Kennel Talk

0:00This episode of The Flush Podcast is brought to you by Onyx Hunt, Waltons, Hoxie Native Seeds, the Minnesota Horse and Hunt Club, HuntFishSD.com, Ruffland Kennels, Black Gold Dog Food, and by Game Virtual Shooting Simulators. Today, we're talking about kennels and transporting our bird dogs. Believe it or not, a lot of people make mistakes when they choose a kennel, and they make mistakes in the ways that they travel with their dogs. Reid Vanderveen is my guest. Reid works at Ruffland Kennels. He's here to help us answer the frequently asked questions

0:31that they receive when dog owners call them. He'll provide insight into the right kennel for your dog, and we'll also discuss other travel topics like heat and cold, anxious dogs sleeping outside in a kennel, and so much more. This is a topic that you, our listener, have asked us to discuss, so today that's exactly what we're going to do. Buckle up. This one is for your bird dogs.

0:56Welcome to another episode of the Flush Podcast. Excuse me. I'm your host, Travis Frank. Way to botch that. No, I didn't botch it. I'm just... You're just trying to make me feel good. I'm just choked up. I'm just excited about our guest today. I'm so excited. No, but I am actually. Reid Vanderveen. Excuse me again. I'm just so excited to have you on the show.

1:30I have that effect on people. You do. Reid's from Ruffland Kennels, chief marketing officer. You've been there for two years. We have been asked in the past to talk about traveling with our bird dogs. It's something that I think people don't think about often until they're in a position where their dog maybe won't eat or they're not sure about traveling across the country and they've got everything that they need. You live this world every single day, Reid. So I thought you'd be the

2:01perfect guest to have on the show. And we appreciate you making time for us today. Absolutely. I'm excited to be here and chat with you guys. It's going to be fun. Yeah. Yeah. So I haven't done this in a while, but I thought I'd bring it back. You ready for some rapid fire questions? I'm going to ask you right out of the gate. Let's have it. Yeah, exactly. Let me just loosen you up a little bit here. All right. Let's go for it. First thing that comes to mind, you spit it out. Ready? All right. Here we go. Who is your favorite social media follow? Oh my goodness. Who am I following? Is that, is that what I'm answering? Sorry. I got to make

2:34sure. Your favorite person to follow on social media. Oh my goodness. I love like Jim Shockey. All right. First time you play when you're going on a hunt.

2:43Blessed. First song I play, uh, born to be wild for whatever reason is always like my road, my first road trip song, which is such a weird answer. Love it. Coffee or energy drink? Coffee all day long. Black is black can be. Okay. We can have a conversation then. Cause Al's over there with his energy drink and I just can't even. I don't know what you're talking about. Oh, I would have, I'd be keeling over having gut rot already if I'm having an energy drink at this time in the morning. I know. I always see people with those monsters and I'm like, oh my gosh. Well, Hey, my defense energy drinks are only for if I'm working late night and I was up

3:16late night slaving away on the flush podcast to make sure it got out by 5am. No, there's no defense. No defense. Favorite snack in your hunting vest? Gummy bears. Ooh, I like that. Best excuse when you miss a bird? There's no excuse. I do that all the time. I've run out of excuses. I've run out of excuses. Best dog name? Dude, this is such a good question. I can't do rapid fire. I am. I'm like working on a new dog and I bet my list is like 60 names long. We just gotta be right at the top.

3:48The front runner right now is Banner. That's what I'm thinking. Banner? Banner. Yeah. Banner. Like I would, uh, big L. Best dog name? Gunner. Gunner? I like Butch. I like Cujo. I love, I love the dog names that, um, are just like super human names, like short super human names. I had a neighbor. Yeah. I had a neighbor, uh, for the longest time they named their dog. I don't remember what, what breed it was, but they named their dog Jeff. And it was just like every night they're yelling, they're yelling off the back.

4:21Jeff. You're like, Hey Jeff. Jeff. And we're like, who's, who's Jeff? Or like Matt. Matt would be a good one. Reggie. Reggie. Oh my gosh. We were in the tricky bind the other day and a rooster cackled right in front of us and was, and so my daughter was sitting in the bind too. And my mom was there and the boys and, and we said, uh, Reggie, the rooster. And then we started thinking about all of the boy names that started with an R because every cackle we heard were like, Oh, it's Ron.

4:51Rodney's over there. Rodney, Ralph. Oh, the girls. Yes, exactly. It was so fun. All right. Last question. Favorite bird to hunt? Pheasant. Honestly, that's like only really all about I do. So I'm spoiled here in South Dakota. Yeah. It's just, yeah, yeah. You are, where in South Dakota do you live? East river as, as the locals would say, I'm in the east, Southeast corner. Um, so I do most of my hunting actually in the Northeast part of the state, but, um, just a lot of

5:21pheasants. Oh gosh. Is there ever. So East river, do you deer hunt at all? I do a lot of deer hunting. Yeah. So then do you call it, let's say you shoot a buck and it on each side, it has four points. Is that a four by four or an eight pointer? It's a four by four. It's a four by four. See, I thought West river, they call them four by fours East river. You would call it eight point buck. Yeah. I feel like that's not descriptive enough. Like an eight point, like what, what are you

5:53doing with that? I don't know what that looks like. Well, I know, but in Minnesota, they would call it a 12 pointer or a nine pointer or they don't go side by side, but there's a certain, there's a certain point in the traveling West where they switch it to say four by four or three by three or five by five. Yeah. And I always thought it was the river. I felt like that could be, I'm probably the odd duck there. So that's not uncommon, but. All right. Well, East river shoots pheasants, works at Rufflin Kennels and kind enough to join us today. I know

6:28you guys have a lot going on there. Is expansion the right word? Is that why things are chaotic over there? I would say that's probably the right way to describe it. Yeah. I mean, we're on the tail end of our, our third consecutive year on Inc 5,000, uh, fastest growing companies in America. So that's really exciting. We have, um, handful of buildings right here in T, uh, T South Dakota, just outside Sioux Falls. For those of you not familiar with small town, South Dakota, but we're right by Sioux Falls and the vast majority of our products are made right here in T.

7:00Um, there's another facility that makes a bunch of our products, a short drive away in Brandon, which is essentially the other side of Sioux Falls, but all right here kind of in the heart of the Midwest. And you guys have been supporters of Pheasants Forever, Quill Forever for many, many years. You've been supporters of our TV show for many, many years. We certainly appreciate that and value your partnership greatly in it. Um, there are a lot of questions for us to dig into. So let's do this. Um, you have a list of frequently asked questions. I have a list that

7:33I've also compiled from some of our listeners too. Um, so how about we just, let's start with this. What is the worst story you've heard about or accident that involves a dog in a kennel? Oh man, there's, these are hard things to talk about. Honestly, the, um, we get very regularly, we get accident. I would call them horror stories more often than not. They, you know, it's a, it's a good ending because of the fact that the kennels save the dog's life or

8:07actually in some cases save the lives of the humans inside because of the extra, extra like structural rigidity of if that vehicle's rolling over or something like that. So we've had countless stories where, you know, we're saving the lives of, of humans and their pets. Um, the worst there's some, I mean, there's some really nasty ones. I think the worst ones we hear are the people that reach out and are like, Hey, I didn't have a kennel. My dog ran away. We got into a crash dog, you know, dog has a trauma response too, and just goes through something crazy like an

8:39accident and just takes off. And it's like, okay, now I gotta, I gotta find this dog that just book in it to who knows where. Um, so that's not uncommon, but then rollovers getting rear-ended. Those are all, uh, unfortunately a little bit too regular, uh, in our world. Uh, I got a message just actually, I think it was two days ago, a vehicle in the ditch and all you see is the bottom side of the vehicle leaning up on some trees and there's a kennel right next to it. And, um, the gal sent us a message on Instagram. Actually, it's like, you saved my dog's life. Like, and she had

