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Since we’re in print once again, we thought it made sense to bring back a contest we haven’t had in a while.

We want to see the best photo of your pets that you can possibly come up with so we can choose one of them to be on the cover of our Winter issue!

July 2008

What are we looking for? Well, that’s hard to say. We sort of know it when we see it, but we can give you some tips and requirements…

1. Make sure it’s clear. Blurry photos will definitely not make the grade.
2. Brightness counts. Pets shot in shadows, for example, aren’t going to stand out as well as one taken outside in the sunshine.
3. Keep it simple. Lots of stuff in the background (like someone’s hand, feet, part of the leash, etc.) won’t be that great.
4. Any animal qualifies! Dogs, cats, horses, birds, reptiles, fish, combinations of those… anything. We’re just looking for that one photo that makes us say, “WOW!”
5. High resolution is a must. Often, photos taken with a digital camera are set at low resolution so you can fit a bunch on your camera. That works well for posting photos online, but is terrible for print. Keep settings on your camera high so they’re usable. We prefer 300 dpi, but a little less might work as well.
6. Hard copies mailed to us are just fine. We can usually scan in an actual photo you’ve printed and make that work.
7. It DOES NOT have to be a “Winter-y” photo. We’re really just looking for something we love, no matter the season.

Take a look at the Paw Prints The Magazine covers shown on this page… they were all previous photo contest winners. That might give you an idea of what we like.

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How to enter and rules:

January 2006

• Email or mail as many photos of your pets as you’d like. You MUST have permission to use and submit the photos, so if the pet isn’t yours, make sure it’s ok with the pet’s owner. It will be assumed by us that you have permission, so you’re the one that will be in hot water if that’s not the case.
• Photos can be of pets you currently own or pets that are no longer with you.
• Along with each photo, you must include your name, address, telephone number and email address. If you’re emailing the photo, put all of that information in the body of the email. If you’re mailing a hard copy, include a note with the information.
• Submissions must be received by midnight, November 30, 2012.
• Email submissions may be sent to photocontest@pawprintsthemagazine.com
• Snail mail submissions should go to Paw Prints The Magazine, P.O. Box 140164, Kansas City, MO 64114
• Hard copies of photos cannot be returned, so don’t send your only copy.

GOOD LUCK!

September 2006

Now here’s something new and different… a comedy about a veterinary practice. Take a look at the video clips. Does it look like something you’ll watch this fall?

Here is NBC’s official synopsis for the series:

“Meet Dr. George Coleman (Justin Kirk, “Weeds”), a top-dog New York veterinarian. With an unorthodox style of operating, George’s success comes from his undeniable gift with animals of all kinds. That is, all but the human kind. Dorothy Crane once held the key to George’s heart, but today she also holds the key to the family business as she takes over Crane Animal Hospital.  Not only is she George’s new boss, but her romantic history with him and her lack of experience with animals is seriously cramping his style.

Dorothy is whip-smart and ambitious, and she’s going to make George pay for the past.  Needless to say, he’s determined not to make any changes in his (animal) kingdom – which includes poker games with a resident capuchin monkey. Also starring are Tyler Labine (”Reaper,” “Sons of Tucson”) as Dr. Doug Jackson, a vet who’s great with animals but hapless in matters of the heart, Bobby Lee (”Harold & Kumar”) as Dr. Yamamoto, and newcomer Betsy Sodaro as Angela.”

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NBC has “Animal Practice” set up on Wednesdays at 8/7c this fall, putting it up against ABC’s comedy line-up. So, anyone looking for something new might want to check this one out.

Does it look like something you’ll be watching this fall?

May 16, 2012 – Kansas City, MO

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Team up with a partner who knows what it means to serve during the first annual “Pets for Vets” adoption event on May 19th and 20th at the KC Pet Project!  The Kansas City Pet Project, located at the Kansas City, Missouri Animal Shelter, will host the event this weekend in celebration of Armed Forces Day.  All active duty, reserve, veteran, National Guard personnel and their families are invited to attend.

