Teddy at the trade show

Another time-out from Hope's RV adventure for one of Teddy's. Last weekend was the H.H. Backer Christmas Show, one of the biggest trade shows of the year, right here in the Chicago area. Hope and I go every year to touch base with some of our suppliers, place orders, and scope out great new products. Since it's so close to home, we feel obliged to check in at the shop before we make our way to the show, but this year the traffic gods were smiling down on us and we made it to the show just after opening time! And we must have been extra-organized because we finished the entire second floor of the show on the first day! (The second floor has more manufacturers and is generally more time-consuming for us.)

So on Saturday Hope decided to bring Teddy to the show. I'm writing this post because Hope had to pay attention to Teddy, making sure he was behaving himself and not mooching too many treats, so I was following Hope and Teddy down the aisles. Teddy was a perfect gentleman, saying hello nicely to anyone who wanted to say hi to him. And most people did. It's a good thing that we didn't have much to do on the first floor of the convention center because it took us three times longer than it would have if Teddy weren't with us! People were stopping us in the middle of the aisle, stooping down to pet Teddy. Vendors were coming up to Teddy with samples of treats. Other buyers were taking Teddy's picture! Teddy got a new harness from the nice guys at EzyDog! And Teddy demonstrated the Tornado at the vendor's booth, getting way too many treats! (Smart little fellow - I don't think he'd ever seen the Tornado before. His favorite is the Brick!) And Teddy was even game for climbing on a fitness ball at the end of the day! (Teddy learned about fitness balls in his Puppies With Purpose class.) Walking behind Hope and Teddy, I was able to see all the other people turning to watch Teddy and smile. People crowded around, snapping his picture at each stop. But doesn't it just figure, we forgot our camera! Afterwards, Teddy was tired afterwards on the ride home (taken with a puny cell phone camera). - Fran

Where does the time go?

Wow - it's October already. We're getting ready for the holidays here at Golly Gear. We've already gotten our holiday pre-ordered items from a couple of our distributors and have to figure out where to put them! (They'll be up on the site very soon!) And next weekend is the big Christmas pet trade show here in Chicago. It's a good opportunity to scope out nifty new products, and take advantage of some great show specials from the manufacturers we already purchase from! I have a love-hate relationship with this show. I love it because it gives us a chance to reconnect with our suppliers and discover new products that we can't live without. I hate it because it's here in town so we have to take care of our regular business and everything else at home, and our feet hurt...

Back to Business!

Thank you, everyone, for your support. I still miss Golly like crazy, and probably will for a good, long time. But now I can think about the fun times and not tear up quite as much.

We've started getting in some of our new products from the trade show we attended a couple of weeks ago, so it's been dizzy busy around here! Hope's been taking pictures and I'm trying to get new products up on the site as quickly as I can. Which is not very, I'm afraid. Every page has to be as great as I can make it. We've been lucky enough to have customers coming in so that we can corral them to use as models! (the dogs, not the people) Usually, of course, this occurs just after I've published the product page, so it has to be redesigned. It's worth it, though! Little Miko the Shih Tzu is adorable in the Pink All-Weather Coat! And Frankie and his baby brother are adorable - Winston is on the Easy-Go Harness page. And just wait 'til you see Frankie and little Ghilley in the ComfortFlex Sport Harness. I took a break from that page to post this entry!

Back to it! - Fran

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

It's been a fun, busy time around here. We grabbed a few vacation days when we could, came back to the shop for two days to catch up (thank you for your orders!), then dashed off to the Pet Industry Trade Show. It did seem smaller this year - a sign of the times. So maybe instead of getting together with 10,000 of our closest colleagues, it was only about 9,500. An intimate gathering.

It was, as always, fun, fascinating and totally exhausting! The best things about going to a trade show in your home town are not having to travel and not having to spend a fortune on lousy convention center food. The worst thing about going to a trade show in your home town is that you have to go to work before the show. Imagine two floors, each floor with 30 aisles packed with vendors. And we have to see them all, or we might miss something wonderful!