How to Fly With Your Dog | Explained by Shams

Shams, when did the idea of flying with your furry companion come to you? Like how did this whole thing originate in the beginning? So I knew it was possible to fly with Doug because some of my friends were flying with the Doug before me. I remember perfectly, very good friend named Olivier Logero with a photographer and flying an empire in Shamani. He was flying with his dog, the same breed than Hookah actually with Saisai Osamoyed like 10 years ago, like 15 years ago. So I knew it was possible. It's not that common with big dog, so you have to check if it's possible or not. But yeah, the idea to get the

dog was to bring him alongside all my adventures, so hiking in the mountain, running, skiing and obviously paragliding. And if he was keen to do all this, it was like ultimate dog for me for sure. I think any dog would be more keen, OK maybe labradors or like some breeds which are a bit too heavy, but usually most dogs are super happy to chase endorphins with humans whichever way they come and outdoors is definitely A plus. I I believe you know. Yes, yeah, for sure. It depends of the dog. And some dogs they like to run, but maybe they don't like to ski, Some like the snow, some others don't like the snow.

So it really depends. Every dog likes to be outside playing with the human. But then the activity, I think it depends of the dog. OK. That's very interesting because you mentioned what you there, what you mentioned there because the type of activities very what I was going to say is that I saw a movie in one of the like sports film festivals which was about furry tales or something. It's even on YouTube now. It's a lot of furry trails. If I'm not mistaken, it's a bunch of owners going mountain biking with their dogs. So the cool like how they have made that 1015 minute film. I'm not sure if this is the

correct land, but you see the owner going on the mountain bike and then the dog following the same trail and those slow motion shots of this whole like stretching of the body and they're like running freely. And it's just like magical man. And then the first thing that came to mind was like, how would it look like if we started taking dogs on our cross country flights or something, except that we would need a specialized harness because obviously that's a part of the equipment. They can't really just run freely. But yeah, like aerial sports and dogs would look magical. I don't know, slow motion shots of, let's say, a dog skydiving,

That's going to be pretty exciting. Look. For cross country, it could be a solution for all the light pilots, you know that they're struggling with the ballast limits introducing by the FIA. Yeah, just take the kilo dogs praying with you and it's it's a perfect. Ballast, God damn. Yeah, this actually, I'm in the pilots union group, which is, which was formed recently for the improving the safety and everything. And they're, they're recently, I think civil had a plenary and they came up with a ballast where they limited up to 3030 kilograms. And this is, yeah, this should have been proposed there. It's going to make the whole flying so much fun.

Imagine the back and forth talk you can have and like how quickly the time will pass and out landings are not going to be lonely anymore. Jeez. But the other pilot, I'm sorry, I'm not too good with French names because of the pronunciation that comes with it. But how, what was his flying like? Was he doing a bit of a distance or was it just top to bottoms? Or what does average flight time look like when you have, Yeah, a foreign companion? I think it depends again of of the dog, Hookah is a big dog, so the harness is very comfy. But after 20 minutes of flying,

he starts to move a little bit. So I guess it's a sign to say, OK, let's go land now. So I never take him for a long distance flight or for a long time. And what we usually do is like we hike and fly down. So that's the, that's what we like to do the most. And, and, yeah, if I want to fly like for a long time, I fly alone at this moment, yeah. Makes sense. Very curious about the harness. Did you? Is there a DIY possibility or are there providers on the market who fix it for you? Because it's like your dog's life depends on the harness, so you don't you want it to be as

robust. As possible there is always a DIY possibility if you are good and and sure about what you do. But my harness has been made by repair the French company in NC. They are specialised in controlling the glider and the equipment and the harness and and repairing also. And, but they're also providing some, yeah, dog harness and some very specific tools or products for, I think they were doing like this kind of parachute for the, the space program or something like this. I don't remember exactly. But yeah, they have some very specific product and dog harness is one of them. And it's tailor made for the

dog. So you have to send the, all the details and the measures of your dogs and, and yeah. And actually like we, we just finished to, to build a new version of the harness. So I was flying with prototype like for a few years and it was like put on the side at repair at the company. And last year Charl, the new owner is decided to to take this project back and to put it in front and and dedicate a lot of time. So they spend like more than six months to to build the new harness. We did some tests with UK and, and yeah, it's, it's for me the best product on the market at

