Who Let The Dogs Out - 2013 TV appearance

                                                     
 On Fri. Feb. 8, 2013, Jasmine and I appeared on Season 2 of "Who Let The Dogs Out"!  :)

This was a REALLY fun episode for me to watch- because it brought back all my memories from my trip to BlogPaws!   Jasmine and I met up with our best friends Lauren and Paige in Salt Lake City.  And there we taught a class on "How To Make Your Dog A YouTube Rockstar."  (Basically teaching about YouTube.)  This was a pet social media convention, so we learned all kinds of things.

Jaz posing for the cameras.  

We spent a lot of time at the Natural Balance booth.  Taking pictures, talking with friends (that I met when Jaz was on the show last year.)

If you missed that- here's the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lztKNisz_IY

I got to interview our friends Karen (and her scooter riding dog Norman).  As well as Ron (and his famous skateboarding riding dog Tillman!)

They showed little clips of our interview on the show!





Here's the full episode in case you weren't able to watch it.  (It was on the Hallmark channel last Friday.)

Be on the look at for Norman at #BarkWorld to win @Naturalbalance Prizes!

So... the clock is ticking!

BarkWorld is just over a week away!

And I just found out something cool!  My friend Karen and her scooter-riding dog Norman are going to be there!!  (Norman is on the Natural Balance Pet Foods sports team!)

(Remember how Jaz and I were on the Animal Planet TV show "Who Let The Dogs Out" earlier this year?  Well, Karen and Norman were some of the judges!)

 

Norman is going to be performing at the Howl-o-ween party at BarkWorld on Thurs. Oct.25th!  (and a few other guest appearances through-out the conference!)  If you haven't seen him ride his scooter, this is something you won't want to miss!

The best part is ..... Natural Balance is going to be doing a promotion so that BarkWorld attendees can win some seriously great prizes!!

Here's all you have to do to enter:  (TOTALLY easy!)

STEP 1:  Write a blog post that mentions Natural Balance, Norman the Scooter Dog, and BarkWorld.  Then tweet the link to @NaturalBalance  (1 entry)
STEP 2:  Leave a comment here- telling me about your pet- his/her name, breed, etc.  And what your favorite dog trick is.  (Just to give me some ideas!)  (Extra entry)
STEP 3: When you're at Barkworld- Tweet to @NaturalBalance- every mention and RT is another chance to win!

And if you do that... here's the prizes!

1 GRAND PRIZE-  $500 for your favorite charity (must be a 501c3 non-profit.)  PLUS a year's worth of free dog or cat food!  (For either YOU, your blog readers, or your favorite charity.)  You get to pick.
2 FIRST PLACE PRIZES- 1 years worth of free dog or cat food.  (Again, for you, your readers, or your favorite charity.)


Jasmine won a 6 month's supply of Natural Balance dog food by getting 2nd place on "Who Let The Dogs Out".  (Not to mention a gigantic gift basket of treats!)  We're just barely getting through it!  (Of course I had to share with Jaz's friends!)

So- speaking from personal experience.... it's totally worth entering!!  :)

Even if you're not able to come to BarkWorld, you could still enter by writing an educational blogpost about BarkWorld, Natural Balance, and Norman the Scooter Dog!

Good Luck Everybody!!!  :)  :)

And to those of you going to BARKWORLD.... let the countdown begin!!!!  :)  :)

Look out #BARKWORLD, here we come!! ;)

I have GREAT NEWS!!!  Jasmine has a sponsor for BarkWorld next month!  Well, two actually!!
Petco and Natural Balance are going to sponsor our trip to Atlanta next month!  YAY!!!  I'm so excited!!  

For those of you who are unfamiliar with BarkWorld, it's a pet social media convention.  There are great classes and tons of networking opportunities.



We went last year for our first time.  It was SO MUCH FUN!!  My friend Lauren (and her trick dog Paige) met us out there.  Together we gave a presentation on "How To Make Your Dog a YouTube Rockstar!" (and of course Jasmine and Paige did a trick dog demo!) It was so incredibly fun! We learned tons, and met a lot of new friends!

Networking within the pet industry is the biggest perk of BarkWorld!   Jasmine got a chance to be on the Anderson Cooper show because of a contact I made at BarkWorld last year.  People from the show emailed Denise (the founder of BarkWorld) asking for some video recommendations for a show about pet parents.   Denise emailed a bunch of us, and I wrote back and sent in Jasmine's video.  They liked it, and voila- Jasmine's trick video aired on Anderson Cooper.  :)  How cool is that?



I absolutely cannot wait to go back this year!!  :)   THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU to Petco and Natural Balance for making this dream come true!!

