First and foremost, this update is long overdue and I sincerely apologize for that. Secondly, we are not going out of business and will be baking just as much (if not more) in 2010! As stated in our last update, we had to unexpectedly close The Baker’s Dog retail store. We spent a lot of time looking for a new location. We even went so far as to begin negotiations with a local shopping center. But it felt like we were rushing into things just to get the store re-opened. So we’ve decided it is best for our customers, our business, and our personal lives to take a step away from managing a full time retail location for the time being.

As of this week, Bone Appetit is completely closed. We’ve kept all of the baking equipment and inventory. We’re going to keep baking and filling online orders while we catch our breath and plan our next steps. Our primary goal is to make the most of our website. We will be adding a more complete selection of treats and unique toys to the online store. We’ve found that our custom photo packaging has really caught on in the past year and want to continue promoting that. We’ve also had the desire to work on our recipes and create new bestseller treats. The stress and distraction of managing a 7-day-per-week retail store has kept us from doing these things until now.

Over the years, we have cultivated a strong regular customer base both online and at the stores. The support we’ve received from everyone has been nothing short of inspiring. Our biggest regret is our local customers won’t have a place to bring their dog and pick up their treats. We are actively pursuing options to sell locally. Some ideas include setting up at the local farmer’s market and partnering with other local pet friendly stores. In the meantime, please give a look at ordering online- our shipping prices are very reasonable!

Pursuing our goals simply would not be possible without the incredible support of our customers. For that, we can’t thank you enough!

Josie, The REAL Baker's Dog, is turning 1 year old!

Josie is about to have her very first birthday! We asked her what we should do to celebrate and she said we should give all of her pet pals a gift. We tried to explain that she was the one that was supposed to receieve birthday presents and giving stuff away isn’t the best business strategy, but she insisted we do this. Ooooo-kay….

All orders placed on February 9th will receive a free toy from Charming Pet Products ($8.99 value). Orders over $50 will receive a large Mutt Puppet ($13.99 value) instead!*

Everyone has been asking us what we’re up to and what’s going on for 2010… I promise that update is coming very soon!

* – If we run out of those particular items, we reserve the right to substitute for similar items while supplies last.

We’ll be closing The Baker’s Dog at some point in December. But do not panic, we’ll be re-opening in Barefoot Landing just 6 miles North sometime in January. We’re just beginning negotiations with the Barefoot Landing folks, so it remains to be seen if we’ll take over the current Bone Appetit location or finding a slightly larger space. Online customers will experience absolutely no disruption in service.

Co-owner, Tracy Johnson, founded The Bone Appetit Bakery at Barefoot Landing over 10 years ago. Last year, we took all of that treat baking experience and reinvented it as The Baker’s Dog. We found a nice, big location where we could set our own hours, experiment with new ideas, and dogs could come in to visit us. The original plan was to eventually close Bone Appetit in 2010. Given the economy and time of year we opened The Baker’s Dog, the store has held it’s own.  But chronic issues with The Baker’s Dog building has forced us to flip that plan around. It was a bit of a quick decision but we feel comfortable that it is the correct one. And yes…

Dogs will be welcome at the new location!

We’ve been thrilled to meet new customers and overwhelmed by the positive support. We hope they’ll make the short drive up to our new store wherever that may be!

We announced a new product yesterday (our Facebook fans and Twitter followers got to hear about it first!) and it has been very well received. We’re trying to err on the side of legal caution with any specifics, but I think most of you can sort things out on your own. This is a great example of our unique in-house packaging and manufacturing capabilities. We conceived the idea on the weekend and had a ready to purchase product by Tuesday! We’re planning on leveraging this ability more in the future with new and entertaining products. Got an idea? Let us know!

I wanted a picture of a dog with headphones or listening to the radio but couldn't find one. So you'll have to deal with this ugly puppy instead.

Mike Switzer contacted me a few months ago to schedule an interview. He was very specific that we needed to do the phone call over a landline. The only landline I have is at The Baker’s Dog so I said, “No problem!” I’m a regular listener of Mike’s show and we were super excited to be a part of it. Fast forward many weeks to the day of the interview. Mike and I chatted for a bit before he switched over to the studio recording equipment. He immediately noticed a hum on the line.

