Gundog Nation
A show to bring together gundog enthusiasts, trainers, and handlers with discussion focused on all breeds and styles of gundogs.
Gundog Nation
Gundog Nation #026: Brent Cowley - Gunner Kennels, Hunting, Retrievers
In this fascinating conversation with Brent Cowley, Gunner's Event Marketing Specialist, we explore the science and passion behind what many consider the world's safest dog kennels. Brent takes us inside the company's patented double-walled rotomolded design – the only one of its kind – and describes testing that included throwing kennels off cliffs, shooting them with shotguns, and crushing tests where the kennel actually broke a 7,000-pound industrial vice.
The real power of this conversation comes through the stories. Brent shares emotional testimonials from customers whose dogs walked away unharmed from horrific accidents, including rollover crashes where the kennel prevented the truck bed from collapsing into the cab. Beyond crash protection, we explore how these kennels manage temperature extremes, keeping dogs comfortable in both scorching heat and sub-freezing conditions.
There's something special about a company whose mission centers entirely on safety. As Brent explains, "We exist for dogs to be safe." This philosophy extends beyond kennels to everything Gunner creates, from their popular food crates to their newest offerings like bowls and bumpers. Each product must earn the title of "man's best whatever-it-is" before reaching customers.
Whether you're transporting a hunting companion, competition dog, or beloved family pet, this episode offers invaluable insights into keeping them safe on the road. Plus, Brent shares his personal hunting experiences and his journey training his own golden retriever, making this a must-listen for anyone who loves dogs and the outdoors.
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Hello and welcome to Gun Dog Nation. This is Kenneth Witt, coming to you from Texas, and I want you to know that Gun Dog Nation is much more than a podcast. It's a movement to unite those who love to watch a well-trained dog do what it was bred to do. We are also here to encourage youth to get involved in the sport of gundogs, whether it's hunting, sport or competition. I want to build a community of people united to preserve our heritage of gundogs, whether it's hunting, sport or competition. I want to build a community of people united to preserve our heritage of gundog ownership and to be better gundog owners. Stay tuned to each episode to learn more about training, dog health, wellness and nutrition from expert trainers, breeders and veterinarians. Be sure to go on our website, wwwgundognationnet, and join our email email list. You'll receive newsletters from trainers and vets and breeders. That will also help you being a better gundog owner. And be sure to listen to some of our supporters mo pitney, who is a very good country musician and bluegrass musician. He has a bluegrass project with called pitney myers and he's getting ready to come out with a new album on curb records, so stay tuned. Also, the music provided on our show is from Sean Brock, originally from Harley, kentucky, just across the mountain from me. He did all the music that you hear on our introduction and our outro for the show. He played all the instruments except for Scott Vest on the banjo and Jerry Douglas on the dobro. Check them out. Thank you for listening. Hello, this is Kenneth Witt with Gun Dog Nation. Many people quickly become frustrated and confused when training the retriever. Cornerstone Gundog Academy's online courses eliminate all the guesswork by giving you a proven training system that will help you train a dog that anyone would be proud to have in their blind. Learn where to start, what to do next and what to do when problems arise. Visit cornerstonegundogacademycom to learn how you can train your retriever. I have used this method myself. I have been through it a couple times with different dogs. I refer back to it lots of times when I'm trying to get dogs freshen back up for hunt test season. I highly recommend them. I have actually been a subscribed member of cornerstone gundog academy since 2016 and I would suggest anyone use it. I highly highly recommend it. They have an app that you can get to on your phone. You can do it from your phone, your laptop. You can't get any more convenient than that. I've used it, it's proven and tried, and I know literally hundreds of people that have done the same thing that I've talked to Visit cornerstonegundogacademycom and learn how to train your own retriever.
Speaker 1:Hello and welcome to Gundog Nation. We're back with a new episode. I'm really excited. I've been chasing this guy around a little while. We got to meet in person at Pheasant Fest, even though he lives in Nashville, tennessee, where my brothers live. And this man, mr Brent Calley, is also is a. I'm not going to talk about your title, but you were the very, very big, important, number one dog crate company. Uh, and y'all don't sponsor me. I'm just saying this out loud because I own four, your gun crate, your gunner kennels. So, but, brent, introduce yourself, tell us what you do there.
Speaker 2:Yes, sir, happy to be here. Um, you said I'm with Gunnar Kennels. My title is new so I might mess it up a couple of times, but event marketing coordinator or event marketing specialist I have that title both titles listed in different places. I started in customer experience, so for the past almost two years I've been talking to people on the phone. If you call Gunner, I'm the guy that answers the phone, so I've been talking to customers. I run the showroom here in Nashville and I've always attended the events. Now I'm running all the events. So where we met at Pheasant Fest, that's what I'm going to be doing for the company for the foreseeable future.
Speaker 1:You know, brent, I knew your voice when I met you, not your face. And you know, brent, I knew your voice when I met you, not your face, and I thought that's what you did, because I've caught gunner butts, like I had some screws come out of a food crate, just simple stuff, you know, and you all sent them to me. Everything I've ever asked and it's what was it? There was something else, maybe. I lost a cord, a power cord to the fan, and you guys, just Johnny on the spot, sent it straight to me. I've never even questioned anything and I knew your voice because I remember talking, talking to somebody directly. But the other reason I got you on here, not just what I were going to talk about with Gunner, but you are also a hunter, a dog owner. You're training your own dog, which we just talked about before the show. Tell me about your dog.
Speaker 2:His name is River. He is unintentional. I didn't plan on getting him when I got him, but he's a field bred golden retriever. He's about a year and a half old. Um. I just got engaged, like seven months ago, and my at the time girlfriend, now soon to be wife, uh, got dead set on a golden retriever and just started shopping without me involved in it, and now that I work at Gunner, uh, I get to take him to work every day, so he's become more mine than hers, um, and so he is not technically I wouldn't call him a gun dog yet, but he's getting there. That's the goal, um and I. I waterfowl hunt more than I do anything else. I I wouldn't say that I'm a 60 day a year guy, but I hunt on weekends where I can, and I hunt a little bit before work, if I can hunt up until 8 am. Um, but that's who I've got you just really caught my attention.
Speaker 1:so you're telling me your fiance not only research the dog, but she got hunting lines Because there's more. We both know there's many more pet line goldens in the US than hunting lines. Actually there's very few to find good hunting lines in that breed. How did she do that?
Speaker 2:Here's what happened. She was not shopping necessarily for a gun dog. That was what I wanted, uh, that's why I was so hesitant. I told her we shouldn't. We still don't live together, won't live together until we're married. And I told her we shouldn't get a dog until we were married because of, like, he was going to have split parents until we were married. So, um and I told her, if we got a dog, I wanted him to hunt and I didn't think I'd be capable of making him hunt until we were married and I had the time, um, but she started looking and once she started looking, it was game over.
Speaker 2:Uh, she found this breeder, um, at Golden's of the Old Smokies is the name of it. It's in East Tennessee, in the mountains, um, and was just kind of looking at them, liked their dogs, and they posted a puppy that had been spoken for. It was for a military family, um, and then they had to leave the country unexpectedly, so he was just living in the breeder's house, um, so we kind of lucked into him. I mean, we did, we bought him and he's a great dog. But, um, it wasn't planned and it happened in a matter of about two days, I think. She started chatting with this lady on Facebook messenger and that Friday we were headed to East Tennessee to get a dog.
Speaker 1:Hey, a woman on a mission right.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:So what town you know I'm from Southeast Kentucky right on the Tennessee Virginia line. What town was it in east Tennessee? I'm real familiar with the area.
Speaker 2:We actually just met them in Cookville yeah.
Speaker 1:Halfway to Nashville.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they met us at Bucky's actually and just traded off. She didn't even tell us exactly the town they live in. She said they're like 40 minutes east of Knoxville. So I imagine like Johnson City-ish, yeah, Kingsport-ish, yeah, I don't know exactly, but we didn't go to the facility. They met us halfway.
Speaker 1:Okay, boy, it's a beautiful country, east Tennessee it is. I love it. Yeah, so another thing we're going to talk about, gunner, but it's also. We have two SEC boys on here. I'm a University of Kentucky graduate and you're an Auburn graduate, war Eagle. We got to go. You all went a little bit further than we did in the NCAA this tournament.
Speaker 2:And they broke my heart pretty bad. Yeah, yeah, it happens, but this is the first year I've been able to pick Auburn to win my bracket and actually mean it. Yeah, so they almost did it.
