Ducks Unlimited Podcast

John Gordan: Hello, everybody. Welcome again to the Ducks Unlimited podcast. I'm your host, John Gordon, and my guest today, another dog man. Imagine that. I can't believe I'm talking again, once again, with somebody in the dog world, but I can't seem to get away from it. I love to talk sporting dogs. And our guest today is really a specialist in the flushing breeds, and in particular, English Cocker Spaniels. And for those of y'all who aren't fairly familiar with it, you may have seen cockers that, you know, somebody's pet along the line that are more of an American dog, but the English Cocker… is really a really dynamic little hunting dog. And they're just a lot of fun to be around, a lot of fun to watch work. Great little breed. And our guest today has accomplished, man, quite a bit within the English Cocker Spaniel world. Welcome Jordan Harrock to the DU Podcast.
Jordan Harrock: Hey John, my pleasure being here. Thanks for having me on.

John Gordan: Man, great to have you on. And, you know, when Carl Gunservi-Perina suggested that I talk to you on a podcast about the flushing breeze, I was like, man, that sounds pretty intriguing, because a lot of our listeners are Retriever folks, right? Sure. And we covered that with Ray Vogt and Carl on the last podcast. And I don't think a lot of our listeners really know a lot about what flushers are capable of and how they can be, you know, just really dynamic little waterfowl dogs as well. So give us a little background on how you got involved in the whole spaniel community.

Jordan Harrock: Sure. So I'm 40, I think I'm 41 years old right now and I actually grew up hunting with labs. My first dog was a yellow lab. His name was Kato and I used him primarily as an upland hunting dog. all throughout high school, and then when I was off in college, he passed away. After college, I was living in a smaller apartment with my wife, and I'd moved back to Iowa, which at the time was kind of the mecca of pheasant hunting, and I wanted to get another dog, but my apartment life really wasn't conducive to a big So I read an article somewhere in a magazine about English Cocker Spaniels, and I thought, oh, that sounds like the perfect fit. And I'm a fairly impulsive personality, I guess. did probably 20 minutes of research. I found that there was a breeder that lived a couple hours away from me. I called them up and told them I wanted a puppy. And I think like a month later, I picked up my first one. And at the time, the breed was not very common. That was probably 15 years ago. They were certainly around, but they weren't extremely common. So most people, when they saw her, had no idea what she was. To be honest with you, when I brought her home, I had never seen a working English Cocker Spaniel until the day that I brought her home. And she was, I think it was probably, she was probably eight weeks old when I brought her home. And I would guess she probably weighed four or five pounds at the time. She was a little thing. And I still distinctly remember thinking, what the heck did I just buy? And there is no chance that this dog will ever be big enough to pick up a rooster pheasant. And I had no clue what I was doing. I mean, I was just a hunter at that point. I wasn't really a dog guy at all. So I had all these weird notions. And one of them was I thought that maybe if I fed her more food, I could cause her to get a little bit bigger. and she'd actually be able to pick up a bird. Now I know that's completely ridiculous, but I actually did have that thought process at the time. So that first dog, her name was Macy, and I hunted her quite a bit. She was an okay dog in her own right. She was really good at trailing out, moving birds. She wasn't real strong on the retrieving side of things, and she wasn't very animated. She was just more of a blue collar working dog, I guess. She was Like I said, she was good at taking out moving birds and that was probably really her specialty. I then got another one and then, you know, long story short, I've had dozens and dozens of cockers at this point. I did get into field trialing for a stint back in around 2015, and I was really into that hardcore for a while. I won the Open Nationals in 2018 with a dog named Kato, and I won the Amateur Nationals with a dog named Breeze in the spring of 2018, and then had some other national placements. As a result of that, I started my current business, which is Cato Outdoors, and I would imagine a lot of the DU world is familiar with that company. We manufacture and sell a dog training platform that is not just used by Spaniels, it's used by retrieving dogs, by pointers, by agility, obedience, really any type of working dog is using that platform. And once I started that business, really my capacity to field trial wasn't really there. So I still keep a kennel of about 10 dogs that I train and also hunt with, but I'm not field trialing them actively at this point. So that kind of maybe gets you up to speed a little bit, and then you'll just drill into that however you'd like, John.

John Gordan: Well, field trialing any animal, it just, that takes a tremendous amount of time and effort. I mean, I was just at the National Bird Dog Championships, man, and that really opened my eyes. You know, Greg Blair from Purina really took me around and talked about field trialing from a bird dog perspective. I had no idea of what really went into that. And especially from a tan point, you don't only have to be a dog person, you've really got to be a horse person as well. The horses are a huge part of that. And, you know, the time and effort and the money and the travel and everything that goes into trialing retrievers, spaniels, bird dogs, man, that's a full-time deal.

Jordan Harrock: Yeah. So, thankfully, I didn't have to deal with the horses. So, that saved me a lot of time and money right there, right? Because spaniels are never off of horseback, obviously. But the training time is so significant. You know, if you want to compete at the highest level, you can't just, you know, You can't just dip your toe in it. You're either all in, which means you're training almost every single day and you're driving and it's what you think about. It's what you do. It's all consuming or or you're just not going to be successful. So I was really all in for about a period of four years, probably. And then and then my capacity just wasn't there.

