The Uber Dog: Behind the Scenes with Kevin Ferman - Part 1

In this fun and lively episode of "Dog Friendly," host Brandon Bennett sits down with Kevin Ferman, the YouTube sensation and social media star known as @the_uber_dog. Kevin and his beloved American yellow Lab, Bowie, have captured the hearts of billions worldwide as they Uber around CU Boulder, recording their adventures and sharing the journey with a global audience.

In Part 1 of this two-part series, Kevin opens up about his life as an Uber driver and what inspired him to start documenting his and Bowie’s rides — capturing hilarious, heartfelt, and sometimes chaotic moments, complete with plenty of background barking. He shares the story of how he turned his passion for skateboarding videos into a full-time gig as a content creator, turning everyday adventures into captivating stories that now pay his bills.

Brandon and Kevin share lots of laughs, especially after a few drinks at Romero’s K9 Club in Lafayette, CO, where their interview took place. The episode dives deep into Kevin’s creative process, his love for video editing, and how Bowie’s personality has become a viral sensation on multiple platforms.

This episode is packed with humor, behind-the-scenes insights, and a real passion for storytelling. If you love dogs, social media, or just want to hear about a journey from skateboarding to viral videos, you won’t want to miss Part 1 of Kevin Ferman’s adventure. Stay tuned for more behind-the-scenes tales from @the_uber_dog — this is just the beginning!

Bowie The Uber Dog - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4GQxipa2mp5iupN19h2sTA

Romero's K9 Club, Lafayette, CO - https://www.romerosk9club.com/

OutwardHound - Dog Life Jacket - https://outwardhound.com/

Get Joy - Dog Food - https://getjoyfood.com/

Pet Releaf - Pet supplements - https://petreleaf.com/

Dangleit - Upload a picture and order a car air freshener. https://dangleit.com/

Van True - Care dashboard cameras - https://www.vantrue.com/

Alpinehowl.com for your Handcrafted apparel for dogs and matching hats for their best friends.

Info@alpinehowl.com

IG: @alpinehowl

Check out Bixbipet.com for dog and cat food.

Dog Friendly Podcast TM

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:02

Good morning, dog lovers. Welcome to Dog Friendly, the podcast where we celebrate the joy of dogs and the adventures we share with them. I'm your host, Brandon Bennett from Alpine Hollow. Each week, I take you to dog-friendly locations to chat with passionate dog owners about their furry companions and the unforgettable experiences they've had together. We'll also hear from experts who share valuable insights on training, health, and making the most of of our time with our canine pals all while enjoying the great outdoors so whether you're a seasoned pup parent or just a dog lover grab your leash maybe a libation and join us as we enjoy the world of dogs and incredible adventures that await let's dive into today's episode happy thursday in may everybody we're almost out of this one it's uh exciting we have uh holiday weekend upon us happy Memorial Day early make sure you take some time and remember everything relax maybe go on an adventure travel safe and gosh darn it it's gonna be nice to just have an extra day to relax but for all those out there that are working giving what you got thank you but this week's episode holy cow it's a great one part one of two I sat down with Kevin Furman, aka the Uber dog. Yeah, what does that mean exactly, the Uber dog? Yeah, he drives Uber, and his dog Bowie sits in the passenger seat with him. It's amazing. Check him out on YouTube. He's a sensation. He's been on the news. He's got 643,000 followers on Instagram. That's current what I'm looking at right now. And I got to tell you, it was a great interview. I got to meet his parents. And it was such a long interview. Got so much content. I wanted to break it up into two episodes so that we can, you know, it's not over. You know, it's not just not too long. And sometimes that can happen. I can get long winded. But yeah, we get the first part. We get to listen to him talk about. What he's doing and how he got into it. What goes into it. I mean, wow. Talk about going from his nine to five and Ubering to, I mean, just driving around with his dog and making people's lives happier. So without further ado, Kevin, take it away. And we're recording. Can you hear me all right? Everything good? Oh, yeah. I can hear you great. Okay, perfect. And here, we got you another drink.