Speaker 1:I was surprised. I racket and actually mean it, yeah. So they almost did it. I was surprised. I actually thought they would win and you know, you and I had this conversation. I'm a Kentucky, you know through and through. But Bruce Pearl is a coach. He's a coach, I love him to death. He's awesome, you know, when he was at Tennessee, when he was coaching Tennessee basketball and playing Kentucky and at the time we had much better talent, much better team than Tennessee at that time, and he beat us every time. I mean every time we played Tennessee. We'd have much more talent, much better roster and anyway, I'll get off sports. I could talk for 30 minutes, I know you and I.
Speaker 1:We've learned at Pheasant Fest that we have the gift of gab Brent. Let's really get into what makes gunner kennel special, why we know that they're a little. They're a little on the expensive side and I own them and I'm a I'm frugal, but I know you get what you pay for. But what goes into making those kennels what they are?
Speaker 2:yeah. So I'll kind of give you the shorthanded version, tell you the story a little bit. So Addison Edmonds and his wife Emily Edmonds own the company started Gunner. Gunner's about 10 years old and Addison is an Ole Miss graduate. When he was in college he had his dog Gunner, a chocolate lab, and rode in the back of the truck or in you know, like airline kennels, what I'll call them there's different brands, but just the plastic kennel that you can buy at PetSmart and he said that he never felt right about it, he never felt safe about it and at the time about 15, 16 years ago I guess, is when he would have graduated that was the only thing you could buy. I mean, they're outside of a fabricated dog box. There wasn't anything for one dog that existed.
Speaker 2:So he worked in the corporate world a little bit, I think for just a few years. They got married right out of college and he just took a job, but in the process, or during that time was in the process of starting Gunner. So he campaigned and fundraised as long as he could to start the company and then started designing it. He's not an engineer, but he worked with engineers to do it and he's a big Yeti fan. He now thankfully knows the people that have started Yeti, but at the time was just a college guy that loved Yeti's products and so that's kind of where he started started. He liked how it was created and figured out what it was.
Speaker 2:It's called rotational molding or roto molded, shorthanded um, and it's double walled. So our kennel is patented and is the only double walled roto molded kennel on the market. It will always be um because of the patent that exists. So, since since Gunner has been created, there are other rotamolded kennels, for sure, and they're not all bad. But the double wall is kind of the thing we stand behind. We're also made in America. All of our parts that can be are made in America, and Addison won't make anything. If it can be made in America, he won't make it anywhere else. So he stands behind that. Believe it or not, we are the most expensive on the market, america. He won't make it anywhere else. So he stands behind that. Believe it or not, we are the most expensive on the market. But we actually don't make that much money on what we make because it's so expensive to make, and we do that for a reason.
Speaker 2:So safety was the number one aspect. It started it's five-star, crash-tested. For a while. It was the only five-star crash-tested kennel that has since been met by a couple other companies. Um, but beyond that, he has done his own extensive tests before it was brought to market. He threw it off the side of a cliff, he shot it with a shotgun, he did everything he could. He took it to a different testing facility that's not made for crash testing and crushed it with a vice. If you check that out on Instagram, it's a 7,000-pound vice alongside other kennels at the time that existed. They all just became flat. The gunner actually broke the vice, so the vice compressed until 7,000 pounds and then the vice failed. No way, I've not seen that. Yeah, it's pretty awesome. There's YouTube videos and I believe, old Instagram videos. Yeah, it's pretty awesome. There's YouTube videos and, I believe, old Instagram videos. But you should check it out, it's sweet. So the five-star crash test is just how a car seat is tested. So they speed it up really fast, slow it down, see if it shifts, make sure the door doesn't pop open with a dog dummy in it, and then after that he didn't feel that it kind of met his needs. So he continued to test it. So we've done a lot of third party stuff as well, as Center for Pet Safety CPS is what that's called. They give us that rating and then we've done stuff on our own. But we've proven over and over again that it's the safest thing on the market.
Speaker 2:Uh, since working here, I knew what gunner was two or three years prior to working here and three months into working here, river was 12 weeks old and in a small in my back seat and I got rear-ended pretty hard on the interstate. Um, I had never crossed my mind before. But being able to just get out and think, oh, he's fine, like that's why I work where I work, let me go deal with this car accident. I didn't even have to really check on him. I opened the door and he was rolling around like a puppy would at 12 weeks, so I just left the door shut and dealt with the accident. But the peace of mind it gives you is pretty crazy. And so I can keep going on this forever. But that's the short marketing.
Speaker 1:You know, brent, I see on social media a lot of I mean quite often actually people posting stuff where they've been in a wreck with a gunner in their vehicle. And it's amazing. It's like story after story and I've never seen one where there was a dog fatality.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I don't know that there is, but I just never see one.
Speaker 2:Right. So that's kind of when people call and ask you know why yours versus so-and-so, uh, anything else. You know, I give them what I just told you and then I also say but if you don't just want to listen to somebody that works here, tell you why you should buy it. We have I don't know the number. Hundreds is the number of testimonials. So every time that happens, when those people reach out to us for a long time I have been the one that gets back to them. I reach out to them, make sure they're OK, if the dog was with them, make sure the dog was OK, and then I get the story. So see what happened, how it happened. I've never spoken to somebody that wasn't not just okay and their dog was fine, but blown away with the fact that their dog like almost didn't know it had happened. Um, which is awesome. Uh, it's probably six months ago.
Speaker 2:A guy got in a rollover accident. Um, he drove a truck. His kennel was strapped. Thankfully, um, the Ken, he ended up. The rear of his truck, I think, impacted a tree. I didn't quite understand exactly what happened, but the uh, I'm forgetting the bed of the truck completely compressed and the kennel actually stopped the bed of the truck from coming into the cab and there was a dent in the back of the bed where the kennel had. You could tell the kennel had compressed and stopped the bed from coming in. Um, and he was pretty banged up. He was in the hospital for a few days and his dog was just completely fine, um, and he just couldn't stop thanking us for the fact that I think he had had his gunner for like less than a week, um, so his dog had just started riding in it.
Speaker 2:Um, it's pretty cool. It's pretty awesome to get to talk to people, um, like real life stories you know, you think about. I get to tell these people all these marketing things that I just told you. But hearing it and not having to give them jargon, just saying like, wow, your dog was fine, is cool. It's. It's kind of a blessing. Honestly, it's really cool to listen to and hear.
Speaker 1:Well, there has to be a lot of information out there, cause, like I said, just me alone I've seen videos really on a regular basis.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:People showing what their dogs survived.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we try to get them like, we try to put it out there as much as we can. Obviously we reach out to them, make sure they're fine with us posting their stuff, but we want people to see real testimony, like that's.
Speaker 1:The best marketing tactic you can have is just stories, that's right, and you know, I know a guy that found you all I work out in. You know I live in Midland Texas and a friend of mine who's much, much younger than me, lucas Seward. He is a young engineer but he's a lab guy and hunts and takes his dog, his dog, his family, everywhere he goes, and I think I hope I'm not misstating this, but anyway, I hope I'm not misstating this, but anyway, the car was involved in an accident. His mom was driving, I think, and the dog was in a vehicle like a Suburban. Luckily it was okay, but it scared him so bad that he did all this research. Of course he's an engineer, right, he's a Texas Tech grad. He went and bought a Gunner. That's probably one of the first ones maybe the first ones I'd seen out there.
Speaker 1:This has been, oh I don't know, 14, 15 or something like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It just seems like Gunner's been around more than 10 years and you said just 10 years. I thought really yeah.
Speaker 2:I think people think we're a lot older and bigger than we are. That's pretty common. The company started in 2014, technically, and he started taking pre-orders. He sold the first kennel, like the first kennel was shipped in 2015. So when we went to I guess a couple weeks prior to Pheasant Fest, nwtf happened we actually weren't there this year, but there was a picture of Addison circulating from the 2015 NWTF and he had like one banner behind him and a piece of paper and he was taking, writing down pre-orders. Wow, it is kind of cool to think that it's only 10 years old and he would have been 28. So you know, he wasn't a whole lot older than I am now and he was starting this company.
Speaker 1:So it's pretty cool. You know now that I think of it, I think in 16, I drove down to Barton Ramsey's down in Mississippi and he had those. He was like a partnership deal with you all at the time or something. He had a bunch and that's when I got exposed to him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, barton, still to this day, is one of our largest, maybe our largest partner as far as how many people he's introduced to the brand. But I believe he might have been the first addition to the partner program and has kind of always been. So yeah, barton was. He was there from the start. He knew about it long before I did.
Speaker 1:Well, it's a. Yeah, I just came from a seminar that he hosted with the Cornerstone Gundog Academy in. Alabama, down in your neck of the woods right and uh, bart and I both had white dodge diesel trucks and we both had gunner kennels in the back. That's awesome, but his truck's a little nicer than mine. Mine's a more of a base model he's got a big one he had the limited.
