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!

Blog Review

I read two blogs this week - Blog #1 is from a friend of mine that struck a cord with me. I embrace this mentality about going local. Over 90% of the economy (my numbers might not be exact - my memory isn't what it used to be) is supported by small business. You stop and think, wow, what about all of those big employers, those big companies. They employ a lot of people, and that they do. But it's a numbers game here. There are simply thousands of small businesses for every super large business out there, all quietly toiling away keeping their business running, not getting much PR for the good or hard job they do, or the local charities they work with, or all of the good they bring to the community.

So, I do support local, small businesses as much as possible. I think it's important, and I like to root for the underdog. I know how hard it is to start, build, and grow a small businesses first hand, and feel a kinship with all of the other small guys (and gals) out there. If we all supported each other, we would all be stronger! Local is more sustainable, it's greener, it's better for the local economy - it also feels right. It's community, not a big corporation. Small businesses operate with a conscience (most of the time), while big corporations exist without one.

I'm not sure Brenda's is the best cheeseburger in NWA tho. The Station Cafe on the Bentonville Square flips a pretty darn good cheeseburger. I would pit it against Brenda's any time. Not to knock Brenda's tho. They are good, and without it, Erin would never have found the Sysco office to pick up flour in Fayetteville on occasion.

Blog #2 is related more to BigWag. While I appreciate the economic slowdown, and what that means for everyone, including me, it makes it hard to refute every single point the author makes. It is tough. I have seen first hand what the housing crunch has done to the area shelters. I've rescued and fostered one myself.

But, here is where the rub is for me. We as a race took responsibility for the canine species when we domesticated them. A lot of the problems they have now, are a result from poor breeding practices, nutrition, and a lack of responsibility. Now, when I say poor breeding practices, I am referring to over breeding from a genetic pool that was too small to filter out problems that are now inherit to the breed, like joint and hip problems or other diseases that are common to specific breeds.

If you have never seen a dog with food allergies, then good for you. They are completely miserable, constantly itching, irritable bowels, vomiting, chewing on their feet. Lela states, "I’m going on record here to say - I really don’t love my dog that much. Kids, yes. Dog, no."

Most of the reason dogs have food allergies is because for decades we fed them crap - and you can quote me on that one. Parts they would not eat out in the wild. Parts we sure as heck wouldn't eat. Ingredients that were going to be landfill, so we found a creative way of disposing of the waste. We ground it all up, added rancid restaurant oil to make it "go down easier", and priced it to sell - by the millions of it. As long as it was cheaper than throwing it away, they were making a profit. Poor protein sources, little to no nutrient value. Most of the amino acids and vitamins are destroyed during the baking process. Dogs spent their whole lives eating "filler" we didn't want to pay to throw away, and turned it into a billion dollar industry. This is what has created the food allergies in dogs.

Our responsibility doesn't end with just better food. The Humane Society in Benton County destroyed some 2500 dogs in 2007. They had an above average placement rate, but that is still how many were destroyed. What kind of existence is it to spend your "happy, puppy months" in a cage, and then be destroyed when you reached an age that you are "unadoptable". Counties in California have reached "no kill status" with aggressive spay-neuter programs. People adopt or buy dogs (from puppy millers), and then decide they don't want it anymore. I have heard stories of surrenders because the dog didn't match the new furniture, or they got too big, or it was too much responsibility. They chewed things up, or pooped in the house and couldn't be house broken. In the end the stories are all the same - too much work or too inconvenient. This isn't responsible dog ownership. You can't just give your children back when they turn out to be too much work or are too inconvenient.

So as an argument to Lela's "Spa Products" comments - maybe this is just karma for the rest of the dog population that suffers or are destroyed because the dog ended up being too inconvenient. In the end there will always be a ton of people who will try and tell you what you should or shouldn't feed your dog. Most of what you will see or hear will come from billion dollar mega corporations whose conscience is single mindedness to turn a buck - so just keep that in mind the next time you stroll down the pet food isle.

Knowing what I know about the pet food industry, if my financial situation would prevent me from buying a better than average dog food, my dog would be eating ramen noodles and hot dogs and mac-n-cheese right along side me - and they would go apes over it. It's one way of guaranteeing humane grade ingredients! Dogs ate table scraps for centuries before we were sold on the notion of dry dog food.