the moment because it's very specific and very well designed. They hired Florian who was working, who is working with Cartel Ernest. So he's half time with with Cartel and half time at repair and he has this approach of product development, which is like very precocious and every details yeah, precise and they have a reason. So nothing is is left randomly and let's do it like this and we'll see. You know, he has the word process in mind and he did an amazing job using like the best product and the best tools and fabrics on the market. When I saw the first prototype he made, I was like really

surprised by how good the final product will look like. And now we are playing with it since a couple of months and yeah, it's of course you can do it yourself. But for me, I would go for something already sure and and quality proofed. And yeah, that's my opinion. Major differences between the version 2 and the first one. So the first, really first version, they got this kind of tandem tools to connect the passenger. Yeah, the from them bars and it was used to hold the dog and to make him move to set up the dog axis like this or more in front. Of attack of the dog, you're saying?

Yeah, it was a real pain in the ass to to set it up correctly. And the bars actually were hitting just where it should not. Actually, I don't know if you understand. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In the groin, basically. It was going, yeah, yeah, it was going there and it was very not comfy for me. And then I went to repair and I said maybe we can do something like that was four years ago. And, and the guy over there, she designed something, but very quickly and it was working, but not perfect. And what Fryon did, he took this base and made it something like a real harness, like a real

flying harness, which a lot of safety and a lot of improvement. And now it's 30% lighter than the 1 I had. I had it's way more comfy, more way more easy to put on hookah. And yeah, it's yeah, it's a game changer from. My my curiosity stems from the fact that I was wondering if you do some spirals or some acro maneuvers, will the harness still hold? Will the system still take all of those loads because nobody is spending that kind of R&D on dog harness, probably because the market, the market is almost negligible compared to the regular ones, which is anyway small. So when it comes to strength

testing or the longevity, is it more or less similar to what we use as humans or is it like, OK, you might want to throw this one away after a couple of years because it won't or how does that look like? No, I don't think you will have to straight away after a couple of years. It depends the kind of flight you're doing. For example Ego the acropilot, the Russian acropilot is flying with his dog also and he's doing a bit of acro. I think he did even did Infinity with the dog. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, Yeah, I think so. I think so. I want to get a video of that on

the show. That would be really nice. I'm sure he's honest, he's honest. He's not the same life than my honest where we're just doing hike and try and normal playing like we don't we even don't do 360 facing the planet or stuff like that because it's too much for Oka. Yeah. So no, we should ask Flowing actually the designer of the harness to. So if he did some really the specific result of the test he did about the G force and the resistance and everything, but I knew that he used like the most recent materials and fabrics. Igor is also getting from the same company or does he have his own supplier?

No, I think he has another one. I don't know which one. Maybe is the DIY? I'm not sure so I don't want to answer this, but I know it's not from From. Yeah, I think, yeah, that's cool that you can do 360 maneuvers and all or like the acro maneuvers. That's imagine what must be going on in the poor life's head at that time, like the whole world is. Because of course we can process it. We have visualized, we have made communication where humans can explain us the process, the feelings, the training. But. Not with the dogs it's a bit similar because even if they can't talk, but every dog

owners, they know that if your dog doesn't want to do something, you know it. And if you like it, wait or so even if he doesn't talk, you know what's going to happen in his mind if he's going to or not. And you paragliding, you can do it very progressively. You can just fly normal like we do, and then you can start doing some small turn and you see how the dog is reacting and, and then more and more angle and more wing over if you want. Like it can go very progressively. And if the dog is always super cool and reacts well, then you can push further and further. For example, with hookah, I know

that every time I fly soaring close to the ground, he start to move because I think he might think that we're going to land. So he, yeah, he's moving his pose like, oh, so he prefer, he prefers when we are like super high in the air and with nothing around. So I try to avoid flying sewing with him, for example, so they can talk what's going to happen in the mind. OK, but tell me one thing, does Uka sometimes look up and look around and soak in the atmosphere or is he like always looking down most of? The time he looks everywhere, he looks mostly down because it's