Speaker 1:Mine's just a lone star edition, uh, but he had a nice truck. So now, what you know every seems like every time that I get on your house website, I learn that you've got more products out, and one of them I'll preach about a little bit that I use on a daily basis is I have the dog food container the big one and the 30-pound and I travel with the 30-pound. If I'm going to dog trials, tests, or at home, I use the big one, or if I'm using different types of feed, uh, for a puppy or something. But yeah, yeah, so what all do? What all do you offer now other than kennels?
Speaker 2:yeah, so, uh, the food crate is what you're talking about. Food crate, I believe, was second to the kennel. Um, kennel was initial and just one size. They've since expanded to four sizes. I think that happened a year or two into the company. They started creating new sizes, and then the food crate, um, now we offer bumpers. So, uh, everyone on this podcast will be familiar with that. I have to explain what that is.
Speaker 2:Occasionally, um, lots of accessories for the kennel itself, so we've got different pads and beds, all weather kit which covers the windows, uh, prevents rain, sleet, snow, wind from coming in. A cold weather system that covers the door as well. Um, allows for breathability but also contains heat. Um fan kit, which you mentioned earlier you lost a cord too um, that's probably the most impressive accessory we make. It's the most expensive, for sure, but when people ask me about it, if I could just buy one, it might be that outside of just straps, um, we make straps for the kennels, obviously, and then getting other products outside of the kennel um, food crate in two sizes food scoop for the food crate, the bumper, um, and then now we have bowls. Um, so we've got some more exciting stuff coming. Nothing I can announce, but got a lot of cool things happening for sure.
Speaker 1:Well, one thing I learned this week and I was at that same weekend, you know, with keith parvin was telling me about the anti chew stuff you got because I was like I didn't know they made. Keith Parvin was telling me about the anti-chew stuff you got. Cause.
Speaker 1:I was like I didn't know they made that and I've got the cover, the winter cover and everything. I don't have the door cover and I. So I went back and looked on your website and I didn't even know y'all made as much as I look at your stuff, but it's actually described it to me.
Speaker 2:I just I glanced at it, it online but it's just a plate that goes into, yeah, so, uh, it's it's jet cut stainless steel. And then our older ones are just stainless. We've since started powder coating them, um, but it's made to fit. There's two panels on the door, so if you've seen, the door kind of has a honeycomb pattern, um one that covers each of those and then each window as well, um, we send it with self-tapping screws so you actually do screw into the polymer of the kennel, and then the door itself has holes that, uh, you can set the screws in. You don't have to drill into the door. But that's the most excessive accessory we make, but it's awesome for the people that need it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I never had a dog, as long as I even had Malinois, which will chew up, you know, a steel anvil. They're the ones that we have to worry about, for sure, and here, of all dogs, I had a female lab that started this weekend, started chewing and after Keith had just told me that, but can't, a question. So can you use the anti-chew plates in the windows with the fan?
Speaker 2:you can. So from the outside, looking in, you don't see that the chew kit is there. Okay, um, it's. It's looks exactly like the window has that same honeycomb pattern on it. So it's just. It covers the most vulnerable aspects of the kennel is what I tell people on the phone when they ask me. So it covers most of the door, but not the entirety of it, and then the side windows. You basically are adding a honeycomb pattern that isn't there yet, but it's made that way so that it can accommodate the fan.
Speaker 1:Okay, good to know. So you do have more products coming out. We do, yeah. That it's made that way, so that it can accommodate the fan.
Speaker 2:Okay, good to know. So. So you do have more products coming out?
Speaker 1:We do, yeah, that's some exciting stuff, for sure.
Speaker 2:Nice, yeah. So the thing that Addison harps on and I'll let you ask a question no, no, no, he won't come out with a product that he can't put the title man's best blank on, man's best blank on. So our slogan at gunner whichever it's on the top of the kennel, but man's best kennel, um is kind of the thing now it's man's best everything. So, um, we like the bumper is man's best bumper. Um, like the bowl is man's best bowl. He won't release a product that he doesn't feel like is the best version of whatever it's going to be. So anything we can. That's one reason that Gunner hasn't come out with that many products in the past is because it's not that easy to create that product.
Speaker 2:So anything we do come out with is going to be expected on our end to be the best of whatever it is.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, I love the fact that you guys are in Nashville, tennessee. I love the fact that when I need something or I'm missing something or whatever that might be, I call and I talk directly to an employee at Gunner, and I don't know where else you could do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's rare these days, that's. I admired that a lot when I took this job. Super cool to me. You know there's three of us. There still will be three of us.
Speaker 2:Me and one other guy have moved into marketing rather than customer experience. But if you call Gunner or if you email Gunner or if you chat on Gunner, you're not chatting with a bot, you're going to chat with. It takes you to us. So when it says Brentnt c is typing, I'm actually typing on my computer yeah, um, it's pretty cool and it tells you. You know like. We have all these benchmarks. We can read on our customer experience software like um, what other companies nationwide are going to meet? Um, you know they're responding our. Their average response time is within 25 hours or whatever. I don't know what our average says. It probably says two to three hours. But if we're on our computer you're probably going to get an emailed response within 20 or 30 minutes most of the time. And then if you call Gunner and we don't answer, we call back every missed call that we receive. So you're not just sending one out into the abyss, you're actually talking to people. When you're getting just sending one out into the abyss, you're actually talking to people.
Speaker 1:When you're getting ready to go on your next hunting trip, make sure you pack the most efficient and reliable ammunition on the market. Migra ammunition brings you the most diverse loads on the market. Migra's patented stacked load technology is the epitome of efficiency Two shot sizes stacked together to create the most diverse and efficient line of shot shells in the industry. It doesn't matter what flyway, what state or what the weather. The standard remains the same At Migra reliable loads that perform in any condition. Every single time. We're proud to have Migra Ammunition as a sponsor for Gun Dog Nation. Now, brent, one thing you kind of made me aware of, and we met at Fez and Fez we're talking about. But so you guys correct me if I'm wrong or explain this to me. You're not in retail anymore, but you were once. Is that correct?
Speaker 2:Right. So when we haven't been in retail since I started in 2018 is when they pulled out. So when Addison started the company, we sold in Bass Pro, cabela's Hollywood Feed, I think, a couple of small like Mom and Pop. We sold in Max, prairie, wings and Stuttgart. I guess by 2018, they realized that with our product and how small of a company we were, the quality control we couldn't oversee it all because it was going from like manufacturing to the facility that we weren't selling through.
Speaker 2:So like products would arrive to Bass Pro and it was hard to track. You know you don't have an order number, so then you're tracking through Bass Pro system and quality control is kind of the number one thing with us. As you're saying, like you can call and talk to us um, our, for a long time, all of our products had a lifetime warranty. Now the accessories and the smaller stuff don't have a written lifetime warranty, but if anything goes wrong, that was our fault. We just replace it. So it's hard to do that and know where that order came from. If it was sold through Bass Pro, um or Cabela, you know wherever you bought it. Anything that's bought directly from us, we're going to take care of that person. Now, we don't. Lifetime warranty doesn't apply to secondhand or thirdhand or fourthhand or fifthhand whatever kennels that you buy on Marketplace but we still replace parts. We still.
Speaker 2:If you need a screw, you can call me and I'll send you a screw. We're the only place you can get it. So that's kind of why we do that. It's just easier to maintain your quality and if something is wrong, we know that it came directly from us. We know it didn't happen Swapping hands three times in order to get to the retail store it was sold at. If we, everything you order comes from the warehouse which that wall opens up into. I'm in the office now. Um, yeah, tell people where you're at. Yeah, I'm in the meeting room in nashville, um, so our break room is right there. Our large meeting space is right there. My desk is a couple rooms back back, um, but yeah, I'm in where we have our meetings every day. So, um, headquartered in Nashville.
Speaker 1:You know I need to come out and see you. I've got a place in Nashville and my brothers are there, Mom has a place there and stuff and I'm in. When I fly home to Kentucky to see my kids and everything, I fly into Nashville. Yeah, Come see us.
Speaker 2:We've got a showroom too, so too, so it's on the other end of the building. We're actually in the process of moving everything. 10 minutes down the road we're moving facilities, but we're still going to be in Nashville.
Speaker 1:Well, here's something that has always fascinated me about Gunner you guys have come out with and I'm guilty, you all come out with a custom color and I don't have a black one because I live in texas and I don't think black would work real well. But when y'all come out that it was like I don't know how to describe it, but they went like hotcakes, right, you sold out and record timing yeah, it blows my mind every time we do it.