9:11posted, actually, it was weird. She, she had just gotten her kennels and like two days prior to that posted a picture on Instagram. Like, Hey, I finally got my dog a safe travel setup. And like two days later, uh, she's in a major totaled the vehicle dog lived. She's just so grateful. And so stuff like that is unfortunately a little bit too frequent in our world. And we will post that stuff once in a while. We honestly don't, don't do that too much just out of respect for those people, not having to relive, uh, relive those traumatic, uh, accidents through the world of,

9:45you know, thousands of random strangers. But, um, yeah, it's, there's a lot of them. Oh gosh. I mean, the amount of accidents out there. And I honestly think some of them are probably caused by dogs too, because I wouldn't be surprised at all. How often do you see, let's say you're at a stoplight, Al, you can jump in here too. How often do you look over at a car and there's a dog sitting on somebody's lap that's driving, that's driving the vehicle? And you think, I mean, you, you are putting other people's lives in danger by having a dog

10:21sitting on your lap. What if the dog jumps up, knocks your hand, you hits the wheel, hits your leg. You know, I mean, there's so many reasons why this is, it should be illegal. Our dogs, my dogs never would jump in the front seat because they're big dogs, but you know what they would do? If I didn't child lock the windows in the back, they'll, Hey, he would put his paw up on the, um, to roll the window down and he would start rolling the window down. And I think he was going to jump out in the middle of a car ride doing 70 down the road. I will say some of the happiest

10:54looking dogs I've ever seen outside of when they're hunting is when they're driving down the road in the backseat. Not the ear flop effect. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It's probably not the safest. Our dog doesn't stick his whole head out, but he likes to stick his nose out and just have the wind fly by his nose. So you don't see his whole head. You just see his little snout sticking out the window. But those are also the same people that don't send you the thank you message after an accident occurs because their dog didn't make it. Yeah. Right. I mean, let's just be honest. I mean, the reality is it's a dangerous way to drive and it's a danger to be on the road with a dog on your

11:28lap. And some of them I've seen are big. Yeah, that's insane to me. Big dogs. You need to be able to see. I mean, you you should be written a ticket if you have a dog sitting on your lap when you're driving. I'm sorry. It's just not safe. I can't imagine trying to drive with a dog in your lap. Like if our dog even puts his feet up on the center console to try and like look over, you put give them a little pushback. All right. So you've obviously received a lot of photos and the roto molded kennels have really increased in popularity over the last several years. You

12:00remember when they used to be the ones like the plastic kennel that you would take the top and the bottom off and you'd set it on top? Yeah. Little wing nuts that you just spin them together. Yeah. Also the cage, the wire framed cages. You know, I don't know that other than keeping the dog from jumping up and getting in your lap. I don't know that it actually is going to hold up under the pressure. Do you guys know, you know, with the, with the roto molded

12:31kennels today, do you know what kind of impact they can withstand before they break? Yeah, that's a really good question. I don't know, like in terms of like a, like a pounds of pressure type of a technical rating. What I can say about our products is they're, they're designed in such a way to, um, obviously they're incredibly rigid and have a ton of structural integrity, but there's actual really intelligent design that goes into, um, the, the product,

13:02how they're created in, and it's almost like your vehicle. So back to having an accident, your vehicle has points where it's, it's weaker by design, right? Like it's meant to, if you get in a head-on collision, there's, there's certain areas where it's like, oh, this is meant to be the part that absorbs the crash so that it doesn't actually impact the rest of the, the people inside the vehicle. And our kennels are made with a similar intentionality around what parts are rigid and what parts are more flexible. Gotcha. Um, what is the most commonly

13:37asked question you receive when people, do they call, do they email, is it social media? I mean, how do they reach out to you? All of the above. Yeah. Yeah. All of the above. We get, we, without, without a doubt, the number one question we get is, is sizing related. What size do I need for my, you know, my lab or what size do I need for a dog that's 45 pounds or that type of a thing. And, um, more often than not, we try really hard to avoid being too prescriptive with like, oh, if you have a lab, you get this size. Or if your dog is 60 pounds, you get this size

14:11because there's, well, the biggest reason is there's just so much build variety within breeds. Um, you know, I can have a, I can have an 80 pound lab that's all legs or an 80 pound lab. That's, you know, more of the, the English style that's short and stockier. Um, both of those dogs are probably going to need a slightly different setup, uh, in terms of their kennel sizing and what other products that they're going to want to travel with. But, um, weight is a common one. People, uh, more often than not will say my dog weighs, you know, X pounds. What, what kennel do I get?

14:46And for us, again, because of the fact that our kennels are rotationally molded, I mean, you could put a 300 pound dog in one of our smallest kennels. The weight really isn't a huge factor in determining the size. So it's size and length? Typically. Yeah. We're going to, we're going to recommend that somebody is going to either the first, the easiest way is to go into a local dealer, a store, uh, retailer of some kind, and just let your dog go in and out of the kennels, figure out which ones they, they look the most comfortable in. There's a handful of different

15:16kind of rules of thumb or recommendations that people will follow when it comes to sizing their dog. The easiest of which to remember is probably, you know, some people will say, we want, we want your dog to be touching three sides if they're laying down. Um, so I'm going to, I'm going to enter, I'm going to lay down and I'm, my legs are touching over here and my back's over here and my butt's over here, sort of a thing. And that's kind of a decent guide. Um, I, again, personal preference. My recommendation is always just, I, I don't want my dog getting exercise in my, in my kennel.

15:47I want that thing to be able to enter, turn around and, and just feel a natural kind of inclination to lay down. I'm, I don't have a ton of room. I'm just going to lay down and get comfortable. And that's really what I would say is a best case scenario. Um, if you're, if you're going to make a mistake on sizing a kennel, most people make the mistake of getting, getting one that's too big. Absolutely. Yeah. So that does a couple of things, right? That, that is going to, uh, number one, if you do worst case scenario, if you do happen to get into that, that nasty car

16:19wreck, that dog has that much more room to be, to be moving around in there while you're tumbling around or getting rear ended, whatever it might be. But then also if you travel anything like me, uh, when you're going hunting, you don't tend to travel light. So you're competing for space. That's tends to always be at a premium inside the back of a truck or an SUV, that type of a thing. So yeah, most people, if they're going to make a mistake at all, they'll make a mistake of getting one that's, that's too big. Um, but yeah, best recommendation is measure, measure length, um, kind of nose to tail, measure height at the shoulders or the withers. And there's some,

16:54we have a sizing guide on our website that can help people work through that. But the easiest is just to find a local dealer, take your dog in and, um, let them go in and out, see how they turn around. Maybe you need a two door configuration. You know, that's one of our common options for, for larger dogs that they can enter through one door and exit through another. So they don't actually have to turn around in that, uh, in that, that kennel. You want it to be that snug in there where they can't even turn around? Not necessarily. I don't want it to be that snug, but for some of your larger dogs or older dogs that have mobility issues, that type of a thing, uh, we, we do make a

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20:36Yeah, I see that all the time where there's these massive kennels and this small dog that fits just a small part of it. And I'm like, yeah, that's too big. And then people say, well, why? And they said, well, you don't want your dog to be rolling all over inside the kennel. You want it to be a snug fit in there and they feel more comfortable there too. Yeah. And a house crate might be different, right? So there's a lot of people that will maybe have a dedicated crate for the trucks or different vehicles, but then in the garage or in the house, a lot of people will just, you know,

