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 co-host, Stephen Basham.
And this, this is Semper Doggen.
Welcome welcome welcome to another episode of the Semper Doggen podcast guys.
I am your host Bryce Matthews and today I am joined by your co-host Mr. Stephen Basham
and we've also got Lane Leverett back on here round number two.
What is up gentlemen?
What's going on buddy?
What's happening?
Not much, not much.
Mr. Lane's sitting back in his easy chair.
We had to wake him up and shake the cobwebs out.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah guys, we are recording here right before Thanksgiving and we're, this is a Semper Doggen
mobile.
So I have traveled four hours south down here to my family's place, Basham.
He's recording from a remote location.
He's mobile.
Lane, he's on his cell phone.
So we're going to try and knock this out and bring you guys an episode here on Black Friday
is when this will release.
I want to talk a little bit here about this hunt that Lane put on recently that we covered
a few weeks ago called the Battle of the Brides in Pro Sport.
Lane, why don't you fill us in on how that hunt went, who all showed up and what the
final shakedown was?
Man, it was awesome.
We ended up with 24.
You know, we had of course, Kyle Robertson, the little red gyp that won it was there.
Final three, you know, myself got lucky and back in there.
Wipeout Casey was there.
Strickland, both his gyps, Zach Reeves.
I mean, we had we had a pretty good line up of dogs there.
I can't tell them all without looking at my list, but we had a lot of good dogs.
Really, really, really hard, hard, competitive hunt.
Yeah.
What was the response from the guys that showed up to that hunt?
Were they all pretty excited to be in on like the inaugural Battle of the Brides with the
best females in the country?
Yeah, you know, we we had a lot of excitement about this hunt.
It was it was pretty big.
Everybody knew the level playing field they was going to be on.
You know, this the challenge of what we have with this kind of dogs there at this hunt
was really, really neat.
I think it's going to give us something to build on for next year.
You know, try to do this every year.
I think there I think there'll be a lot more to come.
You know, people at first, first, you know, first time we always figured it out how the
best way to do it is.
And I think we, you know, we we had a good hunt.
They had everybody good.
Everybody sat around and had a good time.
Man, it was a it was a great atmosphere.
One of the better hunts as far as the camaraderie with everybody there, you know, it was a really
good time.
Yeah, they had a good list of dogs.
You've got Juliette with a lame lever at Hooker, Doug Havener, Ruby, Jake Brasher, Lou.
Oh, Ashley Hopkins was down there.
You had old battle acts with Boo Boo Rivers, Queen, Scar, Cookie, Justin Davenport.
You had Oreo, Spencer Brown, Polly, Pearl, which ended up winning it.
Scar, which the star female, that's the one that Zach Vaught and John Strickland own that
Jess Parsons owns now.
You had Jennings and John Strickland, Betty Strong, John Strickland.
You had the Bee female with Billy Barry.
You had Venus.
You had Fire Chad Reisner, the Wipeout Casey.
You had Propane Jane, Robert Burns, Jenny Craig.
Margaret and Powder, that was kind of your lineup for the hunt.
Something that I really enjoyed, Lane, was seeing all the stuff that you went out and
got, you know, the belt.
That's pretty awesome.
And then, you know, I believe you got knives for each one of them.
What was the prize package?
They all had.
We got the top three, all got a K-Lite.
Sandra donated all the finalists to K-Lite.
Stephen Smith from Havoc Lights donated us a light.
We give it to the high scoring, well, not the high scoring, they don't treat the most
cones for the two nights.
We had the knives.
They were Henny Rooster knives.
All the finalists got one of them, Razor donated a vest.
All three finalists got a vest.
And then the belt.
The belt was off the hook.
That was cool.
You can tell, it was like WWE wrestling.
Everybody wanted that belt, you know.
So for the listeners, explain what this belt looked like.
This is a podcast.
People that just listen to it, I've got a bunch of listeners that just get on there
and listen to these podcasts when they're driving down the road and explain to these
listeners exactly how you had this belt made.
Man, we ordered it on Amazon, you know, but we went and had it engraved, Designs Express
here in town engraved it for us.
We had the Pro Sport emblem on each side.
All of the brides in the middle and the champion, Estelle Springs, but you know, it's like
a wrestling belt like you see on TV, you know, with the champ.
Camp in the world.
It was a pretty big prize.
You know, everybody, everybody come up here and you'd say, you'd catch it just about
everybody that had a little bit of that belt.
Everybody's, I want that belt, you know.