Speaker 2:Um, that kind of started. So we do a flyway series every year. We're on our fifth now. We hit all four flyways and we restarted. So we do a flyway based on a specific region in all four of the waterfowl flyways and then kind of tell a story throughout the release. So as we're releasing it, we start teasing it a couple months in advance and pulling stories from historic things about the area, and then we come out with a color based on the area. I think that's awesome. Um, I wasn't a part of coming up with that idea, I just think it's cool. Um, and then the black one you're talking about.
Speaker 2:Originally, we came out with what was called the midnight edition. Um, I don't know exactly how many, there were probably five or six hundred and I think they sold them in a day or two. It was the craziest day Gunner had ever had. So since then, you know, we've kind of learned how to do it. We came out with a kennel with 24 7 hunt. If you're familiar with them, their logo is like a kind of a cartoon dead duck. We made 247 of them. We released them at 8 pm, which we have learned to not do anymore, and I was working until 12 am because we sold them all that night. We sold them in like two and a half hours, and so it's nuts. The fan base that Gunners built is pretty mind-blowing. It's cool.
Speaker 1:It's insane the only one I've tried real hard to resist the, the marketing, when you all do that stuff that I ended up buying the Saskatchewan white one because I have a white truck and it's Texas and white's cooler, you know so.
Speaker 2:Right, I'll tell you a little bit about the black and heat. Um, so that's that's a question I get almost every day. You know, uh, everybody, most of our demographics in the South we were in Nashville, so everybody that knows about us is down here. They call and say, like I really want the black, but I know it's going to be too hot. Well, because it's double walled it's really not any hotter on the inside. It'd be like having a black Yeti cooler.
Speaker 2:So outside of it definitely heats up faster, that's no secret. Our material has what's called a heat sealing faster, that's no secret. Our material has what's called a heat ceiling. So if you were to just set it out in 500 degree heat, that material is only capable of reaching x temperature, it's like 180 or 200 degrees. Once it gets there, it's just not going to heat up, it's just the composition of the material. So black is going to get there faster.
Speaker 2:But we put them all out in the parking lot, little redneck testing in July, and we're in Nashville, so you know it gets hot here just on black asphalt, the black next to the tan, next to the green, next to everything we've ever made, the tan. After about five hours the external temperature was 135. External temperature of the black was 151. 35. External temperature of the black was 151. If you open the doors, inside of a black was 104.1 and inside of the tan was 103.7. So it was less than the degree internally.
Speaker 2:Um, and that's just totally accredited to the double wall. The outside wall is hotter but the inside just isn't affected. Now, obviously, that's a scenario your dog's never going to be in. You're not going to have a dog on asphalt in July and a kennel for five hours. But that was an extreme thing. But we just wanted to see what it would do. We marketed it and we had a lab test it before we came out with it. There's a blog written up about all the scientific numbers, but we were just like let's see what it does, because we've never tried it.
Speaker 1:And it was less than a degree. Well, you know, I think I don't know if it's you guys posted as a company or if it's other people who's posted it, but I've seen a lot of stuff on social media with the gunner kennels, with the therm, you know these handheld thermometers one on the outside, then they show the inside right and, and I think that also with the fan running too. Explain that a little bit, what. What's your outcomes? That you've seen when you all do that, is that a gun or testing that I'm seeing videos of?
Speaker 2:it's, it's both. So we have uh like pack leaders, which is like uh, people that are associated with us on social media. We've had them do it, we've also done it here. So one of the videos you're talking about could be the one we did. We just did it with a like laser thermometer in the parking lot. Yeah, I've done.
Speaker 2:I drove a four runner, so my kennel is inside my vehicle technically. So I've done it. Last summer when I opened it up, everything in my car was like 146 degrees, so I just turned my fan on, turned the car on, let the AC run. The car itself was still like 117, 120. After like 10 minutes the inside of the kennel was like 102.
Speaker 2:So with the fan on, pumping AC in, it just kind of like sucks in the cold air and keeps it because it's double walled. And then the reverse happens in cold weather. So if you put a dog in a kennel and it's 20 degrees outside, that dog's body temperature is going to immediately heat up the inside of that kennel and it doesn't escape because of those two walls. So, like with our cold weather system, we actually don't recommend using it unless it's below freezing, and the reason is because it can get so hot. It's pretty impressive. I didn't believe that until I saw it. You know I touch the kennels every day. I didn't believe that until I saw it. I touch the kennels every day. I drive a 4Runner and I don't touch any of the cold-weather equipment.
Speaker 1:You're right, I've had a dog up north in hunting season. It was snowing, probably high 20s, low 30s, something like that. But yeah, I opened up the crate to get my dog out. Course it was a lab and they're pretty warm natured. Uh, I cannot believe how warm it was in there. And I had I didn't have the door kit on, I had the side kit on and I almost wondered if it was too much. Right, yeah.
Speaker 2:People call us and kind of question that a lot. They think like my dog's gotta be cold. Um, and I mean mean, obviously we make it so that dogs do get cold. It's not to say they don't, but we tested it down. Uh, this is just coming from a conversation from one of my engineers, so don't quote me on the numbers, but um, he went on a hunt that was down to negative 10, negative 15, with the cold weather door. It's literally just a door cover and what you're talking about, the all weather kit, covers all the windows and he said like his dog was warmed down into the negative 15s and that was the coldest temperature he could get into.
Speaker 2:So when it gets colder than that and people call me, I say like there probably becomes a point where you probably shouldn't have your dog in a kennel outside, um, and then you get into like putting hay in it and trying to insulate it as much as you can. But I've personally never seen a scenario with a gunner where the dog couldn't have been warm. Um, and then vice versa, on cool days I like I would be hard pressed to put my dog in something else in the back of a truck, um, you know a metal dog box. When it's 100 degrees outside it becomes an oven, like it just could be 210 degrees inside, whereas ours oftentimes is cooler than the exterior. So it's not going to be colder than the ambient air temperature, because that air is in the kennel as well, you know. But if it's 87 degrees outside, that kennel might be 90 instead of 130. Like anything else, you could put your dog in yeah, that's good to know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've. I've definitely been to the extremes of the weather with my gunner and uh pleased on both ends of the spectrum.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the temperature thing is kind of the one we harp on. We talk about dog safety. I think people immediately think of crash protection, but it it was factored into every aspect. So temperature testing, both cold and warm, obviously like when dogs get super cold they're just as much in danger as they are when they're super hot and they're just as much in danger as they are in a car accident. So it's factored into every aspect, for sure you know brand on your all's design team?
Speaker 1:when you all design this stuff, you obviously have engineers. Do you also consult with vets and animal science people? I'm not asking for your trade secrets, but I'm sure you guys have a team of experts.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so on Gunner's staff, we have changes. It changes definitely from when the company started to now, but we have two full-time engineers. One is more on the analytics side and one is more on the product development, so he comes up with the product and builds it. It looks like I'm frozen on my end.
Speaker 1:I hope you can hear me. It did look frozen, but your voice is still fine.
Speaker 2:Perfect. So those are the two engineers. We also have an industrial designer on the team. He's kind of helps with product development, makes everything look pretty he's an artist as much as he is an engineer and then a QC manager in that same room. He's not an engineer, but he works with the engineers to make sure everything is quality controlled.
Speaker 2:As far as you're asking about animal science and vets and everything, we have a partner program. They're not technically staffed by Gunner, but that is breeders, trainers and vets, so they market our product to their customers as well as use it themselves. So we're constantly talking to vets. We're constantly talking to the people that need it, you know breeders and trainers. And as Addison developed the company, all of that happened before the company even existed. So we have a company-wide or, I guess, nationwide blog on our website and there's probably two, three, four hundred written-up blog posts on there and they talk about any research we've ever done. So anything done with vets, anything done with animal professionals, is written up on our website so you can find it. I don't have an exact example for you, but it's all been done and we have trackable scientific veterinary data to go along with the 10 years of the company.
Speaker 1:You know, brent, when I think of the Gunner Kennel and I come from old school like I had Beagles and metal dog boxes, you know those Owens dog boxes and stuff Diamond Deluxe, we don't think of Gunner and stuff diamond deluxe, um, we don't think of gunner. You know my first impression I don't think a gunner is a is a, it is a in the house crate I think of as a transportation, you know, an automobile crate to transport dogs.
Speaker 2:but I'm seeing more and more that gunners are used in the household yeah, so it was designed for travel initially, or I guess always has been. That's the first and foremost why it's designed safety and travel. That's the story behind it. But we've realized we have a big market in like the military and police canine force and that's that. Yes, factors into travel but more often factors into containing a dog, and so that applies to inside as much as it does outside.
