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 #016: Eric Byrd - Kinetic Performance, Quail Hunting, Bird Dogs
In this episode of Gundog Nation, host Kenneth Witt interviews Eric Byrd, a national channel manager for Kinetic Performance Dog Food. They discuss the nuances of quail hunting in Florida, the importance of dog nutrition, and the characteristics that make English pointers a preferred breed for hunting. Eric shares his journey into the dog food industry, emphasizing the need for high-quality nutrition for working dogs. The conversation also touches on the use of GPS technology in tracking dogs, the impact of weather on hunting, and the growing popularity of Cocker Spaniels in the hunting community. Eric's insights into dog training and nutrition provide valuable information for dog owners and enthusiasts alike. In this conversation, Kenneth Witt and Eric Byrd delve into the intricacies of dog nutrition, feeding practices, and the profound bond between hunting dogs and their owners. They discuss the importance of understanding a dog's natural instincts and how humanization can negatively impact their health. The conversation also highlights the launch of the Kinetic Hunting Ops page, aimed at connecting hunting dog enthusiasts. Ultimately, they emphasize the joy of hunting with dogs and the critical role of proper nutrition in enhancing a dog's performance and well-being.
Hello and welcome to Gun Dog Nation. This is Kenneth Witt and I'm coming to you from Texas. I want you to know that Gun Dog Nation is more than just a podcast. It's a movement to unite those who want to watch a well-trained dog do what it's bred to do. Also, we are set out to try to encourage youth, to get encouraged in the sport of gun dogs, whether it's hunting, competition, trials, hunt tests, all the above. This is a community of people that are united to preserve our heritage of gun dog ownership and also to be better gun dog owners. So if you'll stay tuned to all of our episodes, we're going to have people on here to educate you about training, about nutrition, health. Anything can make you a better gun dog owner. It's my pleasure to welcome our listeners and please join our community. All right, welcome to gundog nation. It's Kenneth Witt. I've got a special guest out of Florida, my first Florida guest on here. I'm coming to you from Texas, as usual, and this guy wears a lot of different hats. We got a lot of really good information for gundog owners to listen to on this podcast.
Speaker 1:Again, I want to give a special thank you to Sean Brock, who does music on my podcast for the intro and outro. He's playing a lot of those instruments. The ones he's not playing are, I think, one of the Dobro players. Eric is Jerry Douglaslas. We've got scott vessel on the banjo. But you can check out sean brock music on youtube. The guy is sensational. We grew up just across the mountain from each other. He's on the harling county side, I'm on the leslie county side in kentucky and uh, uh, give sean a big hand and thank you. All right, mr eric bird, let's introduce yourself. Tell us where you work, what you do, and then we're going to peel it all back.
Speaker 2:All right, my name is Eric Bird and I work I'm a national channel manager for Kinetic Performance Dog Food. I'm based out of a little town called Greenville, florida, about 40 miles east of Tallahassee, right near the Georgia line, so kind of in the middle of the state in the panhandle up here. Been a Florida cracker my whole life, been born and raised here. You know not a lot of folks from Florida can say that, but been a Florida my whole life and been running bird dogs for most of that. So grew up with, kind of went through the little gamut of dogs with growing up my dad had a first one was a GSP. Then he went through the little gamut of dogs with growing up.
Speaker 2:My dad had a first one was a GSP. Then he went through a Brittany phase and finally settled into that long-tailed English pointer and that class of that look and kind of got in that. And once I got older and got out of college and started making my own life I got my first bird dog and one now has turned into five and so I've been chasing a wild quail most of my adult life but you know really heavily the last probably 20, 25 years really. You know dedicated time, energy assets into wild quail hunting here in Florida and just a passion and a pursuit of that little bird is really pretty awesome. You know, when you dive into all that, it takes to get one in your bag. It's a lot of work put into it but it's so rewarding watching them dogs do what they got to do.
Speaker 1:Eric, you know I've been going to Florida about my whole life, down to central Florida, to Osceola County, but I had no idea until we spoke earlier before this podcast that there was a pocket of some really good quail hunting there in your area, all the way into georgia. Yes, sir, tell us talk about that a little bit so I, I hunt mostly, or all, not mostly.
Speaker 2:All of my hunting is on wildlife management areas and my dad's probably cringing right now he's like quit telling the secret. You know, um, but you know in all honesty, for us to protect it, we got to get people using. For us to protect it, we've got to get people using it, I think, and I think we've got to be stewards of that. But I hear all the time that there's not any wild birds anymore and I hear people all over the country talk about that as well and their pockets are where they're at, they're at their hometowns and I really think there's more birds there. It's not like.
Speaker 2:I heard a guy talking today about going to Kansas and finding 12 coveys in two hours. Well, it's a little harder work than that. If I have a good day, it's four coveys in a day. It's a lot harder work, but yes, there's a lot of birds in these areas and just you got to go out and put the labor in. And I use a technique that I think is very beneficial to maximizing the dog's efforts, where if you're only finding four coveys a day, you just can't put a dog down to run a 600 acre block because that block might not have a covey. So you've got to locate birds.
Speaker 2:You know, by the whistling technique that I do, I whistle both with my mouth and with some calls, trying to locate birds early and then work through the day throughout the day whistling and trying to locate coveys that way, and then when nothing whistles, which happens on occasion, you've got to do what's the old blind run and definitely put those dogs to the test and put them out there. Success rate on that is a lot lower, just because you don't know where they are. And you know I've taken a dog and literally run an hour on one side of a grade road and then come back to the truck and find the covey 10 yards off to the side. I didn't run, you know. So locating them is very important, you know, for the success rate. But there's a lot more quail here. I actually went Sunday morning and found five coveys and it was just, you know, five coveys. And uh, it was just, you know, didn't shooting wasn't all that great, but the dog work was. So you know I, I've become a uh, a dog enthusiast over a hunt.
Speaker 2:A killer, you know a shooter, yeah, you know, I definitely want to shoot better at times, but it's definitely about watching the dog's work and putting that effort, all that effort you put into them, to come to fruition there in front of your eyes. But so that's what I do With Kinetic Dog Food. I spend a lot of time handling a lot of law enforcement accounts. We feed law enforcement military teams all over the country in that Malinois Shepherd detection world and I spend a lot of time at different trainings around the country, and so that's kind of how I spend my day. That's kind of how I got started in the dog food world was. I was working for another company that dealt with kennels that go in the backs of police cars, and so I'm at all these law enforcement canine conferences and there's all the dog food brands and like a light went off and hit me. I was like, well, why is there a difference? Why is a bag $60 and why is a bag $28? You know what's the difference in dog food? And it was that curiosity of what am I doing for my dogs here in my kennel, what could I be doing better? And that was kind of the search for me, to seek out the understanding of what's going on in the dog food world. And with that I came across Dave Dorsen, the owner of Kinetic, and just sat down and talked to him. But I talked to all of the major brands, all of them Purina, diamond, eukanuba, royal Canin, all of them. They're all at these shows and learned some valuable information.
