Latest / Ducks Unlimited Podcast / Ep. 676 - Golden Retrievers: Hunting Heritage and Heart
Transcript
- John Gordan: Hey everybody, welcome again to the Ducks Unlimited podcast. My name is John Gordon. I'm going to be your host. I'm continuing my breed profile series. And up next is one that's really near and dear to my heart is the Golden Retriever. My personal dog buster has traveled all over the US and part of Canada with me and has really been my constant companion now for over three years. Uh, so I just, uh, I really am a fan of this breed. And so when I really, uh, I talked to my good friend, Mark Atwater, when I was really approaching, who should I talk to Mark, right about the Golden Retriever and a name that instantly jumped into his head was Ann Everett. And I said, well, that, that, uh, if you, if you're telling me Mark, that's who I need to talk to, then I'm going to head in that direction. So Ann Everett, welcome to the Ducks Unlimited podcast. Ann Everett: Thank you very much, John. It's nice to be here. John Gordan: So you're from British Columbia, correct? That's correct. Yeah. So I've been starting all these out with with a little bit of of of Golden Retriever history. And it's really it's a fascinating story because it kind of parallels the time frame that the Labrador is being developed, you know, in Great Britain and England. You know, a guy who became it was an English lord, Dudley Marchbanks, the first Lord of Tweedmouth. starts with a more yellow colored flat coat and bred to a tweed water spaniel, and that really started the golden retriever on its way. And this is, you know, 1868 is when that first breeding happened, and it really took off from there. And there's some Russian circus dog stories and all this in the breed. So it's really kind of fascinating to me. But in this case, it was it was once again, the English aristocracy that that really kicked off the golden retriever. Ann Everett: Yeah, they did. The Scottish aristocracy as well and it's got a really interesting Canadian connection because Lord Tweedmouth, he had a son who actually traveled to Texas and Canada in the 1890s and he did bring a couple of golden males with him according to some of the documentation that the retriever historians have found. He also had a daughter who married quite well and her husband became the Governor General of Canada from I believe 1891 to about 1895-96, and they purchased a ranch in Vernon in British Columbia, and they brought some goldens with them. It's hypothesized. So the dogs were here quite a long time before they were actually officially recognized. I believe in the U.S. that was in 1913, and in Canada 1927 that the CKC… Did I get those dates right? John Gordan: Well, and it was a little later than that for the AKC. It was 1925. Oh, there you go. Yeah, in the Kennel Club of England, 1911. So the Golden Retriever's a recent breed. Yes, it is. I mean, you look at Spaniels and some of the hounds and stuff like that. They're ancient dogs compared to some of the modern sporting dog. And so the Golden Retriever's a young animal. Ann Everett: Yeah, it is, yeah. Yeah, so I guess the first, speaking from a Canadian perspective, the first really well-known kennel was a kennel called Gilnocki in Manitoba, and then when that gentleman passed away, it passed over to Rockhaven Kennels. That's what it became, and they were also based in Vancouver on the Pacific Northwest coast of the continent. And that is the gentleman who imported Speedwell Pluto, who is considered the foundation sire of all of the North American golden retrievers. And he came, his story is amazing, he came across the Atlantic and he came across Canada on a train in a wooden box and the folks that were working with him or traveling with him let him out. aired him, took care of him. I think it took about a month for him to get here. And he became the first Golden American Canadian champion. He was also hunted heavily. So he was what the Golden Retriever was first, I believe, meant to be. And that's a working gundog who also met a breed standard. And we can talk about the breed standard later in this conversation. they were beautiful dogs and they stayed that way. There was quite a few English imports on and off from the 30s up into the 60s but right until the late 60s they pretty well stayed looking like that and they also they would go in the breed ring and then they would go out and they would hunt a day and that was before the split and the breed occurred. They're tremendously popular as you know and for a reason. They also are not everybody's cup of tea for a reason. So yeah, so I think we're going to talk about those things too later on. John Gordan: Yeah, that's right, that's right. Okay, so let's move forward into your history with the breed. What was the dog that really started it all for you? Ann Everett: You know, I'll probably have to go back to the early 60s and golden retrievers were hard to find at that point and there was a Gold Range Kennels again in Vancouver and it was Jack Reed and his son Bob Reed. They ran that establishment. My dad finally got hold of them and he brought home this a eight-week-old little dark red puppy, and his name was Renard of Gold Range. And your questions are bringing up a lot of lovely memories for me, so pardon me if I ramble. He was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. I think I was a six-year-old girl. And he still is one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. We