21:11it's kind of like a bedroom, right? You want your dog to be comfortable in there. That's their safe space. Give them a similar looking crate that's in their home that the door is off. You can just take the door all the way off and let that dog go in and out as they want. That's kind of their bedroom, their den, if you will, and just gives an increased level of comfort and hopefully reduces some of that, that travel anxiety that the dogs will have from time to time. Yeah. We talked about this last week and we've talked about it many times on the show. The kennel is really the foundation for most training and the kennel is always a safe space. It's never

21:43a spot you take your dog and send it when they misbehave and they're punished. That is not a punishment place. It's a safe place. It's their den. It is their, I need to reset moment. This is where the training begins. It's in the kennel. So it's, they spend a lot of time in a kennel. Having a good one, I think is very valuable in the life of your hunting career with your dog and just the life of the dog in general. I mean, we don't think about it because it's like,

22:16oh, it's just a place, you know, but it really is a big deal. So you guys have different accessories, right? They don't come with padding inside of them. Do you, would you recommend padding? I mean, I know you have the rubber mat and that's an option to put inside there. Why would, or would you not use the rubber mat inside of it? Yeah. Great questions. So again, everybody's personal use case is different. The, the design of our, our current kennels, our Gen 2 kennels, which have been out for years now is really,

22:50really purposeful in a lot of ways. One of them is the molding on the top and the bottom is designed to do a couple of things. But it, beyond stacking, it's going to allow for like water to, to move away to the edges of your dog. Let's say you are, you know, waterfowl hunting and your dog's in and out of the water. And you don't want that, that dog to be just soaking in, you know, whatever, what filth they were in the slough or the swamp or the lake that they were in. So that's a really

23:23interesting use case for potentially adding the pad, right? We do have a pad. Yeah. Got one here next to me. Yeah. I'm grabbing one. Sorry for those that are, that can't see this, but here's an example of our, our mat. So it's a really flexible, um, really comfortable anti-fatigue foam mat that's got perforated holes in the bottom. So again, that's going to help number one, make things more comfortable for that dog, a little bit softer. It's going to the, the perforations,

23:54the holes inside that are going to allow for more moisture to move away from, uh, from the animal. And not even if you're a waterfowl guy too, like I have a lab and there's not a standing body of water that that dog doesn't want to run in first thing they, when they see it. So the second I can get that moisture pulled away, uh, from, from Penny, the lab, uh, the better. It's a very comfortable thing. We actually have people that use them around the house. We have them all over the office and dogs will just kind of naturally seek that out. It's just a little bit more comfortable, uh, than a,

24:26than a hard surface on the bottom. But those come in just about every size, almost every color you can imagine. So people can really personalize it. Yours is probably pink. I don't remember what one you have actually, Travis, but. I have an orange, one of those mats. Yep. And I have a gray kennel. I believe. Okay. Nice. But I've noticed that like some of the, some of your posts that seem to gain a ton of traction is when you guys come up with a new color. What's the deal with the color? Like

24:58are people crazy? I mean, I don't, I can't wrap my head around that. I like just an earth tone. I don't care. A white, a gray, a cream, like these orange, these pinks, these purples. The very first photo you see on their website is a like teal blue kennel. Well, it might be white. Just this, there's the light on it with a pink door. Yeah. Yeah. I just think that's like the color. It's so wild. Is this the non-hunter audience that you guys cater to? It is. Well, it's really surprising, but yeah. So I'll rewind the clock, I guess the whole way back

25:31a little bit here, if you don't mind, if you, if you allow it. So Roughland, when we got our start in this space, like all the way back when it was founded, the company was doing contract manufacturing for agriculture parts. It was sprayer tanks. It was bulk bin feeders. It was roping steers. And we still do some of that, which is kind of wild to think about. But 2008, 2009 comes and as the economy did its thing and everybody was in a whirlwind, some of those contracts started

26:03drying up and the two guys at the helm of the company at the time were like, Hey, we should probably have our own product that we can generate some demand for that we're not so reliant on, on other people. Um, one of them happened to be a hunter owned a few dogs and it's like, there's not really a great option for this. So let's try it. They produced, um, the first ever, I guess you'd call it high performance kennel. And, um, it turned out really awesome. And we've kind of, we've kind of been just going gangbusters ever since then. But, but the first kennel was

26:35kind of like you're describing it was, you can have anything you want, as long as it's this size and tan, right? Like doesn't matter. It was earth tone and it was this big, but, but as we, as we, as time progressed, we added, you know, a bunch more sizes because, oh, my dog doesn't quite fit or this one's too big. And I need a different door configuration. Or have you ever thought about making an accessory that would allow me to do X, Y, and Z? Um, and then we got to, so we were aggressively like almost exclusively upland waterfowl guys, obviously being in the Dakotas, like that's our home. That's, we

27:08know that, that space. So it was, it was all, uh, guys that were traveling with a couple of dogs to, to go hunt in different locations. And as time progressed, we started adding a handful of more vibrant colors, more bold colors, and just as a kind of a test as a trial. And that is absolutely completely taken over. So we still have your tans, your OD greens, your, my kennel set up is OD green. Everything of mine is olive draft green and green, it seems like, uh, but you've got your basic whites and your grays, but we've got, it's, we're going on, I

27:42think close to two different, two dozen different colors now of the pinks, the purples, the blues, the yellows. I mean, you name it. And what we try to do, is roll those out almost on a monthly basis. So not, not quite every month, but almost every month, there's some sort of a limited edition where we'll get, we'll get a batch of, you know, purple material and we'll make purple kennels until that purple runs out or, um. Do they sell right away? It's, it's absolutely crazy. So the,

28:14the color that Alex was talking about, the mint color that you see on our website, we just rolled that out in January of this year for the very first time. We'd never run that color before. And it was, it was, I'm going to share my screen. Yeah. Without question, our most requested color, a mint green or a seafoam kind of bluish green. And so there's the lilac and purple. There's lilac. Yeah. That's coming out, uh, tomorrow, uh, when we're recording this anyway. So there's one of my dogs in that, in the kennel there, but, uh, the back one. Yeah. No, the yellow

28:49in the back. Yeah. Yeah. That's Penny there. But, uh, where is that mint one at? There's that green. Yeah. Yeah. Lime green is a crazy popular color. But anyway, so mint, we, uh, we rolled out mint in January and we, we, we actually doubled the volume of, uh, resin material that we typically get for a limited edition color because we just, uh, every signal we were getting from our customers, uh, was that this was going to go very well. And we actually sold out of

29:19that product in the first seven days. Come on. It's, it's crazy. So it's not, it's not just the, the non-hunting community though. That is, uh, by and large, the group that's, that's ordering the different colors, but you'd be shocked guys that are doing upland and waterfowl. They'll want an entire setup, the kennel, all the accessories, the pad, the handles, you can get colored handles. You can get different colored doors. They want the whole thing, you know, kitted out in, in whatever their

29:52dog's color scheme is, or the color of their rig. If their truck is, you know, a specific color or their favorite sports team is a really popular one for outdoorsmen. You know, guys that are like, Oh, I want, you know, I'm a, I'm a Vikings purple. Well, that's what I was going to say. It actually looks really good. Where's purple at? It's, it's coming out. It was in that, uh, if you go back up to that top picture, it's got to be in here somewhere. It was, um, yeah, so it was on the, so if you put, if you take the purple kennel with the white door, 20 year old, sorry, if you take the purple, you're fine. You're totally

30:26good. It's wild when you start digging into it. And, and it's, it's truly become a really fun thing for us that we, that, that we allow this level of customization. And truly that's, that's basically overtaken everything that we do. And that's true for whether you're a lilac. Oh yeah, dude, you can, you can, you can customize it. If you don't want, you can see the purple one, uh, for the people that are listening, the purple one on the, on the screen that Alex is showing doesn't have lower vent holes in the bottom. So you can even customize it that way. Like, Oh, my dog's always getting in the truck wet. I don't want wet, you know, the

30:59water to get all over the back of my rig. So that's why you wouldn't want the vent holes on the bottom. See, I would want vent holes. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of people do. Um, but you'd be surprised at how many people order kennels without lower vent holes and some will order without vent holes at all, even. Yep. It's pretty wild. And we don't, we don't obviously recommend that with the ventilation stuff, but yeah, heat and cold. We're going to get into those topics here shortly. What percentage of hunters buy your product versus non hunters? Do you know, can you track that?

