I grew up in East Texas, in a family that raised and showed dogs. My earliest memories all involve animals. I started showing as a junior handler at eight. At twelve I was breeding and showing mini rex rabbits through 4H. My mom was central to the early days of the ABKC, every event, every meeting, every planning session, which meant I was there too. By high school I was in FFA. By the time I left for college, the rhythm of the animal world was already wired into me.
001 / About
I'm Dusty.
I build software
for breeders, because
I am one.
East Texas breeder. Software engineer for nine years. Founder of Built By Dusty. This is the long version.
002 / The story
The long version,
in five chapters.
I went to the University of Georgia on a pre-vet track. Somewhere in there I found computer science, pivoted, and finished my degree in CS at UT Austin after moving back to Texas. The animal world didn't go anywhere. I just stopped trying to make a career of it. For the next nine years I built software professionally. Healthcare SaaS that ran COVID testing result pipelines through the pandemic. Health insurance marketplaces. Automotive dealer websites. Government data pipelines. Engineering jobs in industries I had no other connection to.
Outside of work, the animal life kept going. UKC conformation. Obedience, agility, FastCAT, and dock diving with my own dogs. Eventually New Caledonian gecko species, breeding them, immersing myself, contributing to genetic research in a community that was just figuring out what was possible. Two full lives running in parallel, neither one talking to the other.
The thing is, running a serious program without serious tools wears you down. I'd dig through emails and texts for entry receipts. Hunt for an animal's lineage. Try to remember verbal agreements that nobody wrote down. I got burned more than once on contracts missing a clause that mattered. And the occasional swapped identity of geckos because the dry-erase label wiped away. Yes, that actually happened. I was writing software for huge corporate systems all day, then coming home to a program held together by spreadsheets and sticky notes.
So I started building. Just for me at first. Streamlined record flows. Contract systems that didn't lose clauses. Cage cards that didn't smudge. After feeling what it was like to finally have my own program organized, I figured I probably wasn't the only one carrying that weight. I started building tools for friends. Then for friends of friends. That became Built By Dusty. The studio you're looking at right now exists because I needed the software to exist and nobody else was going to build it.
— DustyTyler, Texas
003 / What I work on now
Three things share
the same desk.
The studio, the program, and the writing. They feed each other. The studio funds the program, the program teaches the studio what is actually broken in this work, and the writing forces me to be clear about both.
Built By Dusty
Software for breeders. Template kits in the shop, custom builds for active programs, and a handful of free tools that earn email signups. One engineer. No agency layers.
Animals, every day
An active breeding program at home. New Caledonian geckos are the current focus. Dogs are still in rotation for UKC events, conformation, and the occasional FastCAT run. The software the studio sells is the software the program runs on first.
Field Notes
Short letters from inside the work. What broke this week. What the breeders I talk to are actually struggling with. Nothing that resembles a marketing newsletter. About one post a fortnight when the writing is good.
004 / What I believe
Four principles
the studio runs on.
These are not slogans. They are the things I have had to defend out loud often enough that they are easier to write down than to keep restating. If a build I take on conflicts with one of these, I would rather pass on the work.
Breeders should build software for breeders.
Nine years of writing for industries I had nothing to do with taught me how to ship software. Twenty-plus years in the rack room taught me what to ship. Both are needed. Most breeder tools fail because the people who built them only had the first half.
The program is the point. The software is the tool.
The site, the database, the contracts, none of it matters if it gets in the way of the animals. Tools should disappear into the work. If you find yourself thinking about the software more than the program, the software has failed.
You should own your code, your data, and your program.
Wix can disappear. Squarespace can change its terms. So can I. Either way, the work should still be yours. Every build I deliver lives on your account, your domain, your repository, in your control. Lock-in is what mediocre software companies sell. I am not that.
Built for the species, or it isn't built at all.
A registry app for cattle is not a registry app for geckos. A litter page for hunting dogs is not a litter page for catteries. Pretending otherwise is how breeders end up with software that almost works, which is worse than software that obviously doesn't.
005 / Programs and animals
What's in the rack room
and the kennel today.
Two active programs. Neither is full-time. Both keep the studio honest, because every feature the studio ships gets used at home before it ships to anyone else.
Current focusActive
New Caledonian geckos
The newest part of the program and the most genetically interesting. Active breeder contributing to ongoing color and morph research in the species community. Every record the studio's tools track gets pressure-tested here first.
LifelongActive
Sport and conformation dogs
The thread that runs through everything. UKC conformation, obedience, agility, FastCAT, and dock diving. Showing started at eight and has not stopped. The dogs are why the software has to be fast on a phone in a driveway with one bar of service.
006 / Credentials & timeline
The condensed
version.
Approximate years. The story above has the full version with the texture.
Earliest animal memories East Texas
Family raised and showed dogs. I was around for all of it, before I had a way to describe what I was seeing.
First show ring Junior handler
Walked dogs in front of judges and strangers. Learned that the work and the presentation are not the same thing.
Mini rex rabbits in 4H First program
First time I was responsible for an entire program. First time I learned that the records are as much of a program as the animals.
FFA, four years Ag youth
Watched my mom help build out the ABKC alongside everything else. The animal world was bigger than any single program.
UGA pre-vet → UT Austin CS The pivot
Started pre-vet at the University of Georgia. Found computer science. Moved back to Texas. Finished my degree in CS at UT Austin.
Software career begins 9+ years
Healthcare SaaS that powered COVID testing pipelines. Health insurance marketplaces. Automotive dealer websites. Government data pipelines. Industries that had nothing to do with the rest of my life.
New Caledonian geckos Reptile community
Fell into the species and stayed. Started seeing the tooling gap from the inside, not just hearing about it from breeder friends.
Built By Dusty becomes a studio For friends, then everyone
Started building software for my own program. Friends asked for the same thing. Friends of friends asked next. The side project became the work.
Five products and a working program Tyler, TX
Template kits, custom builds, free tools, Breed Ledger, Dog Breeder Website Builder. The program at home runs on it all first.
007 / Working with me
What it actually
looks like.
One engineer. No agency layers. The same six things happen on every build, regardless of size. If any of these are deal-breakers, this probably isn't a fit.
You talk to me
Not a project manager. Not a junior engineer. The person who writes your code is the person you email, call, and Slack.
Same-day reply
I read every inquiry myself the day it lands. Most get a response within four hours.
Diagnostic before quote
A real call, 30 to 90 minutes, before any pricing happens. Free for builds over $2,000.
Fixed quotes in three days
Written proposal three business days after the call. The number is the number. No estimate ranges, no hourly drift.
Weekly progress, in writing
Every Friday during the build, a short note with what shipped, what's next, and what I need from you.
You own everything
Repository on your GitHub. Hosting on your account. Domain in your name. Database export anytime. No lock-in.
008 / Let's talk
Tell me about
your program.
If you have read this far, the rest is easier. Send a note describing your program and what is not working about the current setup. I read every inquiry myself the same day. If a build is the right move, you will have a written quote inside a week. If it is not, you will hear that too.
WhereTyler, Texas
Emaildmumphrey@builtbydusty.com
Reply withinOne business day, usually four hours
DiagnosticFree for builds over $2,000