So there was an interesting picture of John Strickland on a bench holding the belt.
Yeah.
You know, John, he's always cutting up doing something.
We hung it on him, took a picture of like he was the big dog.
Yeah, I didn't see that picture.
The only picture I saw Strickland looked like somebody done put some baby powder in his
hands and scratched his nose while he was sleeping.
I think, I think when they stayed the other day, Maynard said his feet stink real bad.
He told him he'd throw that powder all over him to help him out.
His whole face was covered in white powder.
Yeah.
Yeah, it was pretty funny.
But like I said, it seemed like you guys had a pretty good hunt.
It seemed like I was kind of looking at the scores for the very first round.
Seemed like you guys, the Coons weren't really moving very good.
Seemed like, you know, the dogs actually kind of struggled a little bit.
Yeah, they did.
They did.
Of course, that's Tennessee in November now.
You know, that's the way it is in the early rounds.
I mean, like our cast, I won with two dens, you know.
Others draw minus on a slick and two with true.
They just got too far and went the wrong way.
The late round, same way there.
There's a few Coons treed, you know, but you know, this time of year, you're going to
struggle.
Two Coons on the cast is pretty good.
Yeah.
So and then the late round, you know, I think we scored on five.
We got a guy here, a friend of ours, Larry Prince.
He saved his farm for us.
He's got feeders up there.
He never kills a Coon.
I mean, they're there.
I mean, we've been in there and say in the hour and say 10 to 15, you know, Coons sitting
around.
So we were really in good shape to have that place for a final.
You know, we're going to have it on the next time.
Also, he's going to keep it all fed up in the two force.
Yeah, that's awesome.
That's awesome.
So the question I had whenever I saw that belt, who went home with that?
Did Kai take it home or did what did the owners cut it in half and each one of them take a
half?
How did that work?
Man, I have no idea when they left here was hanging on the dog.
I think you'd have to go in thirds, wouldn't it?
And he had to go there.
I guess for the week, they're just passing around.
Just passing around.
Yeah, I love that.
I say whoever's got the dog keeps the belt.
Yeah.
Okay.
So was there looking at that list of bashing?
I'm going to default to you looking at that list.
Was there anybody or any dog that you thought was like a surefire foot in the final three
that you were surprised didn't make it in?
I mean, you have to go with Ann.
John Strickland and Ann dog.
I mean, you have to with the role that they've been on and him went in a truck with her and
just everything that they've won together.
I mean, I mean, the Ann dog was probably one of them.
You know, obviously with the pedigree, with the background pedigree that she has, Cookie
was probably another fan favorite.
You know, having a world champion coming off of a reserve world champion at the PKC World.
So I mean, I would say if you had to do a poll, Ann and probably Cookie were probably
two of your biggest fan favorites.
What would you think, Lane?
Yeah, them two is always a favorite.
You know, Fire, Fire was on the road lately.
She's been tough when she was in that in that heads up cast.
I thought, you know, she's going to be tough to handle right there.
You know, let me tell you about a hunt like this.
And you guys know this.
You can have the same hunt tomorrow night and have a total different lineup in the every
round, you know, total different set of winners every round.
You know, Final three be totally different.
The final six be totally different.
Well, I mean, that's like nothing against you, Lane, at all.
But I mean, if you look at that list of dogs, the third and what's so awesome about this
type of hunt, you look at this list of dogs.
If you was to put that list of dog on Facebook or anywhere and ask for, hey, who do you think
is going to win?
Those three wouldn't have been the top three on that list, would they?
Well, I don't know, man.
I'll tell you.
Come on, Lane.
Hey, I'm not.
No, no, no, no.
I'm not putting any dog down.
I'm just saying I'm talking about, you know, with the resumes that and not that Juliette
don't have a resume.
She obviously does.
But but we're talking about, you know, you've got Anne and just lately the resume and you've
been on a win, you know, in pro sport.
You've got 17 now.
So you're leading dog of the year.
So I'm just talking about I guess I guess what I'm talking about isn't so much pro sport
as I am all the other entities.
P.K.C., U.K.C., all the big titles.
You know, you had some heavy hitters in in that lineup.
Oh, yeah.
You know, oh, if you sit back, look, everybody's always going to say Strickland, whatever he's
on, you know, he's always one of the fake one, the one you see, you just can't bet against
him.
But you know, like I said, there's not a dog in that.
You know, but on that token, I think it's hard to bet against Kai.
I feel like whatever the heck Kai gets behind, he's got he's got a chance at winning.
