Arden Moore:
The Pet Edu-Tainer
Pet expert and best-selling author
Big WOOFS! Sweet-natured Presley Reigns as
America’s Top Dog!
When the “Greatest American Dog Show” first aired on CBS, a young Oklahoma farm guy named Travis Brorsen and his young, energetic Boxer named Presley were anything but early contenders for the title of Greatest American Dog and the winner-take-all prize of $250,000. Most of the other contestants were more seasoned dog people and their canines possessed more talents. Yet, week by week, the Travis-Presley team learned more. Their trust strengthened. And when it mattered most, they performed their best. Please tune in to this special show as Travis shares the many lessons he has learned from being on this reality show and being doggone lucky to have an enthusiastic pup named Presley.
Questions or Comments? Send them to: arden@petliferadio.com.
Arden Moore: Welcome to the “Oh Behave” show on Pet Life Radio. I’m your host Arden Moore.
All right America, you know there are some boxers like Mohammed Ali and Joe Frasier who gained fame and acclaim for their ability to spar. But there is one boxer who truly inspires without the need to throw a punch. Instead he delivers plenty of sloppy kisses and possesses plenty of tail wagging talent, and he answers to the name Presley.
Our special guests on today’s show are Travis Brorsen and his young, but talented, boxer Presley, winners of “The Greatest American Dog” title from the hit CBS show by the same name.
Hey, welcome to our show, Travis and, of course, Presley.
Travis Brorsen: Absolutely. Thank you guys for having us.
Arden Moore: Oh, we are glad you’re here.
We’re going to find out what life is like now to be the greatest American dog and to have a little extra caching to the name of $250,000 dollars, when we talk to Travis right after this commercial break.
[sponsor break]
Arden Moore: Welcome back. You’re listening to the “Oh Behave” show on Pet Life Radio. I am your host Arden Moore.
Travis, you had America on pins and needles for the whole ten weeks. We never knew who was going to be crowned “Greatest American Dog” on the same show on CBS. It started with 12 teams of people and their dogs, all shapes and sizes, all from big and little cities. I have got to ask you this question that you have been asked a zillion times already. In your wildest dreams when you first got this little dog in your hands and adopted Presley did you ever imagine that before his second birthday he’d be winning this huge trophy and this unbelievable title?
Travis Brorsen: I mean, never. Never in my wildest dreams. That was what was so funny when I was doing the show is that people don’t really believe that before we did the show when I would yell for Presley to come to me from across the way he’d turn and run the other direction.
Arden Moore: See ya. Wouldn’t want to be ya.
Travis Brorsen: Yeah, he is like, “Why would I go over there when I can run down here.”
It is so funny because dog people understand, but a lot of people don’t believe, they just can’t believe, the progress over those seven weeks, that he made and I can’t believe it. I think that was what was so great about the competition.
Arden Moore: Well, I think that’s great. I also think, though, one thing that was going in your favor is that you really paid attention to the other people and their teams. You’re like a sponge as well as Presley. You soaked up a lot of good doggy knowledge. I mean, you almost got your doggy PhD (pretty hot dog) in that contest by really paying attention to some of the other contestants and how they interacted with their dogs. The good and the bad, I guess. Wouldn’t you say?
Travis Brorsen: Yeah, I think that was what was so great for us is that we had that opportunity. You know, with Presley not having many bad habit as far as like me training him because I hadn’t really trained him much. You know, definitely potty training, sitting, and trying to stay as long as possible. But as far as like tricks and big time obedience stuff I really didn’t know, not only the right way, but also didn’t know the wrong way. So he didn’t have a lot of bad habits at that point and even though he was at sixteen months he was really at that age.
I had somebody there tell me – I think it was the trainer on the show Kirsten. – She said Presley is at an age where he is at a fork in the road and…
Arden Moore: Right.
Travis Brorsen: …within the next month he is either going to say, like you said, “See ya. Wouldn’t want to be ya. I am going this way.” Or he is going to stick by my side and we are going to head down the other direction together.
So I think the timing of this competition was just perfect. It allowed me to take a lot of the things that I saw people training and their methods and apply them to Presley. It also showed me that there are things that work with some dogs that don’t work with every dog.
