We're working on some new flavors for Bare Bones.

We're thinking of blueberries, cranberries, bananas, pomegranate, and cherries.

Send us and email with your suggestions!  

Here's what we have so far:

My dogs are absolutely adoring the Bare Bones. They are absolutely loving every cookie! Thanks for making such a great product! - Angie in Billings, MT

I buy your treats at Target and my dog loves them! - Richard in Dallas, TX

I just bought a box of the cinnamon treats for my beloved pup and she LOVES them!!! Variety truly is the spice of the life thank you for making organic treats for my dog-its nice to know we can now both eat healthy! thank you :) - Melissa in San Diego, CA

I thought I would try to post a quote of the month. If you have a favorite, send us an emai!

 Here is the quote for September:

We are dipping our toes into the coupon world. We want to make it easier for people to try our Bare Bones treats, and easier for people that have already tried them to get more.

We have printed coupons that we are putting in boxes of Bare Bones and handing out at dog parks. And, we are making the coupon printable on our web page!

Just go to www.bigbarkbakery.com and click on the Special Offers tab on the navigation bar. The coupon pops up, and you can download it and print it out to use at Target, Food Lion, or whichever retailer you buy them at. As always, you can find your local retailer on the Store Locator tab on the navigation bar.

One tip - the PDF coupon file will print out with whichever printing set-up parameters you used previously. PLEASE check the scaling and size to "None." This way the coupon will print out at the actual 4"x5.25" size instead of really really small, or really really big.

THANKS!

We were on TV this week! We had a chance to be on WFAA's "Good Morning Texas"show on Monday on their Dog Days of Summer series. We got to talk about our Bare Bones treats, how we started the business, and introduced Daisy and Izzy to the Dallas/Ft Worth area.

Take a look for yourself at:

http://www.wfaa.com/video/gmtgeneral-index.html?nvid=394054&shu=1

You may have to sit through a short commercial, but it's worth it!

It was a lot of fun and Daisy and Izzy did a great job eating the biscuits.

I don't know how long they will keep the video on their page, but hopefully this will work for awhile at least.

We just finished with the Fancy Food Show in NY City. This is the main trade show we do each year to meet our wholesale customers. We stay with friends in the Bronx each year and have a great time. We got there on Friday to set up the booth, attended distributor meetings on Saturday, and the show was Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. We took the subway to the Javits convention center every day. It was a long weekend of being a New Yorker! Really fun, and hopefully results in new business.

We had a nice booth location on a corner. Here is a photo of our trade show booth:

It's always fun to see friends and customers at the show. And meeting new customers is the best. Hopefully we will increase the number of retailers selling our Bare Bones as a result of the show.

We were also a finalist as the Outstanding Pet Product for the year. Our Sweet Potato Bare Bones were nominated. Here is a photo of the product:

We went to the awards ceremony on Tuesday night. It's always funny to have the Outstanding Pet Product award announced right between Best Salsa, Best Sauce, Best Frozen Entree, or some other Fancy Food category - especially having a famous chef like Jacques Pepin or Ming Tsai announcing it. Everybody seems to enjoy the pet stuff. Unfortunately we did not win this year like we did last year, but it's still great to be nominated and go to the show. We'll try again next year.

Now that we're back, we're following up with show leads. A couple of new customers look very promising.

 If you have any suggestions on where we should sell our Bare Bones, please send us an emai!

We are starting a marketing campaign where we ask customers to hand out samples at their local dog park. We have started this in Dallas, but want to expand it to more cities.

If you are interested in doing this at your dog park, please send us an emai!

Here are our "Beta Testers" from last weekend:

Tammy handing out samples at White Rock dog park in Dallas, TX:

Robin handing our samples at Fort Woof dog park in Ft Worth, TX:

Again, if you are interested in doing this at your local dog park, please send us an emai!

Since we've expanded into Target and some grocery stores, we've had some great feedback from our customers.

