Canines are our passion.
They are our addiction.
They are our way of life right down to the very core and without them we would be lost.
The canines of this world really are something to behold.
They assist us at work, they accompany us at home, and they perform for us in the field.
No matter where we go, they are by our side.
Canines really are a ride or die and for that we are grateful.
This podcast will showcase working canines of various breeds and disciplines as we search
for those canines and their handlers who are always striving to be the best at what they
do.
Those who are always grinding.
Those who are always pushing the limits.
Those who are always dogging.
Join us on our adventures as it is sure to be a wild ride.
I'm your host, Bryce Matthews.
And I'm your cohost, Stephen Basham.
And this, this is Simper Doggin.
Welcome welcome welcome back to another episode of the Simper Doggin podcast guys.
I am your host, Bryce Matthews, and on this episode we are going to recap our trip down
to Batesville, Mississippi where your cohost, Stephen Basham and I took a trip down there
to hang out at the Winter Classic event.
We got to hang out a lot, a lot of cool people down there, met some really great folks and
we recorded a few good interviews for you guys.
So we've got people that were hunting in the hunt down there.
We've got a couple of ladies who showed in the show.
We even have an interview with another podcast host who I'm sure you will recognize once
you hear him.
So I'm not going to spoil that for you.
I'm going to let you tune in here, listen to who that is because he's got a great story
to tell you.
And that was another great thing about this event down there at the Winter Classic where
we went to is it was all about telling stories, preserving and promoting our heritage of coon
hunting.
It was an awesome event.
And like I said, we just met some really great people.
So I hope you guys enjoy this episode.
We enjoyed making it for you guys.
We really enjoyed our trip and thank you to everybody who helped contribute to this one.
So without further ado, we'll get rolling.
Hey buddy.
How are you doing today?
Oh, I'm doing fine.
Boys just rolled in actually.
I just rolled in.
Yeah, I just got here.
How long did it take you to get down here?
From Sheffieldville, Kentucky.
It was about a six and a half hour drive.
Yeah.
I came from Elizabeth town right after I got off work yesterday.
And so it was about about six hours, about six hours.
So they actually let you out of that place.
Yeah.
Finally got away from all my patients and getting to do a little coon hunting finally.
Finally.
The coon hunting doctor.
Yes, sir.
The coon hunting doctor.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am going to let him introduce himself because I will butcher everything
that he actually does.
He was walking by and we just kind of conned him into sitting down and doing a podcast.
He is a very interesting fella.
I've known him for quite a while during quite a bit of times and always had a very good
time, very good sportsman.
Go ahead.
Thank you.
Yeah.
I've been coon hunting for about 20 years and practicing medicine for about 10.
So what are you into the medicine side of things?
So actually pediatrics.
So did my medical school at the University of Louisville.
And after I graduated, did my residency at Norton Children's downtown Louisville.
And once I finished residency, I started practicing with my dad actually for a couple of years.
But now I am the sole pediatrician out in Shepardsville, Kentucky.
And do a little hospital work still.
Yes, sir.
I've known me and this guy here.
We've known each other for a long time.
Heck, man.
Well, out of Tell City.
Yep.
Back when we were young guns.
Yeah.
And I was still in college and medical school.
And I said, man, I'd be up 24 hours and then from the hospital come over, start coon hunting.
Yeah.
We got a little gray in our beards now, bud.
I do.
Yeah.
Both of us.
I mean, we get up there now.
I know.
But many years, many years.
But yeah, always a good time.
What kind of dogs you hunting now?
Still got my blue ticks right now.
Unfortunately, the dog that we were promoting a lot, Brockman's blue buzz, he passed away
last year, unfortunately.
Sorry to hear about that.
Yeah, I appreciate it.
Just kind of one of those things.
He got sick and he was in ICU for about a week and kidney shut down.
And that's all she wrote, unfortunately.
But we're lucky.
We've got about 78 pups on the ground out of him and some semen.
And I'm hunting a young dog right now that turned two in October that we named the buzz
cut and we're liking him pretty good.
He's out of a female, out of butch glasses stock.
Yep.
Oh, butch.
So you know, butch.
Yeah.
And that female also passed away shortly after that litter was born.
But I've really enjoyed him.
He hunts a lot like Buzz.
He's good about having a coon loud.
He chops on the tree a little bit more than Buzz did, but he's loud and he gets gone and
he goes hunting quick and fast.
So I enjoy hunting him.
And this will be his first time in a cast.
So we'll see.
Oh, wow.
You're breaking him out for the big hunt.
I said when I got him from a friend of ours, I said I'm going to not push him too hard
right off the bat and not get too excited, but I do like him.
So how do you find the fine line between being a doctor and a coon hunter?
I try to make sure that I do get a little bit of sleep.
And if my patients start telling me I look tired, I might take the day off and I take
the night off.
But I enjoy both of them so much that I can't say it's easy to do, but it keeps me going.
So this winter classic, though, it really does seem to tailor more to the blue ticks
and the black and tans.
Have you had success down here before?
Yeah, we were talking on the way down here.
I don't want to jinx myself for this weekend, but I think I'm batting 80% right now on cast
wins down here.
I have a nice female, Ivy.
You might have heard of the Crowder dog.
He's got a little winning.
That's his mama.
And she's two, three years ago had double cast wins down here.
And it does play to their advantage.
Big open woods and a little swampy and a good time of year for those little
A little nasty, a little grit.
I actually just saw Travis Dill walking around here a few minutes ago.
I think he's hunting a cow.
Yeah, so you're hunting down here?
Good deal.
All right.
Well, what else you got, Basin?
Not much.
Like I said, just wanted to bring him in here.
He's been a good friend of mine.
We've hunted a lot, drew each other a lot out of Tell City and Cherry Tree and different
places.
I kind of grew up right in the middle of him.
And like I said, just we we've bounced heads between these casts and always had a good
time, always a good sportsman, always carrying a good blue dog.
But there is if there is such thing, you know, I told him one time, I said, man, with that
little gray hair, you would think a little wisdom would come and switch over to the white
and the black.
They're never going to learn.
I knew I should have come on here.
See now we man, me and him, we go at it all the time.
It's all in good fun.
It's all about dog.
It's all about the dogs.
Real quick.
What got you?
I mean, I've heard the story.
Me and you've talked, but tell the listeners what kind of got you into coon hunting.
Yeah.
So, you know, we've got family pictures all the way back to when I first started taking
pictures of family members with dogs, coon dogs, beagles, whatever.
And then growing up was going a few times and we had beagles.
But once I was in college, I really miss being in the woods with a dog and realized all I
have was the night.
I went down, drove down to Alabama one random day and picked up a blue tick puppy.
And that's all she wrote.
No, it was he was singing the blues all the way.
I reckon so.
But I have a similar story.
Like the first dog I got was just happenstance and it was a walker dog.
Like that's the first one.
It's not like I was shopping for a certain breed.
I don't know.
So now I'm stuck hunting walkers, you know, but it's interesting.
So well, Mr. Mark, thank you for sitting down.
Thank you very much.
I appreciate you taking some time and good luck tonight.
Yeah.
Good luck to you guys.
Thank you.
We have Mr. Caleb Griffin joining us this afternoon.
We saw him walking by, conding down to sit in the chair and we got him on the podcast.
Yeah, we've had him before in the deep alone that you guys heard him there, but we got
him now for Semper dogging.
What is that brother?
What's up you guys?
How are y'all doing?
Pretty good.
But how about yourself living the dream and loving this Delta life out here?
You're going to come down here and try to sweep the weekend.
I'm going to come down here and try to play with a dog that's on social security.
Who'd you bring?
Oh, of course.
Now I've been seeing this little puppy yours.
It's rocking and rolling.
I ain't you break him out.
Dude, he'll come out about two years about sophomore super stakes be about his first
real hunt.
Always nervous about hunting me, especially in your other stuff.
So about that registered cast is a little dangerous for a pup.
Oh my gosh.
Well, when did you come down?
You've been down here all week?
Tuesday, Tuesday we got down here and we just kind of been chilling and eating at the Como
steakhouse.