Festivities for the weekend will include:

• 1/2 price pet adoption fees for military families with a valid military ID.  Adoptions include spay/neuter, deworming, age appropriate vaccinations, and a microchip.  Pet licenses for city of Kansas City residents will be available for purchase.
• The Magical Meatball Tour food truck will be on site to feed everyone.
• Pampered Paws will be on site to offer grooming tips and Pet Junkie will be selling great pet-themed merchandise.
• Donations will be accepted from our shelter wish list – and much more!

“As a ‘thank you’ to all of the men and women who are either serving or have served, the Kansas City Pet Project is very excited to host this great pet adoption event” said Teresa Johnson, Director of Shelter Operations of KCPP. “This is also an opportunity for people to come out and see all the wonderful things that are happening at the KCMO Animal Shelter.”

The Kansas City Pet Project is located near the Stadiums at 4400 Raytown Road in Kansas City, Missouri, and will be open from noon-5pm on Saturday and Sunday, May 19 – 20.

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**Top photo: Kansas City Pet Project’s own employee, El Scipione.  El is an 8 year veteran of the United States Army and is shown with Gingersnap, a dog currently in the shelter available for adoption.

This is an example of a very good magazine ad.

Much of the problem for small/micro businesses is that they have no clue what they are doing and for the most part local publishers and sales people have even less of a clue. There are droves of local publications circulating in every city. The publisher picks a topic for their audience and a magazine is born. They then hire sales people to sell adverting for them. Sometimes they sell the ads themselves. Many times the people selling the ads to the potential advertiser don’t know the difference between a tag line and a slogan. They couldn’t define advertising, marketing or PR to the advertiser, yet, the advertiser will hand them their business card, give them a few bullet points about their business and say, “make me an ad”. This information then goes to the person that will be designing the ad. Sometimes that person will be a professional graphic designer and sometimes not. I have seen ads in print designed by web designers, sales reps, editors and publishers. Radio ads have been put together by engineers, interns and board operators. Often, the folks putting together your ads have no background in how to make or design an ad, what they can do is talk in to a microphone without knowing how to act or they are capable of using Photoshop, Illustrator, Quark or some other graphics program without the knowledge of what makes a good ad.

What ends up happening is that the advertiser just paid for ad space in a magazine, had the ad designed by someone who knows nothing about their business and was given no direction because no one came up with a short or long term goal for the ad. When the magazine comes out, the advertiser paid for a magazine ad and received a Yellow Page ad. I promise you… this is a recipe for failure!

The same applies for other mediums as well; you don’t run a yellow page ad as a radio spot. A radio spot doesn’t work for television, a newspaper ad makes a horrible billboard and so on. But business owners give their hard earned money away month after month. Eventually what happens is the business owner decides that “word of mouth” is the only advertising that works for their business, Yeah right, as if your business is SO MUCH different than your competitor down the street. The problem was you, Mr/Ms Business Owner. Your ad never had a chance to work because you didn’t invest yourself in your advertising and you wonder why your ads didn’t work.

There seems to be a phenomenon in the pet industry. A business owner can get everything right with their advertising and yet, the ads still don’t work. There is an old formula for reasons an ad doesn’t work. It actually came out of the yellow page industry but it crosses all mediums. It is much easier to define why ads don’t work than to tell you what goes in to a successful ad campaign.

1)      Your ad is not competitive in size to your competition.

1. This simply means that if you run a small ad in print or a short commercial and your competition is running a larger ad or longer commercial or has more billboards than you, the consumer is calling on your competitor first. They are making more impressions or are making a larger impression on your prospective customer than you are. Thus, your customer you were trying to persuade is calling your competition. They were more persuasive that you just due to size and or number of times seen or heard.

2)      You are advertising in the wrong place.

1. Simply put, if you are a rescue group for Boxers, putting an ad in the Border Collie breeders newsletter isn’t going to reach the right audience for you.