Speaker 2:But the story about Kinetic is what led me to buy my first bags, way before I was ever an employee, and the results in the kennel was pretty phenomenal immediately you know the stools. And then it was about six, eight months later. I saw the ability for dogs to retain energy, to recover much quicker on these days where I'm hunting multiple, multiple days in a row, and that just led into a better relationship with the owner. And they offered me a job one day and I said oh, by the way, I'm already feed your food and so it's just been a great fit I get to, I get to pursue my passion for my dogs and for other dogs. I'm around dogs every day and I feel like Kinetic puts the best nutritional profile in them to allow those dogs to become the best version of themselves. And I've got multiple examples of dogs that were failing, not because of training, not because of genetics, but were failing because nutrition wasn't giving them the opportunity to be that best version. So that's kind of my story and it's kind of what I do.
Speaker 1:And I love my job, I love my dogs. How long have you been with Kinetic?
Speaker 2:I've been with Connecticut three years now.
Speaker 1:OK, and what's your role with the company? What's your job title? If you don't mind me, the job title is national channel manager.
Speaker 2:It's sales. It's product representation, it's customer relations implementation, it's customer relations. We're a small family business so we tend to wear multiple hats, but my focus is in that law enforcement world. I feed a lot of plantations around me here in this area so I have a really big focus on there, just because it's my hobby. But it's also, you know, I'm in the middle of English porno world here in the South Georgia, north Florida area. I mean, it's just saturated with plantations, put and take operations. So there's a ton of opportunities here and everybody wants, you know, to have the best dog that they possibly can. You know these dogs are hunting, you know, multiple times a day or multiple times a week. So you know I'm just in the, the, the stronghold of this English porno world. So, um, so that's kind of what I do on a day-to-day basis is anything and everything dog food.
Speaker 1:Now you said that they're a family owned business. Yes, sir, who are they?
Speaker 2:based out of Uh the F. The family's out of Cincinnati uh, cincinnati, ohio.
Speaker 1:Okay, Where's the company headquarters? I guess it's there in Cincinnati.
Speaker 2:Okay, the food is made in Iowa. I think it's Sioux Falls Iowa. It's either Sioux Falls or Sioux City, one's South Dakota, one's Iowa. It's the one in Iowa, okay, but it's made there. Consumer Supply makes our food up there. Everything's sourced not locally but within the United States and it's a husband and his wife own the company and we're small and we're growing. But the product stands for itself. I mean, it's easy to sell it because you just got to put it in somebody's hands and the results they see are you know, the dog tells the story for us.
Speaker 1:You know I've got a. We have a, a mutual friend, ty. I met you, yours I don't know if that's his last name. He's from Belgium and I'll really butcher it up, but he's a long time military canine dog trainer and he's using that on his dogs. He's only using the 24%. What do you use for your English pointers?
Speaker 2:I use the 32 right now, so there's a big difference between the 24 and the 32. The 24K is a beef and pork formula, so it's a chicken-free formula and it also comes in a quarter-sized disc and we made it big like that because in his training he does a lot of food reward. Training that Nipopo training is a lot of food reward. He wants it to make a noise when it hits in the box. There's a lot of things driven with food in that and so that larger kibble allows him to hold it and to index it and do things with it where he's not dropping it. The dog's heads aren't dropping to the ground looking for food. So there's really beneficial there and that's why that kibble is really for food. So there's really beneficial there and that's why that kibble is really he uses that 24k the most. I will say I switched my dogs over to that 24k, playing with the formulas as I tested them and dropping from a 30 to 32% to that 24. There's something about that beef and bacon that sticks to dogs really well. It really holds on to them pretty phenomenally. So we found a click there with lower protein percentage but a little bit higher fat than our 26K. It really, really holds dogs well.
Speaker 2:I feed the 32K right now. It's a 32% protein, 24% fat. I'm just working these dogs pretty hard and to hold their weight and to give them what they need without me having to feed more than four cups. You know I can do all that. My females are on, you know, three and three to three and a half cups and my males on, you know, three and three quarter cups and I'm holding their weights right now with the heavy workload that I'm putting them on. But I'm into 32. I'll drop down to the 30, some in the summer If I feed the 32, I just feed way less. I mean, sometimes in the summer I'm feeding these dogs and females two cups a day like one of our kinetic cups, and then the male gets two and a half cups a day and they're holding, looking phenomenal at that. So the retention rate in the digestibility of this food is such at a high level that you really can lower the amount of kibble that you have to feed to maintain the look and the performance aspect of what you want.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, like you said, it is great for training. I went through Napopo Gold at yours' place and I've been through silver and gold both, but we use that food for for our treat training and it is very handy it's. I mean, it's it's easy to hold, it's big, looks like a I don't know bigger than a quarter, smaller than a half dollar, but it was, it was. And uh, the dogs I saw there that been on it and he had there was a lot of dogs there on it sure look good. So yeah, it has to be a good thing. Um, I always want to know, since you've been in different breeds you said Brittany's setters what made you end up with the English pointers, what, what, what drove you to that breed and why have you stayed with it?
Speaker 2:Well it's, it's the class. I think there's just a different class of what I want to see on the ground. It's the groundwork, ultimately. That draws me to the English pointer over some of the other pointing breeds. My dad described it as the English pointers the Ferrari of the bird dog world. Right, even though they don't draw the price of a Ferrari in the marketplace. But they just have that class, that high end speed, that big running dog. But when that tail cracks and whips across the prairie or that tail cracks and whips across the pine forest and you see that big, long white tail snapping across there, I mean it just gets you excited. Right, that dog is bouncing, he gets birdie and that thing starts twitching and wiggling and you've got that, you know, just kind of dancing across the field, you know. And that it's just a level of class for me that draws that.
Speaker 2:I stuck with it, you know. I watch those other dogs work but pound for pound, I don't think you're going to get a dog that can withstand the rigors as hard and as big as we want some of these dogs to go. And there's some GSPs. I've been, I'm probably going to get beat up by GSP people and it's all about sort of the breeding of the line that you're in in the GSP Cause some there are some really good big running GSPs that do it but honestly it's it's about the tail and it's about that, that class of that tail and that dog goes on point. And that tail's kind of staunch, hard, looking like a poker stick. That's what does it for me. But we watch a dog run way more than we watch it, point. And you've got to be able to be happy with what you're seeing, what that dog looks like on the ground. And an English pointer does that for me.
Speaker 1:You know I've never owned pointers English pointers but I've hunted with them and I just think they're a beautiful dog to watch. They're kind of majestic, highly athletic, you know, muscular frame, just a good solid. You know I just one of these days I may get one. I don't need any more dogs.
Speaker 2:You won't be doing wrong.
Speaker 1:I love them, love to watch them and I uh, yeah, you know, and I've hunted with britneys and setters and you know, not mine, not my own, I've only dogs. I've got to hunt with right now is retrievers and, uh, getting ready to have a cocker, but uh, so yeah, cockers are pretty fun to watch too. Now you know it's funny. It seems like in your neck of the woods all whip into way up into Carolinas, georgia. I'm finding that cockers are getting really popular in the southeast US, more so than in other parts.
