Speaker 1: Welcome to the bear hunting magazine Hunt Cash. With me
Speaker 1: Koby Moorehead, We're gonna nerd out on bears hunting and
Speaker 1: the outdoors. We'll tell stories, talk biology, tactics, gear, and
Speaker 1: the fight to protect the pursuits that we hold dear.
Speaker 1: So grab your bino's, lace up your boots, load up
Speaker 1: your barrels, and gather the hounds as we venture on
Speaker 1: this journey together. So today I'm with Brandon White from
Speaker 1: Next Level dog Food, And before we get into today's podcast,
Speaker 1: we've been talking here a lot about all of our
Speaker 1: buddies out in North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee and just
Speaker 1: all the things going on out there, and we just
Speaker 1: want to wish off them the best. And you know,
Speaker 1: it's been really encouraging to see how the communities gathered
Speaker 1: around each other out there and how it's just Appalachians
Speaker 1: supporting Appalachians and then all the people that know them
Speaker 1: and are just helping out the best they can. And
Speaker 1: it's good to know that there's people on the ground
Speaker 1: out there that you can trust to be responsible with
Speaker 1: the things that they were sent. We were just talking
Speaker 1: about how there's so many different organizations that pop up
Speaker 1: that really are asking for this, or that you just
Speaker 1: don't know who you can trust, especially with I mean,
Speaker 1: even some of the rules coming out of that area
Speaker 1: just are kind of kind of dumbfound you. It's been
Speaker 1: really great to see how the communities rallied around each
Speaker 1: other and just done a solid job of supporting each other.
Speaker 1: So hats off to you guys. Today we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about kind of the science behind dog food and
Speaker 1: see what we can learn from just the production process
Speaker 1: and lean on a lot of the knowledge that brand
Speaker 1: and has. But first we want to find out some
Speaker 1: of his background and some of the background behind Next Level. So, hey, Brennan,
Speaker 1: going good, good, So give me some of your your background.
Speaker 1: I know you're a diehard tree guy, a treehound guy feiler,
Speaker 1: and uh, how you got involved with Next Level. And
Speaker 1: before we get into that, I want to say that
Speaker 1: the way that the way that I got connected with
Speaker 1: you guys is uh is kind of not normal. My
Speaker 1: dad lives in the same town like I'm from, East Texas,
Speaker 1: where you guys are located your corporate headquarters and want
Speaker 1: your production plant. And uh, my dad saw somebody come
Speaker 1: in to the place that he was eating lunch that
Speaker 1: had Next Level on the on their polo, and he's like,
Speaker 1: they need to talk to my son. So my dad's
Speaker 1: not pastful.
Speaker 2: East Texas. Well, I don't know too many bashful people
Speaker 2: down there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's cool because like this actually come from uh,
Speaker 1: this relationship come from just uh. I mean, it wasn't
Speaker 1: like a cold call. It wasn't like, oh hey, check
Speaker 1: out our media kid. It was like it was just
Speaker 1: my dad being friendly.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think he met our president, Hayden Hayden Fox,
Speaker 2: that sounds right. Yeah, at a restaurant and Hayden called
Speaker 2: me like, hey man, you need to talk to kids.
Speaker 2: I think this is really a cool deal talk about
Speaker 2: bear Hunt. Yeah, so you're our hand guy, go for it.
Speaker 1: No, we've we've really uh we've really enjoyed starting to
Speaker 1: get to know you. Guys are still pretty early, but
Speaker 1: we're looking forward to getting up there and touring the facility.
Speaker 1: But yeah, let's go ahead and dive into it. Me
Speaker 1: some of your I'm really interested in your background because
Speaker 1: the more that we talked, the over the phone or
Speaker 1: even here this morning, it's it's clear that you have
Speaker 1: a lot of depth to your to your helm background.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I'm I tell everybody, I pay taxes
Speaker 2: in Southwest Missouri, but I live in a Hilton hotel
Speaker 2: all day in most of the time. Yeah, I traveled
Speaker 2: so much. But uh, my family growing up in Southwest Missouri,
Speaker 2: my uncle's all coon hunters, you know, had coonhounds and
Speaker 2: and uh on one side of the family. The other
Speaker 2: side of the family, you know, they coon hunters. It
Speaker 2: was just something we always had, always had coon hounds
Speaker 2: or beagles or something. And on my mom's side they
Speaker 2: were blue tick folks. And on my dad's side, they
Speaker 2: were black and tans.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: Some of your listeners may know. I remember a general
Speaker 2: named Harold Bailey had Bailey's black and tans and he
Speaker 2: won the world way back in the seventies. But I
Speaker 2: just landed with blue ticks, and I thought they were
Speaker 2: kind of cool. You know. Everybody that where I lived
Speaker 2: had a lot of them, had walkers, you know, tream walkers,
Speaker 2: which are good, good hounds, and yeah, I just wanted
Speaker 2: something a little different, and it was a blue tick,
Speaker 2: you know. And yeah, the joke is I can hunt
Speaker 2: my forty acres all night long and not worry about
Speaker 2: getting out of pocket. But uh, you know, I graduated
Speaker 2: high school back in uh from age You're back in
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty nine, went to the military, served in the
Speaker 2: army for eight years, got out and went to work
Speaker 2: driving a truck actually for a which is now called
Speaker 2: FedEx Freight, used to be American Freightways out of Harrison, Arkansas.