3)      You aren’t advertising with the right frequency.

1. Meaning you’re either not running the ads often enough or long enough. 1 ad in a magazine or on a radio show or 1 billboard up for a day isn’t enough. The human brain works slowly and needs to see a message numerous times before it even remembers seeing or hearing that message.

4)      You are advertising a product that few people want or need.

1. This is the one that is a phenomenon in the pet industry. I hope it needs no explanation.

Now obviously there is more involved than those four items but a professional in advertising can help you in the design and make up of ads and commercials. Those four reasons are the bare basics. If a business owner could keep from making those four mistakes they would have a better chance of having ads that actually worked.

Let’s look at the fourth one here. There are numerous products and services in the pet industry, many of which, pet owners will NEVER spend a penny on. We have even reviewed a few. There are services in the pet industry that few pet owners use some are because the pet owners just don’t feel they need to use them. Many of those services, pet owners don’t realize exist. I have seen business owners in these categories do fantastic ads and have low returns. They get upset and blame their failure on the medium they advertise in. It isn’t the radio stations fault no body purchased your service, it isn’t the magazines fault either. If you did everything above correctly and you still are not getting customers there is a HUGE possibility that FEW people want your service and it is up to you to convince them they do. Sometimes it is a hard sell but if you want to grow your business you have to continue to advertise to them.

We have had hundreds of products sent to us that no pet owner on Earth would ever purchase, the problem isn’t that their advertising doesn’t work or the place they choose to advertise doesn’t work. If they did all of the above correctly it is because there is NO MARKET out there for their product. It is very hard to create a market for a product. It is much easier to convince a market already in place that what you have, they need.

The pet industry is one of the most heavily competitive industries out there, yet it is the least advertised. In an industry filled with armatures and hobbyists, the professionals may want to separate themselves from the pack by coming up with smart, well planned ad campaigns if they want to grow. If they are happy with the status quo, then continue doing what you are doing. I know that many micro businesses are there just to satisfy the owners own existence, meaning the owner is happy as long as they have enough to pay the bills and live their life.

For those entrepreneurs that want more out of their business take a moment before you hand your business card to an ad sales person. Think about the above paragraphs. If you are purchasing ad space, and that is exactly what you buy when you buy advertising is space or time, make sure you come up with a plan and pay professionals to help you with that plan. There are plenty of freelance professionals out there that you can hire. You don’t have to break the bank by hiring an ad agency that does national campaigns. Ask yourself a simple question, when you buy ad space and it doesn’t matter if it is $100.00 per month or $10,000.00 per month, don’t you want that money to make money? If you are going to invest that kind of money on space or time, wouldn’t it make sense to invest money in a professional that would give you the best chance to make that space or time profitable for you?

That’s just what I think.

Dale

Test developed by analyzing the joints of dogs that suffer from arthritis leads to early detection system would allow better treatment options

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May 15, 2012 – COLUMBIA, Mo.

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More than 27 million adults currently suffer from osteoarthritis, which is the most common form of arthritis. In the past, doctors have been unable to diagnose patients with arthritis until they begin to show symptoms, which include joint pain and stiffness.  By the time these symptoms are present, it is often too late for preventive and minimally invasive treatment options to be effective.  Now, a research team from the University of Missouri’s Comparative Orthopaedic Laboratory has found a way to detect and predict arthritis before patients begin suffering from symptoms.

James Cook, a researcher from the MU College of Veterinary Medicine and the William C. and Kathryn E. Allen Distinguished Professor in Orthopaedic Surgery, along with MU researchers Bridget Garner, Aaron Stoker, Keiichi Kuroki, Cristi Cook, and Prakash Jayabalan, have developed a test using specific biomarkers that can accurately determine if a patient is developing arthritis as well as predict the potential severity of the disease. The test can be run off of a single drop of fluid from a patient’s joint, which is obtained with a small needle similar to drawing blood.

