Cave Springs Centennial Fall Festival

Cave Springs Centennial Fall Festival (1910 - 2010) was last Friday and Saturday. Events started at 5 PM on Friday with the Ms. Loch Lono contest, with BBQ, a 5-K run, pancake breakfast on Saturday, a car show, a parade, and a dog show at 12 PM.

Erin was asked to be one of the celebrity judges for their dog show. We have been donating gift baskets to this event for several years now, but this was our first time to attend in person. I must say I was pleasantly surprised. Cave Springs puts on such a neat festival and parade - plus, everyone we met was so nice.

There were three categories the dogs were judged on. ‎*Pooch of the decade (20s, 50s, 60s, 80s etc), *Best Tricks (Obedience) and *Mr. & Mrs Congeniality (most adorable, etc).

To see all of the pictures, visit our facebook page.

While the judges tallied their results, the Cave Springs K9 unit gave a demonstration of their skills.

There was also a talent section with tricks. Visit our YouTube Channel to see all of the action.

Cave Springs Centennial Festival also has a Facebook page if you would like to check out more.

CNN Money names Rogers, AR #10 top place to live

CNN Money names Rogers, AR #10 in the US in it's 100 best places to live 2010.

"If you focus only on the averages, life in the typical American town frankly doesn't seem so hot right now. The median home continues to lose value. Cash-strapped state and local governments are cutting services. And unemployment, at 9.3%, is still high.


But those bummer statistics obscure one important-and encouraging-fact: There are plenty of outliers. MONEY found them through its annual search for the best places in America, which this year focused on the nation's small cities (those with populations of 50,000 to 300,000). Reporters crunched reams of data to find the optimal combo of job opportunities, fiscal strength, top-notch schools, low crime, good health care, lots to do, and many other factors that help make a town great for raising a family."

The details:

10. Rogers, AR
Population: 57,000
Unemployment: 5.8%
Pluses: Low cost of living, diversity
Minus: Strip malls

If you're inclined to dismiss a small city in Arkansas as a backwater, you're making a big mistake. Rogers is right next door to Bentonville, where Wal-Mart is headquartered.

Given the power of the retail behemoth, many Fortune 500 firms that sell it their wares have moved executives to the area. Lots of them have settled in Rogers, giving it a cosmopolitan feel. (Wal-Mart's CEO, Mike Duke, also calls Rogers home.)

They're drawn by top-notch schools and outdoor activities, including swimming and wakeboarding on the town's two lakes and golfing on its five courses.

(Not all is picture perfect: Rogers does contain some rundown areas.) Though Wal-Mart has had layoffs in recent years, the jobless rate here remains low.

To see the whole article, click here. We kind of like it too ;)

2007 - The Year in Review

As we ramp up to our 2 year birthday and the ensuing party, I would like to look back at the year and contemplate where we are at and what the pet community looks like to us. Our year ends and begins in the middle of summer , since we opened in July, so this might appear to be a weird time to look back, but it makes sense to us... Besides we are usually so busy during December that we have little time to think about anything.

First off, our blog (www.blog.bigwag.com) changed this year. We went from a post a month (if we were lucky) to multiple posts a week. We decided to change the format to embrace the community to which we belong. We moved away from quite so many educational articles to a this is who we are, these are our friends, this is your pet community approach. The response was overwhelming. Thank you for reading this corner of our world. This was a learning experience for us and we have enjoyed making this a publication that people come back to and learn from, not just about us, but about the pet community and its events as well.

As indicated by the image above, this year we have changed our logo. Many things predicated this change - mostly my reading about effective marketing, good logo design, plus many other things. I think the new logo looks good, and I hope you do too. I'd love to hear some feedback from you guys.

More important than that though, I think what Bigwag is all about is starting to catch on. The pet food recall of last year helped because it brought to light how important it is that you pay attention to what is in your pets' food and where it is made.

Next, we have broken out of Rogers. We now sell wholesale in Pea Ridge, Bentonville, and Fayetteville. We'd love to be in Springdale too, but there just isn't any place that this works well at the moment. If someone knows of a place, please us know. We haven't worked out all of the kinks yet, but we are hoping to move to an online replenishment system in the near future.

This time last year we hired our very first employee - Jennifer. You may know her from Cho Blu Studios. She got to showcase some of her art at our first birthday party, and was the feature artist of this months ArkanPaws magazine. She has since moved on to bigger and better things, and the sarcasm meeter has since dropped in our store. We'll always be glad Jennifer joined our little family - and we're still waiting on our portrait of Sam and Hannah!! It was quite the ordeal - trying to decide if we'd grown to the point of needing an employee. We debated and debated, and almost hired someone before Christmas in 2006, but chose to wait until July. I hope all of our employees stay in touch once they move on. We enjoy everyone who has worked or is working with with us - Anna, Brandi, and our newest addition - Terresa.