31:32So we have some data on that. I'll, I'll give you, I'll give you one, uh, interesting piece of data. That's probably, um, it might surprise you. Maybe it won't, but since we've started adding these colors and I'm, I'm trying to avoid the stereotypes, I'll say this as, as well as I can, but since we've added the colors, since we've added the colors and all the different accessory products and all the cool ways that people can customize it, our audience has, has very quickly gone from the Travis's and Alex's and Reed's of the world that want anything

32:05earth tone. Um, I want it to look good and function good. And it's gone crazy towards the, um, more urban and suburban dwelling, um, people that may or may not have kids, right? People are having kids later in life. So they've got dogs and their dogs are their family and their dogs, you know, my dog was the purple collared dog when I picked it up, uh, from the breeder and their color scheme is purple. And I want everything to be purple. And my car is yellow and I want everything to be yellow when I'm traveling in my car. And my favorite shade of, you know, my purse is green

32:42and it's like, whatever, we're here for it. So you can customize it. How many dogs are in America? I want you to search that up. How many dogs are in America right now? Reed, do you know the answer to that? I don't know. That'd be a fun stat to know actually, but let me finish. Right. That's why I'm wondering. Keep going. 75%, just over 75% of our audience, uh, online, uh, is skewing that, that female, that's more of an urban dwelling individual. So while hunters and the hunting community is like where we, we cut our teeth, like that's who we are. That's who I am. I mean, this is such a natural

33:15fit for us in that space, but it's, it's just exploded beyond that to every pet owner. And I think that's one of the big reasons for that is, and I'm trying not to be too much of an infomercial here, but the, the accessories and the products that we offer really allow for people to kind of custom tailor a travel system for them, whatever that looks like for you. If you're the, if you're the person that's going to the lake on the weekend, uh, for two hours, or if you're the person that is taking your dog to doggy daycare every day, or if you're the guy that's traveling three states

33:48away to go upland hunting twice a year, all of those use cases are extremely different. And the product set, the accessories, the, the way you outfit your vehicle and travel with your dog is going to be completely different in those. And we've kind of been really purposeful about building a lineup of products that allow for people to just custom tailor that to the point of not only being functional, but also being really fun when you can do the colors and stuff like that. So the non hunters in America, once again, can thank a hunter because I mean, honestly,

34:20the hardcore hunter knows that they need the right gear. They need good gear. And this goes from, you know, beyond dog kennels, but the fact that we put our stuff through the toughest tests and then you build something that holds up to it and then everyone else benefits from it. Right? Absolutely. Yeah. That would be the case for us for sure. Answer Alex, how many dogs in America? As of 2024 and 2025, there's 87 to 90 million pet dogs. So about 40 to 50% of American households own

34:53at least one dog. There it is. 40 to 50% of households own at least one dog. At least one dog. And that doesn't include, you know. A lot of them have more than one. Yeah. So let's just say... The dog to human ratio in the U.S. is one to four. In China, it's one to 50. One to 50? In China. So they don't have... Whoa. Do you guys sell outside of the country? We do a ton. Yeah. It's another thing that's just wild how our social media team will get requests weekly, multiple times a week. Like, hey, do you ship to Brazil? Do you ship to Korea?

35:27Do you ship to France? And we've... I don't know the number. I should look. But we have a number of international dealers. We do a ton of work in Canada. We've got a lot of dealers and customers in Canada. But even overseas, non-North American areas, we have a lot of dealers. We added, I think, three international dealers. I heard just last week or the week prior. So it's another area that's just rapidly growing for us. And we're just kind of trying to hang on for the ride and make sure

35:57we don't stub our toes too much. Since 1996, there was a... There's been a yearly increase of three to 4% of the dog... Or how many people own a dog? So we're on the rise. Yeah. We can't live without them. In 2000, there were 68 million dogs in the country. And by 2017, it had grown to at least 90 million registered as pets. Whoa. So Alex, does that data go through like COVID?

36:28Well, this site I just saw with the yearly increase is Wikipedia. And then the one before that was just the AI overview. We're so focused on our little world here, the hunting world that we live in. You know, the algorithm every time you open it up. Mine is wild hockey and upland hunting and fishing. Hey, there you go. By the way, 20... That's my algorithm. From 2016 to 2020, it did jump 10 million. So I don't know if 2020 had anything to do, but from 2020 to 2021, it only jumped by 1 million.

36:59So I just feel like that would... I just feel like COVID was such a... Like so many people good, bad, or otherwise, I'm not trying to claim it. Who knows how many people registered their dogs in COVID if they weren't going to the vet or anything like that. Oh, sure.

37:13Wow. Yeah. Yeah. I guess I'm kind of fascinated by this because, you know, like I was trying to say there, my algorithm has basically wraps around hunting, fishing, and right now it's wild hockey because they're in the playoffs. So everything I see... But you don't think about how many people use this kind of stuff that aren't the hunter, right? Absolutely. Yeah. And they don't think about that. Every pet deserves to travel safe, right? So there's no reason that just because, you know, we're upland guys or waterfowl guys and we've got two or three dogs, it doesn't

37:46mean that somebody from the inner city that's got a, you know, a small house dog that just kind of bounces around with them everywhere, that dog absolutely deserves to be riding safe and in style too. I'm going to stereotype here. The most common lap dog I see on a lap while somebody's driving is a lady in the city.

38:07I'm not going to argue with you. Al, would you agree? Yeah. Most common. If you see 10 of them, I would say seven, maybe eight are probably ladies with a lap dog. I guess I've never noticed a dog sitting on somebody's lap, but I'm not... I don't want to state those numbers. I mean... I don't know what Travis is doing while he's driving. I'm not staring into somebody else's Paying attention to the road. That's what I'm doing. Well, window while I'm driving. And I'm not going to be all high and mighty and say that. Daisy's never rode shotgun. Okay. I'm not going to say that. But I was rear-ended one time and my kennel was tied

38:41down in the box of my truck with ratchet straps and we got hit hard. Totaled my truck. My dog came out looking like, what was that? Not a scratch. Not a scar. You know? And until you have that happen, you don't realize that it happens very quickly. If my dog was sitting there on the front seat, she probably would have hit the windshield head first or something else. Or you. That's the other thing that happens. We get that a lot that dogs turn into projectiles.

