In this blog I cover a variety of fun topics: Places to travel and go with your dog, new and fun stuff about our products. I also blog about our company, our culture, the pet industry, as well about entrepreneurship and building a businesses.
I titled this blog Get Out and Play because I feel we spend far too much time indoors… I believe in getting outdoors and in having FUN! Studies prove that our good health, productivity, and overall happiness improves drastically when we spend more time playing and interacting with our dogs… especially outdoors!
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– Kyle Hansen, President/Founder of The Kyjen Company
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 5th 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
“What’s a Bottle Buddy?” A regular visitor to Kyjen.com might know the answer, but the casual shopper in Fort Collins, Colorado might not. And that’s just what Arfy’s Mercantile for Dogs and Cats is counting on. Hoping to pique the interest of shoppers walking by with that simple question, they placed it in on sign board out front (see larger photo here). Nice job Arfy’s!
If you’ve seen any other creative ways retailers are redirect foot traffic inside, let us know and we’ll pass it on.
If you don’t live in Fort Collins and you want to know what a Bottle Buddy is, please check it in our store.
Kyjen’s Pet Booster Seat was mentioned in The National, a daily paper in Abu Dhabi (an Abu Dhabi Media Company).
Kyjen products have been sold through retailers in Europe and the UK for a while now. It’s nice to see our reach going to all corners of the world. Our recently launched online store is receiving orders from all over the globe, even Japan!
If you’ve seen any Outward Hound products in exotic locales, let us know. Or leave a comment below.
Huntington Beach, CA also known as Surf City USA (our home city here at Kyjen, and the city where I grew up) is a great place to visit with dogs. The city was named “DogTown USA” by Dog Fancy Magazine in 2009 for its canine friendliness. In this video I show you the two best dog-friendly hotels in Huntington Beach, or where I suggest you stay when you visit:
The Shore Break hotel even has special packages for visitors with dogs, including pet sitting and some cool pet amenities.
The Hilton Waterfront Resort also has a dog package, where they waive the $75 pet fee along with some good dog amenities.
A quick internet search will pull up other less expensive dog firendly hotels in Huntington Beach, but in my opinion these are the two best choices and they have by far the best locations.
When you call Kyjen during business hours, you'll talk to a real live person! Email is preferred: contact_us@kyjen.com If you want to call us, we can be reached at 800-477-5735 (USA) or 303-792-9600.
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!
With the big growth of some really fun dog sports, we thought it’s time for us to get involved.
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.
