At long last, we can finally reveal the many positive changes that have been going on behind the scenes at Kyjen for many months, all designed to provide you with a better customer experience from exceptional customer service to new, fun and practical product innovations for your dogs!

Here’s a summary of our big news:

The Move to Colorado: As of February 8, 2010, we will no longer operate out of California and will be based under one roof in Colorado.

During this move, our offices will be closed on February 5th and will reopen on February 8th. Our new Colorado phone number  is (303) 792-9600. Our toll free phone number is unchanged at (800)-477-5735. All current email addresses will be functional, but we won’t be able to respond to email on Friday 5th during transit. We will update the information about our new team members soon.

New Management and Personnel: Unfortunately, only a couple of our valued team members were able to leave California, thus we have expanded our team to include new Colorado personnel.  We are excited to welcome a new Inventory Manager, a new Operations Manager, a new IT and Product Development Team, as well as all new members of our Customer Service Team.

New Factories and Warehouse: We apologize for the recent shipping issues we have experienced as a result of our factory of 13 years closing.  We have been working non-stop to align with new factories, and our in-stock position has greatly improved — we expect to be back to full stock levels very soon.  We are also now fully operational and shipping from a new highly-efficient automated warehouse in Nevada.

New Product Launches: Despite the many changes above, we have been hard at work on an array of exciting new products that we will be launching in the coming weeks and throughout the year.  Our first launch will include some new dog toys and a brand new dog toy catalog in the next couple of weeks.  Stay tuned to this blog for more details!

Thank you for your continued confidence and support through all of these changes.  We are thrilled to have you as our customer (or as a prospective Kyjen customer)!

– Kyle Hansen & The Entire Kyjen Team

With a mixture of happiness and sadness, Kyjen is announcing all its operations will be under one roof in Colorado.  For the last five years we have been happy and healthy with an office near the beach in California and an office near the mountains in Colorado.  With many big changes in the works, we decided it was best for all involved to be in one location — Colorado.

We’re confident the unified office can take Kyjen to new levels of service along with even better new product innovations.  We are happy some of the California team is able to make the move, and sad that others, for personal reasons, will not. We wish them the best.

Please stay-tuned to our blog for details of our move in the coming months and all the changes we plan to make.

Even in these turbulent economic times, independent pet retailers in the pet industry are thriving. We know because these Indies, as I call them, are a core part of Kyjen’s success and we are seeing the growth.

I visit Indies in person on a regular basis, I’ve seen their successes first hand and I’ve observed some simple and straight forward reasons why I think they survive and thrive.

1. They sell the top-quality Super-Premium pet foods that are simply not available in the pet superstore chains or grocery stores.

2. They don’t just stock Super-Premium foods, they educate the buying public and sell them. When McMoose is having an issue (skin problems, putting on extra weight, etc), I  just head over to one of my local dealers for a quick consultation on what food or supplements they suggest and why.

3. The best Indies present the new and unique products first to the consumer.  They are vigilant about finding and researching what’s new, hot and different. They pass this knowledge on to the consumer.

There are many other things the Indies do to survive and thrive in the shadows of their competitors in their own unique ways.

Tell us about your favorite Indie store in the comments. (Indie stores tell us about yourself!)

We feel fortunate and honored that many independent reviewers have so many positive things to say about our Plush Puppies line of Puzzle Toys.  These toys help Eliminate Boredom and Keep Dogs Occupied!

“Kyjen’s Puzzle Plush Dog Toys aim to challenge and entertain their canine users much the way developmental toys do for children” – Springwise.com

“LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this toy!!!  It’s a great interactive toy for that intellectual pup who likes to problem solve.” — Pop Dog Blog

“There’s a general rule we pet owners all follow: If we’re gonna blow double-digit dollars on a pet toy, it better be pretty darn good. It better be a durable toy and it better hold a dog’s interest for more than a single day. One toy that fits those requirements like a glove is the Hide-A-Squirrel.” –  Avenue K9

“Hide a Squirrel toy great for keeping boredom at bay!  When it’s raining outside and your pets are going a bit stir crazy indoors what do you do to relieve the boredom?  Puzzle Toys!” — Bark Avenue Blog

You can also watch many dogs playing with our Puzzle Toys on YouTube with this page of Youtube Search Results

Whether surfing in an Outward Hound Life Jacket, posing with a favorite Plush Puppies toy, or showing off in one of our holiday accessories, we are grateful that so many pet lovers have taken the time to post pictures of their pets using our products.