“With this biomarker test, we can study the levels of specific proteins that we now know are associated with osteoarthritis,” Cook said. “Not only does the test have the potential to help predict future arthritis, but it also tells us about the early mechanisms of arthritis, which will lead to better treatments in the future.”

In their study published in the Journal of Knee Surgery, the MU researchers report that they developed the test by analyzing the joints of dogs that suffer from arthritis. Veterinarians predict that 20 percent of middle-aged dogs and 90 percent of older dogs have osteoarthritis in one or more joints.  Since canine joints operate similarly to the joints of humans, Cook says the test is being adapted to human patients.

“This test has already shown early usefulness for allowing us to monitor how different treatments affect the arthritic joints in people,” Cook said. “With further validation, this test will allow doctors to adjust and fine tune treatments to individual patients. Also, being able to tell patients when they are at a high risk for developing arthritis will give doctors a strong motivational tool to convince patients to take preventive measures including appropriate exercise and diet change.”

The biomarker test is currently available for licensing and is in the process of gaining FDA approval.

This study is a result of collaboration through Mizzou Advantage, a program that focuses on four areas of strength at MU: food for the future, media of the future, one health/one medicine, and sustainable energy. The goals of Mizzou Advantage are to strengthen existing faculty networks, create new networks and propel Mizzou’s research, instruction and other activities to the next level. The Mizzou Advantage was created to increase MU’s visibility, impact and stature in higher education, locally, statewide, nationally and around the world.

While many people like to know “What kind of dog is that?” just to satisfy their curiosity, dog breed designations have also been used in an attempt to predict future behavior, match pets to families, find lost dogs, and even to restrict the ownership of certain types of dogs.

Dogs come in all shapes and sizes, and frequently without pedigrees to describe their heritage. The breeds of dogs with unknown or mixed-breed lineages are frequently guessed based on their physical appearance, but it is not known how accurate these visual breed assessments are.

"Mom always said I have my father's ears."

Maddie’s® Shelter Medicine Program and the University of Florida’s College of Veterinary Medicine are conducting a national survey of dog experts to compare their best guesses for the breeds of dogs in a series of photographs. These visual assessments will be compared to DNA breed profiles for the dogs.

They are inviting all dog experts, including breeders, trainers, groomers, veterinarians, shelter staff, rescuers, and others to complete their brief survey to match dogs to their breeds. It’s fun and easy – just 10-15 minutes to identify the breeds in 20 dogs!

You better hurry, though… the survey will close on June 15, 2012.

Don’t keep it to yourself, either. If you know another dog expert, please share with your social network or forward this link so they can also participate in the survey!

Start the survey now.

This study is being conducted by Dr. Julie Levy with the assistance of Maddie’s® Shelter Medicine Research Fellow Cleon Hendricks and is made possible by a grant from the National Canine Research Council.

It turned out to be sort of a rain out this year, but plenty of dogs and their people showed up for this year’s event at Zona Rosa anyway.

As always, the event consisted of a 5K Run with chip timing led by Lara Moritz, Nina and Ella- KMBC TV 9, 1-mile walk, pet related vendors, clowns, face painting, raffles, gift baskets, stage demonstrations on agility, K-9 unit, fashion show with 2012 WoofStock mascot, Brody Foster, and Leading Edge Mobile Entertainment spinning the tunes!!

Enjoy the photos… wish we could have taken more.

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Spring showers may bring beautiful flowers, but it also brings MUD! So this month, we want to see your best (or maybe we should say, worst) muddy-dog photos!

Throughout the month of May, post a photo of your muddy dog on our Facebook page with the words “MUDDY DOG” in the caption.

Whoever posts the “Muddy Dog” photo that earns the most ‘likes’ by the end of the month will get a free, one-year subscription to Paw Prints The Magazine! We may even have another prize or two up our sleeve by the end of the month… you never know.

(Note: We cannot honor subscriptions outside the United States.)

Good Luck!!!