The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 743: Stuffing Your Pet

Episode Date: August 4, 2025

Steven Rinella talks with Rey Macias and Ace Alexander of Bischoff's The Animal Kingdom, Randall Williams, Seth Morris, Phil Taylor, and Corinne Schneider.  Topics Discussed: How much folks love their pets; buying a taxidermy business when you've never done taxidermy before; more on stolen valor and taxidermy; the films and shows that Rey and Ace have contributed to; the Frenchie and its heart; playing counselor; freeze drying and aquamation; and more.  Connect with Steve and The MeatEater Podcast Network Steve on Instagram and Twitter MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YoutubeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. You Canadians, the great features that you love in ONX are available for your hunts this season. Now the hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24k topo maps, waypoints and tracking. You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service as a special offer You can get a free three months to try out on X if you visit on x maps.com meat This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless.

We hunt the Meat Eater Podcast. You can't predict anything. Brought to you by First Light. When I'm hunting, I need gear that won't quit. First Light builds. No compromised gear that keeps me in the field longer. No shortcuts, just gear that won't quit. First Light builds. No compromised gear that keeps me in the field longer. No shortcuts, just gear that works. Check it out at firstlight.com. That's F-I-R-S-T-L-I-T-E.com. A lot of talk these days about the death of late night television.

Oh yeah. You probably don't know where I'm going with this. I don't know where you're going with it, but I've been paying attention to the talk. Yeah. Someone even said it's a, it's a, uh, by the Colbert losing his show as a, it's bad for the, it's against the constitution. You aware of this?

I was not aware of that. I read it today, Hmm. But I'm going somewhere with this real quick, but I mean the dude makes, you know, he makes 20 million a year, 20 million dollars a year, and the show loses 40 million dollars a year. The reason I bring this up is, you know, in those kind of shows they always go, great show for you tonight ladies and gentlemen. Are you gonna start doing that? No, because they're not gonna be able to do it for long. Someone's got to carry on that.

Someone's got to say it. Ground tradition. Great show for you today, ladies and gentlemen. Good thing we record in the morning. That's why I said today. We should just try to have this air late night, and you can be the new late night schtick thing. Or we do like a deal

where we do some analytics and find out when people mostly listen to the show and just cater to that group. Yeah. Like 10 a.m. We do a traffic report. Yeah. Well, no, because I want to steal the late night groove.

Wait till we get a band in here. Yes. I mean. One of those late night shows had their budget cut. They had to get rid of their band. We can fit a band in here, right? We've got some very talented individuals. I've seen Phil on all kinds of instruments for the kids' podcast.

Yeah, we basically have our own band. Like tambourine, flute. We have our own band here. Who plays the drums in here? You could bang on drums now. And then I got to get a suit and tie, because those guys, for some weird ass reason, wear suits and ties. I'll never understand. Nighttime guys, nighttime show guys wear a suit and tie. Sports guys wear suit and ties, which seems, why are you not dressed like

you're doing sports? What's that? We could have First Light make you a special suit for the show. Great show for you this morning, ladies and gentlemen. We have on, this is great. This is like, this is mega producing on Corinne's part to bring this whole thing together. We have on the co-owners of, pardon me, Bischoff's? Yes. Bischoff's, yeah, you got it. The co-owners of Bischoff's, the Animal Kingdom, a taxidermy shop in Hollywood, California, A taxidermy shop in Hollywood, California, Ace and Ray. Okay. The shop here, I'm, I'm, this is Corinne's intro.

It's great. The shop is 300 years old this year. 103. What did I say? Dude, that's some dyslexia. Yeah, I'll tell you. By that number, I've been married 71 years. It goes back to Spanish California.

I've been married 71 years and yeah, and I'm 15 years old. The shop is 103 years old this year. It's known for creating prop animals for movies and films, but more recently they become famous as the go-to spot for pet owners who want to preserve. Dogs, cats, birds, you name it. The pet guys. Now the reason, one of the reasons you boys are here, Ace and Ray is because our, we have a sort of, um, this is a little bit of a problem here.

Cause we have a like official taxidermist, John Hayes from Hayes taxidermy studio. Don't you for a minute, think you're here to steal John Hayes' thunder. But Corinne put it to John Hayes, do you do pets? To which John Hayes said, no. Right. Right. Right. Right.

Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right.. Right. You didn't think you're here to steal John Hayes' thunder. But Corinne put it to John Hayes, do you do pets? To which John Hayes said, no. Right. I'm not going to get into why, but he doesn't do pets. And so therefore we had to bring you fellers in to fill our pet niche, but also just a

totally different world. But I just don't want you to start thinking that you're like all John Hayes now. Yeah, but like, if you want. He's gonna get a hat that says, he's gonna get a Hayes taxidermy hat, so it's better than. I mean, you did bring a hideout, so. No, no, that's nothing to do with John Hayes.

Okay, listen, I don't want to confuse. I'm messing with you. Yeah, we're gonna show them a bunch of Hayes taxidermy work and say like, how could you improve upon this? So from, we caught windy, we caught wind of, we caught windy, you guys, because you were recently, there was a recent article in the LA Times, which, which caught our fancy. Here's a passage from the article. Ace Alexander, raise your hand. For those of you listening, the guy in the middle.

I like how they point out in the article, who is 40 years old? Are you still 40? I'm still 40. Okay. Yeah. And Ray Masias. Am I saying that right? Masias. Masias. Who is 55? Can't screw that one up. Still 55? Still 55. Okay, good. That shows how fresh this article is.

The fourth owners in Bischoff's long history have steered the company to meet the new demand, meaning pet stuffing. Well, not stuff. We'll cover details. Describing each other's good friends, the two men dressed similarly. This is such like weird things. I wouldn't cover the two men dressed similarly. Okay. They like to wear black t-shirts and black pants, which one of you is not doing. That checks out though.

Well, they're wearing black tops. Let me see your pants. They're like gray. Somewhat. What color see your pants. They're like, grayish. Somewhat. What color are your pants? Grayish, dark wash jeans. Why do they care about that? I have no idea.

If someone featured this place, they'd say the same thing. It's a lot of guys between the ages of 25 and 45, wearing olive and tan colored clothing. It reads like a GQ feature. Yeah, it is. like the first sentence is George Clooney takes a bite of his flan. Well you know who they usually do that too in the media and I guess it pisses women off but like even women politicians they're always as commentary about what they're wearing. Always like what are they wearing?

What are they wearing? So superficial. But this being the LA Times, I guess it's important for them to point out that you guys wear, you like to wear black clothes. Cause that way the blood doesn't show. Probably in shop clothes. It says you guys are so in sync and we're going to have 90 minutes to find out if this is true.

The article says you're so in sync, you sometimes finish each other's thoughts. Damn. I didn't realize that. You start a thought. What are you thinking right now? You say right now, I'm say right now I'm thinking right now. I think it's a okay. And then tell him what he's thinking. That is pretty wild to be here. Is that what you're thinking? Yeah. Checks out. Now, since taking over the business, both have transitioned to primarily vegan diets. Is it like the ice cream person that doesn't need ice cream anymore?

No, no. No. See for me, I just like eating, I eat meat. I just eat clean meat. You know what I mean? So it just means I like my greens and I like my meats. I don't, you know what I mean? It's not, you know, you sound like a meat vegetable type. I eat healthy. You know what I mean? Like to my standards of what everybody has around idea of what healthy is, depending on what you read. Okay. We're just checking out the LA Times here. Yeah, was that inaccurate reporting? Because it said primarily vegan.

Primarily vegan, you mean if you eat mostly vegetables. Yeah, he leans more towards the vegan diet for sure. You do? Once in a while, like weekends, I eat whatever I want. But during the week, I kind of keep it, try to keep it as clean as possible for my own, you know, for my own. I'm not here to tell you what to eat. No, no, of course not. We're just fact checking. Bischoff's used to be the taxidermist to the stars in the trophy area, but now we're taxidermist in the pet preservation area. Then you got a quote that I don't agree with. But it's

probably true for your clientele. He says, people no longer hunt, now they just love their pets, which I would mostly agree with. So we asked them to come on and talk about their unique, the history of Bischofs and their unique niche. And assuming you guys are still in the movie business. Yeah, we are. Okay, cool. So we're gonna talk about all that. Like an aspect of taxidermy that your,

that our listeners are probably unaware of. But first in the news, Seth's wife. In the news. No. Okay, let me find what we're to talk about with Seth's wife. Everyone knows Seth's wife, should know Seth's wife is a- Kelsey Morris. I was going to say, does she have a name?

Her name is Kelsey Morris, if you need to know. Where's my picture? So we're right now, Randall and I are recording our third volume of Meat Eaters American History. We did the Long Hunters, 1763 to 1775, and that was about Daniel Boone and the Deer Skin Trade. Then we did the Mountain Men, 1806 to 1840, which is about folks like Jim Bridger and the Beaver Skin Trade, and now we're recording the Hide Hunters, which is about the Buffalo Skin Trade, and that goes from 1865, the close of the Civil War, to 1883, which was the last big kill.

Kelsey Morris, the artist, has done all of our covers. She did a skull. She did it, we had, for the Longhunters, she'd be in here somewhere. The original? What the hell happened to it? Oh, it's in the kitchen. For the Longhunters, she did us a white tail deer skull with a bullet hole punched in his head.

For the mountain men, she did us a rocky mountain beaver trapper, a mountain man. Where's the thing we had a minute ago that I was showing you? In your email? Is it? It's an email from Hunter. Oh, that's the problem.

He sent it to me. I can't find it. Huh. Must have deleted it or something. Oh no. Got it. Got it. Got it. Got it. Got it. Where was I? For the listeners at home there's now an image on Steve's computer. Well I'm gonna show it to the camera if you give me a second. No, no, but this, I'm just, I'm doing the thing for the people that are driving right now. Oh, oh, that's good. Yeah. For the mountain men, she did a Rocky Mountain Beaver Trapper, mountain men. For the hide hunters, we did the thing that was most logical to us because we want all the, when they're, when it's all said and done, it'll look like a collection. It looked like a collection. You'll,

you'll go on to eat apple books or whatever the hell and you'll be like, oh, this is like a thing. Like these all go together and they're, they track through time. Well, we had her do a buffalo skull with bullet hole, bullet hole punched in his head, but that's not where the hide hunter shot them. It's a great point. So it's a factual problem. They didn't shoot him there. And we, we describe in great detail shot, hide hunter shot placement, which includes

some horrifying shot placement. Deliberate, deliberately horrified. What's the, what's an example? I'll give you an example. For the most part, they shot for the lights, meaning the lungs. However, we explained in great detail what a stand was, like how they manage their shooting. The objective was that you get 40, 50 of them in a pile. You didn't want them scattered all over hell because it's hard for the skinners. Manage their shooting. The objective was that you get 40, 50 of them in a pile. You didn't want them scattered all over hell because it's hard for the skinners.

You'd want them in a pile. So they do a thing called a stand. When doing a stand, you had to be careful about the first one you hit. If you hit in the heart, it might run a hundred yards and that causes too much chaos. So they wanted to anchor them. No. Oh. It's just, it's terrible. It's like they wanted them to wobble around for a while. They wanted to, as they put it, make them sick.

They'd shoot the wound. They would call it making them sick. So the first one or two, they'd like to hit them right in front of the hips. Oh, gotcha. The only way we were teasing Reeva cause Reva has been engineering for us. And the first woman that may, it's a, it's a, it's a male heavy story. The story of the hide hunters tends to be, for whatever reason, tends to be a lot of guys running around in the hide hunters, but we're laughing with Reva.

Cause the first woman that we quote, the first woman that we quote in the hide hunters. But we're laughing with Reva because the first woman that we quote, the first woman that we quote in the whole project is saying, it was so fun to watch daddy and the guys shoot. They would shoot and make them sick. It's like the most disturbing line of text in the whole thing. And so we're like, Reva perked right up when a woman came in, but then was immediately disappointed. Yeah.

So, but they rejected our, they rejected the publisher, not rejected, like it's not a good word for it. They asked for alternatives. They didn't like the skull because it looked too much like the other skull. With the hole in it. Which is fair.

