In this episode (34:35)
In this episode, Sarah and Jennifer discuss the process of constructing a building for agility.
You Will Learn
- What goes into building a space for agility.
- What factors were most important to Jennifer.
- The pros and cons of renting out your space.
- The maintenance requirements of different surfaces.
- The timeline of Jennifer’s building from the first stake in the ground to when she was given the keys!.
Mentioned/Related
- The turf Jennifer used is True Turf from GrassTex.
- Listening to Bad Dog Agility. Bringing you training tips, interviews and news about the great sport of dog agility. (bright piano music) - I'm Jennifer - And I'm Sarah, and this is episode 276. Today's podcast is brought to you by hititboard.com and the new Teeter Teach It. An easy to use tool that controls the amount of tip on your teeter so you can introduce motion to your dog
in a gradual way. Go to hititboard.com for the new Teeter Teach It and other agility, training tools and toys. Use discount code BDA10 to get 10% off your order, hat's hititboard.com Today, we're gonna be talking about building your own space for agility and this is an exciting topic for me 'cause this is something I've always kinda had my eye on and something that Jennifer has recently been through.
So Jennifer is gonna educate all of us on what it takes to build out a space for your own agility purposes. - We're literally talking buildings. Not just building a program or a system or an approach to your training, but an actual building. So, my exciting COVID project was I reached to make dreams come true and I've always, always, always wanted a indoor facility for training my dogs.
And when we shut down for COVID, I thought I have the extra time. And I went through all the hoops that you jump through to put a building up on my very own property at my house for my own dog training. So I built what I would call like everything I wanted, my dream building. Indoors climate controlled, on turf, large space about, oh, maybe 25 steps from my
front door to be able to go out and train all of my dogs and have a great space to do all the agility that I want at home. - Excellent, and I know that there are lots of people that have already been asking you questions about the process and how it works and what kind of things you think about, what kind of things came up that maybe didn't
occur to you as things that you needed to be on the lookout for. I guess let's just kind of start at the top. For you living in Ohio, like having it be completely covered is really important. This is not like in a horse barn type space. And for us it would be very important for the exact opposite reason. Like we have to be protected from the summertime heat.
That's the time when we can't train, because it is too hot for our dogs. What kind of size is your building? What went into that decision? And things like the footing and the surface and what decisions were you making there? - To give people just a little bit of background for those that don't know. In 2010, I graduated college in 2009 and in 2010 I decided to open
an agility facility or agility business called IncrediPAWS. And I started at one location. I was there for five years and I moved to a bigger, better location where I could then hold trials. So now here we are in 2021, I've gone 10 years plus into running a business, running agility at two separate locations. So I've had a lot of time to think through what I like, what I
don't like, what I would do if I had my own place. In the beginning you think, "Wow, I'm, I'm renting. These are both places I lease. I'm leasing, I'm running my own agility. This is gonna be great, I'm gonna get my dog so well-trained, I'll have access to the equipment all the time." But what I quickly realized is if you're going into running a good business, you're maximizing
the building time. And I was filling it with so many classes and private lessons that when I wanted to train my own dogs, the facility wasn't available to do so. So I very quickly realized I wanna be able to walk out in my backyard, I wanna be able to train. I was gathering a list of features that I did and didn't want. And as you mentioned in Ohio,
weather there's an issue, In the spring and summer, fall, no big deal to go outside and train. But the winter is obviously a big problem. Right now, we're dealing with a lot of snow and ice on the ground. And our summers can be warm, not Texas warm. So I do have a little bit of kind of some history and knowing what I thought I wanted in a facility.
Now add on top of that, that I've been to a lot of different trials, trial locations, taking a look at other people who have buildings, whether it be other clubs that had buildings or just individuals that may be built smaller ones. So I had quite a bit of years of thinking about this. It wasn't like I woke up one day and said, "I think I'll build a building."
