(EP.50) Ben Proctor & BPRO Kennels

In this episode, I sit down with Ben Proctor, owner of BPRO Kennels, to talk dogs, training, and what actually makes a kennel hold up in the real world.

If you care about keeping your dog safe—and want a crate that’s as solid as it looks—you’ll want to hear this. Ben brings real experience, strong opinions, and a level of detail most people overlook.

This is one worth listening to. Have a great weekend!

www.bprokennels.com

Introduce your dogs to guns and start them out right or help fix your gunshy dog using, "THE GUNSHY FIX" at www.gunshyfix.com

Check out Kuranda dog beds and click on name below to buy one of the best dog cots on the market. 

Also, if your looking for some paw balm, shampoo, dog supplements, treats or other awesome healthy products click on the All American Canine link below for their awesome products. This helps us out a little financially to support the show and we really appreciate it. I like the whitening shampoo if you have a white dog in any shape or form. It really makes the white pop and does an awesome job. The paw and nose balm is good stuff for sore feet and pads after you hunt all day. Really everything they make has good quality ingredients in it. 

Links to products:

Kuranda Dog Beds

Crispi Boots

Gunshy Fix

If you want any dog training topics or questions discussed shoot us an email at thebirddogpodcast@gmail.com or DM us on Instagram.

For Gunner kennels shoot us an email and we can get you a price at thebirddogpodcast@gmail.com

Looking for an E- Collar shoot us an email and let us get your a discount on one of those. Just let us know what you want. We use the Garmin Pro 550 the most for your yard work. For pointers we like the Garmin Pro 550 +.  If you are tech person check out the Alpha. 

For our training and breeding websites visit the links below:

www.utahbirddogtraining.com
www.fieldbredgoldenretrievers.com
www.utahpointinglabs.com

Follow us on Instagram @fieldbredgoldenretrievers, @thebirddogpodcast and @utahbirddogtraining

Thanks for listening everyone and good hunting!

Transcript

Speaker 3 0:50

Hey everyone. Welcome to the Bird Dog podcast. Uh, in this episode, I sit down with my good friend Ben Proctor. I've known Ben for years and we have a great chat about his business, BPRO kennels. He makes phenomenal high-end, good looking bulletproof custom dog kennels, uh, for. At the back of your truck bed. Um, he does amazing paint jobs. They look fabulous. I have one. Uh, and they are awesome. So I hope you guys enjoy this show. Uh, we talk about his business and his dog kennels, but we talk about, uh, his background in dogs and, uh, all the good stuff. Uh, that comes with that. So hope you guys have a great weekend. Uh, do us a favor, go ahead and follow us if you get on our social media, Utah Bird Dog Training and the Bird Dog Podcast. I need to do a little better putting my, uh, when I make, uh, podcast to put it on the Bird Dog Podcast, Instagram. Um. Feed. So if you guys go ahead though and follow that, that'd be awesome. Follow Utah Bird Dog training. Uh, we're gonna, we post stuff on there about our dog training, obviously. And, um, and if you have any training questions you can email us or, or, uh, training questions or podcast things you'd like us talk about, uh, you can email us at the Bird Dog podcast@gmail.com and, uh, and we will try to respond to those and answer those questions. In a podcast. So also check out gun shy fix.com. If you have a buddy's dog that's gun shy or, or your dog is gun shy, or you're trying to introduce your puppy to gunfire, go ahead and give that a try. It really does work and help those dogs get accustomed to gunfire, um, and, uh, get you going in the right direction. Also, check out nda.com, K-U-R-A-N-D a.com. They make the best. Cot, um, kennel Cot for your dog that you can have inside. You can also use it for place instead of a dog bed. You can have one of those raised off the ground so you can sweep underneath it, move it easily. Um, you can put a dog bed even on top of it if you wanna make it extra comfy, but they are hands down. The best cot that I have found. Um. And nothing is bulletproof over time. If you have a dig or scratch scratcher, he's maybe gonna get through that over time, but they're super easy. You just pop out the, the bed part, they make replacement parts super easy. You just swap it out and you're ready to go for years again. So anyhow, check them out. If you do get one. I want to get one of those. It helps us out if you go to the show notes and, and click on the link and follow that link into there and then buy a bed at that time, that gives us a little kickback and we really appreciate it. Helps us, uh, want to continue to do the show, put information out there for you guys. So anyhow, let's get to the show. Hope you guys have a great Friday and we'll see you in the next podcast.