went to what I recognize now was a picnic puppy trial, picnic field trial for puppies, and I will never forget Mick just flying across the grass, jumping into that pond, swimming across, picking up the duck and bringing it back. So when I went off to college and finally got a job and bought my own home, I wanted a Mick. So I went looking for Mick, and this was in the 80s, and I couldn't find anything that looked remotely like the dogs that I had grown up with in the 60s. There was, you're probably aware of this, that split in the breed that occurred in the 70s. You've got a very high profile show dog and of course if it wins, people breed to it. And then you ended up with a much heavier boned, heavier coated, often lighter dog that people really weren't paying attention to maintaining the hunting ability in. So that was quite a shock and I had to look around a lot before I finally found my first field dog that reminded me of Mick. And she was an amazing dog. She was the first obedience trial champion Master Hunter Golden Bitch in Canada. She was running qualifying stakes. She was an amazing hunting dog. And unfortunately, her career was cut short by a genetic issue as well as bad elbows. And we can talk about health issues later on in the breed. Then let me know if I'm going on too much here. Then I did some research and I bought a field dog from more recent lines and I really paid attention, did my homework. and I got a wonderful dog. She actually turned out to be my foundation bitch and she had 20 master hunter passes. She was the best goose dog I've ever had. She was placing field trials. She was an amazing dog and I guess what really turned me on to the ability of these dogs in the hunting field was what happened to her when she was about 15 months old. We were out in Saskatchewan and we were hunting geese and those ganders are big, so I don't like to put the dogs on them until they're near solid and their growth plates have come together so they don't get really banged up. So this was her first goose and we were hunting a field, it was about a mile and a half long. We had a bunch of guys down at one end, we were at one end. And a guy about half a mile down dropped a big gander. We thought it was dead. We saw it hit. So I sent her. Well, she got about three quarters of the way there and it wasn't dead. It was very much alive and extremely irritated. So my husband said, just see what you'll do. And I have honestly never seen anything like this in my life. You know how a pro tackle in a football game goes in to take a tackle? She lowered her body, she stuck her chest out, and she hit that thing so fast. And he just went, pardon me, he just went head over heels. I think he knocked himself out and she grabbed him by the base of the neck and dragged him in. And that was amazing to watch. You know, she'd never handled a goose before, but she knew instinctively how to do it. She also pointed, some of them point. and a lot of her offspring point. So when you're on, and this helps us as we're getting older and we can't move quite as fast as we used to, she'll hold a point and then we can get up there and then the bird goes up, she goes in and flushes it in. It's a lot easier to shoot it at 40 yards than it is at 120. Isn't that the truth? John Gordan: But yeah, I think looking at, you know, some of the breed history, definitely setters were a part of the background of the dog. Ann Everett: Yeah, they definitely were, and so were bloodhounds, which is kind of interesting because I know people who use the goldens for blood tracking when they wound a deer. So there's, yeah, it's really, it's very interesting. Yeah, yeah. So I probably, that was more you wanted to know, but anyway. John Gordan: Well, and then, you know, once again, we fast forward from there and now, you know, you've got your own operation up and you've been breeding high quality gulletons now for what, going on 30 years? Ann Everett: Yeah. Yeah. And that's kind of the history of it. The mission statement, I think we talked or you talked a little about that in one of your emails, you know, it was, It was something I'd wanted to do for a long time, and I think I had this image of this Mick in my head, and how wonderful he was with us, how good he was with other people, other dogs, just, you know, he was just amazing. He was a perfect dog. And so he kind of went into my mission statement. You know, on the front page of the website, it basically talks about what we're looking for is that we're producing working dogs, but we're producing dogs that have an off switch. So you can have them out in the field all day long. They don't get tired. They keep working for you. But they also, when they get home, they don't drive you nuts. And that's important because some breeds and some individuals in some breeds just don't have that off switch. And as you know, you need a dog to calm down when he's not on. So that was the goal, was to breed a highly competitive or a very good working dog because of two. are not always synonymous. But a dog you can enjoy as a family or as an individual at the end of the day, a dog you can go for a walk with. John Gordan: And you're talking about the catchphrase off switch, which has become, you know, that's become really part of the retriever world these days. looking for a dog with a great off switch. And for folks who don't really know what she's talking about, it's the ability for a dog to really lock in and focus on what it's doing when