So I still have IncrediPAWS as my primary business location. This facility is kind of just for me, really, truly at my house. And when I sat down and I said, "Okay, I wanna build a building." I basically made a list of what mattered to me most. Like, what was I willing to give up? What was I not willing to give up? How was I gonna prioritize things for
me? And the number one thing for me was size and the absence of posts or poles in the middle of the building. So for those that are listening that maybe haven't shown inside. A lot of facilities have poles. So getting a clear span arena can be really tricky. So even my location at IncrediPAWS, our ring size is 120 long and 80 wide, and we have two poles in
the center to help support the building because getting 80 wide without a pole is difficult. It becomes very, very limiting and I've realized that over the last five years in doing lesson plans in filming courses for Bad Dog. We would get a course submitted from one of our judges and I wouldn't be able to fit it into my facility because of a pole location. So my number one
factor was I wanted no poles and I wanted as big as I could afford. So as big as I could make it without poles and as much as I thought that I could afford. So what I ended up with is an 80 wide 120 long facility, no poles. So it's totally clear span. So my building size here is the same as the turfed area or the ring size
at IncrediPAWS, which is super convenient and partly on purpose 'cause now the two facilities can have the same lesson plan but I don't have any poles. So if I had gone to a builder and said, "Okay, I want no poles." And the biggest, they said, I could do a 70 wide, I was gonna go with 70 wide because no poles was top priority to me. Have you had
the privilege, sarcasm, there to show in a facility with poles? - I don't think I ever have, I have not. I gave a seminar in a, in a facility that had some poles but I've never shown in one. I have had the privilege of taking a map that I was gonna hand you and putting it, overlaying it on your building space and then making slight adjustments so that
the poles would be safe in terms of where they were at. - Yeah, it's very limiting. Even when for our trials, we'll have judges that just do not love coming to judge for us because they have to work around the poles and you see the same thing, you'll see a U shaped tunnel around a pole with the pole in the middle to keep it out of the way
or a wing butted up to the pole. And it just gets so repetitive and so limiting. You can't put your dog walk down the middle of the arena very easily. So no poles and size was factor number one for me. And part of that stems from wanting to be able to run very big international courses. My personal goals lies on being able to have those really long runs.
When we look at international courses, they tend to be more rectangular where like AKC courses tend to be more square 90 by 90, 100 by 100. So I wanted that rectangular field. - How do you even go about finding a builder? I wouldn't even know who to ask or like what to look at in the yellow pages, like for somebody who is gonna build that kind of space.
What are the magic words that you're looking for when you search for builders? - I got really lucky on this one, really lucky. I basically one day wrote out on Facebook. As crazy as it sounds, I just wrote it and said, "Hey, do I have anybody local that's worked with any pole barn builders?" That's what I had said, does anybody work with pole barn builders that they would
recommend? And I went through and I was reading what people wrote, "Oh, check out this place, go to this place." And you're gonna have a lot of places that are Countrywide. More in buildings I know is pretty popular but there's a lot of kind of prefabricated or predesigned pole barns. If you just say, I want a standard 60 by 80, they can throw it up overnight it seems
like. But I had somebody say, "Hey, in your County." So really close to me, "Is the builders that I went with and it happens to be that the wife trains with you." I had no idea that she, that that's what... The company was called Eversol Builders. And I have no problem saying it publicly 'cause they were the best. They were awesome. If you are local to me, Eversol
Builders, go with them. But I had no idea that that name was, yeah, I knew it was her last name, but I never put two and two together that was like, Oh, that's them. I reached out and I said, "Hey it's me, Jen. I hear you're in the business of putting up buildings and I hear nothing but amazing reviews so much so that I hear your wait list
is really long because you guys are so good." And little extra connections, made some things happen. And because she has dogs and competes and Dog Agility, they actually had a lot of dog background. They had done some boarding kennels. They offered me some features that were pertaining to the dogs. The builder, my contractor had actually been to IncrediPAWS to watch his wife show and compete. So he kind
of knew what I wanted. So I got really, really lucky on that. I think pole barns, if you're just looking for a basic pole barn, you're gonna have a lot of options. But it's when you start getting into the customization and really all about finding a contractor that you really trust and can work with and get along with. - Awesome what kind of... So then I assume that
going into this project, you knew what kind of surface that you wanted. - Yeah, so number two for me was surface. So I know for a lot of people surface might be number one, that was actually number two. I wanted size and no poles. If it came down to the fact that I needed the big space, but had to do a dirt floor, I was willing to do