Speaker 2:We've kind of found that one of the things I tell people all the time. If they're asking me about dogs with anxiety or dogs that escape you know wire crates, they tear them up and shred them up. Um, ours is not entirely chew proof. It's about as chew resistant as it could possibly be be, um, but a lot of dogs find our kennel more comfortable and more homey than other ones. That's kind of just luck of the draw because of the way it's designed.
Speaker 2:But dogs are den animals and that's the nature of them, that's their history, so they naturally like that kind of thing and our kennel just kind of provides a den. My dog sleeps in one every night. Um, and my dog's funny. He's not like he's not going to go put himself in a kennel with the door open like some dogs will, but he sleeps in his kennel so much better than he sleeps on the floor, um, and I know that's just because of that he's a den animal and he needs that, um, so, yeah, so yeah, I mean I recommend them to people inside depending on their circumstance.
Speaker 2:There's definitely high drive, high anxiety dogs that are going to attempt to get out of anything you put them in. That's not what our kennel is made for. So if I know you've got a Malinois that is going to attempt to chew through the side of a flat wall wall, I tell people not to go with our stuff because that's not what it's made for necessarily. But yeah, in the house it's great for 99% of cases that's not what it was designed for. But my dog initially was sleeping in a wire crate at night because that's what we had and that's what we bought. Now, if you put them side by side and you say, kendall, he's not going in that wire crate, he's going to the gunner. And I don't say that because I work here, I say that because that's how it works.
Speaker 1:A lot of dogs prefer it for sure, I always recommend to people to get an enclosed crate as opposed to a wire crate in the house.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a dog is almost always going to like it in the house. Yeah, yeah, a dog is almost always going to like it. Yeah, um, I, actually the one in my house has our all weather kit on it so that I can close his windows and just give him as dark of a little den as I can. I think he likes it better.
Speaker 1:You know, the first gunner I bought and it's when I was running my own walls. You know, I still do protection dogs and now I have Dobermans. But I got that large and that's a hoss man, I mean, it's got wheels on it, you know, and it's a good thing because it's a beast. I tried to get that in a truck and I thought I was going to be at a chiropractor's office, but it's a solid tank, you know For sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah a lot of people misinterpret the sizes. For sure we have a lot of lab guys just get on and buy a large without asking us anything. Um, because we recommend it for dogs 76 to 110 pounds. That's what it says online. That main reason there is because a 76 pound german shepherd is too big for intermediate, but a 76 pound lab a lot of times is not too big for an intermediate. Um, the jump there is huge. The intermediate was built around gunner, who was a 65 pound chocolate lab um, and there's about 15 pounds of variance on both sides. So down to 45 or 50 and up to 75 or 80 um, but yeah, the largest it's a lot to move around.
Speaker 1:The only dog that I've got that really needs that. I've got my male doberman just because he's tall, but you know he's not standing all the time anyway. But right, the labs, there's plenty of room, the intermediates for them oh yeah, I mean, that's what I tell people.
Speaker 2:that's probably, you know, 80 of the people I talk to on the phone have a black lab or yellow yellow lab or whatever. I tell them it was built around a 65-pound lab and that's what it's designed for. The idea of a snug fit doesn't always sit well with people, but that's what it's designed for For safety right.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, we like three points of contact. And what that means is if a dog walks in and turns around, their butt is on that back wall, they lay down one of the sides, left or right, and their head rests on the door when it's closed. So when the door's open, their paws and their head might even hang out over the door. But you kind of want them to touch all three walls. If they don't, if you were in an accident, they're just going to have too much room to move around in. And my dog is 55 pounds and in an intermediate he can get small enough to where he's only touching those two walls. He rides in an intermediate every day, but a large is just, it swallows him. So you have to explain to everybody. Some people want their dog to have all this room, and inside is a different story, but when traveling we want it to be snug, and the large is not snug for most dogs.
Speaker 1:No, no, I had a friend of mine looking to buy a gun at this convention this weekend. The seminar I was at and that's what we were trying to explain to him is, you know, if you're going to travel with it? It needs to be somewhat snug. And if it's going to be in the house all the time, then you know, get the biggest one, whatever Right.
Speaker 2:If that's what you want?
Speaker 1:For sure you, not only Brent. How did you land at Gunner? You got out of college, you hunt. You're from Alabama, just down the road, birmingham. It isn't far from Nashville. What got you there?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I've been familiar with the brand probably since my sophomore year of college roughly. I make jokes with everybody here that auburn is the most concentrated gunner population in the world. I was actually there this past weekend, um, and I was there for a day and a half and I stayed in Waverly, alabama, which is 20 minutes away, and in that day and a half I saw nine gunners in the back of trucks. So you can't go to school these days in an SEC town and not see gunners everywhere. I had buddies with them. I didn't have a dog so I knew what it was, but I wasn't real. That's all I knew.
Speaker 2:I worked at a quail hunting farm in between my sophomore and junior year. We actually didn't use them. We were sponsored by a different company at the time, but everyone that came and brought their dog had one. And that's when I got interested in them and I got to put my hands on them and noticed like, oh, this is different than everything else I've ever used and touched. The reason I got the job, honestly, was LinkedIn. I just found it. That's how I found the job to interview for it.
Speaker 2:We have a pretty lengthy interview process because we're a smaller team than people probably realize, there's about 30 people full time at Gunner and 10 of that is warehouse staff, so there's only 20 ish people in the office. We have a couple of remote employees but almost everybody's in the office. So, um, they care a lot about culture, fit and just every interview I had, every person I met, I seemed like somebody I'd be friends with, not just somebody I'd want to work with. And then the formal interview we came in panel interview with six people.
Speaker 2:My first interview was with Addison and Patrick, who is our VP of finance but is also Addison's college roommate and sitting down with who I know is the owner of this company and I know all like. I've known Addison's story for four years now, and the VP of finance. I was so nervous and they just started asking me questions about where I hunt and why I thought Gunner was cool and my favorite shotgun brands. They were getting to know me as a person and the more and more people I met, the more I admired the people that worked here. So I work for an awesome company and I know Gunner's super cool and all my buddies think I work for the coolest brand in the world. But I also work with people I care about and that's 90% of a job. I worked some tough ranch jobs in college.
Speaker 1:We're going to talk about that. I'm going to talk about your Brady Texas stint. You know that's real close to my ranch.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:It's right down the road and you worked at a really famous ranch in Brady. Tell us about that.
Speaker 2:I worked at Champion Ranch in Texas, which is an exotic ranch right in the center of the state. If you're not familiar with the geography, Brady is right in the center of Texas. We had 8,000 acres and a high fence the center of the center of Texas and our. We had 8,000 acres and a high fence Um, the center of the state of Texas geographically, was inside of our fence. So if you're not familiar with that area, it's beautiful but it is not Alabama. Um, I'm from. I see pine trees everywhere I look and and tech, where I was, there wasn't a tree taller than eight feet, maybe, yeah, A few live oaks might get up there, but not much, not many of them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was different but I love the state of Texas. I probably wouldn't be a ranch hand on a ranch like that again with a college degree, but it was a great experience I made some of my. Actually, the first guy I knew well that had a gunner was a ranch hand with me and went to Auburn with me at Champion. He had a black lab and when I got back I noticed it and was asking him about it. The bottom line door had just come out and he had a camo door and I remember standing around his truck with a bunch of guys and talking about this kennel. And now I work here.
Speaker 1:So that's pretty cool. You've come full circle. Yeah, that's cool. Hello, this is Kenneth Witt, and Gun Dog Nation is proud to have one of their sponsors as Retriever Training Supply. Based in Alabama, retriever Training Supply offers fast shipping on quality gear. Your dog will love it. Visit RetrieverTrainingSupplycom to purchase gear to help you train your retriever. Listen, they have some of the best leashes I've ever found. It's stuff's made in America. Their leashes are, and they source them locally. They have anything you want Fast, friendly service, fast shipping, just good people. Retriever Training Supply yeah, so yeah, brent, I'm only. My ranch is Fort McAvitt is actually my address, which is just outside of Menard, so yeah.
Speaker 1:I go through Brady gosh maybe once a week.
Speaker 2:That's so funny. It happens occasionally, but you don't meet many people driving through Brady Texas.
Speaker 1:No, and you know, my ranch is on Highway 190, which runs right through Brady there, which is the one. Now, you know I have a high fence exotic ranch, but a champion is a little fancier than mine. You know, there's this five star, mine's two star Maybe it is a different level and I don't have like chefs there or good food. Yeah, a couple of them, yeah, so you ate good.
Speaker 2:I good when I eat good. Um, when I ate good, if there were customers there, I was eating good. Otherwise, I was microwaving food in the guide shack is what they called it.