“Hey Paul, are you on a landline?”
“Of course Mike! Just like you told me to be.”
“You’re not on a cordless phone, are you?”
“…”
“Do you have a corded phone?”
“…”
“…”
“I can get one. I’ll call you back in 5 minutes.”

Fortunately, there’s a CVS next door and I had already closed the store so I could focus on the interview. I ran full speed into CVS and snagged the first phone I saw, bought it, and ran back. I was proud of my resourcefulness and was thinking Mike should be impressed by my enthusiasm. Long story short, several back and forth phone calls determined that the corded phone I got was busted. Mike could hear me great but all I could hear was static. Mike didn’t seemed terribly impressed. He begrudingly let me do the interview on my cell phone (for which I can’t thank him enough). The interview itself went smoothly. Mike is a really nice guy and our talk was a lot of fun. I had no idea if he had usable audio or not. All I could picture was Mike in a editing studio and shaking his head in disgust.

Fast forward a few more weeks to today, and the interview aired. I think, besides my Kermit-the-Frog-being-strangled voice, it turned out pretty good!

Thanks to SC ETV Radio and Mike Switzer for paying attention to our little business!

 

 The Baker's Dog Podcast Episode 3 [5:50m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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.

We’re going to have a huge announcement on April 6th. I was having some fun on Twitter teasing about the news, and now it has turned into a full on contest in association with the Twitter Paw Pawty! I’m going to be dropping hints on Twitter all this week about what it could be. The first U.S. resident to guess it correctly will receive a 30% Off coupon code to use in our online store. (@emmythecat will provide the prize to first non-US resident) That’s the biggest discount we’ve EVER given. Twitter can get a little crazy sometimes, so I’m going to update this page with the hints as well so people can catch up. We will not announce the correct answer until the BIG, HUGE news is published on the morning of April 6th. Your guess must be tweeted out with the tags #bakersdog #pawpawty or we won’t see your answer!

UPDATE: We’ve Announced Our Big News!

Hints:

• This is not an April Fool’s joke and is real news.
• I slept in late on Sunday because I figured it was my last chance to do so for a while.
• The news happens sometime this Sunday (4/5), but the retail store will not be open.
• We are NOT having a baby! (Sorry Mom & Dad) Bonus hint: This is Baker’s Dog news.
• Some may think of a comic book, cartoon, or movie when they hear the news.
• There’s is pretty much a giveaway to what the news is in our latest video. (Watch the whole video closely!)

It’s been a while since we changed out our label photos. We had picked a few Winter themed photos back in January to match our winter decor. With the 70F days and outdoor customer photos we’ve had recently, we decided it was time to start celebrating Spring! As usual, these lucky dogs will get a Nearly Free* One Pounder as a thanks for letting us feature them on our retail store packages and online store photo options. We’ve also switched from using a glossy finish label to a cool matte finish. We think it matches the craft paper bags better. Let us know what YOU think!

*Nearly Free is because our online payment processor won’t let us charge $0.00 for an item. So we charge 1¢ + shipping.

The Baker’s Dog is proud to announce we will be hosting a pet portrait day on June 13th. The sitting fee is $15 in advance and $20 the day of the event. The fee secures a 30 minute session for one dog. A $5 fee will be added for each additional dog sitting in. Prints are sold separately by Melissa McDaniel Photography. A portion of the sitting fees will be donated to the Grand Strand Humane Society.

Melissa McDaniel is traveling the country raising awareness for animal shelters and rescues. She has identified and partnered up with a select few businesses to host pet portrait days on her journey. You can see a portfolio of her work here. This is a one day only event with limited spots. Please contact us to book your appointment.

If you’d like to help promote the event, here is the flyer we’re using in our store. Please feel free to print out or email to your friends!

We also have another exciting project in the works with Melissa that will help participating shelters and rescues across the country. Details coming soon!