Yeah. Yeah. And then these kinds of things, you can pitch a fit, but you're burning, uh, what are you burning? Capital? Capital? Yeah. You're burning capital. Do you want to spend it on that or on something else that really? Yeah. Yeah. Or would you rather fight about if they come back and they're like, hey, how come there's only one woman and she's crazy? Right? Then you can, then you can write fight about that. But so we don't want to fight about the cover. So Seth, we, we, we're going to settle up on the original picture. Yeah. So it's not a hit to your family finances.

Good. That's what I like to hear. And now we're going to do this. Where do I aim it, Phil? I just directly in front of you. Can that camera zoom in though? It cannot, but if I don't know if you can slack this to me Randall I can put it on the screen on the TV. How about that? That's even worse. Maybe hold this over there. Maybe hold this over there. No it's gonna be

out of focus. These cameras are on manual focus so they if you hold it right up to the camera it's gonna be fuzzy. How about that? It's coming your way. I'll put it on on the TV and on the screen. That's one way to do it. Yeah. You're surrounded by a bunch of barbarians Phil, I'm sorry. Just make it work Phil. That's good news. It's good news for Seth. Yeah. It's kind of bad news for Kelsey because she was explaining to me that she's a little bit in vacation mode right now. She is but no. She can really be in vacation mode when she's actually on vacation. Till then, keep her busy. And we're working on that right now right here in this all damn day long. All week long. Here's a little tidbit that we, here's just one little

tidbit from. Look at that thing. Yeah. Here's one little tidbit from hide hunters. This is one of my favorite little tidbits. And it's just packed full of freakish stuff. There's a guy that there's a hide hunter. What was his name? Shoots a, shoots a Buffalo. Goes up to skin it or shoots it and it stands up and goes to attack them. No, no. Is it Kelly? Yeah, I think it is. Kelly. The Fort Benton guy. Shoots, shoots up by Fort Benton, Montana, shoots a Buffalo, realizes it's not dead, gets his pistol out to try to finish it off. It stands up and comes at him.

He's in such a hurry to get on his horse and get out of there that as he's jumping on his horse, accidentally shoots his horse in the neck. So now the wounded buffalo is chasing the wounded horse and they both die. And he walks away. Kelly walks away unscathed. Jeez. Yeah. There's a lot of-

70,000 words of this stuff. Rough day for a horse. And a buffalo. Yeah. There's a lot of 70,000 words of this stuff. Rough days for a horse. And a buffalo. Yeah. 70,000 words of this stuff. And it also explains a great detail, not just that, but sciency stuff. A lot of sciency stuff.

Like you never knew so much about mills, production, steam engines, industrial belting, history of guns, as you will, when you have this. Does this, do you cover a bunch of different States? Where does this mostly take place? The main action we get into occurs. I mean, it's all over because there's like, you know, one minute you're out in new England because of hemlocks and tanning, like how tanning worked, but the main action, Western Kansas,

North Texas, Eastern Montana, the real big like, I would have thought like the Dakotas. No, no, I mean, that's in there. Yeah, it's a real big shoot Oh good. I was gonna say it's like eastern Montana bleeding into the western part of the Dakotas and northern Wyoming but like the the heart of it is along the train tracks and I Mean because it all falls the railroad. Yeah. Yeah way to think about it, too Is that like we begin the story, the, the hide hunt, the big final hide hunt didn't kick in until the mid seventies, 1870s. So

at that point, the population was kind of reduced down to these real core pieces of habitat. Like the fringes, all the fringe was gone. Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah. It was just like, you had these sort of like main population kind of like down, like down the center of the great plains. Gotcha. Uh, by that point, people thought of it.

There was the Northern herd and the Southern herd because all the transcontinental railroads and the Oregon trail and stuff had kind of, by that point, cleared the middle out and pushed everything away. And so people would talk about it distinctly like. North of the Platte and South of the Platte. Yeah. They even in that era, there was the North herd and the South herd.

Gotcha. And it was kind of that main, those sort of like main population centers. And so the hide hunt occurs in two stages, like the Southern herd, whose, if you imagine like the core of the Southern herd would be the top of the Texas panhandle, the Oklahoma panhandle. And then up into Kansas from there, it was sort of like, that's where you could still go and see a million animals. Oh, really? Yeah. Like you could still go and see a million animals. Oh really?

Yeah. Like you could still go and lay eyes on a million animals in a group. Um, and Northern herd was smaller at that point. That's a good question. Probably. Yeah, I believe it was probably a little smaller, but you could still go to mile city, Montana and maybe not look at a million, but look at a lot. Yeah. Look at hundreds of thousands.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, in the early 1880s, they're killing hundreds of thousands. Yeah. Cool. Speaking of Buffalo, here's the thing we've been working on. I'm guessing Phil can't see this.

So our cookbooks, our Wild Game cookbooks, we always have jerky recipes in our wild game cookbooks. We're coming out with, uh, Buffalo jerky, bison jerky, whatever the hell you want to call it, we call it, uh, American Buffalo. But then just to, this is the first thing we talk about in our hide hunter series. The first thing we talk about is why the words bison and why the words Buffalo and which one is right. I'm a Buffalo man myself.

Randall tends toward bison, but I've bullied them into being a Buffalo. Yeah. I buffaloed him. It's better for storytelling. I buffaloed him into being a Buffalo man. Uh, there's a whole long story here. 90, like, there's the, the fashionable number at one time, we had 32 million, 40 million Buffalo in our country.

Now we got half million of those 94% are privately owned. We don't get into this in our story really, but there's a part of this, like private producers, private ranchers save the animal from extinction. Um, and today they're the ones that keep it like ecologically viable, genetically viable and present on the landscape. Like when you're driving down the road and you see a Buffalo nine out of 10, it's cause a guy owns it. It's livestock.

Yeah. Yeah. Which is like, I'd rather have, I'd rather have tons of wild ones. Politically, I believe in maneuvering for more wild ones on the landscape. Like we need to recover the species, but right now, its strength comes from its popularity as a game meat,

or as a wild meat, farm raised wild meat, a farm raised wild meat. Um, so we're doing these jerky packs where we take the recipes from our cookbooks and cook them into American Buffalo jerky. Hmm. A lot of Buffalo stuff going on right now around here. You guys ever stuff a Buffalo? Yeah. Really?

When's that available? Oh, we're teasing it. Oh sorry. So like we're a week early. August 11, 2025. I'll be fighting a big old halibut that day. August 11, 2025 is the launch date. We're just launching in classic pepper, more flavors to come. Stay tuned. At a new site, meateatersnacks.com. Meateatersnacks.com. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. You might not be able to join our raffles and sweepstakes and all that because of raffle and sweepstakes law, but hear this.

On Axe Hunt is now in Canada. It is now at your fingertips, you Canadians. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. Now the Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24k topo maps, waypoints and tracking. You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service as a special offer. You can get a free three months to try out OnX if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. on xmaps.com slash meet. Now, is this, is the next thing, are we just into the show now? Yes. We can skip the stolen valor stuff if you want, but I thought it was funny.

We're talking about, see, because you guys, you guys occupy like a unique niche in taxidermy, but we were talking about a guy saying like, like at what point is taxidermy stolen valor? Meaning like, if you, if you hunt deer and you have a hunting cabin and you go buy a giant buck, a giant stuffed buck and put it in the taxidermy in your cabin to a way that people visiting your cabin might logically be like, he got that buck.

Yeah. But you didn't, you bought it. Is that stolen valor? And so we're trying to weigh out like how this whole thing works, but you guys, what you don't need to weigh in on that. Cause I don't want you to alienate your clientele. No, no, no, no. I mean, it feels, it just depends if they actually hunt and then they go purchase something huge from us,

then it seems a little bit like stolen that. But if they're just like stylists or house decorators for people who just, you know, they're not in the hunting world, then it might not be stole that. That's where we landed. That's where I landed. I landed as like, are you using it

in the way that could be deceptive? Yeah. Yeah, that's one thing, yeah. Or is it, I mean, I think like if it's someone you know, if it's like a friend's animal or something, like you have a sentimental connection to it. Like it has meaning to you. I just took possession of all my dad's tax money.

Well, four pieces. Yeah, I've got a buddy's fish in my garage. That's Stolen Valor. It's your buddy. Who cares? It's not your dad. Is that like an old- Now everybody's going to think Randall caught that fish.

Oh, your buddy passed away. I'm sorry. My condolences. What kind of fish is it? Huge? It's a big, it's a giant snook. And it was his dad's actually. Is there, okay, if I walked in-

Oh, so it's not like a replica. No, no, no, no, no. If I walked into your garage and you weren't home, what'd I think? Holy shit, Randall caught a big, what was it? Snook. Yeah, that's stolen Valor. Do you have a plaque that says I didn't catch this?

If I'm not home though, if you're in my garage when I'm not home. Yeah, but that's stolen Valor. I would be like, oh shit, I didn't know Randall's a snook fisherman Yeah, I guess I guess in the absence of any context You could jump to that conclusion, but most people walk in they say all that that's a like where'd you get that? That's a big snook, and I'll go it was my buddies Does it look old like it's it's, it's a, um, it's not

particularly, it's the original one, not a replica. Right. I think like if there's been multiple times where you have given stuff away after a trip, like I always regret it. Like you're, you're bare from the spring you gave, I think you gave the chili.

That's right. Skull. Yeah. I gave my, I gave my shoulder mount to chili. And chili is going to boil that up and put it on a shelf and be Like that's from the hunt. I was on with Steve. Steve got that better or else it's stolen balance Yeah, I think that is just like he he's gonna display that as that bear was so small if he stole an embarrassment

Wasn't gonna bring it up claim that he can go ahead Well, the funny thing about that snook too is when I walked into my buddy's office one time and I was like Holy shit, that's a big snook. Where'd you get that? He goes oh, he spread this out because my dad caught it and then I got it when he died And now I have that fish and I do the same thing. No no other way. Oh Here's a taxidermy question, yeah in. Oh, here's a taxidermy question. Yeah. So this this I got this bear over well over 20 years ago. Did you shoot all them holes in there? To this pair? No, I shot it one time. It was actually like that. Maybe that's no, no, no, no. This has been this has been

employed as a half dozen Halloween costumes. I mean, this thing's been through hell. Is this, here's the thing I worry about. There's nothing you can do to save this now, right? Or how would you save it? For the audio listeners, what are we doing here? Oh, sorry. Sorry Phil, I was like, that's okay. Up until this point. I have what looks like a polar bear,

but it's a black bear. And it's sun bleached. I keep it out. We have like an outdoor patio that's sun bleached. I keep it out. We have like an outdoor patio that's kind of covered and I keep it over the couch. And so over the years, it bleached to like a polar bear. It's my favorite thing. Not my favorite thing, one of my favorite specimens.

I feel like it's gotten wiry. It needs a good shampooing. So I was saying. It's not soft. good shampooing. So I was saying, it's not soft. Among other things. Yes. I want to give it a good shampooing, but I'm afraid if it gets wet, it's just going to fall apart.

It's going to get stiff and fall apart on you. You agree? Yeah. 100%. Yeah. What could I do? What could I, is there anything I could do? You could oil it. I did feel it.

Yeah. Maybe a little longer. could do? You could oil it. I did. What oil would you put on there in your professional opinion? You know even McKinsey oils is you know there's plenty of taxidermy companies that have oils. Just a leather oil, baseball glove oil, you know any kind of oil to just kind of seep into there a little bit, brush it on and then honestly I'd lay a mesh and then lay text it, just because you see these tears over time. You wear that thing, you pull it together. You need something to hold it together. Otherwise it's gonna end up breaking on you eventually.

So if I shampoo it, I'm screwed. Oh yeah, it's gonna be stiff as a rock. I mean, it's, yeah, you can't, because you're rehydrating it. So unless you're gonna mount it, it's gonna, you know what I mean, it's, yeah, you can't, because you're rehydrating it. So unless you're going to mount it, no, it's, it's going to, you know what I mean? It's not going to work. But I, out of sentimental value,

I could latex it. Well, you'd have to, you'd have to lay like a little layer of mesh over it with adhesive, like flexible adhesive. Got it. Cause that'll create a bond pretty much. It'll be like a skin on the skin,

just kind of holding it. So if you're going to tear this, that holds it together. And then you can like, latex over that or back it with something else, whether it's felt. Like a drywall patch. Yeah. Like a drywall patch.