He might be one of the luckiest guys I've ever met.
I've said for a long time, you put Kai behind a poodle.
He's going to he's going to knock on the door.
He's pretty good at what he does now.
You know, and he's not one of the guys that gets to go travel the world hunting.
You know, I mean, he gets to go to select events and I feel like he really does capitalize
on the events that he gets to go to.
Yeah, he's really good.
So and he's always got a good hand on.
Yeah.
Back when back when he was really pushing whenever he had a fever.
Yeah, when he had fever and then crash when he was really pushing.
I mean, when he shows up to a hunt, you best believe he's he's carrying the dog.
Yeah, that's right.
That's for sure.
I really enjoyed just seeing seeing the pearl dog win this because it was a dog and I'm
a walker man at heart, but it was something different on the front page of the quote unquote
magazine.
You know what I mean?
It was refreshing to see something.
It was, you know, people who are not Walker people, they're always wanting something else
to get the spotlight and they got it this time, you know, with the crossbreed redbone
Walker dog.
So I thought that was very interesting and nice to see it was just a breath of fresh
air.
Yeah, it was.
It was pretty good.
I was proud for them to now.
I'm tell you, I like and I was proud of them, you know, to represent us and win that that
you're right.
I mean, I think about different cut dog of a different color.
That's that was pretty good deal right there.
Yeah, because because so think about it.
When is the last time you've seen something other than a Walker win in a major event across
all registries like it's it's been a while.
It's been a long time, you know, for something that's not a breed specific event, you know,
for just a general of like autumn oaks this year, we had a black and tan in the final
four.
And you know, the black and tan guys were pumped up as they should be because it's been
a long time, you know.
So it was just it was really nice to see something different win.
And even though I'm a Walker guy, I just thought it was nice.
Yes, sir, it was.
I mean, you'll get you'll get you get in your outline areas and you'll get your off colored
dogs that win your that win pro classics regularly, you know, like and just one that pops off
the top of my head because I had him here at the house.
But Chad falling and country boy down in South Carolina, I mean, they show up to a hunt.
And typically when you see a picture of the final four of that pro classic country boys
in it, you know, they don't ever go to anything but right there at the house.
And I think he's got 50 or 60,000 one on that blue dog.
Right.
So I mean, you can name a few, but you're right, Bryce.
I mean, night in and night out, you know, you look at a final four picture of a pro
classic or pro sport or, you know, you know, final four of, you know, Walker days or even
though it's not a walk Walker only hunt, you know, or autumn oaks or the world hunt, you
know, you don't see a lot.
Another one is Caleb Griffin in that crossroad dog.
He's got preacher, preacher man, half Walker, half black and tan blue blue tick.
Yeah.
So, I mean, it's just, yeah, having a dog of a different color, it just, it kind of
shakes things up a little bit and definitely props to you, Lane, for being able to talk
so nice about it.
You know, you came in second on that hunt.
Yeah.
I was proud for Kai.
His dog did a good job.
You know, that was a heck of a final.
We don't still kick in my hand and a little bit about that.
I was just going to ask you how much weight and how much smaller is your rear end since
that night?
How many times have you kicked yourself?
Oh, I've, I've, I've made myself laugh thinking about it.
You know, I, oh, you purposely take a quarter on that first tree, thinking, thinking, thinking
that it's going to be a blank and it turns out to be a can.
You know, in life, just on these casts, you have a split, a split second to make a decision
that's going to affect what you do the rest of your life.
Same on the hunt.
You have a minute to make a decision on what's going to affect the rest of that cast.
And mine is never with another dog.
And so they, they like these hot tracks right out of the truck and they treat together.
I'm sitting there thinking, okay, trees first, you know, they both damn together.
Well, if I ain't going to get it all, I'll just take a little and play it safe just in
case right here, you know, well, it bit me in the rear.
So a little backstory, Bryce, what happened is, is they cut loose and they, they jam a
coon right out the gate.
Kai trees first, Juliet's on the tree, but Olayne lays back and decides instead, and
since he didn't get first tree, he's just going to get last tree.
So instead of taking 75 or 50, he takes a quarter.
Well, fast forward to the end of the hunt, they're tied and Kai had tiebreakers.
Oh, I wasn't sure how that worked.
Okay.
It's a different story.
If he treats for 75 or 50, it's a different story.
Yeah.
Interesting.
Well, like you said, I mean, you've got a split second to make those decisions and figure
out what you're going to do and you win some, you lose some, you know what I mean?