Pet businesses have also come and gone. Camp Bow Wow is having their grand opening the Saturday after our birthday party. A Petsmart has also opened at the Rogers Promenade. I have also heard the Jennifer is trying to sell Woof! Woof! at the Tuscany Square, and that her Little Rock location has been closed. Nancy has retired from New Hope Animal Hospital, and Dog Days Doggie Day Care came under new ownership this year. The building at Dog Watch in Bentonville partially melted in a fire. Bow Wow Pet Styling opened in a new location in Rogers this year also. You may also have noticed that we haven''t gotten any new Ceramatherapy dog dishes and treat jars in a LONG time. Thats because they have closed up shop. I don't know if they have sold it yet or not, but cited the demands of owning your own business as too much for them. I completely understand. I am sure there was other news, but my mind is overflowing, so you'll have to forgive my forgetfulness.

We also didn't get to have a Mardi Paws or a full-blown Halloween Carnival this last year either. If anyone would like to help plan or take the leads on these projects, let me know. I know some people ;) RDOD, the Easter Egg Hunt, Photos with Santa, Springfest, the Dogwood Walk - were all bigger and stronger this year. We love to see these events grow each year, and the new fresh faces and tails that find them for the first time. If you haven't seen "The Biggest Wag" contest at any of these events yet, you just haven't lived! This was also the first year for our Paws-n-Spas dog wash fund raiser, which we hope to repeat several more times, based on the excitement, fun, and bubbles of the first one.

As we round out the end of our second year, and enter into our third, I almost can't wait to roll out the new plans we have for Bigwag. This year we added some great products, like our all natural butcher shop chews, Lupine Collars, Red Dingo tags, Solid Gold and Taste Of The Wild dog foods, and Happy Tails/Spot Organics shampoos, conditioners, and aromatherapy sprays. We added some great toys, like Toughies, West Paw Designs, and Canine Genius'. We're going to be further expanding our toy section and you'll get a preview of that at our birthday party on Saturday. We're also going to be adding more shampoos, birthday party supplies, more supplements to compliment our Solid Gold Sea meal, treat jars, greeting cards, books and videos, gifts, and hopefully a whole slew of new and innovative products you haven't seen before.

Thank you for being our customer and accepting us into your pet community. We enjoy being here, answering your ingredient and diet questions, exploring the new products you ask for and being a hub for some of the great rescues and organizations out there. We also love to see all of those wagging tails come into our store.

A final thought - I subscribe to a blog that examines different brands weekly with the question - "If company XXX were to go away tomorrow, would anyone miss them...". I hope that the answer to that is yes, that folks out there that would miss us if we went away. I hear stories every day about how their dogs love us, love to come to our store, won't eat other brands of treats. I hope we can continue to help your dogs live a longer, fuller, more rewarding life for years to come! We would surely miss all of you!

Fayetteville Dogwood Walk at Gulley Park

Despite a cold start to the morning, dog walkers were out in full force Saturday at Fayetteville's Gulley Park. A great turnout, and a great finish to the day makes it all worth while. Our free sample treats were such a hit this year we had to call in reinforcements, despite bringing twice as many from last year.

Fayetteville dog walkers snapped up the goodie bags quickly, and were very excited to learn that we were offering free shipping to anywhere in Arkansas - greatly helping with the current gas crunch. We know it's hard to get up to Rogers on a weekly basis for our yummy, all-natural treats. Those fortunate enough to get a goodie bag were also treated to more free samples as well as a coupon for 10 free treats from us at our store in Rogers.

Demonstrations highlighted with agility training by Canine Connection, and Arkansas Search and Rescue, as well as the myriad of vendor booths from folks like us, and the shelters and rescues made for a great amount of information for participants.

This video is just a panoramic shot of Gulley Park during the Dogwood walk. The walk itself is very impressive to see, with the line of people stretching from the gazebo all the way to new north parking lot. I was so busy this year chatting with people I didn't get a chance to photo or video the actual walk - maybe better luck next year!

The Lone Ranger Gets a Partner

For those who haven't checked out www.zootoo.com yet, this is a website that is trying to build a pet owner community and knowledge base centered around user experiences for different pet services, retailers, animal shelters and rescues, products, you name it, it's probably there. Their goal, I think, is to become the number one destination if you want a review of a pet product or service, and they are doing a good job building it up with a million dollar makeover contest for your local animal shelter.