Speaker 2:Well, they're becoming a very popular companion pet but it's also almost becoming an introduction dog to people into quail hunting, because a guy with a cocker can go buy 10 pin-raised birds, put them in a field, walk out there with that cocker and flush and shoot them and have a great experience and enjoy that and make that dog a part of that, that hunting experience for them. And those dogs do so well at that. I mean that's what they love to do, um, but it's, it's very, it's very easy to kind of get into that kind of of hunting and it's very enjoyable for some folks. So they become and they're great house dogs, companion pets. They're smaller, you know, but watching one of them things wiggle across the field, man, the way they get they're like a little crackhead twitching and the way they get all excited, I mean they're super fun to walk in front of or have them run in front of you for sure.
Speaker 1:But now I can see doing the type of hunting you're doing. You're covering a lot of ground because you're look, you're not shooting pin birds, so you're going, you're covering some ground to find birds. I can see where the pointer is definitely a better fit. Yeah, what you're doing.
Speaker 2:One I got one pointer now that it may not make my program, because it's just, she's just. Not. Everything about her is beautiful um, the style, the class. When she finds birds she holds them. But she's right now 60, 80 yards and I have to. You know I take her to cubbies, that I know that I've whistled, that I can go, pretty much know the area, but if I need to hunt birds she's not big enough to hunt them. I need dogs that. I need dogs that are run, big enough and cover ground. You know to cover and define birds. You know I lead her in and do a great job and she's going to do everything you want of her.
Speaker 1:So educate me here, eric. How far do you want your dogs to run these pointers? To find grass, not grass, to find quail for you out there, for me it's all predicated on the cover.
Speaker 2:In general I like to see them. I like to see the dogs work. If the cover allows 300 yards, I like them to go 300 yards, but a minimum working dog for me would be somewhere between that 100, 165, 185 yards. I don't always. You know GPS has really changed the world now for a walking dog hunter. You know I can look down and see the dog. So it's not as paramount anymore that I have to have eyes on, because I can remember the day not too long ago where you haven't seen Tony in a while and you got to start walking the woods looking for Tony and you better have a good broke dog Cause Tony's still standing there 25 minutes later, standing on point. He's been standing there the whole time. You know you just got to walk in circles. So you know that GPS has changed it. But you know the yes sir.
Speaker 1:Well, no, I'm sorry, those GPS, because I forget this question if I don't ask you but does the GPS detectors now I mean the tracking system do they have a pointing detector on them? Yeah, mine has a stop sign.
Speaker 2:It's like I use mine the most to map, but it does it on the compass too. It'll give me like a little stop sign. My dad, the one he uses. I use sport dog. My dad uses Garmin, the one he does actually has a little dog pointing. It'll pop up and he uses the. But if you go to the map it'll show me a stop sign and it'll lead me. You know you're 120 yards away and I can kind of walk my way right to the dog on point.
Speaker 1:So how many the dog have to hold before that stop sign?
Speaker 2:It's every three seconds it updates. Okay, neat Okay interesting and it'll stay that way. It'll stay on a stop sign until the dog moves again. So it'll stay there, which is beneficial. You're talking about walking. I did 7.28 miles Sunday on my feet on the ground, 28 miles Sunday on my feet on the ground.
Speaker 1:The dogs probably did close to 40, 45 miles on the ground. Now, I know it's wintertime, but you're also in Florida. Those dogs, those pointers, handle that heat pretty good down there.
Speaker 2:Yes, they do. You know I hunt down in central Florida a lot and this, honestly, we've been. I was in a sweatshirt before I started this. We've actually had some nice weather, you know hunting weather over the last two weeks. I'm going Saturday back down there and the temperature is going to be 76 degrees again Come February. Most of our hunting is going to be 68 to 69 to start and be closer to 81, 82, 83 by 10 or 11 o'clock. So you have to have dogs conditioned to the heat. Yeah, excuse me, and the English pointer does really well. I've got a friend that hunts GSPs and they handle it really well. I don't know how well a setter would handle it. I'm not saying they couldn't, but it's just it's hot. I mean you have to prepare um.
Speaker 1:When my dogs get out here in this cool weather, man, I feel like they just can go and go and go, you know well, and let me ask you that too on flip the other switch like do you ever take those dogs up north and hunt in the cold temps, or you just you all hunt right there in your backyard. Pretty much you know, not your backyard.
Speaker 2:Tell me honestly, I've never hunted quail outside of the state of florida and I feel like I'm 51 years old and shame on me. I went Kansas deer hunting last year and I sat, I killed a deer on the first night and the whole first day I saw five different coveys feed into my where I was sitting in my tree stand, and all I kept thinking is why didn't I not bring a bird dog? I drove all the way out there and so and it's not a bucket list, but it's going to be one of these trips that I take, hopefully, for my dad can't go anymore, he's 74. But me and him need to get in our truck and drive to Kansas, oklahoma, and take that little swing and take a couple of weeks and go do some wild bird hunting, because I hear it's phenomenal. I just need to. I just need to get out of my, out of my comfort zone, and get in a truck and go. But no, I've never hunted outside the state of Florida.
Speaker 1:I just wonder if you've ever taken them in a weather extreme like that.
Speaker 2:Sunday when I started, it was 22 degrees. They can handle it. I've not been anywhere where it stayed 22 all day. I think it got up to 41 that day. I haven I think it got up to 41 that day I haven't had to put a vest on a dog or run with any of that or run with booties on the feet. I've never had to experience any of that.
Speaker 1:It was 22 in the panhandle there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Sunday morning it was 22.
Speaker 1:Florida snow is what we call it.
Speaker 2:I had that frost. It was so thick it just covered my shoes, my boots, like they were covered in snow.
Speaker 1:I bet y'all was cold. You ain't used to that. No no, florida boy I used to that. Have you ever? I tell you I'm hooked. I talk about on every podcast. I'm sure people get tired of listening, but man, I'm hooked on pheasant hunting in South Dakota. Have you ever done that? So?
Speaker 2:I've never hunted a wild pheasant and I went to a little place called Liberty Hill Outfitters in Arkansas and they had. We did a law enforcement like a gratitude to law enforcement. So they invited law enforcement to come out and we did a hunt for them and then I did some cleanup hunts after the tower hunt, so it was a tower shoot and then afterwards they had some dogs. We did a cleanup hunt so I got to flush, get a couple of points in the dog, flush some pheasants. I got to shoot some over some dogs. I tell you what that's a big, slow bird man. I don't know how they ever survived, cause when you shoot wild quail for a living, it's a much different.
Speaker 1:It's a much different shooting experience. You know, I don't know that I've ever shot a pin pheasant, I've shot pin quail, but anyway, and I've been told I don't know if this is fact, but I've been told that wild pheasants are a lot harder to bring down and I've witnessed it. I've seen pheasants shot three times.