John Gordan: Yeah, I understand. You know, especially once you have a family and everything like that, it's got to be difficult to devote as much time as you need to, like you said, to be successful. That's the whole key to it. If you want to win at the highest level of anything, the dedication to it is all-consuming. That is very accurate. I understand why you took a step back from it. Well, let's talk about, okay, let's talk about flushing dogs in general a little bit. It basically breaks down, and something I found fascinating in the history of Spaniels, and by the way, I figured out that the word Spaniel really came from dog from Spain. So that's where the little Spaniel breeds were developed, you know, hundreds of years ago. Correct. Basically, any litter of spaniels that, you know, they had in Great Britain back in the time, they would call the little dogs cockers and the bigger dogs springers. And so they didn't have a real differentiation between the two of them, and they would turn the little cocker dogs into woodcock dogs, where the word cocker came from, and the spaniels would work more on the pheasants and the larger breeds. So I thought that was really fascinating.

Jordan Harrock: Yeah, I've heard different stories on that. What you just read there is definitely what most people say. I've also heard people from over in England say that there's not necessarily a lot of truth to that. So I don't know the answer. I do know it's interesting today, if you look at Springer Spaniels, you have primarily two different colors. You have liver and white, and you have black and white. There's also some that are more of a tricolor, but that's pretty rare. So they're very distinctly black and white and liver and white. And then when you look at the cocker spaniels, they are a bunch of mongrels. I mean, there is no continuity or rhyme or reason to the colors. I mean, I have owned pure black ones. I have owned some that were almost pure white, lemon roan, liver roan, blue roan, red, more orangish colored, liver and white, black and white. I mean, they are really like the Heinz 57 of the Spaniel world. So many different colors and sizes and personalities. I do know that, or I would agree that early on, springers and cockers were extremely closely related. Maybe they were out of the same litter, but obviously sometime in the last hundred or so years, something else got introduced. Maybe many things got introduced because the cocker breed doesn't resemble the springers, at least visually, like maybe they used to.

John Gordan: Yeah, correct. I really noticed that at the Bird Dog Hall of Fame when I was there, when I was at the Bird Dog Championships and looking at the Cockers. They're in the Hall of Fame versus the Springers. You can very tell that, yeah, right. The Springers have a very distinct look to them where the Cockers are all over the place. That's a really interesting point. And it looks like it was the late 1800s at some point. They really kind of diverged. And folks really started focusing on breeding cockers versus springers. But they both do pretty much the same job, am I correct? Is there any real differentiation about how they work in the field?

Jordan Harrock: So, how they actually work in the field, there are going to be some differences. How they maybe attack the cover, how they approach the cover. They're doing the same thing, right? A springer or a cocker is searching for game, finding it, flushing it in the air, and then retrieving it to hand. So, on its face, they're doing the same thing. As you start to dig into the breeds deeper, We get more familiar with them. The springers are doing it a little different way. So the springers would maybe be a little bit more workman-like, where they're running more of a pattern, typically, where the cocker is more using their brain to figure out that cover. So they may not hit the cover quite as hard as a springer. They may not run a perfect pattern like a springer would. With my cockers, I like to see as we go down a field that they're using the wind to cover the cover as much as they're using their feet. Theoretically, a springer should as well, but physically the Cockers are, they're not going to cover the ground quite as quickly as a really well-bred, nice, fast, strong Springer would simply because their size differences there. So for a Cocker, um, the smarter they can be, you know, knowing that they may only be 20 pounds. Like I can't just have them running a perfect pattern for hours. Uh, physically they may not be able to do that. I'd like to see them be more intelligent about how they attack the cover, I guess.

John Gordan: Jordan, the Springer and the Cocker are the two big Spaniels. The Boykin Spaniel is really primarily used as a retriever, but as the Flushing breeds, the Springer and the Cocker are the two main dogs. What's the real difference about how they work in the field?

Jordan Harrock: Yeah, so that's a great question. And there's a lot of overlap between the two breeds, obviously. They're both trying to do the same thing. They're both searching for game, finding it, flushing it, and then hopefully retrieving it back to hand. So their function is really the same. How they do that might be a little bit different. Some of that is based on physical differences. A nice springer is going to be probably 15 to 20 pounds, maybe not so much, but say 10 to 15 pounds heavier than a cocker on average. So there's some size differences there. And then the personality is going to be a little bit different as well. The springers tend to be a little bit more workman-like. They probably don't ask as many questions. They just do the job. The cockers, they're going to be a little bit smaller, but they also maybe ask a few more questions, which is kind of hard to describe, but they may be a little bit more intelligent about how they cover the ground as opposed to just running a perfect pattern all the time. But in function, yes, they are doing the same thing. They're looking for game, flushing it and retrieving it.

