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Because Hawaii is home for us, and we adopted the super-awesome, Miss Kylie from a shelter there, we found this story wonderful and worth sharing. And it was especially interesting to find it on a Colorado website (that’s where we live now), coloradoan.com:

Travelers give Hawaii dogs second chance on mainland

“The lanky, charcoal-gray dog with a distinctive, wiry hairdo would stand out in most other animal shelters, but no one gave him a second look on Hawaii’s island of Kauai.

But thanks to a tourist willing to take him across the Pacific, an Airedale terrier-Irish wolfhound mix named Grady now enjoys a bildespacious California loft with a new owner.

The Kauai Humane Society since December has been reaching out to tourists and others traveling to California and Oregon to see if they’re willing to check some extra luggage — one of the island’s many stray or abandoned dogs.

When a traveler agrees, the shelter pays a reduced rate of $100 to fly the dogs on Alaska Airlines to get them to shelters in Oakland, Calif., and Portland, Ore., where most get adopted within a couple of weeks. Dogs can also make the trip as cargo at a more expensive rate.

Shelter officials attribute some of the program’s success to the uniqueness of the animals. Kauai’s only shelter gets a lot of stray and abandoned dogs derived from hunting breeds used for stalking feral pigs on the island.

The animals can languish for months at Kauai’s shelter. But once they’re sent to the mainland, the dogs are snatched up quickly because they’re different from others normally offered for adoption.

“Some are kind of funny looking, unusual looking,” said Laura Fulda, vice president of marketing and development at the East Bay SPCA. “They tend to be a little shy, very sweet, well-behaved and have had some training, and they are friendly toward other dogs.”

Grady was brought to Kauai’s shelter in November by an owner who was moving away. He didn’t get much attention at first, shelter operations manager Brandy Varvel said.

“He sat there, and I never saw a single person look at him,” Varvel said.

But at the East Bay SPCA in Oakland, it was love at first sight when 46-year-old Martin Sprouse saw the 50-pound dog on the shelter’s website.

Sprouse, who designs modern furniture for a living, was waiting when the shelter opened its doors the next morning.

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aloha_kylie

 

 

 

By the way, in Hawaii a mixed breed dog, a.k.a. mutt, like Kylie is called a “poi dog!”

 

 

 

We have a very small bathroom, so some would suggest that bright, busy prints would not be the best decorating idea. But we decided to go with a bold choice in shower curtain selection…
showercurtain

The shower curtain came from the “logo gear” department of our own online gift shop. But we only considered buying it for ourselves after we noticed in our sales reports that several of them had already sold. You see while we provide the artwork for the items in our shops, the orders are fulfilled elsewhere so we don’t get to see how things turn out unless we order them for ourselves. Anyway, the boost in shower curtain sales made us curious.

Turns out, it looks pretty awesome (if we say so ourselves)! What a great way to brighten your day. And just goes to show, you shouldn’t always follow the rules – at least not when it comes to home decor.

And since we are already shamelessly self-promoting, we may as well point out that our online gift shops also include lots of great breed art, on lots of items that make great gifts!

comic_border_collie_mug

This makes a really affordable alternative to custom pet portraits no matter what your budget is. Okay, infomercial over! :)

We found this story on Yahoo! News and thought it was interesting enough to pass along. It seems animal psychologists have researched what kind of music if any, animals might enjoy:

Animal Psychologists Discover What Music Pets Prefer

Many pet owners leave their home radios playing all day for the listening pleasure of their dogs and cats. Station choices vary. “We have a very human tendency to project onto our  pets and assume that they will like what we like,” said Charles Snowdon, an authority on the musical preferences of animals. “People assume that if they like Mozart, their dog will like Mozart. If they like rock music, they say their dog prefers rock.”

Against the conventional wisdom that music is a uniquely human phenomenon, ongoing research shows that animals actually do have the capacity for music. But rather than liking classical or rock, Snowdon, an animal psychologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has discovered that animals march to the beat of a different drum altogether. They enjoy what he calls “species-specific music”: tunes specially designed using the pitches, tones and tempos that are familiar to their particular species.

click here to read the full story on Yahoo!

Hmm.. Maybe they should add a “Species Specific” category to the music section of the ITunes store!

But just because your dog doesn’t like Rock & Roll or Rap, it doesn’t mean he can’t look like a Rock Star on one of our custom Album Covers featuring your pet!

Check out more examples of our super cute Album Covers in our Custom Pet Portraits gallery!

Interested in featuring your Dog or Cat or Ferret on an Album Cover? Contact us for details..

