More locations for Barking Biscuits

This is a very busy time of year for most businesses. It's a little unusual to pick up new accounts at this time of year, so we're really fortunate and happy to announce a few places that have added Barking Biscuits.

A brand new business....Spoiled K9s...opening on Monday and supplying gift baskets exclusively for dogs. They are in Toronto. You can reach them at 647.346.1480. Good luck Lisha!

If you are on "the right coast"...aka the east coast (Halifax & Dartmouth to be exact)...you probably know about Paws 4 Health. They supply all natural food for dogs. And now they supply Barking Biscuits and organic catnip as well. You can reach Maureen at 902.435.2528.

And...Country Canine in Limehouse, Ontario (I must go check out where it is) has just placed an order which they will be receiving on Tuesday. How terrible...I don't have Deb's phone number but you can reach her by email.

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We're off to the annual meeting and celebration for Canines With A Cause tonight...one of the charities I like to support.

And...if I'm very, very good...maybe a nice dinner with my favourite man!

Have a good weekend everyone.

Dags & Willow

Meet Dagny (a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever) and Willow (a Collie/Shepherd cross).Dags & Willow Fine Cheese and Gourmet Shop (named after Dagny & Willow) is in Collingwood, Ontario and is the most recent store added to our Barking Biscuit Retail Stores list.

Dags & Willow boasts the largest collection of cheese in the Collingwood area, offering over 100 varieties of cheese at any given time & a try-before-you-buy policy that goes beyond just their superb collection of cheeses. Don't these products look fabulous? Yum. And now Dags & Willow customers will be able to spoil their pooches with Barking Biscuits!

Meet Carling & New Store News

Meet Carling. (photo by Barbara Lapointe) Carling's photo has been featured on our Say Cheese package for the past 9 months (we have others as well). But I used the last one today! So Carling's photo is officially retired. I picked Carling's photo to use on "Say Cheese" because I thought the look on his face was hilarious...it's like he's saying..."Just take the picture!" Or one of those looks that teenagers get when they're determined not to have a good time.

I did my first "Photo Search" last summer and printed the first batch of tags in September 2006. I wanted to feature as many different dogs as I could to make it fun for my customers. My idea was to print a limited run of each photo....only about 300 of each. However 2 things defeated my plan.

First of all, the printer ran 1000 of each photo by mistake. That's not so bad when you're talking about only one photo. But my first print run had 21 photos....that meant that 21,000 tags were printed instead of 6,300 tags. Yikes!

Second of all, the contact I had for 8 years at the printing company I use left. The new person told me that tags would be four times (that's 4 x!!) the cost that I had been originally quoted if I wanted only small batches printed. Double yikes!

So, the end result was that I can't feature as many dogs as I want and print a lot more tags of each photo I use. Some day maybe I'll find a way to print the tags inexpensively so that I can do small runs.

Some exciting news! Last week has been busy with four new stores being added to my retail stores list. (well, the stores aren't new but they're new to my biscuits). Here are the new locations:

Urban Paws in Kingston

Winstead All About Dogs in Bloomfield

Ornament Express in Vaughn and

Small Wonders Pet Emporium in Toronto

If you're in the area, please go to one of the stores and buy some biscuits. Tell them you read about it on the blog!

It's nice to hear "thanks"

It's so nice to hear "thank you", and to read it in print is even better!Foodsmiths is a natural food store in Perth, Ontario. They have carried our dog biscuits for years. I'm so happy to have our biscuits in their store. The store is just filled with high quality food items, and it's great to walk around and look at the variety...so many things are available there that you don't find in a regular "grocery store".

Foodsmiths hosts a "Dog Wash" every year to raise funds for LAWS (Lanark Animal Welfare Society). I wasn't able to attend this year, because we were in Newfoundland, but I donated 150 of our large 5 inch bones for Foodsmiths to give out to all the people who came to the Dog Wash.

I received a Foodsmiths flyer with our newspaper this week. Imagine my surprise and delight when I saw The Barking Biscuit in their flyer. First of all, my company was listed on the front page of the flyer with 11 other businesses under the caption "Local Flavours". On the back page of the 8 page flyer was the Thank You for the Charity Dog Wash supporters.

Usually companies have to pay to be featured in flyers like this, which is something I can't afford to do, so it was a very happy surprise!

New Retail Locations

Whew! It's been a busy start to the year. Usually the start of the year is slow going, but we've been adding new retail locations and it's been keeping us hopping.
In addition to the stores I listed earlier this month, here are some more new great locations you can find Barking Biscuits:
Crazy Bout Critters, 19185 Centre St,Mt. Albert
My Pet Boutique, 94 Cumberland,Toronto
White Cross Dispensary, 264 Elgin,Ottawa
Country Craft, 1618 Dundas East,Whitby
Please visit our new locations...and tell them The Barking Biscuit sent you! As always, you can find a full listing on our website www.barkingbiscuit.com under "Stores"

New Retail Locations

We've added 4 new retail locations in the past week. You'll be able to find our "Crunch for a Cure" dog biscuits (and organic catnip) at Bark & Fitz in Ottawa. They're located in Westboro at 354 Richmond Road. If you check them out this week, you'll see a display in their front window featuring Sue Bird's photos and photo books. Sue did the photos that are featured on our new 2007 Crunch for a Cure packages.
Our full line of biscuits are available at these new locations:
Posh Paws...a new boutique opening in Manotick, Ontario within the next few days.
Doggie Diva...located in the St. Jacob's Farmer's Market in St. Jacob's, Ontario. For all you Red Hat ladies, the owner Maggie would love to meet you! (non Red Hatters are also welcome).
Barkside Pets...way over in Fernie, BC!
Please go in to these great stores and tell them we sent you!
Sara