Like, yeah, there's nothing else to it.
There's nothing else to it.
So well, Lane, that was the battle of the brides.
Bassem, you got anything else to add on that one?
Sorry.
Look, are you getting ready?
Yeah, one thing, um, just kind of kept just kind of backing up just the hair now that it's
over, what's something that you would have done different for that hunt?
I don't treat my dog.
No, I'm talking about putting on the hunt, running the hunt.
What's something that you'll change for next year?
What would you change for next year?
Oh, I don't know.
There's anything we can change, man.
It was perfect.
I'm talking about it.
We run perfect.
Absolutely, there was not a question, not a glitch anywhere.
The only thing I know that we could do different was add more dogs.
Rather than 24, maybe open it up to 36 or 48 or something like that.
Yeah.
Let me tell you this.
When we started this thing, we set out to beat 24 and we caught a lot of slack about
just picking 24 and there were some good dogs we left out.
We opened it to 32.
Well, then guys back out and they commit to coming and don't show up and we get back to
24.
That's the thing about these hunts, man.
We work our butts off to put them on and it's a lot of work to it.
I mean, a lot of phone calls, a lot of time finding guides, finding judges, being sure
enough food to feed, when we ordered the steaks three weeks ahead of time, we ordered for
$32 plus extra people ordered 50 of them big steaks.
When people called and they want entry, but then they don't stand behind what they do
and show up, it hurts.
Next time, we're going to do it a little different.
When somebody speaks for entry, they're going to have to be responsible for that entry.
There's really nothing as far as the hunt wise we could do except add more dogs.
Now since that was an invitational hunt, maybe I just missed it.
Was there an entry fee for these guys to show up or was it just a show up on an invitational
deal?
How did that work out?
Because you guys had a good payout too.
$1000 entry.
Yeah, 12,000 first, six per second, three for third.
Yeah, that's what I was wondering.
They paid out like 27,000 and I was like, man, surely they didn't just put this as an
invitational deal, but I never saw the entry fee, I guess.
Yeah, $1000 entry fee.
Now one thing, and I think this would be cool.
The person that won the belt would not think this would be cool.
Does the belt get transferred to the next winner and their name just etched into the
belt?
No, that's probably-
Because in WWE, when I take your belt, I take your belt.
What is it?
You're the man until you beat the man.
That's right.
To beat the man, you've got to beat the man.
You know, I don't know.
It's hard to take that back.
You know, you got three people, you got the else.
But you know, that might be something.
If you look into the futures, you may have to defend that belt next year.
Make it a deal where, you know, the previous champion, the reigning champion is an automatic
shoe into the final cast.
Like for the next year, they've got a spot.
You've got one spot locked in.
So you basically have a buy and then you've got two or three open spots.
And that person gets an opportunity to defend their belt or their title.
I'd say you have the first round buy, not all the way to the final because there was
three different casts.
There was early, late, and then that broke it down to the final three.
So I would say you get a buy of the first round.
But here's the problem with the Battle of the Brides.
What happens if that bride is in heat?
It's all female hunt, doesn't matter.
Well, here's my question on that though.
If Juliet's day nine, are you going to take her out there in the middle of the woods and
cut her loose?
Put a little pine tar on her and go off.
Yeah.
Oh, Lane Lever says, Hey, I ain't never done it.
I ain't never not done it.
But seriously, I mean, these are ideas that could be, you know, it could be.
You can spice things up a little bit, give them an opportunity to defend it.
Let me tell y'all something else.
They was really good about this hunt.
Having just a final three on Saturday night.
I think there was 500 and some odd viewers watching that live where, you know, when you
got two rounds on Saturday and you're wee hours in the morning, you don't get a lot
of that.
Everybody's trying to watch it the next day, but there was, there was that many people
watching that.
And that, that format right there works pretty good.
Yeah.
I'm a big fan of that.
That that early cast.
And I mean, heck, I was back home by 11 o'clock.
You know, people was, they like going to church on Sunday morning, you know?
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
But I do like what, I do like what Bryce said, you know, maybe in the future, the winner
automatically makes it because your late round was heads up, right?
Yes.
Yeah.
What if the winner automatically makes it the heads up?
We'll have to give that some thought.
Yeah.
I mean, we'll have to give that some thought.
We didn't do it on this first one, but we might, we might fix it where you have to have
to defend.
Yeah.
You couldn't do it on the first one.
It was the inaugural.
You didn't have anybody to defend it on the first one.
Yeah.
