper in Indiana?
Like if I was looking for a camper, I would just
go down the road to the local camper. and I would
buy one from there. So I guess I just don't understand
that concept. Well, do you like to save money?
Yeah, but is it really saving you money if you've
got to pay for transport too? Let me tell you
something here. That lady in Washington and the
guy in Texas, both of them, I got them the unit
that they wanted. with all the aftermarkets oh
god here we go this is not a sales pitch this
is the this is the facts we are at rv dynasty
we are the number one rv camp or forest river
dealer in the country okay by the end of 2025
we are on track to be in the top five of independent
rv dealerships in the nation here's why because
we operate like amazon right we're wholesalers
so forest river We're Forest River exclusive,
and I know this is not dog related, but I got
to just tell you this. This is crazy, okay? Hey,
guys, he is excited about his new job. Here we
go. I'm telling you, it's so much fun. I get
to deal with people all over the country all
day long, right? So we're Forest River exclusive.
Those two people in Washington and in Texas,
I got them the unit they wanted with the aftermarkets
they wanted, plus shipped at $2 .85 a mile, cheaper
than they could go 20 minutes down the road and
buy it from their local dealer. Do you sell them
John Strickland campers? No, we're not into the
drive -around vans. We do have a couple of Class
C motorhomes. We don't have any vans. I thought
you meant the mini pop -up campers for midgets.
No, I was talking about one of those that you
drive to a hunt and it brings all the good luck
with it. If we had those, I'd buy one for myself.
Yeah. Yeah. All right. Hey, we didn't come here
and talk about campers and RV sales, but just
so you know, RV dynasty, Bryce Matthews, you
guys need a camper anywhere in the country, East
coast, West coast. I am your guy. Okay. Over
off my soapbox. So, guys, today we did bring
Jeremy Cox on here. This is somebody that Basham
and I have both known for quite a while. You
know, Basham gets to hang out with him more than
I do. They are kind of more local to each other
geography -wise. But Jeremy's going to bring
a really interesting side to this podcast today,
guys. We can talk a little bit of Coonhound stuff
here, but really what... what he's going to bring
into into this podcast and simper dog and is
is more of like a police canine military canine
side of things um you know jeremy and basham
both have experience serving overseas um as canine
handlers um and in that world so tonight we're
just gonna we're kind of focused more on that
um obviously we got to tie some coon hounds in
here because we're coon hunters at heart but
but we're gonna just roll into that a little
bit deeper so basham why don't you give us started
buddy um you and jeremy kind of set this thing
up at a hunt a couple weeks ago Yeah, so what
really interests me about Jeremy was the fact
of there's not too many people out there. You
know, Heath Hyatt, you know, there's a few, but
there's not too many people out there that know
the different realms of working dogs. And so,
Jeremy, it's kind of funny, real quick. uh before
jeremy gets on here and gives his spiel it's
kind of funny how it all worked out i was selling
a coon dog and jeremy called me up and we got
to talking about this coon dog and he wanted
to come down and try it out so he come down to
try it out and come to find out as we're sitting
there talking in the woods he was in baghdad
iraq at the same time i was he was a canine handler
and so that just kind of uh sparked the interest
between me and him you know having that common
ground and so uh jeremy i appreciate you joining
us here on the simper dogging podcast and uh
for the listeners just kind of go over your background
who you are where you're from where you got into
dogs and uh where that has taken you to this
point yeah so uh jeremy cox i'm from central
illinois a little town i live in a little town
called tower hill And, man, we got a Casey's
gas station and a post office. And that's about
it. That's all you need. Hold up. That's it.
Have you ever had the breakfast burritos at Casey's?