3:56

Hey folks, welcome to the Bird Dog Podcast. My name is Tys Erickson. I'll be your host. Uh, today in this show, we, I got my good friend Ben Proctor, um, with Bpro Kennels and, uh, grateful to have him on the show and hopefully, uh, we can have a, a good time here. And, um, I share with you guys some cool information about his dog kennels or dog boxes, what do you call them? Yeah, dog boxes, dog kennels, crates, whatever. It's all, it's all good. All same, same thing. But, so I don't know if you had a exact term, but Nope. Um, anyhow, so, uh, I just came in from training. I was a little late. Luckily Ben was on time, so thanks. No stress being on time. I was trying to wrap up some, uh, we have a hunt test this weekend, um, just for the retrievers. And then this next week we have a double master, and then the, then that same weekend we have. Or next week we ended have another hunt test. So it's pretty busy with, you know, training away. Yeah. So, and you do mostly a KC tests? Is that kind of the, your bread and butter test wise? I'd say mostly a KC. So I've done lock last week was HRC. Mm-hmm. So that's Hunter Retriever Club. We did third test. There's just some the different ribbons, um, on that. Right. That's a finished TE ribbon. So that's like, that's considered, that's kind of the same as their master essentially. Uh, a KC master. And then on the left there's the seasoned, which is comparable to like a, a senior hunter. And then the rest of those are a PLA ribbons, uh, American Pointing Lab Association. When I did a lot of the pointing lab hunt tests, that one's the grandma in the middle. That's kind of the highest level there. And then you have, uh, uh, certified on the left and then advanced on the right. And then those other two are just master A KCI just grabbed a few of their cool ribbons and yeah. And so you can see kind of the different ribbons and clubs and stuff like that. But so for those of you who may not know, so I've known Tyce for quite a while, but maybe, yeah, give us an intro background, all that good stuff. I was just gonna say maybe about 10 years ago when I dropped off my first bird dog to you, I've, I've known Tyce for quite a while, um, back when I was in high school. And he was a, a car salesman for, uh, um, the guy that owned it was actually my bishop in my, my, my local church congregation. And so, um, I knew Tice'cause I was detailing cars and entice was one of the salesmen. It's funny, we were like, here we're, we were like, oh. I mean, I always hunted. I don't know for sure. I want to hear about your background, but like, I always hunted, but obviously I wasn't in the, I wasn't training dogs for a living, and so it was funny you, I was doing cars and you were detailing, and now we're both doing dogs stuff for a living years ago. That was, I mean, you were, were you in high school or just Yeah, I was, I think I was a senior in high school. Yeah. So I was 20, what was I, 23? Yeah, so you must, so is that our, what's our age? I'm gonna guess your age. I don't even know how old you are, so I don't even know how old I am. So you have to have been, so if I was, oh, 22, 23. Yeah, that's probably 18. 18 at the most. So like a five year gap. Yeah. So you, what are you around? 39, 37, 8 30? I don't know. You might've been a little young. 30. Okay. Because I'm 44. Yeah. Yeah. I might've been a junior, but could've been a junior. Yeah. Anyways. Nice. That's fun, fun, fun background. How we met? Well, I was just gonna say, so when I got my first bird dog, um, I was looking at just people to train and I just googled like bird dog training in Utah. Mm-hmm. And the first first hit was Utah Bird dog training. Yeah. It's like, oh that's convenient. So I call him and Tice isn't the most familiar, the most common name. Yeah. Um, so it went to voicemail'cause Tice was obviously out training and uh, went to voicemail and it was, Hey, this is Ty, Ty Erickson. I was like, this has to be the same Ty. Yeah. Anyway, so I come and meet with Tys and I drop my bird dog off. And this was at your old house? Mm-hmm. And in your front office you had this wall and there was probably, I don't know what, like 70, 80 master hunter ribbon. There's ribbons all Did I have a mall? Just the entire wall. Now they're in drawers. Yeah. My wife's like, just put like a few nice ones up there. Yeah. Um. But I always thought that that was like really, really impressive. And, and as I've gotten more into this world and, and meeting different dog trainers, it really goes to show, um, you know, hunt tests aren't necessarily everything. Sure. They don't, obviously it's not completely apples to apples from hunt tests versus hunting in real life, but if you go to a trainer and they have just stacks and stacks of ribbons mm-hmm. You're probably in pretty good, safe hands. Yeah. Um, and I don't know, maybe maybe you have some more insight on that, but, um, no, I mean, I mean, when I, just as far as testing and, yeah. So I was, I was, I, I want to say I was self-trained and develop my own, I did develop my own program, but obviously I learned off the hill. Sure. Other people Yep. Reading their books and watching their videos, and then finding the program that I liked that, that fit for me. And then, but honestly, why I did hunt tests in the beginning, I knew I could produce a good hunting dog, but it's nice to just have that right kind check the box, like those academics of like, Hey, I can, yeah. I can train dogs to the highest level that these clubs are Yep. Requesting to do. So it's like, okay, if I can do that, I can produce a good hunting dog. And so it was just, it was more for a, just a, my personal self. I wanted to be able to do that, you know? And then we breed golden retrievers and labs on the side, so I wanted to, obviously we want those titled when people are buying puppies, they can see Okay, the parents are proven to some level, you know? Yeah. So, but I just think it's, you know, from a, from a consumer, obviously you've trained all of my dogs. Um, it just goes to your, your program, your trainers, your whole system, and the way you do things that, you know, I have 100% trust in my dogs. If I ever have a question, Hey, my dog's doing something, I just ask t and i, I don't deviate. I don't think so, or I try not to rather, I, obviously I'm an idiot most of the time, but, uh, I just think that's really cool. From a trainer's perspective, not every trainer does it. Mm-hmm. And I think it goes to show the, I dunno validity if that's the right word. Yeah. That, uh, they have a really, really polished program. Oh, I appreciate it. And it is, it is fun. If we have a dog that has like the genetics that, you know, has genetics, it, it, it is like, it's almost, I don't wanna say it's like clockwork, but we can, I can pretty much say, if your dog doesn't know this or this or this, we can, it's gonna be about this amount of time with the average dog to get'em there. And the hope is, yeah. You just find a good trainer or something. You, you trust that they're gonna put the effort in and have a good proven program. You put your dog in there and they're gonna, they're gonna be where they Yeah. You know, are expected to be Yep. At the end of that. So. Yep. A hundred percent. I appreciate those, I appreciate the kind words and. And uh, yeah, it's been fun. It's crazy. I've been training dogs now about 20 years, so That's nuts. It's a long, it's a long time every day. Yeah. So, yeah, it's, some people think you're a veterinarian too, after you train long enough there, you're probably like a, probably right about there anyways. Well, you just see some stuff, you know, you don't have it all. But generally I can you can you see being around dogs enough Yeah. And things you're like, okay, I tried this or try that. And Yep. Sometimes I'll have clients call me on a weekend if something, like, I had a client the other day, his dog swallowed a bunch of rat poison. Got somewhere into, yeah. So he calls me up and she's pregnant with puppies. Oh. Even better. And I, I'm like, oh great. He's like, we can't get ahold of Yvette. We can't get in. What do you recommend I do? And I'm like, well, I mean, you can always go to ai, but you know that you don't know. And so anyways, we ended up having the dog. We had to throw up, use some hydrogen peroxide. Had to Yeah. Throw that up. And then we got some, uh, uh, charcoal, oh, I'm missing the blank. Like that powdered charcoal Yeah. Absorbs stuff, you know, on how to take that down. And she just had a litter of, uh, 11 pups and she's doing great. And, um, and so I was glad we're, she threw up a lot of poison too, man. Oh yeah. Big old chunks. And they, they, luckily, they caught it fast enough. It wasn't able to, you know, fully absorb into the bloodstream. So anyhow, but that's enough about me, so, okay. So me and Ben, we met years ago. I want to kind of backtrack a little bit. Yeah. So we met years ago, training. He was detailing cars. I was selling cars. Um, that was the longest job I've ever worked for anyone, really? Two and a half years. Yeah. Yeah. I was there. That was fun. That was an awesome job. I loved that place. Yeah, it was just chill and fun. Classy car buyers, classy car buyers. Rand and Ty, they were both hunters, so, yeah. Yeah, we went out, I actually went out pheasant hunting with them quite a bit. Oh really? Because I had dogs and Rand had connection over to over to the church farms on the other side of the lake. Oh, that's right. He could take kind of like troubled youth, but he is like, take you because you have dogs. Yeah. Or youth. You was, you were always with the, and I'm like, I'll be your, I'll be your troubled Yeah. Youth. And then we go FA hunt together. So it's kind, it's kind of a funny, funny way of getting around it. But anyhow. So tell me about your hunting background. Yeah. Have you always had dogs? When, when are you later on? I don't know. I'm, yeah. So my dad's dad was a government trapper down in Penit, which is this tiny little town in southern Utah. Okay. And um, like hunting was never like, frowned upon in our house. Mm-hmm. But I think. And I've never actually confirmed this with my dad, but I just think that hunting was just what grandpa did for work. Mm-hmm. So why would we ever go do that for fun? Hmm. Like that's, I mean, literally grandpa every day, loading up horses, loading up a truck, you know, trapping mountain lions, shooting deer, whatever. Yeah. Um, and it was just such like a, like, it was just all the time. That's just what grandpa did. So for activities and like for fun, that was the last thing that they wanted to do. So growing up we would, like, we went camping all the time and we'd go to all the east national parks and like, we just had a ton of fun growing up outdoors, but we never really did hunting. So you think your dad being around it too much, it was almost like kind of burnout. Like there's just kinda like, I didn't, it was burnout. It was much as, it was just like, we do something d we're gonna do something else. Something different. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So it was never frowned upon and it was never like, oh, we're not hunters. You know, we had guns in the house. Like it was just, yeah. Um. It was almost just like, sure. I guess like if you want that's, you know, go for it, but we're gonna go do something else. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and so growing up when Rand Robbins that year, your old boss, my old boss, um, he was in the Bishop Rick of this church congregation that we were in, and his next door neighbor was a guy named Kyle Cle. Mm-hmm. And Kyle had son. Son. So Clegg Automotive. Yeah. Clegg's car hair down in off Geneva in Orum. And he had a son that was my age and we became best buddies. They moved into the ward when I was like 11. And these guys are like full blown hunting freaks. Like his whole basement is just this museum of mule deer and elk and turkeys and bears. Sounds like my type of people. Yeah. Just nuts. And so when you're little, you're always, you know, spending the night over there and hanging out and whatever. And I remember we would wake up Saturday morning in the fall. At their house and you know, I'm in like jeans and tennis shoes and like no jacket. Mm-hmm. And like, we're getting loaded in the truck and we're going pheasant hunting. Mm-hmm. And I had no idea what pheasant hunting was, anything like that. So that was my first real introduction to hunting birds. What age? Probably like 11, 12. Okay. Um, and it was so stinking fun. Mm-hmm. And they were awesome. They were so fun. They were, um, did they have dogs? They didn't have dogs. Okay. They would just drive around. Birds would get up, they'd get out, they'd pile outta the truck and run around and shoot'em and Okay. I just remember being like so young and being like, this is nuts. This is so fun. Yeah. What are we doing? Didn't know anything about it, but that kind of planted the seed. And then as we got older and, you know, um, Cameron and I are still best friends, but we got a little bit more into it and we would go out, you know, after school and, you know, even when we were outta high school and stuff like that. Mm-hmm. Um, so hunting, that's kind of that, that first seed that. I loved bird hunting. Mm-hmm. Big game was always fun, but birds are just like, it's such a long season. Mm-hmm. You can hunt all the time. If you don't get anything, it's no big deal. You go out there next, can talk a lot, you can talk a lots bus to clean. Yeah. It's just so much more gear. Cool gear. Yeah. It's, I don't know if it's funner. Um, less stress I guess anyways. For sure. So bird, bird dogs, they're different for sure. Big games, a lot of hiking and stuff, and they're not, it's like, uh, excitement real quick and yeah. And it's all condensed into like a couple of weekends and if you don't get anything it's, anyways. So for sure. Um, as I, as I got older, um, I knew that I wanted to get a bird dog. And I didn't know anything really about bird dogs. Um, okay. I'm gonna pause you real quick. Yeah. If you don't mind. Um, a lot of guys, I, I know at least this was for me. Do you remember the, do you remember the first bird you shot? Oh, yeah. Okay. So that's what, like, I found like there's, like, generally there's something when you take that shotgun and you pull it up on that rooster, whatever it was, and you sh it like burns it into your soul. Yeah. And you're like, I, I wanna hear that story. Okay. So this one's actually, and then we, let's go back. This one's actually almost embarrassing. So again, going back, I have no idea what I'm doing. We're just out there with the cleggs. They're the greatest, kindest people, and they're trying to teach me the difference