easier for him to look down and actually there is always something happening down there that is maybe humans or maybe animals. And he smells also a lot of animals around. So as soon as he smells something, he can start looking for it. And but it happened. I didn't have it on the camera, but it happened one day. That bird I aware of, I don't know which one I'm very bad with animal name, but a bird was flying next to us and he was like clearly looking at the bird. What are you doing? Yeah, he's super aware of the environment. I was like, I don't know if you remember, like there's there was

a BASE jumper. Unfortunately, he's no longer alive. His name is Dean Potter. Yeah, of course. Man that guy base jumped with the dog in his backpack. Dude, how cool was that? I saw, yeah, again, some dogs are jumping from playing with the parachute guy, living guy. And as soon as you have the feeling that it's going to be OK and that you are not forcing the animal, you can do a lot of stuff. Some dogs are surfing, some dogs are skating. It's crazy. And for example, Hookah hates water. Like he, he, he loves to go on the in the river, on the border of the lake, but he hates to

swim. We don't try to force him to go swimming with us, for example. So we just won't do that because you know that he's not going to like it. And it's something that a lot of dogs love to do, swimming in the lake. Hookah is not doing it. But yeah, he loves to fly. And I know it's going to be OK and some dogs are not going to like to fly because as soon as you get the harness from the bag, they are running away because they don't want to go again in the air. OK. But let me, that's interesting. Yes, Yeah, some dogs, some dogs are like this.

That's why. Also when I started to try to see if it was going to be OK with UKA to fly with UKA, we stayed on a parallel lighting take off with the van. Like we are living in the van, like where I am right now, and we stayed with the van on a paragliding take off literally like 5 meters from the take off for a few weeks. So he saw parag as soon as I adopted him actually. So he saw paragliders taking off every day, in the morning, in the day, he got cuddles from everybody. He saw that with this weird piece of fabric you can fly and

take off. So he saw all this and I started to play with my own glider next to him to see if he was going to be afraid of the sound and also to teach him not to walk on the lines and on the glider. All this you can show them and you can teach them. So that was very easy. And one very important part of the training was to teach him to come on The Voice command. So he's next to my glider and I said de collage, which in French means take off, and he has to come between my legs now I can attach him to my carabiners.

And then I said, OK, Ren, and we take off and we run and we take off together. Ren, if he doesn't come. Yeah, I. Was just going to say sorry to break your thought process. Please continue. I'll speak later. Yeah, so I said de collage take off. It comes between my legs and if it doesn't come, it means that he just doesn't want to fly because he knows perfectly what's going to happen if he comes. Has that happened and when he said no of. Course he can decide if he wants to fly or not and for example, if it's the morning, we go straight out of the van without running, without hiking a little

bit, without having yeah a little tour together and we go straight to a take off by car or by cabins, you know hiking. How do you say that lift with the lift at the ski resort, the cable car, If we go directly straight for a flight, he might not come to when I say the de collage because he said OK, oh, let's go have a run, let's go play, let's go do. Something. Let's warm up. Let's earn the reward. Let's. Warm up. Exactly. Exactly. Also if we flew multiple times a day, after the 2nd or the 3rd flight, he will start saying no. OK, enough, you know? Yeah, yeah, exactly like this.

That's cool. But also, if I go without him, sometimes I go flying alone. So he's with me at the take off and I go alone and he's barking because I left him on the take off. Yeah. So it's a dog. So, you know, dog, they are like small children. So sometimes they say no. And actually if you come back and you take them, they were. OK, let's go, Let's go. Sounds so much fun. I was like, what I was going to say earlier was that anybody who's curious to know how the process works, just head over to Sham's Instagram, the link to which we'll be in the

description below. And he has pinned the video where he shows how he does the the command and how literally, it's just so cute how he just like, lines himself up and then is raring to go. But yeah, coming back to the harness part, one thing that I observed while flying and I relate, I could relate to it because a lot of times, let's say in Hang Gliding, that is a position we as humans can relate to. We're lying down, we are not sitting. And in a dog's like body posture, it's not exactly the same, but the legs are hanging completely free, which is where a lot of fatigue comes from in,