Well, yes, I have. I'm not a big, big breakfast
person. But, you know, at Casey's, they got some
pretty decent coffee when you live out in the
middle of nowhere. And it's, you know, it's the
only option. A little rabbit story. I used to
eat a burrito every morning, and then a guy looked
at me and said, man, he said, do you know how
many calories are in them damn things? And I'm
like, no. Do I look like a guy that looks at
calories? I flipped that darn thing over. I've
seen 1 ,400 calories, and I don't know that I've
eaten one since. It's like an MRE. I love me
some Casey's. Me too. Go ahead, Jeremy. So the
funny part of me and Bastion's story that he
left out in the beginning is not only were we
in Iraq together, but we were actually on the
exact same compound. We probably walked past
each other three or four times a week and never
come in contact with each other somehow, some
way. We were literally at the same place at the
exact same time. He probably looked at me and
snubbed his nose because I was in suit and tie.
Yeah, right, right. That would have been a scary
sight to see. Oh, hey, I can clean up pretty
good, but I was on APD, which is the Ambassador
Private Detail, and so I had to be in suit and
tie all the time. Yeah. But no, my background
with the dogs, you know, the coon hunting side,
my dad and uncle was coon hunting probably before
I was born. I mean, certainly before I can really
remember. So I grew up coon hunting and we was
just, my entire life, we was just never without
a dog. Whether it was a coon dog or, you know,
we had... german shepherds and you know we always
just had dogs and i got into law enforcement
and my first uh the department i first started
my career with uh started a canine unit small
town i was up in maine and uh we we just had
one handler and one dog and so that was really
my my first taste of, of a working dog. And I
wasn't the handler, but dad gum, I, uh, I volunteered
to, to wear a, you know, a bite sleeve and, and
a, uh, a bite suit. And, you know, somebody that's
never done that before your, your first, you
know, time putting that bite suit on it's man,
there's an adrenaline. Oh, definitely. You got
a, you got a Mally coming at you. what looks
like 90 miles an hour i mean it's just fur and
teeth and you're wondering if that bite suit's
gonna hold up well and and you know i guess the
first bite i ever took was on a sleeve and not
a i didn't have a suit on and so i hadn't really
given it much thought until that dog was coming
down range and then i got thinking well what
if he goes for my leg Or what if he misses this
leaf? You know, there was a lot of what ifs going
through my mind in that split, you know, second
and a half. But that was really my first taste
of a working dog. And then I, you know, I worked
in that department for several years and we did
a lot of, you know, search warrants and, you
know, traffic stops, narcotic searches and that
type of stuff. I later had moved back home to
Illinois, and I started with a department here
in Illinois, and they did not have a canine unit.
And so after a little research and that, we made
a stab at it and started our own. you know, canine
unit. And I was, I was able to, to get a dog.
I actually went to, uh, Von Lick, uh, to pick
out my dog, which is in, uh, Peru, Indiana. Yeah.
I mean that Von Lick and, uh, Kenny Licklider,
they're about five minutes up the road from me.
Yep. Yes. Yep. That's where Heath Hyatt gets
his dogs from too sometimes. Well, get some train
down and stuff. Yeah. We went, uh, so we went
there, me and another, uh, canine handler here
in Illinois. Uh, We took a weekend and went over
there to Licklider's and we tested a few dogs.
And, you know, I was making my list of, you know,
pros and cons. And, you know, he was a pretty
experienced handler. He had done, you know, I
think he was on maybe his third dog. And so I
asked him before we ever went over there, I said,
man, I said, I want you to take this list of
dogs we're going to look at. And as we're looking
at them, I want you to write your own notes down.
I said, because I really want to, you know, try
to first day, try to narrow this down to, you
know, three or four dogs. Cause I mean, we're
going over there to look at 30 dogs, you know,
it's going to take a while. I mean, we're, we're
going to look at them, uh, you know, doing a
little bite work, uh, maybe a little, uh, tracking,
uh, definitely some, some, uh, you know, odor
detection and that type of thing. I said, I just
want you to make your own notes and stuff and
not tell me what your top three or five or whatever
is, but I want to have that to fall back on.
So by the end of the day, we had looked at most
all of them, but we had narrowed it down to three,
and I had two of his three. the dog that we ended
up going with, we both had on our list and, and
we had both kind of narrowed him down to the
very last one. There was just a few different
things that, you know, we really liked about
him. Uh, and he turned out, his name was Brom,
uh, Belgian Malinois. And he was only about,
I don't know, I think he was like maybe 18 months
old when we got him. Um, but we went through.
