- Do you remember a couple of weeks ago
when I published this video?
For me, this is a great opportunity to speak my mind
on a topic that I think is really important to me.
Well, today I have something really cool
that I want to show you guys.
(dog barking)
Guys, today's video is a sponsored post
and it's a sponsored post because I'm so passionate
about pet safety.
You'll know after watching the vlog
and certainly after seeing that video
that after 20 years as a firefighter and a paramedic,
it's really important to me.
So that's why I'm gonna show you something
pretty cool today.
(uplifting music)
Hey, how's it going?
- Nice to meet you.
- Nice to meet you, too.
So, I want to introduce you guys to Norm Lecouvie
who is the owner of Bravepoint Kennels
and Canada's distributor of VarioCage kennels.
So Norm can you talk to us a little bit today
about your kennels that you sell.
- Sure, and thanks for the invitation to come in today.
As Ken said, we're the distributor in Canda
for the VarioCage product.
This is a product that's been engineered, designed
and manufactured in Sweden.
It's a lovely looking product,
but more importantly it's a very safe product.
And pet safety is the utmost in our minds.
This is a product that is actually crash tested.
When I say crash tested, it's the only crash tested
product in the world that's crash tested for front,
rear collisions as well as roll overs.
It's tested in Sweden.
The same types of facilities that they crash test cars.
In fact, when they crash test these products,
they actually do so with simulated humans in the vehicle
to see if the cage will have any impact on the humans
during a crash.
The last thing we want to do is keep the dog safe,
which is great, only to impact and hurt or injure
the humans that are in the car as well.
- So I think that's a really important point
and it's something that I talk about in the videos.
If your vehicle is involved in a collision
anything that isn't tied down
is going to be moving inside that vehicle.
And when Norm mentions talking about
the safety of the humans
that's equally as important
when we're talking about a car crash.
- First thing I want to point out is
that you'll notice in the back of this vehicle,
this is a Dodge Caravan and the cage I have here
is the Varicage Double Max,
the largest one that's made.
If you notice that the angle of the cage,
actually resembles the angle of the seat.
And there's a reason for that.
The first reason from the dog's perspective
is that most dogs will be lying down,
hopefully lying down during transport.
There's a little more room on the bottom than on the top.
And that's nice for the dog.
The most important reason is because of a crash,
potential crash.
If this cage is involved, if this car is in a crash,
and this cage moves up,
then as you can see, because of the angles are very similar
than the force that's distributed by this cage
moving against that back seat,
the force is distributed evenly
across the back seat.
There are cages that offer,
we'll call them very, very strong steel made cages.
This is steel as well, I'll talk about that in a moment,
in a more box like manner.
Imagine if you will, if this was a steel square,
not an angle rectangle,
if this was a square and this point was where
it hit in an accident,
then all the energy and force of the vehicle
coming from behind or the cage moving forward
is centered and focused on one point.
That's a bad thing.
That's potentially, in an accident of 50 kilometers an hour,
4,000 pound vehicle, is upwards of 80,000 pounds of force.
Imagine 80,000 pounds of force,
imagine the force of a straight steel cage,
a rectangular cage, hitting the back here
because if that was a person's head,
then this is where their neck and vertebrae are.
You'll notice that there's knobs on the model cage,
and I'll talk about those later,
but these three are important.
And they're different color, they're red.
In the event that this vehicle is in an accident,
and the back hatch is compromised
and we can't get in the back,
the dogs are protected in here
and they're not going to run loose.
And we'll talk about that too,
but all I have to do is unscrew these three knobs,
and this back piece falls out.
It's an emergency escape hatch
for after the first responders have dealt with
the humans in the vehicle,
they wish to remove the saved animals,
the animals that have survived,
that's the way you would do it.
You don't have to go up in the front.
You can actually use this as an emergency escape hatch.
- And I thought that was really, really cool.
It's one of the features that I thought was amazing
about the Variocages.
In my experience as a firefighter,
there's been lots of instances
where you can't get to a certain part of a vehicle
and you just never know where that's going to be.
So having an alternative means to get your pet out
is really important in my mind.
So a few of you might be thinking
there's no way I can use a crate.
I can't fit it in my car,
or it just doesn't work for me.
Norm's mentioned another option for you guys
that just can't use the crate.
- Yeah, or if you have a third dog.