SPEAKER_00 3:02

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 3:03

Cheers. Thank you for meeting me, Kevin. Cheers. We're going to kick it off. Yeah, absolutely. when you take a sip of that. And again, some of this stuff, I cut out some of it. It's just fun to keep in there. It just keeps it easy, light and easy, that kind of thing. We're at Romero's here in Lafayette, Colorado. First and last name and tell us what you do.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

So I'm Kevin Furman. I live kind of near here. I'm actually just about 12 minutes down the road. So I've been here a couple of times. I was hoping that you had been here before too, but it's a cool spot. I guess some background on me, my background, pretty much my whole life I spent skateboarding and making skateboard films and kind of through Rich hiring out of the skateboard industry i had been driving uber on and off for about 10 years and after i had my last dog and he had bad separation anxiety and i realized after the last company i worked for went out of business i was like damn i have to go back to driving uber full-time so i started bringing my dog along because he just wanted to go wherever i went okay and i didn't really realize what i was starting but we started getting these amazing reactions from people and you know i figured why not document it put it on youtube and instagram and tiktok and um i kind I had a feeling I had something. I already had editing experience, social media experience, so I just sort of tweaked everything I've always done and changed the topic to I'm just driving Uber with my dog and whatever we get, whether it's drunk college students or a sweet elderly woman or whoever gets into the car, it doesn't matter. We get amazing conversations and these awesome reactions from people and I just put the rides up online and we've built a crazy following. I had no idea it would kind of get this big, so now we're just trying to keep it alive.

SPEAKER_02 4:39

Sure, and how often, is that your full-time gig?

SPEAKER_01 4:42

Yes, yeah, full-time social media influencers, me and my dog.

SPEAKER_02 4:46

Okay,

SPEAKER_01 4:47

wait, so let me get this

SPEAKER_02 4:48

straight. So it's Influzer, not Uber driver, or are you... double dipping or what? I guess. I guess you could say I'm double dipping. I mean, I don't think, you know, you're doing it how it is and you're just like, hey, I'm doing it in my car and that kind of thing. What kind of car do you drive?

SPEAKER_01 5:04

So I was driving pretty much the entire time throughout the show. I had a Kia Sorento. Okay. And I had put just a crazy amount of miles on that. I was having some trouble with the car. It's been my dream for a long time to have a GMC Yukon. And I wanted like a new Yukon Denali XL. Sure. Yeah, yeah. It's like 80 grand. Oh, they're ridiculous. I couldn't afford that. But I did get a Yukon. I got an old Yukon recently. It's like seven or eight years old, 135,000 miles on it. Little banged up, but you know, I just, it was a technicality. I had to be able to say, you know what? My dog and this whole show, everything's working out. And my car was a piece of crap. My roommate needed a car so he could do Uber. So I let him have the Kia and I got the Yukon. I now have a Yukon. And as far as driving Uber, it's not even really double dipping these days because I only drive Uber for content. So So essentially where I used to have to drive, you know, when I was driving Uber full-time, it'd be like 50 hours a week, sometimes 60 hours a week. And that was like, I used to live in LA. I would drive Uber there. And it was like, it was a full-time thing, which is miserable to be

SPEAKER_02 6:06

honest. I've been to LA plenty and it's,

SPEAKER_01 6:09

that's not fun. It's terrible. So these days I Uber for content most like once a week. Really? Maybe five hours. No way. That's all I need. And I have enough content for like three weeks. Holy. Okay. And where? Boulder. CU Boulder. That's it. Yeah. I always drive in Boulder and they're about to be on break for summer. So I'm going to have to flip it and get creative here. Sure. But, um, yeah, the, the, the college kids, it's sort of the niche I found is they all miss their dogs back home and they're going out in the town having a few drinks. They get into an Uber unsuspecting. They see a dog and they just lose it. They're like shrieking. So that's where I get the best content. Yeah. If I drive around Denver and do normal trips, airport rides and stuff, maybe one in every 20 ride will end up being on the show in Boulder. It's It's like more than half. Really? And it's like I'm getting verbal consent from the past two. If we're during the ride and I'm like, this is gold. This is content. I'll ask them at some point, like, hey, I'm on YouTube and stuff. Can I put you on the show? And they're like, yeah, for sure. Almost every time. I bet. So Boulder is kind of a