Arden Moore: Right.
Travis Brorsen: That was what we really benefited from the most, I would say.
Arden Moore: So zip us back in time, the pre Presley years. What made you get this dog? You said you are a new dog owner, I guess. And what was life like pre Presley, for you?
Travis Brorsen: Before I even had a dog I grew up on a farm and ranch in Okalahoma. I moved out here after I graduated college at Okalahoma State University. It was either go back home and work on the farm or take this opportunity, not being tied down, not married, no kids, and venture out. So I moved out to Los Angeles and over the last four years have been successful enough to get by on doing commercials and TV work.
But, over the last like three years I saw a lot of people here in Los Angeles who had a dog. You know, I grew up on a farm so we had dogs, cats, cattle, pigs, and all that good stuff. But we would always have between three and ten pigs or whatever and cattle we would have over a thousand. So you weren’t really like best buddies with them. So I never really had that relationship.
So I moved to LA and I saw all these people, dogs being carried in purses, dogs having their own seats in cars, and all these things. I am like, “Wow. What is going one? What is this all about?” These people just had these really cool – and at the time I felt – maybe a little wacky relationships with their dogs. I thought, maybe, this is something I ought to give a try to, maybe I should do this.
I think nobody really knows this, but when I was in the eighth grade I showed pigs in the FFA and they were my best biddies. I had them named. They were my friends. They were my pets. I remember when I had to sell them off to market I didn’t understand that that was the way it worked. I remember in the eight grade crying and being like, I am never going to become attached to an animal again, this is not worth it.
Arden Moore: Oh my gosh.
Travis Brorsen: Yeah.
So I think, since then I have just always kept that door closed off because I just didn’t want to…you know it is painful to love an animal and then have it leave you and I just thought, I am not going to do that again.
When I got Presley from my hometown of Perry he was eight weeks old and I had him out here. For the first 14 months I really questioned: Am I ready for a dog? Is this really what I want? It’s a lot of work. Then I hadn’t really found that bound that all these people already had.
The show came up and I thought, what the heck. They just had the writer’s strike and I hadn’t worked in a few months. I thought, what great opportunity. So I knew that going into it it would either be one of those things that 24 hours a day for the x amount of days that we were going to be in there I was either going to go, “Ok, this isn’t for me. I need to figure something out.” or I was going to come out with a best friend and luckily that was where we came out.
Arden Moore: Wow! Now there’s a Hollywood Story for you.
Travis Brorsen: I know. Right?
Arden Moore: You couldn’t have script that any better. I mean, I am sure there are no pigs in the Future Farmer…What is FFA? Future Farmers…
Arden Moore: Yeah, FFA. It used to be Future Farmer’s of American. Now it is just a leadership organization that stands alone with those acronyms.
But, yeah, that was something big for me in high school with public speaking and all that great stuff. I did show animals, cattle, and stuff. That was just one of those great things. Everybody would grow a bond with their animal, but you would always kind of keep that distance to where you wouldn’t let yourself get hurt and I had been that way. Then I thought well…
I think what that contest did for me was open me back up to those because, you know, with the loss of a love one there comes all that love, all those great memories and all that.
Arden Moore: Right.
Travis Brorsen: You know, all those things that I had been missing out on all those years.
What has been neat for me is that I have been able to touch back in and touch base with all those wonderful things that come with all that.
Arden Moore: So how did you pick Presley as the eight week old pup? And what made you pick a boxer?
Travis Brorsen: Well, you know, that was something else about winning this competition. There was a lot of boxer fans going, “Well we hope everybody out there realizes that not all boxers are like Presley.” in the sense that they are so high energy, they want to play, they want to love, and they want to do all so many things.
Well, I wasn’t real familiar with that. But I didn’t think that I was like, “Well, I’ll pick out one of these puppies that looks really reserved and laid back, kind of away from the pack. Then that is the way Presley was as a puppy. He was just very reserved. He would just set there and stare. I thought, this is the one, because he will be able to watch football with me and just kind of lay around.
Arden Moore: Yeah.