Oh my lord, that place is amazing.
I ain't had it yet.
You gotta go.
What do they got?
What's the best thing on the menu?
20 ounce ribeye.
Come on.
Best steak you'll ever eat in your life.
Oh, here we go.
Here we go.
What's the place called?
Como.
I think I saw post Mr. Steve Fielder was eating there last night.
He was.
It was like 30 minutes from here, right up 55.
This is amazing.
Best thing I've ever eaten in my life.
Oh, well.
Two nights in a row.
He said two nights in a row.
Two nights in a row.
And guys, for those of you that don't know, Caleb likes to eat.
I do.
Nice little 40 pound gain in two years like an elf.
Oh man.
Well, when you got a dog like preacher that just treason as he comes to them and just makes
everybody else kind of look dumb, you know, you don't have that problem as far as walking.
No, but whenever he, when he moves it like five mile an hour and he's real slow, I don't
get much, much exercise.
I just kind of truffle on through the woods.
I want to hear more about this pup.
I want to tell me about the situation you had a couple of weeks ago when we're supposed
to meet up at Grand American.
Right.
Um, I, you know, I went to Arkansas on the white river.
I came back from the white river and it was getting around, around Orangeburg time and
he started getting sick.
And so I took him to the vet and they tested positive for parvo at seven and a half months
old, which blew my mind.
I've never had a dog in my life have parvo.
And I took him at six, nine, 12 and again at 16 weeks old for the booster shots.
And then here he goes seven and a half months later, he gets sick.
And man, I thought I was going to dig a hole.
I've never seen a dog get that sick that fast in my life.
And like that, I'll let, he stayed at the vet on from Monday to Friday.
And when the Friday, when I got him home, like his head was just, there was no life
to it.
Like I started force feeding him chicken and rice, honey, just concoctions, everything
like that, keeping IVs in him and Pedialyte and right around Sunday started eating on
his own and then took about a week and a half for him to eat dry food.
But he, he perked right back up.
I let him, I laid him up for like two and a half, three weeks and then he hit the ground
running and we've been running deer and skunks and possums.
So little pup definitely got some heart.
He does.
And that's a big sign for me and everything like that.
And I was like, well, he's tougher than I thought he was.
Yeah.
Cause you and I are supposed to meet up down there at grand American and do a little hunting
and just hanging out.
And you'd text me that and you said, man, I don't know if I'm going to make it or not.
And obviously I mean that pup is way more important, but I was, I was a little upset
that I was like, man, I was too man.
We had this planned out from the time we recorded those runs deep and lonely.
Well, you know, it's bad cause I'm a resident soccer line.
I've never hunted a grand American.
I've always hunted the St. George PKC hunt right around that time.
And I was, I've never hunted the grand American.
I was like, well, you know, this is my, I'm a hunting winter classic, automobiles, all
that stuff.
And then my pup gets sick.
I was like, well, my priority was with my pups.
No, absolutely.
Well, we know one hunt guys that he's never ever going to miss.
And that's because he's had a string of good luck at that hunt.
And that's a tournament of champions.
Well, here we go with the jeans.
You heard it here on Superdog.
Mr. Basher already jinxed it.
Yeah.
Where are you entered at this year?
I was going, I hadn't entered yet, but I'm planning on hitting man in South Carolina.
Gotcha.
Got you.
I got entered up in the grains the other day.
Word.
I'm going to break out old wheels again.
I'm going to swim with alligators.
Oh, well, yeah.
Nice little April middle of mid March, April.
So how old is preacher now?
Six, seven, eight.
Oh, boy.
You still got all kinds of life left.
You know, I don't get told.
It gets old.
You know what?
I'd rather have a pup running deer every night and me laid up and hunt a dog that I expect
more like more like a machine than I was explaining it the other day about the difference between
a dog that you've hunted and one with versus a younger dog.
And I explained it like this.
The ball is just dirty.
You know how you get that basketball and you're playing ball and then all of a sudden the
ball just gets dirty.
It just, you know, I don't know.
It's dull.
It's not shiny anymore.
I'm the complete opposite.
And then and then what do you want?
You want a new ball?
I want a new ball.
I want something I could tweak and work with.
Yes.
When you see the heart of a pup just coming out and you just know that pup when it starts
getting dark he's just barking, barking, barking in the kennel ready to go.
You get him out and you turn him loose and he's just trying to run anything in the woods,
you know, hunting 11 mile an hour just flying.
See in my personal opinion, success doesn't bring if all you have is success, it doesn't
bring the enjoyment.
You don't have any humbleness.
You don't have any, you don't appreciate it.
Exactly.
See I'm upset.
I'm shutting you down.
I'm opposite.
I like all faithful.
I like to go out in the woods because I'm working, I'm working, working, working.
I want to go home.
I want to pull him out of the kennel.
I want to go tree a couple coons and I'm not saying that you're going to find success on
the highest level.
Yeah.
I mean, but give me that geriatric dog.
That's my man.
You know, I've been riding this ride for four years, five years with this dog and I'm, you
know, like I said, I get expecting more of a lot of a machine than a dog.
Exactly.
I keep it to say.
Exactly.
That's why I haven't hunted, I've hunted him four times since November.
Well, not only that, when you have the success that you've had, the problem is, is your expectations
go higher and higher and higher.
So your failure rate becomes more and more and more.
And so when he's not at his hundred percent all the time, it makes you upset.
That's right.
Whereas with a pup, you don't expect nothing.
Expecting failure.
So when you get that one thing, oh man, he came to me when I called him.
Yes.
You know, you get that.
I was so happy to know about this dog and cheeseburger.
I was like, yes, I would have not.
I didn't have to shock him off.
He's getting a double cheeseburger.
It's the small things in life guys.
The higher your expectations, the more you are to fail.
I mean, you look at the guys that put time into this sport, you know, the guys that run
up and down this road.
I mean, look at all these guys.
They had 155 dogs last night.
So the guys that put time in their heart into this, not everybody's going to win.
And the best dog doesn't always win.
It doesn't matter.
You know, people think, oh, well, the dog that treats the most coons is always going
to win.
It's not how it always happens.
And so you get this standard that you have for preacher in your head.
And when he doesn't meet that standard, you go back to the hotel room, you know, singing
the blues.
And preacher's still probably eating a double cheeseburger.
He's over here singing the blues, whereas the pup, all he's got to do is just not mess
with the armadillo and he gets a damn cheeseburger.
I was talking to someone the other night, I was like, you know, you could take, in my
opinion, I could be wrong, but I think you could take a final four of any big hunt and
you hunt it five different nights, three others, five nights.
I'd say you'd have a different winner.
I'd agree with that statement.
Yep.
I mean, it's just like you said last evening, the better dog does not always win, but you
can't as a handler and an owner, you can't let that get you down to thinking my dog sucks
because all year long I'm on an up and down roller coaster.
Like sometimes I'm sometimes he's doing good and sometimes I'm on a losing streak.
Sometimes I'm on a winning streak.
Sometimes I'm on a losing streak.
If you're going to do this, you're going to have to take your losses and it sucks.
It's kind of like what I told Tiffany Atkins, and this is kind of off subject a little bit,
but it goes right into it as far as like the show dogs, you know, you're not always going
to win.
If you don't enjoy the ride to get to where you're going, if you don't, you know, it's
kind of like a NBA basketball player.
When he stops enjoying the workouts, when he stops enjoying the practices, that's when
they retire.
That's exactly right.
It's not, you don't ever get tired of the games.
We don't ever get tired of training raccoons.
We don't ever get tired of coming to a competition hunt and competing where you end up losing
that interest is the training.
It's the every night going out there, dogging every night, slaying in the mud, staying out
at all hours of the night.
Well, it's like us, like we competition hunt.
Where I'm from back home, a lot of people, when it gets summertime, they lay their dogs
up.
So when it gets season and opening around October, they hit the ground run, they're
excited.
We've been ground pounding all summer every night.
So it's just another day to us.
And I'm like, ah, yeah, I don't feel like doing this, but I got to go do it.