SPEAKER_02 7:11

life hack. Wow. That's amazing. And as we keep getting into these... dog. What

SPEAKER_01 7:19

name? What kind? So my dog's name is Bowie. He's an American yellow lab. I got him from my buddy in Albuquerque. He put him up for adoption when he was about five months old. So yeah, I've had him over three years now. Yeah. And he's just, he's a very interesting dog. I mean, very high energy, super loving, cuddly, but he has some weird quirks. And one of the main things he had a big issue with was a separation anxiety. So that's why I started bringing him everywhere. And, you know, he's like the ultimate you know the dogs that just have the zoomies all the time yeah just want to run around just non-stop energy that's bowie he is just bouncing off the walls all the time but the second he gets into the car it's like an enigma he calms down his mood completely changes and he just likes looking out the window watching the world go by and uh getting to interact with passengers getting love praise attention pets from everybody um he loves it as much as i do as much as they do so um it's kind of a match made in heaven

SPEAKER_02 8:16

that's amazing and I got a chance a little bit to play with Bowie. I mean, great dog, good demeanor. We're definitely going to get a shot for the gram and everything so we can show everybody what this good-looking dog is. And how long have you been doing it with

SPEAKER_01 8:32

him? So I would say it's been probably two and a half years, something like that. So I actually drove Uber with Bowie for probably a year or even almost a year and a half before we ever even threw the camera in there. So having, you know, the whole idea for the... for the Uber dog show and everything. I've been talking about doing an Uber show for eight years. Okay. You know, back in LA, when I drive Uber, I'd be driving it, you know, Coachella, the music festival and stuff. And I was like, this could be content. I should be making videos. Totally. You know, I'm a little bit introverted and I didn't really want to be the center of attention. Like the last thing I want to do is be an influencer. Like the type of person who's going to be like, what's up YouTube? Like today, that's not me at all. Yeah. So I never did it. I tried to film a couple episodes and when I watched it back, I was like, dude, I can't even look at myself on camera, you know? So bringing Bowie along kind of sparked the idea back again because I was like, you know, I'm not the center of attention. It's my dog. I'm kind of like the glue that holds it together. I'll drive the car, I'll keep the dash cam rolling, I'll edit the footage, and I'll keep the conversation going. Of course, I'm, you know, a main character, I guess. Sure. But I'm not the main character. The supporting actor. I'm the supporting actor to my dog. And it's funny, too, because, you know, I think... Anybody who gets numbers that we've been lucky enough to get, we're over 800,000 followers now. There's over half a billion views in total. Holy shit. Across all platforms. This is the coolest thing about it because I don't really want to be a public figure. The last thing I want is to be doing something like this or having dinner and having a crowd of people rushing up. No one recognizes me almost anywhere I go. But the second that I'm having a conversation with someone and I say, I'm the Uber driver with the dog, as the passengers, 90% of the time they're like, oh my God, I've seen your video.

SPEAKER_02 10:21

That's cool.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

So I only get recognized when I bring it up. So I get to be like low key and go about my life and I don't have to like live in the spotlight like that, which I don't think it would really make me that comfortable.

SPEAKER_02 10:32

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 10:33

So it's sort of perfect.

SPEAKER_02 10:35

Yeah. When did it start gaining traction? When did you start noticing like the numbers start ticking up? Cause I, I checked, I've stumbled upon you maybe like six months ago or something like that. And I'm like, I just got the courage to ask you because I like, even me, I was a This guy's got, he's going to say yes to me. But when did you start seeing those numbers just really move?

SPEAKER_01 10:53

Right. Yeah. So I started in April of last year. So it's just been just over a year now. And initially in April, we had our big start on YouTube. I would post stuff on Instagram and TikTok. We weren't seeing any numbers at all. So initially I made eight episodes. And, you know, the first seven episodes didn't really do anything. I don't think any of them even got a thousand views on YouTube. And I started because of my skate videos and stuff, I never changed my channel. I had about 1700 subscribers. Most of them probably don't skate anymore or even use YouTube anymore. So like the numbers were low. And I remember episode eight, I felt like I had gold. I had some rides that were just, it had the most potential to go viral, I think. And I made the best episode ever. I'm like, this is perfect. It was short, sweet, to the point. It was perfect for everyone's short attention span. It was like squeezing a bunch of rides into one like 90 minute episode. And I was like, This is it. This is the one that's going to do it. And at the end of the episode, I even told Bowie, how the episode ends is I said, We're doing this, Bowie. This video, this episode is going to take off. We're going to go viral. We're going to do it, man. And then I kiss him on the snout and then the episode ends. And that episode, after two weeks, it had like 70 views and I gave up. I was like, this is, it's so good. Yeah, yeah. How can people not want to watch

SPEAKER_00 12:11

this? Right.