John Gordan: And folks, if you really want to see Jordan and his cockers in action, he's got a bunch of videos uploaded to YouTube where you can see him with different dogs and how they're coursing the field. As far as in the field, Jordan, I've hunted waterfowl with a Springer. A guy in California had a Springer Spaniel that he had hunted out of a boat and everything, and the dog did a really nice job of retrieving. the ducks that we shot. Do you see a lot of folks using either the English cockers or the springers for waterfowl ducks?

Jordan Harrock: So, you know what I'd say to that, John? I definitely see people using them for that application. I don't know that I see a lot of exclusive waterfowl hunters or people that waterfowl hunt exclusively using spaniels. It's more of the hunter that likes to hunt a lot of different things. They like to go in the upland fields and hunt pheasants or some other upland bird here in Wisconsin. It's a lot of grouse hunting. And then they also like to go duck hunting some, but they're not doing one or the other exclusively. So yeah, there are plenty of people using them for duck hunting. But again, If all they do is duck hunt, typically I think those people are moving more toward, or not moving, but they're staying more in the retriever world with labs or Chessies or Goldens or even the Boykins like you mentioned earlier.

John Gordan: Correct. Correct. And that makes a lot of sense, but it should, I guess you have to equate the Spaniels where they're continental breeds as well to the German Wirehairs. and those type dogs that are more, you know, they, you know, coin the phrase versatile, that they can, they're really can shine in both uplands and the waterfowl field.

Jordan Harrock: That's right. So where they originated from over in England, or at least our current stock of dogs where they originated, they really were used to, you know, as a gamekeeper's dog, maybe for driven shoots as beating dogs or a gamekeeper. And they're, even today over there, they're expected to, to produce all sorts of different game for the gun. So they even run trials on rabbits over there and use cockers in those trials. But they also, yeah, they're retrieving ducks, they're retrieving pheasants. So they really are a versatile breed, not like a wire hare would be in that it's a pointy breed. And also spaniels, they're not supposed to be sharp. There's no application where we want them trying to kill a raccoon or a fox. So they really are just hunting game animals. But yes, they are versatile within those game animals, certainly.

John Gordan: English Coggers are pretty small. So, like I said, if you live in an apartment… something like that. It's really pretty nice little dog. And I've heard that they're really great family dogs as well.

Jordan Harrock: Yeah. So, yes and no. I want to be completely honest on this podcast that they're not for everyone. So, they're small enough to be a lap dog, but a lot of them have just a little bit too much energy. So, they're not going to just lay around the apartment and not need any exercise, not need any mental stimulation. They definitely need exercise. They definitely need mental stimulation. They're definitely a working dog and very active. But yeah, their size definitely, there's certain applications where their size is just amazing. You can transport them in a smaller car without any issue. Even what they eat, And what they produce after they eat is smaller than, obviously, one of the retriever breeds. So, in a lot of ways, yes, they are easier to have in a small environment, but they still are a working dog that requires time and stimulation.

John Gordan: Yeah. That's a good point that you need to be a pretty active person if you're not a hunter, for sure, if you want to have an English Cocker. As a companion, I think that's a really good point, that they are high energy. And I saw the first one I ever really saw in the field this year. We were on a DU Nation episode. Hasn't come out yet, but we were quail hunting in South Texas. First wild quail hunt I'd been on in decades, really. And English porners were the pointing dogs of choice, but Abe Woodard, who is the East Foundation's quail research scientist, he had a little brown, or like as you would call it, liver, English cocker that he kept on there if a bird was crippled or something like that, got up into some heavy cover, and he would turn that little cocker spaniel loose. Man, I'm talking about, that dog would just, I mean, it had nothing but go, and it searched and searched and searched and went up into that thick cover and everything like that, looking for wounded birds. I could see just incredible prey drive.

Jordan Harrock: Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Then that's, that's not all cockers, but a large percentage of them have a drive like that.

John Gordan: Like I said, not a dog for everybody, because they've got so much energy that you really have got to work with them a lot and give them a lot of exercise for sure.

Jordan Harrock: Yeah. And I think it's important to point out that just because you hunt doesn't mean that you have an active home and that you're the perfect fit for a breed like this. Because in today's world, I suppose it's always been like this, just because we hunt doesn't mean that every day we're out in the field hunting, right? Like for a lot of hunters, they hunt five times a year, 10 times a year. Well, with 365 days in the year, even if you hunt 10 times a year, that's a very, very small fraction of the year. So That dog, if it's going to do nothing for 355 days out of the year, but then hunt for 10 days out of the year, it may not be the best fit for you to have a dog that is high energy and needs that sort of stimulation and exercise. On the other hand, if you hunt 10 times a year, but the other 355 days out of the year, you're an active person, you like to go for walks, you like to work with your dog, you're okay with a dog that, I don't know if needy is the right word, but if you're okay with a dog that wants to interact with you, then the Cocker might be a perfect fit for you.

John Gordan: That's a really good point. And once again, all the listeners need to think about that. And I've seen it over the years and dogs, it's a, those little baby Cockers are just adorable little dogs. And it'd be really easy to fall in love with one. And I really realized that this is going to take a lot more time and energy than you can, you can really devote to it. So got to really think about it before you choose a Cocker as, as a breed of choice. Yeah.