in my opinion. Because in in a tandem flight, like if you're a passenger or even as a pilot or in a chair harness, or if you don't have a foot rest, it does get a bit tiring after a while because your legs are hanging. So like some sort of maybe you can have a chat with your designer who's making all of this awesomeness. It's like having a foot rest or some sort of a pod style which is not tight enough that they can't move their legs like they do have the freedom, but something which allows them to push against basically. Maybe that will secure them a

bit more. And then longer flights because pissing and eating and all of that can be controlled by dogs for a few hours or depending upon however they eat. But I think the comfort zone, if they're able to feel a bit more secure rather than just feeling the hang of it and it won't pressurize their organs inside the chest or wherever the attachment points are, maybe that can be quite a cool thing. Yeah, so he got a natural contact with his pose actually, because he puts always his pose on my feet and honest. And so my feet are under his belly and he let his pose on my

feet. So he has this contact and and actually like the the harness is covering completely the belly, his belly. So the contact point is and the force on all the surface, it's not just on one point. So it's a bit like he's when he's sleeping on the floor, he's sleeping on his belly completely with the pose like this. And it's actually a little bit the same kind of of pressure. So I'm really confident it's very comfy at the moment like this for him. And of course it's a big dog, so it's a bit different with the small dog. You can take him, take them. On the pod or on on your laps or

something? Yeah, I know what you. Mean, yes, the rest on your laps. So it's very different. Of course with the big dogs it's a bit more complicated and, and maybe indeed we will come with another idea and solution in the future. But yeah, at the moment, for what we do, like hiking and flying down, we fly 10 minutes, 15 minutes Max and it's no problem. How old was Luka when you adopted him? 2/2 and 1/2. OK. So it was still not late to train him to become like comfortable with this, like it was possible. Training a dog I think it really depends again of the dog and his life.

I think there is no age limit to teach them using hookah. Was not traumatized by his previous life, he was just not super lucky to be. He had two families before me and I think he was not just spending enough time outside to be happy. And and yeah, when I adopted him, like we went straight into the mountain and we spent all our day outside. So he felt like being in Disneyland and I confront confronted him to different problems like walking on rocks. He didn't know how to walk on big rocks and I showed him the solution. So he was like, OK, OK, this human, I think I can trust him

because he knows what he's doing. He showed me like some nice stuff and and like the bone. We created the solid bone really quickly because of all this, because of the environment where he was, because of the life he was getting, like being outside all the time and hiking and running And I yeah, all the small stuff I tried to teach him came very fast, I think because this, because of he was just in the good place at the good moment. Do you think I'm just curious about what is it called neuter or castration? Like a lot of people get their dogs castrated because they're too aggressive.

Will that probably make a difference if your dog doesn't have balls? Like figuratively and literally? Like the desire to go out and chase such things will also take a hit. No, because Hookah is castrated and he still have, he still has the very big instinct of chasing animals. We worked on it. We spent a lot of time trying to stop this behaviour, but we really had to to fight for this. And actually we can live perfectly fine. Even if he's still not 100% perfect, like the dream dog with you don't have to say anything and his his behavior is perfect. No, he's not perfect, but I

didn't want to. I didn't want to try. You have to really. How do you say that break his mind to stop this behavior? After 2 1/2 years of not being educated at all, we find solutions. We are running together. I don't let him unnish in a new environment. If there is, if there are animals around, because I knew I know that he's going maybe going try to run behind them. If there is like a small rabbits in the field in front of us, I don't let him unnish or he has to be very close to me. If he's if he's 50 meters around me, I can stop him. If he's 100 meters, 200 meters,

he will not listen to me anymore. And then Mission Impossible. But but yeah, OK, we found the solution and the life is perfect for him. It can be not unnished most of the time and yeah, except if we are in a new environment, we take care that it's going to be OK and he's not going to run away. He has Agps also in just in case. Of no OK so basically castration doesn't take away the desire to chase adventure as or at least it's subjective. It depends on the dog, maybe the breed and how.

