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Episode #139 Furesque with Ben & Kaitlin · The Puppy Training Podcast

• 0:00
  Amy: This is the puppy training podcast episode 139 Frisk with Ben and Caitlin This podcast is designed to help you on your journey of becoming best friends through love and learning as you train your own dog from home, and I'm here to help you every step of the way.
• 0:21
  Amy: This is the puppy training podcast. And I'm your host, Amy Jensen. Welcome everybody to the puppy training Podcast. I'm so glad you're here today. I'm really excited to have Ben and Kaitlin with me today. They are from a company called Furesque which is their company. And they are going to explain that to us today. But I'm super honored to have them on the podcast today.
• 0:42
  Amy: And happy that you're listening.
• 0:42
  Amy: So thanks for tuning in. All right, Ben. And Caitlin, welcome to the show. How are you today?
• 0:50
  Ben: Good. Thanks. Good. Thank you for having us. Yes,
• 0:52
  Unknown: thank you.
• 0:53
  Amy: I'm super excited to introduce people to frisk. So will you just tell us a little bit about you guys and your background first and how frisk came to be? Yeah.
• 1:03
  Ben: Let me to go first. So yeah, my name is Ben Strompf. We formerly lived in Annapolis, Maryland. Now we live in Northeast Florida. I've been in the tech space for about 15 years, and just been always very entrepreneurial. And after Caitlyn introduces herself, I can go into it a bit more, but really just started for Escandon out of an idea, and kind of a market need that that wasn't fulfilled. So So yeah, do you want to give a quick intro?
• 1:32
  Kaitlin: So my name is Kaitlin.
• 1:32
  Kaitlin: I'm a learning and development professional in the tech space.
• 1:36
  Kaitlin: But obviously, for us, because a big passion of ours, and I focus a lot on the content creation.
• 1:45
  Kaitlin: We're really passionate about it. We're really passionate about the business and our fur, baby. And so yeah, we're happy to be here today. So
• 1:54
  Amy: thank you. Now I know we've picked everybody's interest they're going to know or want to know, what is Furesque?
• 2:01
  Ben: Yeah, so I can cover so Frisk is a pet portrait business. And what we do, it's more specifically, its people in pet portraits, portraits, and we solve the problem that like getting the perfect photo with you and your pets no longer impossible, because essentially what we do, most of our products are our printed portraits, but you can submit individual photos of you and your pet. So sometimes people will submit like, you know, a photo of themselves with their significant other a couple of their kids, individual ones of their pets. And we turn that into one cohesive portrait. And what we're super proud of is, is we know that people will love it, because we give you unlimited revisions until you do. We're a small, US based family business. And yeah, customer services is the top priority. And we also do, it's mostly, like I said, a framed portrait, but you could get it on a mug, a pillow, Christmas ornaments, there's a lot of different products.
• 2:58
  Amy: Hey, so you've taken your expertise in these different areas, and you've come up with this company for risk. How did the idea get started?
• 3:05
  Kaitlin: I think it was a combination of both of us, but then has more of the entrepreneurial mindset. So it was it was mainly him, but it was also probably knee nagging that we could never get great photos of the three of us. You know, when you get a dog or a pet, or you know, your furbaby, all you do is then your camera roll becomes like your pet, right? Like you have all these cute photos. It's doing this, it's doing that, but you want to get a photo of the three of you.
• 3:34
  Kaitlin: But you know, oh, everybody say cheese or smile. You can't tell your dog or your cat that right?
• 3:38
  Kaitlin: Like, so you're trying to get that perfect picture. And I'd always kind of correct him or be like, Oh, come on, we gotta try to get this and my obsession for getting the perfect photo, I think then gave you the idea.
• 3:51
  Ben: Yeah, I got it was it was right when COVID started, we had more time on our hands. We weren't traveling for work. And I came across like these pet portraits. And I was like, Man, this is, this is really cool.
• 4:00
  Ben: You could just submit a photo and they do this awesome design of your pet that you can put on the wall. And I was kind of looking through my phone, and then Caitlin's voice was in the back of my head. And I was like, she's right. Every photo is either just up the dog, or just have her and our dog Bailey like there's never all of us together because it's kind of impossible.
• 4:18
  Ben: Um, and so that's what really made us seek out to solve this problem. And I think we did so in a pretty cool manner that most people like.