Except it's gotta be flexible. Except flexible. Yeah. Do people ever bring you stuff like this in your shop? All the time. Do you turn them away usually if it's like? Most of the time we really, it's not cause we don't want to,

it's cause we're so busy with other things that you know we don't really have the time and then our guy like he mentioned he passed and... Or your rug guy. Yeah so it's like unfortunately we haven't found anyone yet you know so we we mostly turn them away. So if I came in and I was like, please, you turn me away. Well, it depends how much capital you have. It takes some, but then it just, it pulls us away from bigger, more important projects sometimes. More important. More important than throwing. Or better paying for whatever you own.

This looks like a passion project. Yeah. It doesn't look like a, I wasn't planning on getting this out, but when you guys came in, we got to talking about just obviously you texted her. I mean, it brought to mind my main problem in life right now, but I'm going to pursue, you might think it's crazy. Cause it's probably like a lot of money for what I'm sitting here with but I'm gonna pursue This mesh adhesive solution. Definitely. Yeah, what am I looking at? How much how much money am I looking at to fix that up? I

Mean it's not it's just time. Honestly, I mean for us Four fifty. Oh, oh, it's worth to me. It's worth to me. Yeah, it's my first bear like that Yeah, I mean, it's a first bear first bear. Oh, that's worth to me. It's worth to me. It's my first bear. I mean, it's your first bear. Wow. Yeah. How old? You wouldn't have guessed it from looking at it. It was a huge bear. You couldn't roll that sucker over. You should have seen this thing when it started. So did you guys go to taxidermy school? How'd you, how'd you, you know, how do you get in? Just, uh, the old timers at Bischoff's. Yeah. So you started out working there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So it was, uh, old man, Larry, it was like my mentor and he was part of the, some of the original Bischoff's he was there maybe the forties,

fifties and he's passed on, but, uh, yeah, I just came in and I was doing just music before that. And I, a friend of mine was like, Hey, Gary's going out of town, blah, blah, blah. Can you watch the shop? And then I met Larry and he was mounting a crow in the back and he's like, Hey, come here. Yeah. I'm going to show you how to mount a crow. And I was like, this is kind of interesting.

You know what I mean? And it just kind of went from there. But you were working there though. I was, yeah, I'd been working there for like, yeah, yeah, four or five months. And then Larry came in and then it just, it's just, you know, I started picking things up while working there. It all started coming together. Uh, Ray, what about you?

Well, uh, a little bit later on, he mentioned that Gary wanted to retire and they wanted to sell out. So we just jokingly said, well, let's jump in, let's buy it, you know? Because he knew the numbers, he was running the shop. So, the numbers. But how long had you been there at that point? Well, I had just been there once or twice to visit him. Oh, so you guys were buddies. Yeah.

How were you guys buddies? Well, we met through music. Like what kind of music? Just rock music. Like you guys liked to play? Yeah. Yeah, we had different projects. And then he had some songs.

And then I was going to do some vocals on the songs. And then just through the years, became friends and I think for whatever reason we were driving by the shop one day and I was just like dude you gotta check out the shop yeah and then he checked it out he's like oh like wow this is impressive it's like a natural history museum that you can be up close with. But you didn't know anything about taxidermy. I mean I knew about it but I really you know never crossed my mind like to, you know, get into it. Oh my God, you know, like I want to learn or anything like that.

I just thought it was so cool like to see the specimen, you know, all these pieces out there and beautiful and it's like he said, like stepping into a museum. So it was, you know, just so impressive. But I never really thought about how is it done, you know, why is impressive, but, uh, I never really thought about how is it done, you know, why is it done or, or, uh, to really go deep into it until he mentioned that, uh, you know, they wanted to retire and, uh, he said the numbers look good. So,

so he says to you, you're aware of taxidermy is a thing and you like looking at it. And then. Ace says, do you want to buy a taxidermy to which you're like, yeah, let's jump on it. You know, it's the classic, it's the classic rock music to tax. Jeremy pipe. So, you know, we just jumped in and we got into it and, uh, just roll with the punches, you know, so one time we were about to close the deal, right? And he said, Hey, uh, I'm staying late. Uh, cause you know know I wasn't really there yet huh yeah you were he said I'm staying late I'm skinning a coyote and I

said hold on I'll go over there and let me do it so I just show up in the evening and started skinning a coyote you know he was showing me around. So that's kind of my first try at actually doing, you know, how many people, how many, like, what, what, what is this like bishops at the time? What was the scale of the business? I mean, employee wise, just whatever you're cranking out, what kind of work and I mean, it's hard to say cause it just depends on the size of the project. So sometimes it'll be like a big movie project and they want like an animatronic cow

that's laying outside with a lot of servos and stuff going on. So that- A lot of what? Servos and just electronics. Like the motors. Mechanical, yeah. So it'll be like a, you know, RV, whatever,

those little motors. And then, so that project takes a lot more time. You know what I mean? So it just depends. And we're doing a lot of things at the same time. So you'll see a mount being done, a pet being finished. You'll see a- Like a hunting mount being done. Yeah. A pet being finished. A fake life-size bear that's 10 foot, you know, being fabricated for something where they don't want to use real fur for whatever reason. You know, so like we have a bunch of different projects going on at the same

time in a studio studio. Yeah, exactly. But how many people are working there? Depends on projects normally. I'll see you bring them in, bring them in depending on what's going on. Yeah. So on average, like six, six is kind of like the earth straight forward number, but then we bring in subcontractors on electronics.

There's phenomenal sculptors, Jesse, we got a lot of people who are just great. Mold makers and things. It depends on how big the project and how our timeframe. So sometimes, you know, the studios, the movies are always like, can you do, you know, can you have it by Friday? And it's like, yeah, sure.

That's like what I call a sess wife bar. Yeah. Did you guys have like, uh, other than music, did you, did you work in like a, another, I mean, did you, were you an art, like a physical, did you sculptor or painting or drawing, or did you have a mechanical background? I have a mechanical back. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So I used to, uh, I used to have a smoke check station in California. We do, uh, you know, emission inspections for vehicles.

So they don't pollute. So I had a license. Uh, I was a technician, you know, uh, so. So you were handy. I was handy and I did, I did go to school for the electronics and you know, like low voltage stuff. So that kind of came in handy when it came down to servos and mechanical stuff and electronic stuff. So on the average day you guys could be mounting a buck from some Joe Blow that brought a bucket and that killed one hunting.

Right. To like making stuff for movies. Yeah. Sometimes he's working on that or taxidermy piece and I'll be working on a structure for a dead dog or something that they're going to need. You know, like, so, and then we do, he does the final details. I'll get him ready for, you know, just for the final painting and brushing and details. So we kind of like switch over it like. Mm hmm.

Yeah. So we got to see him. I mean, like he could weld, he does all the other stuff. You know, a lot of the, that kind of stuff I do more of the, I do like the finish work, the air brushing, all that kind of stuff. But, um, God, I want to get a job down there, man.

At least an internship for a while. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, it's, it's challenging because every time, you know, you gotta, we start from scratch and we gotta figure out, you know, every time it's a little different because they always want some different, you know, it's, it's rare when we do like the same thing, you know, like the same, uh, kind of prop. So they always want something special about it. Yeah. Let's back up to music for one sec. So the blizzard of Oz just died. You guys, you guys like, so if I just give me thumbs up, thumbs down. Warpigs. Yeah. Good.

thumbs down. Warpigs. Yeah. Good. Crazy Train. Yeah. Really good. That's all. Let the record show that to both of those questions, they responded to the affirmative with a thumbs up. Warpigs was like a tentative. It was like they thought about it, but Crazy Train was like a... Yes. That was a no brainer. Warpigs is for fun.

Okay. Let me hit you with this one. Him doing all them stupid reality shows. Oh, I don't know about that. They didn't thumb it. Felt like a thumb down to me. Yeah. I'll go between. I don't want to speak ill of the dead. Someone entertaining, but.

Osborne's is very entertaining. Yeah, for sure. I never watched it. I could tell you a long 15 minute story about a crazy train that involves me and Craig Kemp from high school, but I'm watched it. Uh, I could tell you a long 15 minute story about a crazy train that involves me and Craig Kemp from high school, but I'm not gonna. Um, some other time. It'll be like a dendem.

That leaves us wanting more. It'll be like an appendix. Can we do, we should start doing appendixes on the show. Post-credit scenes? Yeah, like an appendix. Like after the show, you do the parts and you could fit in it. Footnotes. Yeah. Uh, how does the, how does the show, you do the parts and you could fit in it. Footnotes.

How does the movie, trust me, I'm going to get to like just the emotional aspects of the pet trade, but, or the pet business, but like, how does movie business come to you? Do you know what I mean? Like, who, who comes to you? Is it an agent? Is it a director? Like, like how do they explain their vision? I mean, it's, they just, everybody reaches out,

whether it's prop master, whether it's, you know, anybody in the production will reach out. I mean, at this point, I think it's established enough. I mean, even long before we were there, Gary and Mary were there, the previous owners, that they just give us a call. Literally, it's just, we pick up the phone, Bischoff's, and they'll be like, hey, we're working on the show,

we need a fake pig, someone's gotta stab it, there's gotta be blood coming out the other side, we gotta drag it, make it flexible, make it heavy, the actor does, you know what I mean? And then they'll be like, but we need it in two weeks. Yeah. All right, great. And then you gotta figure it out. And then we tell them, yeah, we need at least two weeks. And then you got to, you know, you got to figure it out.

And then we tell them, yeah, we need at least two weeks. And then they're still working on it. And then when five days go by and they give us a green light. So for the same deadline, they go back and forth and figuring things out. Yeah. Are you able to name, like, um, can you name some films that people might've seen some of your stuff in? Yeah, for sure. We did Westworld. We worked on Landman, Yellowstone, a lot of Yellowstone stuff. Um, the night, all the 1923, a lot of the television stuff we definitely worked on. Um, I was just in, what were those snakes for? I forgot. I was just, I mean, the thing is by the time the show's come out, I don't even know what it was for. Yeah.

You know what I mean? Sometimes we don't even know the show, we just have the production company name and we don't know what the show is. So you never like follow along. No. It's out of your life. It's figured itself out.

Are you ever watching a show and you're like, oh no shit. Oh yeah, that's what we find out. We'll be watching some Netflix and oh shit, that's, you know, that's us. Now, some blood comes out of that pig going left to right. That's it. So do you often, because of the rules in filmmaking,

and I know it's not a hard and fast rule, but there's like, there are ways, you know, when you started seeing Once Upon a Time, you started seeing like no animals were harmed in the making of the movie. Does that, like, how does that fit into your work? Meaning if you have an old specimen that was already dead for another reason,

are you able to use it or does everything have to be synthetic? No, no, so yeah, it's just pretty much you didn't kill it for the purpose of the film. Yeah, that makes sense. So if we had an old hide, for example, like even we've had donated highs from like the World Conservation Center, for example, when they naturally pass, they'll, you know, they'll like you guys can process it because otherwise we're just going to do a commute preparation. Yeah.

So we'll save the hide and we can use that hide. And it's not, you know, we didn't kill it for the purpose of the film. We just had the hide. Yeah, like that hide and it's not, you know, we didn't kill it for the purpose of the film We just had the hide. Yeah, like in a movie when they're eating a steak, right? Exactly. They didn't go out So you guys don't like go get the go get the rifles and go figure out what's gonna happen. Hit me with the hit me with the pig one. Okay, so they want there's a pig. Yeah, they need a pig. They want to pick. Oh, I was just watching the other is a it was a Corsican movie. Can't remember the name of it. Anyways, in it. They got a pig hanging there. Okay. It's about course. Oh, I saw that. Is it like a gangster? Okay, it's about Corsicans. Oh, I saw that.