Here are some of them:

"We LOVE your treats. Our dog has never become this excited over a treat before... her favorite are ALL of them!!" - Rebecca from Marysville, WA

""My people just bought the big three-flavor box of Bare Bones at Costco, and I wanted to tell you that all three of them are really good. I haven't decided which is my favorite yet, and I can't get my mom to give me three at a time to test, but I'm sure by the time we get to the bottom of the bags I'll have SOME idea. My people are definitely going to keep getting these for me, so keep up the good work. p.s. my cat sisters are jealous of these yummy treats!" - Bailey (the dog) from Austin, TX

"We love your Sweet Potato Bare Bones! Blaze my Greyhound is on a wheat/corn free diet and these are perfect. I love the smell of the nutmeg. My Target just started carrying your line, great choice, I don't always have time to go to the Doggie Bakery and get wheat free treats so this is perfect. Thanks for making a great treat!" - Jo Ann from Boynton Beach, FL

And finally, here is Tucker from Denton, TX. His photos speak for themslevs!

Big Bark Bakery is owned and operated by us - Jennifer and Greg Selzer in Dallas, TX - that's us in the pics below. Jennifer started the biz upon coming back to Dallas from a ex-patriot assignment in France in 1995, where we lived for about 15 months. Annie (Taste Tester #1) went to France with  us and loved every minute of it. Everybody in France LOVES dogs, and Annie was no exception. She got a lot of attention and traveled all over Europe with us each weekend.

Back in Dallas, Annie developed pretty bad allergies. We don't kow if it was becaue of the change in environment when we moved back, or some other reason. We tried everything from changing foods, allergy medicine, and steroids. Nothing seemed to work. Our vet suggested that we make Annie's food for awhile to see if that helped. Jenn boiled chicken and rice, made veggies, and started making some baked treats. The food quality change helped quite a bit. Annie would still get hot spots once in awhile, but her constant foot chewing and scratching definitely decreased. She was a happier dog, and that made us happpier owners.

Jenn started taking treats to local arts and crafts shows around Dallas. She always sold evrything she made. We put a half size convection oven in the garage and started increasing production and doing local fairs and events like Taste Addison, Oktoberfest, Wildflower Festival, etc. Most times we sold everything we could make. Jenn was looking for something new to do for a career, so she quit her job and started making dog treats full time. She rented a kiosk at Valley View Center for Christmas 2007 and baked.... and baked.... and baked... and baked, and oh, by the way, manned the kioskduring mall hours every day. It was a crazy Christmas season, with lots of help from friends and family doing baking duty and kiosk duty.

The next year, we decided to sell our house and use the money to open a "real" dog bakery in downtown Dallas in Deep Ellum. This is when Greg joined Big Bark full time. We leased a space in Deep Ellum where we lived in a loft area in the back, had a baking area set up in the middle, and had a small retail area in the front. We baked our treats, made some more products that we decorated with carob, made new flavors and recipes, and made doggy birthday cakes. We had fun living in Deep Ellum and running the store, but it probably was not the best retail location. So, we started attending wholesale shows. We leased a booth at the Dallas Market. We did the Atlanta Gift Show. And we were the first pet company to become a member of the National Association of the Specialty Food Trade (NASFT) and sold our products at the Fancy Food Shows. We sold mostly to gift and gourmet type stores. Each year for Christmas we would provide treats to somebody like Crate-n-Barrel, Dillard's, or a catalog company. We sold our products all year to Cost Plus World Market.

Now we have moved to a manufacturing facility where we can bake and ship more efficiently. We miss having a retail store where we can meet and talk with our customers, so we'retrying to make the web page more interactive and interesting.

We have a new product line called Bare Bones. We made Bare Bones to be more "every day" treats. Just like all of our products, they are all natural, human quality ingredients with no added salt sugar, or preservatives. The Bare Bones are also wheat free, corn free, soy free, and dairy free, and made with organic rye and orgainic oat flour.

Our goal has been to get Bare Bones into more places for people to give their dog good, healthy treats on regular basis. We have them in Target, Food Lion, and several other regional grocery chains - Shaw's, Hannaford, and Sweetbay. We're always working on expanding where you can find Bare Bones.

So, thanks for trying our products! We're always working on making them better abd easier to find.

Please take a tour of our web page, and let us know if you have any comments or suggestion.

Thanks again,

Jennifer & Greg