Travis Brorsen: Well, I think, after about three weeks past that I realized that that was wrong.
Arden Moore: He wanted to play football.
Travis Brorsen: Exactly. He wanted to bounce off the walls 24/7. I thought what did I get myself into.
But with all that, what an amazing learning experience for me and then the socialization he got on the show was just priceless. He realized that he didn’t have to go sniff and say hi to every single dog that walked by. He was able to learn the social skills of, dogs are dogs and not all dogs want to be approached,
Arden Moore: Right.
Travis Brorsen: not all dogs want to be sniffed and they all give off…
They have there own way of talking, which I learned from being on the show. They have their own language. Just because one dog tells another dog to get away from them it doesn’t mean that they’re a mean or rude dog. It just means that, maybe, one dog is older and isn’t into the playful puppy energy like they used to be.
So I just really learned a lot about dogs in general, which was really a great treat for us.
Arden Moore: Well you had quite a collection. I think, of all the species, God had the most creativity when he created dog because you’ve got the little tea cup chihuahua to the
big dogs that way over – like the bull mastiff and other dogs that can weigh over – 200 pounds, 150 plus different dogs that are out there on the planet.
So this had to be quite an eye opener for you. You know, pigs come in similar shapes, right?
Travis Brorsen: Yeah.
Arden Moore: They are a lot different, pigs from dogs, right?
Travis Brorsen: I mean, that’s a big difference.
I think that was one of the things being on the show was that you know I really felt like I kind of represented the average American that just has a pet, that would like to train their pet, but doesn’t necessarily know how, but still loves their animal, and just really kind of needs that guidance and somebody just to go, “What do I do? I want to help him but I can’t.”
So what was fun for me was being able to show those people ought there, who, maybe, don’t have the knowledge or the experience, that it can still be done. You know what I mean? It’s all about the time and the effort that you put into it. That is what you will get back in return.
Arden Moore: So do you have a cool website or anything -- Please say yes. You’re a smart man.
Travis Brorsen: Yes, of course.
Arden Moore: -- where people can keep following the adventures of Travis and Presley?
Travis Brorsen: Absolutely. We have a website. It’s really easy. It’s travisandpresley.com. Presley spells his name P-R-E-S-L-E-Y. So it is just Travis and …three words, travisandpresley.com. You can follow us there.
We are keeping everybody updated on what we are doing. We’ve got a lot of crazy things in the works.
It is so funny. I am not familiar with this reality world, but we were just nominated through the Fox Reality Awards as “the best dynamic duo”.
Arden Moore: Oh my gosh!
Travis Brorsen: I know. Can you believe it? We were just nominated. Of course, you know the award ceremony isn’t for another week or so. But we just though, what a cool…How many people in Hollywood can say they are walking down a red carpet and they are at an awards ceremony because of their dog.
Fox does the Fox Reality Awards. They do there own.
Arden Moore: Oh my gosh!
Travis Brorsen: Yeah, it’s a really thing. But, I thought, you know, who else in Hollywood can say they got to take their dog down a red carpet because of their dog.
Arden Moore: Who else in Hollywood would worry that the performer would do something on the red carpet too. So make sure you walk Presley before you guys make that voyage.
Travis Brorsen: Oh absolutely, absolutely, absolutely.
Arden Moore: Well, we are going to talk more about the cool talents of Presley…
Travis Brorsen: Great.
Arden Moore: …and speak with Travis Brorsen right after we pay for the show by taking this commercial break.
[sponsor break]
Arden Moore: Welcome back to the “Oh Behave” show. I am your host Arden Moore. As mentioned we have Travis Brorsen and Presley and people know who we are talking about.
We are talking about the winners of “The Greatest American Dog” show title. You win $250,000 --That is a lot of Kibble for you there Travis.
Travis Brorsen: It sure is.
Arden Moore: -- plus this huge trophy that literally if you just laid it down, I think, would probably be about the length of your boxer Presley. Wouldn’t you say?
Travis Brorsen: I would say and I honestly think it is close to weighing as much as Presley too.