Speaker 2: And you know, had had a pretty good hounder. I
Speaker 2: thought he was pretty good, and we won a little bit,
Speaker 2: and I was just enough of a redneck ram, just
Speaker 2: enough of redneck that won a bigger event. And dog
Speaker 2: would come say, man, when you were our hat, you know,
Speaker 2: put our logo on your ads, we gonna give me,
Speaker 2: you know, how can I turn this in to help
Speaker 2: pay my expenses? And anyway, this particular company, we worked
Speaker 2: out a deal and they were gonna quote unquote sponsored me.
Speaker 2: But side note, nobody sponsors anybody. Yeah, in the doctor world,
Speaker 2: they're gonna get something out of it too. But you know,
Speaker 2: I got some things. We worked some things out, which
Speaker 2: just kind of introduced me into the pet food sales.
Speaker 2: I thought, that's pretty cool. This guy's getting paid to go.
Speaker 2: He's a bird dog, got to go to bird dog
Speaker 2: hunts and honey events and trade shows. And that's all
Speaker 2: he does. And I made a joke to him one time.
Speaker 2: I said, I like to have your job. And I
Speaker 2: had a pretty good job, I thought, you know, or
Speaker 2: did at FedEx, and he said, be careful what you
Speaker 2: wish for. And then a few months later FedEx offered
Speaker 2: a buyout and I was thirty nine years old, married
Speaker 2: and had two kids, and that company offered me a
Speaker 2: full time job as a field sales rep. I said, man,
Speaker 2: this is perfect. I can go do well I always
Speaker 2: wanted and get paid. And so I took a leap
Speaker 2: of faith, and man, that was an education I learned
Speaker 2: at that point on to get everything in writing. Don't
Speaker 2: agree to nothing that's in writing. Yeah, but uh, that
Speaker 2: was kind of my my introduction to pet food sales.
Speaker 2: And then I went to work for a whostsale distributor
Speaker 2: where you know, as manufacturers, we sell to hostel distributors
Speaker 2: who sell to retailers you know, and do online to consumers.
Speaker 2: So I fell in love with it. I was ordered
Speaker 2: for a distributor out of out of Rhode Island actually,
Speaker 2: and I covered Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska, and that's where
Speaker 2: I met Scott Glover and Antoine album It's the guys
Speaker 2: that owned US pet Food Next Level. At the time,
Speaker 2: they were the owners of Mid America Pet Food. Some
Speaker 2: of you folks may know that they were the original
Speaker 2: greadors and original owners of Mid America, which made Victor
Speaker 2: dog Food. At the time, that's where I met those guys. Man,
Speaker 2: we just hit it off like brothers, you know, just
Speaker 2: just a perfect for perfect connection. They offered me a job,
Speaker 2: and I glad they took it, and no looking back,
Speaker 2: and be with those guys now since about twenty thirteen,
Speaker 2: and just super great people and know their families very well.
Speaker 2: And I'll follow those guys anywhere. But that you sold,
Speaker 2: you know, they had had been America Victor dog Food
Speaker 2: had that company sold it in twenty twenty had a
Speaker 2: two year non compete and they couldn't hire any of
Speaker 2: us directly because they're non compete. So I had to
Speaker 2: go somewhere else for a while and then come back
Speaker 2: with them in the fall of twenty twenty one, and
Speaker 2: they were just starting to break ground on what's now
Speaker 2: called US pet Food, our plant there on Highway two
Speaker 2: seventy one south of Mount Pleasant, And we have two brands.
Speaker 2: Next Level is one of our brands are our super
Speaker 2: premium brand. Then another one called Stratus, which is more
Speaker 2: of an economy brand, feeds very well but just a
Speaker 2: little bit easier on the pocketbook. But that's our two brands.
Speaker 2: And during our non compete there for a little bit,
Speaker 2: I was able to sell supplements, So I traveled east
Speaker 2: coast from Florida selling supplements, and then we launched Next
Speaker 2: Level in September of twenty twenty three. It just took
Speaker 2: off like a rocket ship. And you know we mentioned earlier,
Speaker 2: sales is all about relationships, and there's lots of different
Speaker 2: dog free brands that there are people to choose from.
Speaker 2: You know, there's only thirty five forty manufacturers in the
Speaker 2: United States, but yet there's five thousand different brands. And
Speaker 2: some of the brands that we know, some people know,
Speaker 2: they't even they don't even own their own manufacturing plant.
Speaker 2: They're paying somebody else to make it for them. That's
Speaker 2: one of the things that gives us a little different
Speaker 2: little leg ups. We own our own plant, we built it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I really like it. Whenever someone finds success inside
Speaker 1: of a lane and then there's got to be something
Speaker 1: inside of them and make someone want to go back
Speaker 1: and do that. Same thing again.
