ogical interoperability and multilateral training? A couple things I'd highlight on that, Congresswoman, and then turn it over to General George. First, we have something called Security Force Assistance Brigades. We have five of those. They're each aligned to a combatant command. So for example, the SFAB in the Indo-Pacific works with 12 different partner countries there doing amazing things. On the industrial base, we are gonna be, the Australians are gonna be co-producing Gimlers missiles for us. And then another program I would highlight is the terrific state partnership program that our Army National Guard has with countries all around the world that does training. So those are just some examples. Thank you. I'll just, 88 State Partnership Program, just a plug for the Guard and what they're doing. And every time I go to Romania, what I hear of the first thing I hear is roll tide. So I know they're having an impact over there. The Secretary mentioned AUKUS Pillar II. That's something that we're working with both the Australians and the UK. General A's time expired. Chair, I recognize you. I'm from Missouri, Mr. Alford. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you, Ranking Member, for this important hearing today. And thank you for our witnesses. As our witnesses know, my district hosts Army's Fort Leonard Wood home to training and doctrine command Maneuver Support Center of Excellence under the leadership of commanding General Beck. The Maneuver Support Center of Excellence is the only location for soldiers and Army leaders to hone their expertise as engineers, military police, chemical biological, radiological, and nuclear seaburn specialists. Later this week, sappers at Fort Leonard Wood will compete in the annual best sapper competition. I encourage everyone to watch on Fort Leonard Wood's Facebook page, U.S. Army Fort Leonard Wood. It starts this Friday. ought to be good. I want to thank in particular the Army and personally thank you, Secretary Wormuth, for going to Fort Leonard Wood, for your attention that you have paid to this distinguished installation. In the President's budget, $144 million is now dedicated to advanced individual training barracks at Fort Leonard Wood. Thank you so much. It's great news. It's gonna mean a lot for our soldiers. Additionally, the quality of life panel, which I was a part of, released a list of recommendations last Thursday that will dramatically improve the livelihoods of soldiers and their families all over the world and across the military. And I want to personally thank General Bacon for having me on this panel and for his leadership. I'm excited for these recommendations to serve as a foundation of the fiscal year 25 NDAA. We have the opportunity now to take care of the service members who take care of our nation. And I know we're gonna do the right thing. The Army is also going through changes related to its structure. And I'm supportive of the Army's efforts to do that, to meet our new challenges. However, I encourage the Army to ensure that as it changes, it continues to support the communities that in turn have supported the Army for so many years. Secretary Wormuth, as the Army does restructure, it's cutting military police battalions and engineer units. It's going to affect Fort Leonardwood. Fewer positions in these specialties will mean fewer soldiers over time attending basic training at Fort Leonardwood. It's going to disproportionately impact the rural community around the installation compared to that of other installations.  Is it feasible to plus up the number of soldiers attending basic training at Fort Leonardwood to ensure that the community is not too adversely affected? Congressman, first of all, we look at our Army force structure and how it's arrayed every year through the total Army analysis process that we use. So we will continually be looking at that to include at places like Fort Leonardwood. I do want to note, and we have in the restructuring that we've done, we were looking at authorized spaces, basically spaces, not faces. And at Fort Leonardwood and at many of our installations around the country, the actual number of soldiers right now is below the number of authorizations. So it is possible, and the reason I'm hesitating a little is because I don't have Fort Leonardwood's kind of footprint in my mind in terms of numbers, but in many of our major bases, by the end of the next five years, the number of actual soldiers at Fort Leonardwood may be higher than what you have now, in part because in so many places due to the recruiting challenges, we're actually below the number of authorizations. Do you have a percentage of that increase? I just, again, don't have those numbers off the top of my head. Would you get that to us? But we can get them to you, absolutely. Thank you so much. We do have them. Can you talk about the changes that the Army is making to the Army's criminal investigation division? I know we've talked about this in my office, and the impacts it will have across the Army and also at Fort Leonardwood where CID agents get their training. Absolutely, and our CID agents get terrific training at Fort Leonardwood. Again, I was pleased to be able to see a lot of what the installation offers when I was there. Broadly speaking, what we're trying to do with CID, and a lot of this came out of the commission that looked at everything that happened at Fort Hood in the wake of Vanessa Guillen's murder, we are essentially transforming at least 60% of our CID agents to civilians, so it won't be a fully military force anymore. And I think one thing that's going to do is improve the level of professionalism, the level of experience that our agents have, which is really important, I think, particularly given the importance of their investigative role. So that's broadly what we're doing with the transformation, but happy to have Director Ford come and talk with you in more detail, if you'd like. I would love to have a discussion with Director Ford personally. Thank you so much. And again, thank you, Secretary, and General, thank you for your service to our nation. I invite you to Fort Leonard Wood anytime. We'd love to accompany you there. All right. I yield back. Thank you, gentlemen, and yields back. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from New Mexico, Mr. Vesquez. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Secretary Warmouth, General George, for taking the time to speak with us today. I have the privilege of representing New Mexico's second district, home to White Sands Missile Range, the birthplace of America's Missile and Space Program, and the Department of Defense's premier research and testing facility. As you both know, White Sands is one of the department's most valuable assets. Receiving, but it's not receiving the prioritization and attention that it deserves from the Army. Rural installations such as White Sands face unique challenges to provide sufficient and adequate and modernized housing for service members and their families. During my visit to White Sands this year, I spoke with base leadership about how they're currently at over 90% capacity for their on-base housing and are struggling to meet housing demands. Unfortunately, the Army's own calculations don't recognize that White Sands is reaching maximum capacity because the formula only counts uniform personnel who are living on base and does not count additional civilian and contractor workers who also live on base. Because the Army marks White Sands at a significantly lower capacity, the base faces greater challenges getting the resources needed to modernize, expand, and improve its housing conditions to meet actual demand. Secretary Warmouth, would you say that updating outdated housing for service members is a top priority in this budget request? Yes, we've put a lot of money towards barracks. We've also put a lot of money towards new homes, for example, or renovating family homes. What could the people of White Sands expect from this $2.1 billion, I believe, per year to achieve safe quality housing over the next year if this budget request is granted? Well, the $2.1 billion is focused on barracks exclusively for unaccompanied soldiers, so it's not gonna get after some of the housing issues. I think, Congressman, what I would suggest is that we look specifically at White Sands and see if, in fact, we are, for some reason, not appropriately thinking about soldiers plus civilians and contractors. I think we can certainly look into that with you. Thank you so much. I really appreciate that, Secretary, and that is a challenge that we continue to face because we do have a mix of both civilian, contractor, and, of course, enlisted personnel that rely on on-base housing that currently is not being met. Many of the buildings at White Sands Missile Range were also constructed in the years following World War II, including much of the housing, and decades later, on-base housing is in dire need of upgrades. Last year, I was proud to help secure Section 2833 in the FY24 NDAA, which terminated all waivers that allowed for unsatisfactory housing to ensure that all army housing adhered to current living standards, particularly surrounding square footage per soldier. Secretary, given this, how exactly does the army intend to go about improving housing given this new directive? Congressman, we're looking at a few things. To include looking at the design, for example, of our housing, of our barracks in particular, one thing we're doing is trying to shrink the inventory of the worst barracks, the Q3, Q4. We're hiring civilians to be barracks managers to go into our Department of Public Works to help us do oversight better. And the Chief and I and others are looking at the standards for design to look at what is the bare minimum for square footage, how many soldiers per room. We want to look at that and do that in a way that's cost-effective, but gives soldiers good housing. Thank you, Secretary, and do you believe that currently the army or in your budget request has the adequate personnel, resources, and planning ability needed to execute these directives to improve these housing conditions? And if not, what else can we do to make sure you have those resources? Thank you, Congressman, two things I'd say, and again, I'd like the Chief to add. One, we do need to hire more barracks managers, and there's money in the budget to do that, although we continue to be looking at what the requirement is for that. Two, I do want to say, given the inventory of barracks and housing that the United States Army has, it's enormous, it's bigger than any service, and we don't have the money in our budget to get that inventory up to a high standard in a short timeframe. It's just gonna cost in billions of dollars. So while we put a very strong investment towards barracks, it's going to take some years to really get after that problem. Thank you, Secretary, and Chief. Yeah, the only thing I would add, Congressman, is we are reviewing on the barracks, and we can come back, and we want a little bit of flexibility, and we're talking to soldiers out there. I've lived in those barracks. So the second is we're also looking at how we can spend our money better, and some of the process things that we've just done with including the Corps of Engineers to kind of streamline what our process is. So we're studying what they're doing out there. One of the places that we went and looked at was University of Alabama, and kind of comparing the cost for what we're building. And I would love to have our team come over and kind of walk you through that. Thank you, General. Thank you, Secretary. Thank you both for your service, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. And I thank you for talking with the University of Alabama. The Chair now recognizes General from Texas, Mr. Fallin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General, it's great to see you again, and thank you so much for coming and visiting our office. I think it was very productive, and I have every confidence that we'll have a great working relationship, if not partnership moving forward. I wanted to visit with you on the Humvee Retrofit Program. The, you know, some people may not know that IEDs were posed a great threat to Humvees, and to mitigate that, we created another issue, which was its susceptible to rollovers, as you know. Unfortunately, there's been 349 rollovers, over 700 soldiers have been injured, and tragically, 130 have been killed. And