Episode 1 - The Origins

In our very first episode, we’re pulling back the curtain on us. Who are Alison and Michael Nezbeth? How did two people with a love for dogs, a knack for chaos, and a drive for something bigger turn a dream into Grassroots K9?

We’re talking origins, the hustle, the fails, and the moments that shaped our journey—not just as trainers but as business owners, partners, and (somehow) semi-functional humans.

If you’ve ever wondered how Grassroots K9 started or what it takes to build a life around dogs, business, and passion, this episode’s for you.

Tune in now and get rooted with us.

Transcript

0:00
welcome back everyone um this is our first episode of the rooted podcast uh
0:08
so I'm here my name is Michael nzb and this is my beautiful wife Alison Allison
0:15
what's your last name I don't want people know on my last name all right she took my last name because we do
0:22
believe in some things that are traditional a little bit um all right so
0:27
uh today we figured we post we put that post up uh we got some requests for uh
0:32
what people would like to see or hear for the first episode um and I think it was kind of unanimous decisions across
0:39
the board um that people wanted to kind of hear how we got started what what our origin story I know and I was I was
0:46
conflicted like where do we start like do we start at the real
0:51
beginning where we first met or that's not the real beginning the real beginning is in a a beautiful city
0:58
called Brampton Ontario no we're not going back that far guys I'm sorry that's where I was raised um but we're
1:04
not we're not going to start there but uh why don't I start about our origin and then you help fill in the Gap a
1:10
little bit um does that sound like a plan to you let's do it let's run with it okay so um Mike and I met in college
1:18
in St Augustine we did the very traditional thing where we uh graduated
1:25
and went into our field of study uh Michael started off as a social worker
1:31
and I'll let him tell you a little bit about that and I um studied marketing so
1:36
I was doing um marketing for this wonderful woman shout out to Virginia
1:42
and St Augustine um and uh she uh was a
1:47
you know great mentor I learned a lot from her and and again we were just cruising along and then Mike hit me with
1:53
a huge surprise one day when he came home and said what um I said I
2:01
quit this job ain't for me yeah y I think just to kind of re rewind just a
2:08
little bit there so we were in St Augustine um we had dogs we did Zeus and
2:14
Lola Zeus and Lola we had a a gamebred pitbull yes and then an English bulldog
2:20
that believed she was a gamebred pitbull she did like she would get so excited sometimes that she would just like pass
2:26
out yeah very English Bulldog of her um but um so the the job that I had uh was
2:31
kind of in my field of study was counseling I was working with dually diagnosed adults um so they would have a
2:38
stressful they would have schizophrenia and like autism or like it was it it was
2:44
quite a shindig of a job I didn't know if Mike was coming home to tell me like a WWE uh you know story or like a really
2:52
heartwarming story it was kind of always up in the air yeah so at at this place
2:58
um I you know what I thought that's what I wanted to do um I had the opportunity to work with some people um that were
3:04
like were really great people um the the kind of patients or clients that were there um I really enjoyed you know even
3:11
on the bad days um and it it taught me a ton of stuff about myself um and I was
3:17
in charge of trying to um basically teach them how to integrate back into Society on their own they all lived in
3:24
uh group homes um so that's kind of what my job was yep uh the issue that ran
3:30
into when I when I I I finally quit that job uh was that um I I didn't
3:37
like uh how the system was set up uh in that it seemed that it was just it was
3:44
like a never- ending cycle like yeah like a revolving door of people um not
3:50
even a revolving door cuz people wouldn't really leave they would become a part of that program and then they would stay that prog in that program um
3:56
and I had a a very difficult J uh time um
4:03
compartmentalizing uh you know work and home like I would go home and then consistantly be thinking about uh you
4:09
know the experiences that I was having there kind of the the stress of that job and uh kind of what was going on with
4:16
those patients there um and it was pretty taxing on me um during this time like we said we had those two dogs and I
4:22
was super into dogs so kind of my relief from that was uh hanging out with my
4:28
dogs trying to train them doing things watching um The Dog Whisperer and uh
4:33
being like Oh like that looks like that worked for him and and Zeus was also a bit of a challenge like he was super
4:39
obedient but he he was very true to his genetics and you know if he could he