Anyway, my point is, as I was perusing some of the reviews for some of the dog treats on this website, I started out mildly disappointed. After all, I own a dog bakery, and my whole mantra is healthy, natural, no sugar, no salt, no preservatives. Some days I feel like I am on a crusade to improve the diets of all of those disbelievers out there. With the humanization trend of pets, we can compare our dogs to our children in many cases. We wouldn't dare feed our kids nothing but sugar, salt, and artificial coloring all day, would we? They need to eat their vegetables, the food pyramid, good stuff in the tank, right? But so many of the treats you buy in the store is contrary to that stance. Sugar and salt help all the other nastiness go down easier - make the dog want to eat it.

Sorry for the digression - back to my point. I started off mildly disappointed, as I read one mom after another quip how these treats must be yummy, their dog "wolfed them down". Ick. Then, the tide turned. Someone actually mentioned that they should look at the ingredients of these treats. Too many chemicals - 1 out of 5 stars. Then another low review - look at all of the sugar. Look at all of the artificial coloring. These colors can't be natural.

Now, I know that I am not personally responsible for these readers opinions, but I don't feel like I am the lone ranger trying to help your dogs live longer and healthier. These women get it. If you are reading this, then I think you are getting it too. And that makes me proud. Most people don't know that the pet food industry was born to dispose of the people food waste. Fancy marketing was used to lull us into a sense of complacency of what we feed our pals, our best friends, our park play buddies, and our sappy movie snugglers. Even if you don't buy your treats from me, just read the ingredients. Just because it's cute and looks like a mini spare rib doesn't mean it's good for your dog. Thats all I ask. Oh, and vote for your local shelter at zootoo.com. I guess thats really two things.

How To Crate Train Your Dog In 30 Minutes

I hear complaints of people who can't potty train their dogs, or they destroy furniture at night, or the sleep in their bed with them and become aggressive if the owner wants them down. The simplest solution to all of these problems is to crate train your dog, but how do you do that? they ask.

First step is to buy a dog crate. I got mine from Wal-mart. I like the metal ones with the slide out plastic liner to make accidents easy to clean up. The only trick here is to make sure you get the right size. You don't want too small, but too big, and they will feel like they can use the bathroom at the other end of their "house". It needs to be just small enough to where they won't want to go to the bathroom - dogs have a natural sense to not potty where they sleep. If they do use the bathroom and then sleep in it, I will address that at the end.

The second step is easy. Now, your job is just to make the crate a fun place. I usually place it in the living room, or someplace they are familiar with, and let them be around it for a little while. Let them smell it, walk in it if they are brave enough, explore it, and become comfortable with it. Then, once they have had a chance to become familiar with it, I try to entice them into it with a treat. I try not to push them in - I want it to feel like their choice. Once they go in, I give them a treat, call them out, and hug and praise them a whole bunch. I repeat this, using the phrase "Do you wanna go to bed". This does two things. First, it associates the crate with someplace fun, where there are treats involved, and lots of praise. Second, it gives them a verbal cue "Bed" that they know with the crate, and the associated treats and praise. This usually takes about 30 minutes, maybe a little more with reluctant or scaredy cats.

Dogs are natural den dwellers. Sometimes draping a towel over the crate will make it more appealing. I like to put a towel with my scent on it (I rub it all over my body) and place it with a favorite toy at night so they feel close to me. Overall, the crate makes them feel safe. They will run to it when they are scared or frightened. All I have to do is mention the word "bed" and they are racing down the hall to see who can be first in their crate.

If they are young, especially puppies, they may not want to remain in their crate throughout the night. You have to determine if this is just because they want out, or because they really have to use the bathroom badly. If they just want out, then I would ignore them. They should eventually quiet down. I have used a glass of water thrown on them so that a really stubborn dog knows this is unacceptable behavior.

What you want to avoid is having them use the bathroom and then lying or sleeping in it. If this happens, you can undo any good crate training cold do. It's like it psychologically damages the dog, so that they will urinate on themselves and not care anymore. It can undo pottie training they may have mastered. I use the rule of thumb that for every month the puppy is old, they can go an hour before needing a bathroom break. Hopefully, by a year old they should be able to go all night without a problem. I have a dog that can get so distracted on their end-of-the-night outside trip that he forgets to go to the bathroom. Each dog is a little different, and you will have to find that balance and learn with them.

Getting this technique down is a great way to potty train a dog too. When you let them out in the morning, have a treat ready, and go out with them. They will more than likely have to use the bathroom if they went all night without going outside. As soon as they start, start praising them (but don't touch them - let them finish their business) and then when they are finished, give them a treat and praise and hug them. This will reinforce going outside is good. It's about the only time of day you know with 100% certainty that they will go to the bathroom, and it's really a slam dunk. The more you praise them for going outside, the faster they should catch on.