Is it like a gangster? Like it's like the father's. What's the name of the movie? The father is involved in like local mafia and then it's like his daughter. The Corsican mob. I forget the name of that film. Either way, in it, they got a pig.

They show up, there's a pig in a truck, pretty soon the pig's hanging there. So you get a call about a pig. Or let me just, let me give you a fake example. Because you already brought up the pig, let me bring up one. I say, I'm doing a movie, a guy, the protagonist hits a deer at night with his car.

It's a key part of the movie that he hits a deer at night. So we need a deer, he needs to hit it. It needs to be that there it is on the road. Um, there's going to be quite a bit of focus on the deer because of the plot. How would you, where do you start? Like, how would you think about that problem? Well, I mean, that's probably an easier one because there's a lot of deer hides we have. Yeah.

I mean, yeah, I mean, just truthfully, I mean, it's not something super exotic that you're looking for. Okay. You know, and then we just see the hide, see what they want, if they needed to move or be flexible. So we'll probably start with two of them for the purpose of, you know, you're going to shoot it, you get a frame when he's going to get hit by the car while he'll be standing, right? That's what I was going to ask, like in a scene like that, where there's like a standing deer, a deer like flying through the air,

and then like a dead deer on multiple deer. Yeah, there's multiple deer. I see. If you're going to get out of the car and then drag it somewhere, and obviously it has to be flappy, kind of freshly dead, killed, you know, whatever. So you need a flappy one.

So you would need a couple of them. At least two of them. And when you have a floppy- And you're making it look, like obviously, you gotta make it look banged up. Yeah. Oh, for sure. Yeah, definitely. You gotta do the blood, the guts, the whole,

we do like silicone. So we'll make molds, we'll sculpt pieces and then lay silicone, paint that up. Then you can put blood over that. And then it just looks gruesome when you go up to it. Yeah. When it's floppy, what are you stuffing it with? Well, so we- Or is that a trade secret?

It's kind of a secret, but we try to keep it, you know, the structure of or the anatomy as close as possible. So that's kind of, we learned that, you know, through a lot of learned that, uh, you know, through a lot of, uh, the ones that weren't so good at the beginning. So we learned that we, we need to have the, the anatomy kind of, you know, certain parts need to be, uh, like really more firm and less. Structural firm than, than, uh, yeah. So it's kind of the hips and the shoulders.

Yeah. And the head obviously. Huh? It's like a new kind of, a new kind of mount. I know John Hayes does like soft coyotes and we have a soft bobcat, but. He always wants them to look alive. Right. He doesn't want them to look.

Yeah. Right. But I'm just wondering like, you know, who knows, maybe you want a different kind of, you want a floppy, floppy, I don't know, rone at home that you just got in Tanzania, maybe. Sure. Yeah. Oh, by the way, I know a guy. I know a guy that has a full sable and a full rone hide.

Okay. So if you get a movie call. Oh, definitely. If you get a movie call, come talk to me. And he might be willing to trade them for a mesh backer in a bit. Okay. Okay. I mean like professionally done, fleshed and salted.

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slash meet. So let's say we do this deer that we're going to do this deer thing. As I described, I don't know. I don't want to pry, but I'm like, Hey, what, uh, what should I budget for this? Now don't, don't just like, like, are we talking? I don't want to pry. Please prime. Let's put it this way. Let's put this one. Talk about in the number of figures. No, yeah, let's put it this way. Yeah. Uh, I go and say,

Hey, I just killed a nice buck. I want a full body mount of my buck to display in my house. And I want it to look like the second before I shot it alive and well. Beautiful. Yeah. And then I come with the same deer and I say, Hey, I want to look like I just ran it over, but bad. Which of these projects is more expensive? As long as you bring it and you give us

a good amount of time, they would both be, you know, I mean, it'd be cheaper to get you a busted up looking thing. It is. Yeah. You got to make all the latex. But we already have all the molds and everything for it.

So we, you know what I mean? And we do it so often that it's just. You know, like re-sculpt. Yeah. And you're probably not doing a ton of detail work with something like that. Yeah. Throw dirt on it if you want it really messed up.

Then you build, when they read their invoice, there's a, there's a line item for dirt. Yeah. Yeah. So there's that business, which is very different. You had traditional taxidermy, which people can't understand that. Yeah. How in the world, like in Bischoff's history, how did the pet-

Oh, hold on. You can continue. Yeah, in company history, what was the moment that someone said, like we're laughing about creating an ass John Hayes. Do you do pets? John Hayes says no. What was the moment in Bischoff history?

What, okay, tell me the name of the animal. It's not called Bischoff's. It's, it's Bischoff's. Yeah. Bischoff's is the name of the company and the animal kingdom is just like the slogan that goes with it. At what point in Bischoff history was it, the answer is yes. Well, I think Roy Rogers trigger was done at our shop. Really? Yeah. So I mean, that was a pet.

And Roy Rogers horse. Yeah. So I mean, that was a pet. Roy Rogers' horse? Yeah. Everett mounted it. Yeah. At our shop. Oh, wow. Many years ago. Oh my God. Wow. That is incredible. And also Buck. On the way. Yeah. Buck as well. Yeah. I mean, if you walked up on that, I'd kick it. You'd have no. It's like, wake up. You would have let the record show that there's now a dog, a stuffed dog. Wow.

What kind of dog? Is that a pug? No, it's a Frenchie. There's a, there's a stuffed Frenchie on the table that is sleeping. And it looks very real. Yeah, it's got wrinkles and- You got a picture of me sitting here, Randall? Yeah.

Whose heart is this? That's a client's heart, actually. It's a freeze-dried heart. It's a dog's heart. That's that dog's heart. He wanted his dog's heart? Yeah. Yep.

Smile. After saying that. So how do you do that? Is it freeze-dried or something? his dog's heart. Yeah. Yeah. Smile. So how do you, how do you do that? Is it freeze dryers? Yeah. Freeze dry. So I had a question about that. A lot of questions. You can grind that up and eat it. Technically. Yeah. I mean, not with what we inject it with, but the strange part about the heart to me is like, if I took my dog to you and said I want my heart and obviously we can't you know these are your clients so we don't but like when they get it back to like oh I've never seen that before you know. I've never seen my heart. You ever think about that?

Yeah. You never get a good look at your own heart. Yeah. That's true. Well they've seen it done you know they've seen the samples, you get a good idea of how, what they're getting. So yeah, that is, I could see tracker. Oh yeah. Getting done like that. And it wouldn't be that different than the way it is now. Yeah. It just kind of lays there. I mean, yeah, I was going to say I spend, when I'm at home, I spend 95% of my time around sleeping dogs.

Yeah. And... You can spend 100% of your time around sleeping dogs. But like, I could never tell you that that wasn't a live dog. Dude, that is an amazing bit of work. That's freeze dried. Yeah, it's a hybrid.

It's a... Okay. Yeah, yeah, we do a little bit of everything. It's mixed. It's like a weird, yeah. So what? Wow. What is the freeze? Like, could you explain the freeze drying process? I mean, I think most people are familiar with like standard taxidermy. You're tanning the hide, you're putting it over a mold, then you're molding and painting and stuff like

that. But what is the freeze dry product? You start with a dead dog. Right. And what do you do? So we prep it. Obviously we got to do some skinning. In our case, all the organs and fatty tissue has to be removed because those things don't

freeze dry well, except obviously you know, obviously if you do it separately, but so we prep them. We, we actually cast a mold out of their body. So we have the same, the perfect same body. So that's how you get to replicate. So you know where to end up. Yeah. So, but the head, the skull is still, it's in those bodies. So that's how you get to replicate. So you know where to end up. Yeah.

But the head, the skull, it's still there. It's intact, you know, the legs. All the skeletal structure remains. The skeletal structure remains. Like that leg will freeze dry good because there's just nothing to it. Right. It's just fats and oils is what makes it difficult

in the freeze dryer. So you gotta get rid of, pretty much fats and oils just don't freeze dry. Okay. Yeah, that's the biggest thing. And then we sometimes will 3D scan and then digitally print the, you know what I mean? Some of the body portions and stuff like that.

Cause we were big on 3D printers and scanners cause we've got quite a few of them just for the film industry. If they want like a quick paw that matches something, we can 3D print it, you know what I mean? And then figure that out. So we've meshed a lot of different eonetamine industries into what we do.

Into the pets. Yeah. Yeah. Who's, uh, who's dog is this? Um, this is, I don't know if he wants to be named, but it's a client. It's a client's dog. Does he know it's here?

Yeah. Yeah. That's incredible. Yeah. It really, it really is. Dude, that dog looks like it's laying there sleeping. Yeah. I'm getting all emotional.

You're thinking about the moments. Yeah. You think about your own dog. It's like he's laying there thinking about when he's alive. Does it look like that? How big of a dog, like does the size matter? It does. Obviously bigger dogs, it's a lot more work and it takes a lot lower in the, in the actual freeze dryer.

You should see Corrine's dogs. Yeah, we got a great, great Dane and my Newfoundland is upstairs. So they both, how, how, how many pounds? But one, one at one 20 and one 30 something. So he's calculating how much time it's in the freeze. We just got one in. He's working up an invoice. Someone came in from the East coast and it was about 160 pounds.

So that's the biggest so far. You want them frozen probably. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And that's the biggest thing is people sometimes, I mean, they're not, it's not like a hunter who knows what they're doing the prep work for, so they don't know to freeze. So there's times where like they've, you know,

you're mourning. They're mourning and they just have them out for 24 hours or. Hair starts to slip. Yeah. Latex. Yeah. And age, you know, honestly age,

sometimes they lose a lot of weight. And we gotta be honest with you, if you bring in a 17 year old dog who lost X amount of pounds and you're like, and you show me a photograph of when they were three, four years old, we can add a bit of weight, but we gotta be realistic about. Yeah, but that goes, in Hollywood,

that goes on all the time, get it? Yeah. Yeah. Try to make them look good, yeah. If we had a band, this is where they would play. All right. I don't even know where to begin. Um, that's just, yeah, it's wild. It's wild. It looks great. Back when I was, uh, I don't know where, I don't know where things stay in a tax It looks great. Back when I was, I don't know where things stay in a taxidermy now, but when I was younger, it would be like, you just order all these molds.

I mean, let's say you do white tail deer, right? You just order a mold, right? For the most part. I mean, like for most work, that you go on to taxidermy.com and it's like. Head to, you know, shoulder mount looking right. Yeah.

But in your guys, there's no. Yeah. That's why taxidermists don't want to get into it. What is this? Frenchy. Yeah. So there is no forms. No French Bulldog.

No French Bulldog. Yeah. You don't go French Bulldog, 25 pounds, sleeping. Yeah. Yeah. Four inch nose to eye. Yeah. The cute little paw cross thing that he used to do.

Yeah, so that's where I think that's where the big difference is. There is nothing pre-made or there's nothing we can order. That's all from scratch. It's all from scratch. It's all from scratch. Yeah. Everything. His little heads on his little paw with the little like, it's like, yeah, like cheek extra skin.

Yeah. So as the first is the first step. So he, he never got, you never sent this to get tanned. No, no, no. That's where the freeze dryer kind of takes over. You know, the freeze drying kind of is like the tanning process, but it's done by removing the moisture off. And kind of, it's pretty much the same result.

Yeah, I mean, it's- Obviously, this is brittle. You know, it's stiff. Yeah. But would you expect that this is, this is, this'll last? Yeah. Because, because we do a little bit of a weird hybrid thing. We, we make sure that if you just put this in a freeze dryer without doing kind

of like the hybrid thing that we do with it, it wouldn't last because fats and oils just, they're not going to freeze dry. It's inedible. You'll two, three years, you'll have slippage. You'll have. It's not falling apart. Yeah. But when you, here's a, are those like the actual ears?

Yes. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. No insert in there. No insert. Yeah. Okay.