Speaker 1:Did you guide hunch? What did you do out there?
Speaker 2:I did not. I was technically an intern. I was there. Auburn has a pretty good relationship with Champion, so I got an interview there, got the internship. I went out early because I had worked at the quail place and I was taking a semester off. So quail season in Georgia ends in March. Most interns are going out at the end of May.
Speaker 2:But I had nothing to do. I was off school so I went out there I think the first week of April and I stayed until the middle or end of August. I just did whatever I needed to do. So I learned how to skin big game for the first time. I'd skin a couple whitetail, but not like that, not for them to be full body mounted. So I learned how to do that. I did a little bit of food service, just like customer service stuff if they needed it. I did a lot of maintenance work, so just checking the fence. I check the fence three times a week. So I don't know if you know, I'm sure, but 8,000 acres of fence is not something that you can just put up there.
Speaker 1:Can't imagine that much fence. There's a really good taxidermist right there in Brady. Did you go out there any?
Speaker 2:I mean, I was in Brady. Yeah, there's a taxidermist downtown, yeah.
Speaker 1:Man, have you ever gone to his? I can't think of the name there, but that's the one. It's a nice shop. He's got everything in the world in there.
Speaker 2:We worked with. They worked with a huge taxidermist what they call their showroomroom. I think is what they call it. It is a, it's the lodge, it's where you stay. It is a crazy display of taxidermy. There's probably 500 or 600 full body mounted african animals.
Speaker 1:It's insane brent, if you. If I'm not mistaken, he's still there. But the guy that does their taxidermy I send a lot of people to from the ranch just because it's close to me, I don't have a preference. He's just south of San Angelo, but Wood His last name is Wood Chris.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that sounds super familiar. He has a big company.
Speaker 1:Unless he's got something in other places. He's got a shop just south of San Angelo, between that and Cristobal, which I drive by on a regular basis because that's how I go back to Midland. But he does excellent work. I've got probably four or five of his animals in my ranch that he's done a taxidermy on.
Speaker 2:Right, that's cool. It's a funny mutual connection, man, I wouldn't have guessed you would know where I. Sometimes you say Champion ranch, and people don't have a clue, and then sometimes you say it and they're blown away. So it's a beautiful place.
Speaker 1:Matter of fact, I'll be driving by. I drove by there yesterday, so funny and. I'll be driving by there again, uh, tomorrow. Yeah, that's awesome. Um, now, let's, let's go into your background a little bit yeah, you, you. You got to gunner by linkedin. You went to auburn.
Speaker 2:I think you have a forestry background yeah, so my degree is wildlife enterprise management that's what it's called. That is in the school of forestry and wildlife. Um, took some forestry courses for sure. Um, I didn't really know what I wanted to do, so I'll walk you through, like, how I got to Auburn. Um, I love Auburn to death. I hope I end up there. Honestly, it's my one of my favorite places in the world. Um, so I grew up in an Alabama family, not an Auburn family.
Speaker 1:Oh Lord, Are you like did they? Did they disown you Like, shun you? Like the Amish?
Speaker 2:do so if you know anything about the state of Alabama. 90% of Alabama fans didn't go to Alabama. They just liked the team.
Speaker 1:Same as Kentucky yes.
Speaker 2:So my whole family roots for Alabama, but few and far between of them went to Alabama. I think I have two relatives that actually went there. My dad went to UAB in Birmingham, alabama. I think I have two relatives that actually went there. My dad went to UAB in Birmingham but anyway, he actually found this degree and showed it to me and it was only offered at Auburn or Kansas State. And I always told him and said to everybody, if they asked me what I wanted to do, that I wanted to work in the business side of the outdoor industry and at 17, I had no idea what that meant. I just liked to be outside and I liked I fished a lot more than I hunted in high school. But um, I just cared about the products and I thought they were cool and I wanted to figure out how to work for man, you live in a great state to fish in.
Speaker 2:Oh, large mouth and crappie alabama and tennessee are both yeah, um. But so, uh, he showed me that degree. I auburn wasn't on my radar. I actually thought I was going to go to mississippi state um for similar things. They're kind of a cow college like auburn is um. So I went and toured auburn. I'd never really been there. I'd driven through it a bunch living in birmingham, but never seen it for what it really was, loved it. My dad loved it, which is funny because he always hated Auburn in his head. And then that degree is the it's lodge management, it's land and lodge management. So it sounds science-y but really what it is is like the hospitality side of the hunting and fishing industry. Okay, so you learned how to like. I have a burn certificate in the state of alabama. Through auburn I learned how to like manage control burns yeah, yeah, um, I learned how to like.
Speaker 2:We took culinary classes and, uh, hospitality and hotel, uh, side of auburn. If you've ever been to auburn, I've never been on that campus, I'd love to see it. Yeah, they have a huge hotel program. The university actually just built a five-star hotel next to the campus. That's kind of run by not entirely by students, but the hotel has a huge restaurant in it. That restaurant is staffed by students. So it's cool.
Speaker 2:Took a lot of that hospitality side. It's kind of a third business, a third hospitality and a third wildlife science. That'd be pretty interesting. It's an awesome degree. I wish it was offered more places. But anyway, when I graduated I thought I was going to work as a guide or for an outfitter of some sort. I had done that in college and I had the jobs lined up if I wanted them, um, but I'd really didn't want to move four times a year and live like a nomad. So, um, I was looking for something permanent. Gunner is the definition of the business side of the outdoor industry. So I just got blessed enough to take that job and been here since. So my story is I grew up in alabama, um, just, I say birmingham. I'm from springville, which is not birmingham, um 30 minutes outside of birmingham, but you wouldn't know you were anywhere near a city. Is that north? Which side of birmingham is it? It's northeast, so it's in in between Birmingham and Gadsden, alabama.
Speaker 1:So when I was in Jasper was I just due north. You were kind of west of me.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, if you drew a line you probably almost hit Jasper and Springville at the same time.
Speaker 1:Now did you hunt a lot when you were growing up?
Speaker 2:My dad is not a hunter. I, my dad is not a hunter. Um, I got taken on a youth duck hunt in fourth grade. Um, one of his buddies just knew that he had a son that was nine or 10 years old and invited me and I was just ate up with it. Three days before that hunt my dad took me to the gun show in Birmingham, bought a single shot, 20 gauge, new England partner, partner. I still have it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the 22 inch they should sell them at western auto hardware store it was 75 dollars.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, uh, I got one shot at every duck that flew by that hunt and I shot. I killed a gadwall. Uh, it's on my wall now. It's my first duck. So I was eight up with duck hunting. Then my dad didn't hunt so I went on that youth hunt every year until I wasn't a youth anymore. I had some buddies that would duck hunted so I did that just like stomping around. Where I grew up had some friends that deer hunted so I would go occasionally. I got it became something I did without my friends, on my own in college. Um, so I learned how to hunt alone in college. Really, um, I fished. I bass fished competitively in high school and almost in college my mom talked me out of fishing for Auburn. I almost did it but, um, that was more my intro to the outdoors than hunting. I loved hunting probably more than fishing, but I had the access to bass fishing. Central Alabama is a phenomenal place to bass fish.
Speaker 1:My cousin's a big fisherman. I'm not a really good fisherman, I don't do it much. I don't like doing things I'm not good at. But yeah, Now when I was going to UK there was a boy there from alabama in our dorm and he would tell me about hunting deer, running deer with dogs yeah did they do that? Were that were? Is that still allowed, or do you all do that? I believe?
Speaker 2:it's outlawed in alabama now um mississippi still. I think it's still legal in Mississippi. I have never done it. I know people that have and I've heard a bunch of stories. It's kind of a crazy concept to me, but it's exactly what it sounds like. You kind of put a firing line on one side of the woods and run dogs, push dogs through whatever 10 acre sect or something it's kind of like the English do.
Speaker 1:those pheasant shoots, those driven shoots, right Whatever runs at you.
Speaker 2:Yeah that's great.
Speaker 1:He was telling me about that and I just thought that's so crazy. I've obviously never got to do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was a thing, though I don't know how long it's been outlawed, but I've always kind of known about that. So I guess in my area that was a thing.
Speaker 1:If so, I guess in my area that was a thing, if I'm not mistaken, and obviously I don't know Alabama law like you, but it wasn't the whole state seemed like. Maybe it was just certain zones.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and there actually still may be some zones. I went on a dove hunt close to Auburn two years ago and was talking to an older dude that I didn't know and he talked about how there was still a club down the road that ran dogs and I and when I hear run dogs I think birds so I just thought it was planted quail in southeast alabama, and then he mentioned the deer they were shooting. I'm I don't know if it was legal or not, but it still happens. Yeah, and I didn't. That was like kind of mind blowing to me. I was like what are you talking about Running?