Cause I almost feel it's like, I've been a couple of years, but back like in a gym workout.
Hold on.
I'm serious.
I know where you can get a pair.
Froggy bottom outdoors.
Froggy bottom outdoors can hook you up.
Like in a gym, you get used to going to the gym every night.
So you do it for a month.
You skip a night or two.
You just feel like crap.
Like, I'm worthless.
I'm a piece of crap.
So you got, well, it's like hunting.
You're like, you get out there.
I'm like, I'm not hunting tonight.
And you hear the dogs start barking in the kennel at night and you're like, well, damn.
Guess I'll go.
The champ asked me one night, which for any of those of you that don't know, the champ
is my daughter.
She asked me, uh, you going hunting tonight, dad?
And I said, baby, I do not want to go hunting tonight.
Guess what happened when that son was starting to go down?
I started putting on my boots.
She goes, daddy, I thought you didn't want to go hunting.
I said, baby, I said, if I want to expect those dogs to do what I want them to do on
game day, I got to take them when I don't want to go.
Right.
I don't want to expect them to perform when they're sitting in the kennel.
No, no.
So even when you don't want to, we drag each other out.
Uh, it, it almost becomes our addiction.
Oh boy.
And here we go.
It's kind of like, like a preacher.
Like I haven't hunted him maybe four times since November.
One of them was RQE last weekend that he slick treat on.
I don't want coming into this one.
I was like, well, you know, if I get beaten out, it's okay.
My dog's not prepared for it.
I haven't done my homework and I'm okay with that.
Sometimes I got this way with buddy.
Sometimes I would lay him up on purpose.
Makes him look better.
So not only that, but so that if I lost, at least I had an excuse.
Thank you.
You know what?
At least then I can have an excuse on why I thought he lost.
It's not his fault.
Oh boy.
All right.
This train is getting derailed quick and in a hurry.
You knew when you brought Caleb over here, this was going to happen.
I know he called me earlier.
He said, he said, you down here?
I said, absolutely.
He's how come find you?
And sure enough, here he comes sliding in.
Welcome to the world of the Marines.
Oh, you took it.
Go on for hours.
We definitely will definitely have to get him scheduled for a full time podcast.
Absolutely.
Sweetness.
Definitely.
Love it dude.
I love getting him.
I appreciate you.
You guys are awesome man.
I love y'all.
It's always a pleasure, buddy.
It's always a pleasure.
All right, Kevin.
Thank you, buddy.
Good luck tonight.
Thank you, brother.
I appreciate it.
All right, guys, we are back here.
Day number two winter classic down here in Batesville, Mississippi.
And we have got one of the busiest guys around to sit down with us for just a few seconds.
Mr. Michael Roseman with Sun Spotlights.
How you doing this morning, Michael?
I'm doing fine.
How are you?
Not too bad at all.
Hey, I want to sit down here and just talk a little bit about your new light you got
out.
You guys just released that Copperhead light and I've been a faithful user of Sun Spotlights
for years and I really, really enjoy that light and the product that you make.
So why don't you tell our listeners a little bit more about your newest product line.
I appreciate you.
I appreciate you using it.
That newest Copperhead is kind of a combination of our Sniper, our Viper and our Rage light.
Kind of combines everything that's the best of each one.
Takes away the kind of little stuff that we didn't like.
We got brighter, we got lighter and it's pretty slick looking too.
Yeah, it is.
I got a couple in the other day for our new store, Froggy Bottom Outdoors, where you guys
can go online and find those lights right now.
And man, when I got that shipment in of them, I was like, man, these are impressive.
Like the battery pack's slimmer.
The head was designed just a little bit differently.
It's balanced well.
I was really impressed with the light.
But we were able to keep our burn times, our battery life, and really what we did was just
make a smaller battery pack.
It's just a little tighter in there.
Still plenty of room.
Same burn times and everything though, and it looks better.
Right.
So I know yesterday I swung by just to chat with you for just a second.
I saw an old belt light looking deal over there and it was a much bigger box.
You know, I told you that I had a couple people ask me like, hey, are we able to get that
much more burn time out of a bigger box and a bigger battery?
And you'd kind of explain that no, that's not really the case.
Can you go into depth a little bit about that?
Well no, you can get more burn time with a bigger battery.
The issue is with lithium ion batteries is the more batteries there are, the easier it
is to get them out of balance.
With the old nickel-cadium and stuff, they'd go out of balance.
The pack would still work.
It would be a little weaker.
With a protection circuit on a lithium ion battery, if it gets out of balance, it shuts
your whole pack down.
The more batteries there are, the bigger chance there are of having that issue.
So we just kind of steered away from that.
On the Copperhead, we even went one less battery, different type of battery that had more milliamps.
So it's actually a little stronger battery than what we've been using, but in a smaller
package.
And I like the idea of two batteries rather than three or four.
It's just we have a lifetime warranty.
I have to warranty these things.
We've got guys that have sent lights in 15 years old and they get replaced for $10 in
return shipping.
So the less problems I have, the easier it is for me in the long run.
Yeah, you absolutely cannot beat that, guys.
I mean, that's one of the reasons why whenever I first got a sunspot light years ago, that's
what one of the drawing points for me, one of the sun factors, was the lifetime warranty.
Because a lot of other lights are offering two-year warranty, three-year warranty, and
you are a lifetime warranty, pay your $10 shipping fee to get it there, and you get
it fixed and get it back.
Yep, that's it.
And we didn't start out like that.
We started with a two-year warranty like everyone else had.
The more I got the lights in though, the way it works is none of the parts are very expensive,
the ones that would normally break.
So it doesn't cost a lot to fix them.
So it wound up being a hassle getting credit card numbers, getting paid, having to contact
the people.
So what I was doing was just fixing them and sending them anyway.
So once I figured out that's all I was really going to do, then I figured, well, why not
just do a lifetime warranty then?
And we retrograded that all the way back to the first light we built.
Gotcha.
Well guys, hold on one second.
I'm going to shut this off here and we're going to let Alan get done talking on the
mic and we'll come right back with Mr. Roseman.
All right, we are back here with Mr. Roseman.
We finally got Alan off the big mic there.
Hey, I want to talk to you about something that I'd heard over on the Bear Gryz podcast
where you were explaining the difference between, what was it, brightness and power?
Is that what it was where you used the term lux?
Lumen and lux.
Lumen and lux, okay.
So when you buy an LED light, like you buy one from Walmart, anything, and outside of
the coon hunt market, the question always gets asked, how many lumens is it?
There's a few problems with that.
One lumens doesn't really tell us how bright it is.
That's just a total output of light.
Lux is how much light you can gather in one place.
Now this isn't the exact definition, but kind of a layman's thing.
So a reflector allows us to throw the light, and that's measured in lux.
Lumens they measure and they put the LED in there, how much light it puts out, and in
your reflector you lose some of that each direction.
So inside the light, outside the light, light you can't see, there's all kinds of things
with it.
But basically lumens is the output, lux is how far it throws.
So brightness for us is the lux reading, not the lumens output.
So you can have 2000 lumens and it light up a room in a soft glow.
You can take 2000 lumens, put it in a reflector and see a mile with it.
That's what the difference is.
Right.
And I thought that was very interesting whenever I heard that, you know, listen to that podcast,
it finally broke it down.
I was like, okay, that makes sense.
So you've been in this light game for a lot of years.
What are some of the biggest differences that you've seen from whenever you first started
to where we are now?
Obviously, technology has changed, but is there anything like specifically that you're
just like very impressed with or where you might see the future going?
Right now we need new LEDs to advance.
The LEDs that we have and the problem is the LED manufacturer Cree and those are more into
outdoor lighting, house lighting for to get brighter with an LED, we need a smaller footprint
on the LED.
So the smaller the footprint is on the LED.
So you're talking to the little yellow piece you look at down there in the bottom of the
reflector, the smaller it gets and outputs more lumens, the more lux we can get from it.
If you take a large LED, so you look down in there and that little yellow square is
big and it puts out a lot of lumens, it still won't throw very far.