So when you thought, when you thought an animal out, is it, is the clock like the clock's ticking now, right? Right. Yeah. Okay. So when you thought, when you saw an animal out, is it, is the clock, like the clock's ticking now, right? Right. Yeah. Yep. That's what I'm just curious. Like without it, how are you hustling so much to wind up with something so realistic with like the proper folds in its neck and all that. Like once you thought out and you got to start working on it. I mean, Yeah. So we, You have how many, how many hours days till it's got to be kind of like done. So we're probably we start working on let's say start on it today and you get to a certain point and then you put it back in the refrigerator so next day we pull it out okay and you continue until probably two days. I mean you got it you got to keep it cool you got to keep it frozen so it takes. I mean, you gotta keep it cool,

you gotta keep it frozen. So, I mean, it's not like you gotta get it all done now. Yeah, not at one go. Yeah, like I could start on it, have it pretty much ready to go. Maybe I got the mold and then I'm like, okay, wait, it's Friday, I wanna go have a good week and whatever it is,

pop it in the freezer, then maybe Sunday night come out, pull it over to the fridge, by tomorrow morning, Monday morning, it's thawed out, and now we can go to the next step. Yeah. How distraught are people when they bring you their pets? Well, we get a variety of people.

Some people are just normal, not too emotional. Some people are really emotional. Sometimes even when they call, we understand. So we try to be empathetic to their situation. And so that's kind of a different, it's like we're talking about going back from a deer to a pet to a fake pig thing. So you're on the phone with someone that wants a snake for a show.

And then the next call is someone crying over the dog, you know, over the pet. So it's a range of emotions. And also when they come in, you know, we have people from the studios come in checking, hey, I wanna look at your clothes. And they're going, and then we got someone bringing on their pet. It's a very contrasting, you know. Different energy.

Different energy with different clients. Yeah, so we made a little, there's like a little side pet room, almost like morning when you bring your pet in, you go to this private room and you kinda, you can sit there, take your time, just so it doesn't take away from your experience. I don't want a studio person a pet in, you go to this private room and you kind of, you know, you can sit there and take your time just so it doesn't take away from your experience. You know, I don't want a studio person to come in and just like,

Hey man, how's it going? I just, yeah. Yeah. You got like some old lady crying over here with a cat. Yeah. Yeah. Do you, do you wash the hides on those dogs? Thoroughly. A lot of washing. If I did my dog, I'd want it to smell like my dog, like kind of half rot. You might be able to spray it all dog, like kind of half rot. What this is going to be a tricky one.

I don't want you guys to damage your business or anything. There's gotta be, right? Like people are gonna have expectations and then they're gonna come in, you know, and you gotta be like, here it is. Yeah. And then they're gonna respond. Yeah. That seems to me fraught.

That seems to me, that's gotta be a tricky moment. You gotta be having your fingers crossed. Well, at this point- That they going to be like, Oh, perfect. Yeah. And not some other emotion because they're, cause again, it's emotional. It is. It's different. Well, so far we haven't had a bad experience, so we're pretty confident.

So now when people come in and pick up their pets, we're pretty confident they'll be happy. Oh dude, if I own this dog, I'd be thrilled. Yeah. So some bitch slept like that, but I'd still. Well, you get to pick your pose as a thing. So if your pet sleeps a different way, we just get a photo. Cause people got pictures of their dog sleeping. Oh yeah. And I would say like one to three pictures. Sometimes they'll send me like an album of a thousand. Yeah. People love to see this. So which one do you want? Yeah.

Yeah. One for the body pose. Yeah. One for facial expression. If you guys did my dog, it'd be super easy, because when my dog sleeps, it just looks dead anyway. Yeah. Just make it look like a dead dog.

Can we get it between Ace and Ray, just for a really nice, clean shot of it? We've gotten some good shots, but not the whole body or anything like that. Just for the audience. Is it okay to slide it? I don't know how one handles this stuff. Yeah, yeah. Oh, even the bottom show the bottom of that thing. Yeah. Wow. Oh, wow. Damn. Yeah, cause you can't ride that.

God, that dog looks great. Phil, is that good? Yeah, that looks great. Yeah. It's, it's really kind of spooky how. That makes me want to get our dog stuff. Yeah. See, that's the thing with people.

Am I a tracker? Come with me. Yeah. Killed for the making of this program. The difference is you want to get him stuffed today. Yeah. The difference is you want to get them stuff today. Yeah. So people, uh, it's not for everyone, you know, some people, you know, like they have a negative reaction to the actual aspect of preserving your plan.

Oh, a hundred percent dude. You're dealing with a fraction of pet owners. Yes. And, uh, but people don't realize like, when they see the final product, when the final outcome, it kind of change their perspective on how to look at the actual process. Yeah.

Or just the thought of, you know. And then also we do have, we have a bunch of other options. So like a common person will come in, we have an occlusion machine for example, so you can just do the ashes and we have an artist that can get you a custom portrait. We can do the podcast.

So a lot of people go for like the generic normal kind of preservations. And then some people do like a partial preservation. Some people just want the skull bronzed. Did you just say a paw cast? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought he said a podcast. I thought so, but I knew he didn't, but I thought that's what yeah. Oh, just like an imprint for him. Exactly. We do like bronze, you know,

podcasts or I mean, and then some people want to scroll, you know, they want like a bronze skull. So we'll do that as well. Really. Everybody has, I mean, that's the way the heart came about. One person asked for it. That's like Vincent Price or something wanted that. Like who wanted that? I can't even remember who the first person, yeah it was. But then it's like somehow other people start to know about it and then we just said, well, we might as well.

Same thing with the pot. Remember someone just asked, you know, oh my God, I would just love to get his pot preserved. So like, okay, well, we'll do it. Yeah. But unless it has that yeasty smell. I mean, for me, that's the main attraction of a dog's ball. I'm wondering about like, I mean, because there are, there are certain animals, I feel like out there, like wild animals, game animals that when you taxidermy them, they don't ever really have like the full Magic, you know, they're dead Yeah, I know but like this like like if you saw a mountain lion like that or so I'm sort of wondering about like the the bleed over between this freeze-dry technique and

What we think of as traditional taxidermy? Yeah Why are people not doing well, I guess they do because I remember I used to sell otters to a guy that would freeze dry them and sell them a long time ago. Like that, they didn't look like that. I can tell you that. A bear paw would be wild. Yeah, I mean, you can do-

Oh yeah, can you do a bear paw? Yeah, we can do a bear paw. I think the biggest thing is just- Dude, that'd be a great mount. Yeah. Some of the chambers, a lot of the freeze dry chambers just aren't too huge. So you got a size issue. And then also like the amount of space that you do

You know, we could fit 15 of these these guys in one chamber if we fit in a mountain line We're gonna charge you a lot of money for that mountain line to sit there. Yeah four months in the freeze dryer Well, we could have done four of these guys. Yeah, what takes is filling up your real estate. Yeah Yeah, we freeze-dried us. I mean, I think it would be great if you had like a caracal cat or whatever. You know, like I think because you'd have the skeletal structure in there. And I think that's what messes up those mounts a lot of times.

I got you. Some of the forms are great, but not as good as a natural skull. So when you order the forms, they have no, no detail. They're just plain, you know, foam forms with no detail. So that's why you don't, you don't get the, you know, foam forms with no detail. So that's why you don't, you don't get the, you know, the wrinkles, the expression on the actual... That's a really good point that like the, the, the, the native structure, meaning the skull, like the native structure is there. And the paws, like the structure is there.

Yeah, exactly. You got all the skeletal structure and same thing with the faces. I mean, the face is the core of the mount. So if you were to do any kind of wild cat, I mean, it's just, it would make more sense to have the natural skull and everything, the natural ears. So, I mean, I've done them traditionally, but it's just, you're sculpting, now it's up to the sculptor, it's up to the artist.

It's not up to the way he really was naturally. So that dog's skull is in this mountain right here. Right. Yes. Yeah. Wow. If you guys married. Yeah, we're both married.

Yeah. What do they think about your line of work? Well, they love it. I mean, they're okay with it. I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's for us, it for it's interesting. You know, it's, it know, it's fascinating. It's fascinating. It's not like even when people ask, oh, so what do you guys do? What is, you know, it's just interesting to spark a conversation just on the fact that

it's so random, you know, so out there. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. So out there. You Canadians, the great features that you love in ONX are available for your hunts this season. Now the Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K top-o maps, waypoints and tracking. You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service as a special offer.

You can get a free three months to try out OnX if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. I'm still fascinated by how you guys took over the business and even got into doing this at this level. You know, I mean, this is this, you know, this looks incredible, amazing. And it seems like all the techniques that you've developed to apply to this work is just, you know, it's not like you were, you know, apprenticing for decades. You know, and yeah, it's just mind blowing. I think it's just mind blowing.

I think it's a lot of the, just the random stuff like we're talking about that every day. And I think the studios pushed us a lot. Because we've had to come up with so many ways of like how, I mean there's times where we've sold a job and we're like, now how are we going to do it? They want an elephant, they need it in this, you know what I mean? Like whatever it is, I'm like, okay, it's gonna take this long to make the mold.

We gotta do the fiberglass. So I think all those freak out moments led us to like piece it all together to be able to do something. Do you ever do work on like time and material because you don't know what you're getting into? We do, but we, yeah, I mean, we do time. I mean, we definitely reprice it all out.

Of course, material time also just what we're getting out of the way. Cause a lot of the studios, like I said, there, it's all last minute stuff. So it's not, it's not like a hundred just drops off. Hey man, I'll pick it up in six months. No big deal.

If you go seven months, just make sure it looks great. Whereas the studio's like, hey, can I get progress pictures? I did it, but like right now, I don't want to send you a photograph of a phone form that looks nothing like what it's supposed to be. And then they're going to try to change the, you know,

the, oh my God, I want it, you know, and they're going to kind of make changes while we're in, we're in the middle of the process. And then what I meant by time materials, like in the trades, um, we like, when I used to work for my buddy, Ronnie, we would do jobs that were a bid, right? You're like, it'll, it'll be this. And if we lose money or make money, that's the price, right? Or some things that were more open-ended.

It'd be like, we're going to work on the project at blank dollars an hour, plus our materials, because we don't know what we're getting into. So you normally come back with a, it'll be this. And then you lose money or make money on how well you can fulfill. Yeah. I mean, at this point, I think we got a good idea of where it's going to land. So if we say, Oh, it's going to be whatever 6,800, they'll be like, okay, well, you know, and we kind of know we're, you know, what we're making on it,

what, how much the latex is, the foam is the natural hide or ful furs or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was going to ask what other pets have you guys done other than dogs? Well, we do, uh, cats, uh, uh, hamsters, uh, hamsters, rabbits, rabbits, beaded, uh, goldfish,

beaded dragons. We did do a goldfish once. Oh, we, yeah, it was in the article. Yeah, we did. I remember that hamsters. Oh yeah. Hamsters, little rats, little baby rats. Like there's, you know, sometimes a kid will have a rat

and it'll naturally pass and they'll be like, oh my God, I love this. And they'll come in and we're like, yeah, we'll do it. I mean, if that's what you want, I mean. Hollywood families. So keep rattling off. You did a wallaby. Pet wallaby, pet emu, horses.

We've done horses, of course. Oh, jeez. But now horses are done traditionally because it's just, you don't want to freeze dry. Yeah, there is no, there is no. You guys did Roy Rogers, your company did Roy Rogers. Yeah, we did Everett. He was a taxidermist at the time who did it. Yeah, you guys weren't even born yet. No, he was amazing. Yeah.

I think still at a museum somewhere, right? They sold it in auction. It's I think somewhere in the Midwest now. Um, I think it's sold for like a quarter of a million. I don't know. Something like that. Have you ever done a pet cow? We did it. Yeah, we do that every once in a while. We do that. The two headed cat. Yeah, that's the two headed cat. That was natural. That was a still born or whatever it was. We did that for somebody as well. A lot of Longhorn, you know what I mean? Um, just your natural, like, you know, we'll keep the hide and then we'll just do the head mount.

Well, how many pieces are coming out of your studio every year? Uh, I don't know. Well, is there something out the door every day? Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Pets. Definitely. Oh my God.