I can't remember now. It was a long time ago.
I think it was in 2012 or 13. The school then,
I believe, was eight weeks for a dual -purpose
dog. But we stayed over there. So Licklider at
the time, I don't know if they still do or not,
but they had half of the old Air Force base.
What's that name of the Air Force base over there?
Grissom? Yes, yes. So it shut down, or part of
it did. And so they had, you know, part of the
housing from that old Air Force base. And that's
where we all stayed. And we did a lot of the
training in some of those buildings and stuff
over there. So I was over there for about eight
weeks working with this dog. And when we test
them out over there, I mean, they're pretty green.
You know, they got the basics and stuff. But
they're not finished dogs by any stretch of the
imagination. And the good thing about it, you
know, getting them that way is... finishing them
on out or or the next eight weeks worth of training
is done by the handler that's going to be handling
them yeah so and so you really spend that next
eight weeks you know bonding training you're
the one giving them the commands the new things
that they learn they learn from you they learn
from your voice um yeah and so you guys kind
of And there's a lot of times that, you know,
dogs are like people. They have personalities.
There's certain dogs that just are not going
to click with a handle. And you see that, you
know, you see guys in the coon hunting world
that can take a dog and just win everywhere they
take it. And then you can see another handler
jump on that same dog. He can't win a cast, save
his life. You know, you, you've seen it time
and time again, but I think it's more noticeable
in the working dogs. The personalities are, you
know, really come to light. So we, you know,
we spent about, like I said, eight weeks over
there and we come home. I think it was maybe,
and we, we're a small town, but you know, a rural
town with a large. farm community all around
us and i i think it was the first three months
maybe on the road just in traffic stops and narcotic
searches i mean we ended up uh it was six or
six or seven guns um wow that's pretty impressive
from vehicles that were were drug related yeah
um so it's you know it was a blast uh I had a
lot of fun doing it. I got out of law enforcement.
Yeah, I was going to say, how did you transfer
from law enforcement to overseas? How did that
happen? I had enough years in to secure my retirement
between the two departments that I worked for.
In 2017, I was really just getting an itch. to
go overseas and I had known guys that had got
into contracting security contracting basically
it's do you remember the company called Blackwater
it was several years ago they were a security
contractor they contract for Some of the contracts
are with DOD. Some of them are with the Department
of State. So I worked for the Department of State.
I contracted for them as a bomb dog handler.
And that's pretty much – so for the listeners
that don't know, what happened was Blackwater,
everybody, any of your old military guys, they
know the – that Blackwater ran into, and they
were made to sell out, which they sold out to
Triple Canopy. Triple Canopy was then bought
by a big umbrella group called the Olive Group,
which is actually Constellus. Constellus bought
up Blackwater, the Academy, the whole nine yards.
If I'm not mistaken, you worked for SOC, didn't
you? I did. Yeah, you worked for SOC. So you
basically kind of had three contractors over
there at the time that we were over there. You
had SOC, AMK9, and then Triple Canopy. And AMK9
was – so I think Triple Canopy mostly had the
contract that you guys were on, correct? Yes.
When you were with Triple Canopy. And AMK9 was
kind of – phasing out. They didn't have too,
too many guys left over there. I think they had
maybe some, some mobile guys, but they over on
Condor where we were was all that was left was,
was SOC. But that's anyway, that's how I ended
up over there is I had enough years in between
the two departments to secure my law enforcement
retirement. And I had just known guys that had
went, done that, the experiences they had. And
I just, man, I really had an itch to do it. You
know, I did not join the military when I was
young enough. And that was kind of always a regret
that I had because my grandpa was a veteran.
My dad was Air Force. And, you know, I never...
ended up in the military somehow and here i'm
you know in my early 40s and i'm i'm going to
iraq so i kind of did it backwards you know for
for the listeners i i would suggest uh starting
that career when when you're young it's a whole
lot easier i mean just just the plane flight
alone bryce you couldn't imagine 14 hours straight
on one plane oh so my okay a little bit off topic
but we knew we was going off topic anyway so
i mean i got to listen out there though uh so
i'm not like a huge huge fan of uh planes and
flying you know a couple hours here and there
that that's fine 14 hours that that's a different
story Hey, I did that one time on the way to
Australia. 14 hours. Oh, you did? Yeah. I board
this plane and it's like a row of three seats.
