Josie being disgustingly cute... as usual.

I’ve had a list of things I’ve been wanting to do with BakersDog.com for some time. With the post-Easter rush behind us, I’ve managed to tackle quite a few of them:

$1.99 Photo Uploads! In case you haven’t seen or heard about our custom photo packaging, we’ll print whatever photo you upload on our treat bags. Until now, there was only a $4.99 upload fee that covered the cost of processing the photo and saving it to your account. Once saved, you can re-order treats with that photo, share or transfer the photo to others (at no additional cost). For those not interested in saving the photo for future re-orders or sharing, there’s now a $1.99 “Lite” option.

Pet Photographer & Wholesale Program! We’ve started a program for Pet Photographers and other industry professionals (pet sitters, groomers, etc) that are interested in using our custom photo packaging for thank you gifts to clients and other promotions. If interested, please contact us for details. We also have the support in for wholesale customers, we just need to finalize the terms and pricing.

More Baker’s Dog Photos! I’ve been tweeting my tail off and people seem to enjoy my occasional photo tweets. So now you can see the latest ones on the main home page without enduring Twitter.com.

Cakes! We’ve been taking cake orders somewhat discretely for the past couple of months. We wanted to be sure we could provide the best possible product we could before really advertising. Now you can order them online (local customers only, sorry!)

Search! There’s a site search box on pretty much every page now. Now you can just search what you’re looking for instead of me figuring out a clever way to put everything on every page while keeping a clean and simple look.

Stuff You Won’t Notice! That’s right. I made a few small changes and fixes to make your online shopping experience so convenient and pleasant that you hopefully won’t notice at all. If anything doesn’t appear to be working properly, please please let us know.

Got suggestions or requests? We’d love to hear them!

Everyone, meet Josie. Josie, everyone.

Josie already made her first sale today. Seriously!

We’re very excited about this announcement and have been anticipating it for weeks!  She is a Miniature Schnauzer and comes from Debbie Eager in Gaston, SC. She’s 8 weeks old and 2lbs 12oz of pure sweetness. Since we have the 2 kitties, Sasha & Bubu, we thought it was fitting to name her Josie after the popular comic book, cartoon, and one of my favorite silly movies: Josie & The Pussycats.

This was not a spontaneous act. We spent a few months looking and planning. Several weeks ago, we made the 3 hour drive from Myrtle Beach for the sole purpose of meeting Debbie and seeing her home where she raises her puppies. Debbie is a very knowledgeable and caring breeder that was happy to let us check her out. While we were there, we met the 4 week old puppies from her latest litter and that’s how we found Josie!

Like any breeder should, Debbie keeps the puppies until they are at least 8 weeks old. So we just had to wait a month to get her. Debbie kept us up to date on Josie via email while we we figured out a training plan and bought all the stuff we needed.  (Well, OK. Maybe we didn’t need 3 collars, 2 beds, and 2 leashes.) Plus her Mom & Dad own pet bakeries?!?! This is one lucky little girl!! We picked Josie up yesterday and Debbie gave us all of her information and records. She has been a perfect little girl so far. She has only used the potty outside in her designated area and she’s totally happy to sleep by herself in her bed. I don’t think we could be happier with her.

Josie will be at The Baker’s Dog retail store pretty much every day. But she’s still just a baby, so please understand if we can’t let you hold her.

We’ll be giving away FREE It’s A Puppy cigars to all of our in-store and online customers this week!

Why not adopt?

I assume this question will come, so I’m going to go ahead and address it. We considered adoption first and had some honest discussions about what route we should go. In the end, we decided it would be best for our lifestyle to go with a local and reputable breeder. For all the numerous positive reasons to adopt a dog, the concerns in particular to our situation outweighed them. We have put a lot of effort in supporting  shelters by donating and raising awareness. We will continue with these efforts as much as we can. A lot of our loyal customers are devout rescuers and volunteers. I envy their lifestyle and ability to give these deserving animals a chance at a happy life. Please consider adoption first! If you decide to buy a purebred dog, please research your breeder and take your time. Be very wary of buying a puppy from someone other than the person that was there from the day the pup was born.