Pets. And I think we have rentals too. So we have, so that's another weird thing. Yeah. So somebody will come And I think we have rentals too. So we have, yeah. So that's another weird thing. Yeah, so somebody will come in and then we have a big showroom with everything you can think of. So we have a bunch of fake stuff,

we have a bunch of real stuff. So you can come in and you'll find like a line paw that's hinged where it'll swipe. So if you're working on a commercial for whatever and you need that, they'll just be like, oh, perfect, that's the one I want. Boom, pick it up. We'll ring you up. You'll bring it back. It's a weak rental. Drop it back off.

That's all it is. How many employees you got now? It's like six, seven. Seven. Oh, okay. Yeah. And then a list of subcontractors. Yes. That just seems incredible though.

Explain the subcontractor thing.. That just seems incredible though. Explain the subcontractor thing. There's like guys out there to have these particular skill sets. And what are they doing when they're not doing the work for you? Well, they work for other studios. Oh, okay. So they're like constantly either,

you know, one studio to another. And that doesn't cause problems for you? Well, not really. Cause we have a list of many. So if one's not available, we go to the next one and eventually things work out. Give me an example of, give me an example. Give me an example of a guy that's not on staff

who you call for special assignments. Like, I don't understand. It would be more like sculpting. Yeah, so like David Grasso, he's a phenomenal sculptor. Okay. Great, so he will, I think he was the one who sculpted, I think the snakes for Landman. Yeah, I think it was, yeah.

For what? For Landman, so he digitally sculpted the snake, like the whole snake was digitally sculpted. He sent us the file. So he worked from home on that thing. On the computer, he digitally sculpted the whole thing to our measurements, to everything. We went back and forth and he sent us the file.

We 3D printed the file, made a mold out of it, silicone casted the snakes so that they're flexible, put wiring, whatever they wanted to do in them. And he'll float around. So then he'll just, he'll do projects for another studio. Well, these are effects studios that he mostly works with. So it's like Hollywood studios where they'll call him and now he's got a sculpt for the new whatever film

that's coming out. You know, so he just floats around. So for us, it's not like, oh, they're taking our sculpture. It's no, I mean, everybody can do what you do, you know. Yeah. That's cool. I didn't get to that episode yet in Landman. I just started watching it. So Billy Bob Thornton. Yeah.

Yeah. I remember those snakes. I watched that one. You guys ever do a black mamba? Black mamba, sheers. In Kill Bill, there's a black mamba in there, but it's alive, but then there's like, obviously some of your guys' work is, not your work, but someone's work is in there. Might've been Gary at the time. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Not sure. I have to ask you about cloning, which I saw on your website. It says inquire about cloning. Yeah. Yeah, so we don't, obviously we don't do that in house, but there is a company in Texas, it's called Viagen, right?

Yeah, so there's a company in Texas called Viagen. We take this, they're amazing. I mean, they do great work. So we take the samples, we're just affiliates with them. We help them out and they help us out. So client will come in. The most important thing though is you can't freeze the pet. So the pet at, say your pet naturally passes away

and you wanted to clone them, you can refrigerate them, but you can't freeze the pet because it'll crystallize a sample and they won't be able to get the DNA. So that's one step that sometimes people kind of skip up on and then they won't be able to do the cloning. But we just take five samples. So it'll be generally a couple from the ear,

you know what I mean? Small little samples, we put them in little vials and we overnight them to them. But because if we're doing the full preservation, we need to take those from specific hidden spots. So sometimes when the vet does it, they do it from like the top back. And then we get the, you know,

and then they want to preserve their pets. And I'm like damn. You know what I mean? Now it's like, and then they take huge samples when you only need like tiny little samples because they're not thinking about the preservation They're just thinking about getting a good sample No, so we take them from like the like for example if I was to take from here I had to go from like the inner hip You can't see it. It's already tucked the inside of the ear really deep in the ear canal where you can't see it You know areas like that

Yeah Have you ever done a pig getting suckled by all its little piglets? really deep in the ear canal where you can't see it, you know, areas like that. Yeah. Wow. Have you ever done a pig getting suckled by all of its little piglets? We did do the little piglets. We did. Jesse sculpted those piglets. I'd like that.

Hey, you know, we have a pig. Like a big old pig getting suckled by its piglets. We have two fetuses in the freezer. You should give them to those guys. There you go. Yeah, Steve killed a pregnant sow in Texas a few years ago, and then we vac sealed a couple of the, yeah, we still have the fetuses.

Little fetuses. Wow, interesting. I'll sell them to you. Do you have people come in just to gawk? Yeah, all the time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

It's tough because you're in the middle, you know what I mean, of working. But it's nice, it's a compliment, because people just wanna, some people go into town and be like, hey, I heard about this place. And they'll just roam around. The thing is, is nothing's roped off at our shop.

So you can actually walk up to the polar bears, to the tigers, to the lions, and just hang out with them, take a photograph with them, whatever. It's not like a natural history museum where you're roped off with a scene in the background. It's like now you can actually come in and feel what a polar bear feels like. I'm surprised you guys can pull this off with only six or seven people. Who answers the phone? It's between me and him. You guys are like, hello? Yeah, well we're working on everything.

So it's, I mean, we've had, we've had some front desk people, but it's difficult because they go into their spiel so fast sometimes that there's a lot of, there was a lot of relay, you know what I mean? Between like everything when they, especially when they wanted to custom, say for example, and it just takes so long to get somebody trained up to really take on that position of knowing how to,

because you've got to be creative on the spot. They're going to be like, hey, this deer's got to get hit, but he's got to have a hinge and his arms got to twitch at the end. And we need it like by Friday. So what do you got? Yeah. And then, you know, front desk is just going to be like,

my first day. We don't have that, you know, a front desk is just going to be like, it's my first day. We don't have that, you know? I'm new here. The front desk is like, let me go get Ace. You're on the phone anyways. It's not like ordering a pizza. It's like, yeah. I can see that.

So because of that, I'm like, you know what? Just, I'd rather just pick it up and be like, hey, yeah, we'll have it by Friday. It's this much. We'll do it with this, whatever, Servo. We'll make a little clamp thing for it, whatever. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, so it's kinda, we need to train someone, but it's gonna take months, you know? Yeah, we tried. We tried, I mean, and it's very difficult. So at this point, if you had to, like, if you had to pursue one path, the film business or the pet business, like which are you more in love with? Well, in love with the studios.

Or consistency of. Yeah, but. What's consistent? Well, it used to be the studios, but then the strikes started happening, then COVID started happening, so that kind of made the industry go up and down. And then you got CGI, you got AI.

Oh, that shit's coming for you. I think at this point, the smart move would be leaning towards this, the, you know, here towards this here towards the studios, because it's fine. And you're just doing cool projects. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can see that. Yeah. Do you feel that the pet getting pets stuffed or taxidermy or what taxidermy? What do you, what word do you guys use? We use preserve. Okay. Um, like what is the sort of line, the graph line on pet preservation? Well, it's, it's not, there's no way it's stable. No. Well, I mean, it's actually pretty consistent.

Yeah. It's consistent and grown. I'll tell you that. And for the last up, it's a gradual. It's last five years. It's been, uh, uh, significantly up. Okay. Yeah.

I mean, I think people think of the old ways of doing it. Cause we got, I mean, we have mounts at the shop that were done. Dogs, I mean, from the 30s and 40s. These bad plaster, just... Like newspaper coming out of their ears and stuff. You can see the Excelsior just kind of like wire poking up the side and stuff. And I think people think of that. So I think until it gets ingrained in their mind that like you actually are going to get your pet to look like your pet,

it's going to take time for people to see. And I think it's slowly starting to come out with social media and everybody being like, Oh wait, actually that does look good. Yeah. Well, yeah. And also people now like more and more and more, not that you get your relative stuff, but people now more and more act like pets are, are definitely. Yeah.

Exactly. You know what I'm saying? It's like a much more of a trend right now to have a dog and pretend. It's like a person right hundred percent Yeah, but that's but that does that falls apart because you don't get people stuffed Preserved some people do is that legal I think I've seen it done a couple times not in the US now We get calls for it. I mean You know we don't know if someone's calling, if it's real or they just messing with us, but they've asked, you know? Yeah. What do you say? Not our business.

Not, not, not. I think there was a story of a girl who she called and I think she got it done. She was, she had to get an arm amputation. Oh yeah. And she wanted to get a skeletal articulation of the arm. Yeah. People send us those pictures. Yeah. Of their arms, skeletons done and whatnot. I think there was a guy. Had his finger done.

Who had his finger done and it was like the Michigan hello, or it was something else. He just had his finger on a pedestal. Oh, okay. He had it stuffed. Yeah. Preserved. Exactly. But you don't want to do that work.

That's not that we don't, it's just, you know, we just haven't, it's just not in our radar yet. Well, you think it's, you think it's stressful to have someone come in and look at the pet for the first time and be like, so nailed it, dude, your finger, you know, damn sure that or your uncle. Yeah. If you had your uncle done and you're like, I want him to look like he did when he was reading. And you're like, just so you know, we've never done this before.

I'll tell you though, I'm blown away by the quality of that dog. I mean, all like, I know we've been like having a couple of laughs about stuff. I mean, just from a, from a, I mean, from a technical, like a technical standpoint, that dog is incredible. The minute I saw it, it changed my entire perspective

on the idea of stuffing a pet. Right. Yeah, that happens a lot. What you don't, I guess what you don't have, and it's probably, it's a trade off, because it's so perfect. You can't get the feeling of having stuffed it. No, yeah.

Because then it's not gonna, you know what I mean? It's either like, is it gonna be soft and squishy or is it gonna look like absolutely like a dog? Right. Yeah, sometimes people wanna do like a soft version of their pet. Thing is, we'll do it for television and film,

but with a pet, it just won't last. So we get requests for it all the time, and I'm just like, you can't get the structure. Yeah, and I guess people kind of love the thought of having their kind of like cuddly pet, like you say, fluffy, you know. It sounds good in theory, but yeah, when it comes down to the technicals and durability

and also looks, it's not gonna look good, you know what I'm saying? The thing is these hips, like for example, like you got this with these hips, those tan highs that are sitting in this room right now, you'd have to soak them to get a good stretch to be able to get full hips, right? To get a soft hand, you can't soak them. So you're never going to get that stretch. To get a what? To get a, like if you have those soft hands to keep it soft and pliable, you can't get it wet,

you know? So now you see that Bobcat back there, I wetted him and stretched him back out. Randall, grab that Bobcat. He's pretty stiff now, or? Yeah, it's like, it's a trade-off. Either you want to get him back, like I put him back on the stretcher board, but feel it. You can tell. Oh yeah.

Oh yeah, yeah, for sure. It's a bummer. So that's the thing, you see how it looks like a tube, there's no structure. If you just stuff this with cotton batting, you're just like, oh, here's a little soft stuff. It's gonna look like a sock, you know? Got the wrong way, Randall, belly out, buddy.

I know. Show them spots. Yeah, it looks incredible. I would, I would definitely see that like, I get the point you're saying. If someone knew that they could have, and I never, I'd never seen them alive. I mean, I look at them alive, but I mean, I look at enough dogs over the years. If someone knew that they could have a dog look that good, that they'd be more

inclined to do it because they're probably picturing their mind, like when you go into a pawn shop and there's like crazy looking, we did a whole calendar called fucked up old taxidermy, right? They're like picturing that I don't want my dog bag all bug eyed. Right? They're like picture in the, I don't want my dog man bug-eyed. Sydney used to always talk about getting her our first dog stuffed. Preserved. Preserved. Yeah. No, well, he's, he's, uh, in ashes now, but I always, I would always say to her, you're going to walk in there and you're going to look at his lip and it's just

going to be like, you're never never gonna get that dog lip right. And you know, you spent 12 years like messing with his lips and face and like, you know it so intimately. It's gotta look like that or else it's just alienating. Yeah. You know, my kid got a bear to spring, a nice bear. And I call them. Why did I call him about this?

Oh, I know why I was out of town, but I was talking to the tax terms. Um, and I'm like, here's the deal. Everybody always gets them growling like a rug. It's always that he's got his mouth wide open. And I'm like, I've come to a pre I've done the same thing, but I've said, I've come to appreciate the closed mouth rug. Because when you see bears and I've watched a great many bears, they're generally not running around with their mouth. Okay. Yeah. That's true. And I'm like, so you could have it look like all the teeth and everything, or you could take my recommendation and we could get them with his mouth closed.