Jordan Harrock: And I think there's a lot of breeds where you have to make that same consideration. So it's not it's not a knock on the cocker. It's just I definitely don't want people to think I said cockers are for everyone. They're the perfect pet for any situation.

John Gordan: Let's switch gears just a little bit here and talk about nutritional needs. I mean, supporting dogs are athletes, first and foremost. And what do you think, I mean, it's, you know, I know a lot of the retriever breeds, it's high protein, high fat. Is the Spaniel diet similar?

Jordan Harrock: Yeah, I think so. I mean, they're working dogs, so they definitely some of them take a lot of food. It's interesting. There's not one perfect, well, here's the amount that we feed. And every dog is different. So I want to make sure I'm feeding the dog in front of me. So I've had some cockers that seem to exist on really not much food at all. And then I have others that they seem to be a bottomless pit. And no matter how much I feed them, they keep taking in food. But I would say For me, for the typical dog or puppy, let's say I'm starting with it at eight weeks old, I do feed Purina ProPlan. I think that it's a really good food and I find my dogs do really well on it. I will typically start with a puppy feeding them the, I believe now it's labeled as under two years old. It used to be ProPlan puppy, but I do that puppy food. For my personal dogs, that's usually up until 9 or 10 months old. I find with the Cockers, I think that structurally, their bones, I think, start to maybe harden a little bit sooner than some of the larger breeds. But if I feel like the dog has stopped physically growing, which typically is that nine to 10 month mark, then I'll switch them over to the 30-20. Also about that time, I usually switch to feeding them once a day, not all of them, but most of them. And I find, I mean, they will, with that 30-20, the 30% protein, 20% fat, I'll feed them. Some of them are getting a cup and a half. Some of them are getting three to three and a half cups. So there's a lot of variation. I think maybe the biggest factor though is there's probably two factors. One is what time of year is it? And two is how much work are they doing? So in the winter time, when we're doing work outdoors and even in the kennel where I keep them, the temp is a little bit cooler in there. They're burning more calories. So I need to feed them more food in the winter time. probably not an issue for you guys down in Tennessee so much, but up here in Wisconsin, I definitely see a significant difference between summer feeding and winter feeding just based on the temperatures. But then obviously if that dog is actively working, and let's say it's in the middle of hunting season and I'm pushing it fairly hard and we may be going for two to three to four hours, and that dog is running the whole time. Of course, I am talking upland hunting right now, not so much waterfowl, but I think it would be very similar. Swimming in cold water really burns the calories. So if they're actively working like that during hunting season, I may be doubling their food at that point. I think the best expression I've heard though is, feed the dog in front of you, So if a dog is looking kind of heavy and if I feel the ribs and it feels like they got a little too much bacon growing on the ribs, that's what I call it, I'm going to back off their food a little bit, regardless of if it's summertime or wintertime. I don't want them carrying extra weight. But at the same time, if I feel those ribs and they're starting to be a little bit too pronounced and I feel like they're getting thin, well then It doesn't really matter what it says on the bag or anything like that I just need to see that dog a little bit more but I have found with that pro plan the 3020. It really is a good food. Their coats look nice on it. It's really just a matter, it's up to me to make sure I dial it in and I'm giving them the right volume based on time of year and based on the amount of energy they're spending.

John Gordan: That's a great point. Really paying attention to your dog and its size, its health, its coat, and to really determining if your feeding program, feeding schedule, feeding your food is working for you. That's a really good point that a lot of folks I don't say don't pay attention to it, but maybe you should pay attention to it a little more.

Jordan Harrock: Yeah, I mean, we could really get into the weeds on this, but when I was trying to win the Nationals, and I was looking at every single detail, I was being really, really careful to make sure my dogs stayed at their ideal weight. So if I felt a dog looked healthy, it felt healthy, it was moving really well, energy seemed great, I would put them on a scale and get their exact weight. And then every week I would put that dog back on the scale so I could monitor their weight. Because what I found was if a dog started to look heavy, so I cut back their food, it would swing the pendulum. And a lot of times I would swing it just a little bit too far. And then if they look a little bit skinny, I need to go back up. So I felt like the pendulum kept swinging back and forth over the ideal weight. But by putting them on the scale, I could really dial it in that we would have less fluctuation. The pendulum wasn't swinging nearly as far because obviously the scale is much more precise than me feeling their ribs or looking at them. But for the average owner out there, that's definitely way too overboard. And I don't even do that anymore. But the vast majority of dogs out there, I think, could probably stand to lose a pound or two, typically. And if we get their weight ideal, we make sure they're not carrying extra weight. we are going to see more out of them. They're going to go longer. They're going to be more animated and then just their overall health. You know, my vet bills stay knock on wood, but my vet bills stay very low. And I think that's largely in part too. I just, I keep them healthy, feed them a premium food and I keep their weight where it needs to be.

John Gordan: Very good. Very good on that note, folks, we're going to take a break and stay tuned for more on the DU podcast. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Ducks Unlimited podcast. My guest, Jordan Horak, Cocker Spaniel trainer extraordinaire, is back with me today. And I'll tell you, we, uh, it's funny because we had a little technical difficulty in the first half of the podcast and we had a little kind of a disconnect there, Jordan, but now I think we're on the right track.