Yeah, maybe for some dogs it will work for for us it didn't work. I don't know, somebody gave me this notion that the dog was very active and as you said, like chasing and stuff like that. And that's why they got them castrated. And I was like, what is the point of the freedom if it comes without desire? If you have lost the desire to explore, then what, what the hell are you going to that freedom for it? Especially if you're chasing adrenaline. Like I'm pretty sure like dogs are chasing adrenaline in their own way when they're going out paragliding or acro or base jumping or whatever it is like

skydiving. It's it's a bit of they need that testosterone, man. Yeah, but shams. How did the first flights look like? For anybody else who is wanting to do this in their lives, they have a pet. They've been wanting to fly because I really wanted to, but unfortunately, mine passed away before I could become proficient enough to fly. I don't know. Yeah, I can. It goes too fast. It goes too fast.

Sorry. I was just going to say that maybe I can dedicate this episode to to my companion Flow Furry Companion. Yes, he actually looked like Uka, if I'm honest. He was like very fluffy. We used to call him Fluffy as the name as well. And it was a Pomeranian breed, completely white. So the moment I saw your video, I was like, shit, man, this is yeah, this guy's living the dream that I wanted to. So let me, let me bring him over for a chat and ask him. Yeah, how does that look like? How does the initial days look like in such? A sense first, sorry for the

loss of your dog. It goes way too fast. You just blink and and then so worse. So it's a good reminder that we have to enjoy every day with them and they are here for us, so we have to be here for them also. And yeah, it was actually very simple, like a beginner or pilot. We will start, we get first. As I said, we get used by the glider and the lines and everything and, and then we did when everything was OK and it was coming between my legs and running with me. We did a very short flight, 10 seconds on, on a very school slope.

How do you say? That you know. Like when when you learn paragliding, you do like these two days of practice on the slope, which is exhausting but very important. We did the same. We flew on like for few meters and then the goal was to check his reaction at the landing. I untouched the carabiners and he was like just asking for cuddles and running and rolling and so like super happy. So we went straight for another flight and he still came between my legs and on The Voice commands I was like OK, let's go. And we flew for one minute and then 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15

minutes. And and as I said, like now after 20 minutes it start to move because maybe it's not comfortable or maybe because you just want to land, I don't know. So yeah, we try to be to stick in the in this time zone has. It thrown up in the air ever because nausea kind of hits dogs. No, I was worried about that. But no, he never throw in the air, threw up and he cannot pee. Yeah, of course that's the question. That's the question that came often actually, because the harness is blocking this part of his anatomy. So yeah, if something is happening, it's going to stay in

the harness. But actually. Imagine if they if if Luca could start marking his territory from the air. Man, the dude would be pissing all over the. We have a lot of comments on Instagram about about this, but actually no, it cannot happen. You you guys are watching it on Instagram right like I think Luca has what 200,000 followers man that's some following it's. Crazy. It's crazy. And especially because it was not a plan to when, because I created Luca's account as soon as I got him. And because I was in a very difficult period in my life, like very struggling with everything. And I actually adopted hookah because in the morning he

doesn't care if you're happy or sad. He just want to go outside. And he helped me to enjoy the life I was living before. And that I, I lost, I lost the, the motivation to do anything like before I got him, like I was like in a big depression. So he helped me to get better and he helped me to watch sunset again together, to hike in the mountain because he wanted to do that. And I was happy to bring him. I like to say he needed me as much as I needed him. So that's our phrase and that's a good summary about our life. And, and so I lost a bit my, my

thoughts. What was that? And I started the account for UK by making he's speaking, he's saying I'm UK, I'm a dog, even if he's me writing, of course, but he's speaking. And it was a way to express myself through UK because I was not able to express myself directly on my account and I didn't want to post anything. I was not working anymore. So it was just to say, hey, the human bring me, watch the sunset. And I love it. And it seems that we are having a good time together. It was just to say that at the beginning and we started to hike, to run, to do a lot of

stuff and then flying. And first, it was just another activity like another one, like I'm a I'm playing. Yeah, I'm playing since 16 years now. So it's just a day for me. Yeah. And it went viral like in 2021. I'm not sure why. It was the beginning of the Ukraine war. The news were as sad as they are today. So I guess it was just and yeah, and we put the music of Neverending Story also and everybody went crazy about he looks like the dragon in Never End Story. And and he has a cute face. I reckon that that he has a cute face and he's super fluffy and like it was majestic.