No. It's got three seats up against the window
and then there's an aisle and then there's like
four seats in an aisle and then there's like
another four seats over against that far window.
So it's like 11 seats across. And I mean, it
goes as far back as you can see. The thing's
huge. Well, I get on this plane and I go to my
row and it's a window row. But my seat is right
smack dab in the middle of the three. I'm the
center. Oh, you're screwed. I got this guy on
the aisle. And this bigger woman on the window.
Well, I'm sitting there. We're waiting for the
runway. And these two start talking back and
forth. And they're like leaning forward and like
talking past me. And I realize this is a husband
and wife. So I'm like, hey, would one of y 'all
like to, you know, maybe switch seats with me?
He's like, oh, no, we bought them this way. He
says, I'm tall, so I need the aisle so I can
stretch my legs out. And she likes to look out
the window. And I'm thinking, well, this is going
to be a long flight. Man, we ain't even taken
off yet, and these jokers are passing food back
and forth. They're like pulling out a daggum
snack bag. And I'm like, how'd you even get that
on here? And they're passing crackers back and
forth and juice boxes. i'm like holy cow well
we get ready to take off i kid you not this joker
gets down on the floor and starts doing his prayers
these guys are muslims and i'm like holy hell
i am screwed this went on for 14 hours you know
every time this woman had to had to go to the
bathroom or something which was uh once an hour
i mean she's climbing over the top of me and
you know, pressing right into me. It was miserable.
14 hours of that. And this is a guy that I ain't
all that keen on flying, you know, long distance
to begin with, but it was quite the experience.
Man. So let's dive into the actual dog aspect
of it, Jeremy. You know, one thing that really
interests me about... the conversation that we
had was the differences and, you know, and what
people, what people think about the hound versus
the canine. And, you know, just like what me
and you were talking about, about the, the drive
in them, you know, whereas the canines are more
toy oriented. So let's talk, let's talk about
the difference. You know, we all, we all know
we've been on this podcast and talked about,
what we're looking for in a puppy, what we're
looking for in a young dog that's going to make
a good dog. What exactly, when you went up to
Peru, what are some of the traits that you're
looking for in a canine to be able to purchase?
What are those traits? You know, the first thing
that... that we were looking for so we were going
with a a dual purpose hound or hound uh dog and
we were looking for one uh even though we were
looking for for dual purpose apprehension and
detection uh the detection was was the big thing
uh the drug detection yep and and you know for
people that are not familiar with working dogs
working dog, you have to have ball drive. You
give me a dog that will absolutely lose his mind
over a tennis ball, I can make that dog find
anything you want to find. I've been asked a
thousand times, can you train a coonhound the
same way that you can train a a working dog,
you know, a drug dog? And the answer is no, you
can't. So the working dogs, they have just an
altogether different drive than hounds do. So
when we start a an odor detection dog, like,
like for a drug, let's just talk about drug dogs
for a minute. Uh, there is a couple of different
methods of training a, a working dog to, uh,
detect odor. And one method that we use that
lick lighter is, um, some, some call it the cocktail
and some call it the, the stew method. The reason
they call it the stew method, you take four or
five odors and put them in one box together.
And that dog smells all of those odors separately.
So if you came home and your wife had just made
a big pot of chili on the stove or was making
beef stew, you would walk in the house and you
would smell. chili, or you would smell beef stew.
That dog would walk in the house and that dog
would smell each individual ingredient in that
pot of chili or that pot of stew. He would smell
the parsley. He would smell the basil. He would
smell the meat. He would smell the carrots, the
potatoes, whatever was in there. He would smell
those separately. Whereas we, We just smelled
a big pot of stew. And so we would take an older
box, about a 12 -inch square plywood box. And
it's got about a 3 -inch, maybe a 4 -inch hole
in the very top of the box. And then it's got
a hole about the same in the back of the box.