• 4:30
  Amy: Yeah, I love that idea. I can totally relate to this. I'll try to get a picture of Baxter and he looks nervous or his mouth is shut and I want the tongue out and the happy, you know, smile kind of look to his face or Yeah, what a great idea.
• 4:44
  Amy: You mentioned Bailey, this must be your dog. Tell us a little bit about Bailey.
• 4:48
  Ben: Oh, they can definitely handle that.
• 4:50
  Kaitlin: She is our somewhat lazy lab at times. She's a yellow lab. She's about four years old and she He is very well trained. Thanks to you. We absolutely love her. She, uh, she has guys like kind of like a COVID. Baby. She's like a COVID for baby. We both work from home, luckily, but she pretty much comes with us everywhere.
• 5:13
  Kaitlin: And she, she's just a part of the family. She does everything with us super sweetheart. And yeah, thinks she's a person he does. She really thinks she's the person like sometimes, you know, on a rare occasion, if we do have to go out and they, you know, don't accept dogs or whatever. You know, she's kind of like, where are you going?
• 5:35
  Kaitlin: Why am I not allowed to go? And you know, I mean, we do errands and everything where we can bring her into the stores for the most part and stuff. But yeah, she is a big sweetheart, and just, you know, part of the family. Yeah. Well, you say, you know, thanks to us that your dogs will train. But you did all of the hard work. We just taught you how to do it, but you can't use it. But the resources are phenomenal. It was amazing. I'm a learning and development professional in the tech space.
• 6:06
  Kaitlin: So I do a lot of curriculum development. And I totally appreciate just how thorough and amazing your your whole curriculum was. I'm like, this is a dream. It was absolutely incredible. Because, you know, in my day to day, I think about like learning objectives and training goals and all that day to day. And so I was like this exists for training your dog like I was, I was just in awe, like, it's a brilliant and amazing thing. And we have, you know, the best lab now. But yeah, I was I was in awe by all the resources and the checklists and everything because it's so overwhelming. So you kind of don't know where to start or where to begin. And you just lay it out perfectly. So I was I was like, This is amazing. It's challenging, you kind of don't know where to start what to you know, okay, what do I get? What do I need? What are right, you can go on Amazon, you can, you know, grab stuff all day long.
• 7:05
  Kaitlin: But then you actually have to train your pet. Right. And then you sit there you go, Well, I don't know what I'm doing.
• 7:13
  Kaitlin: Right. I how do I do this? So I mean, just the whole curriculum layout, the checklist that I mean, especially Bailey was not very good with I mean, we are so grateful for the potty training and the checklist. Oh my gosh, she was, yeah, a couple of months. She just she thought this is where I go to the bathroom in the house. And we were like, Oh my gosh. So you know, if it was not for all of the tools and resources that your program provides, I mean, she would not be the well behaved, amazing dog that she is in to this day. I mean, I know she's only four. But we'll take her anywhere. We get compliments all the time on how great she is. She'll come to restaurants, she'll sit with us, she will lay right there. Show them the bar for kids really, really, really good listener because she's well trained.
• 8:06
  Amy: I'm super proud of you guys and all your hard work. Did you have a dog before Bailey or she your first?
• 8:12
  Unknown: She's our first our first dog together. Yeah, that dogs growing.
• 8:16
  Unknown: But I mean, last responsibility.
• 8:16
  Unknown: I did train our daughter growing up. So
• 8:21
  Amy: that makes me so happy to hear. Is she like your star of your company? Does she model your product?
• 8:28
  Ben: Yeah, she she's seen a lot throughout the website. Caitlyn does a lot of the content does a really amazing job. And luckily, like we said, Bailey's pretty lazy. So a lot of times she's just chilling here, chillin there. So it's pretty easy to like, put a portrait in front of her and take a picture and stuff like that.
• 8:46
  Amy: Oh, that is so awesome. I love when people take their expertise, or they have an idea.
• 8:49
  Amy: And then they find a passion and they connect the two. Yeah, that's what you've done with frisk.
• 8:56
  Unknown: Exactly. Exactly.
• 8:57
  Amy: Having raised Bailey, is there any advice you would give our listeners?
• 9:01
  Ben: I think like for me, the thing that I would imagine most people relate to like, it seems like it was forever right. And it was so painful training a dog and then it almost feels like when I look back, it feels like overnight. She went from you know, going to the bathroom in the house chewing everything.