And so I think you cannot plan to get viral like this because you are going to fly with your dog. And it was absolutely not the goal for us. It was just to live another adventure like everything else. And then the Internet lived his own life. It's it get We are not controlling that anymore after are. You guys still making money off like you know that that videos that you put up at that time? When we started to get views and when I saw that Hookah's account was going like insanely crazy. So I think it's when we passed the 100,000 follower mark, I said OK, like now we have an

audience on Instagram. Like very specific, very niche people loving animals, dog and adventures and sports and mountain audience. So I said, OK, maybe we can try to get something like the rest of the guys, they are making tons of money so maybe I can try to do something. And it worked a little bit at the beginning and we get sponsored by a different brand and we got we get a bit of money and hookah got bit of money with his harness. We have brand from Norway actually non non-stop dogware. We have all his equipment from this, but they are not making the fraying harness. Yeah, like we got a bit of money

thanks to him and thanks to the video we produced and the collaboration we do with different brands and and it's a good thing because now we have a little baby. Yeah, because you said that hookah is my fluffy companion, but it's way more than that is like part of the family. OK. And the family is now bigger since since 1 1/2 years because we welcome the little baby. Yeah, congratulations. And yeah, that's adventure also. And and yeah, like the goal for me is to try to work as less as possible and to spend as much time as possible at home to to be with the baby. So yeah, like we are trying to

play a bit the game of the collaboration and Instagram stuff, even if sometimes I hate it because because you are dependent of an algorithm and of funny and I hate to do the trend of Instagram, but yeah, it's a part of the game. So yeah, we do it for the moment. And if really one day I'm tired of that, I can just stop and. Tell me about that YouTube, which went like YouTube video. I saw it had 10 million views on it. Like is that still, are you guys still a part of that revenue sharing or is it like, did you just sell it and now they're

doing their own thing basically? No, no we don't. We are not on Instagram on YouTube with UK. I have a YouTube account for the van, but I, I, I never post anything on this, so it doesn't bring me any money and everything on YouTube. If you see hookah on YouTube or something else, it's because either they use the video without our consent, either we said OK, you can use it because for example, your channel is not the biggest channel on YouTube. It's not Mr. Beast channel. So if Mr. Beast want to use footage of hookah, I'm going to say you're going to pay for it. If you want to do something with hookah, I'm going to say please

feel free and because we are happy to share our adventure and our story. So sometimes we just give our consent and sometimes we can sell some footage, but that's very not often. The only thing bringing money is like collaboration with Brent. Dude are you aware that there's a channel called the Dodo and it has video of you and Luca three years ago posted and it's got like 9.3 million views on YouTube man. Yeah. So for that we got no money. But The thing is with the Dodo, it's we could have asked money, of course, and maybe they would have say no, maybe yes, we don't know.

But they wanted to, they contact us, they contacted us and they wanted to edit this story and this video and we wanted to tell the world story. And we had time to explain everything. And it was a pleasure for me to tell our story to a big channel like this, like the Dodo, like the community is amazing. It's only new lovers. And then they take care that they were not making it because of, of the, of all the comments we got on Instagram about it was animal abuse because I was playing with hookah without his consent, without asking anything. They wanted to tell the story. And I said, OK, perfect.

And I like the job they are doing. So I said, yes, OK, let's do something. And yeah, we got no money, but it's like millions of you. But but it's nice because then our story is shared around the world and that's the goal. So I'm happy for them. Yeah, OK, now that's such a cool way to look at it. Like 10 million impressions does have almost that much, does have quite a bit of financials coming in with that. But yeah, being very curious to ask you this question ever since I saw your exposures online. How does the DM of UK look like, man? Except from what you just told

us right now that there are some people who will find something to complain about. Any vegetables? Does he get hit on by other dog profiles? Yeah, we got the marriage proposal for Huka. We got a few DMS about is if Huka was interested to get some children with. The Yeah. No, mostly it's very friendly messages. It's very funny because especially at the beginning, but because now I'm I don't notice it anymore. But like at the beginning, it really shocked me how easy it was for people to talk to a dog instead of a human. Because again, on Hookah's account, he is speaking and the message he received are sent towards Hookah, not towards me.