So you might have something like this in the back
but you have that smaller dog or third dog in the vehicle.
There is an AllSafe Harness,
which has been on the market now for about 20 years.
Extremely safe unit product
that comes in four or five sizes.
Right down to something for a 10 pound or nine pound dog
up to the very large dogs.
And it incorporates your existing seat belt system
in the back seats.
- Oh that's a good idea, yeah.
- So the dog has full mobility.
It goes on almost like a harness
for the dog.
And they're kept very, very safe.
- That's what's the most important thing now.
Because we touched on it earlier a little bit
about the crash testing and the safety testing.
That is of the upmost importance.
That's really why I reached out to Norm,
because in our discussion when I first saw this product
and I reached out to him,
that was the thing he talked about right away.
That's something that we talked about the most.
I was so impressed with some of the testing
and the level of testing that goes into these cages.
So if you're considering a crate
and certainly you need to be considering your pet's safety
as your traveling in your vehicle,
in my opinion, this is the way to go,
these VarioCage kennels.
I'm actually going to drop a link in the description below
to Norm's website, so that you guys
can check them out yourselves.
So guess who has joined us here.
- Hello.
- Kayl's here and she wanted to check out
some of the kennels,
but Norm is just going to show us
some of the features of the front of the doors
of the kennel and the crumple zones.
- One of the things that sold me,
and my wife in particular, on this product
was that, and correct me if I'm wrong,
when you get to a show,
and Gail does agility, as you teach agility and do agility,
when Gail gets to shows,
the first thing that she does is
she opens up the back of her hatch
because the dogs need air,
but then she locks the doors.
- Nice.
- She can walk away, go pick up her course map.
Or if you're doing confirmation,
you go pick up your number excreta.
If you're really worried you can actually
put on a pad lock as well.
- Actually I've said this,
I'm also thinking to myself,
there's lots of times like after a show or whatever,
where we want to go for dinner or something
and like they panic.
It's like, "Oh my god, what do we do with the dogs."
Now you can park somewhere where you can see them
with the hatch up, open it
and then you can not have to stress at all.
- That's Monica, that was going to be my next line.
- I love how I'm not thinking very traily.
I'm thinking about the food and the beer after the trial.
- This exactly what we do.
When the young lady in the front says,
"Do you want to sit over here?"
"No, put me next to the window so I can see my car."
- Absolutely.
- And we do just this.
Very strong, all hydraulics to mange them.
You can slam them, they're not going to break.
A couple of interesting points,
or one interesting point,
is you'll notice this bar is shorter than the rest.
- I did notice that.
- And there's a reason for that in that
in a vehicle this is the crumple zone.
Now you'll see a lot of cages, steel cages,
that are square again.
Back to my point when we were
looking at the back of the cage.
The challenge is if we put a solid steel cage
with a point here
then we actually compromise the
rollover crumple zone capability of this vehicle
and other vehicles.
And so in fact, what this cage has,
is it's own crumple zone.
So once the vehicle has rolled,
hopefully just the one time,
and everyone is fine,
but if it compromises this crumple zone space,
then it will start to
make use of it's own crumple capability as well.
- It's a great idea.
- All the cages are strapped in and tied down
in four points.
Customers often ask, "Should I put something stronger in
"than these thinner straps?"
There's no need.
The reason is, one, we want them to break away.
And number two, these load hooks would break away
before the strap anyways.
So that doesn't even matter.
- Absolutely, I was just thinking the same thing.
- You just want to keep this thing from moving around
in the car while your driving.
And you also want it to be in the right position
for an impact.
You don't want it to be sideways during an impact.
You want it to be just like as it is now.
They're all made of steel, powder coated so they won't rust.
What's interesting about this
is that the steel is malleable,
in that it isn't tubular steel that not forgiving.
You want it to be forgiving
so that the dog has a chance.
And all of the cages are extendable,
whether there six versions or six sizes of the double cage.
There's five sizes of the single cage,
and there's even four smaller cages.
But they're all extendable just by moving those,
undoing those black knobs.
You can stretch them out and bring them back.
- [Kayl] I was wondering, because I was looking at this here
and thinking, "I feel like that goes out and in."
- It does.
So a couple of reasons why you do it,
if you had a small dog now,
you don't want a lot of space.
- No.
Because the dog would be shot three feet
to the end of the cage in an accident.