We need a small form factor and they're just not working on that.
They're not the whole, you know, to them, we're the flashlight industry and the whole
flashlight industry, they're just not overly interested in.
It's not where their money is.
So we need them to develop smaller form factor LEDs with higher lumens in them and once that
happens, well then we can get brighter than we are.
Beyond that, you have to start using either more power or bigger reflectors.
We went smaller.
I found a reflector that worked well for us on the copperhead.
I don't like the big heads.
So we went smaller with that and was able to keep our lux, we actually increased our
lux a little bit with the way that we built the reflector.
But we need that and we need an advance in battery technology to make longer burn times.
Gotcha.
Well, man, like I said, I just really appreciate you taking a few minutes to sit down with
us today and go through that, explain some of that for us here and appreciate the light
that you build.
You know, like I said, I really like it and I would encourage anybody who's looking to
market for a new light to check out SunSpot Lights.
You're not going to find a guy with a better warranty, a guy who will take care of you
with customer service like Mr. Roseman, and I mean that with all sincerity.
So I thank you very much for that and appreciate you taking time to sit down with us today.
All right.
Thanks, man.
All right.
Thanks, buddy.
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Ready?
Not yet.
Did you tell them I wanted a picture?
Not yet.
I haven't talked to him yet.
But we'll get him.
Okay, let's make this fast so you can go get him.
Well, it's a good thing I already hit record because Andy wants to make this fast.
She saw Brent Reeves over there and wants to get a picture with him.
So we're going to get that done after this podcast.
But guys, I'm sitting down with Andy Emery and Curtis Elburn.
Andy won the Top 10 Bitch Show last night with the Redbone.
How was that?
That was great.
It was a big win.
Good win for Hank and a little change, a little pocket change.
Yeah.
$20,000 for a bitch show.
Yeah, that's pretty good.
That's not terrible at all.
Nope.
Now you just had that dog down at Grand American where we just released our episode on that
and you got second down there with him, correct?
We did.
We got reserved there.
So you won Winter Classic second at Grand American.
You think you got a chance at the world this year?
We're going to give it our best shot.
All right.
Curtis, tell me a little bit about this dog.
Andy is obviously your daughter and these dogs go back to your line.
Where did these red dogs start from?
Well, when I was about 14, my dad bought me a Redbone coon dog out of Tennessee.
Russ Miller went down there and picked it up for him and brought it up here.
I kind of liked the red dogs.
There weren't many of them around.
So I thought that was pretty neat and I just got to hunting the red dogs and breeding them.
Andy has continued on and done awesome with them.
Just done great.
When you see Nicky and Andy out there on the show ring with the line of dogs that you'd
started, what does that do for you as a father and as a guy who's competitive in the show?
We know you're a competitive person.
What does that do for you to see them go out there and win with these dogs?
That's just awesome.
It makes me so proud that they can do this and they do do this.
When they win, I win.
Absolutely.
I mean, that's the same.
No difference in me winning.
Right.
So I know you guys have always had the Redbones.
You started dabbling in the leopards here, I wouldn't say in the recent years, but that's
your most recent breed.
You've had some success this weekend with your leopard dog as well.
Tell us a little bit about her.
Well, she goes back to some dogs we bred.
Andy found a leopard down in Georgia when they first recognized the leopards by UKC.
We bought one and we bred them and we've been very successful with them.
I've owned the first ever dual grand night champion leopard that there ever was.
We've got a lot of firsts in the leopard breeds.
I got a nice little leopard now that goes back to the stuff we started with.
Yeah, that's awesome.
Andy, let's go back to you and your daughter.
Your daughter Peyton, she's been showing black and tans here recently and had a lot
of success with her.
Tell us a little bit about that dog and about Peyton and where you think that couple has
a future going.
Well, we bought that dog from Dave and Kelly Myers.
She's a nice dog, good balance dog.
Peyton decided that she loved a black and tan.
Some friends of ours, Clint and Veronica Pace and Shane and Lisa Bettingfield both let Peyton
borrow a black and tan and she won with it.
She won with those dogs.
When we started looking for something for Peyton of her own, this dog, she's built nice,
she moves nice, got a lot of good components.
Most importantly, she has a good personality for a youth to deal with, a kid to deal with.
They have a good bond.
Yeah, they've won breed at most of the bigger events now.
I think they're going to continue to mature both of them and continue to do well.
Right, absolutely.
Kurt, what does it do for you?
I know your daughter's been showing, but to see your grandkids now, this is third generation
out there showing the dogs in the show ring.
Well, that's even better yet.
There's several of them and they've had so much success in the youth events and the youth
nationals and it's just awesome to see that carrying on.
Yeah, well, the Elburn name has been a big status in the show dogs for a long time and
I know you guys are going to continue that.
I wish you guys nothing but the best and thank you guys for sitting down for just a few minutes
to chat with us.
Thank you.
Okay, thank you.
Well guys, you just heard Andy Emory talking about how we needed to make her podcast nice,
short and sweet so she could run over there and get a picture with Brent Reeves.
She done spotted him over at the Sunspot booth, but after we got that picture taken, we got
to talking to Brent and we've caught him to sit down here with us for just a little bit
and give us a chat.
And for those of you who don't know Brent, he's the host of the This Country Life podcast
over on the Meat Eater podcast and really a podcast that I enjoy listening to a lot
with my family.
It's a great family podcast and Brent, we appreciate you taking a few minutes to sit
down with us.
Oh man, thank you.
Thank you for having me on here.
Thank you, thank you.
Anytime.
So the winter classic, this is your first time down here.
First time.
You know, it's three hours from where I live now is even closer when I lived in Southeast
Target Zone.
This is the first time I've been over here.
Oh man, what's kept you away this long?
Well, you know, I'm not a competition hunter.
I love competition hunting, but I'm not a competition guy and this time of year is usually
when I was guiding goose hunters.
My brother and I had a guide service forever and this was the conservation hunt in February
and there's no limit, no plug.
Just get out there and get the geese when you can.
And since that's kind of dried up and I've had a lot more time to coon hunt, I thought
I'd come over here and check it out.
Yeah, absolutely.
So Waylon the Wonderhound, how's he been doing?
I saw you took him on a hunt for a couple, you had an auction you did, right?
We raffled off, I was helping a group of folks up in Kansas, Independence, Kansas and they've
got an organization called Hunters with Mission and they're supporting an orphanage over in
India and they have a big, it's kind of like a DU banquet or a turkey banquet and they
have a fundraiser and people donate prizes and stuff or donate items and then people
bid on them, you know, or put raffle tickets in there I think is what most of it is.
And I offered up a two day coon hunt with me and Waylon over at a friend of mine's place
in Cabin on the White River and did really good, sold, I think it was a little over $5,000
in online sales, ticket sales for it and a guy by the name of George Pennington in Virginia
won it, withdrew his number and he is going to be coming down here next month and we're
going to feed him some gumbo and take him coon hunting.
Awesome, man.
Yeah, it was a good time.
We treat some coons up there in some kind of wet, rainy conditions.
They can't just got a lot of coons and short trees and that's what I like.
Right.
They kill.
Sounds good.
Absolutely.
So the This Country Life podcast, man, just tell us a little bit about that for the listeners
who haven't heard that.
What is that?
Just give us the synopsis on This Country Life.
Man, it's just a podcast about, it can be anything related to the country.
I talk about growing up, stories, things and stuff that's happened to me.
Unfortunately, I have lived a life of buffoonery and more or less in a circus and I have enough
memory that I remember those stories when I should have been remembering algebra, but
those stories have gotten me a lot farther.
I just tell, it's about 20 minutes long, 25 minutes, probably counting the commercials.
It's an efficient listen.
You can listen to it with your kids.
There's no, it's always G rated and it's just about my experiences in life and lessons
that I've learned, mistakes I've made and we'll try to keep it humorous and kind of
lighthearted, but there's a message in there.
No, there always is and I appreciate that and I wanted to bring that on for our listeners
to go over and take a listen to that because that's a show that I listen to with my kids
and my family and we absolutely love it.