it's working. And then just be able to relax and be calm and bitable and everything when it's not. And that's one thing that I, you know, when I was around Yeti, we talked about him. It wasn't just an off switch between hunting and not hunting. It was an off switch between birds. I mean, to where he was just so laser focused when there was action happening and so relaxed when it wasn't. And I was just, I was amazed by it. And I was, that's what really drove me to the fact that I've got to have one of these dogs because I've never seen anything like it. Ann Everett: Yeah, and the off switch and the ability to focus when they're excited, those are actually really tightly connected because it's the ability for impulse control. And if a dog is really spinning and high in the line and jumping around, whether it's in the holding blind, in a hunting blind, or in any type of competition, they can't really focus on what they're doing. And if they can't really focus on what they're doing, then they can't do it well. They can't mark the bird. They're a danger in a gundog blind. Like, who wants a dog that's just spinning around shrieking and getting in the way when you're trying to bring down some ducks? So I think the two of them are really related. You have to have a dog that they're keen, they're focused, they're eager, but they can pay attention. Their brain doesn't kind of go haywire, if that makes sense. John Gordan: I know exactly what you're talking about. And another thing I like, too, is the non-vocal nature of the field golden. I've never heard one whine in the field. My dogs never made one sound, you know. Ann Everett: Yeah, I'm trying to think. There aren't many of them I've heard that make any noise. John Gordan: That seems to… I won't go into breeds that are noisy, but no, I don't think that… Well, I've been around a few in the field that I wanted to throttle because they just wouldn't be quiet, but that's another podcast, I guess, right there. Yeah. you know, the field golden, what are some really, as far as training them goes, since you've got extensive experience in that, um, what are some, some of the challenges of training a golden retriever? Because I, you know, I, I went to a seminar that Steve endurance gave and he was talking about smart dogs versus Dumb dogs. He said, you know, if you give me a dumb dog with really high drive, I, you know, I can do it easy, but a smart dog is always, uh, you know, really looking for a way out. And I was like, that's an interesting way of putting it. And he mentioned golden retrievers at that point. And he said, so what are some of the things that you really come across that, that are, you know, are challenging from that aspect? Ann Everett: I think it really depends on your mindset. They're not cookie cutter dogs and that's why a lot of professional field trainers don't like them because they cannot fit into a one-size-fits-all program. They need things to be… What's the way to look at this? You can't miss out steps. They're not a dog for an impatient trainer. They are, but I tell you what, if you work with fun, get their trust, and they know exactly why they're going to get corrected, if you do correct them, they understand what's going on, I can't think of a nicer dog. Honestly, if you get a good golden retriever bitch working with you, they're really hard to beat. They really are. John Gordan: I've seen that, yeah. Ann Everett: Yeah, they are really hard to beat, but they can go sour really fast too. So they take a thinking trainer, they take somebody because they need a relationship with their owner that's a little bit different from what a lab needs. A lot of labs are fine running with a lot of people. A lot of different people, they're okay with that. I find goldens are not so much. They want their person. They're very much a person dog. Now their person could be a whole family, but it has to be folks that they've bonded with and that they trust. So that's the main difference really. They are smart. They've got excellent noses, as you know, which can get them into trouble. We ran a poison bird blind today, so that's kind of fresh in my memory. They are excellent markers. They can really mark birds. I think they're really a high quality dog. They just need a little bit more of the thinking person's approach to training them. John Gordan: I know exactly what you mean because I've seen it within the retriever training world that some guys and women too, they seem to do better with golden retrievers than others. Right? I mean, they really get them. Like you said, you just cannot put that dog into a, well, this is the way I do it. So this is the way it's going to be mindset because they're not going to, they're not going to perform for that. Ann Everett: No. And you have, you have to like the dog. John Gordan: Yeah. Right. Ann Everett: Like you have to have to like the breed as you know, or it, it just goes sideways really quickly. John Gordan: Talking about breeding for a second, if you're looking at a pair of dogs, what are you looking for as far as a pair that you think is going to really create a really great dog? Ann Everett: Okay, that's a really good question. John Gordan: Well, good. That's what I'm talking about. Ann Everett: Yeah, because, okay, I'll get on my soapbox here and then I'll get off of it as quick as I can. Basically, you're probably familiar with the pocket or sire syndrome. You get a certain dog that gets a field championship or whatever title or