Speaker 2: You know passion These guys are so passionate.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: You know they come from from the feed meal industry.
Speaker 2: A little bit. How that those guys kind of their
Speaker 2: relationship started. People often wonder how how did it? How
Speaker 2: did it start? You know, tell us about it because
Speaker 2: we're very transparent.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: You know, Antoine went to college Scott. Scott's family on
Speaker 2: the feed meal there. Whoever feeds your dad probably knows
Speaker 2: members at brack in the old days. And uh, Scott
Speaker 2: went to college and then he bought a feed meal
Speaker 2: in Little Rock, Arkansas, te Bolt Milling or T Square Milling,
Speaker 2: and that's where he met Antoine. Hired Antoine to help
Speaker 2: him run that, and then that fell apart. They had
Speaker 2: to they got a fire or something. Anyway, Scott moved
Speaker 2: to northeast and Antoine back to southern Arkansas doing lands
Speaker 2: aping and excavating and whatnot. And Scott come back and
Speaker 2: he wanted to build a female his parents were retiring.
Speaker 2: He wanted to build a dog food plant and just
Speaker 2: a little four state multi regional dog food plant. He
Speaker 2: called Dan Twine up still had his phone number. Antoine
Speaker 2: moved to Northeast, Texas and they built men America pet
Speaker 2: food from the ground up and jumped in a car,
Speaker 2: went around and didn't come home till they sold the
Speaker 2: first truck of dog food. And they got it done,
Speaker 2: and that was in two thousand and eight, two thousand
Speaker 2: and seven, two thousand and eight, and minute just word
Speaker 2: of mouth. The product fed so well, just took off
Speaker 2: its word of mouth. And those guys took a lot
Speaker 2: of their knowledge they have from the dairy industry and
Speaker 2: applied it to dog food. We feel like they kind
Speaker 2: of set the bar down gut health and pet food.
Speaker 2: A lot of people talk about having prebodics probotics in
Speaker 2: their food, but it's just a tag what do you
Speaker 2: call a tag dress, just a little pixie dust so
Speaker 2: you can have it on the tags that looks good. Well,
Speaker 2: these guys really used the stuff on it, and you
Speaker 2: can tell the big difference in the digestion and how
Speaker 2: the dog performed and gut health. So that kind of
Speaker 2: changed the pet food world. People have to start following suit,
Speaker 2: you know, because you don't want to feed the dog
Speaker 2: food and then go back out to the kennel or
Speaker 2: in your house whatever and have a big, big mess,
Speaker 2: you know, or land mines out in your yard so
Speaker 2: they're not digesting you that. It took what we learned
Speaker 2: from that venture and even improved on even more to
Speaker 2: take it to quote unquote the next level. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: some of the things that we've learned, you know, house
Speaker 2: they're getting to be too much calcium. Some people think
Speaker 2: you got to have calcium.
Speaker 3: Well you do.
Speaker 2: Got to have calcium. There's a minimum of one point
Speaker 2: one percent and a maximum of no more than two
Speaker 2: point five percent in a dog food. You know, too
Speaker 2: much calcium causes growth deficiencies, to cause the bones to
Speaker 2: get a little walking and it really blocks the dog's
Speaker 2: ability to absorb zinc. And you need zinc for a
Speaker 2: lot of things. Yeah, number one skin and coat, but
Speaker 2: just whole body health. You got to have zinc in
Speaker 2: your diet. And if you can't, if you can't absorb that,
Speaker 2: if it's getting blocked by too much calcium, you're not
Speaker 2: getting no benefit of it. So you'll notice that in
Speaker 2: your skin and coat. You know, I spend a lot
Speaker 2: of time in studying and the hired doctor George Collins
Speaker 2: on nutritionness out of Saint Louis. Been in the industry
Speaker 2: for years and worked for all the big major companies
Speaker 2: and just focus on keeping the protein levels high higher
Speaker 2: and then the calium levels low. And there's ways to
Speaker 2: do that with with you know, using the whole hidr
Speaker 2: lifed chicken, a little devil of blood and meal and
Speaker 2: so on and so forth, and buying a quality premium
Speaker 2: product that we use. People some manufacturers are buying a
Speaker 2: cheaper meat meal and they're getting more bones and ash,
Speaker 2: and that's why the costminers are so high. But the
Speaker 2: government says no more than two point five percent and
Speaker 2: in a back of dog food. So yeah, big, big difference.
Speaker 2: And you know, these guys just spend a lot of
Speaker 2: time and a lot of money h studying it and
Speaker 2: they do have a passion for it. But they take
Speaker 2: took their knowledge from the real feed meal time and
Speaker 2: put it in. It's not just an investment for them.
Speaker 2: They're not just throwing money in it and spending a
Speaker 2: wheel hope that lands on jackpot. That's not what they're with.
Speaker 2: Their purpose is and they really do make believe in
Speaker 2: and have a passion for animal health. Yeah, and we
Speaker 2: believe we're the best nutritional value on the market. Are
Speaker 2: we the cheapest though? Are we the most expensive? Lord?
Speaker 1: Though?