But I'm talking, you know, we, we didn't set it up with the winner to say, all right, now
you got to defend this next year.
Well, they don't need, they don't have to.
This is an opportunity for them to defend it.
They get the privilege to defend it.
They can bow down and quit and they can be a quitter or they can come out and defend
it.
It's how you word it.
It's a final three.
We can turn it into a final four being set that dog automatically gets to finals.
Ooh.
See, that's where I was going with it earlier, Basham.
See, we're just getting a hamster.
We're just getting the hamster going.
That's exactly what I was saying earlier, Basham.
You just take it to a final four.
You have the same format.
You keep, you get your three dogs the same way you did it, but this dog just gets, they
are there in the finals.
Like they get a chance to defend it.
I like it.
I think it's salty.
I think it spices things up.
That or maybe the winner next year, when this hunt is over, the winner this year gets to
meet heads up with that winner.
He has to defend against the winner.
Just like a battle roll.
They have a battle roll in WWE for a chance at the top.
Well, you know, the winner of the punt this coming year, maybe them two type heads up
to defend the belt.
That's almost like a king of the hill.
You know what?
You already know what you got to do.
So you're going to have the battle of the big dog, right?
That's right.
And I'm jumping ahead just a little bit.
Lane's going to talk about it in just a second.
But you've got to get another belt because Pearl's got to go up against the winner of
the big dog.
Oh yeah.
So overall.
Yeah.
So you could have your battle of the bride goes up against the badly big dog.
They both have their own belt.
Their own individual championship, but they are fighting for the king of the hill pro
sport king of the hill or king of the hill.
And how well you can't say that because if the female wins, she's not really the king.
But you know what I'm saying?
You know, yeah.
Yeah.
The pro sport top dog.
It's a lot of ideas there.
But we're good at ideas.
That was a good segue.
Yeah.
Roll into it, Bastian.
Roll it.
Roll into it.
Go ahead, Lane.
Wait a minute before we get into that.
There's something else I forgot to mention.
You know, on this battle of the brides, we made a few phone calls and we had a list of
stud owners with some of the major dogs that are breeding right now.
All donated a stud feed to the final three.
Any one of the final three can breed to the dog of their choice on this list for free.
And you know, there were some good dogs on that.
So I want to thank them guys, you know, that donated them, you know, Rackham, Willie, Trigger,
Shannon Martin and Pyr Trill, Scott Engels, too.
Billy Bales, too.
Lane Denny put one on there.
If I'm forgetting anybody, I'm sorry.
But you know, there's pretty neat, you know, just think what a pup should be worth if the
battle of the big dog was crossed with the, the bride.
Yeah, that'd be awesome.
That'd be awesome.
That'd be cool.
All right, tell us about this battle of the big dog.
Let's hear about it.
Let's grow right into it.
Battle of the big dogs.
Number one, we're going to do it a little different than we did last time.
We're going to let everybody, dogs qualifications on this are going to have to be a platinum
champion or they've won at least 20,000 in pro sport.
We're going to let people nominate their dog on the list and we're going to put that list
so that we're not just going to pick them at random who we think we're going to put
them on the wheel and spin them and we're going to take 36.
So we're going to spend the wheel 30s for 30s.
Well, we're going to spend the wheel for 35 inches.
The male dog that is leading the pro sport race this time, which looks like it's going
to be Nikki Hale, he will automatically have a ticket to it.
He will be the pro sport leader.
He will automatically be in.
Okay.
So we'll spend the wheel for 35 spots and them dogs will be chose to compete for the
battle of the big dogs.
We're going to have the only thing, you know, this is going to be different.
This hunt is somehow I'm going to make it big.
We're going to have more prizes, more online.
We're going to try to have some live interviews.
I mean, we're going to do some stuff, you know, bigger and better.
We're going to run the Calcutta.
I know we kind of got a late start on the Calcutta.
Just so everybody knows, you're going to be listening to this on Black Friday, the week
of that week starting on December 23rd, we are going to start the Calcutta and it's going
to run all week until the draw on Friday.
And this hunt battle of the big dogs, I don't think anybody said it yet, but just to clarify,
it's the male hunt.
So it's done just like the battle of the brides, but this is all male hunt.
Yes, sir.
Okay.
Yeah, hopefully I get drawed for this hunt.
You better not draw.
The other thing we're going to do on that draw, you say, say, bash and get his dog drawn
on there and the entries go to the dog, not the person.
So I use a trigger for instance, say trigger gets drawn, but at the last minute something
happens and trigger can't come.