between hens and roosters. Okay. And again, I'm like, I dunno, 11 or 12 or whatever. Yeah. And they're just like, yeah. The, the roosters are like these bright, crazy colors and the hens are just dull colored. Um. My first bird, I don't know if it was a hen, it might have been a roost in the first one, but definitely the one that I remember the most mm-hmm. Is we're at this, um, that same church farm mm-hmm. That Rand would go to. And this bird gets up and I hear Cameron say, shoot, shoot, shoot. Mm-hmm. What he's really saying is Don't shoot, don't shoot, don't shoot. And I just smoked this bird and ends up being a hen. So, you know, there was a bird farm so you could, it was, you can shoot whatever there. Yeah. And, uh, so anyways, it was kind of embarrassing and, you know, Cameron's dad came over and kind of gave me a hard time, laughed about it. Um, but that was my first introduction to like, okay, these are the two difference species. Probably felt awesome though when you hit'em. Oh, so awesome. You hit it, connected on it. And when you're tiny, you, you're 11 and you have this giant 12 gauge. Yeah. You know, the fact that you're even pointing it in the right direction, you hit something, it all comes together. It's all awesome. You don't care if it's a hen or a rooster or whatever. Yeah. The fact that you hit it was just great. Um, but it was really, it was awesome. It was, I had that, that me, that memory like seared in my mind. We were down in the cattails. This bird gets up, shoot it, dump it. Mm-hmm. We run over, we find it. Mm-hmm. Um, that's awesome. It was super fun. Yeah. I think interesting everyone I've asked about same story I had, I had similar, uh, the first bird I shot was a hen too, a hen pheasant on a, on a ranch also. And I don't, I don't really remember that one as much. I do remember the bird. I have the picture of it. I, I remember that. But, um, I think that's what it was a hen pheasant. I did a lot of, I did a lot. I shot a lot of like quail and stuff around my house, so those kind of just grown up. So it was a lot more. Yeah. Those kind of don't count. Yeah.'cause they're just too, yeah. And I just seemed like that blended a little more. I remember the first ducks, I, I remember the first ducks I ever shot at. And then. I just was down in like the marsh, Utah Lake Marsh, and these mallards flew over and I'm like, bang, bang, bang. And I could see their glistening head in the sky, and I totally whiffed, but I was like, whoa, that was cool. You know? I can't believe we're duck hunting, you know? Yeah. And uh, and then later on I ended up, these two ducks came past me and I shot at the front one, and I totally smoked the one in the back. I didn't even, I didn't even hit the one I was aiming at, but all of a sudden it like splashed down by me and I was the only one there. So I'm like, oh, sweet. So yeah, it's kind of funny how those, uh, how those kind of burn into your soul. But yeah. Anyhow. Okay. So we, I, thanks for sharing that story. That's kind of, that's fun to hear. Um, were we talking about dogs then? Yeah. So getting your first dogs or, um, or get your, into, getting into hunting and everything in your first dog. Yeah. So now I'm quite a bit older. Um, I'm dating my wife at the time or my current wife, not my current wife. My, I don't know, how do you say that? I was, I was dating the girl that became my wife. Wife. Okay. Um, however that needs to make sense. We got that. We got it. Yeah. Hopefully I'm not in too much hot water when I get home. Um, current wife. Yeah. Hopefully my homie wife. Yeah. So, um, I knew that I wanted a bird dog and again, I didn't know that there was like different degrees of like how good a bird dog could be. Like I thought bird dogs were bird dogs. Just run around and find birds. Yep. All bird dogs were created equal. Mm-hmm. You didn't have to like, look at different breeders. You didn't have to find good dogs. Yeah. It's just like, man, if it's a bird dog, it's gonna do all the things. Yeah. And I ended up getting pretty lucky with my first bird dog, Otto. Mm-hmm. Um, he's a knucklehead, but he's got a great nose. He's a great hunter. He's a great bird dog. Mm-hmm. But we drove up the canyon, picked him out. I think we paid 400 bucks for him. Mm-hmm. And, um, just did a little bit of obedience just there at the house, just by myself. And we took him out to a different game farm and he pointed by himself and I was like, whoa, this is natural ability. Yeah. This is amazing. Mm-hmm. Just hooked on it from there. And then, um, I kind of realized early on that I'm like, I don't have the temperament to train. Um, I, I think you really have to have the right temperament. You have to have the right mindset, um, to really get the full potential out of a bird dog. Mm-hmm. And I knew that I didn't, I knew that I was just like. Well, it can be challenging, I think from the, not like,'cause bird dog training isn't like, Hey, today we're just gonna turn this into a bird dog. It's like, yeah. It's like trusting in a process. Mm-hmm. That if every day you put a stroke in the right place on the painting, you will get that beautiful painting. Yeah. But if you don't know like where those strokes go and kind of the order and the process. Yeah. And like, you know, you're new to it, that it can be overwhelming. That's partly why we're in business is like, yeah. It's just people, you know. It's just, you kind of guide E. Either you have someone that like you train with every day that knows the process. Yeah. And they can go out and show you how to do it. Or you're just like, or you send'em to someone like us. We just do all the hard work for you and then you, you're like, okay, I can reinforce all the training. Yeah. I can take it hunting, but. There's just that kind of getting from point A to point B, all that inner Yeah. Stuff. And then obviously when you're with a lot of dogs, you learn to read their personalities and pivot as needed or whatever, you know? But yeah, and the way that I, the way that I viewed that was I was wasting his potential by not either going all in and learning how to train and getting all the gear and like mm-hmm. Just really doubling down on it. Mm-hmm. Um, I was gonna do him a disservice by having this kind of shoddy bird dog that mm-hmm. Wouldn't listen, wouldn't respond. Or I needed to go the other route and go to a trainer. And I always relate it kind of to, like, obviously I, I work with metal, so everything I do is kind of revolved around the metal world. Mm-hmm. Like with an ax, you can, it's, you can. The way that I envisioned it was a trainer was gonna put the initial grind, the initial bevel to the ax. Mm-hmm. I can keep that sharp. Yeah. But to get that to be a nice, clean, beveled edge, I wanted analogy to go to a trainer. Mm-hmm. And then I can keep it sharp, you know, after talking to you, the way that you kind of do your handoff with the, with the customer mm-hmm. The client, um, you just really go through everything and just make sure that the client is, is up to speed and comfortable and confident that they can take the dog home. Mm-hmm. And obviously you're there as a great resource if you get home and you're like, Hey, I can't remember what you said to do about this and this make. Mm-hmm. Yep. Um, but I knew that that was the route that I wanted to go, especially getting ready to get married. Just a whole lot of stuff was going on. I'm like, let's have Ty take this from here. Mm-hmm. Um, another way to to think of it is, um, being a welder, you're around other tradesmen all the time, whether it's electricians or plumbers or HVAC guys, and there's a saying that is, you can't beat somebody at their own trade. Mm-hmm. Meaning. I would never go to an electrician and ask them plumbing advice. Yeah. A plumber would never come to me or Yeah. And ask for electrician, like kind of stay in your lane. Yeah. You go to a welder. Unless when you need something welded, you go to an electrician when you want things, you know, if you want it done and efficient and Yeah. Probably faster. Yeah. Not to say that mean you try to learn, but it can be maybe. Yeah. And not to say that there's not great just random Joe that lives at home and doesn't go to a trainer. Sure. You know, he, he could still produce a phenomenal Oh yeah. Burd job. There's a lot of good amateur trainers out there. Um, but the way that I viewed it was, this is worth it. I, I want to do this more. This is more of a passion now I see the potential here. Let's get a trainer involved. Well, it's kinda like, it's, it's just it, um, yeah, like you're saying, talking about staying at life, I. Could I learn to weld? Yeah. I could probably learn to weld. It's gonna take forever. Yep. It's gonna look like crap. It might not. It might not hold. Yeah. Or I can just call Ben, like, dude, I need this and this. You're like, okay, boom. And it comes out like three days later and it looks awesome. Like, okay, I'd rather let me do what I'm good at. And you do it, you're good at, and then we just exchange funds. Right? Yeah. It's like, I mean, it's just, I mean, but if I want to learn how to weld and I love welding. Sure. Like, yeah, if you want to, someone wants to learn how to dog train, they want to get all the equipment and time or buy a welder, like yeah, go for it. But it's just, uh, you know, I dunno. When you find what you're good at and it's just easier sometimes you just, you get older to do that and yeah, life just gets busier. Busier. Here's my dog, I wanna hunt with her this fall. Give it back. Yeah. Ready to go. Okay, here you go. And I'm now in the mindset of like, I would way rather invest time in having just really good positive memories with the dogs going, hiking, hunting, whatever it is. Mm-hmm. Then have months and months of just like pounding my head against the wall of like, I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I don't know why the dog doesn't cooperate, you know, all these different things. And again, over time I think you'd just narrow that down and, and shorten that learning curve. But for sure, um, I think having a, having a great bird dog trainer is, is a huge resource that then just allows you to just turnkey. You have this phenomenal dog, you obviously have to build a relationship with it. Mm-hmm. And, um, our dogs are now kind of incorporated. They're part of our family, you know, the girls love him. Mm-hmm. Um, but yeah, that's just an invaluable piece of the puzzle for me at least. So you had Otto, you, you picked up Otto. He's, what is he? 12 is he had old, he, he's either 11 or, yeah, 11 or 12 or something. I'll go back and, and look, he's, he's still, last time we boarded him, he still looks pretty decent. He's doing great. Decent. Yeah. Found out he has heart failure from the vet. So he, they're kind of just like, Hey, he just throttle him back a little bit. Um, we'll just kinda keep an eye on him, but. You know, they say with heart, like his heart just is, is it congested? Or when they start, I don't know, what do they say when they say that? What do they mean? They, I mean, obviously vet heart failure, but like, what are the details of that? Like, we took him to the vet for something else. He was just having a hard time keeping food down. So we just took him to the vet and they kept him overnight. They did some tests on him, and I can't remember all the tests that they did. This was, I don't know, maybe a year or two ago. Mm-hmm. But they basically came back and they're like, Hey, he's got heart failure. And, uh, so no, you know, nothing to be too alarmed with. They, they're like, we can give you some medicine. And I was like, ah, I'm not, you know, let's just, yeah. You know, if it, if it's, he goes out when he's hunting or something. Right. Whatever. It's the way. Yeah. At least he'll die doing something. He was, yeah, exactly. That. That's honestly exactly my, my thoughts. So, um, anyways, they were just like, yeah, this, this medicine won't fix it. It'll just maybe. I dunno, help it a little bit. Mm-hmm. And they were like, I wouldn't do anything different. Maybe just try to not let him run so hard for so long. You know, just try to keep him in check a little bit. But he said the last two years have been great for him. Um, but that's why we picked up this third, third dog is just to kind of alleviate a little bit off him and let him just kind of enjoy Yeah. The glory hunts, so to speak. The golden, the golden years. Yeah. Yeah. So tell me, so you got Otto back from training. Yep. What do you, is there something you like hunting the most? What was there some times you're like, man, um, some wild birds that was awesome or, yeah. Is there any standout moments or, yeah. So maybe go into some of that. Yep. So I, he's got so many fun memories attached to him. Um, so when we first got auto, I was still pretty new to just. All the different species of birds that you could hunt. Mm-hmm. Um, I knew that there were different species. I just didn't know a ton about'em. Um, so in my mind a lot of it was just pheasants and pheasant farms and, you know, chucker and things like that. Mm-hmm. Um, I knew that there was grouse in the mountains, but I didn't know how readily accessible those were. Sure. Um, which ended up becoming, that's now like my favorite part is just finding new spots. Yeah. It's way less about the birds now and just more about like, Hey, we're gonna go have an adventure. We're gonna go try this new spot. I don't really care if we see birds. That's obviously a bonus. Worst case scenario, you get a workout and you let your dog run around. Yeah. You get some killer views. Some pretty country. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Um, and maybe you find a fricking honey hole and you're like, well, okay. Yep. And that, it's just been so fun to have that whole kind of adventure, so to speak mm-hmm. Of finding new spots and new adventures and new areas and new birds. Um. Man, those first couple years, Otto just had some phenomenal years. Um, I remember we went out to the Dakotas and it's just, it's way different hunting pheasants here in Utah where Utah used to have a really good pheasant population. Mm-hmm. Wild birds and it's really kind of gone downhill. Yeah. To the point where like if you shoot a quote unquote wild bird, more than likely it was released by the state. Yeah. It's definitely a lot, lot less around. Yeah. Um, and so I knew that going into that, that quote unquote true wild birds and the Dakotas and, and that area, the Midwest, that those were like true. Yeah. Wild birds. Yeah. And if you can get your dog to outsmart one of those dog or outsmart one of those birds, pin'em down, you get up, bird flushes, you shoot it. Like that's pretty impressive now. Yeah. Yeah. Obviously there's guys back there back in the Midwest that that's all they do and that's super normal for Yeah. Yeah. But for me it was like, that was kind of nerve wracking to go out there. And just to say, kind of get that accomplishment type thing. Yeah. Like, okay, let's, I think Otto's great. Let's go see how he does. Yeah. Well, it's different when everything's controlled here. We don't have those bird contacts where those guys can take a dog out and just let it run every day and Yeah. And to bump birds, bump birds, point kill bird. Okay. The dog's like, oh, if I point, I get it. We just, unless you use like pigeons like we do, or you know, essentially pigeons to teach'em the timing of everything, they Sure. We just don't have that many wild birds around to just let'em do that, you know? Yep. But, yeah. Yeah. But there's a couple of his points that are just seared in my, in my mind where every time we go back to the Dakotas, we always hunt like a certain strip because it just has, nostalgic always has birds too. Um, yeah. And so probably, I don't know. No, it's, I mean, there's birds galore up there. Yeah. Um, so, well he just threw a sweet point. Rooster comes up, like everything comes together. Perfect. You slam. Like if you were to make a movie about bird dogs, that scene would be in it where it's just like, it's right at sunset. Sunset's going down. Beautiful sunset, dog sticks a point, bird gets up, shoot it, dump it, brings it back. Just this long tail feather. Yeah. Feathers are floating through the air. Oh dude. Yep. Some of that stuff's so fun. And then like, you're just like static. You're like holy. Like that whole thing just happened flawlessly. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. And then good dog work. I don't know if you have the same experience, like when you go up in the mountains and you hunt grouse. Mm-hmm. Graphs are pretty tricky just because of the terrain. Yeah. That sometimes it's hard for your dog to get into that, um, what do you call it, the scent cone. Mm-hmm. Um, and so when your dog can point a grouse in the mountains. That's like even more of a rush because you're like literally everything lined up. Yeah. There's logs everywhere and different stuff. Yeah. Yeah. So a lot of times when you're hunting grouse, it's like if your dog can point, that's phenomenal. But a lot of times it's just due to the terrain. Your dog's maybe above you and in front of you, 20 or 30 yards and a bird down below you gets up, flushes up. Yeah. So you still shoot it'cause it's, you know, it's a bird and you're there to shoot birds and your dog goes, gets it. It's not like a willfully flush bird either. It's right. He's not like making mistakes and stuff like that. He just down and they just flush wild. Mm-hmm. Or even then, like he's jumping over a log. Mm-hmm. And then that's what bust the bird. So, um. But yeah, when you can get up in the mountains and your, your dog sticks a point. Mm-hmm. And it's all this thick timber and you're hearing elk bugling and you know, it's late fall, so all the aspen trees are turning colors. Yeah. Golden leaves in the fall. Yeah. Grass, dude. Awesome. Those are pretty rare when your dog will stick a point. Mm-hmm. But it is, it is magical. Yeah. It's amazing. I love, I've gotten more into the grouse hunting myself too, just where we'd shoot so many pheasants and chucker and train uhhuh. Like, I want to see something different than what we see every day. You know? So. And people don't realize how big grouse are. Oh yeah. Like some of these blue gros are awesome, are bigger than, like the body is bigger than a big male rooster. Oh yeah. And they have these giant tail fan, they're like small turkeys. Well, most people don't. I, well, I don't wanna say most people. I would say, yeah. I would say most hunters don't really target grouse. No. They just, they're an opportunistic bird. So if you're out bird or you're out. Hunting deer, elk. Oh, there's a grouse. And you shoot it with a rifle or whatever they do. Like not supposed to, but I'm sure a lot of'em do. Or Yep. Shoot'em with the archery equipment and you throw'em on the fire and eat'em, which is awesome. Yeah, they're great. But it's fun to actually target'em and learn. And I've, I've done recently, last year, last two seasons, I've gotten into like late some, done some of the late season. I know you have too. And those suckers, those where I'm hunting'em a lot, they stay in the trees a lot. Once it's late season and they're snow on the ground, they're not coming off. They're like, they're up the, you're like hunting'em out. Trees cover pretty much. And anyways, it's, it was fun. It's been fun to figure'em out. But I shot some, I shot a limit last year. I think the last day I sent you, you were, I invited you. But you had already, you were, I was already out somewhere else. Hunting, hunting. And, uh, got into some, and I shot some big birds. I, I'm con I guarantee, well, I don't know if they all die from old age, but there's some old birds. Oh, yeah. For those bluegrass that just Yep. They get up in those steep country and no one hunts'em, and, you know, so anyhow. Yeah. They're cool birds. Yeah, that's, and that's, honestly, that's been my new favorite is the, the mountain grouse. Like roughed or blue or don't care. Don't really care. Um, like if you had to choose one, is there one you'd? Blues are probably more my favorite, but I get into'em almost too much now. Mm-hmm. And so now roughs are a little bit more of this, like, we gotta find some spots with the roughs. Yeah. And uh, like. Any given weekend, I can go shoot a blue. Yeah. Um, almost guaranteed. Yeah. Like if I, if I want to go shoot one, I know where to find'em. Dozens of places that are just loaded. I would agree with you. Blues are easier to, they're like more isolated in certain habitat and terrain. Yeah. Or the roughs, I feel like are, they're just more kind of random, sporadic Yep. Kind of ish. A little bit more. And I typically find roughs and blues together more frequently mm-hmm. Than I will find roughs just by themselves. Hmm. So like if I, if I get into roughs mm-hmm. I can probably easily find blues. Hmm. And if I find blues, sometimes they're just is. But I, I have a hard time. So you're not a little more borderline, you're hunting a little more of the not, I mean, not necessarily the border transitioning maybe. Yeah. It's just, it's harder to find like, just true like honey hole of just roughs. Yeah. That seems to be the, the, the hard part is finding just really good. Yeah. Roughs only. Where they can develop and get mature and big and yeah. I don't shoot a lot of rough and blues together, honestly. Where I hunt roughs are generally a little more separated. They're usually lower in elevation. Yep. A little bit than your blues, you know? Yep. Will be way up high. Um, I have killed them. Overlapping. Yeah. Kind of those zones. I killed some last year on that late season hunt down lowers where as I was heading out. But the, the blues. Yeah. So, but there are some spots. There's a spot We should, I should really, we should go up to Idaho. I hunted it years ago for deer and dude, I was walking down this trail. It was way up behind some private and it, this canyon? No man canyon. And there were just roughs everywhere. Oh, that'd be so fun. I saw like, and like a quarter mile on the road. Like, I mean it was, it felt like every a hundred yards. You just like on the literal trail. Yeah. In your, we didn't have a dog and it's like, I gotta come back up in here. I still have it marked on my onyx, but I, yeah. Let's go. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, this is. Probably four years ago. So I don't know if the cycles, they're gonna be less or more, but I mean, there were so many, there has to be still at least one decent, decent numbers in there, you know? We haven't had any real bad winners since then. Yeah. So anyhow. But I have done, like Minnesota, we hunted grouse up in Minnesota a couple years ago and told me about Yeah. How was that? Yeah, it's like a totally different, like it's the same bird, same rough grouse, same bird. Mm-hmm. Not the same. Is it just thick as sin out there? It or what's the habitat like? The crazy thing is like, obviously we're, we're here in the mountains, we're, we're used to really thick timber, thick country, gnarly terrain. It is. The worst experience hunting in this. It's like, oh, really? You cannot, you're shooting trees, you cannot move there. It's just, it's so dense with willows and trees that like a bird gets up and like you're trying to swing and like your gun just like can't move.'cause you're just, it doesn't sound very fun, Ben. It's so stinking tough. And so these guys that are like really good at it, you know, I, I'm, I dunno, maybe I was a little bit, um, had an ego going out there of like, oh, I'm from the mountains. Like, yeah, there's no way. Your terrain is worse than us. Yeah. And it is super, super gnarly. Um, I've got these videos where like, I'm walking and I can't, it's just thick, gnarly. It's just super, super thick. Okay. It's flat as can be. Yeah. So like, you know, you'll go do a mile and it's like nothing. Mm-hmm. Like, you're not winded, you're not tired, but like. You're kind just like mentally exhausted of like, oh my gosh, like, I'm just so mentally taxed. I'm like trying to dodge all these trees and maneuver and get around. And Did you see any woodcock when you were there? Mm-hmm. Yep. A lot of woodcock. Shoot. Yeah, we shot Adam. Okay. But the same thing, it's like they'll get up and they'll be 15 yards like a layup shot. Yeah. But you can't, you can't swing your gun around and you end up having to like tuck your gun in and then shove it back out really just to get around all the trees and it's like standing in Willows pretty, almost. Pretty much. Yeah. It's nuts. It's, but it's really, really fun. And the birds there, uh, like I said, it's the same bird, but they get really big and beautiful and like their tail fans are just amazing. And, um, that sounds cool. I feel like the roughs that I shoot here, they're always just like a little bit on, like the smaller side, especially compared to blue grouse, but um, yeah, they're just like a smaller bird. Yeah. Oh, for sure. But then you get back in the, you know, the Minnesota, Wisconsin area. Big, hearty birds. They're mm-hmm. They're good sized. I wonder if they're kind of, they, I mean, they're the same bird, but they're, there's obviously different genetics. Yeah. They gotta be slightly, because I mean, I killed mule deer in Utah. Yeah. And mul deer in Colorado, they, I mean, they're a mule deer, but they do, they look like a different species. Sure. I mean, their bodies are just giant. Yeah. You're like, holy crap, this is a mule deer. And then we've killed mule deer down in southern Utah, like down on the Zion unit. And the thing has like a teeny body and a big rack. It's just, it's interesting how like there are different, obviously genetic pools and strains and maybe, maybe their winters are harder up there. I don't know. And it causes them to, over evolution has caused'em to grow bigger or something like that. Yeah. But I don't know. So that's cool. So, okay, let's talk. So Otto then, now we got Scout next, right? Yeah. Picked up Scout. She actually kind of was like an accident. One of my really good buddies, he, he bought her as a pup, but he also bought this, um. Bernice mountain dog as a pup. Mm-hmm. And about six months later, he's like, I can't handle both these dogs as pups. The, the mountain dog is just so chill, just wants to lay around just a total love bug. But this short hair is like this. Is this your roommate? Just like an old buddy. He lives down in Arizona. And so he called me, he's like, dude, do you wanna take this dog? This dog is like on crack. Like, I can't ever get it to be tired. I can never get it to relax. Mm-hmm. Just like normal short hair behavior. Yeah. Yeah. So I was like, yeah, I'll take her. And uh, man, she's turned out to be one of the best hunting dogs I've ever seen. She's tiny. She's so methodical. When she goes on point, she's literally like a statue. Like you cannot get her to move. Yeah. Yeah. Like. You know, one of the things that Tyce will do with his dogs and training is that you can go up and you can like, tap'em on the Yeah. The head and kind of release'em. Release them. Mm-hmm. When she's stuck, she won't release. She won't release. She's like, no, there's a birder. Like, she will not release until, until she feels like you've thoroughly gone and checked the entire air. You've stamped down all the brush. Okay, now she'll leave. That's cool. And she's really, really fun. Especially when you're taking buddies or friends that have never hunted before. Oh yeah. She's a great one because she won't budge, she won't make mistakes. Mm-hmm. Like if she bumps a bird, it's like a true mistake. Mm-hmm. Like you, you can't really fal her for that. But she's just tiny. She's super fun. But, uh, she's kind of bearing all the weight of all the hunting right now'cause Yeah. She's Otto's a little bit older and new dog. She's, she the season, the season veteran. Yeah. And she's just, she's money dude. She's so fun. Is she six right? Yeah, she's gotta be about five or six. Five or six right now. I can't remember.'cause I can't remember how old she was when I got her. From my buddy and how long he had her and mm-hmm. So I have her paperwork. I just need to go back through and Yeah. Figure out when she was born, but, okay. So you've, you've, I know you've traveled even quite a bit for upland birds. Yeah. You've killed Huns. Have you killed Huns yet? Huns. You've sharpies prairie chicken chickens, right? Sharp tail. Yep. Sharp tail grouse, prairie chickens, blue grouse, rough grouse, blues, ruffs. Uh, they killed any of the, they have the pine hens or something up in northern Idaho. They're like a spruce grouse. Spruce grouse is on my bucket list. I want to get a, yeah. Done. Chucker. Um, chucker. We did chucker together up in Idaho. That was fun. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I'm trying to think of what else. Ruff grouse, um, I guess, did you kill Woodcock? No. Didn't check that one on. No. Well, you gotta have some. That would be really fun. You have some on the list to, so it just seems, I mean, from what I gather, I've never shot when they, you know, we have the snipe here, the Wilson Snipe in Utah, and they make go ee when they like fly the woodcock. Make a sound like that at all. I can't remember. I have that, like, burned in my memory of just this little tiny, it's like a tennis ball. Okay. And they get up and they just zip. So they're, they're like a, I think they're in the same family as a snipe. They, I don't know. So they just, I've shot Snipe in Utah and they're like the size of a dove, you know, you're like a dead breast. And those ones look, I don't know, two or three times their size or something like that. But yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's fun, man. I, I love it all. Like, I love the, I've never killed prairie chicken. I do want to kill, I'd like to hunt some of those. I know. You even bite me out. I just get busy in the fall. I, I, I do big game hunt. I waterfowl hunt. I upland hunt. So it's, it's like just picking, I know. Picking your voice. And I, I like doing, what are we doing this weekend? Yeah. It's like, and then I got a family with five kids. Yep. And it's like, try to keep the wife happy. Yeah. Hot dogs, blah, blah, blah. But yeah, it's, it's tough. It's almost like you have to just kind of figure out like, okay, this year I'm doing big game. Yeah. And I can trickle on some other things. Or this year I'm doing. Yeah. And so for the last couple years, it's like I'm all in on upland. Yeah. And we'll trickle in some waterfowl here and there. Yeah. Um, but have you done much waterfowl? Mm-hmm. Have you? Not a ton. Especially not here locally, which is crazy. Like, okay, we went down to Texas and we did an airboat trip out on the ocean. Mm-hmm. And, uh, one of the guys bought one of our dog kennels, um, and he had drops. Mm-hmm. And we went down with him on this big airboat and we shot like tons of birds. I might be exaggerating, but I feel like there was plural, millions of birds. Really. Like you would see off in the distance. You're like, that's a, that cloud's moving fast. Yeah. And it comes over top of you and it's just thousands and thousands of birds. Oh my gosh. I've never seen that many birds, huh? Yeah. And it's all just these awesome pintails and redheads and yeah, that is tea about duck hunting. The, you see those huge groups of the migrators and thousands of birds and. I the same thing with, I mean, uh, I mean, that's the fun thing about bird hunting is that's so, there's so many species. If you're hunting ducks and geese and upland birds and blah, blah, blah, there's just, there's a lot to hunt and chase with the dogs, you know? So. Yep. That's, it's fun. You could even like really get narrowed down and be like, yeah, all I wanna do is hunt pheasants. Yeah. Great. People can enjoy their entire life and that's all they want do. And then there's guys that are like, okay, I have hunted pheasants. What's next? Yeah. You know, I wanna go figure out that species. I want to kind of hunt them. And, and then some people just go like, all in on chucker. Yep. And that's all they hunt. That's all they hunt. They're like, I'm a chucker nut. And that's kind of how I was, I was more that way in high school. Like, I just loved chucker. I loved, and I still do, like when I was, um, I went out with Callie Parmley with Gun Dog Magazine at the end of the year, and we killed some chucker together and it just, I remember just hiking the hills and it just, it feels good when you're in good shape and you're like hunting chucker. If you're not in good shape, it, it sucks, sucks. But it's like when you're like, feel like you're a mountain goat up there and you're just climbing around the hills and chasing the dogs, and man, those covey come up and they come up right in front of you. You're shooting'em over your head and they, I don't know, it's just, I still do love it, but um, but it's, it's definitely, I think if, if you hunt a chucker every week, man, you'd be pretty good shape. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah. And there's some guys that are hardcore. Um, I feel like mountain grouse, it's, it can be equally as hard. Oh yeah. Um, I just feel so much more at home. I love the view and the scenery of the mountains. Just the smell of the dirt and the berries and the leaves and the pines. Yeah. Yeah. Like that, just like something for my soul. It just does something where like, chucker hunting is fun. It's more like, but it's fun because it sucks. It's dead grass. Yeah. Like rocks. Like you don't go chucker hunting for. The deep timbers and the elk bugling, it's like you're going to chucker hunting'cause it's gonna kind of suck. Yeah. And it has its own beauty. It definitely does. Sure. Um, I prefer chucker and I think most people, it's late season. Oh yeah. And it's like cold and it's colder and it's not, you know, and then early season it's, it's too hot and it's so hot. It can be snakes and it's just like, so that's where I like the grouse where it opens early and you get up in those, you know, a lot of time you're hunting roughs around like streams and creeks, uhhuh. And so the dogs can jump in the water and it's like, and cool off and there's shade and it's just, and like you say, the elk and the deer, it's just fun to hunt'em that time of year. And then that it is a fun transition. And then the pheasants kind of come on and then the, then you kind of finish a lot with the chucker or whatever else, you know? Yep. But yeah. Yeah. That's cool. So scout's awesome. We, we, it's something I've kind of thought about. They had a, a club here. Um, there's a, a local club called Wasatch Wing Clay. And. Ben called me up last year. He was like, Hey, they're just doing like a end of the year hunt where they just let it let go of crap. A load of birds. Yep. And it's like a hundred bucks a gun. And so we went out there with my, I have a little red setter that I took out there. And Ben had, did you have both you, you had scout and hoop, but who wasn't really trained? It was just, who was just like a pup. So we had Otto and Scout. He had Otto out too, too. And then we had, Ben had some other buddies there with, I think we had some wire hairs and some other short hairs. Yeah. Does that sound about right, Uhhuh? Yep. Did we mopped up the birds? I think we, I think we ended up with 60 or something. You kind of feel bad after a while when, so the whole premise with this is these, this game farm, they obviously have to hold and reserve certain amount of birds just to, for anticipating hunts and stuff like that. And then by law you can only hunt to a certain day. Yeah. And as it starts to warm up, you're driving out there, the roads just get super nasty and muddy. And so. Usually before things get too warmed up, they basically just put a cutoff and they say, yeah, by this day we're done. Regardless of how many birds. Yeah. And so then they, they put on this event where they basically release birds all over the property and, you know, you're in your little group, there's like 600 birds or something like that, or, and so you can just hunt all day long anywhere on the property. Yeah. And they're all farm raised, you know, um, pheasants, hens and roosters and whatever. Mm-hmm. Um, but you could just hunt all day long. Yeah. It was fun. It was so fun. It was fun. Those dogs. I, I still have burnout'cause we were kind of spread out at a point and I, I remember you guys had a bird pinned down and there was like three or four pointers, like all honoring and backing around a bird. It was just pretty, like, it was looking over the valley and I could see you guys like, and all your dogs locked up and I'm like, oh, this is, something's gonna die right here. So I have, I had those meta glasses, that record. Yep. And yeah, that exact same scenario where. All of our dogs were on point. Mm-hmm. They were all backing each other. Yeah. And so I turned my glasses on and I'm like, this is gonna be awesome. Mm-hmm. So I have it on video. This bird gets up and I miss you. Maybe I didn't remember that. I'm like, delete. I might have that one on video from a distance too, but it was cool if it's on, if it's from a distance, maybe it looks like I hid it, but I definitely missed it and it was good dog work regardless. I know I wanted to post it'cause it was so cool. But I'm like, that's too embarrassing. It would've epic. It would've been epic if you nailed it then like, oh yeah, well we did that same thing and it was a hen uhhuh and I'm like, I don't want to post that.'cause it's a hen and I don't want to get roasted in the comments of somebody that just doesn't understand the context of Yeah, we're at a game farm and Yeah. You know somebody's, yeah. Where you shoot females, they're not reproducing, blah blah. Yeah. Yeah. So, but I have one where like there's four or five dogs and they all honor each other and the bird gets up and I dump it and it was awesome. The bird, the dogs go get it and all that good stuff. But the really good one with the. Just huge rooster. I totally wh it Maybe for this podcast, when I post it on, uh, Instagram, I'll, I'll use one of those pictures that he took with the dogs. All the dogs. I'll send you the video. I'll, I'll let you, I'll let you post it. Well, at least the picture. And because as your kennels in there and, and it was just fun. We had a big old pack of dogs and we just spread out and let'em Yeah. Let'em do their thing. But actually this year I was, I thought they were gonna do it, but I guess I did. They they ran outta birds. Yep, they did. They ran outta birds, which is, that's kudos to them. That's the plan. Yeah. Yeah. They wanna run outta birds, but every once in a while, if the weather just doesn't cooperate or whatever, they have too many birds. Excess birds. Yeah. Yeah. That was good planning on their part. But, um, I actually had a question about that with you. Like, are you ever worried, um, like mixing dogs on a hunt or. Like, do dogs typically, like we're in their own quote unquote hunt mode mm-hmm. Do they typically get along? Um, do you ever see dogs that just wanna fight each other? Like, that's a good question. Um, so I would say it comes down to a lot like asking the owners. Yeah. Hopefully the owners know their dogs personalities, right? Like yeah. If your dog's a fighter around other males, then mm-hmm. You hope you have enough control on your dog that it's like, Hey, I gotta kind of hunt, keep my dog kind of away from your guys' dog. You know? But I would say in a, in regards to hunting together, if the dogs have experience hunting with other dogs Yeah. And they understand the game, like they understand like, point equals bird. Yeah. Yeah. Reward, shoot the bird. You know, like I'd say generally they honor and, and work together pretty good. Right.'cause like they know, like, it's like you going to. Play basketball and you know how to play basketball. And they're like, Hey, dude, jump in the game. Sure. You're like, all right, where do you want me? They're like, okay, why don't you point guard or whatever. You're like, all right. And then you just, you can just kind of play that game. Now if you bring a dog that doesn't know basketball Yeah. And you're like, jump in. He is like, run around, like pushing people. You're like, double. He is like, what are you doing? Like, that's like a puppy coming to like experience players, right? Yeah. So it's like if they have the game and the understanding you transition, they can play with other dogs, you know? But, um, does that kind of answer your question? Yeah. I get invited to go on a lot of hunts, you know, as, um, being involved in this world and Yeah. Building cool stuff, you know. But, uh, we get into that. I wanna get into that too. But anyhow, keep going. But people invite me and I'm always like, I don't know if I wanna hunt with your dog. I don't know your dog. I don't, you know. It can be. Yeah. There's so much invested in my dogs that I'm like, dog, I don't want being shot yourself, getting shot. Like it is a little, it is a little dangerous. Um, hunting with new people can be, yeah. And their dogs. Um, one, their dog may. Be at a lower level than yours. And it might be like the kid that doesn't, that kind of knows how to play basketball and he's in there and fouling everyone. Yeah. Screwing things up like dude. Or worst case, it's the other way around. Maybe your dog's not up to speed. And I'm like, I don't want to like be. Yeah. It's tough. It depends on the level. I mean with like your dogs, I mean, maybe someone has their dog's steady wing shot and fall through where yours are just steady to, you know, flush essentially. So, I mean, but it, the biggest thing I would say, hunting with other people that, some of them that drives me nuts, is when like I've guided with guys and like my dog, I've had this happen. My dog like goes, gets a bird and their dog comes and just like rips the bird outta my dog's mouth. I hate that. Like, or it spears my dog like, yep. And it's my dad. What the heck? Like just happened. And it just kind of irks me. It's like, dude, put control on your dog. Yep. Keep it away from my dog. Like keep, keep the handle on it. So, you know, I think. I think with, you know, and I, I think I maybe did a podcast on this talk hunting with new hunters, but. Just, uh, I think you need to just kind of communicate, talk to'em like, Hey, how do you hunt? What's your style? Yeah. What's, how trained are your dogs? Like, yeah. And do you hunt a lot? Are you kind of new to hunting? Have you ever hunted these things? And if someone's like, dude, I've been hunting for 20 years and I, my dogs are this and this. And they can kind of like, yeah, they're through force fa, they're through the obedience, blah, blah, blah. And they can kind of walk the talk. Then they're probably o then you're probably pretty safe. But if they're, you know, and it's not that it's, it's fun to take out some unexperienced people. Yeah. But at the same time, you have to maybe. You know, have the gun talk with Yeah. The safety talk, because that's number one, right? Everyone want everyone to come home. The gun shark, we're here to have a good time. And I've hunted with some new people and the gun gets pointed at me and like, whoa. I, yeah. I'm like, you have, and don't ever be, don't ever be afraid to tell someone, even if it's a close friend, you've hunted with the ears. Like, Hey dude, watch your barrel. Like, yep. Just remind each other and whatever.'cause it only takes once to, for an accident to happen, you know? So. Yeah. And it, it, it could be actually a really easy and um, a good conversation and I've done plenty of guiding in the past and mm-hmm. It's one of the first things that we talk about is just, hey, you know, typically when you go out to the gun range, there's a lot of different directions that you can point the gun that are safe out here. The only safe direction is up. Yeah. When we're walking, that gun is only faced up. Yeah. Unless it's a break action, which that's a whole different topic, but typically the gun's only pointing up away from your feet away from dogs. That way you're not swinging up. Past your dogs. Mm-hmm. You're