And I have to come outside to talk because I
got a new roof put on that's got a metal roof,
and so I lose reception when I go inside. So
what we would do with that young dog that's just
learning odor is we would post him up in front
of that box, and we would bounce that tennis
ball. right in front of that box and just jazz
him up i mean he would just get wound up just
lose his mind crazy watching that ball and then
we would go over and drop that ball in the top
of that hole in that box and so yep we lost him
we're losing you bud hello going that hello in
that box and then the handler would walk that
dog up there as soon as it was in there Yeah.
We got him back now. We got you now. You got
me now? Yep. All right. So we would drop that
ball in that hole, and of course that dog would
see that, and he'd go nuts over it. Well, the
handler walks him up to that box, and of course
that hole is only three or four inches. He can't
see his whole head in there, but he drives his
muzzle right down in that hole trying to get
that ball. Well, the whole time he does that,
all he's doing is... Sucking in all of that odor.
Right. Sucking in all of that odor. And we'd
reach around behind that box and grab that ball
and lift it up to his muzzle where he can grab
it. Well, what he don't realize is we just made
him think that all of that odor was that tennis
ball. We just tricked him into thinking that
all of that odor. was that toy that he was wanting
so bad that's a smart way to do it now now we
add a box and we walk him up to two boxes and
he drives his nose in the first one and it's
going to be blank and he's really going to be
looking for that odor and then we move him to
the next one he drives his nose in there and
he finds that odor again and uh You lift that
ball up to him and he's found his ball. You're
teaching him to find an odor based off of the
desire to find that ball. As long as that dog
has got the ball drive, the hunt drive, you can
make him find anything you want him to find.
So what if you tried to take a coonhound to do
that? Like, could you train a coonhound to do
the same thing? The problem is with that is the
drives are different. You're going to find some
coonhounds that have a little bit of toy drive,
but it's not going to be significant enough to
teach them that. It's just, it's night and day
difference. You know, your coon hounds, yes,
they have strong nose. Lots of them are wound,
you know, like a night and day clock. But their
drives are just night and day difference. I got
you. It just does not feel the same. Yeah, so
when you were over there, you know, Basham and
you guys were serving over there together. What
was your favorite part of being over there with
the dog on an assignment? I've heard some of
Basham's stories. What was your favorite part
of using the dog over there? I did a lot of the
ECPs, the control points, coming out of the red
zone into the green zone. if there was any explosives
coming in, you know, to the embassy to try to
detect them and stop them before they got, you
know, in. That you may run, you know, 1 ,500
vehicles a day. And I don't know. I guess you've
got to be an adrenaline rush. You know, you get
that alert whenever we would. uh, the Iraqi army
would typically just, uh, you know, they worked
kind of side by side with an alert on a, on a
vehicle or whatnot. And, you know, we, we had
hand signals with them guys and, and they come
right down, typically just escort the vehicle
and really get to find out, you know, what there
was in it, uh, could have been, you know, just
an old residue, um, or, or there could have been
something big in there. You know, it was, uh,
There was a lot of those days that was, you know,
on some of those ECPs that was pretty boring,
that some of them didn't have a lot of traffic.
Well, some of those entries, like gates actually
going into the embassy itself, like where Bastion
would work. Anytime the ambassador would have
meetings and vehicles would, you know, come in,
vehicles would come in. We'd have to. Basham,
you guys usually line them all up back there
on the... But now, why did you say that you would
just escort them around? I don't understand why
you didn't see what you were alerting on. We
didn't have U .S. forces, you know, that's their...
I guess you could say, you know, Iraqi army.
It's their property. It's their property and
their country. Gotcha. It's still their land,
still their laws. We're just there kind of for
support. Now, what it comes to, what a lot of
people don't realize is the embassy, like America
owns where they own. So used to, we have green
zone, amber zone, and red zone. And after we
pulled most of our... our troops out of there
uh to green zone and that's where the ecp is
and so we kind of you know control inside the
green zone which is no weapons or anything like
that yeah so we we don't allow them into the
green checkpoint then then that's that's back
back out um Most likely, they probably tell them
to try to go get in on some other ECP, you know,
best of luck vehicle or anything. I got you.