Arden Moore: Now, the show, obviously, was taped and you have known that you won this. You have had to keep your lips zipped for, I don’t know, how many weeks because the show just aired. But tell us what has trans...? How did you deal with the time you knew till the time it was announced? How did you deal with that? Oh my gosh, talk about pressure.
Travis Brorsen: You know, it was really a challenge at first. I really kind of got some good practice because, of course, all my friends, “Hey, so how you going to spend all that money?” and then I have got to come back with, “Well, what money? We don’t know who has won yet.” So, you know what I mean? So I just really got really good at flipping those questions around.
But, after the first couple episodes, I realized how much fun people were having watching the show and how much fun they were having being a part of the journey that we took through those ten episodes of “Greatest American Dog”. Once I saw that and saw how excited people were just watching, seeing the other dogs, and becoming part of the life of the show, that just motivated me to think I am actually doing everyone else a favor by not telling them because I am allowing them to be a part of the show. That was what was so cool.
Arden Moore: That is very smart. I think one trait about you, Travis, is that you are very conscious of the feelings of others whether they have two or four legs.
Travis Brorsen: Yes, and that was enlightening to me. I think other people noticed that before I did. I really didn’t even look at it that way until somebody had mentioned it to me and I thought, Oh my gosh, yeah, ok, I see what you are saying now. I realized that now.
But going into the competition, for me, that was what the competition was all about to begin with. It was all about the relationship between you and your dog. Not that the other people didn’t have great relationships, because they all had. That was the one thing about this show. There wasn’t one person on there that didn’t absolutely adore animals and, of course, their own pet, far beyond what you could ever imagine. That was what made it so wonderful. It showed me how to love a pet, how to love an animal, how to put them first, especially in a competition like that when it is all about the animal. If they are not having fun, then why are you doing it?
So for me, it was really neat having friends, family, and other friends watching the show and living through what I had experienced. With them not knowing the outcome, that was just an added bonus.
Arden Moore: So how long of a time are we talking about, between the shows taping and the shows final episode airing, did you have to keep your lip zipped?
Travis Brorsen: Right at the beginning of June.
Arden Moore: Wow!
Travis Brorsen: I think it was the first week of June all the way until a week ago Wednesday.
Arden Moore: Oh my gosh!
Travis Brorsen: Yeah.
Arden Moore: You can’t be like spending the money or anything. You have got to be like regular I am looking for a Hollywood job here like everybody else in LA, right?
Travis Brorsen: Yep, regular ole Joe.
Fortunately enough, about a year earlier I had a mission trip planned to Indonesia for July, which was actually three and a half weeks in July and the beginning of August. So I had that trip planned a year in advance. What that allowed me to do was not only have the opportunity to go and help some people, but it also allowed me to get away from everything and take a little breather.
I cant’ tell you, doing a reality show and not having any contact to the outside world, it makes it hard to go to the grocery story when you get back because nothing is the same, it is really out of sorts.
Arden Moore: Yeah.
Travis Brorsen: But, that really allowed me to get away, get grounded again, and get focused on what is really important. It also kept me out of answering so many questions about, “Who won? Who won?” So it was fine.
Arden Moore: Now this was a mission you went as… You are a very strong Christian. So what were you doing in Indonesia? Because, I know, in the bio it says you have been to Venezuela, as well.
Travis Brorsen: Yeah, the last two years I went to Venezuela. We went to Caracas and worked with a homeless shelter, a drug rehab center, and a youth center there, the last two summers.
This summer we went to Indonesia and we went around on Indonesia. We actually went to the Island of Bali, but we went to the lower class portions. There was actually a gentleman there who had fallen out of a coconut tree and had broken his back. They just had poor living conditions. So we went in and built them a new house, a new bathroom, new kitchen, for his family.
Arden Moore: Oh my gosh.
Travis Brorsen: That is just something, you know. This time around it wasn’t through a particular church. I had actually just gotten some friends together and said, “Let’s just go do something on our own.” So we were able to go through an organization here in LA called “Wishful Thinking”, which is a nonprofit organization.
For me, it is just one of those things that I have always done. It really keeps everything in perspective. It reminds you what is really important. And it couldn’t have come at a better time.
