Josie turned 6 months old on Sunday and she has really captured everyone’s heart. We have customers come in the store just to see her. I get phone calls about her picture in our ads. All of our Twitter and Facebook friends seem to swoon when we posted pictures. Some folks online didn’t even think Josie could be a real dog! So we’ve decided to publish our latest video of nothing but Josie footage from the time we got her until now…

We love you Josie!

[podcast format="video"]http://s3.amazonaws.com/bakersdog/BakersDogEpisode3HD.mov[/podcast]

This is @trinalina's puppy!

Most business like ours don’t have to deal with such a seasonal surge of visitors like we have here in Myrtle Beach. We knew that our “Winter” hours of 10am-7pm were OK for local folks stopping by on their lunch break and after work. But it was also the exact times that tourists are doing fun things like laying on the beach and eating dinner. As such, we decided to change our hours this week: Monday-Friday we’ll be open 12pm to 9pm and on the weekends we’ll open at 10am and close around 2pm. It was surprising to me that Saturdays are incredibly slow. But if things are hoppin’, we’ll stay open later. So far, it looks like the new hours are working out great! If we can afford to hire more staff, we’ll be able to expand our hours to accommodate everyone’s needs.

Now on to the other stuff…

Email subscribers: Could you do us a favor? If you subscribed any time before June 2009, please unsubscribe and then  re-subscribe at the bottom of the main page. I know it seems weird, but it’s a technical issue beyond our control.

Podcast subscribers: There’s a new feed URL you need to subscribe to: http://feeds2.feedburner.com/TheBakersDogPodcast. I haven’t been able to get the iTunes Store link to update to the new feed yet.

Finally, I was on Twitter and asked for some photos to put in this post. You can click each photo to go to their Twitter profile:

@johnattebury

@digimom1

@pupcakespetbout is a wholesale customer of ours in Columbia, SC!

@vegasrockdog

@agilespots

@jadeheart

@mssophiebelle

If you’re on Twitter, follow these guys!

We tried telling you how social we were before. Well, I guess we’ve been so social that we were chosen to be interviewed as a part of an article in the Weekly Surge about Grand Strand folks on Twitter!

I’m really pleased with the article. It was incredibly well covered and my friend Roger Yale really sifted through my ramblings and got exactly what I was trying to say distilled down to some complete and coherent sentences. Give it a read!

Today, Josie had her first real grooming since we’ve gotten her.  Until Josie learns to run the register and print custom photo labels, I’m pretty much stuck at the store. I decided to give mobile groomer, Snips a try. I knew Jennifer and Bill had run a pet retail store that specialized in holistic foods before they decided to focus solely on grooming. So I knew they were experienced and really cared about the dogs. But I hadn’t heard anything about their grooming service.

I sent them an email to set up an appointment. In the Myrtle Beach area, it’s rare to find businesses willing to respond and work with you over email. So I was pleased when I got a response not too long after sending it. We set up an appointment and they actually arrived at the store early, another rarity when dealing with appointment based services!

Their mobile grooming salon is fully self contained and Josie was transformed in just under 45 minutes. Considering they are a full service mobile groomer (wash, clip, nail trim, ear hair, fluff dry, etc), the pricing was very reasonable. I think most dogs will be right around the $40 range. If you schedule your next appointment with them on the day of the grooming, it automatically enrolls you into their Club Snips loyalty program which will bring the price down even more across multiple visits.

So if you’re a local looking for a groomer or you’re on vacation with your doggy in the Myrtle Beach area, give them a try!

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.

[podcast]http://s3.amazonaws.com/bakersdog/bakersdogscbizreview.mp3[/podcast]

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!

[podcast]http://s3.amazonaws.com/bakersdog/bakersdogscbizreview.mp3[/podcast]

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

Our local minor league baseball team, the Myrtle Beach Pelicans, will be having a “Bark In The Park” night on May 15th and we’ll be there! We have a limited number of free tickets to give away, just stop by the store and ask if we have any left.

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.