4:46
would be very very happy to fight every dog that was walking the streight kill kill anything with fur basically you
4:53
know there was a time he came home with a cattail in his mouth and we were like oh get get inside as fast as
4:59
possible an actual cat an actual cat St then we find the cat like a couple weeks later with like a bob tail we're like a
5:06
that must have been the cat yeah that was it that was it we would assume um so anyway we we called that that job wasn't
5:13
for for me yeah um and uh I also told Ally kind of at this point um that uh I
5:20
planned on being a dog trainer after he had already told me that he was studying to become a lawyer so I at this who but
5:28
who likes lawyers I at this point point just felt like he was going through you know what's pretty normal for any
5:35
20-year-old something to kind of be like gauging what they wanted to do for the rest of their life and I came from a a
5:44
divorced family but the only thing I knew about what successful marriages look like was just support your husband
5:50
like regardless right be very supportive well in that case and um anyway so I was
5:58
like inside having having this huge internal battle being like okay my
6:03
husband's about to be a dog trainer well I better make a ton of money because if I don't you know we're going
6:10
to be broke for the rest of our lives and at this time I had you know I had no idea what the jaw Community was I had no
6:17
idea what the the the profit value to it was none of it and and and to be fair
6:22
neither did I yeah this is true I wasn't aware of any of that I didn't ever make
6:27
the decision like oh you know what I'm I'm going to be a dog trainer because I'm going to be rich and have all the
6:33
things that I want in life yeah um that's not why the decision was made you know I just felt like hey this was
6:39
something that I was passionate about I had no idea anything really other than Caesar Milan right um I I had no idea
6:47
luckily I was uh we're going to like kind of have to fast forward and jump around a little bit uh but I I had the
6:52
opportunity um not we we ended up moving to South Florida we um and then in South
6:59
florid I was like I was really still stuck on this I'm going to be a dog trainer kind of kick uh and I I realized
7:05
it was really hard to get someone to teach you anything um so I was sending emails every day non-stop I was calling
7:13
any phone number that I can find in Google for people that run dog training businesses um and literally and
7:19
figuratively doors were just slammed in my face over and over again no one would be accepting of this um finally I went
7:26
to a a a Doggy Daycare um that was in South Florida a pretty big one it was
7:32
called Lauderdale Pet Lodge and um I the owner happened to be in there when I was
7:37
in there um and I talked to him I I gave him a resume uh they had a job opening
7:42
for like a kennel Tech position and I was like bro cool I got to hang out with dogs and this was
7:48
like 20 yeah early 2010 yeah my early 2010s
7:55
um and minimum wage in Florida um and I was like cool I'll take it um and he was
8:01
kind of reluctant didn't say yes but didn't say no um so I just kept showing
8:07
up every single day literally for like a month straight um and then finally I
8:12
showed up one of the days and he was there um and he was just like you're still here and I was like yeah and he's like all right well I guess you can have
8:17
a job um and I got to uh eventually in that position uh they had a trainer at
8:24
that location um and I got to work underneath her um and kind of just take
8:30
all the information that I could from her I would you know sit there and jot down notes and um you know go home after
8:36
I was done working um and you know get on YouTube or Google people or say this
8:43
person brought up this person got introduced to a French ring club and I was like oh my God there's like yeah
8:48
this is cool and like and during all this time you know to create like a parallel um I was still on the marketing
8:57
aspect um but kind of mitigated to more of the HR round realm I should say and
9:04
um so I was I was still like I would say like in a corporate position which is crazy if you know Ally um and she was in
9:14
HR it's kind of like but there was some complaints that were
9:19
filed to HR but they were just to me so it was fine um but uh I worked uh with
9:26
another amazing mentor and she was absolutely phenomenal in business and
9:31
she taught me so much about sales and she taught me so much about Business and
9:36
Entrepreneurship and just overall Thinking Beyond
9:42
the I guess the not glass cealing because that's so cliche but like really just like okay here's your goal but what
9:47
is six steps beyond that goal and it was constantly always like well what's next and what's next and um kind of always
9:54