Speaker 2: But nutritionally, we're the best value on the market and
Speaker 2: in our state of the art facility they built. You
Speaker 2: can go back on the Facebook page you can see
Speaker 2: a video Scott put out back in April. He's gets
Speaker 2: a whole tour. Not I don't know if any other
Speaker 2: pet food companies ever done that. Just open the doors,
Speaker 2: wide open, video and go through video the whole thing
Speaker 2: in the public size that for anybody to go look at.
Speaker 2: I've been to a lot of pet food plants and
Speaker 2: most of them you have to leave your phone in
Speaker 2: your vehicle and sign an NBA before you can come
Speaker 2: inside it. Ours is wide open. Not wide open that
Speaker 2: they just came off the street and walk in it.
Speaker 2: But you know, if you've got business to tend with us,
Speaker 2: you know, basically wide open because they have to video
Speaker 2: on Facebook. But it's pretty pretty neat, you know. We
Speaker 2: get your We have a lab so when the trucks
Speaker 2: come in our facility, they weigh in and then they
Speaker 2: go to a lab. Truck drivers get out and they
Speaker 2: go into a breaker in the bottom of the lab our.
Speaker 2: Lab techs come out probe the trucks take it inside
Speaker 2: and we've got a machine that's a wet chemistry machine
Speaker 2: and they can test for anything. We know exactly what
Speaker 2: cowsum levels are, we know the peroxide values, how old
Speaker 2: the product is, test for salmonilla, all that, all that stuff.
Speaker 2: We can test for it, and if it's good, it
Speaker 2: moves into the receiving pit of us. No good to
Speaker 2: turn around, they leave and uh so our our suppliers
Speaker 2: who we buy our products from, no, we're going to
Speaker 2: do that. So they send us good product. They're not
Speaker 2: going to take the time and sending us a product
Speaker 2: that's not any good knowing we're going to reject it.
Speaker 2: Then they got to try to sell somebody else or
Speaker 2: get do something else with it. So we get we
Speaker 2: get premium product, and the grains come in, they go
Speaker 2: to the to the grain side, and negga n loaded
Speaker 2: and the silos. Any of the meat meals that we use,
Speaker 2: like a beef meal, chicken meal, portmeal, fish meal goes
Speaker 2: inside and we can receive four trucks an hour. Well
Speaker 2: why does that matter? Because if you can only receive
Speaker 2: one truck an hour, that's all you can make. And
Speaker 2: so we can receive four trucks an hour. So somebody
Speaker 2: plays the truck truck loload order today. You know, day's Wednesday.
Speaker 2: We can deliver it to my Monday, you know, so
Speaker 2: we can get it made pretty quick because of the way
Speaker 2: they design this facility, Yeah, built in scalability.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And so they come into the to the receiving pit,
Speaker 2: receive the meals, and all that stuff goes into big,
Speaker 2: big storage towers. If you look at the plant's like
Speaker 2: a big stack in the air, but it's all different
Speaker 2: storage bins. And then when we're going to make a
Speaker 2: we're going to run a formula and augusts mixed together
Speaker 2: into batching and then all of that product goes in
Speaker 2: you know, their rices, the grains and the meat meals
Speaker 2: all go into a hammer meal if you know what
Speaker 2: a hammer meal if you don't think about a cylinder
Speaker 2: or a coffee can, so to speak, with a rod
Speaker 2: through it and a bunch of little hammers on the
Speaker 2: inside of its spinning real fast. So it just crushes
Speaker 2: it all up into a powder. And we grind that
Speaker 2: so much where it goes through a three sixty fourth
Speaker 2: screen has to fall through the three sixty four so
Speaker 2: it's almost like a real fine powder. Yeah, And it
Speaker 2: goes from that into the extruder extruders that if you
Speaker 2: want to call it an oven or cooking process, it's
Speaker 2: where it gets extruded. So they take steam and pressure
Speaker 2: into this extruder. So if you look at the carbohydrates
Speaker 2: under a microscope our kibble, it pops it like a
Speaker 2: like a piece of popcorn kernel, and then it streets
Speaker 2: out into a kibble. The knives cut it into a
Speaker 2: kibble and that goes up pneumatically over into the dryer,
Speaker 2: and so on and so forth. But the unique thing
Speaker 2: about that three sixty four screen is we're not so
Speaker 2: much worried about how many tons can we make per hour?
Speaker 2: Right in a pet food manufacturing plant, the more tongs
Speaker 2: you can produce an hour, the more money you're gonna make.
Speaker 2: You know, tons per our tons p hour. We slow
Speaker 2: our down a little bit. We want quality more than quantity,
Speaker 2: so we slow our ours cooking process, so to speak, down,
Speaker 2: grind a little bit longer to get a finer it's
Speaker 2: just going to help with digestibility. If you take a
Speaker 2: handful of popcorn kernels just right of the bag or
Speaker 2: the jar and you swallow them, you're gonna see them again,
Speaker 2: and you're gonna have a belly ache. We all know
Speaker 2: that about corn, right, you pop them in the popcorn,
Speaker 2: you never see that again. You digest it. Right. So
Speaker 2: with the carbohydrates, we pop all those really well, we're
Speaker 2: gonna get a good digest. We know they're gonna get
Speaker 2: a digest and the dog is gonna be a good
Speaker 2: a lot of use of the product. So it goes
Speaker 2: over in our in our facility kind of like a
Speaker 2: hall of separation, and it goes from the extruder over
Speaker 2: to the dryer through air. You show up shot over
Speaker 2: in the in the pipeline. That's a break right there.