So were you able to take any of that stuff, still
doing any type of contract work or anything like
that? Do you still have any of your old dogs
or are you mainly just coon hunting now? Now
I'm pretty much just coon hunting. In 2020, 2019,
2020, it was New Year's Eve. We got hit at the
embassy. They bombed us. They blew up our mess
hall. They took a couple of our entries out.
blew up the gates, a couple of the gates going
into it. In fact, if you Google it, one of the
pictures that shows up is one of the control
points on the wall itself, on the embassy wall
itself. And I was actually stationed on that
checkpoint that day when they attacked us. But
once I... came home from there they they had
to descale us down to a a certain number just
because we lost all of our ecps outside the wall
and so they those of us that were due to come
home on r r anyway in the next you know few weeks
or whatever they went ahead and shipped us home
and we were supposed to sit at home for our 30
days and then we were supposed to go back over
and relief the Guys were still there and they
shut us down. Where we were contractors, we were
considered civilian contractors. We were not
military. And so we did not get a fly in and
out on military flights. They flew us in and
out on commercial flights. We would always fly
into either Amman, Jordan or Dubai. and both
of those countries would not let us in. They
wouldn't take any. I mean, they shut down their
airports. And so we sat at home on the bench
waiting to go back over. I think we lost you
again. Oh, there you are. Got him back. So, yeah,
so after COVID hit, you know, I mean, I'm sitting
at home benched. I end up, uh, waiting around
for about six months for an okay to go back over
and they don't, they're still not letting us
go. And so I ended up, you know, just moving
on with life, but I, I messed around with a few,
you know, canine projects, um, you know, just
recreational more than anything. I, I spent a
couple of pups up, um, getting them started for,
for trainers or whatnot. Nice. Then I played
around with a couple dogs, doing some deer tracking,
searching for antlers. Played around with one
for a little bit with morel mushrooms. Oh, wow.
Searching for mushrooms. Like I said earlier,
if you've got a dog that's got high, high toy
drive, to where there is just nothing in the
world that they would not do to get their teeth
on that tennis ball. You can make them find anything
you want them to find. They use canines for bed
bug detection. I've seen some billboards for
that, like in Indy. There is companies that go
around to hotels with canines, and they search
the hotels for bed bugs. um cell phones in prison
canines uh they they they train them on the uh
the odor of the lithium batteries uh searching
for cell phones so i mean there's man that the
canine the the list of of odor detections that
is just endless but it really does not uh flow
over into the coon hunting aspect of Two totally
different styles of working. Two totally different
types of dogs. Different drives. There are, I
have seen guys that, you know, play fetch with
their coon dog. You know, throw a tennis ball
to a knee. Completely different. Brings it back.
That is not the ball drive we're talking about.
No, we're talking about a tack ball drive. I
mean, you got that ball in your hand, that dog,
I mean, he comes up the leash at you to get that
ball. There is nothing, no place he won't go
for that ball. That's the type of ball drive.
And you just don't see it in hounds. They're
built different. They're mentally built different.
There are certain breeds of dogs. other than
what we called pointy -eared dogs. So, you know,
in the military side of it, the security side
of it, you know, overseas, they started getting
away from your pointy -eared dogs, which were
your German Shepherds, your Belgian Malinois,
and your German and Belgian Crosses. We ran a
lot of labs. We started getting into phasing
out the pointy ear dogs, and we started doing
a lot of labs and a lot of GSPs, German short
hair pointers. I had a lab for a while, and she
was just, I'd come off of five different, I'd
had five different Belgian Malins, four Malinois
and a Dutchie. which a dutchie might as well
be a malinois but i went from that to a lab completely
different and i'm like holy cow man i i'm not
geared for this i'm not you see it's slow and
methodical and you know just the way she operates
is a lot slower pace than what i'm used to um
If you've ever been around a Mallee, they're
psychotic. They really are. An actual working
Malinois is typically not suitable for a family
pet. They're just geared different. But the labs,
I've seen some good working labs. But there again,
you're talking a dog that's a natural, free bird.