Are we the last people on the planet to find out about this?? Everybody knows that Daily Deals sites are all the rage now, Groupon, Living Social, Deal Chicken, the list goes on. But did you know there’s a Daily Deal site for your dog? It’s called Doggy Loot!

It works just like the others, you sign up for your city and everyday you get the opportunity to buy a great deal for your dog. It’s mostly treats and toys available either online or locally. But DoggyLoot.com offers a little more than that in their Doggy Woof department with news and info on health and training and all things doggy related.

It’s certainly a fun site to visit, and a brilliant idea, be sure and check it out! At this point it doesn’t seem that there’s a site for kitty loot, but give it some time..

And if you’re still shopping for a last minute gift for the pet lover on your shopping list, we still have gift certificates available for 10% off! Visit our Specials page for details.

For all you last minute shoppers, our annual Gift Certificate Sale is on! So if you can’t get a photo for us to work with in time for Christmas, it’s ok.. you can still get a great deal on a unique gift for the pet lover on your list with 25% off a Gift Certificate f!or a custom pet portrait!

Gift Certificates are created electronically and emailed to you for you to print or forward to the recipient. You can purchase a Gift Certificate up until 10:00 p.m. (central) on December 23rd and you will receive it via email within 24 hours. HOWEVER this special offer may not be available for long, depending on the volume of gift certificates sold the discount could be suspended at any point so don’t wait… Order your Pop Art Pet Gift Certificate today!   

Pop Art Pet Gift Certificates make an awesome, very personal gift and they allow the recipient to have creative freedom in selecting their favorite photo to be used for their portrait!

To take advantage of this deal now just place your order for a Gift Certificate and use the discount coupon code GIFT25 in your shopping cart. Once you enter the code, click on recalculate and the discount will be applied.

CLICK HERE to order now or visit our SPECIALS page for the fine print.

From Gizomodo.com, read about how one pet photographer who single-handedly increased the adoption rate at a local shelter by 100%! The secret… better pictures:

How to Save a Dog’s Life? Take Better Pictures

So many dogs are euthanized every year because they can’t find a family to adopt them. It’s not their fault. With some better picture taking, a few cute poses and accessories, dogs can find a new home in no time.

It’s true, Dallas pet photographer Teresa Berg has taken it upon herself to “better market” homeless dogs so they can find a family to take them in. Instead of just snapping a random picture of a dog behind a chain-linked fence, in poor lighting and unflattering poses, Berg takes time with each shot, dressing them up and creating pictures of dogs you can imagine on people’s mantles. Gone are red-eyed, blurry shots. In are dogs with a soul.

The results of her pictures were instant. Every dog Berg took a picture of was adopted and the entire dog shelter as a whole has seen a 100% increase in adoption rates. Berg is now starting to teach volunteers how to take better pictures of homeless dogs. It’s a pretty great idea for any professional photographer who wants to give back.

We found this story on the Telegraph, a UK news source, which reports that now one in ten pets there is on Facebook, or has a Twitter feed, or even a Youtube channel. We have to think that the number in the US is likely as high if not higher!:

One in ten pets is on Facebook
More than half of pet owners post about their animals on social networks and one in ten pets has their own profile.

A different breed of celebrity is taking over Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, a new study suggests. One in ten of all UK pets have their own Facebook page, Twitter profile or YouTube channel, and more than half of UK pet owners are sharing photos of their pets online.

The rise of pets online has also seen a number of owners joining dedicated sites, with names such as Critter, Catster and Doggie Dating. Others have also set up entire websites devoted specifically to their pets, many of which have raised money for rescue centres or animal welfare charities. The New York-based owner of a cat called Romeo has raised more than $50,000 in two years and amassed nearly 10,000 followers.

Top of the international zoo turning social networking into petworking is Maru the cat, who has amassed more than 6million views on YouTube since joining the site in 2008. Described by his owner as “a little bumbling and a little awkward”, Maru has been filmed embarrassing himself in nearly 200 videos, and has attracted almost 140,000 subscribers who have signed up to be notified of his next adventure.

Stephen Davies, a social media specialist, said that the phenomenon was not as peculiar as it might appear. “As social networking plays an increasingly important role in our lives, it’s only natural that our pets become part of the phenomenon too. We use sites like Facebook and Twitter as an extension of our real-world selves and when we think of our pets as part of the family we want them involved too,” he claimed. He added that “there is an insatiable pet demand online.”

Other animals with major followings online include Mark Zuckerberg’s pet dog Beast, as well as those who have become famous without the help of such celebrity endorsement.
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Here’s a question.. how many of the pets on Facebook also have a custom portrait created from their photos??


Answer.. not enough!

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