How do you want it? What do you think he said? He's 15. Open mouth. Oh yeah. Absolutely. Super snarled aggressive. Yeah, of course.

Have you ever done a pet in an aggressive posture? We got a request and I can't name his name. He's a famous person. You know what I'm talking about? Um, yeah. Yeah. He wanted his dog and it's aggressive. He has a cat, but it's somewhat of a wild cat.

So I kind of understand it a little bit. Um, it's a domestic, like it's like a Savannah cat mixed with a Savannah, something else. And, uh, he wanted it up cat. Yeah. And he wanted it on a branch, but kind of aggressive, almost like it's going to pounce on something.

Are you going to do it? Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Who was it? Well, tell me what, tell me the, tell me the initials. I'll tell you my initials. I mean, some of the charm in pet cats is that they don't like you, right?

Right. Like some of the charm in the pet cats is that they come in and swipe you and run away. So I get it. But I would also picture just from a business standpoint, um, unless it's cost prohibitive, like I'm guessing people are going to be people that are emotionally attached. Their pet are going to have a looser wallet than someone that's getting five or six things a year because they're a big hunter, right? They're going to look at it differently. But I would picture that if someone wanted like, like, I like river otters a lot.

So I catch an otter. I would, I could picture a world in which I'm like, no, man, I want to some bitch like that. Yeah. An otter. Are you doing that kind of stuff too? Yeah, absolutely. I think we're doing a, what are we doing?

I mean, it's just the pelt, but a seal pelt right now. Remember that seal that we're doing? Seal pelt. We're doing a couple of seal pelt for the mammal care center. So we get calls too from nature centers and. What are you doing with seal pelt? Um, they just wanted to preserve it as an, in an exhibit it as an exhibit. Like a hide. Yeah. Like a hide. Like what's hanging around in here. Right. Exactly.

It's going to be a obviously freeze dry. So it's going to be stiff on a board, you know, like on a nice board. Freeze dried. Yeah. Yeah. Hmm. Yeah. Freeze dried hide. Yeah. You know why though? Because we wanted to keep the, uh, the fins beautifully intact. Oh, I didn't want to have to like Recreate them in a poor manner where it's not keeping the structure and the integrity of it. I'm just uh, yeah So that we kept the fins the bottom fins the side fit the end of it and then we laid it out flat So now when you go to see it you get the real anatomy of the actual fin

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OnX if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. Can you hand that cat back over here a minute, Randall? Yep. Sorry. Let's say I had a cat and I, like I have a cat and I just skin it and flesh it. Okay? And I send it to you. And I don't want to get it tanned.

I just want to get it freeze dried. Is it all the same? Like I just get it back and it's freeze dried and I can hang it up for the rest of my life on a wall? Pretty much. Yeah, I mean, you'd have to flush it still, you know what I mean? No, I'm gonna send it to you, flushed and dried.

Yeah, if it's flushed and dried. Yeah, I mean, but you don't want to salt it because it might- No, I don't, we don't salt it. You're not salt, okay then. No, everything we do, we flush it. It goes on a wooden board. Well, it's easy to flip, but no, it's like, it's just beam.

Yeah. It's like flesh and beam. And then it goes to the tannery like that. Right. Yeah. So there's a world in which I could send you and I wouldn't have any shrinkage. No, you wouldn't have shrinkage, but it'd be stiff. It wouldn't be nice and floppy.

How stiff? Like this stiff or stiff? No, maybe. Stiff, stiff. Stiff, stiff. Stiff is boring. Stiff is a board. Oh yeah. You'd lose all stiff, stiff, stiff, stiff. Oh, stiff as a board. Oh yeah.

You'd lose all the, uh, it'd be like these ears. So that's not a good replacement. No, no, no. You want to do just a commercial tannery and just get it done nicely. Yeah. All right. I was thinking about, I was getting

excited for a minute there. Yeah. I was thinking about different animals. You could get freeze dried and I thought a big old beaver sitting there. Hayes right now is doing a big 50 pounder. Yeah. Yeah.

From the Boston with the Boston boys. They want that big beaver done in a three point football stance. It's a hefty beaver. But I'm just trying to picture freeze drying the tail because there's so much fat. Oh, that'd be hard. That is nothing but fat. Yeah.

What would you do for that? You gotta get rid of all that fat. You gotta skin that tail out. You gotta skin that tail out, get it all out, take as much as you can, just leave the best structure you can while still keeping the, you know, removing all the, making sure the integrity's still there. It's gonna last.

Yeah, now I don't want to pry, but, but I'm gonna help me out here. But I'm done. What like other than pry all morning. Well, I want to pry, but I don't want to, I just like, I'm sensitive of getting into like, getting into big, you know, like someone's saying to me like, so what do you, how much do you sell a book for?

Yeah. It's like, I don't know, man, dude, it's a complicated question. Yeah. I don't feel like telling you. Help me understand what I'm looking at here with this dog. Probably around the range of three grand. That's it? Yeah. No, yeah, it's not.

Dude, you could have told me eight and I would have been like, eh, it makes sense. Yeah, I thought my mind went to 10. Yeah, yeah. Three grand? No, so it's, we, that's a lot of work. It is. We move quickly.

We kind of know. I'm saying they can up their prices. Oh, I don't know. Cause I didn't call around. Like you got, do you have competitors? Not necessarily. I mean, there's a guy on the East coast who's great. He's a friend of ours.

You sent business his way? Yeah. Yeah. we've worked together. He's freeze dried some stuff for us as well. Before, yeah. Yeah, before, you know, years ago, he used to freeze dry stuff for us as well. He's the only other guy that really, I think is really in the business.

Yeah. But he's way out East. So it's, I mean, there's a lot of people everywhere. There's business for everybody. That's kind of what I was getting at with why I thought the price be more is because I thought the price be more because it's, um, there's a little bit of a scarcity or a special circumstance or whatever, you know? Yeah, no, definitely. I think, uh, well, yeah, most people, that's a very

reasonable, that's a very economical, economical dogma. We have a high volume of pets because it's, it's pretty very economical dogma. I think that's why we have a high volume of pets, because it's pretty reasonable. You're not gouging, you're not gouging. What about a hamster? What are we looking at? Probably, what, 1200? 12 by 900, 1200 bucks, something like that.

Way more value in the dog. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the hamster's just, it's more so just because you gotta reset, they slip easy. The hair on a hamster slips easy it's more so just because you got to be, they slip easy. The hair on a hamster slips easy. Well, because they thaw out so quickly. You know what I mean? So if you're, you know, you got your son or whoever that was mooring this little

hamster or whatever it is, he's going to, he's going to be crying for a while. You're going to be consoling them. And then by the time you bring the hamster in, if you didn't freeze right away, then we've got to do the skin and we've got to do everything. And sometimes it's, you know, you got to be careful with slippage. You got to do it fast. Now some party, you, some party, you, when a parent comes in with a hamster and they're like, little Jimmy's so upset about his hamster, some party has be thinking,

a little Jimmy's just going to have to get over it, but that's bad for business. So you're just like, sure, bring it in. You don't have to say anything. It's fine. No, but it's, you know. No, we get it. We get the attachment part of it. Sure.

You know, I have a dog. I'm attached to it. Are you going to do your own dog? Uh, probably something, you know, I'm not sure what, but I will definitely do some, you know, create some memorial for him. Really? How about you? You got pets?

Well, I had a cat, he was 18 years old when he passed away. He passed away Memorial Day. Just now? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But- Did you freeze it? Well, when he passed, yeah. And we have the acclamation machine.

Thing is, he was already 18. He lost a lot of weight. He wasn't in his prime. So it's not like even if I wanted to preserve him, like, you know, and I will advise people of that as well. Like if you come in and you got an old boy who's, you know, not in the best shape, I'll tell you now maybe that preservation might not be the best thing for you. And hunting will say that would have been a nice buck next year.

Right. That would have been a nice cat last year. Yeah. That would have been a nice cat last year. That would have been a nice cat last year. That would have been a nice cat last year. That would have been a nice cat about seven years ago. Do you ever have people who want to fix things on their dog? Oh, yeah. I've got labs, so by the time they're eight or ten, they're covered in lumps and you can usually see them.

Do people come in and they're like, could you just smooth that big fatty bulge on the side of his ribs? There's tumors. These are pets. There's a lot his ribs. There's tumors. Yeah. You know, these are pets. There's a lot of that. There's a lot of hair loss sometimes. You know, the hardest thing is actually because we mix the studio side with the faux fur stuff. Yeah.

You know, the IV marks from the vet clinics. Cause when they do surgeries and stuff, they shave. Yeah. Yeah. So we got to do a lot of the hair transfer work, the flocking work that we do for the studio fake stuff. And we bring that over to the preservation side. You can make it, if a dog had a shave surgery, yeah, you could try to get it back to where it looked right.

Yeah. Yeah. So we'll recreate the fur. How the hell would you do that? You guys need to charge more for that. Well, we do it for the studio. Yeah. Geez. Yeah. So we-

How do you dye the fur? Like if you got to take some hair and get it the right color. I mean, we have an array of like a lot of fur. And if it's short hair, we do this flocking method with longer fibers. Like this dog, for example, say the ear was slippage, there was some slippage. We'd use long fibers. We just flock it.

It's kind of electromagnetic. Yeah. Man, I gotta feel like there's gotta be so much information in your guy's heads. Yeah. I feel like there's got to be so much information in your guys' heads. That if all the people that work there died, no one's going to walk back in there and fire this business back up. Do you know what I'm saying? Like a garage, like if you're a mechanic, everybody could die. You're going to find, you know, other guys could come in and right. But on this, I feel like the institutional knowledge. Yeah. It's just the years.

Would be like just all that junk. And that's what's difficult too, even for us to find the right hands when we want to bring somebody else on is, you know, cause sometimes like, I don't want to, you know, we don't want to be doing everything all the time. You know what I mean? But there's times where I'm like, but it's got,

but it needs to look a certain way. So until I could find that hand that can do it, we have some great hands, but until I could find all the pieces that make sure that the quality controls everything, it's gotta go out looking perfect every time. So yeah, there's a fear of like, if we step away, who's gonna jump in?

If you did right now have to, to... I'm sorry, go ahead. So that's another kind of like a problem for expansion, because we want to expand, you know? We are expanding, whether we want or not. But the problem is sometimes we're so overwhelmed with so much work that it's kind of... We try to find, you know, like he says, the hands, but it's very difficult to find that person

that's gonna get it. Or it's gonna- And then stay. And stay, and like it, obviously, because you kind of have to like what you're doing. Yeah. And you can't just tell them to go watch a couple YouTube videos to learn some technique.

I mean, it helps if they watch a video, but it's all hands on. Very specialized. Yeah. Where do you look? Like, I bet you'll get from coming on here, you'll get resumes from people, but you probably get resumes all the time. But if you had to go look, like if you had to find a hire, I mean, I just would assume you're going to look in the traditional taxidermy pathway, right?

Yeah, Joe, I think, yeah, I mean, Joseph was a great hire. He just came in and he was moving from Arkansas to California. He walked in one day with a photograph of all his mounts. Yeah, good guy, straight up stand up dude. And he just, he's like, look, check it out, just moving out here. I'm going to be out here stand up dude. And he just, he's like, look, check it out. Just moving out here. I'm going to be out here soon. I think he was studying. He wanted to be a pastor and now he's in Idaho. He's a pastor in Idaho.

So he was there. He's told me I'm going to be here for four years if it's okay with you here, here in my mounts. He was phenomenal. Yeah, he was great. So talented, great guy. He came and worked for four years. Yeah.

Out of Arkansas. Yeah. Out of Arkansas, stayed in Los Angeles, went to the master seminary, whatever it was, and then put in great work. And then we kind of taught him the studio side of it, because he was more from the traditional taxidermy side of it. So it was like, but we got to rush this. You know what I mean? Like these are all, you know, we do a little tricks to kind of skip a lot of, you know, because sometimes you got to cut corners to make things happen for film that you wouldn't do with like a hunting mount. Because of the deadlines.