So it's hey Hookah, so cool what you're doing. I hope you have good time with your human and everything. And he received so much message, messages like this, and it was really shocking to see humans more keen to write to an animal than to a really human. So that was a thing. Second things is it was a bit overwhelming because we received a lot of messages about, like you just said, the people who lost their dogs and and the relationship I got with him remind them the relationship they got with their own dogs. And and some messages were very personal and touching with like big story behind. So it was it was really

overwhelming to receive this kind of of message and, and I tried to reply to everyone because they take time to they took time to to rot me. So I think it's the least to do to reply to them. And and of course, with the Internet sensation, we had few haters. Also that hookah cannot say that it's OK to fly with me, that it's animal abuse, what he's doing, PETA, all this kind of stuff. And at the beginning I was trying to explain that you can see that I trained him and he can actually give his consent and blah, blah, blah. But then I realized that if someone has a different opinion,

OK, that's your opinion. I don't give, I don't listen to you. Yeah, that's a part of public speaking. Like you can't please anyone if you're interacting with an audience. There will be people who are just because you have to do that on a regular basis. And these guys are just having that little DM as a tiny part of their life and then they're moving on to other things, like their mind is processing something else. So whereas you're on your end, it's like your whole kind of reality 24/7 in public speaking on that topic. So it's very hard to get that. Not as popular as UKA by any means, but still, I do interact

to an audience and eventually ignorance is a bit of a bliss if I'm completely honest. In public speaking, that is what gets you going, keeps you going. So yeah, that's what's happening. So I would say now I don't care so much to these people and but yeah, 95% of the comments and message are super positive. I can only imagine. I don't know how destiny brought both of you together. I was on Advanced Paraglider's page and I did read a bit of background about the line that you say that you needed him and he needed you. But I was like how Uka had a bit of a struggle and I don't know how good karma came in his life

that he met somebody that took him flying, bro. And more than that, it's like the relatability that a lot of us feel with that, that, OK, maybe I could have done this or maybe I want to do this with my own pet. And then the good vibes that both you and him are producing just by existing and going about your daily life, it's like, shit, man. That is some positive thing to do in the world with your life if you can. That's inspiring and that's why I wanted to have you on the show. I was like, shit, if people want to do this then here's an expert who has been there, done that

and talk to to tell us about it. And and actually like the motivation behind the new harness. Why Charles from my pair wanted to make the new prototype the new model? Because they received so much orders and requests for the flying harness. Because of us that they said, OK, we have to improve this product to make it like perfect because so many people are now flying with our dogs. And I can see like so many people are now flying with the dogs are way much more than before. Of course I'm happy because it's I think it's fantastic adventure to do with your dogs if they are

OK. And I know that. And that's maybe the only message I want to to say. If you are confident yourself by flying alone and good enough in ground handling and and blah blah blah, and confident to take the life of someone else like your dog, then yeah. And your dog is OK. Yeah, go for it. And I said. Thank you for the disclaimer man, you know I was going to come to this point anyway because the last thing you want to do is fuck up your landing and crush the poor guy. I have message like this like about hey, it's awesome. Can you take my dog flying with

you? And I was like, no, that's not going to happen. That's not how it works. It has. He has to fly with you because he you are the owner. He trusts you. He doesn't trust me, so it's not going to work. So if you want to fly with your dog, learn how to fry your paraglider. After a couple of years, check if your dog is ready and then have fun. Yeah, earn it. Like work for the reward and see how sweet it is when you finally get it. I'll say that. Yeah. Before we something I can, yeah, something just I can add about if you want to fly with your dog also it's about the equipment

because we talk about the harness, but I think the glider is important and especially the glider size. So for example with hookah, we are flying with the Puls at the moment. So it's a mountain. Mountain. Highlight. Mountain. I think it's AB, yeah. It's I'm not sure it's a mid BI think. I mean for those who don't understand it's a advanced glider advanced B ultralight structure. So it's a hike and fly ish wing kind of a thing. Yeah, it's the double so fast, not mono so fast effect behavior, super easy to inflate, super easy to land. And another only thing is like hookah is almost 30 kilogram and