Jordan Harrock: Yeah, I felt like we were talking through a translator, but all all good now and I take full blame John It's definitely not your problem. It's uh, it's it's the result of me living out in the middle of nowhere.

John Gordan: I'm pretty sure That modern technology has come a long way, but there's still pockets of the country that obviously are not as good as the others but Nowhere, Wisconsin must be one of those spots

Jordan Harrock: Yeah, it must be. But we are back and I hear you great. So this will be fun to dig into this a little more.

John Gordan: Excellent. Excellent. So we've been talking about Spaniels and all about the English Cocker and your experience with the dogs. And we were just talking about nutritional requirements. I want to pick your brain a little bit now as you put your training hat on. Okay. Is there any real difference if, say, if a guy really wanted to train his lab to flush birds, a lot of people do, or go on retriever or whatever the retriever breeds, is it really, is it different training the spaniels and the retrievers as far as it goes, or are they pretty similar in the training methods you use?

Jordan Harrock: Oh boy, that's a loaded question. And I wish there was like a 30 second answer to that. Yes and no. How's that for an answer? Well, that's okay. So within the retriever world, and I have owned a handful of labs at this point, so I'm far from an expert, but I have had a few of them. A lab is still, I believe, the number one. If they're not the number one, they're right up there. They're one of the most used dogs for upland hunting. So for sure, they are used in that application extensively. And a lab typically is going to have the drive to go out and find a bird and flush it in the air, just like a Spaniard would do. I know I have had some that maybe didn't quite have the drive so much to go out and search. I'm probably gonna step on a bunch of toes right now, but I think some of the imports that over in England, they're not really using retrievers in that way as much. The field trial over there is gonna be a dog walking a heel nice and calmly. a field trial for retrievers, not for spaniels. The dog's walking, it healed nice and calmly. Birds are shot in a real life situation, and then the dogs are sent on retrieves. But those dogs really aren't supposed to be out flushing birds. And I have seen some of the British dogs don't go out and search as much maybe. That is for sure not all of them, so I'm not trying to tell anybody that their dog would not be good for this. I'm just saying some have more drive to get out and search than others do. The Spaniels, a well-bred Spaniel, Springer or working English Cocker, should have that drive to go out and search because that was their primary. When we breed these dogs, that's what we're looking for. It should be the top thing. Does that dog get out and find birds? Does it have that drive? Does it have the intelligence? So there is going to be some differences. I will If we dig into the training a little bit, I would say the vast majority of dogs out there don't necessarily need to be taught to find birds. They need to be taught to find birds how we want them to find birds. So anybody who has hunted with dogs has had a hunt ruined by a dog pretty much. John, I think you'd probably raise your hand on that one. Like, yep, I've seen a hunt ruined by a dog, whether that was waterfowl hunting or upland hunting. And it's not normally because the dog wasn't trained well enough. I'm sorry, it's not because the dog didn't like birds enough. It was because the dog wasn't trained well enough, right? It was either being loud in the blind and breaking, or if you're upland hunting, typically it looks like a dog that's running out of control and flushing birds at a distance. So Whether it's a retriever or it's a spaniel, both of them most likely will have the drive to go find a bird. Some will do a better job than others, but all of them almost, I would say all of them, need to be trained to work with the handler. Me personally, I start when they're really young. I use Cato boards. I use KetoBoards because it's my company. Before KetoBoards, we would place boards out of wood. Now I think KetoBoards has become the industry standard. But we use the KetoBoards not to teach them to hunt. We use them to teach the dog to give in to us and to be under control. So we're teaching them hand signals, we're teaching them to be steady, I really want a dog that asks me, what do you want? More than I want a dog that just says, I'm going to figure it out on my own and go do my own thing. And that starts with the puppy whether it's a retriever or a spaniel, teaching that dog that, hey, all good things come through me. Ask me, ask me, ask me. I'm going to help you. We're going to do this together. I know that's really high level, but at its core, that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to create a partnership where that dog will stay with us. Whether we are duck hunting or we're upland hunting, we want that dog to stay with us and look to us for guidance.

John Gordan: That's great, that's great. I think the words that came to my mind when you were talking about that was high motor. A flushing dog has got to have a high motor to course through that field and really seek out birds, but stay within control. It's a fine line, I think.

Jordan Harrock: Oh, no doubt.

John Gordan: Yes. With retrievers too. Yes, very much so. of a dog that's out of control and one that's working with you and really putting his nose to the ground and getting those birds in the air. We're talking about flushing breeds here. You really want that dog to stay within a 30-yard distance from you, right?