so I was, when I read the base budget request, I was a bit, I have to admit, I was a bit befuddled because it was a request for $45 million, and it was even more so confusing to me because it was published after the Assistant Secretary for Acquisitions told Inside Defense, and I quote here, "'The core issue with the program speed and volume "'is Congress isn't appropriating enough money.'" And I have to take offense to that. I have a sliver of anger, bewilderment, and bafflement because for three straight years since I've been in Congress, in a bipartisan fashion, in a bicameral manner, we have appropriated four times as much as what the Army has asked for. So please help me, help you. You know, I think it's feasible to do it within five years. There's gonna be NDA language that will be written in to do that because we're talking about soldiers live. So General and Madam Secretary, help us please do the right thing, and can we count on you, Madam Secretary and then General George? Congressman, certainly soldier safety is critical to us and we wanna work with you. I think one of the things we're doing, frankly, and the Chief may wanna elaborate on this, is General Rainey at Army Futures Command is actually looking at do we have the right number of vehicles in our formations? In some cases, we may wanna actually be reducing the proportion, if you will, of Humvees that we have in some of our formations. So that's something we're gonna have to factor in as we look at the investment in the anti-lockbrake systems. Thank you. I would say it's a safety issue. Yes, we're focused on it and we appreciate all the assistance that you've provided. To Red River Army Depot is critically important to us and this kind of gets to the larger discussion that we've been having today and I think that that workforce, I think what we need to look at is, and I think we talked about this a little bit, is how we, what is the next projects? What are the things that we're gonna need to do just based on the skilled workers that we have there and the capability? And that's where I think even beyond this that we need to start looking longer term. Yeah, to keep that hot and also to retrofitting as opposed to buying new one saves about $8 billion and when you have the kind of budget crunches that we're facing, that's a good thing. What I also wanted to visit with you both about is what I really feel is an absolute accidental threat to our national security, which is the recruiting crisis. And I do think it's a crisis. Every once in a while we might not hit a number, but when it's year over year, it's getting to be we have to ring the alarm bells. So I think it's an all hands on deck. The 1.1 billion in increased marketing is a good step. What we all want is we don't wanna just throw money at an issue. We want, and we really need measurable results. So we wanted to wanna visit with you on, Madam Secretary, is talk about how we can measure some of these new, because I do think we need to be innovative and creative, quite frankly, and need to be committed to addressing this. And so what if you could share with us kind of a comprehensive plan as to how to address this looking at it in some new ways and how we're gonna measure it? Certainly, Congressman. First of all, well, I don't wanna be overconfident because we have six more months left in the fiscal year. If we continue to perform the way we have in the last few months, I think there's an excellent chance that we will make our recruiting goal this year of 55,000 soldiers and 5,000 in the delayed entry program. So the things that the Army has been doing in the last year and a half, I think are starting to work. And one of those has been the future soldier prep course, which is done exceedingly well. We have a soldier referral program, the additional marketing that you talked about. I don't know if you saw our commercial during the March Madness Tournament. All of that, I think, is starting to bear fruit, but to your point about- Is that with Coach Hasefsky? Coach K, yes. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. And we've got more ads, I think that we'll be rolling out in August of this summer. But to your point about metrics and the broader transformation, that is critical. And the chief and I made a series of decisions last fall to transform our recruiting enterprise. One of them was to give us an analytical capability to actually understand what we're doing that's working and what's not working. Because frankly, before that, it was a little bit throw spaghetti at the wall. Like double up on what's working, ditch what's not working, and we're not gonna succeed in every innovative and new idea that we have. And I think that we can do some help. We can provide you some help as well. We're drafting legislation right now to compel institutions of learning, high schools and colleges, if they receive federal funds to give access to our recruiters to mandate that. Thank you very much. I'll be back. Gentlemen, this time's expired. Chair now recognized. General from Nevada, Mr. Horsford. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and to the ranking member, the Army's 23 arsenals, depots and ammunition plants play a critical and crucial role in supporting the war fighter through sustaining readiness requirements across the joint force. In my district, it includes the Hawthorne Army Depot, which apart from storing conventional munitions has been tasked with demilitarizing and disposing of unservosable obsolete and surplus munitions. On March 20th, the EPA released a proposed rule to revise the standards for the open burn, open detonation of waste explosive. This rule affects 67 resource conservation and recovery act OBM facilities, including Hawthorne Army Depot in my district, even though the installation currently has permits until 2029 and 2023. The proposed rule would require the implementation of identified viable alternatives in lieu of OBOM. This means that no matter the cost, OBOM facilities must evaluate and reevaluate whether safe alternative technologies are available and facilities must use those alternatives. EPA is estimating that this rule could cost the installations between $6 million to $28 million annually. For rule installations such as the ones in my district, this amount of money is just staggering. I don't have to tell you that smaller installations, which often have little to no active duty, receive much less attention than their larger counterparts. So I worry that this rule will only exacerbate that issue. While I understand the need to invest in alternative technologies and address the environmental impacts these practices cause, I'm concerned that this rule will have wide implications for installations such as Hawthorne. Secretary Wormuth and General George, are you aware of this proposed rule and the impacts that we'll have on Army depots across the United States? Thank you, Congressman. Yes, I am broadly aware of that EPA rule on open burn facilities. And certainly I think you are correct. It could have significant implications for Hawthorne. So I think this is something that we need to look into to better understand precisely what those impacts would be. I would like to have our Army Materiel Command, which oversees our arsenals and depots, look into that and be in touch with your staff, because I think we wanna understand what those implications are. As you said in your statement, in some cases we've been able to find alternative technologies to allow us to do that kind of demilitarization in a different way, but I think this is something we need to dig into a little more and we would do that with you. Well, I would like to work with you on that to address this issue that so that installations such as Hawthorne are not adversely impacted by this proposed rule. So I'll follow up with you. Also, as you know, Hawthorne, which is housed on over 140,000 acres and provides an explosive storage capacity of 7,685,000 square feet. Can you please outline the steps that you're taking to address the special requirements and funding needs of the smaller rule installations in order to ensure proper maintenance and readiness at these crucial sites? Certainly in broad terms, I can do that. All 23 of our arsenals, ammo plants and depots are critically important to our organic industrial base and through the leadership of Army and Materiel Command, we have a 15 year facilities investment plan and an organic industrial base plan that looks at our investments and we look at each of them individually to try to determine what their current and future requirements are. And then we basically bring that into our budgeting process to try to make sure that we are investing in those facilities in the way that's needed. I'll be honest, given our top line, we don't always have all the money we need to get to everything right away, but we do have a 15 year plan. Thank you and again, I'd like to follow up on a few items specific to Hawthorne, some of the issues that I've been able to work with the chairman and the ranking member on in the past. I do not want these installations to be forgotten or ignored, we have critical needs throughout, but places like Hawthorne and other rule installations are vitally important as well and should be given priority. So with that, I yield back. Gentlemen, you yields back. Chair, not recognized, a gentleman from Georgia, Mr. McCormick. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Secretary Ormuth, I noticed that we have a recruiting shortfall this year. How many thousands are we below our, what's our shortfall for the Army right now? Well, Congressman, right now we're, again, I don't want to be overconfident, but we are on track, I think, to make our recruiting goal this year, which is 55,000 new contracts plus 5,000 individuals in what we call our delayed entry program. I'm familiar. Now, given the recruiting shortages we had in the past, we're still undermanned, though, correct? Well, we're able to meet all of the requirements of that the combatant commanders had levied on us. We would like to grow, absolutely. General George and I want to see our end strength come up and our plan is to have our end strength be at 470,000 by 2029. And you're 452,000, but is that 452,000 manned right now or do you have a shortfall? It is manned right now.  Our authorizations are above that, but we are manned at 452. Gotcha. And I noticed a couple things. First of all, the former Sergeant Major of the Army still owes me 100 push-ups for not making his goals last year when we made a bet on it. I always say that it's because the Army doesn't have as good a commercial as the Marine Corps, but that's just my opinion. Obviously, the barracks conditions has something to do with morale and retention. I was in the Marine Corps barracks in Camp Lejeune recently. I saw some really bad ones and some really, really good ones. There's a disparity as we continue to build towards something better. One thing I noticed in Georgia though, Fort Stewart is really bad right now. I'm sure you're aware right now, but one of the recent analysis showed that there was brown faucet water, moldy ceilings, raw sewage on the bathroom floors. This is for the Third Infantry Division, Fort Stewart. What are we doing to improve that and what can we expect for a timeline? Congressman, that's what the $2.1 billion investment is all about. We are trying to reduce the inventory that's Q3, Q4 as quickly as possible. So we're going to be investing in construction of new barracks. We're investing in sustainment at 100%, which we haven't done in years and years. We're hiring new barracks managers. And we have a whole process where the Fort Stewart, Garrison Commander and Division Commander can weigh in and basically hold up their hand and say, we are in dire need, but we are investing a lot of money to try to get after that exact problem. Good, I'll look forward to updates on that. I know one of the things we noticed with Ford reconnaissance general, we're using drones now, autonomous drones for Ford looking in place of reconnaissance. I think it's great because we used to always say about force recon, that you are swift, silent and totally surrounded. This is a better technology for outward looking looking technologies that we're gonna use to give a battlefield update real time. Is the Army fully committed to this and do we need to do something in Congress to accelerate that program to save lives and form the battlefield better than the fog of war? I