What can we say? After viewing all the photos, we’re convinced our customers have the cutest pets we’ve ever seen. Check out the great photography talents of their owners for yourself in our Flickr Fav photostream.

We’ve done our best to collect these photos into our Flickr Favorites so they can be viewed in one place. If we’ve missed yours, or you’ve uploaded some new ones, please tag your flickr photos with ‘kyjen’ and we’ll find it soon.

For information on tagging photos to Flickr see this tag help page. If you are new to Flickr, you can start with this “Newbie’s Guide.”

We’ve had a interesting 2009 here at Kyjen, and we’re looking forward to an even better 2010. We’ve got many new products in the pipeline that are sure to be a hit with your pets.

I’ve heard the two most popular New Year’s Resolutions are Getting In Shape and Enhancing Meaningful Relationships.  Well, I see no easier way to accomplish these goals than with your dog.

Getting outside with your dog, even if it means just walking initially, is a great way to get started on this goal.  You can gradually increase your routine to jogging, hiking or other more strenuous outdoor  activities with your dog.

As far as enhancing relationships, you can take your friends and family members with you on your outdoor walks and adventures to exercise and enjoy the outdoor time together.  Or you can just go with your dog and enhance that special relationship!

Interesting statistic from the US EPA:  Americans spend on average 90% of their time indoors.  Wow, that’s scary!  Let’s all “Get Out and Play” with our dogs and family members and change this statistic!

What are your New Year’s Resolutions with your pets? Are there any other common resolutions that can be more fun to accomplish with your pet than alone?

With the big growth of some really fun dog sports, we thought it’s time for us to get involved.

We were approached by the parents of Katie, who needed a sponsor to help her get to the  World Dock-Diving Championships in Arizona.  Seeing the need and the chance for her to win the world championship, we decided to ‘jump-in’ and help them out.

Katie is a golden retriever.  Three years old, she’s still a puppy at heart. Katie started dock jumping in 2007.  She jumps off a 40ft dock into a 40ft pool.  This year she jumped a personal best of 21’ 9” giving her the title of the number one female golden retriever and the second best golden retriever of the year. (Distances are measured from where the base of the tail hits the water). She did so well she qualified for the World Championships of Dock Jumping, Cynosports in Scottsdale Arizona

Katie did great in the semi-finals jumping 20’ 7” qualifying her for the Pro finals. In the final 6 she did great with a 20’ 6” jump landing her in 5^th place. Which for her was spectacular.

Here’s a couple of short video’s of the event:

Katie at Splash Dogs World Championships. Jumping with the big dogs in the Pro Finals:

Katie having fun with some friends at Splash Dogs world finals in Cyno Sports during a break from jumping:

We feel flattered to have so many independent reviews of our Bottle Buddies online.  Dogs really do love this product and the noise it makes. It’s such a great way to reuse those plastic water bottles.  An often over-looked feature is the nylon liner we’ve added on the inside of the plush material.  This provides additional durability and also protects the dogs teeth and gums should the plastic bottle rip and become sharp during aggressive play.

“Your dog will go nuts for the crackling sound and he’ll play for hours, tossing, chewing and chasing!”–Dogs are Going Green Blog

“Kyjen’s Bottle Buddies are made to solve this problem because they completely cover the empty plastic water bottle and help to prevent your pet from getting hurt.”–Petazon Blog

“Ruben loves it and has not left it alone (nor has he shared it), he carries it all over crunching all the way. He is famous for his hilarious stiff legged coyote pounce that just cracks us up and enjoys landing on his buddy over and over (the more you laugh the more he’ll do it)”–Pampered Poodles 4U Blog

“We got our first order of Bottle Buddies last week and think that it’s a really great toy for larger breed dogs.)” [they even embedded the video of me in this one] –Pawhause Pet Boutique Blog