He can't just sell that entry or do something.
He's got to let us know, we're going to draw that list all the way through.
We're going to go to the next available on every entry.
So we're going to do it that way.
Are you going to try to do this for the battle of the brides next year?
Yes.
That's going to be the way we choose them from now on.
I like that.
I do like that as well too, because it takes the pressure off of you guys and the ridicule
for saying, why didn't this dog make it?
Well, this dog was qualified and this dog was capable.
Why didn't you choose them?
It takes it off of you.
If you think you got one, they can handle it.
As long as it meets this criteria, which you're saying is a platinum champion in PKC or a
$20,000 winner in pro sport, pony up, big boy, put your money up and nominate yourself
and let's go play.
Saddle up.
That's right.
That's exactly right.
And you know, and I'll tell you another thing it does, it locks them entries in a little
better instead of calling around and saying, Hey, we want to invite you to this hunt.
We want to invite you here, this dog and this dog.
Okay, we'll come.
You know that when your name gets put on that wheel, you're in.
So you know, you, you, you didn't, you wasn't asked to do it.
You put your dog in there.
So that's going to hold people a little more accountable for them interest to show up like,
you know, like they won't say they are.
So and, and like you say, we pick them at random.
So we're not just picking, we don't get, well, y'all just the buddy system.
You know, you just went through and pick this one, pick that note.
If your dog's qualified, if he meets that criteria, like you said, get in where you
fit in, you know, cause it's going to be a, it's going to be a hell of a night.
Yeah, absolutely.
So just a question because the brain's thinking, um, and, and there's only one dog that comes
into mine.
And the only reason why I bring it up is cause I automatically thought about him whenever
you were talking about 20,000 in either PKC or pro sport.
What if they got 20,000 in UKC, but they don't really hunt pro sport or PKC, man, you're
reaching hard.
We go.
It's still 20,000.
It's still 20,001.
I'm just asking, which dog are you talking about?
Yeah.
Really?
Preacher man.
Preacher.
Yep.
Oh, yeah.
So, um, we hadn't considered taking UKC.
I don't know why we hadn't, but we didn't cause heck, they usually, you know, other
than the tournament of champions, I don't even know what they give any money for.
I don't know.
I mean, they do have, they do have like pro slams and stuff.
Now they're doing it like almost like a pro classic where they're paying out, you know,
7,500 or something to win.
They do have those.
They're few and far between there.
They're trying to build that.
They do have that.
And they do have a list of all time money winners that you can find.
Yeah.
I think UKC is coming on pretty strong with their hunks too.
I mean, they're really building.
Um, can I answer your question?
I cannot answer that question.
That's something I'd have to get back to you on, but as of right now, we're going by the
pro sport PKC.
You don't have to take that to the board board members.
Yeah.
We'll have to discuss it with the guys.
Okay.
So what's the dates and location?
Where's the battle of big dogs going to be hunt when and where?
And it's just Springs, Tennessee, December 27th and 28th.
The week after Christmas be the last, that'd be the last pro sport hunt of the year.
Okay.
So somebody's Christmas wish just may come true.
So it's two days after Christmas.
Yeah.
Yes.
Yeah.
Are we going on the same prize payout as battle of the brides?
No, it'll be more.
We're going to take more dollars.
We're going to take 36 instead of 24.
Okay.
Do you have that prize package broke down?
Do you know what you're giving out on this hunt yet?
I don't yet.
We'll, we'll announce it in weeks to come.
We'll break down the money and post it.
You know what we're going to do.
Uh, far as price gifts, I got to call a lot of sponsors.
I know K lights going to donate lights again.
And I'm sure the other folks will, you know, join in with us, but I plan on having even
more than before.
Yeah, that'd be awesome.
I, bash when I talk about this, we'd like to become down there, especially with it being
Christmas, the week of Christmas, I should have off work.
So we're going to try and come down there and get some interviews.
Come on and set up.
We'll be glad to have you.
I'd like to make that happen.
I'm hoping to be hunting in it.
So what dog you going to take?
I mean, I've got a couple different ones, but I'll probably put a country boy on there.
There you go, man.
I'm putting this on and don't even have one.
Yeah.
I mean, can you see me behind a blue dog?
I see you for whatever the heck you can try and get your hands on.
Well, I don't, I'll tell you what, it'd be a perfect time.
December in Tennessee with the way the Coons move for a blue dog.
It'd be a good time of December for a Coon dog.
Yeah, absolutely.