Arden Moore: Now, is it wishfulthinking.com? If people have an interest in finding this group.
Travis Brorsen: Yeah, it is actually the number 4, 4wishishfulthinking.org.
Arden Moore: Dot org. Ok. Because I think that is a great idea. It’s sort of like you were like Habit For Humanity with this gentleman that broke his back, right?
Travis Brorsen: Exactly, yeah.
I had gone with the Bellaire Presbyterian Church to Venezuela the last two summers and I had a lot of friends who some of them are Christians other are just really good people and they really wanted to do something and they didn’t want to feel like it was a set in stone organized thing. But they just really wanted to give back. I said, “We can go do our own work.”
You can do it for your own reasons. You know what I mean? I don’t want to tell somebody why to be a good person or to do something great. Just to go out there and witness to those other people and be a part of that, I think everybody just really really enjoyed it. It was one of those things that it was just really…
Like I said, it came at a great time. I didn’t have to answer all those questions.
Arden Moore: People in Indonesia were more important about, “Can you please help us with our friend that needs a home and has a broken back?” Right?
Travis Brorsen: Exactly.
Arden Moore: It really does put things into perspective, I think. What a great timing for that trip.
Travis Brorsen: It really did.
Of course, then I have got the typical answers of, “Oh, so you went to Indonesia. So you must have won, huh?” and I am like, “No.”
Arden Moore: Oh my gosh.
Travis Brorsen: That is the kind of stuff that goes on out here. That is why, obviously, my mom makes sure that I always always make sure that I am from Oklahoma. Of course, I go home and I say, “Ok, mom, I have got to catch the plane today. I am going home.” She said, “No, now Travis this is your home. LA is where you live.” “You’re right mom. I am sorry. I am sorry.”
Arden Moore: Good mom. That’s right. That’s good.
Hey, the people that did get expelled early, did they have to live in the house for the rest of the duration? Or did they go home and just had to keep quite? What happened to…?
Travis Brorsen: No, most of the reality shows do what they call a sequester where they go to a separate location. They do a sequester. They go to a separate location. Then from there they stay together. One at time, as they get kicked of, they all go and stay in this other location. Then they are there for the duration. Then, of course, they all came back on the last day.
That way they are not going home and seeing there family members and their family members going, I thought it wasn’t over until so and so date. That way it just keeps everybody on the level.
Arden Moore: Right. And they are not allowed to have phone calls or emails as well, right?
Travis Brorsen: No. Yeah, they stay…
Arden Moore: Oh gosh.
Travis Brorsen: I know. It’s really wild, isn’t it?
Arden Moore: I just want to let you know, since you have been gone, Brittney Spears has been elected President and the main food now is a dog food. I just want to tell you because you’ve been in Indonesia and been sequestered from the show. A lot of things have happened different in America.
Travis Brorsen: I know. Hey, it wouldn’t surprise me; it had been such a wild trip.
Arden Moore: You know, there is a dog on the Supreme Court now. I mean, I am telling you life has gone to the dogs. I think that’s not bad.
Travis Brorsen: Perfect, yeah. Well that means Presley has a lot of opportunities ahead if we’ve got a dog on the Supreme Court. That’s great.
Arden Moore: Oh my gosh. He is so athletic. I have got to tell you, I loved watching him when he was doing the agility. When he went Superman fly… anybody that likes BMX biking, there is a Superman thing where you do it on the handlebar of the bike, I guess, it’s called the Superman. Presley looked like that when he did that challenge where he had to trust to go airborne to meet you on that one challenge several weeks back. I mean, you had to be blown away to see him fly.
Travis Brorsen: I mean… You know what? That was what was so crazy. I tell people that I got so stressed and they are like “Why?” “Well, because Presley kept doing all these things I was asking him to do and it was just blowing my mind.” And I said, “Who would have ever thought that your dog would look 20 feet down and think somehow that that is ok and that that is safe?”
It was safe. Obviously, I wouldn’t have been asking him to do it if it wasn’t safe. So that was what was so crazy and that was what, I think, made us grow so close together is that you have this other being doing all these things just because your asking them to do it. It is just absolutely amazing. It is just absolutely amazing.
