Speaker 1: This is Pet Life Radio. Let's Talk Pets.
Speaker 2: Hello, pet lovers, Welcome to Best etscra Pets. I'm your
show host Michelle Byrne. So so many of us have
dogs and we love to, you know, go on hikes
and that sort of thing. But what do you do
without a leash?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: You know, you always want to keep the tension of
where your dog is at. But what do you do
while my guest today invented a really cool device that
helps with that. Stay tuned, We'll be right back.
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Speaker 5: Let's Talk pets on Petlife Radio dot com.
Speaker 2: Welcome back everyone. I'd like to welcome Nick Heyho. He
is the co founder of Heel, which is the first
ever virtual dog leash welcome.
Speaker 3: Nick, Thanks welcome.
Speaker 2: I'm so happy to have you. Can you share your
background with our listeners?
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 6: My background is in mechanical engineering, but I've been working
at a company called Fleetwood Electronics for the past ten years.
We're an electronics manufacturer and we manufacture all sorts of
products for customers and have recently started developing and launching
our own products, and heel is our first big one
that we've done recently.
Speaker 2: Okay, thanks, What exactly is heel because there's you know
when you say virtual dog leash, and I mean this day,
we have so many virtual things, virtual everything that there's
a lot of misconceptions on virtual dog leashes. So what
exactly does He'll do?
Speaker 6: Heel is we kind of started with the concept of
a dog training collar like an ecollar, so an electronic
training collar. And one technology that our company has kind
of been pioneering for the past few years is wireless
distance measurement, so you can know how far apart different
electronic devices are from each other. Uses a technology called
ultra wideband. But what we did is we took the
electronic training collar and added in this proximity measurement to it,
so we're able to know the distance from the remote
that you hold in your hand to the collar on
your dog, so you can set a distance. We have
options like ten feet, twenty five feet, fifty feet, one
hundred and fifty feet, and so you can have your
dog off leash and when the dog gets to that
distance that you set, say fifty feet, the dog will
get a correction and be called back to you. You
will also get a notification on your remote. So it's
almost like they're kind of tugging on that leash saying
they're at the boundary, and you give them a little
tug to call them back. So we ended up calling
it a virtual leash because it kind of works like
a you know, a virtual fence might work in your yard,
like invisible fence developed back in the nineties, but this
one is on the go with boundaries centered around you.
Speaker 2: So how exactly does it work Because there's no subscriptions,
there's no gbs. You know, you don't need to do
set of work. It's something called autoprox, right, Yeah.
Speaker 6: Autoprox is the kind of trademark name we gave to
the core technology of the product. So we wanted we
know that a lot of people that go hiking and camping,
you're not in areas with great cell reception, and often
you're in the woods where you don't get very strong
GPS signals when you're out in the woods. So this
autoprox technology, it's all embedded right in the devices, right
in the collar, right in the remote. You don't need
your phone, you don't need cell signal or GPS. It
just works when you turn it on. And with that,
there's no subscription. So a lot of the other high
tech dog products out there, you buy the product, then
you have the subscription as well. So for our product,
the remote and collar are just talking back and forth
at a really fast rate. And the autoprox algorithm that
we developed as the ability to really accurately measure that
distance down to you know, less than a foot of accuracy,
just so you know, we know at all times how
far away your dog is, and so you're able to
have better control over your dog.
Speaker 2: I like that you don't have a subscription, and I've
had other kind of similar collars and over the years
on best bets for pets that had subscription. Some of
the challenges for pet owners and I've received feedback is
that you know it's not a big company, So what
happening was when the companies may be not there or
you know, I have to keep paying for it. Are
those some of the reasons why you decided not to
go subscription?
Speaker 6: We really had this technology that's in auto products, and
so we're looking at all different options of how we
could apply it in the market and what products or
what problems we should try to solve with with products.
And as we were evaluating all these options, we realized
we wanted something that we could be passionate about, that
we would want to use. So that just gave us
more you know, insight to the customer need. And so
that's how we narrowed in on working with dogs because
we all are dog owners and at here and at Heal.