I will say this about him and I'm not, like I said, I'm not one to beef up somebody else's
dog, but I had that sucker here for three months.
And if there's one thing that that dog and he, he just is extremely good at, and that
is being a Coon dog.
He may not be the best competition dog, but when that dude's feet hit the wood, you better
cock your gun.
Well, that's what it takes in this country.
Well, that's, I mean, that's pretty exciting.
I'm like, glad to see that people are stepping out and they're trying to do innovative things.
You know, the sport is evolving and every time I'm like, all right, man, well we've,
we've maxed out what's going to happen next.
Boom, here comes another hunt with a different format, which I think is great.
People are putting their minds together and they're coming up with some really cool stuff.
One of them that comes to mind, I just saw the ad for it is the Polaris bonanza or whatever
they're doing over there in Illinois where they're giving out like three or four different
or three different players, Rangers, nine players, four wheelers.
Is it sick?
Yeah, something like that.
Yeah.
Six or nine players, four wheelers.
I mean, that's a heck of a hunt, you know, $3,000 fee get you in for three days of trying
and get you three chances, but it's, it's innovative.
It's thinking outside of the box.
It's something different than money or a truck or, you know, it's, it's just very cool to
see all you guys putting your minds together and trying to do something different.
Let me tell you, we can all go to a hunt anywhere in the country that pays good money, but sometimes
the money's, it's not all about the money.
You know, 10 years from now, my little boys, I got a little boy's three year old 10 years
from now, none of that 6,000, nine one's going to be there.
That belt, you know, when I passed away and he gets my belongings, you know, when he digs
in that drawer and he gets that pocket knife, it says battle of the brides or, you know,
guys, guys kid down the road.
One day looks up in that belt, sitting on hanging on the trophy cake.
You know, that it's kind of means a little something.
Sometimes the it's, it's not always about the money.
Sometimes the prizes and the titles, you know, mean a lot to us too.
I'm going to tell you something that I regret more than anything is I used to be, I didn't
hunt my first PKC hunt until 2016, something like that.
I was, I was big where I lived at.
There just wasn't a lot of PKC hunts.
And it was just UKC through and through and through.
And I remember one year I took four dogs from never winning a cast to being grand night.
And that was back when only one night champion got a night champion win, the highest scoring
night champion.
And so, I mean, I've, I won a Walker sectional at tell city, like the queen of the hunt three
years in a row.
And so I had all these plaques and clocks and trophies and, and one day I just got tired
of dusting them off.
And I went and took every one of them trophies and gave them to a club.
And you know, the older I get now, I regret that bigger than anything in this world.
Yes.
I'm telling you, it's, them trophies, sometimes you look around and you don't think they mean
nothing, but one day they'll mean, they'll mean something to somebody other than you.
Now, they'll even mean something to you.
You know, when you've got, when you're getting older and you're putting together a hunting
room or shed and you're like, man, what do I hang on the walls?
And then I'll tell you who really, who really made me set back and think about it was Don
Dunlap.
And whenever they did, when they did the Dunlap boys and they did that podcast, who was it
Jeremy that did it?
Probably Josh.
Or was it Mason?
Josh, Michaelis did him, didn't he?
Oh, that's what I meant.
Not Jeremy, Josh.
When Josh did it, they show the background and it's all of the trophies, you know, all
over the walls and everything.
And right then I was like, man.
I've got pictures, I've got pictures on my phone of like, man, I had like two walls completely
covered in trophies.
I just got tired of them and I gave them all to a hunting club.
And that's something that I regret.
But I think that's a generational thing because so, you know, you take Don, I mean, he's older
than you.
Um, yeah.
Look at my father-in-law, Curtis Elburn.
If you walk into his basement, it is legitimately mind boggling.
How many trophies are in that basement from all of these Coonhound events?
He's got a pool table.
The whole thing is got shelves on it, stacked of Coonhound trophies.
You go into the other room, he's got a wall.
It's got four layers stacked of Coonhound trophies.
He's got sections built for all the Texas Longhorn, the horn measuring world championships
that he's won.
I don't think he's ever thrown a trophy away from the day that he was a peewee, you know,
that he's got every one of them.
You cannot move in there.
There's so many trophies.
But then you look down at my wife, Nikki, his daughter, and she cleaned out trophies
a month ago.
She went through our closet and there they went just like you right to a club or to the
trash one of the other.
And it's like, it'll never happen.
It'll never happen again.
Every trophy that I get from this point forward is going to be saved.