has a really good set of clearances plus some titles or whatever and all of a sudden everybody and their dog is breeding to him. And the problem with that approach is that there's so many other pieces of the puzzle. Breeding is an art and a science. The science is, and I'm not denigrating titles, I think that they're really valuable indicator of a quality of the dog. You know they can mark, they can be trained, that type of thing, but they're not the whole picture. So the science is maybe title achievements, it's clearances, the hip, elbow, eye, heart clearances, also clearances like thyroid, NCL, ICT, PRA. That's the science. The art is looking at a dog and saying, okay, what can this, say you're looking at a stud dog, what can this stud dog bring to the table when I breed to my bitch? What does she need improvement in? Could she use a little bit more wateriness? Maybe she's a little bit short loined. Do you want to lengthen her back out a little bit? Maybe she's a bit leggy. Maybe you'd like to, maybe she's missing some teeth. Maybe I don't breed I don't base breeding decisions on teeth, but I think you're getting the idea. It's an entire package and that's where the art comes in. That's where you're looking at it and you're thinking, okay, what can each dog bring to the table to make an offspring that's better than both? So that is kind of how I look at putting breeding pairs together. Occasionally, I see a dog that really excites me and I might wait for five, six years before I've got the right bitch to take to them. I just don't take a girl willy-nilly to them. Does that answer your question? I kind of went offside with it. John Gordan: No, it does. It does. Because I think that, like you said, I think people get caught up sometimes and, wow, this dog has got You know, multiple grand passes, you know, it's a Master National Hall of Famer. It's got to be great for my dog, but it's not. So, you know, there's very, like you said, you have to, the art of it is really taking the pairs and creating a great, great animal on the other side. And I think people should really focus on that more across all breeds. Let's face it, there's just too much breeding that's not for the right reasons. And you were talking about NCL for a second. I want to talk about that because that's a real golden retriever specific problem. Ann Everett: Actually, it's in other breeds as well. John Gordan: It's in other breeds as well. I just have heard about it for the goldens, right? Ann Everett: Yeah, no, it's in other breeds as well. But anyway, sorry, keep going. John Gordan: Well, it's just, you know, that's a serious, serious thing, right? I mean, because that's going to cause the death of the animal at a very young age. It will, yeah. So, I really don't know that much about it. I just, it's, I can't remember exactly what it stands for, the letters. Ann Everett: Well, let me get this right, hang on, I always mispronounce this one, just a second here. It's neuronal steroid lipofuscinosis, NCL, and basically if you envision a cell, do you know what lysosomes are? John Gordan: Yeah, I do. Ann Everett: Yeah, okay, they're kind of the garbage collectors of the cell, right? Right. They don't function in an NCL-affected dog. John Gordan: Wow, okay. Ann Everett: Okay, so the metabolism goes haywire, you end up with cognitive failure, you end up with seizures, and you end up with dogs generally dead by two. So it's a horrible thing and it's apparently been around for a long time and people just put it down to epilepsy when a dog started to seizure and had to be put down or passed at two or three but it's not and we have a test for it now. So you can look at something like NCL now and you can make intelligent breeding decisions around it. It is probably the nastiest of nasty. My My own thoughts about it is I don't go near it. The reason being is that, as you probably know, you need two copies of the gene, one from the sire and one from the dam, in an individual to have an affected individual. That's how the genetics work. So if you breed a carrier to a clear, then you're going to get 50% carrier and 50% clear. I've had this discussion with a lot of breeders. My concern is that I'm sure that that NCL carrier animal has got a sibling that you could breed to, right? That is clear. Because what happens is, sure you produce these and half of them are NCL carriers, but really you don't have much control over them once they leave your place. You can do due diligence, you can have contracts, whatever, but you really are producing these dogs that if they get into the wrong hands, even if it's three generations down the road, and then you can end up with the problem again. So basically, everybody needs to test. If everybody tested all their breeding stock, which doesn't happen, then it'd be one less thing to worry about. But a lot of people don't test their breeding stock. And so it's an awful thing. Have you ever seen a video of puppies? John Gordan: I have, but I hear it's just a terrible deal. Ann Everett: It's a horrible deal, yeah. But we now have the tools so we can breed away from it. So if you had X stud dog who was an NCL carrier and he had a Y brother who maybe wasn't as accomplished, but you really wanted the genes and you really liked the dog, you would go to the Y brother. So that's how you can kind of move around, move around them. John Gordan: I got you. I got you. And I know in the Golden Retriever World Health testing and it should be for every