think we get that that's where we have to go, Congressman, that we are investing in that at every level. I think that we're gonna have to have for reconnaissance. And it's also joint because we're looking at the space assets that are out there from the space force. So I think we're learning those lessons and we're moving forward and trying to do it quickly. So we dedicate to that as a priority or do you think that's lower in the priority as far as the, obviously you guys need a lot. Everybody needs a lot right now. We have a worldwide challenge whether it be in different multiple arenas, funding allies that are fighting wars. Is this a priority? I think it is a priority. There's three areas that we've asked for that I think we need to have more flexible, more flexibility and that's with UAS, counter UAS and EW, it's gonna change. We're gonna, we're buying off a blue list which is all U.S. stuff right now. I think that we can produce those things. I think we, all of those systems, I think we do need a little bit of flexibility to move stuff from R&D immediately into procurement and we could certainly use your help doing that. Great and then final question has to do with what's going on over in Ukraine. Obviously Ukraine's being outshelled about 10 to one. A large portion of their munitions are gonna come from us and our sustained support. Obviously a lot of the munitions we send to Ukraine are gonna be replaced here in America about 68% I believe is the recent statistic I heard is our failure to get this package done to help Ukraine in what they're trying to do against an age old adversarial opponent. Do you think that's hampered by our, hampering your efforts to do what you need to do be prepared for the next war, by us not passing what we needed to get done over in Ukraine? Short answer to that is yes. We need a supplemental to build our magazine depth and replace equipment. Gentlemen's time to expire. Chair and I recognize Jennifer from North Carolina. Mr. Davis. Thank you so much Mr. Chair. Madam Secretary General. Our service members and especially Army personnel are forced to cope with substandard and often toxic filled feeding systems. Madam Secretary as part of the 2024 NDAA there was a report provision that would speak and address towards this situation in the planning. Can you give any update in terms of the status at this? Congressman I'm sorry, did you say feeding? Yes. Okay, sure. We are very focused on trying to make sure that our soldiers have access to quality food. And we have had some challenges in the last year but here's what we're doing about it. First of all, we are investing in things like meals on the go that soldiers can go and grab and take home to their barracks later to prepare. We are building food kiosks that are again have a great variety of food. I actually saw one of our food kiosks at Fort Kavazos recently. We're also bringing in food trucks when soldiers are sometimes away from their de-facts. So I think all of that is gonna improve the quality and sort of availability if you will of food for our soldiers. But we're also engaged in a broader effort really to try to transform our de-facts and have them be more like college campuses in terms of the quality and variety that they offer and also the hours that they're available. So we have a lot of work that we're doing on our food strategy. Okay. Can I jump in on that one, Congressman? Just because I've been eating all of those. I mean, I think outside everywhere we've changed. People want quick food, they want healthy food, they want really flexible hours. I mean, I think we're seeing that and what we need to do is do the same thing on our installations. And I think you're gonna see some really big changes here in the next year and how we're approaching exactly that. And the secretary mentioned a couple of the things that we're looking at doing and some of this is getting some outside help and looking at how industry is doing it. But I think we're gonna make some changes here real soon. Very positive. And could you speak specifically in terms of the field program out? Yeah, well, I think every location is gonna be a little bit different. So I just, it depends on how spread out everything is and what they want, what their access is to off base. And kind of like the secretary said, it's more like campus style dining. It's gonna be a little bit different. We've had a kiosk, for example, that they opened up and we partnered with DECA, which was the commissary to put the food in there. And they're very, very popular to the point where they had 300 people showing up a day. And a couple of days later, there was 1,800 people. And so we think we got the right strategy. We're just gonna have to implement it at every different location. I'm super proud of Fort Liberty and especially Headquarter Dairy Special Operations Command. General George, how's the special operations command making up for what we would lack in sheer volume of personnel in terms of equipment and greater efficiency and precision itself? Yeah, I mean, I would just like to overall talk about Fort Liberty in general. We got use of SOC there, but we've also got 18th Airborne Corps. We've got the 82nd Airborne Division. I mean, there's a lot that's there at Liberty. We're getting ready to invest with some additional multi-domain task force is gonna go there. So obviously very, very important to us. And there's a lot of innovation. I mean, I could probably go on for a good long time about what we're doing down at Liberty right now, but they're really helping us to innovate use of SOC specifically with like high altitude balloons or small UAS. So it's really across to all the war fighting functions.  And army makes up a big part of SOCOM in total. Well, thank you so much, Mr. Chair, you'll bet. I thank the gentleman. Chair, now recognized gentleman from Florida, Mr. Gates. Secretary, with this train and equip money you requested in this budget, right? Certainly, Congressman. And the train and equip mission in Niger is owned by the army, right? Yes, but we certainly provide soldiers for that, yes. General, do you know what is going on in Niger right now? I know there's some challenges over there in Niger right now. And I don't think that we are actually in charge of that mission that's on the ground. Well, yeah, we just heard the secretary say you've got soldiers there. So we're gonna dive into that to some extent. Do you know what the status is of diplomatic overflights to our installations in Niger? Yeah, I'm vaguely tracking that that's a challenge. But yeah, I mean, it's not a challenge, it's binary. Are we allowed, right now, to do diplomatic overflights in Niger? Yes or no? I don't know, I don't know exactly. I'm not tracking it that close. I don't think... Secretary, do we're allowed to do those diplomatic overflights? I don't, but I'm sure the AFRICOM commander does. Yeah, but you guys just said it's in the budget you're asking for to do these train and equip missions. One of them is in Niger. In Niger right now, the government has stopped us from doing diplomatic overflight missions. So we have army soldiers right now in Niger who aren't getting their troop rotations, who aren't getting their medicine, who aren't getting their supplies, who aren't getting their mail, and the two senior people in the United States army are sitting before me, and it's like, here, no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.  Yes or no? Congressman, certainly. We can talk to General Langley and make sure that... Oh, I've talked to General Langley. He comes in here and never has really good answers. I mean, I asked him for information about how many of the coup leaders we had trained, including in Niger and Ghana and Mali and the Ivory Coast, and he didn't even produce his report on time. So pardon me for a lack of confidence in General Langley. What I'm telling the two of you is that you have a responsibility for these soldiers in Niger. And General, you would agree with me with the premise that we should never sacrifice the well-being of our service members to avoid political embarrassment, right? Congressman, I will tell you, I'm not tracking that somebody in Niger is not getting their medicine or their mail, but I will follow up. Okay, but you don't even know the stats for diplomatic overlays. How about the great power competition? You would agree on training and equip missions. We would never want Russian soldiers at the U.S. installation where we're doing training and equip, right? That's not even a tough question. You would agree. Yes. And so if there were Russian soldiers behind the wire at Air Base 101 in Niger where we have soldiers doing the training and equip mission, that would concern you, wouldn't it? Right, well, I'm here to tell you we've received reports that they run out of medicine in May that they cannot get their troop rotations. And you know why you don't know that? Because it's a cover-up. Because the U.S. Embassy in Niger is covering it up because of Secretary Blinken's embarrassment. Because Blinken went there in March of 2023 and said this was the centerpiece of our Africa strategy. This was the model of resilience. And then, lo and behold, the very coup leader we trained takes over the country. And then we struggle with whether or not to call it a coup. We've now called it a coup. Since we've called it a coup, now they won't let us get folks in and out. And so I'm looking at what could erupt as another Benghazi where there is no mission to do. There is no training and equip right now with the coup leaders.  And the whole reason intelligence isn't getting to us is because the embassy is blocking it because Blinken is humiliated that this failed. And I've used my five minutes on everything in the Army right now because I have constituents who are there in Niger and they're wondering how to get water. Did you know they can't even get clean water? Did you know that the partner nations that we have at that base with our soldiers, the partner nations, the Italians and the Germans, they've stopped cooperating with us. They won't even help us get provisions to our troops because of the status of forces agreement that we have with the government being deemed invalid. I am just a country lawyer from North Florida, but this strikes me as something the two of you should know about. I get the blank stares, but Secretary Wormuth, can I take as your commitment that you're gonna leave here and you're gonna see to the well-being of these folks in Niger and that they can get the rotations and the medicine they need? Certainly I will make sure they're getting the medicine and the water that they need, yes, Congressman. Great, Mr. Chairman, I have a number of unanimous consent requests. First an article from Politico. It's like a bad movie. US officials who helped train Nigerian troops reel from coup. Without objection, so ordered. Russian troops arrive in Niger as military agreement begins and from the BBC. Without objection, so ordered. Uranium, Niger termination of US military ties followed accusation of uranium deal, March 17th, 2024 from the Wall Street Journal. Without objection, so ordered. Generalist Times expired. Chair, I recognize you gentlemen from California, Mr. Carbohal. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you both, Secretary Wormuth and General George, for being here today, hearing some experts on conspiracy theories and otherwise, but having served in the military, I have a little bit more confidence as a service member veteran in what you do. Things aren't always perfect, but I think you do a great job in trying to lead our men and women in the service. General George, as you know, the Army is undergoing substantial modernization efforts. Can you speak to where you see space-based assets fitting into the Army's modernization efforts and do you foresee challenges with integrating space-based assets with legacy systems? Congressman, we are growing this capability. That's for us, we've stood up already three multi-domain task force. A big component of that is what we have with our space-based assets that are inside of that. We're gonna grow two additional. The Army is the biggest user of space and on the ground, so I don't see any challenges right now. We are updating our network, which will allow us to share all this. We are learning a lot from commercial industry as well, so I think we're on a good path as it relates to space and building that capability and working with the space force. Thank you, Secretary Warmot. The Army is simultaneously undergoing both a significant force structure and recruitment enterprise transformation. Do you see these two reforms complementing each other? How will the new recruiting enterprise help fulfill new force-strength goal of 470,000 soldiers by fiscal year 2029? Thank you, Congressman, and thanks for your comments of opening comments of support, appreciated. I am confident that our recruiting transformation is gonna help us. We're already doing better and I think we'll just keep doing better over time. We have just started, we just selected our first cohort of warrant officers who are gonna be focused on recruiting. They're gonna go into the field this summer. We're in the process of developing the pipeline for how we're gonna start taking enlisted soldiers and making them specialized recruiters. I think that'll be really important. We are looking at things like what is the recruiting station of the future look like? We have a new innovation cell that will be standing up that's gonna help us understand to a conversation I had with another member earlier what's working and what's not working. And then of course we're looking at as we build new units like our multi-domain task force or as we grow additional air defenders or grow soldiers with space capabilities, we're working with our recruiters and our G1 to make sure that we are filling those billets and able to recruit that kind of great talent into the Army. Thank you. We have heard a lot about hypersonic weapon systems on this committee. General George, how do you see hypersonic weapons changing the landscape of warfare we have seen over the last few decades and how is the Army adapting to this new technology? Congressman, I think hypersonics is an important capability. It's gonna be another arrow in our quiver. It's not one answer. We have, there's other aspects of long range fires that we will use, but again I think it's an important capability, provides extra range and could go after critical targets, but we're gonna need the whole portfolio to be successful. Thank you. It seems that each year cases of military sexual assault continue to happen despite military leadership saying that they will address this issue. I know the cases of sexual assault in the Army have dropped compared to other service branches, but what is the solution to getting our hands around this? This is an issue that's been around forever. Military brass always says we're dealing with it. We're doing our best. What is the solution? Congressman, first of all I would say, this is a national unfortunately problem, sexual harassment and sexual assault, not an exclusively military one, but we are really focused on it. And I will tell you one of the things I think that's gonna help us significantly get our arms around it and start doing more to prevent those kinds of incidences is by adding some new training for our soldiers at basic training. A lot of our soldiers come in today and they just don't understand kind of the basic right and wrong, what consent means, what boundaries are. We need to teach our soldiers to respect each other and to say no and starting this fall we're gonna be adding some training into basic training so that every new soldier that comes into the Army learns about that. And then we've also on the response side, our special trial counsel's office has reached full operational capability and they are starting to prosecute those kinds of cases. That organization reports directly to me and I think that will help restore some trust. The gentleman's time's expired. Thank you. You're not recognized, General Lady from California, Ms. Jacobs. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Wormuth, General George. I wanted to follow up actually on some of where my colleagues, Mr. Walton and Mr. Jackson left off regarding some of the proposed cuts to the soft community. I specifically wanna know about the impacts to civil affairs teams who represent the department's capability to do stabilization operations, understand the information space and civilian environment and engage in strategic competition. This capability is particularly important to the DOD's implementation of the Global Fragility Act, which has civil affairs teams deployed to coastal West African states. So given all this, can you explain the rationale for cuts to civil affairs? Certainly, Congresswoman. First of all, I'm a huge believer in civil affairs. One, I wanna be clear that General George and I fully support and endorse the value of special operators and what they bring to the table. Civil affairs is just one example of that. Basically, working with SOCOM and SOLIC, we looked at the overall capacity of our special operations community, which grew substantially during the last 20 years. And we basically ran a series of analysis that looked at a conflict with Russia, a conflict with China, and also looked at what did we need to be able to compete during peacetime. And what we found was we had some excess capacity, essentially. So we have made some trims. As I said to another gentleman earlier, 65% of the 3,000 comes out of enablers. So it's a small number of reductions in the civil affairs authorizations, but we still need that overall capability. It's important. Can I add one thing? A lot of our capability on civil affairs, when I've deployed Iraq, Afghanistan, came out of the Guard and the Army Reserve. And so none of those cuts came out there as well. So I think we need to remind everybody if we're gonna go do something that's very consequential for our nation, it's gonna be a total army that's gonna go do it. And we do have those capabilities. So when we're looking at all of these things, we try to look at, that's why we call it total army analysis. We're trying to look at the depth of our formation. I understand. And I think when it's a big conflict, that would be the case. But one of the things I'm concerned about is that AFRICOM's already an under-resourced command. So I was wondering in your assessments of these cuts, did you have any analysis on how this would impact civil affairs positions in AFRICOM's AOR? And in particular, I've heard concerns that potentially Cote d'Ivoire might not be able to have a civil affairs presence after these cuts. And especially as the coastal West African states are so important for the Global Fragility Act, how will you mitigate these impacts, especially in those areas? Congresswoman, I think the way I would say that is we worked with SOCOM and SOLEC to look at the overall capacity, with what is still there after the cuts, it will be up to say again, the AFRICOM commander to decide where to allocate those. So I think if there's a pressing need in Cote d'Ivoire, there's still going to be a capability to be able to be provided there. So those kinds of decisions about where to send our civil affairs folks generally comes from the combatant commander. That's a, it's kind of a GIFMAP request. So if AFRICOM wants to do that and working with the joint staff, we do support with Guard and Reserve and Active Duty. I mean, we look at a total army solution if something is important. And we're obviously as the Title 10 supporter we're in that, we're directed to do that mission. We'll do it. Great, thank you. I appreciate that. I'd like to turn to the implementation of the civilian harm mitigation and response plan. As part of this, the department established the Center of Excellence and committed to achieve full operational capacity by FY 2025. Can you discuss the progress in achieving this capacity and how the department is ensuring staffing reflects a range of service branches? Certainly. We have established the Center of Excellence. As I'm sure you know, Mike McNerney is the director of that center. He has a military deputy director and I believe a civilian deputy as well. The different services have contributed to staffing that center. And as far as I know, everything is on track and that they are already working with the combatant commanders to provide advice and counsel where needed. Great, well, we will follow up with you on implementation of the CHIMRAP as it continues because it's a priority for all of us. We passed a lot of the enabling language in last year's NDA. So thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. I go back. I think the gentlelady, I wanted to ask Secretary Wyrmuth, over the last three years, the Army's requested about half of the funding required to sustain Army modernization goals. I'm hoping that that's not a resetting of the baseline and that's just been dealing with funding constraints to be parochial. Shortfalls in the Abrams, Stryker and Paladin are particularly acute this year. Can you tell me where you're going with this? How do you intend to close that gap or have you reset your baseline for spending? Congressman, I would say the investment levels you pointed to are good examples of where the chief and I have had to make hard choices about how do we allocate the incremental dollar to enduring systems like Abrams or Stryker or Paladin versus Flora or NextGen Squad Weapon or Precision Strike Missile. I will say if the supplemental passes, for example, that'll help us be able to buy more Paladins, just as one example. So it's important there and Stryker. But yeah, what you're seeing there is the tension between enduring systems and future systems. Great. Thank you all. Y'all have both been very helpful. We appreciate you being here. Appreciate your service to our nation and with that we are adjourned.


With the aim of strengthening pre-hospital care standards in St. Lucia, the respiratory hospital is undertaking a 5-D training with fire personnel and emergency medical services EMS personnel on pre-hospital medical emergency services. The training will provide participants with the knowledge and skills to provide safe pre-hospital critical care of patients. The medical director of respiratory hospital Dr. Alicia Eugene Ford says this training is long overdue and will enhance the knowledge of fire personnel and EMS personnel in ensuring safe transport of patients from the field to the hospital. We are aware that the fire service officers, although they do not fall under the Ministry of Health, we are aware that we need them because they do form part of the health care team. You have, they are the ones responsible most times to take the patients from the field where the injury has occurred or where the illness has started and bring them to the hospital. So it is important for us to work alongside them to ensure that when the patients come from the field that they do the necessary in route. So when the patients come to the hospital, we have a patient that we can work with so that we can get a good clinical outcome. Emergency medical technician, EMT specialist at the respiratory hospital Craig Hroman says this training is very timely given that we are still managing a COVID-19 pandemic in St. Louis. With this training, within the period of five days after carnival, so if there is an increase in the number of cases that they are called to respond to, some of the instructional training that they are now receiving as far as pre-hospital care, pre-hospital guidelines and treatment for COVID-19 patients that can kick in and reinforce what it is that they actually they wouldn't be called upon to do with regards to management and transport of you know, any COVID patients. Hroman says this training will broaden the skills of the participants in the day to day duties of providing pre-hospital emergency care to patients. I think it would benefit the participants greatly actually. Some of them, a lot of the information recovered was not things they had previously considered and now that they are being armed with the information, when they return to their normal duties managing and transporting these patients, there is an increased measure of self-protection as far as enhanced PPEs, use of PPEs, the appropriate handling of specific types of patients such as the patients being nebulised, patients under positive pressure ventilation as well as patients in cardiac arrest and being transported who may be COVID-19 suspected or COVID-19 positive who may have gone into cardiac arrest. The pre-hospital emergency medical services training focused on pre-hospital care, management of COVID-19 patients and pre-hospital guidelines to name a few. Reporting from the communications unit of the Ministry of Health, Wellness and Elderly Affairs, I am Fennel Neptune.