that rather than turf in a smaller space. As it turns out I was able to go with turf. So there was some factors with dirt or crushed limestone. Very different than packed dirt versus the turf. And even with the turf, couple of different types of turf. You have the carpet type turf versus the like blades of grass with the rubber granules in them. And all of them have
different factors to take into account. One of them for me was going to be maintenance. So the thing about dirt is you think, Okay, well, it's definitely gonna be cheaper, but you also have them have the means to maintain it. For a lot of people that now involves water access, because they'll spray it down and possibly even attractor to drag the dirt. So while the initial surface might
be cheap, those were factors that had to be taken into account. And for my building, because it's personal use, I don't have water. So there is no running water at my building. So I wasn't gonna have access to that. And I really didn't wanna add on the storage of a tractor. The other thing that was mentioned to me with regard to like dirt and crushed limestone surfaces is
the humidity. So because you get the moisture coming up, you can end up with a lot of like humidity issues. So what I went for was turf. So I actually have a concrete floor, a cement floor, then a layer of padding and then the turf. And the thing about the turf is I elected to go with more of the carpet turf for maintenance purposes. So the first location
that I had from 2010 to 2014, well, the end of 2014, was the blades of grass with the rubber pellets. And I really liked it. I liked the surface, but it was very hard to clean, and I did in that timeframe have to add in more rubber. So you get the expense of buying more rubber, putting it in, brushing it in. The carpet type turf I liked because
we, I really just, I vacuum it. I just went to Walmart, go buy a vacuum and I vacuum stuff up. So I find the maintenance on it to be very easy, much easier to clean. So I put down the same surface at my building here at my house as I do at IncrediPAWS, but kind of the next model up. So there's actually a little bit of additional shock
absorbency in it. So the texture is the same, the surfaces the same, but there's a little bit more cushion in it, and a little bit more bounce in it. Surface to me was really important, but it's not just about what I think is best for the dogs, it's other factors, the maintenance of it, humidity, other costs that might go along with it. - My understanding is that turf
is a substantial cost of the overall project. Like I think maybe... If people have never put together a building and they've never turfed something before they might be shocked at how expensive turf can be relative to an entire building that you would think, you know. - Absolutely, absolutely, yes. I 100% agree with that. The product that I got very happy with. It's GrassTex, GrassTex is a company that
does AstroTurf and we're seeing more and more facilities across the country, put this product down, it's GrassTex True Turf. I'm not the first one to put it down. I know there's a facilities all around that have the same stuff 'cause I consulted with him. "Hey, do you like it? "Do you have any complaints about it?" Because the turf had IncrediPAWS is now six years old. So I wanted
to make sure that there were no changes in the manufacturing. And then you could get different features with the turf. So they have the option to do a glue down just like you would normal carpet, but they also had a Velcro option. And the Velcro option, what it does is it's basically kind of a free floating floor. You don't actually adhere it to the floor at all, but
you Velcroed the seams together. And so the weight of the turf keeps it from moving, but the seams are Velcroed. And the nice part about this is in a facility that you may be lease or rent, you can then just roll your turf up and take it with you to a new location versus adhering it to the ground. So you do have a little bit more of a
visualsim like you can see where the seams are, but they don't any way affect the appearance. But yeah, the turf was about 20% of my total costs from beginning to end. And 20% is a lot when you're talking, that's not even the billing, that's just to get the turf down. So it definitely is a commitment, it's definitely an expense. Definitely an area to spend your time researching for
sure. And that's probably one of the number one questions I've gotten so far is what surface did you put down? Did you like it? Would you recommend it? Would you do it again? And absolutely I'm very happy with the surface. I was happy with it enough that after six years I went with the same product. - Yeah and we'll put a link to that in the show notes,
because like you said I've heard people asking you, I've seen the emails of people asking you what turf you use. And it is nice to have a recommendation 'cause we turfed our garage like about a year or year and a half ago, two years ago so that we could do some stuff in our garage, even just tug training and stuff like that. It was right before we had
our latest two puppies. So it was a great space for just going and playing with them and stuff like that. And we're talking about like a 30 foot by 20 foot space. And I was so stressed out because even just in that small space, it was a big enough expense that I was afraid of putting it down and then not liking it. And then and then being out