Yeah.
I've got my little wall of memory big up here myself and I've told my wife several times,
I'm going to take that out and put it in the shop out there.
And she's like, no, you let that sit right there.
Yep.
Awesome.
Well, guys, I told you at the very beginning of this, this was Semper, Dog, and Mobile.
My laptop is getting ready to crash on us here, boys.
So we need to wrap this up here pretty quickly.
Lane, thanks for joining us again, buddy.
Is there anything else that you need to cover on Battle of the Brides or Battle of the Big
Dogs?
Oh, I want to answer, I want to answer a question for some people out there.
I've been asked multiple times why I choose pro sport to go with on these kind of hunts.
And I want to, I want to tell you a little bit about why I choose pro sport.
Number one, I really like the, I like their association.
I like the rules.
I like the guys that run it.
But I'm going to give you a couple reasons.
Several years back, I was second with Jeff Stallard in the PKC Nationals.
We received our rewards in the motel parking lot.
Here you go, boys.
There it is and gone.
When I was third in the world hunt, me and Kevin Cable and we go back to the club there
at the fairgrounds.
There was one person there to hand us our plaques and our checks and shake our hand.
When you go to these pro sport hunts, these guys are on the finals with you, judging it,
they're out there in amongst.
When you get back, you realize you've done something.
It's more of a family oriented thing amongst us hunters.
But the way them guys take pride in what they do and they're there at the end of the hunt,
it's not just about the money with these guys.
It's not about how much they can make or do because they pay out a lot of what they take
in, they pay back out.
On these hunts, they don't make much, but it's more about the dog and the prizes and
the hunters.
I am very proud to be a supporter of pro sport and very proud to have them on board with
what we're doing here.
To answer people's questions, wife, go to the other hunts and come to a pro sport hunt
and you'll understand what I mean.
I won't leak by saying that.
I would say there's only one other registry that could compete with pro sport on and it's
just because they have the infrastructure to do it.
That's the way UKC runs their tournament of champions and their world hunt.
When you come back in, you get interviewed, they're running a commentary interview just
like ESPN at the table.
That's a real production.
Like I said, the difference is they've got the infrastructure.
They've got a production team that is hired to do all that.
They are.
Pro sport, I think will be there one day, the way they keep going.
I'm not saying they won't.
I'm just saying all I was meaning by that is there's only one other kennel club that
could compete on that realm and that would be how UKC runs their big hunts.
That's all I was getting.
They run it and they're there to support their hunters.
They're there behind them.
And to me, that makes a big difference.
We spend a lot of money chasing these dreams and chasing these hunts.
That little bit of appreciation showed to the participants of these hunts really means
a lot.
It does to me.
I agree 100%.
It's going the extra mile.
It's going above and beyond.
It's the attention to detail that stands out and that people remember.
But they're there from the beginning to the end.
They own it.
That hunt this weekend, they could very well send me a package and say, here you go, put
your hunt on.
But no, sir.
Greg Maynard's down there in the fire, walking on the cast.
I'm doing a video and doing it.
You've seen it.
They're up and coming and they're changing the game.
I'll tell you that.
They're changing.
I'll agree with that.
Everything in life has got to evolve and get better.
When you stay at one place so long, it gets stale.
I think we've gotten stale with some of these other groups.
But it's just getting better and keeping more.
It's more every time you turn around.
It's something new.
You've got to keep evolving.
You've got to keep raising the bar.
I want to be one of the first ones to say, Mr. Lane, we appreciate your dedication to
the sport.
We appreciate your dedication to just trying to put a smile on people's face, all the way
from me and you, me and you trucking down to North Carolina and trying to help them
to you trying to put on another hunt.
One thing that I've really come to learn about you is you're a guy of the people.
You're a guy that likes to make people smile, make people laugh.
You're in it for the bigger picture.
We definitely appreciate you and need more people like you in the sport.
Thank you.
I appreciate it.
Yep.
Absolutely.
I did owe that.
All right, guys.
Well, hey, my laptop is beeping at me.
I got 3% here, so we need to wrap this one up.
Thank you.
Spoiler alert.
24 handlers all have won over $100,000.
Oh boy.
Spoiler alert, he says.
Spoiler alert.
Hey, I think I can pick up what you're putting down.
Yep.
All right, guys.
We're going to wrap it up here.
Thanks for joining us here on Semper Dog.
And we hope you guys had a great Thanksgiving and are enjoying your Black Friday.
So we'll catch you next week.
See you.
Bye.