39:16When you're stopping that quick or you're getting slammed that hard, that dog becomes a 30-pound projectile. Even that little one sitting on somebody's lap. Man, I'm living. I guess technically I got rear-ended. I was at a dead stop at a stoplight and I got rear-ended at like 35 miles an hour. So she would have been hit backwards into the seat, not forward. But it happens quickly is what I'm getting at. And now just realizing how dangerous it is to not be prepared. I don't think she's ridden shotgun in years since that has happened. And it was very rare

39:49that she would anyway if I just for some reason had to go somewhere quick or hop on in. But I just won't do it. I mean, I just, I just will not do it. So when, when people say, okay, how do I travel with my dog? Reed, what do you tell them? Like, what's the protocol, the strap down process, four corners? I mean, what do you tell people? The more the better. Yeah. I mean, I guess so to a point, right? But all of our kennels have a handful of different ways that they can be secured. There's, they can be secured together with coupling kits. If you're

40:22running with more than one, they can be secured down using ratchet straps. You can use any sort of a tie down kit you want. We sell two different versions, like a steel, kind of a steel ribbon bracket that you can tie down with or, or your standard kind of D ring. You tie those down to the corners. And even if you're, even if you have two or three kennels strapped together, you can still only, if they're, if they're using our coupler kit, you can, you can only, you know, use four sets of four ratchet straps and you're perfectly secure with that. Um, the others where ideally, if you're

40:55the type that travels with your dog inside of a vehicle, most of those modern vehicles are going to have some sort of an area that you can secure, uh, something as well. So we try to encourage people to, to use those even inside the vehicle. Um, there's certain other features that we've designed into some of our products too, that make, make traveling inside a vehicle a little bit easier. We have the, uh, the backseat rider version of our intermediate kennel. If you're not familiar

41:26with that, it's essentially the same profile as our intermediate kennel, which is a very popular size for bird dogs. And with the exception that it's about two. I've got an intermediate. Yeah. Most, a ton of guys do, but that, that backseat rider is about two and a half inches narrower in depth. And the, the intent there is that in a full size pickup with a quad cab or a crew cab, whatever, with four doors, you actually put two of them back to back in the backseat of your vehicle and your dog can then, uh, you got two dogs going out either side, which is really kind of a, uh, a neat, neat thing. And then the other

41:58one that we have with folks that travel with an SUV, for instance, and they don't want to lose space or have to fold down that backseat. We make an SUV version of our intermediate and our large size kennel. And that actually has a slanted, uh, slanted kind of a tapered back end that cuts off a few inches. So it actually molds to the kind of the inclined position a little bit of your seat in the back of an SUV. That picture actually, that was, we were looking at earlier, uh, that purple kennel on the website, that was a, an SUV version. So if you're not familiar with that and you're the type

42:31that, that run, uh, your dogs inside of a, uh, an SUV of some kind, it's a really economical way to give them the space they need and also save the space that you need to, um, to travel efficiently. I didn't realize that that was an option that an SUV option, I guess I just thought intermediate, large, medium, small, you know, like I just, Would that be like the backseat rider one? Oh, you missed it because you just walked. Yeah. We just talked about that, Al, while you were just having a free time. Sorry. The backseat rider. Yeah. So Alex, the backseat rider is just a little bit shorter version

43:03of the intermediate, which is an awesome, awesome way to get a couple of dogs in the back of your truck, especially if you, if it's super cold, you'd mentioned, you know, heat and cold temps. If you're the type that when it gets really cold, uh, I'm going to get creative and I'm going to find a way to put a couple of kennels or one kennel in the back of my car, back of my truck. That backseat rider is a really good way to do that. Again, it's going to be almost the same size as your intermediate that you're using already, Travis, but, um, a little bit narrower. In depth, a little bit shallower in depth, front to back. Uh, so they're not going to lose any space vertically. They're not going to lose any space, you know, left to right. They're still

43:36going to be quite comfortable inside there. It just gives you that extra little bit. Let's talk about temperature. Let's talk temperature because I, I'll be in Montana and it's, it could be 95 degrees. All right. And we got toppers and we need to make sure that there's, that our dogs don't overheat. So what, is there a certain temperature that you say you need to make sure there's a fan on this dog. You need to make sure that dog comes in AC, can't be riding in the back. It just, it's not safe.

44:07Yeah. So here again, I would, I would say that we, we don't try to be too prescriptive with stuff like that. I think a lot of it, uh, depends on what your dog's acclimated to, right? If you're coming from a Southern state like Texas and you're traveling up to Montana, uh, and, uh, you're going from extreme heat to extreme cold, that's going to be harder on that dog than, uh, somebody from Minnesota going to Montana and it's been cold since, you know, October, September, even potentially. So a little bit of acclimation goes a long way. I think in terms of the, the hunt, obviously you

44:42don't want your dog to, to overheat. Uh, you want your dogs to be hydrated. Um, would recommend that even just in terms of temperature control, you're going to have a water hole or some sort of a, uh, easy access to water waiting at the truck for that dogs. It's going to beat you back and they're tired, they're exhausted, they're panting, give that dog access to some water to help regulate a little bit. Um, if they're super hot, you know, just, I would say basic care things like, uh, getting their ears wet, cool, trying to cool that dog down, dumping some

45:13water on their head, something like that a little bit might, might go a long ways as well. But in terms of the kennel itself, you can obviously throw a fan on there if they're warm, if it's really cold, we've got insulated covers, uh, that you can use, you can throw on the back. Um, it really just kind of depends a lot again on the use case, the acclimation, what the weather's doing that particular time that you're out there. Yeah. I'm, I'm always, so I have the insulated cover and I'm always wondering to myself like, gosh, what I, I just go with a gut feeling. It feels like it's going to be too hot to leave the

45:48cover on. Um, or it's, it, it feels like I need to put the cover on. That's just a gut thing. Is there an actual temperature that you should be looking at or people should be looking at? I mean, I know there's so many different breeds. Like my dog does not have a lot of fat. She does not have a lot of hair, but some dogs do and they could sit outside and it's 10 degrees and they'd love life, you know? So it's subjective, right? But is there a cutoff number that we should be looking for? I, I, that's such a good point that you make with the breed and the variety of,

46:19you know, hair type and dog condition. I, there's probably the answer to that question is probably yes, that there are safe temperatures, you know, both too hot and too cold that would be worth paying attention to. I would very much recommend somebody, you know, talks to a vet about their specific breed, uh, versus take a recommendation from, from a guy that's in South Dakota. You might, so like, as a, for instance, for us, I've got a lab that we live on a farm in South Dakota and that, that dog is outside 97% of the time. She's, you know, out running around,

46:55checking the property edges, doing what dogs do, chasing the chickens or the cats or whatever, but she's out. And if it's not, by the time it gets real cold in the winter, she's got a real thick winter coat developed and she's pretty comfortable being outside. She'll come in the garage and sit under her, her heat lamp or near the heater when she gets real cold. But, but that dog is going to be able to withstand, uh, a lot more, uh, colder temperatures hunting, uh, when we go to the Northern part of the state, uh, bouncing through snow and stuff like that, then say a dog that's

47:27coming from, you know, a few miles further South and has a thinner coat and hasn't had that time to develop and acclimate towards those temperatures. So there's, I'm sure there's an answer to that question. I'm, I'm likely not the guy that's going to know what, what the specific temps are going to be, but using your gut's probably the best way to go, right? Like what you're doing. If you think you're, if you think you'd be hot crawling in that thing, your dog's probably hot. They're wearing a sweater all the time, right? So throw a fan on that kennel, leave your windows open, uh, try and cool them down, you know, soak them in water or whatever you got to do to cool them down. If they're

48:01cold, uh, throw that insulated kennel cover on, let them warm up inside, you know, on the floor of the front seat of your truck or something like that for a little while before you start driving and, and get their temperatures kind of regulated would be just my recommendation.