You can't get to awesome without passing through average is my thought for you today. Average and ordinary and getting by and struggling and even in some people's opinion useless is part of what we have to go through to get to awesome. We want to get to awesome, we want to get to excellent but everybody that's everybody that is in the level called excellent and the level called awesome everybody that is achieving that consistently went through a season of average and ordinary and as I say in some people's opinion failed and useless. So if you're in average today don't despise it, don't dismiss it, don't see it as a throw away.  We don't go from zero to awesome, we don't go from nothing to excellence, we have to go through a season in between called average. Now I don't like average any more than you do. I believe average is our enemy but it's only our enemy if we stay there and if we try to make other average is awesome it's not but average is a season you'll go through. Average is a gift to us in average learn what average is like. Average has lessons, average has growth for us and so go through average keep moving in your average it's not where you're staying you're not camping there you're not trying to pretend it's awesome but don't feel embarrassed or don't feel you have to explain yourself through average. Everybody that I have worked with everybody I've tried to grow as a team and a staff have all had average days, average performance, average productivity, average mentality, average understanding, average achievement but I knew that awesome was in them but if I'd have dismissed them on average believing that average proves that you'll never be awesome and average proves that you are never going to be excellent out of misunderstood the purpose and the gift of the season called average. If you're in average keep going because awesome is coming and when you get to awesome you will remember average and you will remember what you collected from average and took forward with you into awesome. Awesome's coming you may be in awesome now if you are then remember your average days and don't forget to speak to us that are still in average that was a season you went through too because everybody in average needs to be encouraged it doesn't always turn out brilliant sometimes that's the best thing we can say that was average that was pretty mediocre fine you got to go through that to achieve brilliance and to achieve excellence so you got to go through average to achieve awesome is my thought for you today


Welcome to Pure Dog Talk. I am your host, Laura Reeves. And I don't know how to tell you guys how excited I am. This is one of my longest term, biggest idols that is coming to join us. For those of you who've been listening for a very long time, Jenny Line was one of the very first human interviews I did on Pure Dog Talk back in Orlando six years ago. So Jenny is coming back to join us and we're going to be talking about English Cocker Spaniels and I'm so excited, I can't stand it. So welcome Jenny. Calm down girl. God, I love you. Oh my gosh. Okay, Jenny, you've been breeding English Cocker Spaniels under the Rensfeld banner for longer than a life. Yes. 1960 was the first. So talk to us first a little bit about English Cocker Spaniels for the companion home, right? English Cocker Spaniels as companions. Talk to us about that. All right, where can I start? First of all, I think you have to be prepared for a companion that's going to follow you everywhere. Likes to go to the bathroom with you. It likes to wander outside with you. If you get up and go somewhere, she has, he or she works in both of them. Doesn't seem to make any difference. They have to be with you. They're not prepared to sit on the couch and say, I know where you're going. I'll be here when you get back, which we have Whippets as well. And that's more their style most of the time. Right. So this is a Velcro dog generally. They love to go in cars. They love to ride with you. They adore going for walks. They're inclined to be, let's see, one of their pitfalls. They're inclined to be very greedy. Most of them will steal with no conscience. Table, counter, if they can reach it. The Whippets help because the Whippets get it off and the Cockers eat it. They're really easy to be with. Michael and the very versatile dog, they adapt. I think they're sort of an unknown, flying under the radar, fabulous companion. Prefer to keep them that way. I mean, we're at the moment, I think they've sort of been discovered because the numbers of people wanting English Cockers in the last five years has escalated exponentially. Interesting. And we don't have, we're losing breeders. We're losing a lot of our senior breeders. They're stopping and I'm one of them, that was pretty well slowed down to nothing. And people are coming back for the third and fourth dog from us and I'm feeling badly, not able to always help them, but they're very, very easy to live with most of the time. Relatively healthy? Relatively healthy. And we have exceptional DNA work that's been done by the parent club to identify issues in the breed.  We're not a breed that has a lot of hip dysplasia, but all of us do ROFA hips to verify. We have a couple of conditions that have arisen in the last little while. Adult onset neuropathy, which affects the rear end and can be very, very disturbing. Again, we have testing, so there is no excuse. We have a kidney disease, familial nepropathy, which causes the kidneys to atrophy before the dog is usually in the range of a year and a half. It's not quite often earlier. Again, we have testing. So if you're dealing with a reputable breeder who does the testing, there's easy accessibility to finding out what your odds are. Because they are greedy, you have to feed a fairly low-fat diet. We do have the occasional pancreatitis issues or the immune stuff happening. But again, a lot of it, I think, is nutritionally able to be controlled. We don't like to feed a high-fat diet. Right, right. And grooming maintenance for the pet home, just average. This is a dog where you have to accept hair. It definitely is manageable if you're prepared to do your brushing and combing, keep trimmed if you can't do the trimming or don't want to learn to do the trimming. You can get grooming as long as you can find a groomer that's not going to run the clippers down the back and present. Sometimes once the bitches are spayed, there's not a choice. You have to do this because the coat texture alters so significantly after the hormonal change with the spay. But there's nothing like keeping at least the ears and some feathering and not clippering the back, but doing a fairly generous clipper on neck, head, ears around the tail, keep the plumes off. They're manageable, but it is definitely a shed breed. So you have to be prepared to take care of that. To have hair. Yeah, they love doing, they love going for walks, they love hunting, they will definitely, when you're walking with them, if they're on leash, they will, you have to make sure that you've taught your, come back and come back and retrieve.  They're not big water dogs, which is not part of their history, it's not part of their origin. We have some that like to go paddling, our water up here is pretty cold. We sort of sit 45, 44 if we're lucky. And so the dogs generally, they paddle, but they're not sure they want to get in their whole body as well. They're not charging out in the surf is what you're saying. They're not doing a Chesapeake into the river, no. Talk a little bit about the history of the breed, because I find this to be fabulous. Well, this goes back to the days of the setting spaniel that used, I guess, how can we put it? We started out with a large group of different breeds that differentiated from the original spaniels. They were originally were separated into springing spaniels and caulking or field spaniels. And it was a height, weight, and how they hunt that made the difference. And the caulker was developed by hunters because they wanted an animal that could go into England's thorny bush, bush rows, dense hedge rows. If you've traveled in England, you know those hedges that run across the fields. Those are thick, dense, and there are wonderful hiding places for bird woodcock in particular, which is where the name came from. But they also worked larger birds, larger game birds, pheasant, and so on. And occasionally even hares, they do do fur as well. Okay. Yeah, they're very versatile little dogs. And these characteristics are, of course, part of the determiners of what the dog is supposed to look like. Yet's form of the dog follows the function of the dog. Let me go, we go back in North America to Oboe and some imports that came in. And of course, Oboe was responsible for an awful lot of issues. Oboe, what was he? 16 inches long, 10 inches tall. Oh my goodness. So sort of clumber proportion. But nothing whatsoever like a clumber in the head. He had the spaniel head. And he was quite a dominant little stud and slowly and evaluating. We got up to Red Brucie and we got up to some of the other foundation dogs that were a little taller, a little higher on leg. And during the 30s, they started to be recognized in the United States, in the 1930s. And we saw an increase in the separation. Because at that time, the American Cocker was being developed in the United States. And out of that in 1946, the English Cocker Club of Canada, I think it was 1933. I may be a little off on that, but it was in that range, 33, 35. Geraldine Dodge was very instrumental in her work with the breed. If you ever come across a Geraldine Dodge copy of the English Cocker book, it's quite fascinating with early pictures, color plates and breed standard descriptions and so on. Anyhow, in 1946, the AKC recognized the separation of the American Cocker from the English Cocker. Right, I knew it was 46. 46, okay. Okay, excellent.  Love car trips. They're really happy to go par places and they like children. They're really good with kids. They're just, to me, I just love they're so spanially. Right, just that personality. I just adore that. So let's transition a little bit and talk about the English Cocker spaniel in the show ring. And I also would like to have a brief conversation about the English Cocker spaniel in the field, right? So they're hunting style a little bit, the type of things that hunters might see from them. Which would you like to start with? Let's start with the field work and then we will segue into the show ring. I'm gonna read a quote. Alf Collins was the Cullenwood breeder in England. And this is a little quote that I think reflects. In sport as in ladies hats, fashions have changed with each decade. Though fashions may change, we find that the Mary Little Cocker has always maintained his place in the esteem of the public and sportsmen alike. Identity is extreme adaptability and courage and that his face is also by his hardiness to withstand the rigors of our English climate. He should never have been allowed to become a pampered pet. I love that statement. Yes. Although the vast majority are nowadays just that, again blame his adaptability and lovable nature. But anyone who has seen these game little dogs working in the field must admit this is their rightful heritage and the place where they are truly happy. A Cocker that has once tasted the delights of bustling in and out of the hedgerows and thickets and has the scent of hair, pheasant partridge or the humble rabbit in his nostrils is lost forever to the drawing room. He will on the slightest invitation leave the cream cakes to follow the guns. I love that. Yeah, it's a wonderful quote. It was circa 1950 by Elf and I had a couple of Collinwood dogs over the years in the early part and he was a great breeder. And I think... Sorry. No, I think it is such a great description of what I've observed when I've watched English Cockers in the field. They love it. And you will find that most of them, when you go for a walk out in the bush, wherever you like to walk, which you're where you have a place that you can safely let your dog free, they naturally quarter, they naturally work the field. Their tails go at 100 miles an hour. If only the people that are fighting for tail-darking could understand against tail-darking could understand how they beat those tails. I've seen it. We don't have the thorny terrain up here that does the damage, but in England those hedgerows are pretty dense. It requires that the dog has it demands that the dog has protection on its coat, on its and it has a short tail so it's not gonna beat it up. They hunt until they drop. We had, it was interesting. We had a cocker in South America. My dad was a hunter. And this was sort of an early American cocker party killer.  