That dog is, you know, toy geared. Yeah, completely
different. Yeah, the GSPs are also a toy driven
dog, but they are wound up much, much tighter
than the labs are. So my preference was the pointy
-eared dogs. That's just what I was used to.
That was the style I was used to. A lot more
faster pace, you know, with your pointy -eared
than your labs. See, whenever I had the bomb
dogs, we created the IDD detector dog program
in the Marine Corps, and that was all labs. But,
you know, kind of transferring that over to the
coon hunting world, you know, in my opinion,
I think it's... Like you said, it's day and night
because, you know, people can sit here and say
they're dog men, you know, in, in the coon hunting
world. But for the most part, there's, I mean,
there's a lot of correction training that goes
on in the coon hunting world, but nothing, nothing
like, you know, the, the detection side of it.
When, so touching on that. A lot of these guys
that coon hunt and not, you know, not taken away
from any of these guys that have done far more
winning than I have. But most of these, you know,
professional handlers, they're getting dogs that
are pretty much already made. And they're learning,
you know, they're learning that dog. A few tweaks
still. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, and I'm not
going to say that those dogs are push -button,
but, you know, most of them have got a pretty
good idea already of what's going on. In the
canine world, you don't even dream of going into
service with that dog. until you've spent a few
months with it um because you're you're not going
to win a hunt your life depends on it your life
depends on it the life of your entire unit uh
depends on it you know i have to know what that
dog is doing at all times when she is at the
end of my leash whether i am have got her on
a on a 50 footer or or a hundred footer and i'm
i'm gridding a road or whether i'm walking down
a line of uh 50 cars i have to watch her body
language and um you know it may just be a flinch
or a head snap and if i miss that and i keep
on walking you know i i may be pushing her along
when she needed to back up and and recheck something
It may be something as small as a piece of debt
cord. I make people laugh a little bit. My son's
fully autistic. We were putting him in an ABA
therapy. I told her that I train dogs. I train
bomb dogs. I said, to be honest, dealing with
my son is a lot like A lot like dealing with
the bomb dogs. In the hound community, you don't
get to see the behaviors. You just hear the bark.
Right. In the detector, right, a tail circling,
one ear up, one ear down, or two ears all the
way up, or their hair standing up. Every dog's
got different tails. identify those tails before
the action happens you know how to adjust and
the same way with my son you know if i can identify
those small little behaviors i can avoid the
big behaviors yeah yeah and it's you know it's
uh watching that dog you're also listening to
that dog you're you're listening for a a change
in breathing um you know they may be just going
along and all of a sudden they really really
start you know breathing heavy um they're sourcing
an odor you know that tail may be maybe wagging
and it may just come right to a a screeching
halt um you know my bomb dog was uh well my my
narcotic dogs um most everything in the last
several years has been trained detection wise
has been trained to to a passive alert um you
know used to you had an aggressive alert and
your narcotics dogs to where when they smelled
odor i mean they would just go nuts they'd be
clawing at the source of the odor they'd be biting
at the source of the odor after lawsuits from
you know vehicles being damaged and stuff they
they started going to a more passive alert but
if i am working a narcotics dog I want him, when
he finds that odor, when he hits that odor, I
want him to really source it out and pinpoint
where it's coming from, whether it's a door seam
or up underneath the front nose clip of the vehicle.
I want him to source that odor out and show me
where it's coming from because I've got to find
the source of this odor. Whereas with an explosive
detection dog, When she hits odor, I don't want
her going past that point and start digging and
really looking and finding, you know, putting
her nose on the actual source. You know, if I'm
doing a roadside and she's, you know, 100 foot
up in front of me or 50 foot up in front of me
on a long line and she's gridding that road,
when she comes to a stop, when she hits that
odor, She would just take, and I don't, I mean,
we didn't really train her to do this, but it
was just her style. When she would be walking
along, when she'd hit odor, it was almost like
she had set back a step, and then she would just
lay down, and she was froze right there. She
didn't take another step. You know, in a building,
you tell where the odor was just based off of,
you know, her position and her focus and that
type of thing. But if you were outside, you know,
you weren't really wanting to find out where
that actual odor was coming from. You would end
up recalling her back to you at that point. And
then, you know, your, your bomb guys would, would
go in and take care of it from there. Uh, but
it's two totally different, you know, styles
of detection between, uh, narcotics and bombs.