But as the dog grows you can extend it.
- Another great idea why
your crate should be properly sized.
- Absolutely.
- Not just because we talk about that
for our house training often.
But another reference would be car for sure.
- Absolutely, the other reason why they're extendable
is because there are such a variety of cars.
And we have one that will fit in,
we have a device that will fit in any vehicle
on the market today.
And also, what happens in a crash,
is that's actually compressing first as well.
And it will get to the end,
which is steal even about this big a cage inside.
So would the dog be kind of like this,
for a second sure, but the dogs alive,
which is what we really want.
- Yeah, absolutely.
- Because what we have,
one of the biggest challenges,
and we talk about with,
every summer we talk about how people
are leaving dogs in cars and they're dying.
That's a tragedy and we have a lot of education around it,
but we don't have any education
on restraining your dog in cars.
It's super important,
because one of the biggest challenges,
with Ken being a first responder,
is that dogs, if they survive in a car crash
in any cage other than this one,
they're generally loose in the vehicle.
So the first responder comes to the car,
needs to address and treat the human,
often breaking open the doors,
the dog bails.
The dogs either lost or killed on the highway.
- I know way to many stories of that happening.
- And that happens far more often
than dogs overheating in a car.
So we need to spend some time on education on that.
Currently in the United States,
nine of the 51 states have legislation
that dogs need to be restrained in vehicles.
- Really?
- [Ken] That's good to know.
That's really great.
- I had no idea.
- We don't have that in Canada yet to my knowledge.
In Ontario, there's three things the police can do.
Correct me if I'm wrong, sections 162,
which is crowded driver,
section 130, which is careless driving,
and of course our new distracted driving act law,
which is mostly around cell phones and texting,
but it's really distracted by anything.
- Sometimes you see people driving with their little bichon
on their lap or up over their shoulder.
- Incredible.
- And not be safe and perfect.
- [Ken] So unsafe.
- So dangerous for the dog.
When you drive around and you see the car,
the dogs loose in the back of the truck.
Ken knows, I go ballistic in the car.
Because it just makes me so angry and so sad
that people would put their dog at risk like that.
- I think when you spend more time on education
of consumers, of the drivers because
even though the police may have the ability
to enforce certain things like the distracted driver
or crowded driver,
it doesn't have the same affect on the average consumer.
the average person who's driving,
not the way when we have all the campaigns about,
"Don't leave dog in your car in the summertime
"with the windows up."
- I would like to ask you about what this
fancy dancy thing is.
- It is a fancy dancy thing.
Serves two purposes,
this is a brand you product from MIM.
The first one is to protect your bumper.
While you can paint your car when you get scratches
it's really hard, you can't repaint your bumper.
- Just the dirt alone as well.
- Exactly, but more importantly,
this new one is which that you can
actually in the winter time
you can actually bring this straight up
and help protect from the elements.
- Nice.
- Yeah, works well.
And provides the dog with some privacy.
- Absolutely, I was thinking the same thing.
Especially if you're at a busy place.
You don't want people sticking their hands
in your crate door or walking too close.
- Like when you're at the restaurant.
- Like when you're at the restaurant
having your nice meal, absolutely.
- After the event.
- Yup, after the event.
- After the successful event.
- Or maybe halfway through the event.
Who knows?
- [Ken] Yeah, depends how your days going.
- No I like that.
- So I want to thank Norm from Bravepoint Kennels
for coming out today.
As I said, I'm going to droop a link to his website
in the description below.
So definitely check that out.
And as you know by now,
keeping your pet safe is so important in my mind.
Especially when you're transporting them in a vehicle.
They're our family members
and you wouldn't let one of your kids wonder around
in the backseat of your vehicle
as you are traveling.
I don't know why people do it with their dogs.
And those kennels are really cool.
- So cool.
- Yeah, there's all sorts of great features
that I hadn't even thought about
when I just sort of thinking about their safety.
But all kind so niceties in those crates
that would make them a lot easier to use
especially, for like an agility handler.
- Oh absolutely.
Yup, there's lots of fabulous things
and different size options
and one big section versus individual sections.
It really allows people to have a ton of options,
depending on what size vehicle they have
and what types of dog, breeds of dogs,
and also the number of dogs.
- Yes, absolutely.
- Which can vary sometimes.
- Yeah, especially if you have seven.
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On that note happy training.
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