chasing something and so when he was going through you know his mentorship and he was going through learning all
10:01
the training aspects it just so happened at that time I was in one of the like
10:06
what I would say is the best experience for a mentorship in the business World
10:12
um because I had such Hands-On and such travel experience and such communication experience that I was able to take in
10:19
and then it came down to Mike saying he wanted to open up his own dog training
10:25
company well we fast forward a bit there but there was a lot like if whatever you believe in if you believe in anything um
10:31
it's kind of like stars just aligned we've got to meet some really cool people that have been very influential
10:36
on us um just because of like happen stance like we just kind of stumbled
10:42
across it Ally has always kind of been the uh more astute business mind person
10:50
um and I've kind of always been more locked in on the dog stuff um which has really worked out and been complimentary
10:57
of stuff because Ali has been able to um I make like a joke and say like I taught Ally everything she knows about
11:03
dogs which is pretty cool to say um but we also had an apprentice that referred
11:08
to me as um You're My Demo dog I'm the demo dog of not alli's demo dog that's a
11:14
bit odd I'm I'm the demo dog of Grassroots K9 um and uh uh I think that
11:21
that was that was a pretty good accurate uh think that's well I mean we can agree
11:29
disagree um so can I tell the story about why I am the majority owner of
11:34
grass g you're not I've already told you I've changed that like many years many years ago let me tell you why so I came
11:41
home I was like deep into you know my my uh mentorship this is not a fair story
11:48
because all I'm going to tell you my can I just give one disclaimer Only One mic at a time though one one disclaimer okay
11:55
no let give your disclaimer after no I have to give it before cuz then they're going to have the context they have to have the full context that's going to
12:01
ruin the story he it's not going to ruin the story all right I'm not going to tell the story never mind okay tell the
12:06
story and then you better like understand after I say this so all right so I'm deep into my mentorship program
12:14
now learning I'm I'm I've got involved in in bite dog stuff and I'm like just oh my God this is so amazing uh
12:21
everything is lining up this is perfect for me so I come home with a little malinoa
12:26
puppy um and Ally happens to be at the house with all of her fancy friends
12:32
it's my mic my mic with her fancy friends and they're have sharing a
12:39
glass of um I think it was called shamp Pagan okay you such a bad picture I come
12:46
I come in just dirty got dog all over and a Malo and they come up to me
12:52
Ally and her friends um and they're like it was kind of like a scene from Mean
12:57
Girls and and I'm just sitting there like covered in and happy and it was almost like they didn't like my
13:04
happiness so so they came up to me it's it's going to be they won't be able to
13:09
hear me if you talk over on the mik good cuz you're telling stories that not true they come up to me anyway and say like
13:15
oh what is that like you have I was like it's a Malo puppy and they're like so what are you going to do with that like all snarky and champ Pagan drinking um
13:24
and I say oh I'm going to raise it and then sell it and then they like stop for a second like
13:29
just just to like really make me think that I was wow I've finally got through to them um and then they just burst out
13:35
in hysterical laughing such and bullied me all the way into the room and where he cried himself to sleep guys yeah
13:43
that's what happened okay now to give that's the end of the podcast so to give a disclaimer to that that's not how it
13:49
happened in my mind okay in his mind he is making up very very very fake stories
13:56
but um what happened was I was hear it again no no no I'm just going to give a
14:02
short I was sitting on the back table or the backyard in the backyard on our
14:07
table okay I was two bottles in with two other girlfriends from college my story
14:14
seems like it's adding up it was visiting it wasn't just from college no it was just I remember spe it was Courtney and Jordan we're name dropping
14:20
but there was another person from the corporate world and what no we wasn't and what we were laughing at is the fact
14:26
that who could sell a dog after having it for you know a year or
14:32
so whatever it was it wasn't the fact it was like okay welcome to Grass canine where we sell dogs after having them for
14:38
a year or so in our minds and I that's at this time I didn't understand because in my mind when you have a dog coming
14:45
from the Pet World you have it for life yeah and and when you're like a bully
14:51
you're such a lie and just there's just a nice guy there has a dream you guys bully him I don't know what to tell you
