Upcoming Yappie Hours - July 2009

Hey Everyone!

Tonight's Patriotic Pup Parade is the last of our June Yappie Hours, so I thought I'd go ahead and post the July Yappie Hours today. We have lots of fun nights coming up, so be sure to stop by on Tuesdays from 5pm to 7pm. I'm especially excited about the Brown Box Special - it'll be great fun for those of you with a sense of adventure!

WIN A YEAR OF FREE TREATS!

Hey Everyone!

As our birthday party draws near, we are once again giving away a year of free treats. In the past we've done this through random drawing, but this year we're changing it up a little. We decided that we want to give a year of free treats to someone who really loves our treats and our store, so we're letting you tell us why you love Bigwag and the best story wins a year of free treats! Your story will also appear in the Rogers Morning News.

We want to make it easy for you to tell us your story, so there are several ways to enter. You can go to www.contest.bigwag.com and enter there using the online form. You can e-mail us directly at sales@bigwag.com or you can come into the store and pick up an entry form.

You don't have to be a Hemingway to win this contest, just tell us what you tell us everyday - why your dog loves their treats, how the food we sell has made a difference in their coat, how much fun their birthday party was. Just share your best story and you could win!

All entries must be received by 7pm on Saturday, July 18, 2009! So take a minute to tell us right now, because you don't want to miss out on this great opportunity because you put it off. Your dog would never forgive you :)


Contest Rules--no purchase necessary to enter. Your story must be at least 25 words to qualify. The top 10 entries will be selected by Bigwag LLC for customer voting during the last full week in July, with the winner announced on the last Saturday of July. Owners, employees, or employee family members are ineligible to participate. Bigwag reserves the right to cancel this contest with no notice. All stories will become the property of Bigwag LLC. By submitting this form participant gives Bigwag LLC the right to use their name, likeness, their dog's name, and their likeness for advertising and promotional uses only. No private information will be sold or used for any other purpose.

We've added a new word to the American lexicon!

I doubt this word will ever appear in Merriam-Webster's dictionary anytime soon. Just in case Webster is reading and needs some hints - this is what we put on the back of our T-shirts when we first opened. I think it would make a superb dictionary entry!

No, what I am talking about is Google's suggestions when you search for a term.

When we set out to create Bigwag - we chose a made-up word, partly because we didn't want to blend in with everyone else, partly because we wanted a unique, short URL for our website. We didn't want to be a 2 dog bakery, or another pampered puppy, or a smoochie pooches. Something short and sweet, and we tried to come up with something that was descriptive of what we set out to accomplish with our store and concept. We thought it was simple - a happy dog has a big wag - bigwag.

The pitfall of taking this route over "Arkansas' Dog Bakery" or the "Rogers Dog Bakery" is that every search engine thinks that someone typing this in is making a typo, and tries to correct you with the "Did you mean..." text at the top of their site with some links that will take the searcher away from your site. In our case, Google was forever trying to ask us if we were searching for Bigwig instead of Bigwag.

That has changed as of today. Not only do we bounce around as the number 1 or number 2 result for the generic search term "Dog Bakery", if you search for Bigwag, there are no longer any suggestions.

It's only taken three years as we roll into our third birthday party in July 2009, but it has finally happened. I know this might be a little webophile for most of our customers out there, but this is a huge accomplishment for a little ol' dog bakery in Rogers Arkansas. If you are starting a business and decide to make up a word for your name and URL, be prepared for the long haul before Google accepts your new name or spelling. Personally I had given up thinking we'd never get out of that suggestion. I finally get to check that one off of the to-do list.

(Did you catch that last one Webster? Webophile - you should look at that one too. Call me and I'll help you out)

Bark Park Update

Hey Everyone!

I just got this update from Jean. I know many of you have been asking about the Bark Park Grand Opening, so here's the latest...

"Due to the recent construction (expanded parking lot, permanent restrooms and water fountains, for dogs and humans), we’ve decided to postpone the grand opening until early September."

I know many of you had expressed concern about the lack of water, so this comes as welcome news. When I get more specific news, I will update our calendar and let everyone know what's happening!

Also, I have it on good authority that Bella Vista has just approved a Dog Park at the site of last year's Wiener Dog Races, so that's exciting news as well. Again, I will pass on any updates I get on this.

Hope everyone has a great Friday!

Good-bye Doggy Fountain

Hello All!

In a supplement to yesterday's post about the clothing, I wanted to post some pictures of the end of the doggy fountain. We have mixed feelings about the fountain leaving the store. When we originally put it in, it was mostly as means of taking up space. A place holder like the ficus trees and potted plants that we used to make the store not look so barren. So, in some respects the fountain leaving is a mark of accomplishment, showing that we at last have no space fillers in the store. It almost makes us feel as though we've finally arrived. But, at the same time, the fountain somehow became more than a space filler over the past 3 years. It became a part of our identity, a symbol of our uniqueness. And that makes it hard to get rid of, because in no way do we want to seem more cookie cutter, less unique. So, I'm posting pictures of it's final moments in the store as both a triumph and a momento. And I have Cary's word that there will be a smaller, but still unique, doggy fountain in our future!

Dog Clothing at Bigwag!

a small section of the new clothing

Hey Everyone!

It's official, we now have dog clothing at Bigwag!!! :D :D If you can't tell, I'm more than a little excited. When we opened the store almost three years ago, we had a vision of what it would be. However, the banks didn't exactly believe in our vision, which meant no loans. But, we were convinced that the dogs of NWA deserved high quality treats, food, chews and much more. So, we started off small, with what we could afford to put in and we've slowly but surely built it up towards what we originally intended. We still have more that we'd like to add (I'm sure it will always be that way... if you aren't growing, you're dying), but today we made a giant leap forward by adding clothing. We have beds in stock as well, we're just waiting on some shelving to display them, but they'll be out soon.

The feeling of accomplishment is amazing. I have to admit there have been more than a few times that we found ourselves wondering if the banks were right after all. But today, it feels as if they were dead wrong and I'm loving it. And I want to say thank you to all of you who believe in us, who come in and tell us how much your dogs love our treats or how well they're doing on the food we carry. Those comments have been the driving force, the push we needed when we felt like we couldn't keep going. We would have never made it this far without your loyalty and support. And I hope you all know how much you mean to us. When we say that our customers are part of our Bigwag family, we genuinely mean it. I know that sounds cheesy, so I'll stop and just post the pictures of the clothing, but please, please know that we thank you from the bottom of our hearts for helping us achieve all that we have and all that's yet to come.

P.S. We will be celebrating our three years of being in business, Saturday, July 25th from 9am-12pm. There will be contests, food and much more, I'll post the invite here as soon as I finish it, but please, save the date because we want to celebrate with you!

Welcome Dylan!

Hello Again!

We have a new member of the Bigwag family, Terresa's new puppy, Dylan. Dylan came to visit us at the store yesterday, but by the time we got to take a picture of him, he was all tuckered out. Puppies are like that... Dylan's gonna be a big guy, he's a Black Lab/American Bulldog mix. I'm sure he will be a frequent visitor to the store, so stop by and meet him in person (should that be in dog?)