breed, but I know it's a very serious deal, you know, I mean, and everybody's real conscientious about it. Ann Everett: Yes, they are. They're reputable breeders, definitely are. There's a lot of people out there breeding dogs that don't pay any attention to it, but most breeders who have got any kind of profile at all, they are very, very conscientious. John Gordan: Once again, a breeding thing, but you touched on it earlier, what kind of, like I said, happened in the 70s, the division of the golden retriever. It's crazy. A lot of folks that have been around my dog, they think it's an Irish Setter or something. They've never seen a Golden Retriever that looks like that. That's a smallish, reddish field dog. All they know is the, like you said, heavier, fluffier, blonde Golden Retriever. That's what they know. And so it's fascinating to me that it's really diverged into two different breeds, in my mind, that are both called Golden Retrievers. Ann Everett: Yeah, yeah, it is. And it's a shame in a way, but it is what it is. And interestingly enough, some of the more showy types are excellent hunting dogs. The only negative in my mind is all the coat on some of them. John Gordan: Yeah, it's a lot. Ann Everett: It's a lot of coat and it's a lot of maintenance and it's a lot, and some of the coats are incorrect in that they're very porous, so the dog takes forever to dry. And also, you get a, some of them are like, a male golden should be about 70, 75 pounds maximum, 23 and a half inches at the wither. I think that's the top end of the standard. But some of these guys are big. John Gordan: Oh yeah, 85, 90, 100. Ann Everett: Yeah, and my idea of the standard is something that I can pull into a duck boat, you know. John Gordan: Exactly. Ann Everett: Yeah, and you can't do that with those big boys and some of the big girls as well. There's just too much hair, too much water retained. And they're also, you put them on a pheasant hunt and they just come out and they just look like a porcupine. They've got so many burrs and stuff. It's a mess. John Gordan: That's right. My personal dog is 53 pounds, right? Which for a male is on the small side, but everybody says, man, I love his size. I love it. I love it. I love it. Because it just, you can punch him into anything, right? From small boats to big ones, to ATVs to wherever he just rolls with it. Ann Everett: Yeah. And I bet he still picks up geese. No problem. John Gordan: No problem. I mean, from big Canada's to, I mean, I'm a big time speck and snow hunter, so he's got extensive experience with that. And like you said, so yeah, he's had no issues with geese and they're small size. Ann Everett: So the split, I think the main things have been maybe not paying enough attention to the bird drive and the hunting ability, because it does say in the standard that The golden retriever is primarily a hunting dog. It says right there in the first paragraph. That's why Lord Tweedmouth put that combination together. He wanted to breed gun dogs. He was a hunter. So you've got not paying attention to that and you've got the coat issues. have to be really careful with temperament as well. And now this goes for all goldens because sometimes people don't pay attention to that. And when you think about it, very rarely do we go out on our own hunting. There's usually several of us with several dogs, whether we're doing upland or we're in a duck blind. These dogs have to get along, you know, and it's high, high arousal out there. Right, right. Yeah, there's guns going, there's ducks falling. An example would be a canvasback shoot we were on in Saskatchewan years ago. There was four dogs and five shooters and we were past shooting canvasbacks going up and down a big irrigation river outside of Saskatoon. All those dogs were working at the same time. They were going out, they were coming in, they were They were honoring, they were handling, and they just totally ignored each other. They were just totally focused on their job. And that's where that stability and temperament, you really need that. John Gordan: Yeah, that's right. I mean, like I said, I know going into the field with my dog that he's got no issue whatsoever with any other dog. So, I mean, I've been able to plug him in and hunt with every animal he's been with and it's never been a problem and I've never worried about it. Right, so that's one thing I think of, you know, the really well-read Golden Retrievers is that, like I said, you just don't have any issues with that at all. Ann Everett: Mm-hmm. No, you don't. No, because that's, and that's in the standard as well. John Gordan: What kind of advice would you give somebody, you know, looking to get into the Golden Retriever game, so to speak? Ann Everett: in terms of finding a dog or? John Gordan: Keith Nielsen Yeah. And making sure that the field type golden is going to be right for you, right? For what you need. Like I said, I know a lot of folks that are breeders, they want the dogs to go to field homes and that's period. They won't settle on just to a family or something. They've got to go to hunt test or field trial homes, that kind of thing. So, I mean, what would you say to somebody that's really looking for a solid dog? Ann Everett: You mean a solid hunting dog? Sure, yeah. What I would probably suggest to them is go and talk to as many breeders as you can. Get your series of questions, be upfront about what you want the dog for. Some people will inflate a little bit what they want