Merrylog

Oh, the underbite. It seems like Merry’s is getting more pronounced as she gets older – it’s not there all the time, but when she does bite down it’s fantastic and fabulous and the cutest darn thing ever. I cannot help myself. I must laugh and point and hug her.

In the second photo, she is clearly upset with all this laughing and pointing. She has decided to hide for the rest of the weekend, or until there is food. (Don’t you wish you could join her?)

Hope you’re all enjoying the Merry 2010 Calendar. Many thanks to Stephanie who pointed out that my link was wrong and therefore telling you all that the calendar cost more than it should. Ugh! One quick change and it was reflecting the proper price: $19.99.

Happy Halloween everyone!

Well, folks, it’s finally here: the Merry, the Princess Pug 2010 Calendar! Chock-full of adorable pugness and cute smooshfaceness and doggie diva stylishness, guaranteed to make every day in 2010 a happier and more fulfilling one… because you can start it with your very own princess pug. :)

This is an official “sneak peek” for Merrylog lovers, as the calendar won’t be widely available for sale until November 1st, but you can sneak in and pick one up now.

A little about the calendars: They’re fabulous, gorgeous quality and color, printed on very thick stock paper (no namby-pamby easy-rip cheapo thin paper calendars for the princess) with a lovely block font for the months and all the holidays filled in for you – except, of course, Merry’s birthday (June 6 – you’ll have to fill that one in yourselves). They’re spiral bound and of wonderfully solid construction. We got SO many great comments from folks last year about the quality so I’m sure you’ll be thrilled with the 2010 version!

Click here to order your very own calendar – and don’t forget your friends and family.
(They need pug love too!)

Okay, I had to post one more from this set because seriously seriously seriously isn’t she the cutest dog ever? That devil Halloween costume isn’t her fanciest, but it is the one that goes with our house decor, so while she may wear others for parties, and day walks on Halloween, she plays my lil’ devil at night. :)

And because I know that you want to, see it bigger on Flickr. SO cute!

Well, not Prada, but the princess will wear just about anything else. :) We were practicing Halloween shots in front of our house, all decked out for next Saturday. The princess will be helping to give out candy, as usual.

Folks, I’m sorry about the sporadic posts this week. Cold season is NOT fun especially when work is crazy and you’re getting ready to move. Luckily, the princess is so sweet she makes up for my terrible posting behavior!

One year ago: can I have that cookie?
Two years ago: shucks. rain.
Three years ago: cheering up
Five years ago: in need of a trim

It’s fall, which means it’s time to bring out the Elvis Coat. I love the rhinestones on the back and the matching leash – so chic, and the fact that her name is on the back of the coat just means that everyone in our ‘hood knows her by name. (Can you believe the leaves? I cannot believe how quickly this year has flown by.)

Fall makes me think of cooking and baking, and so, while I have no free time whatsoever, I have decided to break open the jar of yeast I’ve had in my cupboard for a year (yeast scares me, I’ve never once made anything with it) and try my hand at bread on my lunch hour, which is doubling in size as we speak. The princess pug is very much looking forward to her first bite ever of completely home made bread – and of course, she provides a handy vaccuum for crumbs as well. *smile*

Two years ago: where did everybody go?
Four years ago: checkin out the ‘hood

Oh crazy princess girl, how you do love your fetch. We’ve had a lot of excitement around here the past 24 hours – Merry is currently featured in the Flickr Blog which means her charming gorgeousness is being introduced to thousands upon thousands of new folks every hour. ;)

As if that weren’t enough, TheHubby(tm) and I went to sign the papers for our new home last night – we’re moving for December 1st! Aaagh! As though we didn’t have enough on our plates already – considering we *just* finished the thank you notes for our wedding gifts this week.

Finally, I think we’re both coming down with some serious yuck as well. We’ve both been sleeping, sneezing, and generally feeling under the weather these past few days. Bear with me – new Merry gorgeousness soon enough!