that cost and needing to replace it with something else. So it is really nice to have recommendations from other people. And we did the same... I guess the other thing that I would say just to reiterate what you said, we didn't glue it down because it is so heavy by itself that we just rolled it out and we have like one single seam and it's it hasn't moved
at all because just the turf itself is so heavy. - Yeah, it's the same product. I ended up with the same product that several well-known facilities I'll mention John Nys and Agility Rush has the same product. Laurie Michaels and Casey Schmidt (indistinct) and then Golden Gate Dog Sports out in California where Ashley Deacon teaches. That all those facilities have the same stuff down. All of them talked to
me before they put theirs down and then I re talked to them before I put it down. So it seems like it's getting some really great reviews in terms of maintenance, but also dog traction as well. - Perfect, tell us some more about your building in terms of other features of the building and things that you were thinking about. - So other factors that went in to me
kind of two more big ones were lighting and then climate control. So again, kind of going down the list sizes, first footing was second, but then lighting was super important to me and I wanted to decide, what did I wanna do in terms of windows? Where did I want windows? What was the height of the windows? How much natural light versus artificial LED lights I wanted. And I
know that seems crazy, but we all know, I mean, we know how much lighting is important, how much it affects the dogs. You're asking these dogs to run and jump and make judgment calls and depth perception at full speed. The darker rhinos we've seen dogs had problem and I just did not want that to be a situation that I go through. All this effort to build this great
place and then I didn't get the lighting that I wanted. So I ended up doing windows on all four sides which is very different than what I have in IncrediPAWS. IncrediPAWS, we are like in a dungeon. We have one double door, double glass door in the front and that's it. So it's so great to walk out and have windows on all four sides. And then I put them
up at the top of the wall, at the top of the three of the four sides there're high windows, so they don't open and close, and then on one side they're kind of lower and they slide open. And I wanted a lot of natural light, I wanted it to be bright in there. But the higher windows minimizes the light coming right in at the dog's eye level. So
if you're out at a lesson at nine or 10:00 AM and the sun's coming through, it's coming in higher, and it's also for safety purposes, high up windows, less chance of anybody trying to break in since this is on my personal property. So I did on the front edge, the more visual edge, put lower windows that slide open. I can open these if I'm not running climate control,
put a fan there if I need to. And then lighting, if somebody asked me today, "You've built this great building, what's what would you change?" Aside from saying make it bigger because what person ever said they wished they had a smaller building? Aside from wanting it bigger, the only change that I would make is I want more lightings. We're actually in the process. I'm only about three weeks
into this and I'm already going in and adding some more lighting. I have four rows of seven led lights. And I think it's just because the exterior natural light is so bright that it makes the lights not seem as bright, but around my perimeter is a little bit dark. Not nothing that I've seen a problem with for dogs or my dogs. And maybe it's just me being really
picky, but I feel like for me, this has been a lifelong dream and I want it to be everything I want it to be. So we're now in the process of mounting and hanging some more lights. But I think lighting is kind of an undervalued thing. Whether it be, like I said, the actual lighting and the placement of the lighting or windows, where to put windows. I know
a couple people that have a lower windows and when they film, they're filming their runs and that light in that glare is coming right in and they come in and they're like, "Oh, hi windows, this was such a great option. So much nicer." Or I know somebody that only has windows on two of the four sides, and it's just not quite as bright as having it all around.
The only downside is when the sun is coming in on the one side from about nine to noon, I do get spots on the turf where the sun comes through the windows. So far, it's not been a problem. I certainly would wanna put like three folds right there. But I do get these big spots on the ground where the windows come through. So lighting was super important to
me and I think something people should take into account. And then the other big one for me was climate control. What did I wanna do for climate control? Did I wanna have climate control? Did I wanna have heat, but not AC? And I think in Ohio, the main thing we see from a lot of facilities is they do have the heat, but no AC. So plug in some
fans, open up the doors for the summer months, but have a little bit of heat in the winter. And I just decided, go big or go home, I'm doing it both. I liked it to do heat and AC, which absolutely would need the heat. There's no way I could function and it's like a high of like nine degrees next week or something. I'm gonna try to do as
little as possible. I live on 12 acres, so there's a lot of crossbreeds. We did orientate the buildings, so there would be nice crossbreeds. I put two big garage doors on each end and then so I can lift those up and get cross breeze. And then I installed Sans and all four corners. So I'm hoping that for the spring and for the fall, I can just have some