Arden Moore: Wow!
Now, there was an analogy that was given to both you and to Laurie and Andrew in the fact that you and Presley were like newly weds and they were like a very strong marriage. I wanted to get your take on that because she was quite a formidable challenger for you and had a little dog and it was a nice representation in the finals. Were you a little nervous when they were just ready to announce the name? And what is your take on that analogy of newlyweds versus marriage?
Travis Brorsen: Well, I actually told Laurie after that was over, I said, that was a compliment for me because going into the competition, if you are using analogies of newly weds and dating and this and that, I would put Presley and I in the boat that our relationship was on the rocks, if hat was the analogies you want to use.
Then over the course of those seven weeks, as a human dog relationship, it was like we just kind of fell in love on that friendship level of like I will do anything for you and your doing anything for me. So to have her use that term of newlyweds, well, I don’t think there is a much happier couple than when somebody first gets married.
Arden Moore: Yeah.
Travis Brorsen: So as far as that’s concerned, I was just like, that is one of the best compliments I could ever have. For me that means that this is the beginning to something wonderful as opposed to already having something wonderful be down the road on that. So, for me, I was like that is the best compliment that I could ever get.
Standing there is the top two, as far as my feeling go, for the last three or four weeks of the competition, I wouldn’t say I was ready to go home but almost every time that I was on the fence I was ok with going home because every day that we were there I just made sure to get the most out of every moment we had. That way when we looked back, if we went home in fourth or sixth or second, that no matter what happened we could look back and go, you know what we took full advantage of every opportunity and win or lose it could be a win/win situation.
Arden Moore: Well, I’ve got to tell you, you do have puppy dog eyes and I am sure there’s a lot of women in America that want your phone number. We will not shout it out on the radio. I promise you that.
But it sounds like you really took to heart what the judges where saying and each week you tried to do better. If the rest of the America, if we just followed that mantra, man, can you imagine how amazing this world would be?
Travis Brorsen: It is so amazing. Especially when a lot of the contestants on the show got really frustrated with the judges criticism and to me I just felt, the judges aren’t up here giving us this criticism to bash us or talk down to us. They want us to succeed. They want us to do well. That is what I think people were forgetting is that it was constructive criticism. It was like, for me, I didn’t know right from wrong.
So when I did something wrong, it was like, ok, great, now I know and now I can move on. As opposed to somebody like JD or Laurie who have all these things kind of set in stone and when they get approached by the judges with something they have a little bit of a different thought process because they’ve been doing it one way for so long. Which doesn’t make their way right or wrong; it just allowed me to be really open to any ideas and to any criticisms that we could get and for us to…
They want us to do well and I think, if we just remembered that, that was the key.
Arden Moore: So what’s something fun you’ve done with the money? Something with a purpose.
Travis Brorsen: Well, I actually haven’t gotten the money yet, unfortunately.
Arden Moore: Oh, ok. Oh sorry, Bud, we’re just teasing. I am just kidding.
Travis Brorsen: Yeah, right.
But when I do get the money something I am really looking forward to is the money is actually going to allow me to spend a lot more time with Presley. I think that’s what’s most important.
I look back and I am like, well I wouldn’t have gotten the money if it wasn’t for him anyway, so he deserves the best of it.
Arden Moore: Right.
Travis Brorsen: So, obviously, good dog beds, fund dog toys, and good healthy treats. But on that same level, I think it will also allow us to do a little bit of traveling, go around and for the short time that Presley and I have that people will remember us or remember the show, if we could go to a local animal shelter, wherever it may be, make and appearance, and have 100 people show up as opposed to 20 and get ten or fifteen extra dogs adopted that day, if we could do things like that, and the money allows
us to go around for even the next six months and do something fun like that we would just love to do something like that.
So that is what we are hoping will be an opportunity to do, hopefully.
Arden Moore: Yeah, because a big chunk will be gobbled up by Uncle Sam. You know that.
Teri: Oh yeah, of course.