not flagging your dog, you're not flagging other people. Mm-hmm. You know, just, and then it just kind of sets the tone for the Yeah. For the rest of the hunt. Just, Hey, we're here to have fun. Yeah. But watch your barrel. Yep. It goes off that accidentally, it's still in the right direction. Yep. Yeah. The only thing that always got me nervous and I guided a lot was, you know, little kids would show up. Yeah. Because you just worry. You're like, man,'cause you get caught up in the moment, you're fall, you're tracking a bird or something. Yeah. They can hardly lift a gun and they're just swinging it around and, you know, those pheasant farms, you get birds that just go all sorts of directions and Yeah. Typically when I would guide and there'd be little kids, I would, I would be right next to that kid and his dad. So you're kind of like, that's, it's hard wherever the dogs, the dog's doing its thing. Yeah. Yeah. The dog will find the birds. It'll point safety and being close. Yep. But I'm gonna be, and one, it's like I want that kid to have a good time. I could care less about the brother-in-law that's hunted. Sure. 50 times, you know? Yeah. If he gets a bird, great, but, mm-hmm. Hey, if, if a kid shows up. He's the star of the show. Yeah, yeah. Or she's the star of the show who lives that for sure. Yeah. And uh, obviously that's obviously to keep safety in mind as Yeah. As well as make sure that he can get in on some good Yeah. Action. Have a good experience. Have that first bird ingrained in his, yeah. In his head. Um, was there any other, I think I answered those questions. Yeah, no, that was perfect question. Right. Um, okay, let's talk about, let's talk about the last one, man. Who, yeah. So where'd that name come from? Honestly, it, it's, I don't give a hoot or I don't, I, she's kind of a goofy dog as far as like personality. And I like that breed a lot. It's this wire hair, ula, and they're just a super fun breed. Mm-hmm. And I feel like, and, and you might experience this too, where, where guys get multiple dogs and they kind of have like a theme for their, their dogs. They're all short hairs or whatever. Short hair, is that what you mean? The breed? Yeah. Or like the, the way that they name things. Oh, okay. That they're all follow like a pattern or whatever and Yeah. Um. They're always trying to be like some super tough name of mm-hmm. Whatever, right? Yeah. Yeah. I would obviously the same way with Sure. You know, um, you don't get to name your kids whatever you want, name your talks, whatever you want. But I was always like, what would be kind of a fun word to just be yelling out in the field? And I was like, who would be kind of fun? Yeah. And I have, I might be the odd man out here, but I have in my notes section of my phone, just a running list of cool dog names where it's like, I dunno, 70 or 80 names. And, uh, so is there more dogs in the future than you think? Oh, up to 70, I guess. Yes. But, uh, yeah, it just kind of came down to hoot and I was like, that's such a fun name. And it's already such, such a fun dog, kind of a fun breed. Mm-hmm. And I'm like, yeah, this will be perfect. So it's funny how, I don't know what it is. I don't know if it's like the way it's just meant to be, I swear dogs kind of grow into their names, but Totally. A lot of times you. You have like these like crusher or something? Yep. He just generally seems like he's a hardcore dog. But yeah, I don't it, it seems like I see that a lot. So I always try to name like, I want that champion, you know? It's like I have a dog named right now, a golden retriever. His name is Patriot. Oh yeah. And I'm like, Patriot, I don't wanna be like this. Tough. Yeah. It's just different. Yeah. And I hear a lot of the same names, so it's like who? Obviously we've never had a hoot. Yeah. Probably never will. But, so it's fun to have like client dogs with like rare, like different names. Yeah. That I'm like, like one a guy. It was an African name, but he, it was, her name was Shaka. Oh, that's cool. And I thought it was kind of a cool name. It was like Shaka and she just like, and she was an awesome dog and yeah, that's a cool name. Anyway, so it's fun. Like some of those names, like as a trainer you get a lot of, you know. Similar auto. I don't know if we've had, I think we've had definitely had some scouts.'cause it's a scouts like the most It's a sweet car. Yeah. Sweet G Truck or whatever you want. Scouts are super popular. Auto I didn't realize was as popular as it was. Like I thought, I was like, oh, this is such a clever name. And it's not. I, but I honestly, I'm surprised we haven't had, we've had, we get a lot of like gunners and Oh yeah. Um, Ruger and Ruger and Remy and, you know, a lot of, of the standard names, but, so it's fun to have an off, you know, we get bears and blues and reds. Yep. Or blue. A lot of blue lately. Maverick and Goose have been big. Yeah. And the Top Gun came out. Tons of Mavericks and Goose we're like, oh, another Maverick. Yeah. You have to like select them. Maverick, golden Retriever, Maverick. Short air, like in training, you know, because we just get it. It's funny how like, and humans were the same way, right? Yep. Like my kid, my son's name's crew. Yeah. And that time there was a ton of crews. Like there were Oh right. Yeah. There were names. That's kind of funny, but yeah. Anyhow, so you got a Wired V so you kind of picked my brain I think a little bit too. You're like, Hey, what do you think about him and stuff? I'm like, ones I've worked with have been pretty cool dogs, so, so kind of a fun shout out to the breeder. His name's Ben, Ben frets up in Canada. Um, he's doing something pretty cool with this breed where, um, historically over the last little while this breed, this Wirehaired Vila has been, do you know much the background on'em? Not like a ton. Okay. Share what maybe, you know, or it sounds like you're going into, from just talking to other breeders and other people that have been around them. This breed was, it's supposed to be this really, really tough, awesome, awesome bird dog. Kind of think of like aroha mixed with a vila. Mm-hmm. Which is kind of the, the origin, a little bit of it where they have like that, those furnishings and the beard and mm-hmm. Like the tougher coat, a little bit of a stacked, little bit more stout body a. What do people ask you? Do they, when people do they think it's a doodle? They think it's a doodle all the time. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I figured that was probably the case. Yeah. What kind of doodle is that? Yeah, but they're kind of like a hair. They're like, they look like a vla, but they're, I dunno, they're more, they're more beefy than a VLA though. Yeah. Or think of like a German wire hair that's red that rusic gold. Yeah. That, yeah. Yeah. Um, but a lot of the breed has kind of gone the way of a lot of other breeds where they're almost more of like a show dog. Mm-hmm. Where they've lost a little bit of that hunt drive. Mm-hmm. And this breeder up in Canada, he's doing a phenomenal drive, phenomenal job where he is trying to put that drive back in them. So he's importing different dogs from all over the world. Cool. From Hungary, from, you know, Czech Republic, like all these crazy places. And he's getting these really, really. Super, like tough hunting dogs. Mm-hmm. And he's starting to breed them together to try to get his own line. Yeah. And try to bring that dog breed, make the breed better. Yep. Yeah. So he's doing a lot for him and he's taking a little bit of flack just'cause of the way that he's going about it, of like, I don't care what other people think. I want this breed to be a really good bird dog. Mm-hmm. Or a really good hunting dog. Cool. So we got hoot from him. And what's, so if people are looking for a Wired, what's the name of his company? So he's North Country Sporting Dogs up in Canada, north Country Sporting. Okay. And he breeds these wire hair vula as well as German wire hairs. Okay. All bearded dogs. But he's just a phenomenal, I can't say enough good things about him, but um. Just kind of a fun, fun breed. Mm-hmm. And I wasn't really looking to get that breed particularly. Mm-hmm. But somehow we got connected on, on social media and he was like, Hey, I'd love to get one of your dog boxes. And I was like, well, what if we just did a trade? Like, I wanna get one of your dogs. I think they're super cool. Mm-hmm. So we worked out this, this great trade, um, built a great friendship and, uh, but yeah, we have this super fun wire hair vila that this was her first real hunting season. Yeah. Um, after training. Yeah, after training. And she did great. She's starting to connect it on wild birds. Yep. Um, she's picking up wild birds, maybe a little bit faster than the other dogs. Mm-hmm. But what's her opinion? What, yeah. What's your hunting with her now and putting her on wild birds? Mm-hmm. And just training. Is she, she stick closer. Yeah. And that's the hard part is I'm used to like scout. I'm used to short hairs that covers some serious, like Otto, his comfortable distance is like 200 yards away. Yeah. Like if he's a couple hundred yards away, he's like, comfortable scout. Run bigger than that though. Nope. Scout runs maybe 80 to a hundred and some odd. Fairly close. Okay. Not, not right next to you can't, I can't remember. And who is like, like I'm almost like trying not shotgun range in type thing. Yeah. Where I'm almost like, I don't want to say anything to her because I don't want her to like, oh, what? And turn around and focus and like just go almost sometimes I'll stop and I'll just let her keep going and keep going and keep going until she realizes pushing, pushing away. And so it's kind of hard'cause it's just a different breed and I'm, I'm trying to figure that out, but I'm also like, just go. Yeah. Like I will never reprimand you for going further. Yeah. Whereas like Otto is like, dude. 800 yards. Come on buddy. Yeah. Go back, drill it in. I wanna be hung with you still to some level. Yeah. Yeah. I think that that, and I think that is it, is it, it can be challenging'cause you have a mindset of a way a certain breed works. Like if you go from like a short hair to, I've had some people go from like short to a lab and so, oh yeah, dude, your dog's going to naturally stick in shotgun range, like Yep. And, and they don't have the dr the, the all day long generally that a short hair is gonna have. Yep. Or you know, they're just, each breed has their strengths and weaknesses, but you can take that lab and go kill ducks that afternoon. Yeah. Where your short hair is generally not gonna want to do that, you know, so, um, so it is fun to, you know, the, but each, each, but I would say yeah, the, the Wired vs. I think we've only trained three of them. Yeah. Three or four. But I, yeah. The ones we worked with and generally they're still a young dog, so we don't, we just let'em kind of open them up as much as mm-hmm. When we're doing the training, we're not like way open, huge open chuck or country for sure. Where we just let'em go, you know. And we're kind of, and we're working on the mechanics and all that stuff. But, but yeah, I would say the ones we've worked with have been, have been kind of a closer esque breed. Yeah. You know, a hundred yards and in type stuff. And even, but even Ben, the breeder, he's like, it kind of takes'em a couple years to really get confidence and maturity. Whereas like a short hair is like, you know, 12 weeks they're, they just wanna run around. They just wanna run. And he's like, and she does, she has a phenomenal point. She has a great, great drive. Yeah. When you shoot something, she'll go good wherever, however far it needs to. She'll go get that bird. She's really soft mouth. She'll bring it right back to you. Mm-hmm. Very eager to please. She trained good. Like there wasn't any like major. It was like, yeah. She's like doing it. She just kind of would check the boxes and go through it. Yeah. Like I don't remember her being like, dude, she's a pain on her force fetch or whatever, you know? Yeah. So the big thing with her is I'm just trying to get her to just like, and. Maybe there's a different tactic, but I'm almost like, I don't wanna say anything to you while we're out, because I don't want you to even think about having to check in with me. So do you feel like if you say stuff, she's, she kind of checks in on you? Yeah.'cause if, even if you're like, good girl, she turns to see mm-hmm. What you're talking about. And so I'm just like, does she come? You're nervous, she's gonna come towards you. So I'm just trying to give her back. Do you feel like, could you hunter with auto? Does she range A little bit more, but she'll, like, she'll range to a certain point and then she's, it's almost like she hits this wall and she's like, I have too. I'm too far away. I gotta turn around. Yeah. She's definitely kind of attached to you. Yeah. So part of that, I attached to their handler a little bit more like, like my, my setter that I have, like, he's probably a hundred ish yard dog. Like he, he, he generally, he's getting more confident as he gets out every year. And he matures though too, kind of like you're saying. But he generally kind of likes to check in, kind of keep me in eyesight a little bit. Yeah. You know, I think they almost like, crap, where's my pack? You know? Yeah. Like they get a little nervous and so. I'm sure she continues to gain confidence. You hunter on birds and other dogs. She'll continue to open up. But yeah, sounds like you're still killing plenty of stuff with her and she's just fun. Like, she's very obedient. She's great. So yeah, it's just one of those things where mm-hmm. Just timeout. Yeah. How many times can you go out with her? How many times can you Yeah. You know, and all that stuff is just good. Just to, yeah. Okay. We talked a lot about dogs. We gotta, we don't have a lot of time. We gotta get Ben here. Yeah. Still we're still good kids. Volleyball on time. He has kids volleyball. That's, you know, I played volleyball in college. Right. I wish there was volleyball in high school for, for men's. Yeah. I know. I think there is now, but some places. California, it's huge. Yeah. Like volleyball's such a fun sport, but yeah. Oh dude, I love volley. I used to play so fun hours. Fun. But I played for UVU on their, on their, uh, their club team. And we took third in the nation that year. No way out in Louisville, Kentucky. Oh, that's awesome. I played middle. Yeah. Yeah. So I'd love to, I would rather be outside opposite, but I, but I played middle and I love, man, when you block it. When you block a spike, it just feels so good, man. You slam that ball down coming 90 miles an hour and you just stop it. Yeah. Just stop it. Or when you just, or a nice set, like a one right over the net, you boom. That's, so I love volleyball that. Yep. Um, so that's cool. Your kids do your daughter or daughter playing? Yeah. Yeah. My oldest daughter. Does she have some good height? No, no. She's tiny. Does she play a Lao I mean, all of them are like That's true. They're, it's just like hit it over the net at this point. Yeah. We, it's funny. She has this, uh, big Samoan coach. Mm-hmm. And he's just this giant teddy bear. Mm-hmm. And literally he practices twice a week, and all he's trying to do is get him to serve over the net. That's, that's all we're working on. Volleyball's. Definitely for young kids. It's kind of a harder, it's a harder sport. Yeah. It takes some power to hit it over or, yeah. Basketball, you kind of dribble it. They can bring the hoops down. Yeah. They bring the net down too, but, yeah. Okay. Well that's awesome. Um, I want to get into though your, so a little background on Ben. How well did you have you weld? Did you weld in high school? High school, right. Uhhuh. You took welding classes or something? Yep. Okay. Yep. Welded in high school. So,'cause I don't remember you being a welder when you worked at the car dealership. I was probably in welding. You probably knew how to do it, but you were like, but he, you were hired to do like detailing and stuff like that. But anyways, Ben is a phenomenal welder. He is taken it, obviously you've done it for a lot of years now. Yeah. I don't know how many years. 