SPEAKER_01 12:12

And I gave up on the idea. I stopped even checking the numbers thing and I was like, it was fun while it lasted. Sure. At the time, I was struggling to get by and I couldn't afford to take all that time off of work to edit videos. I needed be out on the road Ubering because it's my only form of income. Probably a week or two after giving up, I just randomly checked YouTube and I noticed the numbers were going up by the tens of thousands. I was like, oh, something happened. The algorithm, I guess, just picked it up. Just grabbed it, right? I was just one of the lucky ones, I guess. Shortly after that, the Daily Mail picked it up and they ran a big story on us. That went on Facebook, got millions of views, and then all within that month, I think. We had a video go viral on Instagram. We had our first ones go big on TikTok. So all of it just happened at once. And then it was sort of steady growth since then for most of the last year. It wasn't until probably three months ago that we actually hit the big level and did our big media run. So that happened because we were maybe 100,000 followers here and there. And maybe the episodes would get like 5,000 or 6,000 views on YouTube on average. But then Everything changed a few months ago when we had Denver 9 News came out and ran a story on us. They actually met up with us in person at the dog park and did a whole in-person story on Bowie. And that story, I thought, of course it's really cool. I'm going to take the opportunity. But it's a local news story. I didn't realize what a local news story could turn into. What ended up happening is that story got picked up because Denver 9 News is actually NBC. And all of the local NBC news stations around the whole country picked up that same story. Wow. That story got picked up in Canada. It got picked up in Mexico. It got picked up in Asia. Like all around the world, they picked up the story. And then I started getting the phone calls and the email. You know, we did CNN. We were in People Magazine and Good Morning America and Inside Edition. Like we did within two weeks, we did like every major news source ever. And that's when things really exploded. We started picking up sponsors and it's become, that's when I made the shift to like, we're doing this full time. Once you have sponsors, because the YouTube money and TikTok money, sometimes it's good, sometimes it's almost nothing. Okay. So without any consistency there, and I have a mortgage, I have bills, I have car payments. I can't risk it and just hope that the numbers themselves carry me. So once we got the news stories and the sponsors, and we started doing three-month contracts, six-month contracts, and that's when I was like, okay, I can afford to do this full-time. And my friend kind of works for me, helps me do certain parts of my life. to the editing and stuff. So yeah, fully flipped over to full-time, and now we're just trying to keep it going. I mean, we're riding the waves of it. It's like one month, we're through the roof. Things could never be better. And then the next month, it feels like no one knows who we are. The views are down. I don't know. I think from the outside looking in, doing social media, being an influencer, whatever you want to call it, seems like the easiest job ever. But now I'm sort of learning the ropes that it's pretty difficult to try to maintain any kind of balance where you want to try to figure out like, oh, what am I going to make next month? Bills can I pay? Sure. What can I save up for? But really, you just have no idea. You can make five times as much one month as the month after.

SPEAKER_02 15:37

It's interesting you say that because I think there's a lot of people out there. A lot of us are on the social medias, and I don't know the numbers of that, but someone from the outside looking in says, yeah, I want to do that. It looks so easy.

SPEAKER_00 15:54

But

SPEAKER_02 15:54

take me through a day, or a week. What does a week look like in Kevin's shoes and Bowie's shoes? for the Uber dog.

SPEAKER_01 16:02

Yeah, I'll give you the whole week breakdown. Yes. But first and foremost, I think it's a spectrum actually in terms of whether doing social media is easy or not. And I actually find this to be one of the most fascinating things about this industry. Because if you look at what different influencers do, I mean, there's influencers that do anything. Whatever the topic is, I mean, there's people that just look, that are just good looking. And they just post pictures and videos of themselves and they model and they sport different clothing and stuff. and of course if they have sponsors they need to deal with contracts and all the hairy stuff that I deal with so there's a challenging aspect to it but that's like the easy end of things you know and then there's other times like I see one thing that I've been getting a lot on my algorithm is you know like acoustic guitar playing like singers that will just cover songs and make their own music and these are like some of the most talented musicians I've ever seen and I have like 10 times as many followers

SPEAKER_02 16:56

as you

SPEAKER_01 16:57

do and I'm like I am not worthy like these people deserve so much more than I have.