Speaker 2: If there's any contamination salmonella, that's gonna be on the
Speaker 2: raw side. So the people who work on the on
Speaker 2: the feed meal side, so to speak, the extruder and
Speaker 2: all the receiving pits there, they never intermingle with the
Speaker 2: people on the post cook side. They have different break rooms,
Speaker 2: different time clocks. They see each other. They come to work,
Speaker 2: and they see each other they leave. They don't intermingle
Speaker 2: during the day. That's how you control food safety contamination
Speaker 2: one way. So it goes over into the dryer, comes
Speaker 2: in about twenty percent moreture. We drive down to about
Speaker 2: eight percent and then it goes into the fat coder
Speaker 2: cooler and over into the backing uh, and it gets
Speaker 2: bagged up into the warehouse. It's pretty simple, but slow
Speaker 2: and steady wins their race every time. Yeah, buying quality ingredients.
Speaker 2: If we buy quality ingredients, we can produce a quality kibble.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And I think that it's just really clear while
Speaker 1: you're talking the how matters, you know. And I think
Speaker 1: having that level of transparency and being able to I
Speaker 1: mean like, I mean, it's not like you're a scientist
Speaker 1: or like a nutritionist in there doing the work, but
Speaker 1: I mean they're share It sounds like they're sharing most everything,
Speaker 1: even with the sales guy, you know, the rep, the
Speaker 1: the guy that's out there interacting with people. And uh.
Speaker 1: I think the a company that's willing to be transparent.
Speaker 1: And I like the fact that there's there's two two owners,
Speaker 1: you know. Also the fact that they've worked together for
Speaker 1: so long, like kind of proves that they trust each other.
Speaker 1: And they must be some pretty good old boys. They're
Speaker 1: good and shared passions.
Speaker 2: You know, they're there their family, you know, family minded
Speaker 2: family meaning and we're all one big family work here,
Speaker 2: and we've all worked with them in the past and and.
Speaker 1: Uh, so every back comes with a little bit of family.
Speaker 2: Absolutely exactly right, you know it. Uh, it's it's just
Speaker 2: not a big, big capital venture. You know, there's some
Speaker 2: brand there's some good brands out there, but they're owned
Speaker 2: by big, big corporations and it's just you know, there's
Speaker 2: not much passion into it. You know a lot of marketing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it seems like there's a lot more bioavailability inside
Speaker 1: of the product you guys are putting out versus other.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, there's there's there's different forms of minerals you can get.
Speaker 2: You can get rock form, or you can get organic.
Speaker 2: We use organic for for example. UH, selenium is a
Speaker 2: great product. It's great. They're using selenium to slow down
Speaker 2: the aging process with Alzheimer's patients. There's fighting cancers that
Speaker 2: selenium will help increase the egg count and the females
Speaker 2: burn counting the males. UH slows down oxidation. The rock
Speaker 2: form will be a sodium selenite or a sodium sellingate. Uh.
Speaker 2: A lot of pet food companies use that. And if
Speaker 2: you look look at that up it's it's has to humans.
Speaker 2: It comes in a box with skull and crossbones on it.
Speaker 2: We use cellplex, a form of selenium yeast, and it
Speaker 2: comes from all Tech over in Lexington, Kentucky area. It
Speaker 2: come right up through the ground. It's it's organic, there's
Speaker 2: free right in the bloodstream, so they get full full
Speaker 2: use of that product. Is it costs a little bit
Speaker 2: more money, but the benefits out weigh the negatives, so
Speaker 2: it's worth spending a little bit extra more money. We
Speaker 2: trademark the term Sciences in the bag and we believe
Speaker 2: that you know, you'll have some brands that advertised, oh,
Speaker 2: for skin and coat for gut health, Well, all of
Speaker 2: ours are for skinning coat and gut health, every one
Speaker 2: of them. Yeah, And we've got twelve formulas now and
Speaker 2: for more coming out by the end of the year,
Speaker 2: so we'll have sixteen formulas by the end of the year.
Speaker 2: And every one of the war formulas are about gut health.
Speaker 2: And then we have some that are more a little
Speaker 2: bit specific for skinning coat, and we have some with
Speaker 2: lucosamin and androit and the hips and joints, and there's
Speaker 2: a lot of foods that advertise that they use lucosamin
Speaker 2: and android, but if you look at it, against's an
Speaker 2: tag dress three hundred milligrams. We're using eight hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty to nine hundred milligrams you know per kilogram in
Speaker 2: the back. So that's therapeutical levels for skin and coat
Speaker 2: or for the hips and joint. And why why would
Speaker 2: does hown guys care about that? Well, to think about it,
Speaker 2: how many times have you took your dogs out and
Speaker 2: hunting and you go get them out of the dog
Speaker 2: box and you get home or the next morning you
Speaker 2: see them come calling down the dog out, stoved up
Speaker 2: and they're just stiff. Well, the coastman, you're great and
Speaker 2: will help help with that. Yeah, And so it helps
Speaker 2: to recovery a lot faster.