Speaker 2:I bet you they're more hardy, for sure They'll take a load. They'll take a number six way better than a pin-raised one.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, when I hunt up there, I hunt a bunch of guys from Texas. I'm probably the only non-native Texan in the whole group. I'm a Kentuckian, by the way, but yeah, I mean some of us, I know. I've seen a bird shot three times and roll on.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And it might go down way out of sight, but they'll take a shot, yeah they're pretty tough. You were telling me earlier let's talk about this a little bit, and I didn't get to fully understand it, but I'm really interested that you teach nutrition classes, not for people, but for dogs or dog owners. Yes, sir.
Speaker 2:Tell me about that please. So we we found that the passion for our company is that dog handlers have the best opportunity to make decisions about nutrition with the knowledge that they could have for themselves. And we believe in a three-pronged stool approach to dogs in general and how we acquire dogs, how we train dogs, and then the nutrition side of that. So in dog owners and in this gundog world, we're all seeking the best genetic dog, genetically fundamental dog that we can get. We invest in training, whether investing in my mind and my like you went to Nipopo so you could be a better dog trainer. People invest in sending their dogs to a professional trainer to get them trained. But the part of that that gets overlooked in this three-pronged stool is how does nutrition play a part in keeping these dogs up? And when I teach my class, the first thing I teach is what are we feeding? We are feeding the best professional athletes in the world, and I can tell you that Tom Brady didn't play for 43 years or 43 years old in the NFL eating McDonald's and just anything that was thrown at him. He paid a nutritionalist to feed him every day so that his body was in the shape that it could be and so he could go out and perform the way he does. And you think about a hockey player, a basketball player? They're playing multiple nights a week. These guys have people feeding them so that they can be the best that they can be. These dogs, all of them, are the best athletes. They do more, they run faster, they jump higher. A marathon runner will run 23 miles. I think that's what a marathon is. I don't know how many hours it takes them. My dogs will do 23 miles in a day and then do it. The output of these dogs it's not human like. And so why don't we see nutrition the way we see professional athletes? Why don't we figure out how to feed our dogs with that same mindset of? These are professional athletes, them the best opportunity to be the best version of themselves that I can, and nutrition is a big part of that, because we're already looking for the other two. We're already doing very well at that in most cases. And then we take them home and we just feed them whatever we've always been feeding or whatever we're just used to, or whatever brand that we see without the knowledge of understanding how to read that label.
Speaker 2:Make good discernments between good ingredients, bad ingredients not to be played games with by what the industry tells you, what you should think. And I know you're probably oh, you're in the industry. Yeah, I'm in the industry, but I'm peeling the layers of that onion back. I want to peel the scales back so that you're not tricked by the big box. You know, we want to get you into understanding ingredients and understanding how to discern these three factors digestibility, meat-based protein and vitamins and trace minerals. And in my class you will get the ammunition to understand those three things very well.
Speaker 2:And the higher the meat-based protein, the higher the digestibility. You are going to feed less. You're going to get better muscle retention. When you couple that with good vitamins and trace minerals and I can show you how to do that by looking at a bag no one's more digestible than the other You're going to get great skin and quality. Recovery rates are going to go up. You put something in the dog that they can absorb. You're going to see that in the way the dog looks, the way he feels and the way he moves. It's pretty cool to watch nutrition work. Like I said, we see it in our professional athletes and our professional athlete world.
Speaker 1:So you're not. You know also, you're designing a food for energy to fuel that dog for hunting, but you're also trying to design something for recovery because that's you know, I've worked out for years I don't look like it, but I did and you know you want something to energize you to put pro, to build muscle, but you're also wanting something to help you recover. And when you're running a dog day after day and there's really not a recovery time, that's highly important to these dogs, correct?
Speaker 2:Yes, it's about the nutrients getting into the bloodstream. If it's not in the bloodstream, then there's little value to it, right? If it's sitting in the stool, there's no value in that product or what the dog needs to utilize. And so when you put fat and you put protein and it absorbs through the gut wall and gets into the bloodstream, the muscles, the heart, the lungs, all of that can use it for its intended purpose and we can design ingredients that are specifically designed to be absorbed. Now there's a lot of foods out there that put stuff in there that isn't absorbed, but it allows them to make that kibble and stretch out those other ingredients where it kind of dilutes, dilutes what you want as a final outcome, and so we fill her filler. Basically, yes, sir. So we've condensed that down to only being purposeful what ingredients and what are their purposes for the benefit of the dog? And and then in that you'll get the.
Speaker 2:The trace minerals and vitamins are such a huge factor in this whole picture that I'm trying to that we're painting here of nutrition. But trace minerals and vitamins, there's a huge difference in the quality, there's a huge difference in the degradation, just from the moment the dog food is made. How much of that mineral and vitamin isn't even effective three weeks after the food is made. So there's a huge difference in the degradation factor of vitamins, trace minerals and the lesser quality of those minerals. The more it degradates, the faster it does and the less it's absorbed. So you know, easy picture is if I have to have one part per million of copper and I use a very ineffective, cheaper version of that copper supplement, no-transcript.
Speaker 2:You see that with the dog's ability to recover and to that long endurance, that long endurance run where you know you go to Ames Plantation for the national championship. Their dogs are on the ground three hours right Running at three and 400 yards staying. You know they're huge running dogs. What these English Pornhub can do at the top of that breed, you know. At the top of the line those dogs are phenomenal athletes and you've got to feed them in a way that allows them to maximize the nutrients, in a way that lets the body work.
Speaker 1:When you teach that class, how long does it take? Is it a two hour three?
Speaker 2:hour. No, I like to talk. We talked about it earlier, kenny, so I got to guard myself. I like to tell stories and parables. I like to relate things back to nature and how we see things. The guy from the fifth group, ian Donovan, he does it much quicker. He's kind of more to the point, I think from his training, but I can do that class in 45 minutes to an hour If I get good questions and stuff like that. It can go on to an hour, 15, hour and a half.
Speaker 2:When I go to some of these big conferences for canine, a lot of times they'll give you a two-hour block and we cover it way inside that two-hour block and a lot of times just open up good conversations. I got guys in class that'll start opening their phone and looking at their diets and going through their. You know the hey, what do you think of this? And you know one thing that we do in the class you know we won't do in the classes. I don't tear down other brands. You know we never found value in that. There's not value in that. People feed what they feed and but what I, what this class is designed to do, is to allow you to one, like we said, understand what you're feeding and if you find the importance in your dog is a professional athlete and you see the importance of that, maybe nutrition can give you a better outcome in the field, you know, then you may find value in feeding a better quality food. But we also give you the ability to turn that bag over, look at the ingredients and make wise decisions.
Speaker 2:No matter what product you buy, go to any feed store, farm store and go. I know that this is good, I know this is bad. I need to look for meat meals and not whole meats. I'm not scared of byproduct meal because I know that that's a really good ingredient, because it's been explained in a way that is so different than I've ever heard it you get. That ingredient is such a pet peeve of mine because I watch the little girl that was on Friends. She does a commercial for somebody talking about how bad byproduct meals are. Well, it's so, not true. But we give you that ability to look for what things could be problematic with skin and coat, what problematic could be problematic with stools, and every dog is different and any one of these ingredients could be the cause of it. Not all of them collectively, but any one could be a problem, so look for something that's cleaner. Kinetic has, I think, done a great job of cleaning that diet up, to simplify it, to make ingredients purpose-driven instead of just in there for whatever reason it may be.
