Pictures from Our Birthday

Hey Everyone!

I know many of you had pictures of your dogs taken by Jackie and Chad from Pets Rock Photography while you were at our 2nd birthday party. I recently got an e-mail from them explaining how to get you photos, and I thought posting them here would be useful to everyone. Have a great Friday!

Lots of Love,
Erin

Here are their instructions:

Dear Pet Owners,

This note is a big "Thank You" for attending Big Wag's 2nd Birthday Party!It was such great fun to take photos of your PETS and the photos are yours to keep.Your pictures are posted on http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/5541552_Ee9Ps#339424642_V5sNh where you can download them for free (the instructions are listed below).You can also place an order and receive prints & gifts right to your front door.If there is any other service Pets Rock can provide for you, please let us know.

Cordially,
Jackie & Chad Collie


Single image downloading



Method 1: Move your mouse over the main image in Big Wag B'day Galley. You'll see a save photo icon. Click it. That's all there is to it.




Method 2: Alternatively, you can move your mouse over the main image in a gallery and click on original.
The photo will be displayed (it could be very large). Right-click (Windows) anywhere on the photo and a small menu will pop up; choose Save Image As...

Rising Costs Survey Results

Three weeks ago, I reported that I had discovered Post brand cereals had hidden their cost increases in just their economy sizes of cereals, so that it was actually cheaper to buy the smaller sized cereal boxes as they were cheaper per unit oz.

I then asked the question: How would you rather see a company deal with the rising cost of goods sold?

with three possible responses:
1 - Just raise the price, I know it's going up
2 - Shrink the size, you've done it before
3 - Hide the cost increase in just the economy sizes

83% chose answer #1 - Just raise the price. 16% chose answer #3 - Hide the cost increases in just the economy size.

I think, if I am able to interpret these statistics, that Americans really just want to be shot straight on prices. For decades, CPG companies have tried to, and possibly succeeded in, deceiving the public. They shrank bags of sugar from 5 lbs to 4, so that the price didn't have to increase. Post cereals made their economy size actually more expensive, counting on the public not price comparing the brand against itself. Who knows what else they have done to manipulate prices and profits. Is this really necessary?

I know that it is not often I price compare a brand against itself. You just assume that the company makes an economy size for a reason - to save on packaging costs. I don't think I'm lazy so much as time strapped, as I am sure most Americans are these days. I want to get out of the store as quickly as the next guy. I have blog posts to write when I get home!!!

I guess I see this as an important lesson - don't trust those big guys out there, and don't try and hide your price increases. If I have to raise prices at the bakery, I'll just raise them instead of trying to be sneaky about it. If anyone asks, I'll say 83% of you guys suggested I not try and hide the fact when they confront me on it.

Are Our Rescues "Too Good"???

I just read an email this morning from our beloved pug rescue of Northwest Arkansas, and it seems to be a trend I am noticing, even from the HSUS a few weeks back. Breeders and puppy mills retire, sell out, retire some of their dogs, cash in all of their chips, and then basically drops dogs, or in the case of the HSUS, everything, into the hands of cash strapped rescues and shelters.

Now, I have nothing against the rescues in these cases. They do wonderful work day in and day out. The Pug Rescue was even at our birthday party on July 26th.

What seems like a problem to me is that these folks make all of their money on these dogs, breeding them over and over, and then when they are done with them, lob them over the fence at a rescue to deal with. Now, I do know what the alternative is. These rescues step in when often these animals might go to a kill shelter, and might not make it another 30 days, but it just seems so crass to me that they have the audacity to wring every cent they can, then leave them as some one else's responsibility.

I think there needs to be a disposal fee (I know that sounds bad) that breeders and millers have to pay for someone else to take over the ownership of these dogs. Some fee to help with food, medical care, and the myriad of other costs associated with rescuing these dogs and rehoming them. They won't pay it - unless it's a requirement to be licensed by the USDA for a kennel. The requirements are so weak as they are now anyway. This just seems fair to me. You have to pay to have the junk yard take your old beater from you, or to dispose of anything else. There are the folks that just go dump their trash somewhere off of their property, like in a ravine, or out in the woods, because they are too cheap to take it to the dump. There are some pretty stiff penalties for this "Illegal Dumping". Why don't we charge the breeders and millers to take "their garbage" off their hands too?

Murphy Dog Park Needs You Plastic Bags!

Toni reported yesterday that Murphy Memorial Dog Park needs our extra plastic bags for cleaning up the dogs' "bidniss". If you take them to the park, please put in the plastic containers. This helps keep them from becoming mosquito farms.

Murphy Memorial Dog Park
407 E. Nursery Road,
Rogers AR 72758
(479) 631-9909 (Steve and Toni Carter)

You can also drop them off at the bakery.