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe less trips to.
Speaker 2: The absolutely absolutely. And when you're hunting, you know, multiple
Speaker 2: nights a week or multiple days a week and hunting hard,
Speaker 2: you got to keep those dogs fresh, you know, and
Speaker 2: keep them feeling good. I tell people, you know, we
Speaker 2: can survive, you know, we can survive off anything. We can.
Speaker 2: Here at this hotel, they've got a breakfast down there
Speaker 2: and it any very good one. It's that stuff that's
Speaker 2: bought frozen and you throw it to the microwave. When
Speaker 2: you eat it, you can eat it and you can survive.
Speaker 2: You can live off that, but it's not very nutritious
Speaker 2: for you. We can go out to night and go
Speaker 2: to the Chinese buffet or a Mexican Mexican place, and
Speaker 2: we can eat all the food we want. We can
Speaker 2: drink tequila and beer all night long and get up
Speaker 2: tomorrow and go build fence. But I promise you we're
Speaker 2: gonna hit our thumb. We're gonna we're gonna defence. It
Speaker 2: is gonna be a little crooked. Something's gonna be off. But
Speaker 2: if we'll drink ice water, ice tea and eat, you know,
Speaker 2: a good clean meal steak, chicken, breast, pork chops or whatever,
Speaker 2: and get a good night's sleep, well we'll have less
Speaker 2: mistakes tomorrow. We work same way with these With these hounds,
Speaker 2: whether you're competition hunting or just pleasure hunting, you want
Speaker 2: them their minds sharp and feeling good, and they're gonna
Speaker 2: perform for a lot better. And in the big, the
Speaker 2: big tonehound events. You know, the difference between going home
Speaker 2: and a brand new truck, or you know twenty thousand
Speaker 2: and thirty thousand dollars could be five seconds, and the
Speaker 2: difference between five seconds could be how you feel you know,
Speaker 2: a decision you make. So no, no dog food is
Speaker 2: gonna make your dog a world champion. Uh, but it
Speaker 2: could sure enough hell or hurt you.
Speaker 1: I mean, I can see that difference even inside of
Speaker 1: me right now. Like I so, my wife and I
Speaker 1: we've we've cleaned up what we've been eating and we're
Speaker 1: doing like a reset diet. We're doing carnivore and so
Speaker 1: it's all like animal products is all we're eating, Like
Speaker 1: you know, meat and you know, some dairy and stuff.
Speaker 1: We're doing a little dirty carnivore. But yeah, but I
Speaker 1: can tell you, like just with for one, the amount
Speaker 1: of waste that my body gives off is nothing compared
Speaker 1: to what it was before when I was eating eating
Speaker 1: a lot of wider things. It's clear that my body
Speaker 1: is designed to do something with that nutrition, that meat
Speaker 1: to where it's like I feel better, I wake up
Speaker 1: and I don't have a mental fog. There's there's a
Speaker 1: lot of times before with just like a normal diet
Speaker 1: that I would uh it would take me a while
Speaker 1: to shake a fog out out of my brain. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't be as sharp. And then my energy levels are
Speaker 1: more sustained throughout the day and I can't help but
Speaker 1: think that it would be that way inside of inside
Speaker 1: of dog food too.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, you know, dog really no different than us. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it does make a big, big difference in what you
Speaker 2: feed your dog and how they perform. And uh, you
Speaker 2: know you can you can buy cheaper dog foods out
Speaker 2: there and you'll feed two or three times more. You know.
Speaker 2: I was talking to a guy had a stock dog
Speaker 2: trial and he said, I'm not I'm not saying this
Speaker 2: just because you're here. You said, but since I've started
Speaker 2: feeding your dog food, I went from buying eight bags
Speaker 2: a month to five the same amount of dogs. And
Speaker 2: that's the savings right there. It may cost a little
Speaker 2: bit more per bag, but your overall cost per day
Speaker 2: feeding is going well. Well.
Speaker 1: Even eating this carnivore diet, I'm not hungry near as much.
Speaker 1: I eat a lot less volume wise, I eat what
Speaker 1: I need. And uh yeah, I could see that. The
Speaker 1: last time that I went and looked through a store
Speaker 1: to try to pick out a new pet food and
Speaker 1: new dog food, I was overwhelmed with all the options.
Speaker 1: I didn't know, like what should I feed my dog?
Speaker 1: So talk about how some one should think whenever they're
Speaker 1: going in to choose one of the formulas that you
Speaker 1: guys have.
Speaker 2: The fattest fuel, protein builds muscle. Some people have it wrong.