Speaker 1:Well, I definitely want to set aside a podcast and let you teach that class in your schedule permits. Yes, sir, I think it'd be very beneficial.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I go to places and they're like this is the best thing we've heard. It's not a kinetic infomercial, I'm not sitting here going by kinetic, it's the best thing ever. If you don't buy kinetic, your dogs are suffering. That is not what the design of the class is to do. It is to educate professional handlers, novice handlers, dog lovers to make wise decisions moving forward with their dog life.
Speaker 1:Well, I'll share two things. One is, you know I've got protection dogs and we've talked about that, and I have retrievers and hunting dogs. So you know, you've heard it said a million times old guys always would tell me feed the dog in front of you. So I actually use one real high end food for one dog. One the other, you know, I've had to watch and watch their coat, watch their stool uh, two of my dogs, two of my young dogs, are on your food. You know, because I've tried different stuff, I've tried it for a while and I try to find what fits my dogs. Two I was listening to a nutritionist for a very high-end dog food in our world in the sport business and she was on a podcast and one thing she said I use to this day.
Speaker 1:But she was saying you know, don't feed all your dogs. They're serving at once. If their gut gets real full, they're not absorbing all that. It's better to cut it in half and feed them half're not absorbing all that. It's better to to cut it in half and feed them half of that serving so that it absorbs the nutrients, because it's real high nutrient food. Right, we used good stuff. It's getting wasted if you don't do that. So I've started cutting my servings in half. I'll feed them half, then wait a couple hours and feed them the other part to see to ensure that they digest everything I'm giving them and not wasting all that because it's expensive stuff.
Speaker 2:I have a different philosophy, okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm curious to hear that, because that's just one thing I heard.
Speaker 2:The number that I was talking about. You have to understand your digestibility factor. Now, just because it's higher quality or we're paying more for it, doesn't always mean that all the ingredients are digestible. The digestibility is there.
Speaker 2:I believe in hunt drive. That's why I have my dogs, that's in all aspects of our gun dog stuff, and in the law enforcement world we procure dogs off a hunt drive. And I go back to nature. I think that teaching what God has given us to look at is a way to look at and analyze things. I said I'm not a scientist, this is my own. I'm not taking away from what a professional nutritionalist said, because I'm not.
Speaker 2:But if a lion eats a gazelle, he satisfies himself. He's going to lay there and not eat for two days and let a whole herd walk by Once he gets hungry. Then that hunt drive inspires him to go chase and hunt and do all those things. So for me I feel like, if I I get this question in class a lot of times do you feed once a day or twice a day?
Speaker 2:I believe in once a day in the evening, because when that dog wakes up in the morning, when you want a highly digestible food, that dog has slept in that kennel and that food has had time to absorb. Where is that food valuable? Is it sitting in his stomach or is it in his bloodstream? So if that food's absorbed in his bloodstream, it's now ready to be fueled. It's like going to the gas pump and the gas coming out of the nozzle has no value to the car until you put it in the tank. And so this food has got to be absorbed, and with high absorption rates, very little stool that I'm getting you know. The food is sitting in the bloodstream, ready for that dog to press that NASCAR gas pedal and go 150 miles an hour when he needs to.
Speaker 1:It's ready for him to go, so for example, you would feed the night before a hunt. So you're going to leave that morning, yeah, so.
Speaker 2:I, just before we got on the call, I fed my dogs today. Okay, I always feed around that 5, 6 o'clock time, depending on 430, 430 to 6, you know, whatever how my day is going. And then I hunt them in the morning. But I haven't satisfied and I've had guys say well, I like to feed them a little bit in the morning, you know, just so they have energy. It's like, well, you're putting volume in their stomach and it's. You know.
Speaker 2:I heard people talking about oh, does your food make the dogs run hot? Well, if you're feeding them in the morning, food sitting in the gut wall is going to weigh that dog and run, cause them to. What you're thinking is high proteins making them run hot. No, it's feeding volume, and volume that's not digested will help a dog run hot Not necessarily. You know the protein level. I've had that question a lot too. But I don't want to satisfy that hunt drive. I want them dogs to be mentally hungry for the hunt and I think naturally there's a little bit of letdown. I think if you've satisfied that hunger in them, even if it's just prematurely feeding them earlier in the day, that's my philosophy.
Speaker 2:It's not necessarily the right or wrong. I don't think either way is wrong, I just think that's how I see it.
Speaker 1:Well, I kind of do what you said. But well, I kind of do what you said, but for different reasons. But now your, your way, really opened the door for me to understand. But I was doing it to keep my dogs from getting, you know, gut twist and stuff running. You know, labs are just like all dogs are running hard when they're hunting. Yeah, and I'd feed them when the hunt was over. You know, later in the day, not not necessarily five or six o'clock, but we're done hunting, that's when I and they calm down and got back down to normal heart rate and stuff. Then I'll feed them. Yes, but uh, but I I like what you're saying.
Speaker 2:I think I'll try that yeah, I, I when I when I talk about this um subject, I really want everybody to understand. It's just my opinion. Only I try to relate it back to what I see in the wild, what you see wild animals doing. Ultimately, these dogs are domestically wild animals. I think that's one of the other things in the industry, especially the dog food industry, that we really got to be careful of is that we as owners have humanized these dogs to such a pretty devastating level to the health of these dogs. I see it from all breeds dogs way overweight.
Speaker 1:It hurts me to see them like they feed themselves.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's, it's. You know, Dogs aren't designed to be eating 15 meals a day. Treat here, treat here, hand hand. They need to eat and then fast eating, fast, so their system gets a sense. They're not grazing like a cow, munching and eating all day. And then this overfeeding aspect.
Speaker 2:But the dog food companies are designing food specifically to garner that eye of the human. Well, if you think blueberries are good for you, well, guess what Blueberries must be good for my dog. Or if you like kale, or if you like you know. So they decorate these bags and they sell you on this sensitivity side of the human to think this is what's best for the dog and not in all cases, that some of these ingredients that they're putting in food are as beneficial as they want you to believe. It is Because for us maybe they are superfood, but I don't ever see a blueberry farmer shooting coyotes off of his crop. You don't see the corn farmer out there blasting coyotes out of his cornfield either. Do they eat those products on grains and grasses? Yes, absolutely they do. But that's not how they eat. They're not foragers.
Speaker 1:No, they eat the things that eat the corn. That's right. No, you're right, I don't even let people like most of these treats are garbage ingredients, you know junk. And I don't let people I won't say brand, because I'm on a podcast, I'm not gonna name it call out names of dog treats, but I don't let anybody get my dogs, those you know my. Now when I train I use, just because it's easy with my hand, I use dried liver. Uh, dry beef liver. It's really good stuff.
