Corey Dennis, owner of Wild Hides, doesn’t network like other business owners. 

Instead, Dennis finds his customers in the mountains and backcountry, tramping through the underbrush, eyes peeled for any sign of movement. 

Dennis and his wife, Jessica, were hunting in the mountains right after the season opened this fall. The couple ran across another hunter — one lucky enough to draw a moose tag this year — who was eagerly searching for the season’s first sighting. 

The couple had seen a moose earlier and stopped to chat with the hunter. As it turned out, they made a good connection. 

“When we heard what he was looking for, we gave him a [business] card,” Jessica said with a laugh. “And, what do you know, he got one just a little bit later.”

She pointed to the drying tent in the corner of the warehouse. 

“It’s in there now!”

THE COUPLE runs Wild Hides Fur Dressing and Tannery, a company dedicated solely to tanning game hides for taxidermy purposes. 

Dennis founded the business less than two years ago, starting the whole operation in the basement of his family’s home. He spent a year getting the business up and running, and moved to its current location, a warehouse behind Creston RV off U.S. 93, at the beginning of this year. 

“We didn’t have space for any of this down there,” his wife said. “We didn’t have a workshop or anything, so he was just doing all of this in our basement, and it was cramped.” 

The move came at the perfect time. Dennis had just completed building his hide tumbler, a 20-foot-high sphere, that he uses to soften hides. 

“I saw one on the Internet, and I thought, ‘I can build that,’” Dennis said. “I had to jerry-rig it a bit, but it gets the job done.” 

The tumbler takes up a corner of the warehouse, and works in a fashion similar to a rock polisher. The large barrel is filled with maple-wood sawdust and tumbles hides anywhere from 20 minutes (for deer) to three hours (for bears with thick fur). As they twist and turn and are battered with fine wood dust, the hides are softened and cleaned. 

Before hides can be tumbled, however, the animal must be properly skinned, dried and pickled. 

Dennis said the most difficult part of his job is when hunters do not properly prepare the animal’s hide. 

“One of the biggest problem is hunters who are out camping or partying,” Dennis said. “They let the animal sit for a day or more before taking it to a taxidermist, and that causes problems.” 

According to Dennis, after the animal is killed, it needs to be taken to a taxidermist immediately if the hunter wants to save the hide. When an animal is stored in an environment that is too warm, bacteria begin to eat away at the hair follicles and cause chunks of fur to fall out. Depending on the amount of damage, the animal could lose tufts of fur, leading to holes in the hide. 

“Once it’s gone, it’s gone for good,” Dennis said. “There’s only so much that can be done to make it look good again.” 

Instead, he suggests hunters get their animal to a taxidermist right after shooting it so a professional can skin the animal and dry it properly. 

“It’s a simple process but if you do it wrong, it’s done,” he said. “There’s no way to fix it.” 

Hunters can also keep the animal frozen until they are able to get it to a taxidermist, keeping the bacteria away long enough to sustain the full fur coat. Some hunters are able to skin their own animals, but Dennis cautioned that only those who are trained should skin their hides themselves. Holes or nicks in the hide make the job more difficult for the taxidermist, who has to attempt surgery to close all the holes. 

After taxidermistd receive hides, they use salt to dry them out. 

Dennis gets hides shipped from across the country that are rock hard due to salt when they arrive. He uses a drying tent to lay the hides flat, pull more water out of them and remove the salt. 

Once the hide is completely dry, it is pickled for several days, then tumbled. The entire process takes roughly one week. 

Dennis has been tanning hides as long as he can remember. His father taught him tips and tricks, and research through taxidermists and the Internet helped him develop the method he uses at Wild Hides. 

“Tanning, and this way of doing it, it’s older than old,” he said. “I’m just figuring out how to make it easier to do.” 

Several years ago, he attended the Colorado Institute of Taxidermy to learn more about the trade. He hoped to be a taxidermist, but after graduating, he realized how saturated the industry was across the country. 

“Instead of trying to compete with them, I decided to work so they would need me,” he said. 

Last year, Dennis and his wife opened Wild Hides, sending fliers and business cards to hunters and taxidermy companies across the country to drum up business. Now, they receive bundles of hides regularly from all over, including Texas, Nebraska and Colorado. 

The couple hopes to continue to grow the business. Right now, they pickle using a tactic called “static tanning,” where the hides are soaked in several different solutions in 55-gallon barrels that need to be stirred regularly. 

They hope to upgrade to larger vats with motorized mixers as well as build several more tumblers. 

For more information on proper hide handling or tanning, contact Wild Hides Fur Dressing and Tannery at 407-3226. 

Reporter Brianna Loper may be reached at 758-4441 or by email at bloper@dailyinterlake.com.