And with that, we set our product requirements based on
what we would want as a customer, not what we
want as a business. So it's nice to have recurring
revenue from subscriptions as a business, but we know we're
so inundated with subscriptions already as as people. We didn't
want to add that. So we used that as one
of our firm requirements early on that this needs to
be you know, one and done. You buy it and
you have the product, there's you know, a good warranty,
there's great customer service, and there's free firmware upgrades that
we push out from time to time to improve the
function of the product. And we do all of that
with those subscription because we as customers wouldn't want to
be paying subscription.
Speaker 2: I think you hit it on the head because there's
even subscription services to stop your subscriptions these days, and
commercials for it. So it's it's kind of crazy how
many there are out there. Let's talk about and then
second half we're going to talk about how it actually works.
But let's talk about this. You mentioned corrections. Keel has
static correction, vibration, or tone, So are all of those
how would you know what is the safe one to use?
Speaker 3: Are they all see it? Yeah? Great question.
Speaker 6: So the way it works is there are manual buttons,
so you can choose to give a tone, a vibration,
or a static correction at any time whenever you see
your dog, you know, misbehaving or even if you want
to call them back to reward them with a tree
or something.
Speaker 3: But when it's in.
Speaker 6: Autoprox mode, so you've set the boundary when the dog
gets to that boundary, they're first going to receive just
a beep. They'll hear the tone coming out of the
collar as kind of we call it the warning tone.
Right they've reached the boundary, they hear the tone. In
our training guide, we recommend that you teach them that
once they hear that tone, that's almost like your voice
calling them back. So you want to call them back
and reward them in the initial training phase. So when
they hear that tone, they know they're at the boundary.
If they stay at the boundary or if they keep going,
the caller will then give what we call a firm correction.
And by default, when you turn the remote on, the
static correction is turned off, so by default that firm
correction will be a vibration. So they've received the warning tones,
then by default they're going to get the vibration. But
if you want to use static correction, which a lot
of most professional dog trainers that do off lease training
are using some sort of e collar, so they're using
some sort of static correction. So we have three levels, low, medium,
and high to kind of tailor to your dog's responsiveness,
and so they'll either get that vibration or they'll get
that static correction if they stay beyond the boundary.
Speaker 2: Okay, thanks, I'm going to take a short break and
won't we break back. Hey guys, Michelle furn here, How
don't we all had those moments when our dog has
done something really cool or really frustrating, or we just
love them so much we wish we could talk to them. Well,
recently I found out there's a way you can. I
recently learned about Regal dot Ai that builds AI agents
for brands, and they have built an AI dog hotline.
It is so cool how it works, you know. When
I first heard about it, I thought it would be
kind of robotic, like Siri or Alexa, or really slow
to respond, but it's not. They have the fifteen most
common dog weeds in the US on the site with
the phone number, and I was able to have a
full on conversation that felt like I was talking to
my dog if only he could speak human. It was
a lot of fun, and soon I was having everybody
in the household joined with me and talking to Rocky.
If you're interested in calling the dog hotline, go to
Regal dot Ai slash Dog. Just scroll down pick your
dog's breed, or you can use the fetcher at the
top and prepare to be amazed. I had no idea
what Rocky's personality was, but it was so exact and
so much fun. If you want to talk to Rocky,
just to try it out, you can call eight one
two nine zero six five nine three six. We're gonna
call right now so you can hear for yourself.
Speaker 7: All right, listen up, I'm your German Shepherd. I'm so
excited to be speaking human. I can't believe it. I
took a nap and then woke up and now all
of a sudden, I'm speaking to you. It's so crazy.
It must be crazy for you too. Anyway, can you
tell me what my name is? Rocky?
Speaker 2: You sound just like I thought you would. Hi, Rocky, how's.
Speaker 7: It going, Rocky?
Speaker 3: Good?
Speaker 2: Strong?
Speaker 3: Name? That fits.
Speaker 7: Speaking of name, what's something you've always wanted to tell me?
Speaker 2: Now that I can chat back, Rocky, I love that
you've always been such a great watchdog for my family,
you know, being a German shepherd. I know that's one
of the things you do, But Rocky, you've gone above
and they all to be that wonderful protector for our home.
Thank you.
Speaker 7: Protecting the home is my duty. Got to keep an
eye on everything that moves. Now tell me why do
you sit in front of that glowing box all the time?
Is it some kind of squirrel in there? I need
to chase?