Speaker 1:dogs? Yeah, I know, of course you know I'm a lot older than you and this I was in UK. I was in college late eighties to the early nineties and it was I know it was legal then.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was. It, totally would have been. Yeah, I think it's become illegal, like more recently than you would guess.
Speaker 1:I don't know all the laws behind it. Now you said either a couple times we've talked, you've mentioned you worked on a quail ranch, a hunting ranch. Where was that at?
Speaker 2:It was in East Georgia. It's called Fishing Creek Farms. It's an awesome place. I honestly then thought it would be my career, but it's like an Orvis endorsed lodge in Georgia. Yeah, I think they have. They roughly own 2000 acres and it's just like rolling hills of planted broom sedge. There are now some holdover birds there, so that you do shoot wild birds occasionally, which in Georgia is pretty rare, but most of it is put and take stuff. It's hard to run a quail operation and let people hunt twice a day, yeah, and not have to plant birds.
Speaker 1:But it's there. Did you get to guide any?
Speaker 2:a little bit. Yeah. Uh, I started as an intern and then I came back three seasons. Um, I would kind of go early december and stay until christmas. Um, those three seasons, just when I got out of school, I would go until I had to come home did they let you work the dogs any?
Speaker 2:yeah, that's kind of where I got intro to it. Um, what were they running? Uh, so the I worked for the breeder as well. Sun sage sporting dogs is the name of the breeder. Cocker spaniels were the flush dogs, mostly gsps, uh, shore hares, and they had a few English pointers, but primarily German shore hares and cockers.
Speaker 1:You know that's interesting and, brent, you might educate me on this too. See, to me I pictured the Deep South more of English pointers than GSPs.
Speaker 2:I think it is so. Those breeders are actually from Oregon. When they got married they met doing that. They met running dogs separately, which is funny, and she was an English pointer person and he was a short hair person and throughout the course of time they've kind of just catered more towards one or the other.
Speaker 1:but they do? Is that like an Alabama person marrying an Auburn person? It must be, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Is that like an Alabama person marrying an Auburn person. It must be. Yeah, I don't have a strong lean towards one or the other. They only had phenomenal dogs, so I never saw a bad one, honestly, but they were both great. They probably ran. We had 40 dogs roughly on site and I I mean it's because they ran so frequently you just couldn't run them all all the time. But, um, I think they had three or four english pointers to the 20 gsps and they probably had 15 or 20 cockers. Um, but they, they were all great. I don't have a lean towards one of the other. I'm sure there are opinions there.
Speaker 1:Now I'm curious, brent, because I'm an amateur too. You're training your own dog. What do you use? Do you just pick up stuff that you've learned? Guiding? What do you do to train?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, thankfully, I work for a great place and I know a lot of good people, so I will have some people to look up to when I'm doing it. Um, but helps my yeah, prior to working here, my only knowledge of gundogs was fishing creek, so that I know a lot of new slash know a lot of obedience, um, so that was immediately what I was doing. I worked for some dog trainers and breeders for three years, so, um, as far as what I use, most of my dog's training currently has just been obedience. He's one and a half Um. He learned how to place immediately.
Speaker 2:He um, until he was eight months months old only got walked on a slip lead pretty much um, and he's still a devil when it comes to that kind of stuff sometimes. But, um, a lot of what he's doing right now is watching um and he is. He cares a lot more about dogs than he does others. He loves other dogs. So what I started at the beginning of last hunting season and then I started hunting so I stopped training that much. Where I will pick back up um is putting him on a place board and letting other dogs run. Um, yes, he is very much like. I don't know right now that he'd be capable of running next to another dog. He wants to be with that dog more than he wants to get what he's supposed to get. So what I'm using now, that's my biggest tactic at the moment. I thankfully work in an office with 10 dogs so I get to work on heel and place and sit and stay and everything all the time.
Speaker 1:There's no substitute for that bond that you've got. I mean, you're with all day long, five days, seven days a week.
Speaker 2:That's a blessing. He sits on a place board at my desk or, like a MoMAR, stand at my desk all the time if he's not in the kennel or laying at my feet.
Speaker 1:Now you and the fiance, are you ready to in the kennel or laying at my feet? So now, you and the fiancee, ready to add another dog yet, or one's enough?
Speaker 2:we will have another one at some point. I don't want to get another one until I can pick out the one I want. Um, I would die for my dog. I love him to death, but he's probably not the dog as far as like breeding and everything that I would have picked out. But I love him. It'll be a while, but we'll have another dog for sure. There's no way we'll just have one.
Speaker 1:It's hard. I've got a problem.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I get it. I mean I was dead set on English Cockers coming off of the jobs that I had. They were awesome and they're fantastic house dogs. I was around unbelievably well-bred and trained gun dogs, english Cockers, so seeing them, it was hard for me to not want one. But they're not really waterfowl dogs.
Speaker 1:You know, brent, I've had several people on the show and I've actually had the guy that owns Raglan Gun Dogs, jay.
Speaker 2:Lowry.
Speaker 1:I've got an episode coming out here pretty soon the guy from England that's had some world champion field cockers. What you just said I hear over and over and over about people that hunt with cockers and they love them. They're crazy about them. I know guys that have nothing but labs and they have a cocker and that's their favorite dog. Now Tell me what it is that appeals to you, because I hear that so much.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of it is their personality. We joke in the office about small dogs all the time because we're all there's probably five golden retrievers and ten labs in our office and then Riley actually has an English cocker. But I don't know, they're just fun little dogs. I'm not a small dog person at all but I do love them. They're kind of sporadic, but not in the way that a short hair is sporadic. Um, it's tameable and it seems fun. I mean I love pointers. I would never have one in my house, I don't think Um, but a cocker has, like has the drive. But I've also seen them be your best buddy and be on the couch and I don't know. I just we obviously our dogs were in kennels, not in. They weren't in the house when we had 40. But the only ones that were allowed in the house were a select few cockers and I don't know. They just kind of became my best little friends. I loved them.
Speaker 1:Now I've been. I've been also told by lots of folks that they're, that they think that they're super intelligent, even I mean I hate to say this on the show but even far more intelligent than labs. And you know, I'm a lab, I've got labs I mean I think they are.
Speaker 2:I I have a golden retriever and I love golden retrievers to death, but some of those cockers just blew my mind. It was almost like you had a person. Yeah, I mean they. They had them so crisp and those dogs hunted every day, so I mean they had exposure that most dogs don't have. But the the way they responded and the way they hunted and the way they wanted to get those birds but also wanted to please you were it was just incredible.
Speaker 1:Do you ever get to go back out there and hunt?
Speaker 2:I haven't been in. I probably went in 2023, so two years I probably could. It's a high-end place and I probably wouldn't pay to hunt there. But I couldn't pay to hunt there. But I haven't been since 23. But more often when I've been there I've been working, so I get to do the dog training, hunting, but I'm not doing a whole lot of the fun. We'd go on an employee hunt occasionally and it was a bunch of fun, but I hadn't been treated like the guests.
Speaker 1:You know I got two buddies. One's been on this episode, actually my very first episode, but they guide at Paul Nelson Farm up in South Dakota and it's one of those Orvis deals and I was like, well, I might go up there and hunt. And he's like Ken, you might want to go check out the price.
Speaker 1:And I was sitting there looking at how much it cost, I was like, oh my, it was. Oh man, I mean it is nuts. Yeah, I mean you could go hunt. You could fly to argentina and hunt ducks for five days airfare and all for what it costs. And that's fine, it's a. It looked like a really nice place.
Speaker 2:I'm not knocking it, it looked beautiful, but yeah, it was out of my price range saying that I mean the place I worked. The hunting was phenomenal, which I don't think always applies in the put and take situations Great dogs, great service. But a lot of what you were paying for was the experience. You stayed in a five star place. You ate five star food, you got treated like a five star customer. So that's a lot of what's going on there, but anything that Orvis stamps their name on is worth going to. If you ever have the chance to get behind anything Orvis is endorsing, you should, because they're all great.
Speaker 1:One of these days and I'm like I do want to go to one of their places I'm going to go do a quail hunt right before the seat, before it ends down here at Joshua Creek in San Antonio, or actually Kerrville, bernie area.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Do you know where that's?
Speaker 2:at. I don't know the place you're talking about. I've been through Bernie a bunch. When I was a champion we'd have to go pick things up.