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51:01Right. Yeah, we have a lot of heat coming up here. We're springtime right now, but it's going to be hot pretty soon. Open all the windows on the topper. If you put them in the back, that's what I do. Airflow is a big deal. If it gets really, really hot, you know, like I will just bring her in the truck and put her in the back seat. And that's where having that size that I just fold up my seats in the back of the truck and put her in there. Then I know she's not going to be too hot. But on those long trips, I mean, last year we had, uh, one, two, three, I think we had like four or five dogs in the back and we're driving to Montana across the prairie and it's hot, like a hundred

51:36degrees. You know, so we've got fans on the dogs in the back, um, checking on them. And do you guys have thermometers that you sell that people, we don't, it's not yet anyway. Are you working on that? You think we've, or can you tell us, we've got a long list of like items that we'd love to add. Um, you know, some of those that I would say are on the list that aren't maybe near the top are going to be to your temperature monitoring devices, cameras. We get, we get requests a lot for cameras. There are some really good solutions out there, um, for if you want to actually visibly

52:08see the condition of your dog while you're driving, you can do that. Uh, but, but we don't currently offer, you know, any sort of, uh, temperature monitoring system, uh, directly from us. Have you seen any of those cameras that people have in their kennels? What are the dogs normally doing when they're driving in the back? Yeah. I've, I've not seen much of anything other than a dog laying there. It's kind of what you would expect, but like, Hey, if that gives you a sense of comfort knowing that, you know, you're that Fido back there is just taking a nap and snoozing life away. Awesome. Like I'm here for it. That's totally

52:42fine. Okay. So when people travel and they maybe have a hotel, but there's no pets allowed inside and they don't want to pay the, the extra pet fee and they're going to leave their dog sleep in the box in the kennel. Um, let's say you have a kennel cover. Do you have a certain cutoff on temperature of when it's too cold for that dog to sleep outside in the kennel? And would you then zip the kennel all the way down? I mean, do you risk not having oxygen in there? What's, what's the safe protocol there? Yeah, I would say I'll use my own personal

53:18case, uh, as the example, and this is not gospel again, this is use your own judgment. I would say, uh, with your dogs and the, their specific breeds, but, but I'm gonna, I'm going to zip the kennel, uh, cover on almost completely. There's certain, uh, easy ways that like if you use our kennel cover specifically and most kennel covers have, you know, some flaps to just make sure that it's not airtight in there. Um, but, uh, I'm going to put that kennel pad in there and try and get that dog up off of the cold, uh, just to kind of, uh, try and keep temperature, uh, give them a little bit

53:53more, uh, ability to regulate their own body temperature from being on the cold surface, you know, the cold bed of a pickup and then transferring through a plastic, uh, a plastic crate is going to transfer some, some, some temperature. So I'd try and add that pad. And, and again, a lab with a, with a decent winter coat is going to do just fine down and even to, you know, close to freezing, even maybe slightly below, depending on how long they're exposed to that without the wind. I'm a lot less concerned if they're under a topper and they're inside a, uh, an insulated cover. Um, I'm a lot

54:24less concerned about, you know, that temperature getting crazy low and having an adverse effect so long as there's not prolonged exposure. I know a lot of, not a lot, but I, I've seen before just how, how a dog is able to warm up the inside of a kennel. When you zip that thing up, the insulated cover, um, let's say I think, uh, wood chips are probably the most common, um, thing that people would throw in their kennel if they're going to leave their dogs sleeping there. Why wood chips

54:57instead of just the mat? Yeah. I don't know if it's a easy to clean, easily accessible. You can pick them up at any farm store on the road, any co-op on the road. Maybe I'm not entirely certain. Um, but obviously wood has really low. Again, I'm not a, I'm not a, whatever you'd even call them, thermal scientist, but like wood doesn't conduct heat. Right. So it's going to be a lot easier to maintain that temperature for that dog than, than sitting on the cold, exposed metal bed of your pickup. Okay. So, um, what about the puppy stage when the, the puppy comes home? You do not

55:40want that full size kennel. You don't not even want an immediate, an intermediate size kennel. You want, you want a space that is that compact area that we just talked about earlier for your full grown dog because the potty training part, that's really where this comes in. Absolutely. If you give a dog this whole kennel, it's, it's going to go and use a part of it till you go to the bathroom and then move over and sleep and rest outside of the mess that it made. And you're going to struggle with

56:13potty training because the dog can just go anytime. So, um, what do you tell people to do during that stage? Do they just need to buy a separate kennel before they get a full grown dog or do you have dividers? So we do have dividers. It's a really popular product. Actually, it's very economical. Uh, but there's a couple of different options for people in that puppy stage. If you're the type that, um, is going to run multiple dogs and you're kind of always cycling a few dogs, it may make sense to get a couple of different sizes to make that transition easier. Uh, but if

56:48you're the, if you're, if you're the type that you're really confident, you know, both parents of that dog and you can get a real good sense of about how big that dog's going to be. What you can do is buy the size that you expect to be appropriate when that dog is an adult, when it is full grown and then use a divider. I think I have one somewhere. Maybe I don't, um, I don't have one here with me, but the, uh, we have dividers that can go in just about any of our larger sizes. They're super simple to use. Um, just kind of a push button on the side that actually

57:20locks into the vent holes. So, um, every row of vent holes that you use is another size technically of kennel that you get when you're using a divider. So it makes it really, really slick for exactly the case that you're talking about. Potty training, house training that dog, crate training that dog, giving them a size that's appropriate. Again, that they feel close, they feel comfortable, uh, make it like their bedroom. And as that dog outgrows that space, you move the divider down to the next slot of vent holes and you move it down to the next slot of vent holes. And then eventually you get rid of it completely if you sized it correctly. What we, what we actually see

57:52happening with those dividers. That's really interesting is we'll have people that maybe run smaller dogs, uh, but they want to transport a dozen or half a dozen, excuse me, half a dozen dogs in the back of their pickup. They're going to get three extra large kennels and they're going to put a divider in each one. They're going to get an extra large kennel. That's a double door, either front and back or double door with one of the side, uh, side entry doors. And they'll put a divider in the middle. And essentially you've created two kennel spaces, both uniquely accessible through their own door, uh, with that. So that's a really interesting use case too, that we're seeing

58:27people use those dividers for. I've seen some pretty slick setups of like guys that use the like bed slide systems and you, they roll that, they pull up, they roll that thing out, six dogs jump out. And it's like, man, I am so jealous of this right now. Cause that looks so cool. Yeah. Divider is a really good way to, um, to grow with a puppy. If you don't want to invest in multiple size kennels. One of the other things that's, that's kind of intriguing that is a new product for us. Also speaking of the puppy stage is this is a product we just rolled out a couple of weeks ago. Um, this is our, our mini kennel.

59:02So I'm showing this on the screening for people that are listening. This is our mini kennel. So it's really small. Uh, it's our smallest size by, by good measure. It's got a front door and a top door actually. So if you're the type that gets a brand new puppy, you're buying that thing at eight weeks old, 12 weeks, whenever you're getting your dog and it's not, it's fighting you going in and out. You can set that dog in the top, um, really gently set it down. Or if you're the type again, for the non hunting community, that's traveling with cats or rabbits, or I mean, you name it,

59:32whatever kind of critters that you run around with that, that don't require a large kennel. The mini kennel is a really cool product too, to use for, for puppy transportation. Why the top door? Uh, just simply with, uh, specifically not dogs, but other animals that would be more reluctant to go in through a front entry door or something that's really small. You can actually just hold it, set it in the top. Set it down. Do you guys ever have any doors break? Every once in a while, we'll have something like that happen.