SPEAKER_02 17:02

I commend you on your home. That is awesome. Keep going. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 17:07

And then there's people that travel all around the world and they have so much cost behind the content they produce and they're taking this big risk putting$100,000 into a video that may or may not perform. So that's what fascinates me is that it could be easy depending on what you do. I think we're sort of around that mid range where it's pretty low cost. What I do is just time consuming. Sure. So, you know, a typical week, usually it'll be Thursday as long as school's in at the local college of you. We'll drive on Thursday nights because it's Thirsty Thursday. Sure. That's the night they go out drinking. I was there. Yeah. Did you go to see you?

SPEAKER_02 17:45

No, no. I went to a college in Minnesota, but Thirsty Thursday was a thing. Right. I mean, that's just known.

SPEAKER_01 17:51

That's across the board. Yeah. Absolutely. So, yeah, I'd say typical week, we'll film on Thursday. Yeah. And I'll drive anywhere between like four and six hours, something like, so if I drive full four, six hours, maybe I'll get four or five rides that are keepers. Yeah. And that's like an average episode. So let's say I put out one episode a week because that's the bare minimum is I drop one episode a week. So as long as I work one day a week, I'm good. But to be honest, I'm usually like two or three months ahead on content. I have more videos saved up than I need. I'm still editing stuff from like February. Yeah, that's good. Yeah. It's a good problem to have. Absolutely. For sure. Yeah. It's the editing that That's time consuming. So typically, if I if I drive on Thursday, I'll recover like the first half a day Friday because I'm getting home at like three in the morning. Yeah. And, you know, then I'll import the footage. I'll sort it into all of its folders. I'll name everything. And then, you know, I'll go and kind of sculpt the episode, which will usually be anywhere between like three and six rides. And the episode could be anywhere between 10 and 30 minutes long. So that's a YouTube video. I put it all together. And then my roommate, Jordan, he helps me with doing the audio and the captions or the subtitles. Yeah. And there's like thousands of words in each episode. So this is the biggest blessing is that he helps me with the captions, which is the most time consuming part. Oh, wow. Because even if you use the AI plugin that picks up the audio and it doesn't get them all right. Right. You

SPEAKER_02 19:17

have to rework through that.

SPEAKER_01 19:19

It takes about eight hours for each episode. Wow. And that's if I do it. If Jordan does it, he takes his time with it. It maybe will take him like two days sometimes. So we'll have that done before Monday Monday is launch day Monday every single week I'm trying to be consistent with it I don't think we've missed more than one Monday for a year now okay good so we've been consistent thank God yeah and Monday the episode drops and we drop it on YouTube and then that goes along with like from Monday to Thursday we post on Instagram and TikTok and sometimes YouTube shorts like probably three times a day so in what you do there is you basically take the whole episode and for each ride you cut out all the meat in the middle and you just take the highlights, all the best parts. So each ride will get like one to three dedicated Instagram, TikTok clips from that ride. And that goes on Instagram and TikTok. And TikTok, we put a lot of emphasis on because TikTok was the majority of my income until a couple months ago. They were paying most of the bills just from views. You know, if you get a million views, you're getting a thousand bucks. Wow. These days, it's just hard to get the views. I don't know. It's like ever since the ban happened, it's been kind of few and far between. So now we're more kind of focusing on sponsors and keeping them happy um but yeah so we still do tiktok and instagram i'll post probably 15 20 times throughout the week and make sure the captions are all good and post it everywhere do the hashtags tag the sponsors yeah and then on top of that um you know the episode and the short clips is the main thing and then on top of that there's all the sponsored stuff so right now we have three main sponsors we have get joy they do the dog food um pet relief is a pet supplement company mostly specialized in cbd products sure you know if Your dog is stressed out. It calms them down and stuff. Then we do Dangle It. They make air fresheners for your car. So you upload a picture of your dog. Nice. Yeah. And they put it on the air freshener. Oh, cool. Coolest sponsor. Oh,