Speaker 1:But they have a pretty nice setup. I've only did a tour of it, but they had a special like a real good price for a quail hunt. Yeah, I, a special like a real good price for a quail hunt. And I thought, hey, I might. You know sounds. Plus I get to run with my dogs, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, birds in general. We were talking about this in the office the other day. Bird hunting is just so much fun to me. But quail hunting is something I'd never done before I got that job and it is. It's just new. It's so cool to me the idea of upland hunting and a dog pointing and a dog flushing and watching the dogs. I could go out there with my phone and have just as much fun as I would with a gun. I know duck guys say the same thing. I've never owned a waterfowl dog. I do now and we'll see how it turns out. But I know guys that say the same thing about their duck dogs. They just want to watch them work. They don't even care about shooting ducks. But quail became that way for me. I would go follow the hunt in a ranger and watch because I just thought it was so cool.
Speaker 1:I'm like that now. You know I'm in my mid-50s on the other side of that and I've big game hunted. I was obsessed everywhere elk and antelope and mule, deer and bear, you name it and been everywhere doing that and now all I want to do is hunt with dogs. I mean I want to hunt my dogs ducks, quail, pheasant, you know, yeah, and this year I hope to do a lot more, like you know, grouse and stuff, prairie hunting which I really don't have a lot of experience at, but I've got.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to get some stuff lined up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, now hunting with. So we, thankfully and I can hunt 30 minutes from the office. So we did that a lot. We would go wake up at 3 30 and hunt until we had to be at work. But, um, those hunts were a whole lot more fun if there was a dog. Um, and it wasn't, it didn't change anything except the fact that there was a dog there. It just, you know, you get to watch that dog live its most happy life getting that bird. It's so much fun that are.
Speaker 1:You know that are pretty much finished hunting dogs. They'll they'd retrieve till they fell over with a heart attack. I mean there's no stop. And you know, just watching them, uh, and they'll hunt all day you know, tell you what we should do. We'll talk about it after the show, but you should go pheasant with me up in South Dakota. I'll tell you what. You'll get hooked.
Speaker 2:I bet I will. I've never done it. I've upland hunted, but I've never pheasant hunted.
Speaker 1:We hunt wild birds and I take my dog to them and I know the guy. That should be my fourth year going, scott, if you ever listen to episode number one, that's the guy that has it and he's done it all his life. He's forgotten more about dogs than I'll ever know. I love it. My neighbor got me to go and that did it.
Speaker 2:That's awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean ducks turned into that. For me, I could see it happening with almost anything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like hunting ducks too. One thing I like about the upland stuff is is the walking and I'm getting old enough now I need to stay in shape, I need to walk, brother, I mean, uh, and I actually try to get in shape before hunting season because, yeah, you probably need it a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've been walking around the woods for turkeys recently and it's already wearing me out, so have you got one yet? I have not. I hunted in alabama for three days and they made a fool of me.
Speaker 1:Um, and tennessee starts saturday, so okay, hopefully you know, uh, I was in alabama last weekend. I heard I wasn't hunting, but I heard a turkey gobble one time. We were out we trained all day, but I didn't see any on the road. Now I've been've been seeing a lot in Texas right now.
Speaker 2:I just about wrecked driving around. I have to look at every field I pass.
Speaker 1:So you're very familiar with Highway 190. That runs Brady, all the way east-west through Texas and it goes in front of my ranch. I trained shed dogs for a long time. That's how I got into labs, actually. But I'll shed hunt driving down the road, starting right now in Texas, you know, and I've found so many sheds I look around where they'll jump over the fence. And it's just country roads, right? You know farm roads Well, 190. Yeah, and then I'll take toenail trail up to Christobal. I always find sheds like that.
Speaker 2:Fresh ones.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but yeah and I'm sure people think I'm crazy because I'm sitting here looking all over the road there's no traffic out there.
Speaker 2:I found one shed turkey hunting two weeks ago in Alabama.
Speaker 1:Was it a fresh one?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, might have been that day, I mean.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can kind of tell. Sometimes it'll have a little bit of blood on it.
Speaker 2:You could blood on it. You could. Yeah, it had a little like not meat on it, but you could tell it wasn't old at all now I'll tell you what I do, and this is just mine.
Speaker 1:There's guys that know way more about shed training than I do, but I've trained shed dogs myself for a long time and you get a fresh shed like that uh, let your dog sniff it and lick on it. That that base yeah that fresh scent and then sometimes I'll take like saran wrap, just put over and go back home and give it to one of my dogs that I'm training. But that fresh shed like that's the best thing in the world.
Speaker 2:I've even seen little pups go crazy over it, licking that end, you know that, yeah, I mean same goes for birds, like when I dove hunted last year. My dog wasn't even he might have been one, but he was a puppy. I mean, he was little, he wasn't grown all the way yet, and carrying a bucket of birds past him, I have never seen him. It was a different level of excitement. I mean, giving him a dove was just like you know, I knew it was in him, but I'd never seen him around a bird. It was crazy.
Speaker 2:Then you definitely need to finish him out. Oh yeah, he's got it in there. He's just a little goofy.
Speaker 1:He doesn't always act like it well, brent, I know you're a busy man. Actually I knew we'd do this. We've went about an hour and 15 minutes and I knew we could go three hours and probably never miss a lick.
Speaker 1:Uh, oh yeah, like we did in, uh, kansas city, but anyway, I may get you back on here again, but I'm on. We need to go on a hunt trip. I'll talk to you about that offline. I would love it. Um, brian, again, tell everybody where you're from, where you're at right now and, uh, how they can find, find out about Absolutely. Not that people don't know, but hey there might be somebody that knows.
Speaker 2:For sure. I live in Nashville. Now Gunner is located in Nashville. Like I said, if you log on to Gunner and contact us chat, phone call or email that comes to me and two other guys. We just hired two new ones, so you might talk to gray or grace, but they're just as good as I am. Um, yeah, everything. If you're looking at our product, wise, everything's going to be gunnercom. If you're looking for me, my name is brent cooley. Um, I'm from springville, alabama, originally located in nashville now. Um, and you might run into me at a show. I'll be at every single show that Gunner will be at Delta Waterfowl Ducks Expo, all the big ones Gunner goes to Well good, I'll see it.
Speaker 1:I've already got a booth for Delta Waterfowl, so we'll have to hang out again.
Speaker 2:I don't know if we'll have a booth, but I'll be there for sure.
Speaker 1:Yep, I'll be there. That's my first one there too. I've never been before.
Speaker 2:I was there last year. It's a good one. Ducks Unlimited is in Memphis now and that's right down the road, so I think we might go full force at Ducks and not go to Delta, but I'll be there. On behalf of.
Speaker 1:Gunner for sure. Well, good, good, brent, thank you so much. I've really enjoyed it. I enjoyed meeting you before this ever happened, but I'm so glad that you got to take the time out of your busy schedule to do this for me, and it's a pleasure, it's an honor and hopefully it won't be the last one.
Speaker 2:Yes, sir, I appreciate it. I'm glad we got to do it. I could Talk about dogs for 12 hours rather than one and a half, so I seriously appreciate you having me. I appreciate how strongly you back Gunnar. You came up to me as an excited customer, not even as somebody trying to get me on a podcast, so I appreciated it. I appreciate how much you support us.
Speaker 1:It means a lot and I'm glad we got to talk. It's one of the things that speaks for itself. It's almost like you don't even need to advertise. Just go look at one right that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was cool. I'll shut up after this at pheasant fest. That was one of the first shows where I've been able to say you can walk around and touch everything in here and then come back and check this one out. Yeah, and it does. It speaks for itself. I can tell you everything you want to hear, but just look at them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then watch all these videos, right. I mean all these crashes that's happened with them, these temperature videos, people showing them with not just you guys, there's other people you know. There's posted videos of the temperature gauge inside and outside the Kindle in hot weather. It speaks for itself.
Speaker 2:It does. It's cool to work for a company that I can actually tell all these marketing things about and mean what I say. Um, it's awesome, gunner's a great company, and you know I'll shut up too.
Speaker 1:the way gunner evolved is is is what makes it special. It evolved for gun, for dog safety. How it evolved, that's what. Totally yeah, and that's almost like your mantra, right? I mean, that's the reason it was created.
Speaker 2:That's why we exist. Yeah, I mean, it's the reason that I'll tell some people that it might not be for them if they're buying it for the house, for their dog. That's anxious. We exist for dogs to be safe, and if I think your dog is going to hurt itself, I'm not going to try to get you to buy our stuff, because I want you to buy our stuff. We want your dog to be safe, so that's why we exist.
Speaker 1:Well, good deal. Well, hey, I'm a fan and again, thank you so much for taking time. I'll be in touch with you and Brent. You have a great hunting season. Hopefully, part of that season, you get to go with me on a hunt.
Speaker 2:Yes, sir, I would love it. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me All right, thank you.
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