Speaker 2:It's 100 pure, you know yeah, we have a treat that we did for um. It's called hurricane bites and canine hurricane is the dog that caught the fence jumper at the white house on. This dog is like the most decorated dog ever. Yeah, um, he's got medals from england back to united states. This dog is super decorated. But, um, he's been feeding kinetic um almost his life and his dog's now 13 or 14 years old, maybe older, something like that. But he has Marshall, the owner of the dog, which ran the dog at the Secret Service.
Speaker 2:He has a foundation that raises money to help retired dogs with medical bills, because a lot of people don't realize once these dogs leave their departments, you know, if the handlers get the opportunity to buy them or they get sold. These dogs go through. They're pretty beat up at times. You know, they're work dogs, you know, and so they can have some ailments and stuff and a lot of the departments don't have the funding to help with that aftercare, veterinarian care, and so he started. So we sell hurricane bites. It's a, it's a for the treat world it. We sell hurricane bites. It's a, it's a for the treat world. It is a good treat, it's. It's not full of the bunch of the crap, but it's not a full diet either. But we do. We do sell that to raise, to help that awareness and raise money for that, for that charity, and Marshall and him do a good job with canine hurricane and so we support them with that treat.
Speaker 2:But when I talk to people about treat training outside of treating dogs but if you're working on treating or your your, your basis of your training is treating and you got to treat a lot to get your training in, I say treat with whatever food you're feeding. Yeah, um, because, like you said, a lot of the stuff that you're feeding it, uh, these treat in the treat world cannot. You can be problematic with skin coat quality, with allergy issues, and I had a bloodhound guy in Orlando come up to me and he were talking to me. He's like, oh, I got all these problems and as I keep kind of progressing through the questions and answers, we're trying to, you know, kind of dial in on maybe what's going on. I get to the question well, do you food train? He goes oh, yeah, yeah, he goes, that's most of his food. I'm like, well, what do you, what do you food train with? He goes through a list of food train snacks.
Speaker 2:I said I said I really I said we need to simplify this. I said I can't tell you if the problems you're having with your dog are from your food or from the process of treating them, and so he's like you know. That makes sense. So there's no way for me to really dial in on maybe a problem or an ingredient or something that was caused a problem because he was all over the place. So to simplify things, I say feed what you're hand trained with, or food reward trained with what you feed, and be consistent with what that dog's absorbing every day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I get it now. We spoke earlier, eric, you were talking about that. You had a web page, somebody's, yours. Tell us about that.
Speaker 2:Uh, facebook page, not a web page yeah, so the uh me and ian donovan is uh, he's uh retired from the fish vessel forces. He was a kennel master there and he's part of our team another national channel manager like myself. And then Jacob Jump. He is a police canine handler out of Indiana and he is a coon dog guy big travels the country. Coon dogging runs professional dogs for people, one of them handlers, and so we decided to pull a page away from our regular kinetic stuff and focus on the hunting dog or the hunting aspect. So that's hunting birds, that's hunting ducks, that's hunting man, anything hunting. So it's called the Kinetic Hunting Ops page. We actually launched it this week, so it's very new.
Speaker 2:I'm an administrator of it. I don't really know how to get in it. I've got to get a lesson from Jacob Jump. Those guys know how to promote stuff. I'll tell you this them Coon dog guys know what they're doing on social media, so I've got to get caught up to speed on that. But you know, we've got some stuff on there and we'd love for you all to come check it out. And it's a place to talk dogs, talk hunting dogs, talk protection dogs or detection dogs. But we like dogs that hunt stuff and we want you to brag on yourself, brag on your dog, you know, show us pictures of what your disciplines are. And it's really something focused on the kinetic output in the hunting world and really it's really taken off. I mean, I think it's only been up since Monday. I think we're already almost five 600 followers, so it's, it's kind of taken off for us.
Speaker 1:I need to tell you about a young man. You can list one of my podcast, eric has got this with Casey Maggard. He is from my hometown of Hyden, kentucky, and literally grew up. Well, he, his father, grew up probably a couple, you know, not even a quarter mile from me, but he had. He has the 2024 UKC world champion and Walker Coonhound and, uh, in hunting trial not not show dog, yeah, um, and the, the guy lives over the next County. Uh, jr Gray, I think, who's from Clay County, lives in Laurel County, which is, you know, we're all right there together. You know he has got a dog. It's thrown.
Speaker 1:The more of the winning is that world champions and any dog out there. To my knowledge, yeah, but yeah, those guys, those coon dog guys, that's a different world and they're serious and they're they're great competitors. Their dogs are treated well man and it's there's a lot of money in that industry. I, when they were telling me their purse winnings it's like a racehorse. I mean they were telling me how purse winnings it's like a racehorse. I mean they were telling me how much winnings that dog had and I was like here I'm going broke with my dogs and these guys are actually coming up pretty dang good.
Speaker 2:Man, I've heard some wild stories and it's hearsay. But a guy buys a dog for $80,000 and in three weeks gets hit by a car on a coon race crossing the road. I mean, you're right. It's crazy what these guys invest in their sport.
Speaker 1:And the winning dogs make it back.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, yeah, I mean, I've never had I don't know of any English pointer field trial where the winner gets a truck. These people got truck trials. It seems like there's three or four of them somewhere around the country of the year. Yeah, you know, it is kind of crazy. I was at a field trial with SBHA over in South Carolina, tell me what that stands for.
Speaker 1:I saw a few other guys Do what? Now Tell me what that stands for. Guys do what? Now Tell me what that stands for. I'm sorry to interrupt you.
Speaker 2:SBHA is Southern Bird Hunters Association. Okay, and Marty Robinson runs that group over there. He's a president. They do a phenomenal job. They do walking trials and horseback trials. They run all over the southeast up into Pennsylvania, across. They really put on a good product. Um, they really want to take the drama out of trialing. That can be. You know, I should. You know they, they really do a good job. I really love what Marty and, uh, bruce Mercer and them do with that group. Um, so they do a good job.
Speaker 2:But I was over there at one of their trials in South Carolina and kept seeing these guys with dog boxes when I'd get back and then I'd go to dinner and they'd be gone. I'm like what's going on? Well, the morning I was the morning I was leaving and they're sitting on the back of the truck having cold beers at like seven o'clock in the morning, like, all right, what are y'all doing? I mean it's a little early for cold beers. I mean we just got back. I'm like, what do y'all do? He's like, oh, we're coming hunting.
Speaker 2:So it's a different world. They sleep all, they sleep all day and hunt all night. I mean it's a. It's a different breed of character and a different breed of dog. But you know they are invested in it, just like all of us are in our own discipline. Right, you know the lab guy's just an invested um in his world.
Speaker 2:You know I did a show called Whistle While you Work on Unleashed TV and I said in that thing the birds are what draws us to the sport. Duck hunters want to go to ducks, quails would draw me to quails, but ultimately it all comes back to the dog. When you do it long enough you fall in love with the dog and that's what sustains you in it. You can probably kill enough ducks to drive. You know to be sad, to sadden by it to be done with it. I don't want to shoot another duck. You know I hear dung runners all the time like I don't want to kill another big buck, they're just burnt out on it.