Jordan Harrock: Again, yes and no. How's that for an answer? Most of the time, yes. But I will say if I am grouse hunting, I want that dog to to be ranging out a little farther. Often I'll walk a trail and I don't want the dog out in front of me too far, but I do want it getting out to the sides because a lot of times they create a crossing shot where a bird is flushed maybe 40 yards away, but it flies across the trail in front of me and I get a shot. And there's also times where If I'm hunting and it's a tailwind, so the scent is blowing away from me, I want the dog getting out a little bit farther because I know they're going to smell the birds back in closer to me. So if they're hunting too close, all they're doing is smelling what we've already covered, what's behind us. But in a normal situation, let's say I'm walking through a field and we're going into the wind, which is ideal, or it's a crossing wind, which is, I guess, as close to an ideal as you can get as well. keeping that dog within 25, 30 yards, knowing the bird is going to be produced at 30 to 35 yards most likely, and that I'm getting a shot at maybe 40 to 45, maybe 50 yards. That's really, for the average hunter, a 45 to 50 yard shot is really really pushing the maximum range that they should be shooting at. So, yeah, the dog needs to be working well within range of that.

John Gordan: Sounds like a 12-gauge game to me, Flushing Birds. And the sub-gauges are really all the rage now, 20s, 28s. Sounds like a 12-gauge might be in order.

Jordan Harrock: Yeah, I don't know. I mean, boy, we could get into the weeds on that one. I think, you know, Yeah. Maybe it's a 12 gauge. A lot of guys are using 20s. A lot of guys are hunting with the sub gauges with flushers as well. I think it's more just train your dog well. And then also don't overlook the shooting. That's actually a joke that I sometimes make. The easiest way to keep your dog in range is to just get better at shooting. That's tongue in cheek. Yeah. If you feel like you need to go get a 12 gauge, In order to hunt effectively over a flusher, you probably need to do a better job training your flusher as opposed to going and getting a 12-gauge.

John Gordan: Kevin Buehler Fair enough. Fair enough. I appreciate that. Is there a particular upland bird that lends itself better to flushers? Is it pheasants, sharptails? things like that. But it seemed like bobwhites may be difficult to hunt with flushing dogs. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Jordan Harrock: Yeah. So I have hunted quail with spaniels in Texas without pointing dogs. So the spaniel was doing all the work. They weren't just going in for the flush. However, I do think the covey birds lend themselves more to a pointer than they do to a spaniel. There's also going to be times where you're just hunting big pieces of huge tracks of land out west where a pointer may be more effective. But a spaniel, boy, if you want to go in the woods and grouse hunt or go after woodcock, it's not a cubby bird. Some of those birds tend to move. Woodcock, not as much, but a grouse definitely will move. The spaniels can be great for tracking that bird down, producing it in air. Also, I mean, really like a Springer or a Cocker on pheasants is hard to beat, especially like I like to go up to the Dakotas a lot. We get into those cat tail slews and the Cockers and the Springers, but really the Cockers ability to get down underneath of those cat tails. You know, when as a hunter, I'm standing up and I'm pushing through the cat tails and I'm wearing myself out. But if, if you get down low and look, Those pheasants are actually typically running on trails that are underneath the cattails. The pheasants aren't pushing through the cattails. They're weaving through on trails. A good cocker, and the little ones in particular, they'll get down there where the pheasants are at, and they're just squirting around through the cattails on the same trails the pheasants are running. And Half the time, honestly, I can't even see where my cockers are at when we're in those situations. The easiest way to keep track of them is where the pheasant's getting up at, which is great. I mean, they're producing birds. They're flushing them in there. I'm getting chances to shoot them. I've hunted with buddies with pointing dogs in that same situation. And my buddies typically come out really frustrated trying to hunt cattails with their pointer because the dog goes on point. By the time the handler gets there, typically the birds have moved off, the dog relocates, the hunter has to move again, and a lot of times those birds never get produced for the gun. I would say the birds that are not cubby birds, so a pheasant, a grouse, I know there's some birds out west, but those are the first two that come to mind. Pheasants and grouse, the spaniels really are great on them. Maybe, I'm not going to say leave the quail for the pointers, but yeah, that's probably more of the pointer wheelhouse.

John Gordan: Makes a lot of sense. And that's what I've seen in the field more often than not. That the Spaniels are big time pheasant dogs and the English Porners, Setters, Brittneys are sometimes real quail specific. That's what they hunt is that, and they don't really put them on any other kind of bird.

Jordan Harrock: Yeah. Yeah. It would be great if there was just one one perfect breed for everything, but obviously we have all these breeds because everybody has different needs. So if you do live in the Southwest and all you hunt is quail, then maybe a spaniel is not the best fit. If you live in Wisconsin and you never quail hunt anymore, then a big running pointer maybe isn't the best fit for me up here as well. And then everybody else is somewhere in that spectrum of you know, needing something that's able to do both, but knowing that it's going to be able to do some things better than other things.

John Gordan: Lends itself well to having multiple dogs. You can't have too many, you can't have many dogs.

Jordan Harrock: That's a great, that's a great answer. It's a great answer.

John Gordan: I'm a gun nut too. So you got to have different guns. You guys have one gun for everything. Yeah. It doesn't work. Yeah.