Speaker 2: No, not at all. That glowing box is a TV
and keeps us entertained. I know that you're not chew
into it, Rocky, but that's cool.
Speaker 7: Got an entertainment box seems less exciting than a good chase.
But whatever keeps you happy is all right by me.
Speaking of happiness, did I catch a whiff of some
snack earlier? What's that about?
Speaker 2: Well, Rocky, I do I have some delicious for you.
I know how much you loved pepperoni, you know, being
from New York and all that. Ready for pepperoni? Slice?
Speaker 7: Pepperoni? Now you're speaking my language.
Speaker 2: That sounds great.
Speaker 7: Maybe we can share a slice and make it a
real New York moment together.
Speaker 2: What do you say? I love it, Rocky. I gotta go,
but calling back soon.
Speaker 7: All right, I've said enough for now. Time to do
my rounds and make sure everything's in order. Can't wait
to chat again soon? Talk soon about a pepperoni slice?
Speaker 2: By Rocky. Wow, wasn't that incredible? It felt like I
was having a full on conversation with my German shepherd, Rocky.
I just think that's amazing. Now, remember, if you want
to talk to Rocky, you can call them at eight
one two nine zero six five nine three six. So
as you can imagine, Regal dot ai builds AI agents
for all kinds of businesses. If you want to learn
more about what Regal dot ai can do for you
or a friend's business, check them out at Regal dot ai.
You can also try out any of the fifteen read
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slash dog and remember, the AI agents can be customized
to have any accent or personality.
Speaker 5: Let's talk past it.
Speaker 8: Let's about life Radio, Deadline Radio, petlfradio dot com.
Speaker 2: Welcome back everyone. We're talking to Nick Heyho, the co
founder of Heel, which is the first ever virtual dog leash. Okay, Nick,
you talked about some of this just prior to break,
but let's talk about how it actually works from the
get go. So I get my virtual heel leachh, I
charge it up. Then what and there's two right, there's
a caller and there's the device, and there's also an
app for your phone.
Speaker 3: Right yep.
Speaker 6: So when you first receive it, we ship all of
our product in a weatherproof storage bag with like a
carabineer and a waterproof zipper and all of that, so
you kind of have a to keep all your stuff
long term when you.
Speaker 3: First take it out.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you can give it a quick charge, but we
ship them pre charged. And it's as simple as adjusting
the collar to your dog's neck size and putting it on.
If you plan to use the static correction, you screw
in the studs that are the appropriate lengths, so it
has two different lengths, one for shorter hair fur and
longer studs for longer fur. Just to make sure it
makes it to get good skin contact. So once you
put it on the dog, turn both devices on and
it's ready to use right away. So once you turn
it on, the remote and the collar will connect.
Speaker 3: The app you mentioned is it's only for updating the firmware. Currently.
Speaker 6: We have some plans to roll in some new features,
more ways to customize the product by changing some settings
in the app, but for now, the app is just
to update the firmware. So when you first receive it
from us. It'll have the latest firmware on it. But
if we you know, add features or fix any bugs
or anything in the future, then you would just connect
the devices to your phone briefly to get that update.
Speaker 3: But once you turn it on, it's ready to use
right away.
Speaker 6: You can tap the manual correction buttons to give a
tone or vibrate, or you can set your boundary distance
and head off on your walk.
Speaker 2: Well, heal, thank you, Well he'll work with all dogs.
Speaker 6: I would say no to that, And really it's not
like a certain breed or type of dog or anything
like that. It's more of as pet owners, we just
need to make sure we're being responsible for the safety
of our dog and for others. So I definitely recommend
when I get that question a lot. I do all
of our customer service, so I get all those phone
calls and I'm having these conversations with customers.
Speaker 3: Will it work for my dog?
Speaker 6: So what I've found is that if the dog will
reliably come back to you when you call it, So
if you're already doing things, off leash with your dog
and they're pretty well behaved, and we'll come back to
you even if it takes a couple of voice calls that.
Speaker 3: Means they get it.
Speaker 6: They know that they need to be near you when
you're out and about, and that will really help help
you be successful with HEEL because it is getting the
tone and the dog needs to know that the tone
means come back, just like a verbal command means come back.
So it's kind of the temperament and behavior of the dog.