Well, I appreciate it very much.
No, absolutely.
Okay.
So I want to know what's in your pockets right now.
Is it everything that you talk about on the podcast?
I knew somebody was going to ask.
Oh, there we go.
Here we go.
It's me.
I'm the one asking.
Let me stand up.
Okay.
We got a set of keys, a case knife, a tube of chapstick, another knife.
Is it a case?
Okay.
We got the Buckeye.
Buckeye, an acre and a little girl gave me at the world championships, Coral Cook Off
in Arkansas.
This Buckeye Clay Newcomb gave me after I gave him one probably nine or 10 years ago.
He lost his before we got off the mountain and that's the same one that I still got.
A sacage of wea dollar that my wife gave me that's supposed to help me find my way home
when I'm away from home and I've carried it every day.
Well guys, those are some of the things that you can hear on the This Country Live podcast
where Brent talks about some of the things that he carries.
I absolutely love it.
Yeah man.
I'm a creature of habit.
So I ain't got no money to tote so I just tote other things.
There you go.
Alright, so thinking about the winter classic here, what's your first impression?
The crowd?
Oh it's good.
These are my people man.
These are good folks.
I've seen when I pulled up and got out of my truck, of course it's raining like what
cows do to flat rocks.
But it is nothing but hounds barking outside and I thought yeah, this is going to be good.
This is home, huh?
Yeah, this is good.
You've been sitting over there with Michael Roseman, the Sunspot Lights.
Tell us a little bit about that because I actually had Michael on the podcast earlier.
Them Sunspot Lights, you're a big fan of them, ain't you?
Oh yeah, I love them.
You know, I've had several lights growing up and I met Michael through my buddy Rex
Whiting who in just a chance meeting, I was standing outside in my driveway cleaning out
a dog box and Rex pulled up.
He says, there's only two kind of folks around here in that part of Arkansas that have dog
boxes in the back of the truck.
They're either coon hunters or duck hunters.
Which one are you?
And I said, well, I'm kind of both of them.
I said, but this box is for a coon dog.
And just that chance meeting, we sat there and started talking about it and we started
hunting together and through Rex I met Michael and I mean he's 20 minutes up the road from
me making those lights and I just got, I see how they're made.
I know the folks that make them and it's the light for me.
They're good family folks.
Michael's just like my brother.
We hunt together all the time.
Probably 90% of the time I'm hunting, I'm hunting with Michael.
So cause he's like me, he don't like to walk either and we ride to the tree.
That sounds like the life to live.
Yeah.
So the retired life is treating you well.
You enjoy doing the podcast stuff?
Oh, I absolutely enjoy it.
You know, it's like my wife says, it's, it'd be like her getting paid to go shopping.
You know, it's, it's what it's really a good deal.
MeatEater is a great bunch of people to work for.
They're all focused on the outdoors and conservation and keeping this stuff and telling these stories
that should be told and people need to hear.
Right.
And I think the way that, you know, things are going to be cared for and they're going
to keep going is if people care about it.
Yes sir.
And to make them care about it, we've got to tell the story.
And that's, that's what I like.
Yes sir.
The guy right before you that sit down, I conned him into telling us a Bobcat story
and in telling that story, he came into the reason why he even came to winter classic
and it was to honor one of his friends that had passed away a month ago and just seeing
the look on his face of, you know, just heartbreak and telling a couple of the stories and then
his granddaughter sitting there recording the whole thing.
Oh, that's nice.
It just, it really brings it full circle, you know, in that if we don't sit down, it's
kind of one of the reasons why I let Bryce con me into doing a podcast or starting helping
him with the podcast is because, you know, it's all those memories that we have and if
we don't tell it and document them when we die, they die.
Well that's a good thing about that, that that granddaughter is recording that because
they're going to have that forever.
Yes.
Even when grandpa's gone.
You know, I've, I've for the last 26 years, I've been video and film and document and
outdoor stuff, but I never had the idea to sit down and film or record my dad where the
majority of my stories come from.
So in, in my mistake of not doing that, I'm trying to make up for it now.
He is, he is and has been a big inspiration for me to keep this going and tell the tale.
Well speaking of that, tell us your most favorite story.
Oh Lord.
Of your father.
That's like to ask him.
Oh, I know.
I know it's hard.
That's what everybody says.
Well, not the favorite one.
Just tell us one.
I'll just say, I'll tell you one real.
Some of them are long and convoluted, but I'll tell you one more.
It had to do with my dad that I've told on several podcasts that is one of my favorite.
It's probably my favorite.
There was a man who lived down the road from my dad.
My dad was about 12, 13 years old and he had a good coon dog.
His name was Tiger and Coons were at a good price.
My dad had loved coon, this man would take him cooning with him.
My dad's dad, my grandfather was killed in a shipyard during World War II, working on
ships, building ships.
So he only had his, my great grandfather, his grandfather, who was already a little
older to go hunting with, but he didn't have a coon dog at that time, but the neighbor
did.
So that's, that's who he hunted with.
So he, my dad loved it so much he wanted to go all the time.
Well, this man had a job, he couldn't go, but just on the weekend.
And my dad would lay down there at the house and hear his dog up there barking in the chair
and think, boy, I could, I could be out there having that dog right now and go hunting.
But the man on the dog had to get up early and go to the sawmill.
So my dad had the bright idea, him and a friend of his that lived in the neighboring farm,
they'd just go up there and cut that dog loose, take him off the chain, let him take him out
in the woods and hunt.
And when they got through, they'd just do nothing, just walk home and that dog would
eventually go home.
So that's what they did.
They slip up to the edge of the yard.
One of them would lay in the edge of the yard and the other one would crawl over there and
take that collar off of that dog, hook it back like he had slipped the collar.
The dog would follow them boys out in the woods and they'd hunt until they, until they
got done.
And then they'd leave that dog, the dog would go back and lay it up on the porch.
And he said they did that two or three times, you know, for over the next three or four
weeks.
It got to be such a habit that they didn't even ask to go with him on the weekends anymore
because they was hunting him five nights a week, you know, themselves.
And he said one time they crawled up there and they was taking turns to go get that dog.
One of them would watch the house and make sure wouldn't, wouldn't know lights come on.
The other one slip up, slip the collar off, tied it back and then they'd be gone.
So it was my friend, my dad's friend's time to crawl up there.
He crawled up to the edge of the box or to the box and then he crawled back to him.
My dad just said something wrong with the tiger.
He said we shouldn't take him hunting.
He said why?
He says he can't breathe.
He sounds bad like he's sick.
My dad said we hunted him last night.
There wasn't nothing wrong with him.
He said I'll go up there and get it.
So he got him in the edge of the yard and my dad crawled up to the dog box and told him
he said, now you watch the house and make sure no lights come on.
He crawled up there to get old tiger and he said the closer he got, he could hear an old
tiger in there going, he said, man, he's just struggling to breathe that dang something
is wrong with this dog.
He said, well, we're going to hunt him anyway.
But he crawled up there and he reached to get that collar.
He said that collar was so tight on that dog's neck.
They went one more notch to choke to death.
So he said, see, we didn't take him out anymore.
He said, I loosened it up enough where he can start breathing.
But what that fellow was doing was getting up every morning, finding that dog loose on
the porch and he was tightening that collar up.
He's not going to slip that collar.
That's a good one right there.
I like that story.
That's great.
Well, Brent, we won't keep you any longer.
Thank you so much for joining us over here on the Semper Dog and Podcast.
Thank you for what you do with This Country Live.
Yeah, man.
Thank y'all for sure.
Thank you.
I appreciate it.
I'll keep the winter classic.
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Yes sir, how are you doing today?
I'm fine.
Could you tell the listeners what your name is?
My name is Jimmy Kirby.
And where are you from?
From Alabama.
Guys, I was handing out some business cards and I ran across this fella, asked him if
he had a good story to tell and I'm assuming, is this your granddaughter?
Yes sir.
And I said, hey, do you got a good story to tell?
And she says, you've got to tell the story about a bobcat.