And FYI- a little background info about us- this is our first sponsorship to BarkWorld.  Last year, we didn't have a sponsor. (not for lack of trying!)  I probably emailed 35 different companies, but no one knew who I was back then.  (and a lot of my emails went to generic email addresses I got off websites, such as info@______ rather than a specific rep.)   Jasmine had been on TV a lot (mostly news), but I didn't have any contacts with pet-related companies.  BarkWorld changed all that!  :)  Now I know quite a few!

One last little funny story-  last year, I was sitting in the lobby our hotel with Jasmine and Paige.   (Lauren was talking with some friends over in the restaurant, so I was watching both dogs.)   The lounge connected to a bar/restaurant.  (Which had a live jazz band in the background.)  Very nice ambiance.   This guy and his girlfriend walk by and notice the dogs.  The guy asks if he could pet them.  I said yes.  Both dogs love the attention... and I probably talked to this guy and his girlfriend for about 5 minutes.  We talked about their breeds, BarkWorld, where I was from, etc...  And the guy tells me about his dog, and how much he likes border collies.  He was a very nice guy. I didn't think much of it.  Everywhere Lauren and I went, strangers were talking to us, and wanting to pet our dogs.  

After they left, the guy on the couch behind me turned around and said, "Do you know who that was?!??"   "No", I admitted.  
He said "that was Malcolm Jamal Warner!!"  I was still trying to figure out how I knew that name... and so he clarified.... "You know... THEO?  From the Cosby Show??"  "And that's Diana Ross' daughter".  

Ooooh!!!!  LOL.  It's a good thing I have people to tell me these things, otherwise I would have never known!!  
 This created quite a buzz among our BarkWorld friends who joined us later.  (and yes, it was for sure Malcolm and Tracee.  We saw them later in the lobby leaving the restaurant.)  So Jasmine and Paige got to meet a few celebrities while in Atlanta.
 This just goes to show you that I don't get "starstruck" very easily.  They're just regular people.  (And it's really cool when they just act like regular people and don't let it go to their heads.)  I can tell you firsthand that Malcolm and Tracee are both very nice people to talk to.  And both dog-lovers. :)

Blogpaws- w/ Tillman, the Skateboarding Bulldog

Photo Credit:  Becka Jeffs   

Lauren and I (as well as Paige and Jasmine) were really excited about our 1st time at BlogPaws!   We got there early on Thursday, checked into the hotel, and had to attend a meeting for all speakers.  (We were giving a presentation the next day about "The Power of YouTube".)

I was pretty impressed with the hotel!!  We stayed at the Sheraton SLC.  Having traveled a lot with Jasmine, I have stayed at a lot of hotels that claimed they were "pet-friendly".  (Which meant they technically allowed pets, but weren't real happy that you brought one.)

However, the Sheraton SLC was by far, THE MOST PET-FRIENDLY HOTEL I've ever stayed in!!

Photo Credit:  Becka Jeffs

It was crazy how warm and friendly they were to us!  (and our pets!)  (Now, granted we were there for a pet convention, so they knew we were coming!)  But I was still impressed with the set up!

We had a room on the first floor.  There was a sliding glass door that led out to a grassy courtyard in the middle of the hotel!  So when Jaz had to go to potty, it wasn't a big ordeal to get her from my room to the outdoors.  It was just like being at home.  It was SO NICE!!   So a big THUMBS UP from me to BlogPaws for the hotel selection!!

Opening night of the conference was pretty awesome!  I had seen the Natural Balance tour bus in the parking lot, so I knew these dogs were here somewhere!!  For the BlogPaws opening ceremonies, Tillman, the skateboarding bulldog, and Norman, the Scooter Dog showed off their stuff!

Photo Credit: Becka Jeffs

Photo Credit: Becka Jeffs

They're not kidding when they say Tillman loves to skate!!  Ron (his owner) had to take the board away from him at the end so Tillman wouldn't try to keep riding it!  

The rest of the night was just socializing and waiting for the rest of the BlogPaws guests arrive.  Here's one of our friends, Niqqi!!  (Who looks like a living teddy bear!)  Just adorable!

Photo Credit:  Becka Jeffs

Here's another one of our friends- Sheldon!  I know his dad Rick, but it was fun to meet Sheldon in person!  He's so soft!!!!  Very friendly and sweet!

 Here's a new friend we just met!  It's Zoey!  A beautiful white pitbull.  Such a friendly dog.  She was so great!!!  I just love that pittie smile!

 I have great news!!  I got to interview Tillman and Norman on camera!!  I'm going to be posting the videos in the future.  But rumor has it, there is going to be a Season 2 of "Who Let The Dogs Out"!!  (That's the TV show that Jasmine was on back in April.  Tillman was searching for America's Most Talented Dog.  Jaz came in 2nd place!) :)  We had a blast participating in the show- so we know how fun it will be for next season's contestants!  It's cool watching watching Tillman on all his adventures... traveling the country, searching for talented pets.  So I can't wait to see what the next season holds!  I'll keep you posted!!!