The princess pug so loves her walkies. She gets in a groovin’ mode and she will keep motoring up the street and through the neighbourhood, meeting and greeting her fans, until I drag her little furry butt home. ;) She wasn’t really like that when she was younger, but now she really seems to love her walks.

A wee bit of Merrylog history…
Three years ago – layabout
Five years ago – comforting Grandma*

* hands down, the saddest photo I’ve ever taken. I can’t believe it’s been five years. I am so lucky to still have both my parents – who both, incidentally, read the Merrylog daily (so cute). Love you, Mom & Dad.

I love how the big Holey Roller ball wobbles when she shakes the heck out of it. Too cute.

A wee bit of Merrylog history…
One year ago – sneak peek at Halloween
Four years ago – surrounded by boxes
Five years ago – gimme that ball

I love how the waist chain is swung out in this shot and her wee black ears are flopped up. :)

I’m glad you all enjoyed yesterday’s post; today, as promised, I’ll get into the background of why and how, Pampered Puppy.

Merry came into my life September 2001, and I had just finished selling my last web business to new owners. By January of 2002, I was feeling antsy (I can never just do one thing at a time… something you may have noticed about me) and decided I wanted to start another web business. A coworker suggested it be pet-related since it was clear by then that Merry had taken over my life in a big way. ;) I started investigating pet web sites and the one thing I noticed was that while there were many lovely products you could buy that were nicer than what you’d find in Petsmart, it was darned difficult to find them. There was no one place to go to find them all – you had to search and search and search and go to each individual web site.

I’m a big believer in the concept that the best business ideas fill a need that isn’t currently being served and one you, yourself, would use. If you find yourself frustrated by “why isn’t there a site that _______?”, that’s the germ of a good idea. So, my idea for Pampered Puppy was born. It was originally going to be all content – articles, possibly product reviews in the future, latest news and trends, and a web site directory. I decided I’d launch with a few articles and the directory, and add the rest as I went along.

The original site took me a couple of months to research, design, and put together and it launched on April 15, 2002. Here’s what the site looked like back in July of that year.

Eventually, we added a Shopping area to the web site for the same reason – while there were starting to be online boutiques, they only carried a few hundred or even a few thousand products, but there was no one-stop place you could go to find them all, without having a pile of bookmarks and the patience to wade through half a dozen web sites. So I added the Shopping area in 2003 to allow folks the same kind of one-stop browsing for their shopping needs that they had with us for their information needs.

2004 saw the launch of our popular photo contests and the Merrylog, 2005 we launched Puppytrends (a near-daily blog of trends and fashion ideas – which, next year, will also start featuring giveaways!), last year we launched our Flickr pool, and this year saw DoggyDesktops (our free weekly dog wallpaper site) off the ground. And yes, somewhere in the middle we also added banner and text advertising on the web site, to help pay for the costs of running this business. But we’ve always worked really hard at labelling advertising (every banner and text ad on the web site is marked so – if it’s not marked, we didn’t get paid to do it, and we’re talking about it just because we think it rocks) and making sure that the focus of the site was always content content content, not advertising.

My personal belief in business is this: do something original and people will follow. If you spend more time worrying about competition and following the masses means that people have no reason to stick around you – why would they? What makes you unique? I like to think that’s why Pampered Puppy has survived when so many other web sites who tried to follow our model have failed. I rarely look at my competition. I do look at lots of non-industry web sites, though, and try to innovate and bring new things to our readers and visitors that they might actually enjoy.

It’s also why I’ve always loved hearing from each of you – every single one of you reading this post. Sure, compliments on my photography are nice, but I also love to hear what you think, what you’re missing, what you want when you come to a web site like this. My hope is that while Pampered Puppy is unlikely to be anybody’s only stop on the web, that it is at least a memorable one – hopefully, one that keeps you coming back to see what we have to say next week.

Whew! For those of you who got to the end of this post, I’m not sure whether I love you (oh, I do… you know I do) or envy you for having such patience. *laughs* Gosh, I talk a lot.

Enough from me. Let’s hear from you!