So I condimented getting over here and telling all the listeners this story about the bobcat.
So sir, let's hear about this bobcat.
Well, my daughter, which was her mother, wanted to go deer hunting one morning.
Which I grow chickens at the poultry farm.
I told her, she called me and wanted me to help her get in the shooting house.
So I told her, give me a minute, which I said, in the chicken houses.
So I just come out and told her, I said, well, I'll take my rifle and go.
And so I didn't change clothes or anything.
I'd been in the chicken house smelling like chickens.
And I'd go over and drop her off at her stand, come back around and I stopped a four-wheeler
about 200 yards from the shooting house I was gonna get in.
And I walked and about the time I got sat down, here come a bobcat.
He had his nose to the ground smelling and tracking me.
When he got close to me, he stopped and he was licking his lips and looking up in the
shooting house at me.
Oh man, you didn't pop him?
Yes sir, I did.
He's mounted at the house now.
Got him and got him mounted, man.
How long you been coon hunting?
I'm 71 and I started when I followed my daddy when I was about eight year old.
Oh man, many years, many years.
What's your favorite story about you and your daddy coon hunting?
I did some many of them over the years.
So that's kind of one of the reasons why.
I'm kind of the obsolete guy in this podcast.
I'm not really big into the whole telling stories, but really what got me was just the
thought that my daddy's not always gonna be around.
And if we don't have something to record and document all these memories and stories that
we had with the people that got us into coon hunting, they were just gonna die with us.
So I thought what better way than to sit down and kind of go over these stories.
Well, what got me coon hunting was my daddy was started and he had a couple of good friends.
So he'd take me along and there was Walker Brothers, their last name was Walkers.
And Mr. Ralph Walker coon hunted a whole lot more than when we called Doc.
We'd been hunting probably a couple of years and never will forget Doc was gonna raise
a litter of pups off of a black and tan female he had and a high tan dog that Mr. Ralph had.
And so when puppies got up to about six weeks old, he told me to come pick me out of pair.
And my daddy kept telling me, he said, he's not getting no dogs.
He said, we've got dogs.
And Mr. Doc said, give them your dogs.
He said that boy needs some of his own.
He said, I'll give him a pair of those.
Oh man.
He did.
And the little female was making a sure enough real outstanding tree dog, coon dog.
She got run over at a real young age.
And I kept the male dog to probably seven year old.
Oh really?
It turned out a pretty nice little dog, huh?
He made a good dog.
He just had some habits that a lot of people wouldn't live with.
He tricked coons every night.
He satisfied you, right?
Well, like I said, he tricked coons every night.
There you go.
That's what it's all about, guys.
Hey, we appreciate you coming and telling a little bit about yourself and telling us
the Bobcat story down here at Winter Classics.
And we appreciate you.
Hope you have a good time down here and continue doing what you do, Bob.
I want to say one more thing.
Yes, sir.
Go ahead.
Raising me and my granddaughter come back this year.
She come with me last year.
First year she'd come to it.
Me and my nephew slash son, I called him.
He'd been coming four or five year with.
And I had a real good friend, Mr. Jimmy Ray Terry.
And I'd come and hang with him since I was about 12, 14 year old also.
And he'd come last, I guess the last five years, six years with us down here.
He come last year, my granddaughter's first year here.
And we lost Mr. Jimmy Ray to cancer a few months ago.
And me and her was honoring him in our memories to being down here.
He was a great person.
Yes, sir.
He was a great Christian and loved cone hunting.
Like I said, it kind of hits the emotional spot.
One of the reasons why we try to get people out, get them on the mic is so that we can
record these memories and let other people hear them, let other people be inspired by
them.
The world needs a lot more people that care about each other.
And that's what we're trying to share, that sportsmanship, that camaraderie that we have
between each other.
Well, both of my daughters, I had two girls.
My man and both of them actually cone hunted with me and deer hunted.
And I called him my nephew slash son.
He's actually my nephew, but me and my wife and parents raised him from time his 11 year
old on it.
And we've been a cone hunting.
I just been so many memories in my head, which I had a young age.
Actually, I qualified a dog that I trained on my own.
Took him to the AHA world hunt, won my cast the first night with him.
He had a mercy at home.
I had to leave the hunt and go back and then I hunted the next year in the UK, say world
hunt.
And I placed 21st out of 267 dogs at the South East Zone hunt that year.
Only top 20 went on to the finals.
Yes, sir.
I missed out on one dog.
One dog, one dog.
That's the way it goes sometimes.
You know, without the failure, we don't know what success is.
So any of these young hunters that started, as always, if you put the time and effort
in, you can go as far as you want to go.
Yes, sir.
Well, like I said, I want to appreciate you for not only bringing your granddaughter and
sharing it, you know, generation to generation.
If we don't get these young kids involved, you know, as we die, the sport dies.
And so definitely bringing your granddaughter out here, sharing those memories.
We appreciate you and to have a good winter classic, sir.
Okay.
Thank you.
Well guys, we are sitting down here with one of the nice show ladies who's been trotting
around the ring this weekend showing her dogs.
Miss Christina officer, how are you today?
I'm good.
I am wonderful.
I wanted to get you down here because you probably don't know this, but I will never
forget the time that you won the world hunt with legs.
You know why?
No.
Well, that's the event where I met Nikki.
Oh, well, that's true.
That is true.
I will never forget that.
I'd say not.
So tell us a little bit about the dogs that you're showing.
What breeds are you showing and what all have you done with them?
I'm showing plot hounds and the current dog that I'm showing now is County line Truman.
He just recently became a champion.
He's two years old.
He was lucky enough at the last part of the year to get into the top 10.
So we had a pretty good day yesterday with him.
Absolutely.
And then I have a young dog that I, out of my legacy female that I won the world with
that I'm educating this weekend.
Just a little educate.
Yeah.
She's not quite old enough to show yet.
Yeah, that's good.
So you traveled all these major hunts.
What is it about these shows that keep you coming back for more year after year?
The dogs and the people.
The big part of it?
Yeah, it's a lot of it.
I mean, I played sports when I was growing up and everything.
I had a bad car wreck and it kind of changed the track of my life and I couldn't compete
in any sport or anything anymore.
And I always wanted to show dogs and I got into it and I won my first train Walker sectional
and I was boom.
I was in.
You was in like Flynn.
That's right.
So is it the plot hounds that you have really just taken to and that's your breed of choice
now?
Tell me about the transition of that.
Well, when I started, I started with the Walker dog.
My ex-husband was into Walkers and I started with those and I was looking around for a
breed.
Not that I didn't like a Walker dog.
I just was looking for something different.
I was actually looking for a blue tick and could not find one in my area that suited
me.
I was looking for blue ticks in Kentucky at that time.
So I went to the AKC world hunt and a lady by Linda Mack was there with the litter of
plot puppies and I never did really gravitate to brindle dogs, but one of them caught my
eye.
So I ended up buying a pair of pups and that got me started.
So then I got the second dog in which is the terrible Tuesday and that founded my kennel
and all my dogs go back to that same female right now today.
Really?
Yeah.
And that was in 90, I bought her in 96.
So you've been pushing that line for almost 30 years.
Yes.
That's impressive and carrying that on.
Yeah.
Do you ever see yourself venturing out from the plots again or are you just going to stick
with the plots?
I like all dogs.
I'm not a Walker dogs.
I like them, but there's a lot more work to them because they're white and you have to
keep them clean.
Yep.
So there's even when you get to show your dog spick and span, he may not be the time
you have to show him.
Right.
So there's a lot more baby in with that coat color.
Not unless I was to get involved with somebody that had it.
I live in the city so I really, they really don't want me to have the amount of dogs that
I have now.
Right.
No, that's understandable.
You know, and it costs with all the parent clubs and breeds and stuff, it's hard to,
it's hard to, you know, cost effectively show two breeds and stuff like that and doing both
justice.
Right.
Without having a partner in it to do part of it.
No, absolutely.
So I know you've won the world hunt.
Have you won any of these other major events that I see you at all the time?
Oh yeah.