• 9:18
  Ben: And then it was just like this well drained dog. So that's what I always think of when people like my my little sister just got a puppy. She's gonna How long is this gonna last? And you're like, it's hard to explain. It's just like a blur, but it just seems like overnight. It's like, oh, okay, here's, here's Bailey. Like, she's not gonna bathroom in the house anymore. She's listening.
• 9:35
  Ben: That's how I always explain it to new people like, and it's very oversimplified. And there's so much that goes in but it just almost seems like overnight.
• 9:45
  Ben: It's like bam.
• 9:47
  Amy: I think that is helpful to people to hear that. Okay. It feels like right now I'm in the grind and I'm doing 100 Potty trips a day and I'm, you know, leash walking. That's one of the things that teaching a dog to walk on a loose leash that gets a little monotonous, right Okay, a lot monotonous. But you know, you do that work. And then you're like, like you say, eventually they go through their phases, and they learn little by little, and they create these nice habits. You know, when I was raising my kids, my oldest, I had potty trained for the first time, like a human being, I was like, You gotta be kidding. And my mom would keep reminding me, he's not going to go to kindergarten and not know how to use a toilet, like he's going to figure it out, you know, they're going to figure this out. But when you're in it, you just feel like, oh, it's gonna be so long. So I think that is nice to hear. For people. Like when they're in that moment of potty training a puppy, it seems like it's going to take forever to get this accomplished, but it really does happen pretty quickly.
• 10:38
  Kaitlin: Yeah, yeah. And I, again, I think the the tools and resources that you provide, and, you know, there were times where I was commuting into an office sometimes, so it was okay. You know, I only have the time, but I'm listening to the podcast, and even even after, you know, I would, I would go in order, or I would be like, oh, gosh, you know, this just happened. Let me you know, let me skip ahead. Let me listen to this. So we can figure out how to focus on that, like, I remember just being you know, so you just feel so supported by everything, like, oh, okay, I don't have to, you know, go through and read everything, I'm listening to the podcast on my way. And then I'm, you know, calling him on the way home going, Okay, I listened to it on the drive in and here's what we need to do. You know, so it, you're, it's just a holistic way to kind of, like support every sort of type of parent or learner, if you will. And my, when I think about, you know, different, you know, adult learning theory and and how people learn differently, you know, if you can't, you don't have the time, you still have a resource for you. And even to this day, you know, the emails and, and notifications and all this stuff that comes with the whole program. This past winter, we we're, I think I got something for like the pub or something. And I'm like, Oh, that's right. Like, yes, we ran out like last year, and I never bought it again. But you know, the email notifications and stuff, kind of bring it up. And it's Oh, you guys are always there sort of supporting and guiding. And that's what's just so nice, because even though the puppy phase is over, you're still sort of monitoring, keeping on track that some of those things for your dog. So it's so nice.
• 12:17
  Amy: Well, thank you. That is why we created Baxter & Bella, I just love hearing client's experiences, especially, you know, this is our first dog. We didn't know really what we were doing. So thank you for saying that. That's so kind of you.
• 12:31
  Amy: Well, Ben, and Caitlin, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your experience having raised a dog through Baxter & Bella, as well as teaching us about your cool company for risk. Where can people find you?
• 12:46
  Ben: Yeah, you can go to our website. It's for rescue.com.
• 12:48
  Ben: That's FURES Qu E. And we have a special promo for you guys. Like for having us on the podcast. We appreciate it and for all the great content you've put out and helping us train and raise our dogs. So you can take 30% Off with code Baxter. Even if something's on sale, we wanted to make sure you know if anyone's interested, they get a sweet deal and and yeah, that's that's basically it. When you go on the site, you just submit photos. And the biggest thing that I would say, like I mentioned, we're so proud of is you you'll speak with someone individually. And you'll get unlimited revisions until you love it. So we just really emphasize the customer service and making sure people really like it. Because, you know, we're dog owners ourselves. We love our harassed portrait and we want everyone to be super happy. Listen,
• 13:37
  Amy: thank you for that code.
• 13:37
  Amy: You guys go check out for us.com Mother's Day is coming up it would make a really awesome, fun, unique gift. So thank you, Ben and Caitlin again for being here. Everybody have a wonderful rest of your week and happy training. If you have a question about anything you heard on this podcast or any other Puppy Training question, visit my site Baxter & bella.com to contact me