natural airflow and don't have to run the AC because again, it's not just the expense of installing the AC units, it's the expense of running the AC units. So that kind of goes back to when I was talking about the surface as well. The dirt and the line stone kinda going into the humidity. If you're gonna do the AC and the heat, they said, just do the concrete
floor, have it completely insulated. And that's what mine is. Mine's completely insulated, and then I had my ceiling done with echo proof ceiling. When you come in, people have asked, "What's different about the ceiling, 'cause there's holes in it?" And it's so the sound goes through and you don't feel like you're hollering in a tunnel. So with barking dogs and with me teaching and hollering you didn't wanna
be at one end of the building and the person not hear you. And so far that's been a really great option, and that just was a recommendation from the builder having worked with building some kennels and stuff. You don't want that tinny metal echoing sound. We are totally fully insulated, heat AC, I'm not having any humidity issues at all, and I'm so well-insulated that I'm not finding that
I have to keep the heat very high at all. Teaching, I always wear a couple extra layers at IncrediPAWS because I'm the teacher and I'm always gonna be colder than the people running. But out here it's just me running. I just go, I go out there and I I'm gonna get warm real fast. I don't have that standing around teaching and getting cold that I deal with that
in IncrediPAWS. So it's kinda nice I go out there and I get warmed up real fast. - That's awesome, so tell us a little bit about timeline because from my perspective, not being there every day or whatever, it seems like you were kind of talking about having a building and then you had a video of your first walkthrough. And I was like, how is that even possible? And
some of that is the time doesn't flow right in 2020? - Yes, I know. - Having a hard time keeping track of like days and months and stuff. But it didn't seem like it was really fast. - It was really fast. I was ready for it to be a year and I did not even go for my variance because I did have to go to the township. That's
one thing, if you guys are building a personal building. You gotta work with your township in any zoning. I did not even have my approval for my zoning and meeting until April. Because I remember when we shut down for COVID in March, I thought to myself, "All right, I'm gonna have some extra time on my hands. I'll go ahead and go forward and move forward with the next
step." So I submitted all my applications in March and then they received them and then you go in front of the board to ask for approval to put your building up. I did that in April. Once they approved me, then I looked for builders. So I didn't even get looking for a builder. I Photoshopped, not Photoshopped, photograph there we go, every day of the building process. So like
every day I would take a photo of what was happening and kind of have this entire album. It's actually very cool to see it. I should like put them together in a video. - Yeah, in a video- - It's pretty cool. But the first day that they were onsite, that they were on my property was August 18th. And the only thing they did that day was put stakes
in the ground. So they just put stakes on the ground. They said, "Here's where your building's gonna be. Make sure you go out there and that looks like the right orientation and the right place that you want it." They didn't break ground until September 25th. So September 25th was the day that they brought in an excavator and they said, "We're going at it." And they broke ground. And
then they were done, walked off site handed me my keys on December 30th. - Wow. - So from September 25th to December 30th to do breaking ground, excavating, building, framing, trusses, interior, exterior, concrete floor, lighting, electrical, heaters, everything. And then I wanted our goal at near the end when we realized how it was going to go was the first of the year and December 30th, they handed me
my keys and walked off so they could have a good New Year's, and I did not see them again. Now we did spend the first week of January installing the turf. So I did have installers come in, turf delivered, installers come in, and the first week of January was turf. So I'm not including that part of it. And like then the bringing in of the equipment and setting
up that, but I would say August 18th to December 30th to put up a building of my caliber, I thought was quite impressive. - Was there anything that caught you off guard or surprised you, or that you would tell other people to be on the lookout for or anything like that with building a building? - There two things, one is gonna kind of be really minor frankly, is
you don't realize how much mud that they are gonna create in driveways and paths. They're building a building and they're not really concerned too much about what it takes to put that building up. Like they need a driveway there, they're gonna put a driveway there. And what happens on the exterior? So I have way more mud and dug up ground, and then when they drive off site, it's
kinda your job to fix it. - So you kind of have to almost like rethought or something that- - Yeah, right now we're doing nothing. But I'm gonna have a very busy spring of replanting grass inside. I had gutters buried, gutters come down buried in the ground and then run into my pond. So literally the perimeter of my building is all dug up and and then now mud.