SPEAKER_02 21:10

we'll plug all of them for you. No

SPEAKER_01 21:12

problem about that. Absolutely. So that's cool. They've been supporting us. Sweet. So each of them, we have different contracts. So one of them needs two dedicated videos per month that's advertising their product. Yeah. The other two only need one of them. Okay. And then just working with them and then dealing with the email inbox is like... kind of what fills in the rest of the week. I mean, we probably get dozens of emails every day. Different sponsors, different companies want to work with us. And the thing is, trying to weed through all that, that's what's time consuming because most of them, you know, they'll be very vague about what they want to offer. And then, you know, when you go talk to them, they're like, oh, we don't have any budget to pay you. We just want to give you free products. And then you advertise our stuff in return, which is great. But if I did all of those, my social media would just be a constant ad. Exactly. So I have to be very picky these days. Good. And I'm only getting behind companies that I want to represent, that I really want to work with, or one that's just really on brand. We have a new one that we're going to announce soon. I won't say what company, but they make dash cams. So my whole show is filmed on a dash cam. And the company that makes the dash cam I've been using called Vantrue. I've tried to reach out to them. I never heard back. So I'm like, cool. If a dash cam company wants to reach out and, you know, we could film it on their camera and it looks just as good or better, then heck yeah, let's do it. Absolutely. Totally on brand.

SPEAKER_02 22:29

Yeah. Yeah. I like that. Again, the vibe and everything about you staying true to those pieces, that means a lot to me, too. I have a couple of brands that I work with. Actually, there's a local dog food company called Bixby. They're smaller. They're right here. They're technically a bolder dog food, grain-free. I've done some work for them over the past couple years, but I stay loyal to them. I stand behind what they believe. My dogs always eat it. I support them, that kind of thing. That's cool that you have that head on your shoulders because people can see the amount of views and all that that you get, and they just see dollar signs and they just want to take everything they get. Which leads me to the next question. What's the hardest thing of your day or your week? Because that in itself seems difficult to weed that out.

SPEAKER_01 23:21

Yeah, yeah. The most difficult thing by far is something that's really been kind of weighing on me the last month or so is that you're just at mercy from the algorithm, really. And there's some rides like, for example, there was one ride where I didn't find the ride to be very eventful. I barely even decided to ask the passengers if they wanted to be on the show because I was like, maybe I'll use it. Maybe I'll use it. I won't. I didn't think it was anything special. That ride ended up getting over 40 million views. I've gotten over 200,000 followers just from that one viral video. Wow. And it launched like everything that's going on now.

SPEAKER_02 23:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 23:57

So it's just, you just have no idea. Okay. Like I will put extra time, extra energy into a video from a really entertaining ride. And I'm like, this is it. Yeah. This one's going to go viral. It gets like 2000 views. And I'm like, what gives, you know, it's like, you would think after I've been making videos my whole life. It's been like 17 years now I've been making videos. I've ran social media for different companies, through different industries. Over to what I'm doing now, you would think after getting the numbers we've gotten that I would know what works, what hits. I have no idea. So it's almost like the better the content is, the worse the numbers are. And if it's just some random video, for some odd reason, the algorithm picks it up. So that's what bugs me the most is that in any other industry, the better you are at the work that you're doing, the payoff is going to be Right. In turn, I think sometimes I feel like it's the opposite with this. Okay. It's like I have to catch the algorithm off guard or I have to post something that's like relevant to some kind of, I don't know, trending topic. I don't know what it is.

SPEAKER_02 24:57

Interesting. I would never think that piece of it. So in getting into that a little bit about your history, you mentioned skateboarding and videos. Talk to me a little bit about that. Let's hear more about Kevin's back history. Well, there's nothing I'd rather

SPEAKER_01 25:11

talk about than skateboarding.