15 years more than that. I mean since high school, I guess even longer than that. Yeah. I mean professionally though, probably since, yeah, probably over 15 years. Probably a long time. Yeah. But he's weld since high school, so he is had a, anyways, he's done some awesome stuff for me and he's, I mean you've built like hand an amazing, like handrail. I mean you pretty much, you kind of do whatever, right? Uhhuh, if someone says like, Hey, I need this. You could probably So build it for him. In welding school? Well, so when I was a little bit younger, about 1920, um, in our church you go on a, on a mission trip, so you're gone for two years. So when I came back, I was just kind of bouncing between different jobs, trying to figure out what I wanted to do. Yeah. Finally landed on doing welding school. Okay. And it's a little bit more of like, um, it's a little bit more intense. Like they, they know that's kinda what you're picking as a career. Mm-hmm. So it's not like high school where it's like just pass or fail, like come show up, whatever. It's like you're paying to be there, so take it serious. And they take you through all the different processes of welding and like aluminum and aluminum and all that. There's stick welding and mig welding and Okay. You know, um, TIG welding and just all these different processes. Mm-hmm. And they go through each one as its own subsection of its own sub course, so to speak. Okay. And what ends up happening is, is a lot of welders will kind of find something that they're good at. And that's kind of what they ride. Mm-hmm. So if they're good at stick welding, maybe they go out in the pipeline or they go work in a, in a shop that builds bridges and Okay. And big structural stuff. Or if they're good at mig welding, maybe they'll go to like a job shop and they'll just burn little brackets together and mm-hmm. Um, I was fascinated with all of it. And so, um, when I was at school, I really tried to become good at all of'em. Mm-hmm. Because I liked, I liked just welding in general. Yeah. It was just super, super fun. Um, and then from there I went and worked for a couple different job shops and got a bunch of experience traveled all over the country. Um, had some really great experiences and then after a while I'm like, I wanna just try doing this on my own. Like mm-hmm. I was already picking up more and more just side work. Just, it's one of those things like if you're a welder, you are never without work. Yeah. Neighbor break something, neighbors, buddies, uncles, cousins, like everybody just needs something fixed. Yeah. And so I was already starting to pick up a ton of side work and I was like, let's just give this a shot. So I went out on my own, started my own shop, and the thing that made it really fun, but also really successful is we could do anything. Mm-hmm. So a lot of job shops or a lot of shops kind of suffer because they don't know how to do, you know, tig welding, aluminum too, isolate. I only train pointers or whatever. Yeah, exactly. A certain breed or something. Yep. And, and they can get really good and they can become successful, but it's also. Hard because you can only take on certain jobs. Sure. And the thing that made it fun for us was we were like, we will take on anything and everything. So we would be doing, like some contractor would have us come put this giant steel beam in a basement of a house one day and then we rushed back to the shop, we put all the tools away.'cause the next day we're doing, you know, stainless steel handrail. Mm-hmm. And then the next week after all the tools get put away and we bring out new tools'cause we're doing, you know, aluminum cabinet boxes or something. Yeah. And it made it really fun because you're always on your toes, you're always trying to remember how to do certain things and you're always getting brushed up on your skills with different things. Mm-hmm. And over the years, um, we had a ton of success and when I started to get my own bird dogs, I would see guys that would have these kind of diamond plate aluminum dog boxes. Yeah. And they kind of look like just toolboxes and like the Owens or whatever. Yeah. I think Owens is a brand. Yep. Owens is a big brand that, that builds that stuff. Mm-hmm. And as a fabricator, I was always like. Like, I wanna try, I wanna build my own. Mm-hmm. Kinda like a rite of passage almost like Sure. I think I could build one that's cooler, has different features. Yeah. And so I started dabbling with one. I built one, it was like, it was okay. Um, it was kinda rushed. We were going on a big hunt, so I just kind of threw it together, but I, you gotta start somewhere. Yeah. And by doing that one, I kind of figured out like, oh, okay. I kind of have what I would want to do for a revision of like actually a kind of polished one. Yeah. So we came back and then that whole next year we weren't gonna go on a big hunt until that next, that next fall. So that whole next year I was kind of designing different stuff and different parts and really kind of putting together, um, this dog box. And it turned out really, really pretty sharp. Mm-hmm. Put it in the back of my truck and I was guiding a lot at the time and. So the clients were like, that's a sharp looking dog box. Yeah. And I was like, where'd you get that? Yeah. And inevitably it turned into, yeah, I, I built it. That's what I do for work. And I thought this was gonna be a great way to get clients from my welding shop so I'd be out.'cause a lot of the guys that come out to those pheasant farms, they're contractors or their, you know, um, real estate people. And so I'm like, oh, this will be a great, like, if I had this really polished, good looking dog box, then they'll trust me with their, they know you can do Yeah. Welding work. Yeah. So then they maybe will trust me with, with different work. Yeah. And then I built another one and I got flagged down. I was driving back and this guy flags me down. We meet at this gas station and he's asking me all about it. And he's like, yeah, I have bird dogs. You know, how can I get one of these? And yeah. So sold him one. And then we started to have more and more friends and family that were like, dude, I think you kind of have something here. Yeah. Like. This is pretty cool. Mm-hmm. And I was kind of pretty dismissive.'cause I'm like, surely there's like other cool stuff out there. Like Yeah, I just built this for me. Yeah. Um, but after a while you're like, okay, maybe, maybe we do, let's try this. Yeah. And I remember I was listening to some different podcasts and they mentioned this, uh, trade show that was put on by Pheasants forever. And that year it was gonna be in Omaha. Mm-hmm. And I wanna say that the show was like three weeks from when I was hearing this podcast. Mm-hmm. So I was like, okay, let's, let's see if we can make this happen. So I call Pheasants forever. The, the organizer's name's Luke. And I'm like, what are the chances that you have a booth? A booth available? Yeah. And he's like, we have, I think it was two booths. We have two booths that are available. If you can commit one of'em is yours. Mm-hmm. And the dog box that I had at the time was just raw aluminum. It was kind of hammered, it had a bunch of blood all over it from birds and I'm like, I can't take this one. And you should have been, dude, I'm a hunter. Yeah, I should, I actually probably should have taken that one, but I was like, I gotta scramble. And I whipped one together. I got it. Powder coated. Looked really, really nice. Um, but we weren't like a brand, it was just bpro welding. So we have all this banner about welding and like, because we were a little bit disruptive in the sense that like. We have a very unique design style mm-hmm. Compared to a lot of the other dog boxes. Yeah. That a lot of people didn't know what we were. Mm-hmm. And we had no branding. We had no marketing. Like, literally it was like it was your first time. First time. Yeah. We were like, yeah. Kind of getting out there, throwing it out there, barely making it to the show. Yeah. So a lot of people thought we were like, barbecue grills or like, like they just didn't know what we were. This is actually a dog box. Yeah. Oh, it was great. It was really funny. Um, but that kind of opened the door and the people that were there that saw it and they're like, Hey man, this is pretty cool. Like, there's not a lot of other people that are doing stuff like this with the custom colors and mm-hmm. The way that we basically build a roll cage first, and just a lot of the, the kind of fun stuff that we were doing. Mm-hmm. And that was kind of, it, it just kind of snowballed to where that next year we built, I don't know, 15 of'em. And next year we built 40 of'em. Mm-hmm. And over the course of the year, our work building stuff tried to shift from doing job shop stuff to boxes. Man, I'm reallocating all my guys to building dog boxes. Yeah. And now that's all that we do. That's more, I mean, I assume it's more fun to do that. It's your passionate, you're probably more passionate about a dog box than a rail or something. Totally. You know, and because it's the clientele base too. Yeah. You get a, it's like me and a trainer, I, you know, meet, well obviously I met you beforehand, but you meet so many cool people Yep. Through that.'cause you have, you share a common passion Yep. Of dogs, you know. Yep. And it, the, just the customers are super, super fun. It's obviously a great industry. Yeah. Super fun clients. Here's the only problem though, is they all invite you to go hunting and he is like, dude, I wish I could go hunting. I know, but I'd be hunting full time and I wait every time to work. Yeah. I've had clients, but I'm like, man, I would love to go to Canada with you. I'd love to go to Dakotas. Like, but I just, I just logistics and time and family. Yeah. Yeah. That's, it's, but it's fun. Every once in a while you can go and so it's such a cool clientele base, but Yep. But yeah, that's, that's kind of our origin story. That's how we got to where we are and it's basically all that we do now. So. So when I think of your crates Okay. I am thinking of all the crates I've seen out there. Yours definitely do have a different look. Yeah. Like,'cause they're kind of like you say, the custom colors mm-hmm. And the way you've designed them. Yep. They look awesome. Yeah. Like, by the way, he does phenomenal job on his crates and, and, um. Because a lot of stuff's just like, you know, like your ainleys and some of they're just kind of aluminum. Yep. You know, just stamped aluminum diamond plate, just kind of aluminum or diamond plate raw. Yeah. Just kind of, or you get into obviously your plastic crates, so you kinda have obviously the aluminum or the metal, you know, whatever it may be. Tell us a little about your crates. Are they all, are they all aluminum or what are they? Yep. Okay. So start to finish. I think there's maybe a, just a few tiny little components that are either stainless steel or just regular steel. Everything else is all aluminum. Mm-hmm. The way that we work, the way that we build them is we start, so if I want, if I want to buy one, what do I do? Or if I'm interested in like, yep. Yeah. Tell, walk me through the process. So about them and also, sorry, cut you off. No, you good about them. And then you're, so the, the way that we build them is we start from a roll cage basically. So our big three hole, it's called the havoc. Mm-hmm. That has a little over a hundred feet of tubing. It's all one inch heavy wall. Aluminum tubing. And the idea with that is that the dog has to be safe. Mm-hmm. It's one thing to look good, but it has to keep your dog safe. Mm-hmm. So we build this really elaborate dog kennel, um, out of a roll cage. It's all hand tig welded together. Um, and then because of the way that we construct it, we're able to do double wall, which means that you can have an outside wall and an inside wall, which means you can stuff insulation, one inch thick insulation between all the walls. Okay. And most of the competitors, most of the other brands, they're putting like quarter inch plastic and they're calling that insulation. Hmm. And I'm sure it does something, but it's basically negligible. Yeah. And so we're putting a full one inch thick construction grade, what you would insulate your home with in between the walls. Um, and then the fun part is, um, we typically, we rarely leave them as raw aluminum. Mm-hmm. Aluminum's a great. Um, great material. Um, it won't rust, it won't corrode, it won't deteriorate, but it will oxidize and it'll kind of turn like a dull gray and it's lighter, easy to lift out your trucks and everything. The other, yeah, and that's a great point, point too, is the standard dog kennel that's made out of aluminum or metal rather. It's either aluminum or it's stainless steel. Mm-hmm. Stainless steel is a great product as well, a great, uh, material, but it's literally three times the weight as aluminum. Well, stainless steel, is it, it, maybe I'm wrong. Doesn't it absorb heat better than aluminum? They both absorb it kind of a lot. Stainless steel is able to kind of hold onto it and reflect heat a little bit better, um, than aluminum. So that's one kind of downside to us, but. The flip side to that is we can put really thick insulation. Yeah. So the outside might get pretty warm, but by the time it reaches the inside, it's pretty well been dissipated throughout the, the body of the, the dog box. Mm-hmm. But we can put way more structure in our dog box making it safer and still be lighter than stainless steel or the other competitors that make'em out of aluminum. It's literally just folded aluminum that doesn't really have a frame or a structure and they're really not that tough. Yeah. And they're really not that safe. Yeah. If we're being honest. Mm-hmm. If you get into some rear end or flip your car or something like that, they're not gonna do anything for you. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and then that's, that's why a lot of people go with those plastic crates is'cause they are crash tested. Mm-hmm. The way that they're rotomolded they can be really, really durable and strong. Yeah. And so we kind of tried to hybridize that where we want super safe dog kennels, but we also want the customization, not deal with the plastic. Yeah. And not deal with the plastic. Um, and so we have three main models. They all start with a roll cage. They're all double walled. Tell us the, so you have the havoc, the three hole, what are the other ones? Yep. So the, the big one is the three hole, that's called the havoc. And then we have, does that fit between a wheel, the wheel wells of a standard sized truck, or does it usually go on top or what? Or what do you guys Yep. That fits in, in the bed of a full-sized truck, but it has to sit above the wheel wells, so it's 58 inches wide. So it'll fit a full size pickup, but it just has to be above the wheels. So do you build a little platform or do you, or do some people put'em on roll decks or? Yep. A lot of guys will have like a decked drawer system put their guns and all this stuff underneath and put the crane on top, or, or we can build you a platform. Or a lot of guys are like, yeah, just gimme the box. I'll handle building, I'll build something. Yeah. Which we, we try to advocate that like, we're happy to build you stuff, but it's gonna be way cheaper if you just run to Home Depot and some, grab some lumber, throw some wood in there or something. Yeah. But a lot of guys are like, I want this all to be fit and finished and I want this all to look great, so Great. Sure. We're happy to, we're happy to accommodate that. And then we have two other models and they're both two holes. So they'll fit between the wheel wells. One of'em fits a full-size pickup. One of'em fits the mid-size trucks. Um, so those ones are called the Dauntless and the Warden. Mm-hmm. But those are both two holes and the smallest one that we make, that warden fits a Tacoma, you know, Colorado. And my buddy had a big 80 pound short hair that could get in and outta that no problem. Mm-hmm. So really all of them fit pretty large dogs. Obviously you get some, some pretty big beastly dogs that are, you know, a hundred pounds or stuff that, that might give you some issues, but all of them are de designed around standard, standard hunting dog. Yeah. Breed, standard, big hunting dogs. All of them will fit. Yeah. Yeah. It's always fun. Yeah. It's interesting. I, I think sometimes when people see a crate in general, like, I'll have someone drop a dog, like my dog go in there. I'm like, yeah, I could fit like five dogs in there. Yep. People don't realize until they get in there. Now, is your dog living there full-time? No, but it's like, if it's in there temporarily, you're traveling to a hunting location or whatever, overnight it's gonna, it's totally fine. Yeah. I mean, dogs live in, like, some guys that travel for like hunt tests and stuff nonstop. They'll live in a little hole like. For months, like most of the year, you know, so they can, as long as they get out at least twice, three times a day, they're okay. But yeah. And there really is something like to the psychology of that, where like the dogs feel more safe, they have less anxiety and a little bit more of a confined area. They travel better. Yeah. Um, their stress is down. They're, and then when it gets cold, if you can double'em up, just all those things just help. Yeah. You really don't want your dog in a big, huge space in compartment. Yeah. They trouble, I mean, you think in the wild, right? Like they're, they don't dig a huge cave, right. Like a coyote or something's gonna dig a little dent and they're literally like probably laying down in there. They're curled up. Yeah. They're curled up and they're touching the top and touching the bottom of the sides almost, you know, and they just kind of D up. Yeah. Yeah. And that we kind of did a little bit of thinking through on that, where the depth of all our boxes are 34 inches, and the idea behind that is we want them to be able to get in, turn around and they want them to, to be kind of tight. We want them to lay down. Yeah. But we want them, and we want the the box to be deep enough that if your dog wants to, he can lay flat and not have his spine Yeah, yeah, yeah. Curled up. Mm-hmm. Especially on those longer trips where Yeah, they can kinda stretch a little bit out. Now, if your dog just chooses to curl up, that's totally fine. Sure. But we want them to be able to lay relaxed straight, have a straight spine. Yeah. Not have to be jammed into this little, yeah, little hole. I've, I've seen Ben's crates and there the hole size are awesome. So I, yeah, I don't think you need to worry about, and, but I'm sure you get, people have all sorts of Oh yeah. You, you know, the dog world, there's opinions on Yeah. Everything, you know, the right way. Like, and it's kind of fun. I just, I and that sometimes go, Hey, this is the way we do it. It works. Yeah. I mean, you've obviously put it to the test. You've traveled all over the country. You put your personal dogs in them and you know, obviously if there was something better you could do, you'd do it. But like, Hey, this works. They're bulletproof, they're awesome. Yeah. Ben, Ben brought me a crate the other day out. A client just ended up, uh, you know, it didn't work out, but he returned it and he's like, and he had it, like we had it like on a trailer and he is like. I was a little worried. You drop the whole back on the ground. He's like, these things are tough. And he just boom drops it from like, yeah, three, four feet. I'm like, damn, I, I was worried something was gonna break. And it was like, just solid. I'm like, I'm like, okay, this guy builded them. So, you know. But yeah, I can vouch. It just was like a rock. Yeah, it was like, it was solid, man. Yeah. We had a client who upgraded. They, they got more dogs and so as part of that they were like, well, we don't want the old one. Yeah. And I was like, well, I don't have room for it. So I called Tyson. I'm like, Hey, do you want this really cool dog box? Yeah. It's like, it's kind of an odd shape, but it's, yeah, because it's built what they built for. Yeah. Yeah. So, but yeah, it's great. They're, they're super, super tough. We're doing this whole. Series right now where we're trying to destroy one of'em. Oh, cool. We built this one for a trade show, I don't know, five years ago. And since we built it, I bet I've only had it in my possession for maybe a handful of weeks. Oh really? We just give it to anybody and everybody. Mm-hmm. Somebody calls up like, Hey, I'd love to try one. Great. Come pick it up, take it for the whole season. Beat the snot out of it. Mm-hmm. And it, you can tell like it's been through the ringer, like, you know, powder coats chipped off outta trucks, latches are all banged up. But it, it works flawlessly. It's still awesome. Yeah. Um, but now we're like, let's just retire this thing and let's literally destroy it. So we're having this whole series where we stack more and more weight on top of it and eventually we're gonna probably shoot it with some shotguns and see how close we can get before shotgun shells, you know, go through and we've got some really cool stuff planned for it here in the next couple of weeks. You gotta, you gotta bite me on that one. Oh yeah. Destructions. I'll come out and shoot some, some stuff. That's cool. That's, that'll be fun to kind of. Put it through the ringer and Yeah, they, they're tough man. I mean, like, say we put dogs, we have client drop dogs off, we'll put'em on some of the crates, we'll put'em out there and we've, I mean, never had a dog. Yeah. Do it. I mean, looks just like the day you dropped it off. Yep. Yeah. They've been great. But it's been fun. People see it like, oh, what is that? And it has some huge compartment. We had a big dog that dropped off the other day and they wouldn't even fit in my other aluminum crays. Oh, right. Like there's, this one has a big hole, so we put it in there. Yeah, the battle tank. Yeah. It was a big old, it was. Yeah. It was nice. So anyhow, yeah. Well dude, thanks for coming on the podcast today. Um, you guys, if you're looking for like a high quality like custom crate, that freaking looks awesome. That your buddies are gonna be like, dude, where'd you get that at? You know? And I think, I think in the upland world and in, in hunting in general, it's just fun.'cause like we, like our, it's fun to have nice dog and nice guns and nice. Great. That like you can, you can match people's kind of almost trucks, right? Yep. Or they're kind of, and, and we like that, like, you know, companies, they'll put dogs names on their, you know. Yep. You kind of can customize your rig to how you want it to look. And it's just, I mean, we work hard and we want to spend money on the things we enjoy. And so it's just fun to have kind of, you know, get the cool camo and the dogs and the dog box. But I mean, your dog, your boxes are awesome. They're unique, they have cool lights built into'em. I mean, all sorts of customization stuff, obviously you can go into Yep. Go into that with people if they're, if they're interested. But if you're looking for something that's just not the typical, you know, um, aluminum crate, you want something that, some cool colors that you know is gonna be bulletproof, keep your dog safe. I, I mean, I think you're, that's kind of where your niche is, I think, you know, so. Yep. High quality, high custom. Yeah. And Ben is a stud man. He will do anything. He has to make a living. But he's always like, he's always such a giver and uh, you know, so easy to work with. I mean, I work with him, obviously, train his dogs. Like, here you go, here's the month. Just get my dog. I'm like, all right, cool. Like, so, so he's, here's three months in advance, like I know it'll happen, you know? And so anyways, we have a good friendship. But I know he's that way with everyone. Yeah. I've heard your name on other podcasts and everyone's like, Ben Proctor's such a stud and blah, blah. And that's the truth. Like he's an honest, good guy. Thanks. So if you guys are looking for just a good company to support, um, you know, he has a young family just like support a awesome company. Like look at Bpro kennels. Tell us where people can find your Yeah. Find you or all that. Yep. We're most active on Instagram, bpro kennels. Um, we do a little bit of Facebook bpro kennels. Um, email us ben@bprokennels.com. Um, both all of our socials have my cell phone. That's my personal cell phone. So call me, text me, um, if you have any questions and we'd love to get you taken care of. Yeah. Any, how, what, maybe we should talk about this lead time. What do, yeah, what is it generally, roughly we're about three or four months out. Three or four months out. Okay. Start to finish. So if you guys are thinking about this, do they usually give you a deposit of some sort? Yep. So everything to kinda lock it in, probably. Yep. Everything's just done through the website. And so because we're so customizable, everything payment's just all upfront because we ran into a couple issues in the past where somebody would pay 50% and we powder coat it, you know, canary yellow, and then they're actually, I don't have time for this. I don't have the budget anymore. Yeah. I'm like, I can't, I can't resell this to anybody else. Yeah. Like, yeah, you're the only person that wanted it this way and we built it for you. Yeah. Yeah. So anyways, we got burned a couple times. So now payment's all just upfront. Okay. Yeah. And um, makes it easy. Yeah. Makes it easy. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, if you guys are looking for an awesome, that's good to know though. So if you guys are looking, you know, obviously looking in advance, same thing about people call up and like sometimes like, Hey, can I have a dog trained today? I am like, dude, I'm like two months out right now. Yeah. Like, I can't get your dog in. So plan in advance if you're wanting to get a, a, a super nice kennel from Ben, um, and support his company and, and he'll come through and build whatever you want. And then last thing, I know you sometimes are into like. Planes like the World War. What's, what's, is that something you've always been passionate about or what's that? Yeah, I mean, just as a boy, like, you know what, boy doesn't love World War II planes and tanks and guns and Yeah. Um, but honestly, the, the naming and all that stuff kind of came from, there's some cool planes, right. The design of those planes. Okay. Back in World War ii, everything was riveted together. Yeah. Yeah. So you would see these planes and there's, you know, 10 million rivets in them. Hmm. And they all look just super crisp. They just look really cool. Mm-hmm. And the rivets add kind of the aesthetic to it. Okay. And so that's why we build them the way that we do mm-hmm. Is with all those rivets and just to, so it's kind of a spinoff a little bit. Yeah. Yep. So all the names are from old airplanes. Inspired kind of from that. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, that's cool, man. Yeah. Cool. Well, folks, uh, thanks for listening to the show today. Ben, thanks for coming on again. Yep. Appreciate it. It's always fun to talk dogs and your dog boxes and or your dog crates, kennels, whatever you wanna call'em, they're awesome. So check out Bpro kennels on Instagram. He, he also, he take some cool photos and thanks, fun to see those. And I, I enjoy falling along and seeing the dogs that we gotta work with too in action and all that stuff. So remember to train for the Hunts, train how you're gonna hunt and, uh, get out there. Hunts are, I mean, heck, we're only a matter of months away. Couple months, yeah. Yeah. From September one grouse hunt. We'll start rolling around and we'll, uh, be able to get out in the hill. So have a great day, everyone. We'll see you in the next show.