1:00:05Yeah. So what, what tends to happen if we have any issues with the doors, there's a, uh, the way our doors kind of stop themselves from overclosing are these tabs on the top. And that's 95% of the time we're going to have an issue with the door. It's just that this tab got broken. Somebody took their door off and dropped it and this cracked, or, uh, maybe got bumped in transportation or something to their local store and it shows up with a tab broken off. But that's, that's the majority of, of any of the issues that we see with doors. Um, as far as upgrades to kennels, um, you know, what are frequently asked questions that people get,

1:00:41or do you have any examples of really pimped out kennels that you get? And you're like, wow, that's impressive. Cause I'm sure, I mean, you just mentioned even having that slide, like I'm George Lyle, my, my bird dog mentor, he's got the slide that comes out and then he's got one, two, three of them. They're all attached together. The dogs come out the side and I'm like, man, that is pretty, that is pretty such a cool water on top. Yep. Absolutely. That's, that's the coolest stuff. Like we see so many pictures. I would, I would highly recommend people if you want, uh, inspiration photos of what a,

1:01:14of what a kennel transportation system set up, whatever you want to call it could look like, go, go visit our Instagram page because the, the way people configure these things and they'll send them to us and we'll share a good chunk of those. They're so cool to see how people end up using our products. We've had people that, so, um, one of our, just the number one products I would tell people to get, if you're going to invest in a good kennel, get a top tray. Uh, if you're working with rough land, top trays are the, just the most obvious product that you can get. So it's,

1:01:44it's a kennel, uh, topper it's molded on the bottom to fit on and sit, you know, right really well on top of your kennel. You can actually bolt it down. Uh, we put these holes in so you can tell it, and it comes with a kit. You can actually bolt it to the, the inserts on the top of your kennel, but those products are going to cost like, I think that's like, that one's probably $35 and the amount of uses that you will find for that top kennel organization to throw collars and food

1:02:15and leashes and who knows what supplements, whatever your shotgun shells, whatever you're traveling with, the ability to just have easy storage for that is so unbelievably valuable. So that's number one upgrade I would recommend people to do is, is get a top tray. If you're getting a kennel, another one that a lot of people will look at too, if, if that idea makes a ton of sense to you, but you also want a really good supply of water on hand, you are going to be on the road for a while and you, you're going to want more than a gallon. Like let's say that the water

1:02:45hole holds, or you're out in the field and you want to wash your hands after, you know, cleaning the game on the tailgate of your truck, or you want to rinse that dog off to cool it down or get all the muck off of it from the slough that it just pushed through. We have a water topper that's very similar to the top tray with the exception that it holds nine gallons of water and it just sits right on top of your kennel, uh, and with a little spigot. So you can wash your hands, wash gear, wash your dog off, uh, whatever you're looking for. Nine gallons of fresh water, uh, kind of out

1:03:17the ready, wherever you're at is a really cool thing. So that's a really good upgrade as well. So the customization upgrades are our most popular changing the door color, changing the handle color, um, door configurations. I want one that's got a side door or back door or whatever. Sure. Yeah. I think, you know, I've got the deck storage system in my truck. So depending on the size, you know, I, I don't know if you have some kennels that aren't quite as tall because everybody wants to pimp out their hunting rig their own way. Everybody needs to customize it.

1:03:49Everyone has their own sizes and space. And what about the topper? Do you want the big tall topper? Then you can't put certain things on top. But, um, is that an option where if you want, you need the length, the width, but you don't need it to be quite as tall. You can have one that's, you know, not quite as tall to snug, snug underneath the topper, but yet sit on top of the deck system. Yeah. So two thoughts on that. The first of which is the majority of our kennels will actually fit. We kind of looked at a bunch of this with the deck systems because those are so popular and

1:04:20they're awesome. Um, that most of, uh, our kennel systems will actually fit underneath the topper of your truck with that deck drawer system. As long as you don't have like an ultra low profile profile topper, uh, or something like that. If you, as long as you're putting your kennel in sideways and turning it vertically, then, uh, you'll fit just fine with your intermediate kennels that you're running. You'd have no problem with that under your topper with your, your deck system. Um, larges I think are the same and maybe even some, some XLs. Uh, you're not going to get the Titan in. I can promise you that if you haven't seen the Titan, it's our, like, it's meant for

1:04:53livestock and, you know, giant breed dogs, which not a lot of people are using for upland. But, um, the most, the majority of those will, will fit underneath the topper with that deck drawer system. And you are, uh, encroaching on that kind of that list of products that, that we're talking about that have, we have in our roadmap of, Hey, maybe, maybe this is worth some consideration of a, of a more low profile kennel as well for what's to come. Oh gosh, I want to get into some of what you're working on. You won't share. Yeah. Well, I would not a ton. Well, suffice it to say

1:05:24that, you know, that the idea of having, uh, extra space underneath my, my topper, uh, or even if I'm not the guy that runs with the topper, but I've got a, um, I've got a tonneau cover on my truck and I want to be able to shut that when my dog's not in there. You know, those are some use cases that we're, we're considering. Like the low rider, would you call it a low rider? Yeah, maybe something like that. Maybe. Okay. So on air production meeting then, Reed, here's something. The chow box is great, right? It's amazing. Here's the thing. You need a, you need a one that's half the size.

1:06:02Can we do one that's not as big? Because here's why I could feed my dog for a month with the amount of food that I can put in there, but I'm only going on a road trip for five days, seven days. So the space that it takes up, you talked about that space on a hunting trip. Every inch is valuable. Um, can we get one that's half the size? Okay. I'm going to, we're going to do this real time. Alex, can you pull our website back up? Yep. Why did I order the wrong one? Go, go to the, go to the chow box, find the drop down menu. I think it says size.

1:06:37All right. Let me share my screen. Share the screen. All right.

1:06:43All right. So long as we're thinking the same thing here. So let's, uh, let's go to shop food and water chow box. Yep. All right. Uh, chow box. Okay. And then scroll down a little bit. Now see that, see that drop down that says size. Yep.

1:07:02Check the mini one. Oh, there you go. There's a mini. Okay. Check the mini out and see what that does. So essentially what the mini is, is it's the same as our standard chow box with the back half cutoff. So the main chow box has an extra 15 pounds of food storage, kibble storage. It's got a really cool molded in shelf for a bowl to fit on it and things like that. But the mini is the exact reason that you're talking about. It's a guy that, you know, I've got two dogs and I'm just going for a weekend or I've got one dog and I'm only going for a few days. I don't need to pack 30 pounds of kibble with me. So this one

1:07:35holds 15 pounds. The materials are all the same. It's going to have, you know, real heavy duty latches on it. It's going to have a nice thick rubber seal, a gasket in the inside. It's going to keep all your stuff dry. Um, it's not going to get wet. You know, any moisture that's in the kibble is going to stay in there. It's not going to get dried out. So yeah, I would, I would highly recommend. Maybe we need to get one. Maybe we need to get one shipped out to you. So this is funny because there were some coworkers of mine years ago. Let's just say they were a

1:08:06little bit longer in the tooth. Can I say that? And you don't even know what that means. So they couldn't figure out how to do simple things like attach a logo to their email and send it. So they'd say, can you come do this for me? And I was like, what? So I would do some of these very simple tasks. And then the next day or two days later, they'd ask me to do it again. And so I realized quickly, rather than do a task for somebody, I needed to give them the instructions on how to complete it themselves in hopes that they would learn how to do it

1:08:41themselves. Yeah, but that doesn't always work. No, it does. It does. If you keep, you're enabling if you don't. I know. So the reason I bring it up is Reed just walked us through exactly what to do to solve the problem. Good job, Reed. Well done. Well done. I can't believe I didn't know that. Just trying to make everything easier, man. I can't believe I didn't know that. The chow box is an awesome accessory. I take it with all the time, but it's, it's always been, I'm like, gosh, I just need half the space. So, okay. I'm an idiot. That's too funny. That is so funny. I love that. I love everything about that.

1:09:15We've been talking for over an hour, so we'll wrap this up. Anything that we didn't cover that you get asked about a lot. I mean, pimpin, pimpin the kettle, pimpin the dog, uh, set up the hunting setup. That's something every hunter kind of enjoys. Like even when you started talking about this stuff, I was like, oh yeah, I like this. I just get excited thinking about what I can do to accessorize. Are there any other accessories that you think we, people might be interested in that we haven't already talked about? I mean, you've got all kinds of different colors. Are there new ones

1:09:46coming out? I mean, I don't know. Yeah. So we've, we've got a, we've got quite a few colors already out there. We are looking at potentially, maybe here's a spoiler alert for your, your audience. We're looking at potentially some, some additional new colors later this year. Uh, we've changed up our color calendar a fair bit, um, compared to years past. So what we typically do is we'll rerun the colors that are really popular. Um, uh, kind of once a year typically is the cadence. Um, but we're considering some other new ones, uh, as well, some highly requested colors.