Speaker 2: They think, well, I got to feed a thirty twenty
Speaker 2: or a thirty five twenty five protein and fat. That
Speaker 2: protein and high protein, you're gonna give my dog a
Speaker 2: lot of hoodre You're gonna really pump them up. No,
Speaker 2: that's not true. It's the fat, fattest fuel. Protein builds
Speaker 2: muscle and help to recover. And a dog can only
Speaker 2: really process thirty percent, no more than thirty percent protein anyway.
Speaker 2: So if you're feeding your dog. When we used to
Speaker 2: have one in prior, like we had a forty two
Speaker 2: percent protein to hot, we didn't really know. But we
Speaker 2: know now that they're gonna most that's gonna be excreted
Speaker 2: through the year. You know, if you get over thirty percent,
Speaker 2: they really can't process that anyway. So think about your
Speaker 2: dog's at activity level and then they choose your protein
Speaker 2: and fat. You know, if if you're hunting a couple
Speaker 2: of nights a week, you can probably get away. Just
Speaker 2: find a twenty four to twelve or twenty six eighteen.
Speaker 2: Twenty six eighteen is a really good all around you know,
Speaker 2: we're coming in the fall of the year, are getting colder.
Speaker 2: Dog's gonna eat more to help stay warmer. They're gonna
Speaker 2: burn more calories. So if you feed a twenty four
Speaker 2: to twenty all high energies, not all, but most of
Speaker 2: all the high energies you ever see, there are twenty
Speaker 2: four twenty four percent protein, twenty percent fat, and then
Speaker 2: use it goes from there to a thirty twenty more
Speaker 2: a little more protein if you need it. The bully
Speaker 2: guys and then we love the bully guys and they
Speaker 2: love our food, but they would feed a fifty percent
Speaker 2: protein diet if they could, just because they think they're
Speaker 2: gotta have it to get them dog really popped their
Speaker 2: muscles out of and again they can't process that much
Speaker 2: protein anyway.
Speaker 1: It's probably bad on the kidneys too, it.
Speaker 2: Is, you know, high protein does not cause kidney problems.
Speaker 2: It is causing them to work. You excrete all that protein.
Speaker 2: But if your dog is born or it already has
Speaker 2: a kidney problem, too much protein could be deadly.
Speaker 1: So they might have to drink a lot more water.
Speaker 2: Yes, and you know, too much phosphorus, and that comes
Speaker 2: with buying too much ash in your diet. I think
Speaker 2: about when I talked earlier about too much calcium, because
Speaker 2: they're getting buying too much bone and ash. Well, that's
Speaker 2: causing too much phosphorus. Is a direct correlation to the
Speaker 2: kidney disease, which is the nuber one kill dogs anyway,
Speaker 2: and there is there is some science to it. But
Speaker 2: just come on your dog's activity level. So a lot
Speaker 2: of guys in the winter time, they'll feed a twenty
Speaker 2: four to twenty or thirty twenty in the wintertime. In
Speaker 2: the summer time, when they're not hunting much nothing, they'll
Speaker 2: feed more of a maintenance or a norse normally active,
Speaker 2: lower protein, lower fat dog food. But if you're hunting
Speaker 2: a year round hard, you know, you might feed at
Speaker 2: twenty six eighteen and then just feed a little bit
Speaker 2: more in the wintertime. You see so many things out there,
Speaker 2: there's so much marketing. I've sold a lot of dog
Speaker 2: food in my life, but I have never ever sold
Speaker 2: a bag of dog food to a dog. I've always
Speaker 2: sold it to the dog's owner, To a person, A
Speaker 2: lot of emotion goes into buying dog food. You know, hey,
Speaker 2: that'll boy, give me a couple of hats. I better
Speaker 2: try his dog food. You know that doesn't make no
Speaker 2: sense to me. But know exactly what you're buying, and
Speaker 2: know what your dog need is. There's no need in
Speaker 2: feeding the high protein, high fat diet. If you don't
Speaker 2: need that, it's just a waste. And when it talks
Speaker 2: about calories per cup, you know calories. We know that
Speaker 2: you need a higher You got a performance dog, I
Speaker 2: need to fight feed higher calories. Everybody should measure their
Speaker 2: cakews per cup the same way. You take this aight
Speaker 2: downce coffee cup right here, you scoop up your kibble,
Speaker 2: you weigh it out. There's a mathematical formulation you do
Speaker 2: to get your cake cows. If you take that same cup,
Speaker 2: then that kibble, then you grind it. Well, now you've
Speaker 2: got more room. Dad's more so it looks like it's
Speaker 2: more dense, and it's not. Uh So. Some people will
Speaker 2: advertise real high cake cows and they may be fibbing
Speaker 2: a little. You know, I'm back early in the days.
Speaker 2: I've talked people, so how you can feed your X
Speaker 2: number of how many cups a day are you feeding?
Speaker 2: I just feed one or two cups of dog foo today?
Speaker 2: Ain't no way. Let me see your dog, let me
Speaker 2: see your cup. Well, then they ring you McDonald's thirty
Speaker 2: two ounce cup. I'm like, no, man, a cup eight
Speaker 2: ounces as a cup because I was the same way
Speaker 2: early on. I didn't know. Yeah, I used the coffe again,
Speaker 2: I feed one can of day how much foods that can?