As you would find in Columbia. And he eventually died out on a hunt, literally from the heat. And it was a sad statement, but that, you know. They will go till they drop. They will go till they drop. There is no halfway point for them. Right. They hunt up here. We find them working on pheasant to some extent. We find that if there are quail hunters still left in the world, they love quail. That's a wonderful size bird for them. Right. Other than that, what else can I tell you? I, one of the things that I notice with a breed like the cocker that is old, the clumber spaniels, right? The dogs, even the dogs where people have not really bred selectively for hunting ability, for making their instinct. Correct. So talk a little bit about that. I don't know. I can't explain why, but you know, we don't, obviously the percentage of dogs that are from the showlines that go into hunting are few. There is a section of the breeding programs in English cockers that we call the field dogs. They're the working ones, not the field spaniel, but the version of the English cocker. And they're different. They're very different. They're much less bone. They're much more refined. They have the body. They have the rib spring and they have the heart. They want beyond belief to do it. I think I would find them exhausting to live with because they're always on. There's no off button that you can push. And they do look different. They're not the same. They are English cockers, but they do look different. So there is a separation. There is a separation. And because I move in show circles, I don't see a lot of these, but we have a young woman up the island here up Vancouver Island who has imported a couple. And she has one that is working now, both in the States and in Canada, and she's training. And this dog is fantastic. It's just absolutely amazing. So I have a lot of respect for the people that are doing with the breed. What is the original function and purpose of the breed? Do I think they look as pretty? No. But it, you know- But I think what you just observed that the show dogs, even the ones who have not been specifically- They still do. They will still go out and there. And this is, I think, one of the reasons the English Cocker is amazing with its nose. They have absolutely eaten up scent discrimination, scent work, nose work, tracking. There is- Barn huns, right. Barn none. There is not a better breed, barn none, to do tracking than the English Cocker. They are phenomenal. They like agility, but sometimes that gets a little boring. Their training is interesting because English Cockers don't like to repeat things too much. They like variety in their lives. And they are not dogs that become robotic. They don't become robots doing whatever it is that they're doing.  Why do I do it again? I did it right the first time. Why am I doing it again? And they'll sit- Drills are not. Yeah. Let's move on to something new. But we have a gal on the island who has one of my dogs and she's got a couple of others. One of them is sired by one of my dogs. And she is an amazing collector of titles. She has the longest string of alphabet after that dog's name that I have ever seen in my life. And so they do trick work. They do scenting. They do agility. They do barn work. We even got some that are now performing in barn work. I mean, they're not, foreign activities to a hunting breed, but they're still using the nose. And it's the nose that is the factor in my opinion. Fabulous. And talk, this is a great point to segue. You were talking about the coat as protection in the field. So now let's segue into the proper coat that is part of the package for the show dog. The English Cocker coat is meant to be protective. It's meant to serve, it is an undercoat. There is an undercoat and an overcoat. And the most important part in my opinion is that jacket that is meant to serve as a protective part of the dog's body jacket. It's also meant to have a loose skin. So that your skin, I'm just looking for my reference here that I wanted to have handy. And of course I don't have it handy. I can do it out of my head. The skin should be flexible so that it gives, when the dog gets hung up on a bramble thorn thicket. It's not gonna rip it's skin when it has to get out. It's going to have a jacket that is usually not stripped out or stoned out for grooming. It would be ideal if people would stop doing that. It is not meant to be heavily trimmed. The coat is short on the head and the ears. It's short and fine head particularly. Then the ears are trimmed. We normally trim about close between a quarter and a third down the ear. And the inside of the ears. We keep cleaned out. And there's a functional purpose to that. There's a functional purpose for that. And also there's a health purpose. Because that allows the air to circulate in the ear. Stops the yeasty build up a hot wet place. And cleanliness is improved. Spaniel ears being notably so. They are. That's one of the areas and I didn't mention it because I didn't think of it at the time. We keep such careful control over ours that very, very seldom do I hear or have any ear issue. But if you do not keep that air circulating. By keeping the hair cleaned out and the ear. Open. You can get yeast infections, which are difficult and then they become chronic. And yes, The coat is silky, which is also a factor in helping for it to shed. If a dog has. A Courtney. Coat it will hang out as soon as it gets into something thick and it will hang up. It won't get out easily. Which is again, a reason why I would rip itself. The coat should not be so thick. That you lose the shape of the dog. And. So pervious that it will interfere with the. Fieldwork. You find that the dogs that. Our field bread. Our next to no coat, but the coat they have. Is a good jacket. It. It always has a shine on it. Which is always an indication of. A silky correct. Texture. It feels strong. It shouldn't feel when you're actually running your hands in reverse up the coat. It shouldn't feel as though you're getting spiked. My cut hair. You're getting a. Smooth soft. Response to your hand. When you use the reverse. One. Encourage the dogs to be cleaned up for showing obviously, but I think we've. Perhaps become. So good at sculpting. That we've obscured and. I think sometimes. The trimming. Creates a fuller dog. A dog that if you're not really sure. Can fool you into thinking it's better than it really is confirmationally. And so the coat is, is something that gets manipulated a certain amount. We want the coat to look as natural as possible. The wording on the standard is as natural as possible. Okay. Okay. Very good. So. With the rest of the dog. You go from your favorite part. You start where you want to start. Let's do the whole. English Cocker spaniel. As. Seen from a judge's perspective. I'm going to start before I even go to the dog with five words. These are five. Key concept words. If you're going to judge. This breed. One. Mary. That tail. Has got. To work. This is a Mary. Happy. It doesn't stand very still. It loves to. Visit with all the other dogs in the ring. It's happy. It wants to jump on your. Jump up on you and have be padded in between the. Examination and. The next round the ring. It's balanced. Nothing ever looks out of proportion. It's never going to. Where you, I always feel if you get a. Cocker when you look at it and you say. Oh wow. Look at all that angulation. Some draw. Shouldn't be visible. Shouldn't jump out at you.  And balanced. It should be compact. This is not a low on ground dog. It's short back. Standing well up at the withers. Maybe I should drop the dog. Standing up at the withers. As well might make somebody think that it's tall. It's not. It stands up at the withers, but it is a short back dog. Any appearance of being less than. Square. Comes. Because it's got a prominent. Front. The pro sternum. Which pushes through the bramble. Is there. And we're going to talk about rear ends eventually. They're thick. They're muscled. They're strong. And they're wide. It has. Hams. English. Cocker butts. I just love. English. Cocker butts. I just love them. The Irish. Washer. Washer. Washer. Washer. Washer. Washer. Washer. Washer. Washer. I like her. Who loves them. The Irish washer women. Bus. Maybe that's my excuse. Sorry, Irish. Goes back a while. Mary balanced. Compact. Moderate. Which is part of balanced. But it's still. It's just everything in moderation. Nothing and exaggeration. And the last word is rounded. rounded. Everything is rounded. There should be no severe or sharp angles. Let me think, doberman pinchers. Everything is very angular. The English Cocker has slightly rounding on the head, has a rounded lip, has rounded feet, has good rounded muscle strength to the neck, rounded in the rib cage, but deeper, the long rib cage. It's got rounded thighs. Nothing ever should look square, angular, or sharp, because it's soft. Those are my five key words. Then, what do I look for? Well, first of all, I'm looking at the overall general appearance of history. It should give me a sense that I've got a moderate size standing up at the withers, short and back, and well down in hawk. That's a picture of a dairy balanced dog. I then take it around, and I'm looking for a dog that I can see is maintaining his shape on the move that he had when he was stacked by his handler, assuming the handler stacks correctly, but I expect to see this on the move going around. When I get to the table, the examination, I look again at this general appearance of balance and proportion, and is there evidence of a fore chest? Is there evidence of a good thick butt? Then I turn to the front and look at the head. This is probably, I think, one of the most beautiful headed breeds that you can find when it's correct. It should look at you with the softest, kindest expression. It is never meant to look hard, and that is a combination of the width over the bridge of the muzzle, the rounding of the lip, the slight oval of the eye, which is fairly full. The flatness on the sides is no big bulging zygomatic arches. The softness, the definite presence of a stop, but nothing nearly as much as you would see in the American polker. The set on of the ear, eye level at least, most of our dogs are really good on ear set. We very, very seldom have to say. It should be a fairly thin ear. It's not a thick, heavy, wide at the base or wide at the top part of the ear. And then when you look up, you will see the rounding that happens over the sides of the head and a very slight flattening on top. It is not the dome that you expect to see with the American polker. It's much flatter, but it's not flat like the English setter. Really, really not to get this. And the other part that's important is people ask about parallel planes. And this breed has a very unique way of identifying planes. We do not expect absolutely dead level muzzle and top of the skull to be parallel, because that will foster the look of an English setter rather