This is Norman and Jaz... posing for some photos!  Norman's such a goofy dog!  He likes to ham it up! He's fun to be around!

OK, speaking of people who like to ham it up... check it Eric.  (He's on the Natural Balance team.)  We were waiting to interview Tillman, and so he and Jaz decide to have a trick contest.  So- who do you think does this trick better??  ;)   He cracks me up!

By the way, all of the really good pics in this post were taken by Becka Jeffs- a very talented photographer who lives in Utah!  If you want to see her other BlogPaws pics, check out her Facebook Page!   https://www.facebook.com/photographybybecka  She was nice enough to let us share her great pics!

When it doubt, here's how you tell you took it:

  If the pic has a zombie dog with glowing green eyes, I took it!  ;)

If the pic is great quality, with artistic style, Becka took it.

Now you can tell the difference!!!  ;)

Also- if you want to see more cool pics from BlogPaws- here's our post about the Red Carpet Awards Ceremony on Sat. night!

http://myfavoritepup.blogspot.com/2012/06/blogpaws-red-carpet-award-ceremony.html

Our Prize for Winning #Tillman's Tues Bloghop!

Look what we found on our doorstep when we got home this evening! It's a case of Tillman's treats!! Jasmine won Tillman's Tuesday Sweepstakes last month! So we got to donate Natural Balance dog food to our favorite rescue group, and Jaz won a case of Tillman's treats to share with her friends! We picked Friends For Life Animal Rescue! And I'll just be passing out bags of treats to my dog friends! :D

Every Tues, Tillman hosts this contest! If you want to enter, here's the link! http://www.tillmanskates.blogspot.com/ It's super easy!

We Won the #TillmanTV Tues Blog Hop!!!

WHOA!! We just won the Tillman Tuesday Blog Hop!! That's pretty cool!!! (Considering I haven't won a random drawing since the 7th grade!!) ;)

If you don't know who Tillman is... maybe this picture will help you out! Even if you don't know his name, he's pretty well-known as the skate-boarding dog!


We won 30 lbs of Natural Balance dog food (which is AWESOME, because that's actually what I'm feeding Jaz right now anyway!) She has bad allergies, so she's on the Limited Ingredient Diet. (L.I.D.) We also won a case of Tillman treats, AND the best part...

Jaz gets to donate 100 lbs of Natural Balance pet food to a no-kill shelter!!

We picked "Friends for Life". It's a rescue group here in AZ. Last October, we attended an adoption event called "Barktoberfest"! Which was really fun. They had a costume contest, and a trick contest. (Which of course we entered!) :D

Here's a picture I found from the trick contest that day! That shaggy little dog needs a haircut!! :O)

And they had lure-coursing, which Jaz goes crazy for!! So she ran that a few times. She's part greyhound if there's any type of lure-course around!

Anyway, I'm so happy that Natural Balance is helping out all these shelters/ rescue groups. It's pretty cool. (And I really like that you have to pick a no-kill shelter to donate to.) :) Tillman and Natural Balance are going to have more give-aways, so be sure you enter your blog!!

Go to Tillman's blog: http://www.tillmanskates.com/ and add your blog post on Tuesday. That's it. It's so easy! If we can win it, there's hope for anybody!! LOL

Who Let The Dogs Out

Tomorrow (Sat. Feb. 18th) is a big day!!

Saturday is the first episode of "Who Let The Dogs Out". (A new show on Animal Planet.) Tillman (the skateboarding dog) is trying to find America's Most Talented Pet! http://www.wholetthedogsout.tv/

AND.... Jasmine is going to be on the show!! !! :D And so are a lot of other very cool dogs we know from YouTube and Facebook!! Did you see Paige at the end of the commercial?? We LOVE that dog!! :D

I'm so excited to watch this series!! You know what a big dog-lover/addict I am! So I'm excited to see all the different breeds of dogs. I'm excited to see all the different kind of cool tricks they are going to do. And I'm excited that Jasmine gets to be included as one of them!!

I used to watch the TV show "PetStar" a long time ago... and loved seeing all the dog tricks back then! Watching that made me want to train my new dog (Jasmine) to do tricks! But by the time she got good enough to actually be ON the show, they quit making them!! :/ But.... "Who Let The Dogs Out" is going to be the next best thing!

Natural Balance and Petco held live auditions in California earlier this month, which we were unable to attend. But they let people send in video auditions. I have a lot of friends that attended the live auditions, and I have a lot of trick dog friends who sent in videos.

SO.... this is going to be the best show ever!! :D So many cool, talented dogs!!! I can't wait!! :D