14:57
anyways this was a very intoxicated Allison at this point okay moving
15:04
on what happened next um with that puppy or with our origin story that we're
15:12
supposed to be sharing that you just went off and told the Mean Girl story that is totally that's part of our origin it's not it's it's totally not
15:19
because I will say like what I think that story offers is that I you know
15:24
especially when we have our train the trainer program and we have trainers that come in where will have significant
15:29
others who maybe not support the idea of becoming a dog trainer because they don't understand it or they don't have
15:37
parents that understand because they're much younger and they're decided not to go to college and this is what they want to do what I will say and what I can
15:44
offer is that I fully understand where it's coming from because where I was coming from from that moment was
15:50
ignorance and ignorance what it once I was awakened once I was aware once I did
15:58
a lot of research and once I really jumped on board AKA when I started apprenticing under Michael which wasn't
16:04
much longer after that story by mind you no it wasn't but the the story and I
16:10
realized that again and I will say than to my mentorship I've always thinking kind of Beyond you know your your your
16:18
greatest you know goal that you have or your your biggest goal that you have um I was able to go okay this can happen
16:25
you can treat it as a business you can treat it not just like oh I'm a dog trainer cuz I love dogs well that's like
16:31
the most like that's the silliest thing you could possibly say because liking dogs is just a tiny little factor in all
16:38
of it it is it is for sure but I think it's a very important factor um and without the like in love for the animal
16:46
um you will not have the fortitude to see through the ups and downs of the
16:52
buiness sure for sure like you have to have it but I'm just saying it's there's a bigger picture than the playing of
16:59
like I had a girlfriend once said to me you know we were probably like three or four years into the business and you
17:05
know she looks at me she's like are you doing okay like are you sure this is what you want to do I feel like that
17:11
wasn't about the business but it was about racism and no cuz we had already been
17:17
together for like I want to say six years seven years at this point um and
17:22
and it was more or less of like thinking you were not going to have a future in this and I think that's like what if you
17:29
talk more about our origin and you talk about how we got to where we were is that we were faced with that adversity a
17:36
lot all right so we're in South Florida all right uh Mike is you know working
17:43
with his mentor uh he's decoying at a a French ring Club quite often and um he
17:53
brings home uh a malano puppy uh a different one I think it was okay and
17:58
and um there was a lot of rules and me and rules don't really work but I was
18:06
super estatic that there was a puppy so I didn't feel inclined to listen to these rules so I go in the backyard and
18:12
here's this Mal puppy and he messes me up I'm talking like and then Mike's
18:19
yelling you can't correct him you can't correct him and I'm like what the hell am I going to do so I remember this
18:24
moment very very well um and it was many years ago um and I said to him I was
18:31
like okay I got to start learning what the hell to do cuz I may have grown up
18:36
with dogs but I have absolutely no clue what to do with this land shark in the
18:43
backyard and I'm pretty sure I'm going to be murdered if I go out there and
18:48
tend to my garden um so anyways I started learning uh under Mike and at
18:55
this point I started finding the passion the passion I think that you found way
19:00
earlier than I did and you know I think I was kind of hooked from that moment on
19:05
and that's where you know we started brainstorming and his mentorship was coming to an end soon um he was going to
19:12
be starting to teach individual classes um you know the puppy he had was his first dog that he was Raising for the
19:18
police at this moment and um I I can vividly remember me asking you you know
19:27
what is your vision whether was for the logo or the name and um it just it just
19:33
sprung from there right yeah so um it was kind of around this time as
19:41
well uh is where I really started diving into more of like the working dog stuff
19:46
yeah you know like I was like oh it's kind of how my my attitude is uh my
19:52
personality is is uh it kind of aligns with a little bit of what Ali was saying of like what's the next step and I'm
19:58
always is kind of like oh well that thing look at that thing over there like that's shiny I want that shiny thing
20:04
over there so before I was like ever a dog trainer I was like oh I just want to learn how to train dogs I didn't know