than the polker. We do, however, call for the sides of the muzzle. Put your fingers up the sides, each side of the muzzle. Your back skull on either side looking front on the dog will be parallel. So the two sides of your muzzle with your fingers, if you slide your fingers forward or backward toward the occipital area, you will find that that's your parallel area. Muzzle length to skull length. Muzzle length to skull length is equal. Muzzle length to skull length is equal. So your nose to stop, stop to occipit is equal. Okay. And talk a little bit about, I know, and I've heard this said before, both by you and by other people in the breed that kind of the drift to English setter is where you go rather than drift to other spaniels. But I think it's really important for people to distinguish not just English Cocker, American Cocker, but English Cocker Field Spaniel and English Cocker Springer Spaniel, English Cocker Welsh Sprink, right? So the the Spaniel family, I think those distinctions are important too. Very important. And it's actually one of the things when I've done mentoring with people and I've said, when you have studied the English Cocker, go study the field, the Springer, the Cocker, the Welsh, absolutely study these breeds and identify the clumber and the Sussex don't really come into it because they're just different. But go study those breeds and look at their heads in detail. Look at their proportion because you can't understand any of them unless you understand the differences. And for me, that piece of what makes it an English Cocker, not one of the other comparable Spaniels, is so much in the head details. The hand on the English Cocker is unique. It is absolutely, well, so is the Welsh. The Welsh is unique. I mean, these are things, they're all different. But this is probably the softest, the gentlest when you look at an English Cocker with a really good head. They are going to melt you. They have that, that they look at you with adoration. They absolutely say you are without doubt the most adorable, wonderful person in the whole wide world. That sounds like a whip at bark, not an English Cocker bark. Actually, it was an English Cocker bark. It's an old somewhat senile old man who thinks every now and then he would like somebody to come and be part of the party with him. He's getting a little bit a little bit on the hard thinking side. The skull is very softly contoured. It has a very melting expression, but it's intelligent.  It's intelligent. And the eyes really contribute to this. They should be medium. They should be full. They should be slightly oval. They should be fairly dark, with the exception of the livers and those colours, the dilute colours. Hazel is permitted, but we like them to be as dark as possible, even within the Hazel range. Nothing yellow is staring at you. The eyelids are tight. Functional requirement for a dog is hunts the way it hunts. It must be a tight, tight lid. And there's a slight lift to the upper, the top eyelid, that opens the eye and gives a little bit of a... I think the expression that's used in the description is alert. It just makes it look as though I'm paying attention. I'm listening to you. I'm with you. I'm not asleep. I'm not the hound dog asleep. So that's an important functional feature. Muzzle, one of the things that we're seeing is, I think, is a problem, is the narrower mussels than we should be getting. We're seeing dogs with narrow under jaws, and with it comes those issues with the lower canines in the wrong place, actually, into the pallets. Generally speaking, most of these self-correct by the time they do second teeth, but you will see them in the baby puppies. I want width over my muzzle, over the top, from the bridge of the nose into the stop. I want to see that with a good width to it, not narrow. That helps. And it shouldn't... I want the eyes fairly wide apart. I don't want them close together. Nothing pinched, which, of course, again, goes with the narrowness of the head. It's not an Irish setter head. Or an English setter head. Or an English setter head, which goes to the other two flat six dreams. So that, you know, we want a scissor bite. There are some bite issues in English coppers we do see. More than I would like us to see, I think, in breeding this breed. We overshot and undershot severely penalized. Those are definitely serious issues. Level bite. We don't like it. We accept it. And you're probably going to be all right competing with a level bite, but it's not something that... The other part of looking at the head is look at it always from the side, as well as from the front. Get your parallel planes on the side. Check the zygomatic arches are not, you know, too large or too heavy. But then turn it sideways and take a look. Because you want the planes at the back skull approaching parallel enough that allows the eyes to be looking straight ahead.  They're going to be looking straight forward. And equally, I don't want them looking out to the side. I want the eyes placed well into the skull.  They're looking out to the side. I don't want flounders. No flounders. No flounders, please. We want the eyes to look over the muzzle, directly over the muzzle. Right. Got it. So that gives you a pretty good head. You should be happy when you get one of those. Yes. I think I sent you a picture of a head, didn't I? Yes, you sent me a couple beautiful pictures. Okay. Beautiful pictures. Then from the head, we move down to the neck. No stovepipes, please. The neck is not meant in this breed to be elongated out of proportion. It's moderate in length and fits smoothly and flows into the well-set on shoulder. You can't get one without the other. Right. It's muscular. There is good strong muscling over the back of the neck so that those muscles are really, when you put your hand on the back, you pick them up. That's a really strong muscle. We like a fairly clean neck, not a throaty. We don't want heavy skin because it's houndy. It should be clean enough. There is a slight slope to the top line. It goes from the back of the neck. The proverbial drop of water at the back of the neck flows slowly. It doesn't rush it right next speed. It flows slowly down the back. It doesn't get hung up or a roached croup or a high race over the loin. It flows off the end of the tail. There's that flowing picture that comes up. We're looking at this stage of the examination for a dog that is well sprung in rib, has depth of rib to the elbow at least, but not exaggeratedly more because then you start getting in again to a dog that will appear short legged. Short legged in this breed is a serious issue. There are quite a few of them that are around. You want to have a fill when you put your hands in the front between the front legs. You want to have a fill in your hand. Your hand should cup a definite prosternum. I like personally to be sure that I check at the elbow, the angle that is created with the shoulder blade into the upper arm, into the foot, that that angle at the elbow is set back under the dog so that the weight of the dog is supported. It's not worn out under the chin. The toes should not be in front of the ears. Absolutely never. I want a rib cage and this is one of the problems and so many of our sporting dogs these days is that the proportion looks good.  This is balanced, but when you get into feeling the dog, the rib cage ends way too far forward on the dog. You have a longer length of loin than you should have and two shorter rib cage. We want a long rib and a short muscular almost squared loin. By square I mean on top to the side. Then you want a slight imperceptible rise over the loin. You shouldn't see it. It should be muscled up, but it should be there into a slightly lowered croop. Not extreme, but definitely the English stalker should have a slightly lowered croop into a tail that goes straight off the end of the back. Talk a little bit about the ribbing. I know this is on ribbing. I know this is where I've heard, again, it was either you or somebody else in the breed talking about the round ribbing versus the flat ribbing that, again, makes the difference between cocker and setter. Not flat ribbing like a setter. Right. When you find flat ribbing, you have a settery English cocker. Correct. Okay. Amongst other things, which I'll get to in a minute, but you have a, you want, again, it's rounded, you know, my early word, round. And that rib cage has got to be rounded. It's not, if it's long enough, it will taper so that there's no obstruction in movement on those front legs. There's room for the elbows to work. But the actual rib cage, when you're judging it, you look down on that rib you must look, one of the required examination techniques that's important in the English cocker is to look down on top of the dog, both on the table and on the ground to make sure that there's really very little waste in a good English cocker. They don't have a, you know, a very slim, svelte waist. It shouldn't be a svelte dog. I mean, in my mind, it's not svelte. There's nothing svelte. No, it's a sturdy functional little small spaniel. Right. Okay. And then you get down to the other end of the dog that does all the work for getting it over. If you're looking down on the dog, the hind quarters, which are broad, round, muscular, are almost as wide as the rib cage. One of our esteemed breeders in Canada, who I have a lot of respect for, he basically says, if I'm standing behind the dog at the lower end of the dog and look up, not over, but up the dog, I shouldn't see the rib cage because of the width of the hind quarters. Now the standard doesn't quite suggest that, but it should be that wide that there's really very little evidence of the ribs bulging compared to, because we do not want a barrel rib. Right. Right. But the rib and the hind quarters should almost mask it for width. The hams, there should be strong, big muscles in the rear end and a well let down short hawk. We do not want, here's your next celery characteristic, the elongated angle that you see in the setters, which is correct for them, is not correct for the English copper. We want moderate balance to the front angulation in the rear with the hawk to ground length as short as possible. And that allows for the strongest amount of push and drive so that when the dog has to push itself through the bramble, it uses its fore chest, its pro sternum as a prow to spread and open up and the rear end to provide the drive. It's going to push it through. And that broad muscular rear is an essential, in my opinion, breed. Again, we see a lot that are lacking second by. If you can find one that isn't so much the better. Talk a little bit about size. Breed size. Your breed is males. We're looking at 16, 17 inches. I'm thinking, I'm pretty sure I remember it's 16, but that's, I was just very 16 is what the standard prefers, but it doesn't say so. Okay. Bitches 15 to 16. For the practical realities, there are not a lot of 17 inches. It is legal totally. Not a lot of dogs in the 17 inch range being shown. We do find, and if they do, they tend to be perhaps a little more on the setter side. Most males, 16 and a half inches. Most females, 15 and a half, 15 and three quarters. There are some smaller females that are, as long as they're balanced, are perfectly acceptable. My feeling is that as long as they're in proportion, I will certainly accept that rather than something that's in the size range, but the lacks balance and proportion and moderation and so on. Most males run about 32 pounds. They can go to 34. I find a dog that's on the 34 range is starting to get pretty heavy, but bone is a very important characteristic. And I think generally the dogs in North America need to improve bone. Okay. If I was in England, I would expect to find much more bone than we are able at this moment to see in the majority of our dogs. We have very, very beautiful dogs. They are, they show well. They look good. They're beautiful. We have done more with colors than they have in the UK. But I think where we're lacking is in the fore chest and the bone and substance. And if you've got that, it means you've got the rib spring, you have the bone down and you have the hind quarter. The other part that is important that I overlooked earlier is feet. Right. This is so important. Those feet should be tight, thick, deep cat feet that are really part of that front leg. It's just, they're standing on columns to support. Yeah, yeah. Function being feet are the foundation of everything. Absolutely. You need to also want to think that we need to do is it's adopt tailed breed. And the standard is very specific. It says adopt. Set on to conform to the group, ideally carried horizontally and in constant motion. If the dog is moving. However, the English Cockroach Club of America has made a decision not to change the standard to accommodate specifically the dog with a tail. However, they have given judges the option. They can excuse if they wish and legitimately. I'm not sure personally how you can excuse for one item. Right. If you are going to excuse for one item, then you don't excuse for being correct. This or, you know, it doesn't make sense to me personally.  