But it was all about, you know learning the dog
learning the body language uh it was visual yeah
and the same thing can be said in the coon hunting
world you know learning the bark learning the
everything and you know for all the listeners
you know that's kind of why i brought jeremy
on here was just a kind of a different perspective
you know we get caught up in you know they're
talking about this talking about that but the
at the end of the day whether you know we go
from from from the what was it from the bears
to the chairs? That's right. You know, you know,
here it's simple dog and we go from the bears
to the chairs. So whether it's, you know, in
the chair at your feet, you know, whether it's
out there on a bear, the biggest thing is spending
time with that dog, learning that dog, learning
what that dog, you know, if you listen, hold
on, here's a hard take. If you listen, I'm not
crazy when I say this. if you listen dogs will
talk to you but you have to open the line of
communication between you and that hound or you
and that dog to open that line of communication
and and it is you know listening it's creating
that that bond to where you actually understand
that animal that animal understands you um and
like i said earlier on There's sometimes, you
know, personality conflicts between what's on
one end of the leash and what's on the other
end of the leash. You know, we would say this
in the, you know, canine training. Your feelings,
your frustrations are running down that leash
to that dog. And it's that dog is feeling your
frustration, you know, through that leash. Um,
but it's, you know, listening to that dog, learning
that the, what each of those, you know, barks
and sounds, uh, you know, are, are, are meaning
just like watching the body language of a working
dog. Yeah, man. I mean, that's, that's super
true and it can be. said in a lot of different
facets. People, if you guys listen to Nikki's
podcast with us a couple weeks ago, she said
the same thing. The dog can tell your emotions
running down that lead. Whether you're in the
show ring or whether you're handling a bomb dog
or whether you're doing any kind of therapy dog,
them dogs, they feed off of people. Man, Jeremy,
I appreciate you joining us today, man. This
has been a great insight into kind of a different
side of things that we don't get to talk about
here on Simple Dogging very often. Man, you're
a wealth of knowledge. You got a bunch of good
old war stories. And I still can't believe that
you and Basham didn't run past each other and
notice each other, I guess, while you were over
there in Iraq. Well, I never knew him beforehand.
That's what I'm saying, yeah. I never would have
noticed him. And it was just weird that he ended
up buying a dog from me. And so that's when we
actually met up. It's a small world. That would
have been probably later on in 2020. You know,
probably the fall of 2020 is when I bought him,
right? Oh, crash. Yep. One Kai Roberts head.
It was crush. Yep. Crush, crush, crush. Yeah,
and Kai ended up with him back after we sold
him. And, man, he was eight or nine years old
and still did quite a bit of winning with him.
yep absolutely he sure did that was a nice dog
you know i got to hunt with a couple times but
hey man we're pushing in on that one hour mark
here so uh i'm gonna get this thing wrapped up
here once again jeremy thank you for joining
us uh we sure appreciate you having us and bash
them always good to hang out with you definitely
bud All right, guys. Well, hey, thanks for sticking
around with us. We know this was a little bit
different than what we usually do here. A lot
of good old word stories and a little bit of
dog talk along the way. So thanks for joining
us here on Semper Doggin. We know it's been a
while since we've dropped a podcast. You know,
life's been getting busy for Basham and I both.
But, hey, we're still having fun doing this,
and we said this from day one. It's going to
be something that we do to have fun and something
that we enjoy doing. So we hope you guys have
enjoyed it with us. And, guys, I'm good if you're
good. I'm good. Hey, thank you very much. All
right, man. Thank you. All right. See you guys.
We'll catch you on the next one.