I'm yeah is 29 and I'm around six between 65 and 70. So we are approximately around 100 kilogram in total weight and we choose the glider size according to that. So we fly, we are flying the size 22 and you can check I think on the website the weight range exactly. I think it's 105 or something like that, maybe more or less. So we are on top of the weight range and it's perfect because I can still fly the glider alone, but with hookah I'm not. We are not oversized with or undersized with the glider. So we can take off with no wind and land with no wind and it's

like super smooth. So that's something to keep in mind. Like we are not flying with tandem for example. It would be insane. Yeah, I think big breeds which are like crossing 50 plus and if the pilot himself is a bit over the top, then your solo glider might like it will just be a bit more faster in the trim. But yeah. But I was very curious to ask you about the landing because for us, Nilwin landing as you said are perfectly fine as well. It just baffles my mind because Nilwin landing means you've got to run it out. And when you have a living weight right in the middle of

your legs, how do you do you run funny to run it out like tandem people do because but this is like a right in the center of your gravity kind of a thing. So how does that look like? So the, the, the harness is set up in a way that when I stand up, my feet are just under Hookah's pose. So actually as soon as the if we run together, he's running with me. But as soon as the glider is taking us in charge, is above the head hookah is lifting a little bit the ground that actually help. It's helping me when I'm inflating the glider facing the

glider is it can be either looking in the direction where we have to take off or sometimes he's looking with me towards the glider. And when I turn, I can turn him very easily with my legs because he's actually already lifting a little bit. So for the landing, that's that help us a lot because the goal is to is to try to make a nice flare when there is no wind, like try to make a nice flare and lend as smoothly as possible. But my feet are touching just before him or at the same time and we absorb the little impact together. But again, by choosing the good size of the glider, it's very

easy. That's no problem. We flew and the beginning we had the ultralight from ozone in 19 and that was a bit too small for us because if it's windy, it's OK. You land like, well, you. Launch there is. Nothing. But when there is no wind like the flare, we had to run. So it was a bit, it was not a big problem, but it was a bit too small. Yeah, for sure. So, yeah, of course, because I received this kind of message like every week what kind of glider we are using and I would say it's not the glider type that is important, but more the

weight range that and the size that you are playing with. Yeah, because Middlewind Landing, if you're coming in hot and you got a very delicate and like dogs are delicate compared to our bodies. Like you can just easily. Yeah, OK, to sum it up. So make sure your bladder is fine. Make sure you've done your homework of figuring out if your dog wants to fly with you. Do a training hill first just like you would with a real person because it's a living thing. And then yeah, just take precautions and work for the reward rather than just wanting it because Instagram shows it to you. Yep.

I see. And I can, I would just say also, it's actually easier to fly with the dog than with the person because when you give an order to the dog, he's supposed to listen and obey. Makes a lot of sense, but I never thought it like that. But yeah, there's because the trust, I think, is so much for the dog versus human thing. Like human, you say run and they're trusting their own instinct there. They have a mind of their own, but the dog is giving you the whole freedom to tell him or her what to do and then make it happen. Amazing. Shams. Before I let you go, I'll have this tradition on and off.

But I'm speaking to somebody like you who has had quite a few experiences, adventures, anyone flight that you can share that comes to your mind from whatever awesomeness that you have chased with Luca. I know it's a very open-ended one, but still, if you had to pick a cherry or no. Oh. I think, I think the first one, the first big flight, not the training hill because I was too small, but the first big flight. Actually that's the one I posted the picture in the first video that went viral. It was just because I cannot see Hookah's face, so I wanted to see his face. So I was filming to see his face

and I saw him like so relaxed and peaceful. I was like, wow, OK, that's gonna be, that's gonna be a nice adventure together for sure. And yeah, I think the first fright was like, very special. Cool man, I think we have given people everything that they need to make such adventures and replicate them. And yeah, keep up the inspiration going in the world. So cool. Thanks for joining. If anyone has questions they can always like message us no problem and I will reply. Yeah, message Uka, he always replies. He never ghosts you. Only humans ghost you. True. All right, man, have a nice day ahead. See you around.

Thank you. Thank you. Bye bye.