SPEAKER_02 25:13

Oh, I'm a snowboarder. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:43

13 or 14 my friends started like grinding down like 20 stair handrails and I'm like I can't do that no so I'm like well how am I gonna skateboard my whole life if I can't be a pro skater yeah so I got really into filming okay picked up a video camera learned how to edit videos and I'm like well if my friends are gonna grind down to 20 stair handrail and I can't I'm gonna go and document it yeah make cool videos and that way I can stay relevant be a part of all this cool stuff that's going on yeah and you know growing up in Southern California we have all the best street spots skate parks and you know some of my friends started picking up, like, big sponsors. And I was the one making the videos, like, you know, like, Thunder Truck, Spitfire Wheels, and, you know, like, Shoe Deals, America Shoes, and stuff like that. So I'm like, I need to be the one taking these guys around. I would drive all the guys to the spots, make the videos, and I would film on the old Sony VX1000. So kind of a vintage old camera. Sweet. Like, mini DV tapes and stuff. Sure, yeah, yeah. So I got really into it. Cool. I filmed, edited, directed, and produced four independent skateboard films. Wow. 2016 was sort of the height of my career in that. We entered the Independent Skateboard Film Festival, took first place in that. Nice. So that was sort of like the top of the career for me. I kind of realized there wasn't really a job in it. There wasn't any money in it. I mean, probably 14 years I was like full-time filming skateboard videos. I made like$1,000. Like total.

SPEAKER_02 27:06

Small percentage of people in those sports get noticed. Right. I mean, it's tiny.

SPEAKER_01 27:11

I know. So some of my friends would go off to turn pro, get their names on skateboards, get shoe deals with Nike. I guess my thought was, you know, they're going to take their hometown filmer along for the ride. Not the case. So I just kind of was like, OK, you know, and then you're hanging out with all the guys that didn't end up making it. And then it's like, OK, all my friends are like in their 30s. They still live at home with mom and dad and like drink too much and are going down the wrong paths and stuff. So that was sort of my move to Colorado during COVID was like, I'm done with skateboarding. I'm not hanging out with people who are extremely successful and stuff. Here's my dad. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, no, like I said,

SPEAKER_02 27:47

this is how it works. We just keep talking. People come in. They can come in and say hi and stuff like that. It's all good. So it's super fun. Yeah,

SPEAKER_01 27:55

I love it. So yeah, 2020, I just kind of decided, like, I'm done with skateboarding. I need a fresh start somewhere. And I came out to Colorado. Cool.

SPEAKER_02 28:05

Hey, there's Bowie. There's Bowie. That's a good bark. We're going to take a snippet of that.

SPEAKER_01 28:11

Get your falafel. We'll be here. We're doing a podcast. Yeah. We'll see you later. Classic Gilbert Furman right there.

SPEAKER_02 28:21

Yeah. So your parents are out here. Yeah. They moved out when they move out.

SPEAKER_01 28:25

So my parents actually left California before I did. Okay. And they moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico. So they've been there for about nine years. Okay. They just left Santa Fe and moved here like a week ago. Okay. Oh, wow. I've been helping them move for the last week or so. That's great. Now they're here. This is my mom. All

SPEAKER_02 28:43

right. All right. Hi. Hey, Mom.

SPEAKER_01 28:46

Hi. Yeah, hi. And we're telling the story about coming to Colorado. Yeah. And I came here from California. You guys came from Santa Fe. So we're breaking it all down. All because of the dogs. All because of the dogs.