I've won the winter classic twice and I won one year with my Frankenstein dog was the first
big show I had won.
Came back the next two years later with the daughter out of him or maybe three years later
with a daughter out of him and won it again.
And so I've won winter classic when it was in Albany.
And then I've obviously the world time.
And I've placed it all the breed days and I've never won the grand American.
I've come second place.
But and then the world I've, I've, I've won, you know, in all registries at the world level.
The one Liberty Bell female I had, she actually was reserved at UKC, AKC and PKC world the
same year.
Awesome.
Yeah.
Each each time a different male dog beat me, but I still, I was, I was pleased to have
what I had, you know, so.
Absolutely.
Do you still have the same fire, the same passion now that you did when you started?
Yes.
But my boy, my, my body has not held up as well as, is the passion.
Right.
What, what advice would you give to these youth handlers that are coming up into what
to sustain that passion for as long as you've had it, if they're starting from the beginning,
what advice would you give them?
The first, you've got to have the love of the dog and it's got to be for the dog.
I would say listen to the people that came before you and give them credit just because
you might not like what they're doing.
They've paved the way for all you to be here.
I mean, you know, they have put all the steps in cause they were once in your shoes, you
know, um, and consistency.
If you don't do your homework, just like school, if you don't do your homework at home, you're
not going to have any luck here.
That's right.
Well, Mr. Stanton, thank you so much for sitting down with us and taking just a few minutes
to chat with us.
We sure appreciate you guys and I look forward to seeing you around at the next major events.
Well, thank you very much.
Thank you.
All right.
Here we go.
Hey, I con two of my good friends into sitting down.
We got one over here says he's going to be really quiet, but I'm going to get him to
talk, but I got two of my real good friends.
People that I really look up to, not only in the coon hunting world, but just in general,
they're my friends from Prairie branch kennel.
Woohoo.
Michelle and Ben Roberts.
How y'all doing today?
Well, we do a good, it's raining.
Wet.
It's wet.
Yes, it is.
What brings you guys to winter classics?
How come you stop?
Oh, how come she's missing money?
She come to spend money.
She comes to break me.
Break you.
I mean, that's why you work so she can spend, right?
That's why she works to spend her own money.
Oh, but she spends yours too, right?
Yeah.
All of it.
So for those that you don't know, Michelle runs a fun nominal training pen.
It's a starting pin.
I send all of my dogs to her.
100% recommend it, look them up on Facebook, Prairie branch kennels.
Tell us a little bit about what you have going on with your kennels and how it's been going.
It's been going.
Well, it's a nine acre training pen, 12 foot fence around it.
We have what?
Like 15 to 20 coons at all time in nine acres.
Yep.
And I try to keep anywhere from three to five dogs a month.
How's that going?
Been doing pretty good.
I think I'm going to have a slow month and then I get a couple of messages and bring
more dogs in.
I think I'm booked till April.
Oh, good deal.
Full deal.
You liking it?
Yeah, for the most part.
I think she needs a break already.
She's dragging.
She can't handle every night.
I am dragging and it puts a toll on you when you do this five nights a week.
I have a kid at home that is in homeschooling.
Try to keep my house up to keep, keep up with that kind of stuff.
When I'm out there, I'm usually out there till like 12 o'clock.
It just depends on how the dogs are doing.
Oh, definitely.
For those of you that don't know, we became really good friends.
Their daughter and my daughter hunted together at the EKC youth hunt.
We became really good friends and then it just so happens that we ended up becoming
in relationship as far as the Duncan hit the spot dog and the spot was down at Ben's house
for a little while.
They still with Ben's sister, Tiffany, they're the ones that own the spot.
I've got spot at my house now.
The relationship just continues to build, continues to build.
They're good friends of mine.
I love talking to them.
Definitely wanted to get them in here on a podcast.
What dogs you got, Ben?
I got, right now I got the youngest ever HCX dog, Hillbilly Hannah.
We hunt her, she had puppies off of spot.
She's been winning a little bit here and there.
I don't get to hunt enough for 14 and 14 schedule and it's hard to find people to help you handle
now.
A lot of people don't hunt like us.
We hunt a different style of dog than most people.
My little Ripper dog has been, Ripper's been in the pen since all the moats.
He's been out twice.
Poor Ripper's been put on the back burner.
I've kind of, for those of you that don't know, I've kind of corrupted these two.
Well, it's to see me leaving local hunts and going to big hunts.
I see what it takes.
There's no, the old barn behind the barn dog is not there no more.
He can't handle it.
He can treat coons, no doubt.
Everybody's got a coon dog that can treat coons, but to be able to compete on the level
with Spot, Hannah, the local dogs in Mississippi that are top dogs, Dustin Weeds dogs, here
locally we hunted Hannah against Joker two weekends ago.
Joker beat her by a circle tree.
They both had exact points on the coons, separate by their self.
There's no me too dogs no more that's going to win big hunts.
You've got to be deep and by yourself.
I get to hunt with lightning.
I get to hunt with misbehaving.
Man, she's a handful.
Racket, you got racket that hunts local with us.
You got Andy Morgan's got Playboy coming up.
He's a young dog.
Colt Bailey's got his dogs that's coming up.
Dyke Parnell's got a female that I would pay anything for right now.
She's my style of dog.
She's a two bark tree dog and she's deadly accurate.
He will not sell her.
So that's just the way it goes.
We got plenty of dogs.
We got Beauty from Adam and Greg.
She's a nice dog.
She's coming off pups from Spot too.
Spot's going to be our stud dog.
We're going to see what happens with two litters.
There you go.
He definitely, I tell you guys, I know the listeners, the people that have listened,
they've heard the story a hundred times, but Spot has just been a blessing to me through
and through from the friendships that he has just brought together.
Not even just with Spot, but Spot was the reason behind Buddy, the high dollar whiskey
dog.
Without Spot, Buddy never happens.
Buddy never comes to me.
Me and Bruce Bartz never create a relationship and a brother bond that we have.
It all started with Spot.
He co-owned for Spot originally and then ended up getting out of that partnership and
Spot came down to you guys.
Our relationship became even closer.
Our relationship actually started with me selling Ranger.
Yeah, Ranger for my sister to handle.
Ranger's one of the old-
He's living his best life right now with a bunch of kids.
Yeah, with a bunch of kids.
He's a 100 pound goofball.
You can't ask for a funner dog to hunt.
Then it went to Spot and Star and the line just keeps going.
That's it.
Diamond.
There you go.
There's the wild child.
You on her back.
No, the wild child.
Oh, Diamond.
Oh yeah.
That's the wildest one I've seen so far.
She lives in Fort Knox.
Do what?
She lives in Fort Knox.
Really?
Yes.
I cannot.
Her kennel is Fort Knox.
Really?
Yes.
She's that crazy, huh?
Yes.
She will get out of that.
Her grandmama was the same way.
Those of you that don't know, her grandmama was wild style Molly, which was directly off
of a wild style cruise and a old South stylish rebel female.
Nikki Hale won Reserve Nationals with her one year.
She was probably one of the nicest females I've ever been in the woods with.
I definitely wanted to call you guys in to sit down just for a few minutes.
I know y'all got a lot going on.
I appreciate you guys not just for this, not just for sitting down, but everything you
guys do for me.
You guys always have my back and I consider you guys family.
I appreciate you guys.
I got to go find your dad.
I spoke to him while I dove, but I got to go back and find him.
He was standing by the show ring over there.
Hey, I'll tell you what.
I think y'all see Daddy and the way he is.
He is a testament to no matter what your health is, he's here even though probably he shouldn't
be.
He's here pushing through it because he loves it.
I tell people all the time, it's not what I do, it's who I am.
I see it.
He made it.
It's who I am.
I am who I am because of him, because of the relationships that I've built with you guys
and I appreciate you guys.
I appreciate you too.
Hey, thank you very much.
Simper Doggin and Hometown Hero Outdoors are proud to partner together to bring you the
Hometown Hero Outdoors Hero of the Week.
This week's hero is Detective Bailey Rogers with the Louisville Metro Police Department.