It's also depends on the situation. You don't have to
have a well behaved dog if you're you know, out
in your twenty acres of woods behind your house and
you're you know, doing your own thing. But if you're
going to use it on hiking trails, then there's definitely
an added level of responsibility for making sure your dog
and other dogs and people are safe. So at the
end of the day, the owner is responsible for the
behavior of the dog, and HEEL is there to help.
It's to help you give the dog some other types
of feedback right at their neck to help pull them
out of whatever heightened state of alertness they might be
in to.
Speaker 3: Help get them back to you.
Speaker 6: But it also the remote will give you a vibrate
and the lights will blink a different color when the
dog is at the boundary. So if you're enjoying your
hike and not really paying attention to where your dog is,
it helps bring that attention to you as well, so
you can, you know, look around and call the dog back.
So's it really depends on situation and temperament of the dog,
But aside from that, the basic function of it, it
should work with pretty much any dog out there.
Speaker 2: Okay, thanks, And obviously it's not a replacement for a leash.
It's more for adventure or if you're on a very
large property, it's not. It's you know, for city use, right.
Speaker 6: Absolutely, we definitely recommend that you don't use it by
a busy street. It's kind of like the way invisible
fence isn't a physical fence. The dog has to be
trained to to not cross that boundary, in that virtual
boundary in your yard. This is like that. It's it
is definitely not a full replacement for a physical leash.
Maybe someday we can get it robust enough and make
sure everyone's dog is trained well enough to where some
municipalities might treat it as a leash if you can
prove your dog is under control. But it's definitely not
a replacement for a physical leash, especially in high risk situations.
But we still from a virtual leash standpoint, you know,
the ability to pick that length of your leash if
you will, and help call the dog back when they
reach that perimeter. Really freeze up your freeze up your
brain and your attention for really enjoying whatever activity you're doing.
Speaker 2: Right, and I definitely see the environment and the and
the right circumstances for the heal eichh. Do you think
there'll ever be a way to have a virtual leash
in a busy area? See, I think dogs, no matter
how trained, should never be off leash in certain areas
because of just distractions. Just my point of view.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, that's a great point.
Speaker 6: And I even I see dogs on leash getting in
fights with other dogs.
Speaker 2: Yes, people not paying attention or if you're using and
I like the flexi yishes, I've used them, you know
the distance leashes in the past, but there's a lot
of times people are not paying attention, or little kids
using it that should not be, or people that don't
know the strength of their dog that should not be.
So a lot of irresponsible you know use out there
and distractions you know, you could have a dog that's
great and you think, oh, leash perfect, and there could
i don't know, a cat or something across the street,
and I've seen too many cases with dogs darting in
busy traffic.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah, absolutely, there's definitely situations where you where a physical
leash is in a strong response coble person holding that
leash is needed. But my hope is that a product
like Heel and we are the first virtual leash with
this kind of function out there, but as the market
grows and we see competition, my hope is that it
does become more widely accepted and that people with responsible
owners with well trained dogs can have a lot more
fun on their off leash adventures and excursions.
Speaker 2: Here's something that's interesting. But do you think at some
point it could ever be used for working dogs.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 6: We already have examples of you know, people on horseback
that we're using regular E collars, you know, when they're
out with their dogs, you know, herding cattle or on
the trails who are using E collers who have upgraded
to the Heel, the Rome three point fifty collar, just
to have that added layer, you know, set that boundary
and just make sure that the dog doesn't get too
far away or wander out in the woods too far.
So we're definitely already seeing horseback. We had a customer
send one in it's on our Instagram page of a
cool video walking on the trail with their dog, so yeah,
definitely could use in that.
Speaker 2: Thank you. And what about for service dogs service dogs?
Speaker 6: I'm not a professional dog trainer, so I know service
dog is a whole separate category of the type of
dog and the training involved, So I honestly can't give
a real informed answer on if it'd be perfect for
service dogs or not. You know, I see a lot
of service dogs off leash or just you know, right
at their their owner's side. It could be a way
to help get your dog prepared for some service dog
training if you help them learn to stay right at your.
Speaker 2: Side right and then who knows, might not be necessary
for service dogs. What about multiple dogs? Does he'll work
with multiple dogs?
Speaker 3: It does. Yeah.