No, there are. There definitely have been judges who have done it. Interesting. Okay. They're now on a list with the English Cockroach people. I don't want to be on the list. But the other part of their advice, which is very legitimate, is that you treat it as a fault. Right. It doesn't conform. So it's a fault. It's a fault just out of the other. Right. If you have an absolutely stunning beautifully constructed dog with bones, he's up on leg and he's short. But he's short back. He's got a deep rib. He's got pro four stress. He came from Europe. And he's got a tail. Right. Then don't put a setter over him. Right. That has none of the correct breed characteristics just happens to be docked. Right. So that, that's a really, you know, in Canada, we made the decision to, in fact, we were directed pretty much that we had to because our veterinarians are a little more aggressively organized than yours are and have made, they have stopped doing tails and refusing to do tails in parts of the country. On the other side, they've made it Eastern side of Canada. They've made it time. Yeah. Right. A serious issue with yeah, with docking wirehead pointer people that fight this battle in Quebec. So it's difficult. It really is. I don't get it. I don't understand it. When you do your tails at 24 hours as I do, boom, it's done. I think the only thing we haven't covered specifically is movement. All right. This should never, ever, ever, ever be one of those breeds that races around the ring at 90 miles an hour at. Trad is not part of tremendous reach and drive is not part of the English cock. It's moderately angulated. It should not have a lot of lift, which is wasteful motion and tiring. We want a dog that's going to be able to hunt for a long period of time. We want a dog that has the muscle to push hard. You should see the pads when they go away from you, but it shouldn't be kicking up in the air. I hate to use the breed here, but perhaps I see it most often in Akitas, but they kick up behind. English caucus should not be doing this. Nothing to reach at least to the end of their nose. You know, you can see, but I am more concerned with that they hold a firm hard top line when they're moving, that their body isn't bouncing, that they're preferably not rolling, which always to me signals something's out of balance. I want this to look as though this little dog could trot indefinitely without tiring. Can you address going away? I have, over the course of time, seen dogs that go away a bit wide and takes them a while to converge. Can you address that? Really, this is because of the width that they have. This is not ever agreed that's going to do true convergence. Convergence. Okay, that's what I wanted to ask about specifically. Yeah, no. We never would expect because of their size and their width and the proportions that we've asked. This is not a breed that we would expect to see converging. Okay. It is a breed that we would expect to see columns, straight columns of support in front, coming at you in a way that is straight reach and gives you a sense of power. The most important thing is drive, that they're driving off that rear. It should look powerful. The motion is very deliberate. It's very efficient. The feet are on the ground. And it shouldn't crab. It shouldn't roll. And the width between both front and rears should be appropriate to the way he's constructed. So when you think about a dog that has the prosternum and the width that he's got, you don't expect him to be converging. To see the pads going away, but they should not be going criss-crossy. They should be pushing. You should see them drive. They will, obviously to bring them in underneath the dog, they're going to come in a little bit, but they still should be correct. Laura, you know what a correct movement is, but you don't want to see it in any way cow hawking. We used to have a lot of problems with cow hawks and English caulkers. Many of them came down through some imports that came in from the UK. But we don't see that now. I think that the breeders, if you want to see the best English caulkers in North America, the U.S. national. I'm trying to get to the U.S. national. I believe that it is the same, judges education is the same exact day I'm judging the Norwegian Elkhound national sweepstakes. But I'm going to try and fly home and get to the last day of judging. So I know it's there. I'm planning to be there. I'm trying to figure out, because of course it's the garden, the Norwegian Elkhound national, and then I fly there. Of course. And it's in Washington. I mean, really people? But yes, I intend to get to at least one day of judging at the national. Because English caulkers, a lot of our breeders tend to do specialties. They're not big on the old breed shows. I think it's partly that, to some extent, that they have found that they don't get the same kind of judging that they do at the national, where true breed type seems to be more appreciated. We haven't said anything about coat colors. No, we did not do coat colors. That's a great topic. We talked coat consistency, but colors and marking. So the open marked dogs versus the round dogs. English caulkers come in solid colors, and that includes black, liver, black, and tan. Any of those can have 10 points and 10 markings, like the Doberman ones. Those are your solids. Then the umbrella for the party color takes in a much broader range of colors, because party colors can be open marked, which are patched, like many of our Julie Gasel sprinters. Ticked, which is an intermediate from the open marked to the next one, which is the roam, where the color is all intermingled. So those are three, and you get those in all of the colors of black, red, orange. Then to add on top of that, and liver, of course, I didn't say that one, then on top of that, you can add all the tan markings, exactly as you do in solids. So it's a huge, I think the English caulker has more color variations than any other breed. It's certainly in a sporting group. It's a lot of variety. Do they go? Now, I've never seen it, and I can't pull up this part of the standard in my brain right now. Do they go down to lemon? Like the orange to the lemon, do they or do they say anything about that? It's not mentioned in the, oh, I've lost you, where did you go? I'm here. I know, but I don't see you. Oh shoot, somehow or another, I've totally lost you. I'm now back to zoom. Oh no, you're still talking to me. All right, well, I'll talk without seeing you, I guess. I don't know how to, it's got me talking with no picture. That's bizarre. Huh. Is your picture is fine and your audio is fine? Yeah, I don't know. Anyway, okay, as long as the audio is fine, that's fine. The breed standard is interesting. In England, well, the UK, the British standard, and ours, it says color various, and people to be very protective to maintain that, but then it has gone on because the AKC requires that if you are saying various, you must define what is acceptable. Right. So there are certain things that are acceptable, and there's a couple of things that are not. We like to see the solid markings in party colors broken on the body, but that doesn't mean that if you have a blue ron, it can't be all blue ron body. Okay. Because some, we have what we, as breeders describe as a dark blue ron, a light blue ron, a silver ron, you know, you get all sorts of levels of ronning, then a dog can be blackheaded or even ronheaded and not have body patches. Do I want that? No, but it's acceptable. Okay. White feet on a solid are not desirable. Okay.  The term that gets used is hybrid, and I don't like that because it's not a true hybrid breeding, but they will breed party color to solid or solid for, and for good reason in most cases. And then, then you start getting a few solids that will show white on the throat to some degree, a little white on the throat, but a big white bib to me is not acceptable because these dogs are not party colors. We prefer our tan markings to be rich color. Some of them again at this point are getting a little bit washed out. They should be of a rich shade if possible, but now I'm getting down to real nitty-gritty stuff. It's not something I would lose my shirt over. Of course, the black and tans and the liver and tans are solids, not party colors. Split faces are acceptable. Do I like them? No, because they're not so pretty to look at in my eyes, but they're certainly acceptable. What else? On the split faces. It's not me about lemon. Yeah, I asked about lemon. And remind me, on the split faces, do they have to have eye color on the side that's white? Okay. All right. That was my, I couldn't remember. Not in the standard. Okay. The lemon really is only a washed out orange. Okay. All right. It isn't, you know, right. And the things that are not acceptable are color patterns that you see in other breeds outside the sporting group, such as Brindle or Sable. Now there's a lot of controversy over the Sable because there are American caulkers that are appearing that are Sable, not now so much now that they've done the standard revision. But there's, they are recognized in Europe. So you do have breeders of Sables in Europe and in the UK. And do I like them? No, I don't like their look or expression. I, but they are not described. The Brindle pattern and the Sable pattern is not described in the list of acceptable colors and markings. Okay. So judges have to make up their minds how they're going to handle it. But I, because it's not described in the standard, I think you have to not do it.


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I didn't even know computer science was really a thing. As a child, I loved doing dance, I loved doing music. I pretty much was set on going to dance school. I wasn't going to be coming to university. I used to find school really boring until I started doing physics. I found out about computer science and I just wanted to become a computer ninja really. Computer science is something I enjoy learning about, but I like doing it more depth in the day and then sort of relaxing during music in the evening. Coming to uni, I've met loads of amazing friends here that also do producing and do computer science. When I'm in the building and I see people working hard and people that are really smart, it kind of inspires me to want to be as smart as them. Just trying to take every day as it comes, do some music, do some coding. Once you've got all the foundations of computer science down you have the world at your fingertips. I'm Anna and I'm a second year computer science student.