20:10
that there was like uh niches inside dog training um then I finally got that opportunity because the Stars aligned
20:16
and I was a very persistent um and then I went to that Frenching club that Ali
20:21
was talking about where I'm keep bringing home puppies they're bullying me then they join on uh then she says
20:27
hello this is great uh but then I'm going to hurt you can I threaten you
20:35
live it's not live so yeah okay um but then um while I'm at this it's it's not
20:41
an official French ring Club it's like a bunch of guys that are training to go trial in French ring um there's also
20:47
some some people there um that are doing the French ring thing but they're also
20:52
police canine handlers and like me like oh look something new and shiny over there I was like whoa like that that
20:58
looks really cool over there um I was the youngest guy in the group yep kind
21:04
of athletic well compared to the to the rest of the group I was the most athletic there um so obviously was uh
21:10
you also have very good Rhythm and I think any good decoy oh thank has to have good Rhythm I'm just going to put
21:17
that out there as a little sidebar to my favorite dance what's my favorite dance I can't say it my kids might listen to
21:23
this oh okay there goes the podcast rating
21:30
just went out um so anyway I see I see them over there like with their police dogs as
21:36
well and I was like oh like I want to go do that um so then I I get that get you
21:41
know no pun intended bit by that bug um and now I'm like all the way into this
21:46
like okay I'm going to raise police dogs and uh every single person that I knew in the industry uh was saying well you
21:54
know you can never make money raising police dogs and I was like M jokes on you because at this point in my life I
22:00
don't care about making money I have a wife that does that and she'll figure out that out for me um so I just dove
22:06
into that and then that's where we kind of got into this and um I've always been a firm believer I I used to be an
22:12
athlete um that's kind of weird I still am a top tier athlete I should
22:19
say I used to I used to play basketball um and um we're filming in the kennel so
22:27
if you hear barking don't worry about it this is the dog life oh yes so uh
22:32
athlete I used to play basketball um and obviously in every other sport um I
22:37
understood that the foundations were super important to to anything um and in my learning at from training pet dogs to
22:44
starting in the police dog or working dog field I really realized uh how important foundations are so that's how
22:51
we got to the name uh Grassroots like from the bottom up is is how we want to build yeah and it was kind of funny
22:57
because you can only imagine like the the stigma that Michael got like when he
23:03
he you know has dreads and he's Jamaican and it's like Grassroots and people people are like well anyways and people
23:11
are like oh you're naming it Grassroots like why is your head why are you going there like and that wasn't the case at
23:17
all it's it's truly um about working from the ground up whether it's in foundational training or just in general
23:24
of having aspirations and starting from the bottom and like Dre said
23:32
someone get her get her out of here you're done um anyways so yeah we we had
23:38
our our daughter Belle at this at this point in time and you know I was working on the website I was doing uh some of
23:45
the marketing we were coming up with a lot of direct marketing ideas where you know we would go out with our dogs and
23:51
we would you know showcase their obedience just in like casual like you know um there was like a food truck
23:56
every Wednesday night and we would be handing out cards and Michael had these obnoxious neon t-shirts that said
24:04
trainer on the back he got from no first and foremost shout out to the swap uh
24:09
swap meet in uh Fort L I don't think it exists anymore all right well anyway bro the the they look like highlighters yeah
24:16
it was they were pretty SI we a picture and then put that on this that would pretty sick anyway so it was obviously
24:21
it worked it was noticeable and we're like okay we can make this work and we were getting a lot of pressure from up
24:27
north to bring the the first grandchild up and to move up there and we did some
24:32
market research and we realized that the competition was so slim um you know at
24:38
this point like no lie when we came to you know Brampton specifically they did
24:43
not even have bylaws put into place of where a kennel could be put like and
24:51
then they come back with to us with these ridiculous bylaws that they just came up with but I'm talking like when
24:57
you talk about we were one of the first it it it truly felt that way which was
25:03
again super cool in our origin because we were able to like really you know get
25:09