Speaker 2:But when you bring dogs into the aspect of it, you now have a relationship that you get to watch, go and make that whole process happen and it really changes the sport, the hobby, whatever it is you're doing, bringing in a dog, bringing your dog. When I hunt with my dad, there's pride in it. Right, me and him run braces together. He runs a dog. I run a dog every single time and when my dog's on point I get to look over him and say, hey, chubby's over here on point a hundred yards. This way you know he's got to come walk with me and bring his dog around to the front.
Speaker 2:You know there's that sense of pride when your dog does it right, you know, and not it's a competition between us. But when his dog points I'm like man, I wish my dog would have got over there. The dogging part of it makes the joy and I think it makes hunters sustainable in that sport that they're doing. You can go to a duck blind shoot, but when you have your dog, you bring a dog that you've trained and you've invested in and that dog starts fetching for everybody. You start becoming a dog person, not a hunter. It just makes the whole picture much more complete.
Speaker 1:You know I'm living proof of what you just said. I've deer hunted, big game hunted all over the United States and Canada, hardcore. I bow hunted, muzzle loader, crossbow rifle, you name it and I loved it. I don't regret any of that. It was wonderful and I spent a lot of hours doing that.
Speaker 1:But now that I hunt more and I was always a dog guy but wasn't a hardcore hunting dog guy I had beagles. I ran beagles a long time in Kentucky, but other than that I was just a hunter, not really a gun dog owner. I was just a hunter, not really a gun dog owner, right? So once I got into gun dogs my own I don't care. I mean I shouldn't say somebody invited me to go mule deer hunting, I'd take them up on it. But I don't really care about it anymore. All I want to do is work my dogs. I just got back from working my retriever on a sandhill crane and that's a whole different. You know, when you see a dog retrieve a bird it's about half its size, pretty cool. You know I was proud He'd never seen one before. You know, some dogs might run out and look at that thing and say oh heck, no, you know. And, plus, when they're not dead they're dangerous. They'll take a dog's eyes out in a second. And so you know I was real nervous about it. Try not to show my dog, my nurses and make him nervous.
Speaker 1:But my buddies were was hunting with group of friends, you know, and they're like, oh man, you know they've, they've pet my dog and you know you love it. And then we went with the same some of that same group went duck hunting with me too. And there's not like you said, there's nothing like it. If you watching a dog night. This one particular dog I was hunting with I didn't train him all. I've done some finish work on him. He had been started when I got him, uh, but uh, but I've done, I've definitely finished him out. And now he's been south dakota. We hunted pheasant me, you know, me and him and uh, three days with a big group of guys. They got to see him work. And then we've hunted duck in stuttgart, arkansas, and sandhill crane, lubbock, texas, and I'll probably do two more before the season's over. Yeah.
Speaker 2:If I can afford it. It changes. It just changes the love for it. You know I talked about humanizing the dog earlier and how that can be a negative as far as the feeding aspect of it, but there's no doubt we treat these animals with love and with care and they are part of our families and they are babies. You know my wife calls every one of my dogs females, baby girl, hey, baby girl. Every one of them is baby girl, you know. But they become that part and when we have to put one down and you know the hard part of being a gundog owner is you're going to have to put one down. You know to own one you got to put them down or lose one, whatever how that comes. But that's very hard. No one ever takes that lightly.
Speaker 2:And I say I can remember standing at the tailgate crying like a baby, the vet coming out and doing what was right for that dog. That just couldn't go anymore and it's part of what we do. But loving them and watching them work and that pride that comes into them dogs being successful is so rewarding now that I never thought I'd really I didn't see it as a younger man. I just didn't see that joy and I lost my nephew about four or five years ago. He was 23, got killed tragically in an accident and I can remember watching him going.
Speaker 2:How many birds we kill, how many did you kill? Him and me and my dad would hunt together and he was just turning that corner to being a gundog guy before he got killed in a car accident. It's that flip man. It's just that transformation that happens when you become, when shooting isn't the most important thing, it's working that dog and watching that dog just blossom, grow up from a little puppy, from a derby to being like my 12-year-old female out there. It's going to be a sad day when she goes because I don't know they got another one that can find birds like she does.
Speaker 1:You know too, and I know you know this, eric. But I've got my dogs now and I've got a jones dog trailer and uh, but I hook that trailer up at the ranch and go around. You know, pull up and I'll start loading it. My dogs are going nuts because they know what that means it's hunting time. They're gonna get to go home. So I loved watch that they're running to get that trailer. You know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was telling so two things. I have a very similar story to that. I back my truck up in my yard to fill the water tanks the night before and they know. They know as soon as they see that truck like that truck. Oh, I know why that truck is there. And when I let them out usually they go running the big field and sometimes, with these pointers I got to chase them down or make sure they don't get run off. When they see that truck, I better have the tailgate down or they're going to scratch it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I love it. Yeah, the other thing is when I start whistling they start listening. And when I whistle a covey, they know right where they heard it, they know what a quail sounds like when it answers me and you could feel that exciting tension in the back of the box. You'll start shaking like I get excited because whistling birds is the first hunt. Like if I don't whistle I mean it's like turkey hunt, right, you gotta hear them gobble, right. When I hear that bird whistle I get excited like yeah, I got it. You know, I mark it, get all ready. But when them dogs hear, they can hear the bird whistle too and you can hear those tails start beating that box. You know you feel that little thing starts. The truck will start shaking a little bit. So I mean they know the game.
Speaker 2:You know my dad had that first GSP and I can remember him putting his gun in his vest on the by the front door. So he had everything ready. That dog would sleep by the front door. You know she, she knew what was going on. They're very intuitive, they're very smart, they know what's going on, they're very aware of their surroundings. And you know they're phenomenal animals and they truly are. Any of them, not just all of them. All the dogs, you know, they are very special in all their disciplines.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're all different, you know, I just said you made me just think something last weekend. So we were in a blind at the Sand Hill Crane and we'd shot a bunch. And you know, this is day number two, I guess, so he's getting real. He knows the game right. When we shoot he's ready to go retrieve. So anyway, only three come in. You know, a lot of times you have a big bunch, only two or three come down and we jumped up and two of us our guns hung mine included, my buddies did too and anyway, long story short, that there were no dead birds. So he knew we got up and he knew we pointed, and he just turned around looking at at me like you know, like what the heck? What'd you? You know where's the bird? You know it was so funny. I mean, his face looked like he was going hey you know, yeah, I got it.
Speaker 2:My chubby dog does that to me when I don't. Like I said, I was shooting those pheasants and the uh, the first Monday of our where I go down South and hunt, I had shot those pheasants, like the week before, and for two days I didn't hit a quail. I'm not kidding you. I thought something was wrong with the gun, something wrong with me, something was bad wrong. And I was just way behind, just way off, and that chubby dog looked over his shoulder at me and like hey, man, what are you doing? I mean, he literally had that same expression like you're talking about, like what are you doing?
Speaker 1:Because it's the same part of the game. His eyes are kind of bigger.
Speaker 2:I point them, you shoot them, I go fetch them, because for him that reward is that bird in his mouth. I mean, that's his ultimate reward is to be able to put that bird in his mouth and bring it back to me. If I could call a picture it was obvious that you know.