to do with the dog, and breeders are really good at matching dogs to what people want. So, and if I could just go sideways here a bit, pick of the litter means nothing. Pick of the litter is, there is a pick in each litter for each person. So if somebody wants an agility dog, they'll get a little bit of a different dog than someone like you who'd want to a hardcore hunting dog, competitive dog. And a field trial person might get the dog that's a little bit more dog, that can experience field trial guy. So it really depends on what people want. So by just going to a breeder and saying, hey, I want pick of the litter, it doesn't work like that. So I would first of all tell people to be honest with their breeder about what they're looking for, because breeders are really good, as I said earlier, about matching dogs to what people want. Because they want their dogs to be forever, right? They don't want to get the puppies back. They should take them back under any circumstance, but they don't want to. They want to make sure that puppy stays in that home. Talk to the breeder. Tell them what you want. Read the standard. Know what you're looking at. Have a breeder help you put your hands on their dogs so you can feel what proper structure feels like. Have a discussion with the breeder about diseases. You'd want to see clearance info from breeders. It would be lovely to see the parents. Sometimes that doesn't work. A lot of the dogs I breed to are frozen AIs from dogs that passed away a decade ago. So sometimes that's not possible. But if it is, have a look at them. See how they are with you. How they are with you might be different how they are with somebody else. So it just depends on what you feel is right for you. And talk to them about contracts, health guarantees, and also maybe go and go to a local field trial, go to a local hunt test, go to a local obedience trial, and talk to people who have dogs that you enjoy, that you like looking at, and that you enjoy watching work. So there's a lot of things that you can do. I think people get in trouble when they just figure, I got to have a dog now. And what people need to realize for a quality animal, often need to wait a year or more. I'm not sure how long you waited for your boy, but you probably didn't say, hey, I want a golden retriever and you had him in a week type thing. John Gordan: Correct. No. Ann Everett: Yeah. Yeah so there are it's to me it's a it's not an easy process but it's well worth spending time on because you know you want a good dog right. I'm just trying to think what else I can add to that. John Gordan: A lot of times my advice with people has been like, you know, you're not picking puppies, you're picking parents, right? I mean, so that's a big part of it. Ann Everett: That's a big part of it. And you're also picking grandparents. I honestly think that the grandparents have a huge effect on the puppy. So, but what that requires people to do is educate themselves a little bit on pedigrees. So, it's an interesting process. Some red flags for people. is if breeders don't answer your questions, if they don't know what some genetic issues are, like they don't know what ICT is, they don't understand what NCL is, they don't understand what PRA is, they don't understand, they don't know anything about clearances, and probably my pet peeve is a dirty establishment, and that to me is a huge red flag. If the kennels are dirty, if it smells, then there's something that's not quite right. So, there's a bunch of red flags there, too, and if any of those kind of popped up, I would just walk away and go talk to somebody else. If breeders don't have a puppy for you, they're really good at referring you to people that they think can help you as well. John Gordan: That's great advice, Anne. It really is. From somebody, obviously, who's devoted a large portion of their life to the breed, it's really great advice. Any final thoughts on the Goldhorn Shaver you want to share with the audience? Ann Everett: Oh, I absolutely, they're the love of my life. I think they're wonderful. We've hunted ducks, geese, all kinds of upland birds with them. They're smart, they're fast, they're stylish. You get a good one and you're totally spoiled for life. I think you're spoiled for life based on what you've been telling me. John Gordan: Yeah, that's it. Ann Everett: I spoil for life too. I've got a little girl now that's running open field trials. She's also a crazy hunter and she's a great great granddaughter of my foundation bitch. So you get hooked. It becomes a lifestyle just to have people do their homework and don't be afraid to ask questions. They've got, I think all breeds have got genetic issues and they've got things that you need to look out for, but they're well worth it. John Gordan: Very good. Very good. Thanks a lot, Ann, for being here at Ann Everett at the Heads Up Kennels and talking about the Golden Retriever. Thanks so much for being here, Ann. Ann Everett: You're welcome. Thank you very much for having me, John. And thank you everybody in the back who's plugging wires into the walls. John Gordan: Without the producers, you know, we just, we can't get it done right here at the Ducks Unlimited podcast. But anyway, so good luck with your training going on in Texas right now and have a great season. Ann Everett: Thank you very much and take care. John Gordan: Thanks everybody for listening to the Ducks Unlimited podcast and supporting wetlands and waterfowl conservation.