Global Pet Expo Glam

                  Photo courtesy of The New York Times

For those of us not fortunate enough to attend the Global Pet Expo in Orlando last week, we think this article in The New York Times does a great job of setting the scene and diving into some of the niftiest new pet products on display (among the 3,000 featured at the show).

The American Pet Products Association, who sponsors this massive event, says that last year alone, Americans spent 55.7 billion on their pets-and spending is only expected to increase. So with all that spending going on, why not introduce a few (thousand) new products...say, for example, hand-smocked dog dresses' rain coats with "detachable, awning-like hoods, and hundreds of toys and "enrichment products" for not only your dog, but maybe your gerbil, too.

It sounds like the Global Pet Expo was a raging success this year, and would love to hear if any of our readers managed to go. For those of us who didn't make it, enjoy the slides how that accompanies the article and let us know your favorite products!

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We're Back! And...Do Some Pet Products Backfire?

First, we wanted to briefly let you know why we were offline since last Friday...O.K., we won't go into the horrible details of Parental Unit spending 6 hours on the phone on Friday with Google (from whom she purchases our domain name), many hours furiously writing e-mails over the weekend, and over an hour this morning with Google tech support yet again. Suffice it to say that she now personally knows every Google "support" employee by name, and our blog is now up and running. It had something to do with not setting our account to auto-renew, and not being able to access her Administrative console to do so-Google's fault via broken links that led nowhere! By the way, did you know that contacting Google tech support is tantamount to the search for the Holy Grail? Just sayin'...

We're both relieved and super glad to be back-we missed ya!

Photo of pooch wearing his new Thundershirt designed to ease doggy anxiety. Photo by Christopher Gregory for  The NY Times.

  Now on to today's topic, straight from a recent (and funny) article in the business section of The New York Times, that discusses the pros, and sometimes cons, of specialized pet products. You know that we're fans of so many of the new pet products that seem to pop up daily, because we believe that human ingenuity along with an artists' design skills have solved many a problem through great design, for both pets and you humans. But the bottom line is: What works for one pet may be a disaster for another, so if you see a new product and it's not too far-fetched or too expensive, try it out-it usually can't hurt.

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