Yeah, that's right. So, but he was he was great you know but it's difficult to come across people like that yeah who have that talent natural skill integrity and you just you don't even have to you just turn over and he's already doing the right thing and there probably aren't that many people coming from taxidermy school that are like Hollywood right that's where I'm yeah that's the other thing is you know I'm sure there's a lot of, at least in our world, a lot of guys that are into taxidermy, you know, are want to want to live in rural areas because they like to hunt. Frankly, that's where a lot of their clients are because they're doing hunting mounts, you know, like, like their bread and butter is white tail deer shoulder mounts. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it makes sense. Yeah. I mean, we'll get our mounts, but we get a lot out of state.

People still bring stuff in, a lot of Colorado, New Mexico, just all around. California, we'll get some. It was a bit decent last year, just cause there was good rainfall. So it was a little bit better, but it's just a little four keys for the most part. You're not gonna.

But you'll do those too? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we'll do those as well. Yeah. How many hours you work a week? Depends. Well, we surprisingly it's pretty, pretty normal schedule, you know, it's this, well, it only when we have a certain project that is due and it's, it's, it's going to require, you know, weekend or maybe long days, nights. It happens, but we try to keep it as normal as we can. Yeah. Our hours are pretty much nine to four on Monday to Friday, which are short hours. But if there's a big project that comes in, if it's worth it to stay, it's worth it to stay.

It's really never nine to four, you know, we say four, but we'll be there at 5.30, you know. Yeah. But you're still able to keep some normal, with all that movie work, you still have to keep a normal life. Yeah, we try. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right, man. What am I forgetting to ask you about that you wish I would have asked you about? Trying to think. Yeah. All right, man. What am I forgetting to ask you about that you wish I would have asked you about?

Trying to think. Free-straw and fish now. We don't have the free-straw fish. No, no fish. I think you pretty much got it all now. We cover a lot of ground. You know what? Is it Hayes that won't touch fish either? I don't, I don't know if it's- Yeah, Hayes don't do fish. Hayes is stuck on fish. You know, they just, you know what it is?

He's got what he, you know what he does? He's got what he does that he likes doing. And I think he was telling us, I think he was saying he's not a fish man. Right. And fish tags to him is weird now because there's no part of the fish. Yeah.

I mean- It's just like, like you could, there's no part of the fish. Right. Now we have this guy Robert, he was Robert's fish mounds for years, I think he retired now, but we bought his whole mold collection.

So we have like almost a thousand molds. I mean, you're talking, we have like- He's keeping all this stuff. We have a little warehouse up north, I mean, outside of the super expensive area, way up north out of Los Angeles. And there's a 16 foot whale mold. Yeah.

Like shark molds, you know, shark molds. I mean, leatherback turtle. Like, yeah, she just walk into your warehouse now and then just dig around looking for something you swear must be in there. Oh yeah. No, we have them all marks. So everything's lined up. So, you know, like a 12 is going to be silicone, whatever the salmon, you know, section, you know, so it's, that's all marked up. One question I had earlier was, uh, what is your store look like?

Is it in like in an industrial park? Is it on a street that people walk up and down? Like where's the, I'm just trying to picture in Hollywood the taxidermy shop like do you get foot traffic? Yeah so it's kind of it's kind of what businesses are next to you it's kind of mostly industrial area but then we have a pathway for bikes and people walk there too right in front of the shop so yeah some people people, sometimes we have the roll-up door open, they could see from across the street and they just look and come in,

like it sparks their attention, you know? So they like just walk in and check it out. So we do get some foot traffic. People don't really walk out on the sidewalk, right? There's really nobody walking on the sidewalk, but they have that pathway to walk. So that's where they see us. And there's, we're next to a city yard,

LA city yard, you know, one of those big yards where they keep the trucks and maintenance and then some other studios, right? Yeah, there's a lot of studios kind of around there. It is kind of like an artsy, somewhat artsy area, but it's not in the business. It's not like in Hollywood, it's in North Hollywood. So you have a little bit more open, you know, more industrial space. And then, um, and my buddy's next door.

Oh yeah. The gym. So it is like, it's like an MMA gym, which is easy because then I can go from here and then I can go work out. Work out over there. Absolutely. Dude, I get over there every couple of years. I'm going to come in and say hi, man. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I would love to come check it out. We should have work out there. Work out over there. Absolutely. Dude, I get over there every couple of years. I'm going to come in and say hi, man. Oh, absolutely.

Yeah. I would love to come check it out. We should have done this there. Yeah, I know. Yeah. We thought, you know, we kicked around trying to come to your place, but just like scheduling was kind of hard. Just a lot, a lot of, we said a lot of travel this summer and stuff going on,

but our original intention was to record in your place. Yeah. That would've been great. Well, next time we're there, we'll just, we'll tack it on to a schedule and we'll do another episode. Absolutely. Yeah, we'll do a flop. Exactly.

Great. We'll come out there and do a 30 minute flopper. Yeah. Man, I'll tell you though, I can't bring it up enough. That dog is unbelievable. Yeah, it's wild. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah, it's cool. It's a really nice, I mean, like I said, you guys are good sports about having some, you know,

about having a couple laughs, but holy shit, man, the dog speaks for itself. That's why it's incredible looking. Yeah. We've had a lot of strange objects and things pass through the studio, and this is like, there's like a power to that dog. I wish you could leave that dog here but I probably not a good idea rental fee oh do you guys have do you guys have cats and dogs in your rental

area yeah yeah absolutely yeah sometimes they'll down it a hide or whatever it is if they just wanted to do... Sometimes, yeah, the neighbors, you know, I got a neighbor's cat that, you know, died and he said, you know, take it. Maybe I'll see it in a movie some, some, you know, sometimes like, oh, perfect. Let's do it. Yeah.

Do you guys ever grab stuff from the side of the road that looks interesting? Uh, no. No, Not necessarily. That doesn't work. Usually it's really beat up, you know, it's like run over and it's blood, guts everywhere. So it's not.

Yeah. You just go to those for inspiration. For your movie work. Exactly, you photograph and you're like, the guts gonna be this way. Yeah. And it's actually, I think it's illegal in California to pick up road-

It is, well, I don't know, cause a lot of States have been making it that you can, there's been an odd trend. There's two trends that sort of surprised me in cultural hunting, hunting culture trends. That's not the right word. Hunting legal trends. One trend is to let kids hunt younger

and younger and younger. Oh. Right? That seems like counter than what would actually happen. You can picture that they would make it, that they had to be older and older and older, like make it more strict. But there's a tendency to let kids, to let it be a family decision. There's also a surprising tendency to loosen roadkill salvage laws rather than make them more strict. Interesting. You know I'm saying? Like if you said to someone who didn't follow this like do you imagine over the years it became more strict or less strict to pick up roadkill they would go absolutely more strict because everything's more strict. Yeah. It's always about, yeah.

Yeah. So they like, like our state where we're at right now, you used to, I mean, I would do it anyways, my friends would do it anyways as civil, like civil disobedience, I don't want to bring up like Rosa Parks, but like civil disobedience to like pick up deer and eat them. Yeah. Cause you'd be like guilty as charged. Like a dead deer, the guy in front of me hit.

You know? Like what's the problem with that? So now you can, right? Yeah. We're arts head. Remember that whole area? I don't know what it was a couple of years ago. It was like state after state, Oregon, I think maybe.

State after state after state said, okay, if someone hits it and you want to put it to use, you just got to call and, which makes total sense. Yeah, it makes sense. No, I agree. Does anybody, you think anybody tries to purposely truck it? That's what, you know what they thought of here,

because here you have, here you have, we have a lot of large, like a lot of somewhat rare large mammals. And so there's some that are exempt, meaning like take like a bighorn sheep. Yeah. A bighorn sheep, like a big mature bighorn sheep ram is going to have a lot of value would have a lot of black market value. And so they're, they're, they're not part of the roadkill rule. It's just the more common stuff.

Do your deer, elk, moose. Like, you know, more sort of like a, so, you know, common animals, high food value, but they've pulled out some of the stuff that they don't want to give people a reason to act like they got it in their truck. Meaning like, Oh, I road killed a mountain goat. They'd be like, you road killed a mountain goat. So you can't, there's no excuse to have certain animals. I think I'm guessing, but it's like, they don't want to create a pathway for you to have certain rare animals in your possession by claiming that whatever happened to him, it's probably some part of the thinking on it.

The other part of it, which is interesting here. Um, I'm not sure if this is true in other States. You take the whole thing. You can't pick and choose. So our buddy Yanni, he had a roadkill moose. Big critter. You can't gut it on the side of the road. Like when you take it, you take it.

So you have that whole son of a bitch has to be loaded onto a trailer. You can't just go get the parts you want. You can't just get like the good meat and leave it laying there. They're like, no, hold on moose. Which de-incentivizes some, you know, you gotta go get a flat bed trailer.

Yeah. And a lot of help, you know, to get it on there. Yeah, so they make it a little bit hard. But picture if not, you just jump out of your truck and pull the gourmet cuts and then you got like a half butchered moose on the side of the road. You're traveling with your top shelf and the back of your truck just waiting on it.

Yeah, that'd make for an interesting drive, you know, if you're like watching dudes on the side of the road. Watching dudes on the side of the road do that. Road chefs. Yeah. Well, man, I'm glad you guys came, man. It's a lot of fun. I got a lot of respect for all that.

It's such a cool business. Yeah, I appreciate business. So unique. We really appreciate it. How often do TV shows call you guys wanting to do, like, a reality show about your shop? All the time. What do you always say, no? Uh...

Yeah, I mean, at this point, no. They just, uh, finish each other's thought there. Oh, yeah. Good job. She was right. It was no. You finished each other's thought. She was right. So you get calls and they're like, hey, we want to do a reality show and blah, blah, blah.

People crying about their pets. Yeah. Yeah, just about the shop and the whole thing. And it's just the reality world is a wild world where they just infiltrate on your personal life so much. And I like to keep my personal life personal. Yeah. Yeah, and also I think it'll inhibit a lot of our,

you know, everyday. You think? I mean, Yeah. For sure. It would kind of slow down our, you know, production or process everything. So,

And then trade secrets. Yeah, and trade secrets as well. Oh. Yeah, now like it's been, the shop's been around since 1922. There's a lot of stuff that stays within those walls. So it'd be, I don't want to be the guy that exposes everything after over a hundred years of the company.

But hey guys, I want to make a little bit of money and show my face off so that, you know, ruin the whole business. You know, it's bigger than us. Also on the pet side of things, it's so sensitive. It is. It's like if you had a funeral home and somebody approached you about to do a reality show. A reality show about a funeral home? Yes.

Probably wouldn't. Yeah. The other funeral home would probably get stuck in a lot more clients. Yeah. You got like, get waivers from everybody. Yeah. You know, your uncle's part of a reality TV show. Can you sign here?

There's a camera crew just sitting there waiting for the paper. It's just, yeah. Yeah, I could totally picture it. I'm not at all shocked that you guys get, that's gotta be half your phone calls is people wanting to picture. Yeah. Well, thanks for coming in again, man.

I love it. We're gonna come visit your shop. Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, appreciate it. Anytime. Thank you, Cren. Yeah, we appreciate you so much. I mean, Cren books all the guests,

but this one was good. Oh, it wasn't my idea. I didn't Corinne books all the guests, but this one was good. Oh, it wasn't my idea. I didn't see that article first. That was Bergsmith. I'm really glad it happened. Trophy guests. That's a good way to put it, trophy guests. And should you ever wind up with a cat or dog that doesn't have a home, we would be happy to take it off your hands. Absolutely. We'll send you something. a home we would be happy to take it off your hands. And I think maybe, are you gonna send your dog down when it passes? I mean, I would be cool, but I don't know. You got a couple

years to figure it out. Yeah, yeah, I you get a box from Seth, keep it cold. That's right. Keep it cold. All right, thanks, dude. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. This is an iHeart Podcast.