1:10:19So that's going to be fun. Other models with different door configurations is always a common request. Like, Hey, can I get a top tray, but for a small kennel, my dog has stuff too, you know, just because it's not a, doesn't require an intermediate size kennel. It doesn't mean I don't have leashes and collars and all the things. Um, can I get this size with a side door? Those are things that we're working on. Um, other accessories. I mean, we covered, go ahead. Oh, I know. I was going to ask you before I forget, I'm going to be flying with the dog here soon. Um, any advice on flying with the dog? I mean, I assume, you know, like you can't fly

1:10:57with the guns in a soft sided case. They've got to be locked up. Right. What are laws with flying with a dog and having a kennel? This is a really good question. So we have a couple options for you on that front. Uh, in terms of the laws, there's a, um, I might butcher this, but I think there's a regulating body. I think it's called IATA if I'm not mistaken. I could have those letters transposed, but that's going to be your, um, the kind of the governing body for transporting live animals, at least as I understand it. So we've worked with, uh, one of the major airlines to develop

1:11:31a kennel that we like confirm is going to meet all of those requirements, uh, to travel with a dog. And those are our airline kennels here, which Alex is pulling up. So you'll notice, uh, a little bit of a difference between these kennels and the ones that you're, that you're running around with in your truck right now. Uh, the most obvious is this like flared middle section on the outside. So that's just to guarantee that there's plenty of proper ventilation happening for that dog while it's flying. Uh, they don't come with lower vent holes. They all come with a wire door. Uh, they

1:12:06come with what we call an airline kit. It's going to have like live animal stickers and some random other products that, that the AITA recommends you have only available in a single, single door configuration, um, those types of things. And then one of the laws that you also have to follow is there has to be a, um, like a bowl inside the kennel somehow for water or food or whatever, which makes no sense to me, right? If you've spent five seconds on an airplane, you know that no

1:12:37water is staying inside there after you take off, but whatever. Especially the way they handle the luggage. My goodness. Yeah. Yeah. But, but there are, um, we do make some really cool products that, that allow us to, uh, uh, accommodate all of those laws. So one of the products that you could look at is it's called the kennel gear dog bowl. Um, that is a really slick way to attach a bowl to your door. It's super easy to pop on and off, fill it with kibble, fill it with water, whatever you need. Um, and it's not exclusively used for airline travel. We know a ton of people that will feed their,

1:13:10feed their dogs in their kennel after a hunt, um, using this or give them water, you know, during the short drive back to, to camp or whatever. So it's not just for airline travel. Uh, but, uh, that's a, a one way that you can meet that requirement with a really economical product. 30, 34, 99. It looks like. So could I do just that kennel gear dog bowl on the current kennel that I have, the regular immediate kennel and fly with it? Um, so the standards or not? So not, not completely. So one

1:13:41of the things that you would need to make sure that you have is a wire door and you need to have the ability to, um, lock that kennel, which is, um, typically that requires, uh, something called the side latch rod kit for us. Anyway, it adds some extra bars in the middle, uh, that allow it to lock. That's probably one thing worth pointing out. We, we're just about to come out with this too. So this is a new, for the people that are listening, this is a new way to lock your kennel doors. So this is, uh, for the guy that's traveling cross country and is going to run into the gas station or the restaurant to, to get something to eat quick fuel up, but doesn't want to, you know,

1:14:15have to worry about anything happening to his dogs. Super simple way. You retrofit that on any existing rough land door. So that's something that, that I can let out of the bag, uh, that we are coming out with very soon. Might even be out actually by the time this is released, but, um, that's one way. The other challenge that we have with airline transportation is the requirement for that tapered side and the kind of that, that extra airflow. So all of our kennels have a tapered, uh, tapered side to them specifically for that reason, for extra airflow, so that you're

1:14:47not putting anything vertically right up against that and clogging off all those ventilation holes. If you have the right gate agent, um, they will allow you to travel, uh, with a wire door, um, and our, our, uh, live animal, you know, stickers and our airline kit on a regular kennel. The challenge with that is I, I wouldn't recommend it to most people because we have had instances on that are super unfortunate where the gate agent allowed it to go to the destination and the gate agent there didn't allow the animal to travel back because it didn't meet one of the requirements. So, um,

1:15:22if you have a really good set of gate agents, if they're in a good mood that day, you might have no issues whatsoever. But if you want to make sure that you are good to go, that you're not going to have any issues traveling with your dog on an airplane, I would highly recommend getting that, that airline kennel. Looks like you're getting a new kennel. I got a, I've got some work to do here. You better do that just in case. You don't want Daisy stuck in 10 bucks too. Oh my gosh. I cannot wait to share with everybody the journey that I'm working on right now. It is a trip of a lifetime. And I don't say that loosely. Like I really believe that it might be one of the

1:15:56most extraordinary adventures that I will ever take in my life, but I do need to fly on a commercial airline with my dog because otherwise I don't think I'm going to be able to, to reach it. And we're talking Al, I might be gone for weeks. You're going to miss me, buddy. How are we going to do podcasts? I will send you via, um, what is Elon Musk? Starlink? Yes. I was going to say, what if you're in like the remote parts of Norway or something? Travis is asking questions via WhatsApp and texting them in.

1:16:29Oh my gosh. You guys, I know like my phone is buzzing on my lap right now. I'm communicating with one of the people that I'm planning this with. And we're talking about adjusting dates because of potential snow and different things that might come in at earlier than we anticipate. I don't know. It's... He's going to Antarctica. Oh my gosh. Antarctica is actually on my list of adventures too, because this is for one of my our other shows. But, um, Rapala has a world record on all but one continent.

1:17:02And we've been talking about catching a fish on a Rapala lure on the last remaining continent and documenting that. And there's a fish that I believe I could catch. What is it? Oh my gosh. I forget the name of it right now. It's one of the ugliest things you've ever seen, but that actually could then be the most incredible adventure that I have ever gone on. And we've toyed with it a couple of times. We were almost ready to pull the, uh, pull the trigger, but then COVID hit. And then since then it's kind of been put on the side. But anyway, now I'm,

1:17:33now I'm rambling. Lots to talk about. Reed, I will end it right there. Appreciate all of this conversation about kennels, pimping your kennel. In a nutshell, strap your kennel down and put your dog in the kennel when you're traveling. Absolutely. Yep. Yep. A kennel will save a dog's life and could potentially do even more good for you. And you don't know what you need until you need it. And if your dog is free range roaming around in the vehicle, oh gosh, I just pray that any accident

1:18:05doesn't come back to, uh, make you regret the decision of not having a good kennel. Yep. Yeah, absolutely. I've seen it. And you might as well have a little style while you're doing it too, right? Like get, get your setup customized the whole way you want it. Get to match your sports team or whatever, your favorite color, whatever you need. You look good. You play good. We're going to need a wild, a wild one. If, well, see the day we're recording this, we still aren't sure if we're going to be able to watch them next week. So we can watch them next week. Well, we're recording

1:18:37this. The day before the game. The day of the game. Wow. There could be multiple games between now and when this thing is. The day of game six. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Lord Stanley's cup. We're coming for you. All right. Good luck with that. Well, I appreciate your time, Reed. Thanks to all of our sponsors for making this possible. It's been great, guys. Alex, appreciate you and all of the hard work you do over there. Just grinding, just a grinder over there. Yeah, that's me. Yeah. All right. We'll be back next week with another episode of the Plush Podcast.