SPEAKER_02 28:58

Thank you. I'm trying just like your son did. So far, I mean, wow. Great. Outstanding man here. This is awesome. Like, just the way he talks and everything. So dog-friendly. Dog-friendly, yeah. Give you some bunch of stickers and stuff like that. We got some gear for Bowie and all that stuff for sure. So it's... it's on itunes spotify all that stuff so for sure i'm brandon yeah yeah and it's uh my parent company actually why i started it is uh called alpine howl so my buddy and i were big time snowboard skiers and people coming down the ski hill ah you can just hear them because they're loving it you know that kind of thing and so then i was like he's like i got this name and i was like i started having my mom make these scarves and matching hats winter hats for you to match your dog and so i started that we got a logo made by his friend up in uh uh in uh jackson hole and then i was like ah you know sales are slow i don't want to be going all these markets and then from there what i decided is like uh maybe i should do a podcast and talk about dogs and go to breweries because i like breweries and i have a buddy that owns one in longmont that he just said yeah just come here and my friends just piled in and i just i've backed up confident i have hundreds of hours that i just like i just record some of its nonsense and just you know me talking talking, just stupid talk with my friends, but some of it's just fun. And I haven't got it picked up a lot, but now I go to events and I sit down with a tent, some comfy chairs sometimes for Humane Society and, you know, try and get some numbers and stuff like that. And I just interview people, that kind of thing. What an exciting part one to this great interview I had with Kevin, the Uber dog. Check him out on Instagram and follow him and go on to... Uber dog on YouTube. I'll put the link in the notes. So cool. So funny. Just some great video content for y'all. And we're going to be back next week with part two talks more about Bowie, which is great because we didn't hear too much about Bowie yet. And we got Bowie and some other entrepreneurial aspects of Kevin, which are crazy. Awesome. So stay tuned for that. This week's review is from a company called Outward Hound. I've bought products from them before. Thank you very much, repeat customer. It's a life jacket for dogs called the Dawson Swim Dog Life Jacket. It comes in extra small, small, medium, large, extra large. There's a size chart that gives all the different weights and girth. And for those of you who don't know what girth is, girth is usually a measuring tape to measure the widest part around your dog's rib cage. So from behind the neck area, shoulders all the way around the underside, just behind their front legs. And then you match that up with like their weight, you can get the size. So pretty straightforward. I think anybody that looking into this, just do a little bit of hunting and they'll understand it. A great safety device. I got one for my blue heeler in red. I got it in medium because she's in the 30 to 55 pounds. Just had her weighed at 44 pounds. Fantastic for anybody who's going out in a boat, swimming with their dog a lot and get a little nervous. I paddleboard. Paddleboard's kind of slow, but she likes to jump off once in a while, and I just... You just never know sometimes. So she's a good swimmer too. So she'll run out in the water anytime. But if I'm doing something like the paddle boarding, I've definitely gone down some rivers that are a little bit quicker. Great. I just, I love it. It doesn't have a lot of strings attached to it. It's fairly straightforward and simple, which is good. So nothing gets caught. You know, she runs through the bushes or something like that. The medium through extra large come with dual handles. So what that means is you just grab them. If they're in the water and you're just freaking out or something like that, you can just grab them. It's pretty easy. So the rescue handle's great. Always want to make sure you're playing safe. Don't leave them alone with it on. It's like any device. Just be a good human and watch over that. Can't really say any downsides to it. About$40. It's probably a reasonable price. Then put some design into this. And you know, I, I agree with that. So definitely the four and a half out of five, I didn't really put this up against any other ones. I actually just Google it. I think I've had it for about two years or so. I just Google it and that's what it came up. So I gave it a shot and I think I got lucky with that, but you know, that happens from time to time. So good snug fit on her. You know, obviously if dogs are growing, you want to make sure you get the right size and, That's a big key to making sure it fits well. It's not too loose, not too tight. You don't want to cut off circulation. So outwardhound.com forward slash Dawson swim dog life jacket. I'll put that in the notes as well. So if anybody wants to look it up, three great colors as well. And yeah, thank you, Dawson. That's all we have for this week. Thank you. Thank you so much, Kevin. And Bowie, it was fantastic to talk with you. I can't wait to launch the next part of the interview next week. So if you all were excited about this one, there's even more to come. Check them out on YouTube. I also want to make sure that I thank Romero's Canine Club in Lafayette, Colorado for hosting us. Fantastic dog-friendly location. You heard the dog in the background barking. I hope it wasn't too annoying, but it's what it is. It's the part of the gig and dog-friendly. I know I pitch my stuff a little bit, but the name of the game, you know, I'm just trying to give everybody a little lighthearted, interesting conversations with people, and Kevin so happened to be in the area, and, man, the rest is history, so... Thank you all again, and until next week, have a good Memorial Day weekend. This episode was written and produced by the owner of Alpine Howl, Brandon Bennett. Hit subscribe on all the major platforms to get weekly episodes of Dog Friendly. Produced by Alpine Howl. Check us out, alpinehowl.com for handcrafted scarves for your dog and matching hats for their humans. We also have the latest hats for summer with matching bandanas, alpinehowell.com. Want to be on the show? Send us a message, info at alpinehowell.com, or DM us through Instagram. Thoughts or suggestions? Also drop us a line. Remember, petmem.org.