Bailey was awarded a deer hunt last year through Hometown Hero Outdoors.
During this hunt, Officer Rogers was successful as he worked closely with his guide to harvest
a mature whitetail on Indiana public land.
While the thrill of the hunt was something Bailey will never forget, he stated that the
lifelong friendships made and the camaraderie shared with people who were brought together
through a calling to serve others, whether that be through their community or country,
were the highlights of his trip.
Bailey, from Simper Doggin and Hometown Hero Outdoors, we would like to say thank you for
serving and protecting your community.
Listeners, remember, if you have a hero of your own that you would like to recognize,
please send their name and a brief description to simperdoggin at gmail.com and we will be
glad to recognize them.
If you would like more information on Hometown Hero Outdoors, be sure to visit them at hometownherooutdoors.org
or follow them on Facebook.
Alright guys, we're back at it again and we have finally conned Mr. Jay Lash into joining
us today on the Simper Doggin podcast.
Thank you very much for joining us buddy.
Thank you.
Thank you for having me.
I appreciate it.
So Jay, me and him came to know each other through, I bought a kennel from him, went
down to pick it up and we started talking about dogs.
We kind of hit it off talking about dogs and it's kind of went ever since me and him staying
in contact with each other.
Won't you tell the listeners exactly what you make, Jay?
Well, as far as the kennels go, we build above ground kennels.
They're all skids.
We offer them with insulated dog houses.
We offer them with barrels.
All the housing is on the rear.
We offer with just 55 gallon barrels if you want them.
We customize them any size, any shape you want, anything you want to add to them or
don't like.
We do anything that we do, we do it different.
Most common size is a 4 by 8 stall and we build them from 1 up to 10 in a single run.
We offer electricity, lighting, put receptacles on the outside with fans.
Insulate the roofs on them.
We put folding dividers in them with weapon boxes with puppy ramps.
Anything anybody can come up with, we try to accommodate.
So it sounds like you have multiple packages that you can actually put together for these
kennels.
Yep.
Just try to customize them to fit everybody's needs.
Just like a while ago, I had an 8-hole Beagle kennel ordered, 4 by 4 stalls, 24 inches off
the ground where a standard is 16.
He wanted them a little taller with a little shorter sides for Beagles.
We make it happen.
So what got you into making these kennels?
Well, I just actually needed a new kennel for myself about 8 years ago.
I've had every kind of kennel you can think of from concrete to slab to raised wooden
kennels to have them tied on a chain.
I was already in the fab business actually on the muffler shop.
We built a little bit of everything.
At that time, Deere stands were my number one seller.
Duck Blinds were second, and like I said, I built my first kennel for myself.
I advertised them a little bit.
It took about a year for them to take off.
And now we've got them.
We're in South Arkansas.
We have delivered them as far as Connecticut, New York, Idaho.
You're in Indiana.
Yep.
We've got them East Coast, Gulf Coast, out West.
We've got them all over the country.
And they are by far my number one seller now.
Yeah.
One thing that I like about them is the fact that they're galvanized.
They're not going to rust.
They're not going to fall apart.
And the one that I'm sitting here looking at right here on the grounds at Winter Classic
has something that I've never seen in another kennel setup, which is a fold up divider between
the two of them.
So why don't you go into that and maybe what people can use that differences for.
Right.
You know, if you have a litter of puppies, you know, and they get big enough to get out
and get out and around on their own, you want to separate them from their mother.
You don't have to get them out of the kennel.
You just move them to one side.
You don't have to divide her back down and keep her one side.
Or if you get down to where you only got one dog, won't let him have full run in the kennel.
You know, you can.
Or just got two young dogs.
You want to let them play, get a little exercise.
You just let them access each side.
That's pretty slick.
I mean, that's probably the one thing that I like the most about them is that fold up
door.
Yeah.
They're pretty nice.
I'll tell you guys, it's been a hot attraction here at Winter Classic.
Everybody's stopping by complimenting to him on how well they look, everything that they
have going on.
And he said it's got receptacles on the outside.
It's got lights, light switch.
I mean, it's a pretty sharp looking unit and we want to commend you on your work, bud.
Well, I appreciate it.
I really do.
Like I said, as far as lighting goes, you know, we put all the wiring in conduit, you
know, where the dog cannot get to it no matter what any shape, short shape, form or fashion.
The only external wiring is only a very outside comes off the skid out of the conduit.
Just a pigtail where you can plug a 110 extension cord up to it.
Yes, sir.
So, you know, I want to just go through here and to kind of just describe this for the
listeners so they can kind of see what we're looking at here at Grand American.
We got a two run four by eight kennel all galvanized.
It's got two lights on the inside of it off the back of each one of them is an insulated
doghouse and on the front of them has two or a self automatic feeder for each each run.
And then it's got the five gallon bucket water bucket holders on the inside.
What is the pricing on a setup like this running, Jay?
This exact setup with the folding provider and everything else like to say is 2725.
Okay, what this one is.
And if our listeners are interested in getting a hold of you, how can they reach you?
They can get on Facebook, Lagal Creek blinds on Facebook.
We do have a website.
We do a lot more business off Facebook.
We're on Instagram or they can just look me up on Facebook, Jay Lash, Facebook, shoot
me a message and they'll pick you up.
Sir and hey guys, this Mr. Jay Lash is not just somebody that that builds kennels.
He's also a houndsman himself.
He enjoys many different avenues as far as hounds.
What all you got now, Jay?
English dogs, far as hounds go.
That's all I've had about the last 20 years.
I hunted blue ticks about the first 20 years once I was got old enough to have my own dogs.
And then I got down to one old dog needed something started to keep going and just happened
across this English dog and he did real well and I just kind of stuck with him.
So that's what I've got.
I also have squirrel dogs, two mulling spies and we've got labs.
So always always dogs around.
Yes sir.
And hey, that is why Mr. Jay Lash is a perfect, perfect guide to bring on our podcast because
we are always dogging.
That's right guys.
Well, this is going to wrap it up for the 2024 winter classic here at Semper Dog.
And we've got people trying to get their trailers pulled out here.
So I know Mr. Jay needs to load up and Basher and I need to load up and get on out of here.
So thank you guys for joining us this weekend.
It's been a good time.
Thank you Mr. Jay Lash for sharing your booth with us.
It's been a pleasure with your camaraderie and just building the relationship that we
have.
I appreciate it.
Thanks for having me.
Thanks sir.
Well guys, that rounds out another episode of the Semper Dog and podcast.
Thank you so much for joining us on this journey.
We really hope you guys are enjoying it as much as we are.
This trip down to winter classic has been fantastic.
Like I said earlier, we got to meet some amazing people and see some amazing hounds.
So we just really enjoyed ourselves and enjoyed our time spent with fellow, fellow hound lovers.
Make sure that you guys are going forward and supporting those who are supporting you.
That'd be froggy bottom outdoors and never satisfied off road guys.
They are here to support houndsmen.
They're here to support dog lovers and anything that you need.
Those two companies can hook you up.
So make sure you give them some support.
Guys, if you wouldn't mind, please follow us on Facebook.
We've got our Semper Dog and page and we also have the Semper Dog and podcast group.
So if you guys want to be interactive, enjoy some more content outside of these podcasts.
Those two places are where you can find all of that interaction and everything that we
have going on here at Semper Dog and give us a follow on YouTube guys.
Right now we're just posting our audio, but we do have some videos in the works coming
up there soon.
So we're trying our best to make this the best podcast experience that we can for you
guys and we're going to get there.
So guys, stay with us.
Keep engaging with us on the Facebook group.
Keep shooting us those messages of things that you are interested in and topics you
want to hear about that are all dog related.
And please remember to submit your hero for the hometown hero outdoors hero of the week
guys.
We can never say thank you enough to those guys who are serving our communities and protecting
our country.
So thank you to them.
Thank you to you guys for following us on this journey.
Catch us on the next dog and Tuesday Facebook live.
And in a couple of weeks, we'll have another episode here of the Semper Dog and podcast
released just for you.