And they don't really level it out and throw down grass seed. So it's gonna be a very busy spring. I also like it's kind of off of my driveway and they kinda built a driveway and they're like, "Oh, we're gonna have to build a driver there." And they just made a path. That's the width of a car or two cars and it's gravel and dirt and mud. And
I don't know what I'm gonna do there. So that's all muddy and then I did have a outdoor field flattened and then leveled, adjacent to the building. That was kind of the little above and beyond. I thought, "Oh, why you guys are here with construction equipment, let's do an 80 by 80 outdoor arena." 'Cause it was kind of on the hill. So now I have 100 by 80
mud field. So the one thing I will say is just mud everywhere. I have towels inside my building and every time I go out there, I make the dog stop and I wiped down their feet so I'm not getting mud all over my turf. But actually pertaining to the building, and it's not even really the building. The one thing, my biggest thing was the installation of the turf
did not go off as well as I would have liked. Everything else went really well. The lighting was the only thing that I would say I wanted more of. And the thing that was tricky about the lighting was when they came in before they, you know sign off and you say, "Thank you, it's done, I'll see you." Was my cement floor, which was white and it was shiny.
They like gloss it over, they make it look great. The lights weren't, all my walls are white. It was like bright as day in there. Well then you come in and you install this dark green turf and it just sucked the lighting right into the floor. And all of a sudden it got really dark, but they had already left at that point. It was too hard to go
back and rewire. So, that's what we're dealing with now. So lighting, think about what you're seeing versus what color surface you're gonna put down. Crush limestone is gonna be reflective, a turf is gonna be dark. And then the process of installing the turf. If anybody's out there building or thinking about putting down turf, plan it so your turf goes down when it's warm. We had huge issues with
tempering the turf. So the turf got delivered, it came in on semi-trucks from Atlanta. It sat in the cold, got delivered, sat in the cold. And my concrete was cold and we turned the building up to 70, we unrolled the turf and it just wouldn't get that concrete warm enough. So the turf was all bubbly and it was having air bubbles and it wasn't laying flat. And it
took us five days of the building being at 70 degrees and that turf laying out before we finally could get it to relax. If I could do it all over again, and this would be what the carpet installers agreed is plan for a warm summer or fall turf laying because it will go so much smoother if you can get it adjusted to the heat. So that's kind of
the one big glitch that I would say if I could do it all over again maybe timing it so that I would plan for it to be finished and more the summer fall would make the laying of the surface easier. So it will be interesting to monitor what happens with the turf. As it goes right now, it's laying flat and looking really good. But again, we're three weeks
in so when it comes into the summer, I think it might even relax and settle even more. But right now that turf is great. I have no issues, but it was a very stressful five to seven days when we were laying the turf and not having everything go quite as nicely as I was hoping it would. - So I have another question for you. I know that there
are some people, and I know this 'cause I've heard people say it and because this is exactly how I think too when I think about a space. Who think, "Okay, well, if I'm gonna invest all this money in a space, then maybe I could give up a weekend a month or two weekends a month and rent it out and recoup a lot of the cost or even make
it like a break even enterprise or something like that." And you have facility is your personal personal facility, but you've also managed, IncrediPAWS and managed a move from building to building. What are some of the things that people have to take into account if that's what they're looking to do, or what are the pros and the cons of doing something like that? I know you mentioned that with
IncrediPAWS you ended up just never having the access to it that you would really want, but like, besides that there's things like bathrooms and insurance and, what other things like that do people need to really think about before they kind of commit to that being part of the financial picture? - Yeah, there's a big difference between running IncrediPAWS as a business. And then what goes into my barn
as my arena. And running the business side of things, it is great to think, "Okay, well if I'm not down there, what are ways that the building can potentially make money?" Even if you're just building it on your own property, you're not gonna be out there eight hours a day. So like you said, maybe my friend wants to come over and I'll rent it out to them. You
already mentioned a couple of the big things and that it's gonna be when you start having it open to others, whether that be trials, whether that be rentals, whether that be, maybe throw private lesson, you help out a family member has a pet or whatever is what amenities are they gonna need? - So restrooms, restrooms, running water, that kind of thing. Maybe you don't have those and you
throw up a porta party outside. I've seen those facilities do that before. My building has nothing, so if my friend comes over to train, they're just gonna have to come into my house they use the restroom which no big deals, it's my mom, my friends coming over, not a big deal. The big one, I think also you really gotta watch, you mentioned is the whole insurance thing. So