Jordan Harrock: I mean, if anybody needs help getting talked into multiple dogs, I'm willing to, I'm willing to help with that. No doubt. Let me run down this rabbit hole real fast cuz I think it's a funny story. When I got my first cocker, I told my wife, I really want another one. She's like, why would you want another one? You already have one. That's enough, right? Well, I mean, the thing about dogs, you hate to say it, but Like dogs die, right? Things happen. Sometimes they get sick. Sometimes they have an accident. Things happen. You hope that they don't, but they can. And unfortunately, it really takes a couple of years to take a dog from being a puppy to being a good hunting dog. That first year, some guys will hunt them, especially depending on how old they are. But That first year is kind of a throwaway year, I guess, for lack of a better way to express it. The second year, you kind of have a good hunting dog again. Well, that's a long time. I mean, two years, who wants to go two years? So I used that to convince my wife that I needed a second one. So I brought home the second one, really, really liked that dog, then started to run him in competitions and really, really liked him and wanted to go get another one just like him. And called the breeder up, told him I wanted another one out of that same bloodline. He was getting out of the business and for some other family reasons needed to downsize. And I took a drive and I came home. I had two dogs when I left home. And I came home and owned six dogs all in one afternoon. That's awesome. Yeah. Oh yeah. That was, that was real smart move. Real smart move. So yeah, don't do that. But boy, to go from one to two is no big deal.

John Gordan: I know all the wives out there listening. You should, you should remember that. It's just, it's just as easy to have two as one.

Jordan Harrock: Yeah, it really is. It really is. And two to six, I mean, I'm still married. So, and that was, it was a long time ago. That was probably 14 years ago. Well,

John Gordan: Your wife should be commended for that, Jordan, that she didn't kick you out for the coming back with four. Dog deal. No doubt. As far as the future of the English Cockers and the Spaniels in general, do you see them becoming more popular? Kind of stay in the course? Is there any kind of direction they're going in?

Jordan Harrock: Yeah, that's a great question. Maybe to just catch us up to today a little bit because that's going to help us with the future. There's a huge push today saying about people seeming to think that they just discovered cockers for the first time, and that it's a brand new breed. It definitely isn't like you talked about earlier. They've been around for hundreds of years, and particularly in the last 100 to 150 years, they've been quite common, especially over in England. They've been running field trials over there for the last century. And even here in the US, we had cocker, not just Springer, but we had cocker field trials. back in the 50s and early 60s, I think in the 40s as well. And then they did start, and there were a lot of American cockers running trials at that time. The American cockers were actually more popular than English cockers in the US. Their popularity ended up kind of running them into the ground. They decided to see a lot of aggression, aggression towards humans. I think some dog aggression, you see some of the piddling, and we're talking to American talkers here, and they started to feel out of favor. But if you talk to an old timer, which I'm not going to say what an old timer is, but if you talk to somebody who is hunting a few decades ago. A lot of times you'll hear them saying, yeah, my dad or my grandpa had a cocker that was a really nice hunting dog. But then there was this gap for, it was really in the 60s and 70s where cockers were almost non-existent as hunting dogs. And then in the late 70s, early 80s, there were a few people here in the US that started importing some cockers, some working cockers. The nomenclature here gets a little bit confusing. In the US, a lot of times we'll say field bred English cocker spaniel, which is a extremely long name for a dog. In England, they'll just call them working cockers. So they drop the English, they don't say the field bread, it's just a working cocker. So back in the early 80s, a few choice people here in the US started importing some working cockers from England. And popularity started to grow, we started having some litters here. And then in the early 90s, I think in 1993, if I'm not mistaken, we held the first field trial since the early 60s. So there was about a 30-year hiatus, no cocker trials, they disappeared. 1993, first trial was held, I believe it was out in Colorado. And it wasn't very big, I think there were around 12 to 15 dogs that showed up for that. But then that was kind of the I thought maybe the watershed moment. We started having more trials a couple years later was the first nationals. And so for the last 30 some years, we've been holding cocker, AKC-sanctioned, cocker spaniel trials here in the US. In those trials, the dogs are functioning as flushing dogs. They go down the field, they quarter back and forth, they're looking for a bird, they find it, they flush it. And they're steady to the flush, and then they retrieve it back to hand. So they are not working in conjunction with pointers. It's not a timed event. It's all about just style, bird finding, marking, the whole hunting experience, right? Now, probably in the last five to 10 years, there's been a big push to use them in conjunction with pointers. In the South, they're being used on a lot of plantations. A lot of guys are using them with their pointing dogs, where the pointing dog is doing all the work. Not all the work, but it's locating the bird, it's pointing the bird, and then the cocker is released to go and flush it. But that's really how they're being used in those applications isn't really how the breed was developed early on. It was bred to be that dog, that cocker goes out and finds the bird and flushes it, retrieves it, does the whole thing. So I do see today February, the year 2024, there seems to be a little bit of, there's still a field trial dogs, but then there's also more of the plantation dogs, and they're definitely being used in a different way. I'm not gonna say one is right, more than the other. I mean, things change over time and you don't want to get stuck in a rut. Although I will say popularity is usually not a great thing for a breed. So popularity creates demand, demand creates supply. And when we're talking about breeding dogs, when there's a high demand and supply goes up, usually quality goes down. So if for your listeners, my best advice is just be smart if you're going to go look for a cocker. Typically, it's best to see the parents. Videos are really cheap. So if somebody If a breeder sends you a video and says they have a great dog, well, that video is only going to show you a small clip of that dog's life, maybe 20 seconds or 30 seconds. It doesn't show you the whole picture. So if you can see the parents in person, that's great. And if you go and look at the parents, make sure you're seeing what you want to see. So just because the dog comes over and jumps up on your leg and you scratch it and it acts all friendly, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's worth breeding, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to produce puppies that are what you want. So if you want a dog that is going to be a good plantation dog or work in that way, work with a pointer, maybe you should go see a cocker that works with pointers. Is it calm while it's walking at heel? Is it Is it riding around on the bungee without any issue? And then is it going in and slushing? Okay, great. If you want a dog that's gonna be kind of the complete dog that's gonna quarter down the field and find a bird and slush it, maybe a dog whose parents only work with pointers, that might not be the best one. But if I'm gonna go find a puppy, I wanna make sure that I actually see the parents doing what I want my puppy to do. And I'm not gonna take somebody's word for it. I mean, this is kind of regardless of the breed. It could be retrievers, pointers. Most people are, and I say most, I think this is about 100%, it's very high, are never are never going to say that, well, my dog is average or my dog is below average, but I have these puppies and you should buy one. They're just never going to say that. It doesn't work that way. Everybody's going to say, oh, my dog is terrific. It's the most wonderful dog. It does X, Y, and Z so amazingly well. Everybody says that. So talk is cheap. Videos are cheap. I actually want to see the dog do something. And I think in the cockers, you got to be You have to be really careful knowing that there has been an increased demand and knowing that the supply has gone up. You need to be really careful to make sure that you're buying a puppy that comes from health tested parents. That's true for any breed. Now we have all these DNA tests that we can run to make sure that they're clear of the genetic defects. So that's kind of standard. But then we also need to be careful to make sure we're buying a puppy that has the personality and the drive that we want for whatever the application is that we're looking for. So I don't think the popularity is going to help the breed. I think it's going to make us have to be smarter as consumers to make sure we're weeding through those puppies that were just produced to fill the demand. Instead, we need to be looking for the puppies that were produced because the parents were really, really good and the breeders wanted to stay true to the breed and produce good puppies.