Speaker 1:I mean, when you look at it, you know your dogs love it. It was so funny but yeah, that's that's I love it. There's nothing like it. You know this one of the reasons this podcast hopefully we encourage other people, young people, old people, no matter what their age to to just, if you like the dog, if you like dog, you like to hunt, this is definitely a sport to get into. Yeah, I would.
Speaker 2:I would say, you know, I kind of said it earlier, but just to kind of couple with what you said, if you like hunting and you've been on a paid hunt somewhere, you've been on a duck hunt somewhere, and you go out, you take a trip to Arkansas or South South Dakota or whatever, and you enjoy it, you will. You will be blown away when you start putting your dog. You get an animal or get a dog that you can put in those disciplines to be successful and you'll have a whole different appreciation for that sport or that hunt than you ever have. Just going there and she's pulling the trigger, it is so very much rewarding. Um, watching these, watching these dogs just do what they love to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it's it's, yeah, it's crazy I got an old female.
Speaker 2:I got I mean she's, I mean she's 12 and she's, she's. She's been a one-eyed bird dog for about seven years. She is tough, she beats herself up. She goes through every bush and briar that you could. She'll go find them to get them. But that dog will find birds anywhere that they are. She almost like she just drops them out of the sky and can find them. She's very, very good. She just drops them out of the sky and can find them. She's very, very good. But that heart of that dog you cannot take, you cannot change that. I wish I could duplicate it in both humans alike. The desire and the heart for that dog is just. It's unbelievable to watch and you get a lot of I get a lot of pride, a lot of just happy feelings watching her work.
Speaker 1:My most mature lab right now. He's about 27 months and the hunt drive on him. I wouldn't take a million dollars for he's. I believe he would retrieve until he died, until he fell over dead. Yeah, I mean I don't think he would stop. I don't think he stopped any, but it's, I love it. I mean it's and he's still not. He's not crazy. You know he's got that drive but he's still manageable.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, she's very methodical. I mean she's it's like a surgeon, like a surgeon that can go into an operating room and do an 18 hour surgery. I mean, I'm sure they do it because of the money, but they love that to stand there and be disciplined to do that. That's kind of how she operates. I mean, she's just a, she's just a beast and she loves it.
Speaker 1:But don't you love it when your dog can find a bird that you can't find? Nobody else's dog can find, you know. But if it can find it and I love, I love to see that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it's a, it is. It's definitely a. It's definitely a great joy. And you know, I get to couple both a couple both aspects of my work life and my personal life with my job and it's such a blessing to be able to combine the two and work for a company that has dogs first. That's really what we're about and I describe it this way when I change a dog's life, I change a handler's life with it.
Speaker 2:And in the law enforcement world that is such a real thing because these guys I mean they don't get an off day. The dogs live with them, they're in the car with them all the time. And if a guy's dealing with shedding and itching and scratching and licking and bad stools and you can fix that and the guy can get in his car, I get police officers, say man, after switching your food, I can roll my window down for the first time on a nice day and get fresh air without hair swallowing my face and all in my mouth, because I fixed the shedding in that dog. So there's a lot of reward in fixing a dog and improving it, and that's in our world too, my brother had a beagle that just licked his feet, almost licked his skin raw, and I said wait, let me send you food.
Speaker 2:man, he goes, all right, I'll try. And the licking quit. You know it's such a great. Good ingredients can make great things happen. You know, when you put the right product in your dog's body, it can really make some good things happen, for sure.
Speaker 1:When you put garbage it's like a human garbage in garbage out.
Speaker 2:You know it's a it shows our motto is less than less out, yeah, feed less.
Speaker 1:That's right. Yeah Well, eric, you and I could probably. I know we're we're a lot of luck. We could talk all night, for sure, and you could teach me a lot of stuff. I definitely want to have you back. We'll do just a whole podcast on the nutrition class and let that be the title of it, and I like the fact that you're just trying to teach nutrition and I know it's your job but you're not trying to sell a product, you're trying to teach nutrition and what to look for.
Speaker 2:That's right. The signs to look for in your dog right.
Speaker 2:That's right, and I've got a. It's a PowerPoint driven presentation. We do before and after pictures. We really explain also is when you see nutritional deficiencies. What does it look like in my dog, Because I get this all the time. Oh, it's my dog, he just it's this. No, it's not just your dog. Oh, he just it's this. No, it's not just your dog. That's a nutritional deficiency. And when you can visually see it or have the ability to discern, this is ingredient issue, Excuse me. And what ingredient can I pull away from this dog to maybe fix that? So we give you that ability? Oh, those cracked nails, that's not normal, that's nutritional deficiency. That brittle hair is nutritional. That boogery ears you know a floppy ear dog that gets that crust on the edges. Or the sawtoothing look on the fur on the edge of the ear those are all mineral deficiencies. The dog's not receiving the proper minerals and vitamins. So we go through a lot of before and after pictures to show you that.
Speaker 2:I show dogs that were failing programs and end up being champions because of nutrition. They had the best genetics, the best training, they just weren't being fed properly and then the dog turned into a champion. I mean, how would you like to take, especially in these hunt tests with the labs and all these things that we're doing with validating these dogs' abilities with. You know hunts or clubs that we're in and you're seeing, man, my dog just don't have it.
Speaker 2:I've seen those dogs and changed their diets to something that is going to fuel them the way an athlete needs to be fueled, and now you see that champion come out. It's always in us. The champion is always in the dog. We just got to feed it in a way to bring it out. We got to give the dog the ability to be the best version of itself. Now, not every dog is a champion. I got one in there that I told you I want to. She's got to run bigger. It's not nutrition, it's just her. She just does. That's just her makeup. But she definitely has the opportunity to be the best version that she is, and I believe nutrition allows all dogs to achieve that. When we take a focus a little deeper, dive into what nutrition looks like.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, I look forward to that, eric. Hey, it was a pleasure having you. I hope you get to hunt a little more before the season ends down there in Florida, and if you ever get out to Texas I'll bring you out to the ranch and give you a taste of the West, kenneth.
Speaker 2:I hope we're making a friendship here and I think we're on the start of that. I definitely will take you up on something in Texas because I definitely want to venture out of my little isolation state of Florida and do some other kind of things, especially with my dogs, for sure I tell you what it's a great state.
Speaker 1:I've lived there starting on, 13 years now, and grew up in southeast Kentucky, southern Appalachia, so it's a big change for me but I love it, which I still love Kentucky too. But I really like Texas and it's so diverse. I mean, you can go up to Panhandle and you're in the High Plains Desert. You can go down to houston and you're in tropics and east texas kind of looks like, you know, southeast looks like kentucky, tennessee to me. So, yeah, anyway, uh, well, hey, I will keep in touch with you, we'll be talking and, uh, I will let you go all right.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, kenneth, and I appreciate the opportunity to share my passion and my love for dogs and my love for dog food. I appreciate the opportunity, thank you.
Speaker 1:Yes, sir. Thank you, Eric.