you rent, you say, "Oh, okay, go out, you can have the building, I'll charge you 25 bucks." Yeah, come over. what happens if something they get hurt? What happens if just on their way in and they slip on ice? So there's the whole insurance factor. So very different kind of what I'm dealing with at my house as just my building in my use versus IncrediPAWS where you have
all the liability, you're covered by insurance, students sign waivers whether they're coming in for a class or a seminar or a rental. Different things like creating room and creating space and like a lobby, I don't have that at my place. When you walk in, like you open the door, you're walking right in on the turf, and there's a jump 10 feet from you where at IncrediPAWS, there's a
little bit more of like a matted area where there's crating and there's more of a lobby. And then scheduling, I'll say scheduling a little bit. people have asked me, "Well, are you gonna rent your barn?" Right now I'm not doing anything with rentals because the whole part is like, if I'm sitting here and I go, you know what, "I wanna go train, I wanna be able to walk
out and train whenever and wherever." I don't wanna have., "Okay, there's a rental at 3:30, there's a rental at 5:00, there's gonna be another one at 9:00 AM. Oh, I can't go out and train it those times." And I get wrapped right back into the same dilemma I had. So kind of the scheduling and you lose some of the flexibility when you start offering other things. But as
you said, it is a nice way to do a little bit of recouping of your money as well and helping out just a little bit. Several factors going into account. Also equipment, you maybe have to have a little bit better quality or different quality of equipment when you're having somebody else put their dogs over it, versus what I'm willing to do with my dogs. You gotta pay attention
to things like that as well. I might be okay putting my puppy on through a tunnel with only three sandbags, but if I lease it out in a border Collie bus through and moves the tunnel and it hits the wall or tears up my tunnel more because it's not secure, things like that. There's a lot, a little things that you can start listing out and thinking about. -
And then I guess parking too. - Yes, yeah, yeah. I'm at my house, so there's, there's no parking. There's just pull up in the driveway and you're right there. - Last question that I have and I know that this is really important to me and it's really important to you, and it has varying degrees of importance to other people, but that is your ability to videotape in this
space and like get angles, can you get the whole field and... What changes do you have to make to the space, or what goes into making a space tapable? - That is still a work in progress. That is where I need my tech team AKA you to come on out to Ohio and set me up because one of the big things is, I wanted to be able to
easily play music out at the barn, because when I train, I'm just one of those people, music makes me happy, I wanna have music on, I don't wanna be in a silent building. And I went and plugged out my Alexa and I went, "Alexa, play music." and she went, "I do not have service out here." - Oh no. - (indistinct) Just too far. So I spent a couple
of weeks getting internet out there. So I now have internet out there, and I'm working on the camera situation. So right now I just have a really tall tripod, and I just kind of move it around to film what I need. Those of you, VIPeers, you'll see the February small space is the first small space that is filmed in the new arena. So, super excited about that. But
that was nothing fancy, just a taller tripod, but I really wanna try to get something a little bit higher up. You see these facilities that have more of like a mezzanine? I think one that I visually see a lot is Shape Up the Shape Up of girls, Jessica and Justine doing videos or students that are training at their facility and they have like a little second level mezzanine
where you can go up and film. And I think it makes the angles look so nice. A really good view of almost kind of, not an aerial view like a drone, but a little bit higher up. And I really liked that look, and that's what I want, but I don't have that second level. So I'm trying to figure out if there's a way for me to Mount a
camera in the corner, but then be able to grab down the content on the device, or do I just put a ladder on the corner and I crawl up the ladder and I crawl down? So I'm still working that out. I've talked to one facility who does their live stream. They have a camera mounted up tall and they just, it's where the live stream is running and they
kinda have another device controlling it or something. I'm still trying to figure that out. So that's still a work in progress. Right now I'm doing nothing fancy, but my goal is to be able to get a higher view 'cause I have decently tall ceilings, a higher view to kind of aim down on what I'm doing and what I'm working on. That one I'll have to follow back up
on. - Excellent, we will let people know once we figure it out. I will say that as soon as Jennifer told me she was building this facility, I was already planning on big Bad Dog Agility weekend get together once things have settled down with COVID, we've all gotten our vaccine. When we do that, I will come figure out all of your technology and we'll post an update of
what we did. Thank you so much Jennifer for talking us through that. I know that's something I'm interested in. It's definitely on my big dream list also to have some sort of climate controlled, full field type thing. And I'm excited that you get to share that with all of us in all of our listeners. - Yes, it's a long time coming and it's a big dream of mine.
It's gonna make for a great future, building success, literally building success, hopefully here's to a good start in 2021 of getting my dogs on a little bit more equipment than they did last year. - All right, that's it for this week's podcast, we'd like to thank our sponsor hititboard.com, happy training. (bright upbeat piano music)
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