involved in the community and at the same time um you know grow at a at a
25:15
fast pace that we were able to go through all those like trial and errors really quickly to kind of get them out
25:21
of the way and be like oh I never want to do that again or that really worked and I'm going to do that and and I think
25:27
sometimes when you're not bced with that so uh fast in your beginning of your career um and you may see this stuff
25:34
come up like 10 years later or whatever but I felt like you know we were faced with like bylaw restrictions or the fact
25:40
that a lot of the Canadian departments weren't working with civilians um you know we were faced with um you know dog
25:48
training wasn't like a big thing around here so kind of bringing Credence to to that um and it it was really cool to
25:56
kind of see how it just grew from there and the biggest thing I think we did is
26:02
that we were so Vis visible like not just like visibly online like we were so visible like you know Michael and I's
26:09
date nights and and we joke about this is that we were literally like downtown
26:14
you know walking around with our dogs or like the movie Max came out I don't know do you remember this yeah and we stood
26:21
outside the movie theater with our Malinois because we're like What are people going to want to see when they
26:27
leave the movie theater after watching this movie is like a really cool Mel wall outside I think that's something
26:32
that that has helped us kind of in uh the journey and I'm sure will continue to help us in the future is like a lot
26:39
of times like when when those when those like Malinois movies come out or there or it's Christmas don't get a puppy like
26:47
um we we don't yeah I I don't think that it's Christmas you should go get a puppy
26:53
but we also don't like meet that with like the pretentious attitude of a lot of dog trainers of like hey oh it's no
27:01
the Malinois movie is out now malins are going to be ruined uh no like we take the the approach of let's get out there
27:10
let's expose people to this um but let's try and do it in in the most responsible
27:15
and effective way um and of course being uh business savvy I'm like hey yeah
27:20
people are going to know what Malinois are when they walk out of this movie theater so let's be out here with a Malin that's doing cool stuff that
27:26
they've never seen before and then maybe they they we're not trying to sell them a Malinois but like hey would you like
27:32
your doodle to be able to sit when you tell them to sit well we can help you with that um and and having that like
27:39
just taking those kind of approaches to things I think has helped us along the entire Journey yeah for sure and like if
27:46
you even think about like majority of our locations and like they are part of
27:51
our origin right they are part of our learning process they are part of what makes us whether you know it's mentors
27:57
or business owners um they were people that we you know I want to say I want to
28:05
say recruited cuz that's not the way but like you they' be like a client of ours and like man you have a n like an like a
28:10
really good knack for this or um you know you're awesome talking at people like I can remember specifically like
28:18
when one of our locations and you came to me and you're like Ally these two are into dogs they love dogs and they are
28:25
super marketable because they are Hyster IAL and and when you talk about like our
28:32
origin it's you know you don't talk about like in the sense of like oh this was fully planned it definitely wasn't
28:39
fully planned I I think a good question that we should answer yeah um
28:44
is how did we get like knowing that um
28:49
police agencies in Canada specifically aren't very um fond or open to working
28:57
with civilians yeah how did we make that happen you know oh well I I
29:03
specifically remember um are you looking at him no he's not up here oh six is not
29:10
up here um so you know I'll just kind of what we did is we had a really good dog
29:16
like we had a really phenomenal dog at this point and we had a few other ones but are we going to give everyone the secret sauce right now no well why not
29:23
who cares all right so we had a really yeah give him the secret sauce we had a really really good dog um and you know
29:31
there was something that Mike and I both picked up on in the dog industry is that there was a huge lack of humility and it
29:38
was kind of like when someone had a dog they' be like yeah this dog you know he's a hammer like he'll bite for real
29:44
like and it was just like kind of like a car salesman and a dog you know aspect for specifically a used car salesman
29:51
yeah it was really like bro like shut up run your dog not your mouth like and
29:56
like and that was kind of like always he and I's Vibe we like this is obnoxious I can't listen to this and it um we knew
30:04