Speaker 2: And I didn't know? Or I use an automatic feeder
Speaker 2: A lot of us, a lot of us. How guys
Speaker 2: do that too, And there's nothing wrong with that, but
Speaker 2: you need to check on it. You know, how's the
Speaker 2: dog talk to you? Some people think they actually do
Speaker 2: talk to you that, but through their food consumption, through
Speaker 2: their input and their output and how they perform is
Speaker 2: how they talk to you. Yeah, you need to so
Speaker 2: much water they're drink and how much food drinking and
Speaker 2: all that stuff?
Speaker 1: So well, great, Well, where can guys fine? Next level?
Speaker 1: I mean, you guys are still pretty early as far
Speaker 1: as getting on the shelves. It sounds like from what
Speaker 1: late twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's amazing how fast it is grown. Since
Speaker 2: we started last year a bout a year. At twelve
Speaker 2: months now, we're just close to twenty five hundred retailers
Speaker 2: across the country. We're we're We've had retailers in every
Speaker 2: state in the United States. You can find us go
Speaker 2: to our website and put in your zip code and
Speaker 2: it'll populate but stores around you, and that's getting updated daily.
Speaker 2: I had two new stores this morning, one in Taaloqa, Oklahoma,
Speaker 2: and one in Glenwood, Arkansas. But you can also go
Speaker 2: to Chewy. We're on Chewy now Chewy dot com. Okay, cool,
Speaker 2: we're on there. Amazon, our website, you can we're up
Speaker 2: our website. But there's plenty places around and it's growing.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: If you've got an interest in it and you can't
Speaker 2: find it, and you can go to info at uspetfood
Speaker 2: dot com or our website. It's into an email and
Speaker 2: they'll get hold of one on US reps. You email
Speaker 2: me directly, be White at uspetfood dot com, look me
Speaker 2: up on Facebook. I'm not hard to find. We're always
Speaker 2: available at that telephone and there's a few minutes we've
Speaker 2: been talking. It's gone off several times already. But that's
Speaker 2: part of the job, and it's part I.
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, yeah, I mean, wherever you buy your dog food,
Speaker 1: you might mention it to them too. I saw it
Speaker 1: pop up at the local farmers co op. How would
Speaker 1: people stay up with Next Level because I mean, you
Speaker 1: guys are expanding rapidly right now, and I'm sure there's
Speaker 1: a lot of exciting things that you guys are getting
Speaker 1: involved in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just you know, our Facebook page is the best
Speaker 2: way to really follow. You know, we're active. We do
Speaker 2: a lot of dog trials. You know, we've sponsored several
Speaker 2: coon hunting events and stock dog events, bully dog shows
Speaker 2: and the fancy a case type dog shows, and we're
Speaker 2: always looking for places to partner and be a part
Speaker 2: of it in it's just gotta be a good a
Speaker 2: good fit for both of us. But we're out and
Speaker 2: about all the time, you know, but looking forward to
Speaker 2: growing more and more. And uh uh, it's exciting to
Speaker 2: see the difference that makes you know our product. It's
Speaker 2: it's always cool to see those videos or those pictures
Speaker 2: you know, before and after. You know, people you can't
Speaker 2: buy one bag of dog food and see see a difference.
Speaker 2: You're going to see a difference on ours pretty quick.
Speaker 2: In the in the stewl volume, if you if you
Speaker 2: buy a bag of Next Level of dog food, put
Speaker 2: it on that dog and that dog only or that
Speaker 2: only feed. Next Level no trees on nothing for thirty days,
Speaker 2: you will see a difference, but usually it takes a
Speaker 2: couple of months or let's see a big, big, big difference.
Speaker 2: But some folks, you know, they they want to see
Speaker 2: overnight success. And you can on some things, uh and digestion,
Speaker 2: on urs, you can. Most dog foods you got to take.
Speaker 2: You need to take seven to ten days to do
Speaker 2: a transition ours. You know, you could probably go ahead
Speaker 2: and switch, yeah and not have no problem.
Speaker 1: But that's great.
Speaker 2: It's always best to take a couple of days, but
Speaker 2: I don't. I always do a coult switch. If you
Speaker 2: want to see the value of dog food, to switch
Speaker 2: it overnight, see what happens.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, well cool, Well thanks Brandon, you bet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but uh, I really am looking forward to going and
Speaker 1: checking out the setup down here in Mount Pleasant.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm excited. You've had you guys come down. Have
Speaker 2: you come down and go through it? I know they
Speaker 2: those guys like to give tours and see how it's made.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But I'm looking forward to going to some some bear
Speaker 2: trials and I want to go bear hunting with some hounds. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So yeah, well I'm looking forward to that.
Speaker 1: I might have some some ideas well. Cool. Well, we'll
Speaker 1: catch you next time.
Speaker 2: I better take care.
Speaker 3: Thank you for listening. The Bear Hunting Magazine hund Cast
Speaker 3: is recorded by a bear hunting magazine and produced by
Speaker 3: Mountain Gravity Media. Be sure leave us a five star
Speaker 3: review on iTunes and keep guarding the cake