Arden Moore: But I am sure though, there is going to be a lot of invitations for both of you to be the ambassadors for doggies everywhere. I mean, the show just proclaimed you “Greatest American Dog Team”. But I know just like Miss America and other people win awards and you’ve got to admit you’re probably starting to get a full docket, aren’t you?
Travis Brorsen: Oh man, I tell you what, the last four days, I have realized what some people go through on a daily basis with emails, interviews, public appearance, and this and this and that. At the end of the day I just relate it back to the show and I just keep saying, well, as long as Presley is having fun doing all of this we’ll keep doing it and as soon as it’s not fun to him anymore we’ll be done.
That is what I keep stressing as far as having the “Greatest American Dog” isn’t just about the dog, but it is about the relationship with the owner and the dog like in how much time is spent with him and making sure you don’t ask something of the dog that you wouldn’t ask of yourself. I think if everybody just remembers that, how can you not come out on top?
Arden Moore: Well, with that kind of a relationship that you have with Presley there is no danger of Presley ever becoming a diva dog. I think the life you have together is just going to keep getting stronger and stronger.
Again, we are very very glad that you came on our show Travis. I ‘m glad…Presley has been kind of the strong silent type. What is Presley doing right now?
Travis Brorsen: Well, he is right here. I will see if I can… Hey, Presley can you say hi. Oh there is a big yawn right there. [dog barking] There he is.
Arden Moore: He says, “I love the “Oh Behave” show with Arden Moore. I want to give her a big ole sloppy kiss if she was right her.” right?
Travis Brorsen: That is exactly what he said. His tail is a wagging. Yeah, absolutely.
Arden Moore: it is hilarious because through my headset one of my dogs just lifted up her head. Chipper is saying, “Oh is that Presley. I am a tall blonde. I am a golden retriever husky. Come here Presley.” So just be careful.
Travis Brorsen: Alright!
Arden Moore: I do want to say though, what was very joyful to here at the end of the show “The Greatest American Dog” show, when they did anoint you and Presley as the winners of “The Greatest American Dog” title, is that they said you came here as a guy with a dog and ten weeks later you are leaving with the greatest American dog, but you stressed something very important and that was that you don’t have to be perfect to be the greatest American dog. Is there any last message you would like to give to all of us listeners about that message?
Travis Brorsen: No, I think that was just the most important thing that I learned, is exactly what you said, that it doesn’t take a perfect dog for the dog to be great and at the same time it doesn’t take the most knowledgeable owner for them to be a great owner. What it takes is the willingness to learn and want to have a great, and more importantly, want to have a great relationship.
I relate it to human beings. The more work you put into it the more giving it will be for both people in a relationship, the dog and the human.
More than anything…I did an interview the other day, and they asked me, they said, “Does it bother you when Presley is at home and your not there?” And I said, “You know what, I don’t know a lot about dogs but I think we all know that whether your dog is at home for one hour or four hour they’re just as excited to see you when you walk through that door.
Arden Moore: Absolutely.
Travis Brorsen: It is all about taking that opportunity to spend the time that you have to spend with them and not coming home, sitting on the couch, and watching the football game when you’ve been gone for eight hours. So take that time that you have because they may not know that you’ve been gone for eight hours, but they will know that you are not spending time with them when you are home.
For me, that was the most important thing that I just really just want to stress to people in my position, that are in the same boat, where they have a great dog, they are a great person, and they just need to bring the two together. It is just all about the time you put in and what you’ll get back.
Arden Moore: Well, that is a great lesson to unleash on America. I am really glad you said that.
Again, we are speaking with Travis Brorsen and with Presley, who won “The Greatest American Dog” show title.
We thank you very much for being guests on our show. Just continue doing good work.
Travis Brorsen: Absolutely.
Thank you all for having me. I really appreciate it.
Arden Moore: Alright, at this time I also want to thank my cool producer. He makes this show happen every week.
If you have some ideas, questions, or comments for a show please zip me an email at arden@ardenmoore.com.
Please take a sniff around the PetLifeRadio.com site. We have lots of good things that bring out the very best in you and your pets.
So until next time, this is your flea free host Arden Moore delivering just two words for all you two, three, and four leggers out there. Oh behave.
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