in order to be different to not have any law enforcement background um you know
30:11
and he and I both spoke what I believed was was well and eloquently and we had
30:16
um and the energy about us we're like that is our selling point that right there is that one we're not car salesmen
30:23
used car salesman that we're going to allow the dog to do the talking bro the used car sales are going to be pissed at
30:29
this if they were like you guys are me bro whatever if you sponsor us I'll take it back um but yeah so we said okay
30:36
we're not going to go down that route and we're going to allow the dog to do talking so we we literally spammed
30:42
emails when I say we Michael spammed a lot of emails and he didn't say much in
30:47
the email which I think was really a key component and he um when we say like
30:53
spammed emails I mean like bro put the detective Sherlock Holmes hat on um because like the information isn't
31:00
easy to come across of like who like we were like at the point like I'm Googling articles in Canada that will have uh a
31:09
can9 Handler from an agency's name and like okay that's and then I'll go to that agency and and they'll have a
31:15
public relations officer um and I'll look up the pattern of how that Public Relation officer's name so let's say
31:21
that their name was John Smith um and the public relations officer's name is
31:26
Ali nebith um well I look at the public relations officer and it'll be like a nebith at so Ando police agency okay
31:34
well John Smith is the sergeant of this canine unit so I'm just going to try and send him an email um and we literally no
31:41
word of allow I should also pull up those I have the email still probably yeah I I I can like spam emailed all of
31:49
them but not spam in in like uh hey this is what you need we're the best I'm
31:55
saying the email was like hey if you guys are looking for a dog we may have one that uh may fit the
32:02
criteria if you want to check him out uh we're more than happy to bring him out to show you here are a couple of videos
32:08
displaying who the dog is and that was it that was it and we got a call what
32:13
that being said before we got the call we got just like everything else when I
32:20
wanted to get into dog train anything else in our life um we were met with consistent resistance um and either can
32:28
I see your references it's um our tenacity or stupidity that made us
32:36
continue to just keep doing it anyway um and then eventually we got a response yeah so we got a response every time I
32:42
talk the dogs go crazy yeah I don't know they must love me um but yeah we got a
32:47
response and you know we we knew um we
32:52
had a jump on it so we brought the dog out and weirdly which has never happened before I will say the only one time this
32:59
has ever happened was our first showing in Canada to a department there was four
33:04
to five other agencies there yeah that didn't answer our emails yeah and only
33:10
the one that answer it was super strange like now looking back on it I'm like that's never happened ever since then
33:16
and this is well over 10 years to be fair to them I also get it from their perspective a little bit because you
33:22
know and I know that we get like random calls all like hey my pet dog um is
33:28
really aggressive um he's bitten my neighbor three times he'll be a good police dog and like no that's OB not the
33:35
case so I can also get like their um for sure no like but I guess like when you
33:40
when you enter into it and you haven't actually done it here and that's your first experience you're like oh is this how it's always going to be or is this
33:47
normal is like so but there was definitely like a Vibe so they you know like the questions that you would get
33:52
like oh you know how long have you guys been doing this or where's the dog from and those were all pretty normal and stuff like that and but Michael was very
34:00
quiet I would say like I was the chatter box and I was not yeah I was not even talking a lot about even the dog stuff
34:07
it was just more or less about like oh this building's haunted like random and um like seriously we were in like an
34:15
abandoned house like it was creepy house bro it was an abandoned um mental institutional institution yeah like okay
34:22
so there you go like it was haunted Weir was shut down because of lawsuits of violations of human my point so anyways
34:29
uh the dog kills it like I'm talking kills it and they're like we're going to bring in the Wizard and like you know
34:36
and we're like okay bring in the Wizard like whatever do your thing bro literally that's what they the wizard oh
34:42
bro okay I thought this dog was good but maybe if the wizard comes on he ending good bro so he he he goes like
34:50
I'm going to hide the ball whatever we're like okay you know and I'm sitting there and like it's exciting when your dog's being tested it's exciting you
34:56