Bigwag Dog Bakery
2301 W. Walnut Suite 23,
Rogers AR 72756
(479) 631-2924

Camp Bow Wow Grand Opening

On Saturday, Camp Bow Wow held it's public grand opening. They had a great turnout!

It really floored me, how our customers react when they see us out other places like this. Of course, we got to meet lots of people that hadn't met us before, but our customers are awesome. They all almost want to come up and give us big hugs, or at least it feels like it.

It almost feels like a big extended family of ours. They come up, and tell us how their dogs are doing, how they like the new food they are on, how they love our chews more than anyone else's. We measure how big their kids are getting, how fast they are growing.

And I love it.

This made me proud to be a business owner, and proud this is the business I own. I've done other types of companies, but I have never had a customer base like this that makes me feel I am part of their family, like they did on Saturday. It helped bring some clarity to what it is exactly we do. We've got almost 4 years invested in this bakery, even though we've only been open for 2 of those. We don't carry every product there is under the sun, but everything we do have, we have researched very carefully, trying to buy as much American as we can, to carry the best products that we can find, to find stuff that is guaranteed, find companies that have the same work ethic and principles we do, and choose those as our partners.

It's like recommending pet products to family, and we have a big, extended family out there, and this is the best stuff we can bake, find, and carry at the moment. I sell this stuff to my mom, because I believe in it. I think our customers get that too, and they were really showing their appreciation on Saturday. We don't feel like this is a business as much as it feels like a pet club, where we get to talk about cool pet products every day.

Thank you to our supporters who find us at all of these events, who know our story, who know why their dogs love our treats best, who are part of our family! If there were ever a time where I felt like a rock star, it was Saturday.

You guys are the ones that rock! Thank you, for validating that what we are doing is important.

Slam Dunking The Old Aprons!!!!

This year, for our two year birthday, Erin bought us some new aprons. Those white canvas ones we had since we opened we made ourselves, and they were looking a little ratty (minor understatement).

The new ones are some sharp black aprons, with pockets, and the embroidery done by Donna Foster. We have some of her blankets and aprons in our store for sale, and she will do custom work as well.

We took possibly too much enjoyment from disposing of the old aprons. We held this little cerimony at the store after everyone had left after our birthday part. Thank you Erin!!!

Ezine @rticles had to go

OK, I guess I've had enough spam. I hate to have to "unsubscribe" to a pet blog, but I just couldn't take the spam on Ezine @rticles any longer.

For anyone unfamiliar with the blog, I started counting how many articles were actually useful vs. how many articles were of such baloney, I had to laugh out loud at them. My best guess is that 96%, or 29 in 30 of the articles that come out of here are completely unfounded and made up. My favorite was the article about how to throw a birthday party for your dog. It gave some very non-specific advice....send out some invitations, create a guest list, think up some activities to play during the party. It doesn't actually give you any ideas for any of these things, or some good places to get things like dog invitations, and then the final paragraph was "Don't forget to buy some dog apparel and collars for the occasion" with links to her website, which mostly sold dog apparel and collars.

I know that dog apparel is apparently hurting right now, as this was polled as the first thing dog enthusiasts would cut out of their budgets with high gas prices and a possible recession, but come on! This type of blogging is ridiculous. Now, I know full well that not everything I post is of interest to everyone, and sometimes I go on tangents, but you don't see me writing articles about dog clothing, and then finish the article about how well a peanut butter soft bite goes with that new collar you just bought.

OK, here's a note to all of you Ezine bloggers out there. Can you come up with something that has a point, that is semi informative, has even a tinge of research, talks about your local community, or has something of interest? That birthday party article took someone 2 minutes, had absolutely no research, and was mostly a plug to get a new link out there in the wild back to your website. That is why I am unsubscribing to this blog. My blog reader actually sighed from relief of all of that spam.

Don't get me wrong - I realize there are different reasons why people blog. Some do it as a journalistic outlet. Others educate. Others like to record their daily life for posterity. I try to keep our readers informed of the events that are happening out in our community, talk about pet issues that might effect them, talk about pet products they might be interested in or need to avoid, introduce other pet businesses to everyone else. I see this blog as a channel to update our friends out there on whats happening in the NWA Pet World.

I will, very shortly, write an article on how to throw a birthday party for your dog, and I will actually do some research so that it's useful. I may plug our barkday cakes, because there are still people out there that don't know we do them, but I will also tell you where to find edible dog invitations, the most popular dog apparel for a birthday party, plus other products that are out there you may be interested in that we might not even carry. It will be the authoritative, complete guide to dog birthday parties (tongue in cheek).

p.s. - if anyone has any pointers or complaints for me, I will at least listen. Send me some comments. What can I do better for you?