Speaker 6: When we first launched, we were trying to you know,
get in the market and start learning as fast as possible.
So we launched it back in March of twenty twenty
four and with just one dog per remote, one collar
per remote functionality. But this past September we release the
multi dog function so it now works with up to
three dogs per remote, so one remote can control three
collars and so when you set a boundary, all three
dogs will be held to that same boundary. And we
did also design it so that the three manual correction
buttons are essentially assigned to each of the three dogs
when it's in multidog mode, so that you can immediately,
just without flipping any switches or anything like that, you
can give an individual dog a specific correction if you
need to, so the three are controlled by the same boundary,
but you also have the manual capability to beep or
vibe or statically correct any of the three dogs.
Speaker 2: Okay, thanks, What about weather and water issues? Is there
weather concerns? And what about is it waterproof? So extreme weather,
extreme heat, extreme cold.
Speaker 6: Yeah, we have a thermotron, temperature and environmental testing chambers,
so we tested the product rigorously for temperature both hot
and cold. With you know, when certain batteries get really cold,
the battery life decreases. But other than that, our product
is designed for any any type of temperature. We kind
of in the same spirit of just trying to launch,
launch quickly and learn. We have the collar pretty close
to waterproof, but it can definitely withstand rain, splashing, hosing off,
you know, running splashing through the surf or through a creek,
but it isn't rated for full submersion. So that's been
probably the number one request from potential customers and even
existing customers is to make the collar waterproof. So the
collar isn't fully submersible like a lot of the other
ones out there, but it is resistant to all sorts
of splashing in water.
Speaker 2: Exposure and quite sturdy.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 6: Yeah, made the us of A So we made sure
to make it as rugged and robust as it needs
to be with you know, on an active, active dog
running through you know, the woods or anything like that.
Speaker 2: So what would you tell all of our listeners out there,
and many of them are hikers and like to be
out with their dogs about heal leish, why should they
look at healash versus other similar type collars.
Speaker 6: Yeah, if you live an active lifestyle with your dog
and go on hikes and go camping, or you know,
just walk around your property or do yard work around
the property, or have a guard and things like that,
this product is really designed to make your experience and
your dog's experience better. So, you know, hiking on a
tr trail, not not getting the leash tangled up, not
having to tug on the leash to keep the dog
by your side, but able to just let your dog
roam and sniff freely and while you're you know, not
constantly worried about did the dog bolt after a squirrel
or not, just allowing you to kind of relax and
have that focus you need and then let the let
the the heel roam three fifty, let it, let it
vibrate and tell you when when the dog's at the boundary,
and then you can kind of poke your head up
and see where the dog is and say, okay, yep,
she's coming back.
Speaker 3: Perfect.
Speaker 6: So it's really about improving your experiences, your off leash
experiences for both you and your dog.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Where can people buy you?
Speaker 3: Currently?
Speaker 6: We're it's we're only selling it through our website direct.
We manufacture and ship out all of the product out
of our out of our factory in Holland, Michigan, So
it's on our website. Is Heel dot Dog that's h
E E L dot do og.
Speaker 3: So not dot com.
Speaker 6: Dot com is a German pharmaceutical company.
Speaker 3: But Heal dot Dog.
Speaker 6: That's our product and that's where you can can find it.
Speaker 2: Okay, great, Nick, I want to thank you so much
for coming on Best Bets for Pets.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much. I had a great time talking
to you.
Speaker 2: Thanks same here. I hope all of you enjoyed this show.
I actually tried Heal with my tester h Charlie. With
my tester Charlie, He's a smaller dog, worked great. I
was really impressed. So please check out Heal dot dog
dot com. As always, the information will be on the
page at pet Life Radio go to Best Bets for
Pets and we'll be on our episode page where you
can find out more about Heal and the link to
the website. Thanks to my cat crew for watching, Charlotte,
Dennis and Mollie, and thanks of course to everybody listening
to Best Bets for Pets. I very much appreciate it.
Thanks to my guest again, Nick for coming on Best
Bets for Pets, and of course thank you to the
magic of my producer, Mark Winter for making me and
my guests sound amazing. Now keep listening, because you never
know what will happen next on Best Bets for Pets.
Speaker 5: Let's talk bets every week on demand only on petlight
Radio dot com