know people that find it boring or or nerve-wracking it's I think it's exciting and I mean six killed it like
35:03
he nailed it and I think every I think from that moment on it changed the game
35:10
for us in so many ways that I I think the saving grace too for us um still now
35:16
but particularly at the time is that we were not even really a vendor at that time we were trying to be a vendor um so
35:24
I encourag them um to whatever you would do to test any like a dog from a a
35:30
really big vendor um to do that plus a little bit more for this dog from us um
35:37
because uh he is going to be much harder for us to to replace if you find out
35:42
down the line that he isn't for you I'd rather you hey just push him as hard as you want to push him right now figure this out if you don't want them don't
35:48
take them um but not like let's go and and that really helped kind of establish
35:54
um in in my opinion of what we do uh if if you like the dog awesome if you like it that's great if you don't there's no
36:01
love lost um and and that really kind of got us to um on the vendor side and and
36:08
selling dog side yeah for sure and I think um you know there was definitely things that we we took from that moment
36:14
that we're like okay that definitely worked and then like you have things that happen over the years and and
36:20
you're like okay I'm going to do this differently and so forth but that specific day that moment for us I think
36:26
that was truthfully where we're like okay we're gonna only show good dogs
36:31
we're going to stay you know you know I definitely know we're bigger than we were then but we're definitely never
36:37
kind of like going okay we want 150 dogs we're going to label them you know you
36:42
know letters or whatever and we don't really know anything about them but you know yeah hopefully four dogs work out
36:49
out of like the hundred like we don't we never want to be that what what what's super important to us and and um it ends
36:56
up helping on sales in my opinion uh but is not designed in that manner uh is that every dog that we sell we know
37:03
personally like and and for the most part we've known them since they've been born now yeah you know so uh it's it's
37:09
not just like hey get dog number 72 or because there's plenty of kennels like
37:16
that yeah every dog's name is Max or hey I don't know this dog I just got here today um and and no like every single
37:24
dog that we sell we know we've personally had hands on on um and usually it was from the day that they
37:30
were born right um uh so uh that ended up where some people uh
37:37
would look at that as a weakness we've always looked at that as a strength you know like some people like well you know
37:42
well I have a I have 150 dogs that's good for you I congratulations I got
37:48
five bro I got seven just born yeah like I like to to me um you know if
37:55
you like it I love it kind of attitude uh but uh I I I don't necessarily think the powers are in number we've always
38:02
tried to prioritize quality over quantity um and we don't ever have
38:09
aspirations um on the pet dog side of the business or the working dog side of
38:15
the business to be Walmart no we we don't want to be that we want to be the the boutique shop we want to be that
38:23
that shop that yet it's very high quality um and there's scarcity applied
38:28
to this high quality it's not just we have something for everyone and I think
38:34
a great way to conclude this is is really like when you're touching on that we're talking about our Origins and you
38:40
know kind of even where the name of the podcast come came from like the rooted lot of what you're talking about
38:47
and a lot of what you're saying at this very moment are legitly Our Roots like this this was our vision this was
38:54
something that we have you know really stood on we haven't changed and the fact
39:00
that we are really focused on the foundational aspect of the puppies and
39:05
growing up to being police or military dogs and like that foundational aspect to it and what it does to them I mean
39:13
over like through and through like it it sounds really cheesy but like that is
39:18
our roots that is our origin you know what I mean yeah was that cheesy no but I was
39:25
in my head right there the whole time I was think think about cuz you said like we stand on this I was thinking about the tattoo like what tattoo the one that
39:33
I have on my foot you have a tattoo on your foot on the bottom of my foot what tattoo you have a bottom of your foot it
39:39
says business cuz I stand on business that's the end of the podcast let's
39:45
go all right everybody thank you for joining us on our first podcast episode
39:52
for the rooted I wasn't prepared to do the closing but since Michael had to hit you with a Banger right there and get
39:58
off the mic I will say good night to y'all or good morning whatever it is
40:04
have a nice day