The Dog Marketing Blog

This morning NPR aired a story about a humane society auction of toy breed puppies seized at the LA airport. The puppies, imported from South Korea, were accompanied by forged documents stating the five week old puppies were 5 months old and had had the required innoculations for importation. Of the 30 dogs in the shipment all were in poor condition and only 10 survived. These puppies were turned over to LA Animal services which nursed them to health and kept them for 5 months. When deemed ready for placement, there was so much interest in the pups the shelter was required to hold an auction. Small dogs, especially purebreds, and puppies are rarely available in shelters, so this amount of interest in these animals that have all three characteristics is not surprising. The story quotes the shelter manager starting the auction by warning that the pups were likely from substandard breeding stock and had obviously had a traumatic start in life, so “Buyer Beware.”  A representative from the American Kennel Club is quoted as saying when they stepped up their enforcement of substandard kennels that they also saw an increase in imported puppies bound for pet stores.  The story makes it clear that importation rules are not being strictly enforced; that documents are readily forged, apparently inspectors are not trained to spot puppies so obviously underage for the required rabies innoculations as the ones in this story.

Packaged Facts continues to churn out pet food industry research with their latest report, “Health, Humanization and High Quality Ingredients” An excerpt from the product description page:

“At the same time, one thing marketers and retailers at all levels of the market cannot afford given the faltering U.S. and global economies is complacency. More than ever before the ability to convert pet owners to higher priced products—or keep them buying them—will depend on marketers’ success in communicating product benefits and tapping into the ever-potent human/animal bond. Helping to make the case are new celebrity spokespersons like Cesar Millan with his new Dog Whisperer dog food line, and Ellen DeGeneres with her co-ownership in Halo Purely for Pets, with other positive trends including rapid growth in the natural supermarket channel and an increasingly globalized market in which ingredients suppliers like Cargill are looking to stake a deeper claim in pet food (in Cargill’s case by specifically targeting the U.S. agricultural retail channel as well as global markets). At the same time, new products continue to flood the market, which saw more entries in 2008 than in any previous year.”

I’m all for health and high quality, the humanization trend I know helps manufacturers connect with pet owners and sell food, but since pets are not human, applying human standards to their feeding isn’t always the healthiest approach.

Thanks again to MediaPost, JetBlue announces an in-cabin pet policy called JetPaws which is essentially a set of rules for flying with small pets in the cabin.  Total weight of pet and carrier cannot exceed 20 pounds and there is absolutely no mention of whether or not larger pets are accepted on the airline at all. They do sell a designer Jazzy Park Avenue Pet accessories for these elite JetPaw-eligible pets. I emailed them to inquire as to whether I could take a larger pet with me, say if I wanted to fly from Chicago to New York for the Westminster dog show, I’ll post an update when I find out.  Although this is positioned as a very pet-friendly move, as someone who owns larger dogs it feels pretty darn exclusionary, i.e.  JetBlue LOVES pets, well [tiny] pets.  Of the Top Ten breeds registered by AKC last year, only 2 could fly on JetBlue, Yorkies, and Shih Tzus, plus the Toys among the Poodles and svelte mini Dachshunds.

Small world department, Rhonda Collins, who I met at a Motor City Connect networking event mentioned she has connections to Dara Foster, originally from Michigan, who writes the PupStyle blog and who recently appeared on the Today show. I missed the show, actually I’m not much of one for dressing my own dogs up, although Anna Nicole competes in the costume class at Bullyolympics every year (she is a perpetual bridesmaid there. )  A lot of people do enjoy dressing their dogs and there is clearly a market for some high end dog duds.

Interesting article in MediaPost today regarding promotions. One of the featured products was a new movie from Paramount titled “Hotel for Dogs” which was sponsoring on site dog care in the Westfield Century City mall near Los Angeles.  Dog care is provided by a local rescue group and free for 4 hours, afterwards it’s $10 an hour for shoppers to leave their pets. Can’t imagine wanting to take my dog to the mall so badly that I’d participate in that type of arrangement, and if I were only going to be gone for 4 hours, the dogs would IMO be happier left sleeping in their beds at home.  Pedigree is a corporate sponsor of the movie as well and donating a percentage of ticket sales to their Pedigree Foundation to benefit breed and shelter rescue groups.

I love to draw, and I’ve thought about opening a Cafe Press shop for ages. With the help of a friend who digitized my art work, I’ve opened two basic shops that carry my kennel name, Nuance.  The Woof shop features a line drawing of a white Bull Terrier with the caption “What part of “Woof” don’t you understand?” – I saw that saying on a raffle item at a show in Canada and it reminded me so much of my Anna that I had to make it into something! The Jump shop features a color drawing based on an action shot of Ilsa (eye-la) who lives in Wisconsin, flipping upside down after snatching her rubber bone in mid-air.

I read a MediaPost article today about consumer package goods (CPG) company recalls which mentioned the US Food Safety website dedicated to food safety and recalls for human foods in the US.  The Pet Connection website was the leader in chronicling the 2007 melamine-related pet food recall, but I don’t think there are any consumer facing sites doing what the  US Food Safety site is doing on the pet side.  If I was more of a “pet foodie” I think I’d be investigating that space.

UPDATE: I’ve since learned about Susan Thixton’s The Truth About Pet Food site which examines pet food safety.  Susan takes a more activist perspective than US Food Safety, but she does cover pet food recalls, which often parallel recalls of similar ingredients in human foods.  Susan offers a newsletter and uses Twitter to announce news items.

While I was tooling around through Google’s product offerings I checked out AdWords and found an intriguing video on the Success Stories page.  After Happy Hound launched, the owner found herself with a great facility and only a few clients. By optimizing her website and using AdWords to promote it, she got more traffic, more clients, and has now expanded her business to multiple locations.  I’ve got some free offers for AdWords that came with my web hosting account, but I think I’ve got enough traffic for the things I’m offering now on my site.  As I work on the small business side of my life, I’ll have more to promote and I’ll give it a whirl myself.

I just got notice from Packaged Facts about a report on the pet departments of natural food supermarkets.  There’s been strong growth in natural pet foods and this has carried over into expanded pet departments at natural food stores as well. I have noticed that my local favorite health food store, Zerbo’s, has greatly increased the amount of space allocated to pet foods over the past few years. From about a third of an aisle with a few supplements and two brands of food, to an entire side of one aisle with multiple food brands including a frozen raw food freezer, skin care products and treats. The report apparently contains deep dives into the pet departments at Trader Joes and Whole Foods as well as compiling industry statistics from a variety of respected sources.