John Gordan: Excellent advice. Anybody out there looking for a puppy, just play that back and listen to it again, what Jordan just said. You don't pick puppies from litter on the ground, you pick the parents. You see if they have the traits that you're looking for. And health clearance is a huge deal as well. If the breeder does not have complete background testing on the dogs, that's a huge red flag as well, that they're not doing their due diligence. They're not in it for the right reason to produce high quality animals that are going to be part of your life for 10, 12, 15 years to come. So just listen to that again folks, what Jordan just said, that's how you pick a puppy.

Jordan Harrock: Let me clarify, the health testing is just the very first piece. Health testing does not make a dog a good dog. Oh, correct. Health testing is just kind of the gatekeeper. Like, yep, okay, that stuff should be done. Actually, it needs to be done, but that's only the first step. Yeah, it is just as important to me that those parents function. They have the drive, they have the retrievance. What they do is just as important to me as them being healthy.

John Gordan: you can't have one or the other that's it they both have to be there and that that can't be overstated they they have to have you know sound internals and sound externals to where they perform what you want to that's the bottom line

Jordan Harrock: I will say I'm not really a breeder. I maybe do a litter a year and they typically go to friends. So I'm not trying to sell puppies to anybody right now, nor toot my own horn. I do love the breed and it does concern me to see a lot of maybe inferior breedings happening just because of the demand. So I'm just an advocate for people making sure they stay true to the breed if they're going to breed. Don't breed it. just because you love it and it snuggles with you. Breed it because it's a good representational breed and it's healthy.

John Gordan: I think a perfect breed where I've seen that is Labradors. Popularity, right? The most popular breed in America. People just throw dogs together. The quote unquote backyard breedings. has really been detrimental to the health of the Labrador. And so, folks, do your homework. If you're looking to get a new dog, no matter what breed it is, really do your homework, study it. Don't make impulsive decisions. I think that's a really good point.

Jordan Harrock: Yeah. Emotions are great after you own the dog. emotions are not good while you're, while you're going through the vetting out process. So don't get attached to anything until you own it. Exactly.

John Gordan: Exactly. And on that note, folks, Jordan, thanks so much for being with us. The second half of this deal flew, you know, it flew by it. It was a little better flow and we could hear each other. Yeah, definitely. So now I've got dog fever, man. I mean, talking about dogs with you, Carl, Greg, all the great folks in Purina. It's got me, uh, it's got me having dog fever and I don't need a dog, but you never know the bad thing. I'm single and nobody's there to tell me. No, it's not about.

Jordan Harrock: It's not about need, John. It's about want.

John Gordan: You sound like you got the want. Oh, I got the wants. I got the wants bad. Anyway. All right, man. Once again, Jordan, thanks a lot for being with us. And it's really been great. And folks, thanks for listening and supporting wetlands and waterfowl conservation.