Posts filed under 'Media'
One of the all-time great dog stories is now a movie: “Hachiko” premieres at Seattle International Film Festival
Has anyone seen Hachiko: A Dog’s Story yet?
We haven’t, but we are familiar with the true story. A dog bonded with his human father so strongly that he went to the train station every day to meet the man coming home from work. Eventually, the man died, but the dog never stopped going to the train station to wait. He waited every day for 10 years. The people of the neighborhood in Tokyo where the story happened were so moved that they eventually put up a memorial statue to the dog.
It’s always been one of our favorite dog stories – what’s not to love?
The new movie, from Sony Pictures, is co-produced by Richard Gere, who also stars. The picture is directed by Lasse Hallstrom, the Swedish-born talent behind What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, The Shipping News, and Cider House Rules. Hallstrom is a great director, with 3 Oscar nominations and numerous other award wins and nominations to his credit.
From what we see from the reviews, the movie is fairly true to the real story, but the location has been moved from Japan to Rhode Island and updated somewhat for contemporary audiences.
Warning: bring plenty of Kleenex. From what we hear, the final moments of the film are absolutely devastating. Kids will love the movie, and their parents might be equally enchanted.
Hachiko: A Dog’s Story had its North American premiere on June 13 at the Seattle International Film Festival.
Add comment June 18, 2009
Another plug for Food, Inc. movie
If you’re following the blogs and internet, you may know all about Food, Inc. The movie is already out in select theaters.
However, we can’t resist helping to spread the word.
Being a small manufacturer of a food product, we ran into a lot of these kinds of issues when we set up manufacturing for Dog-Wa. It’s just so much easier to do things the fast, cheap and easy way. It can be a hard temptation to resist because everything is reflected on the bottom line – price. As we’ve said before, it is not impossible to make high quality, safe and nutritious food products. It just takes more time and effort.
That said, check out the trailer for Food, Inc. and help get the word out. We think this is an important film.
Add comment June 13, 2009
Thanks to Pet Product News for featuring Dog-Wa in April’s Issue: “Beverage Boost”
Here are some excerpts from a feature story Pet Product News wrote about dog drinks as specialty items that appeal to health-conscious dog owners:
As the summer months approach and temperatures begin to climb, dog owners become increasingly conscious of heatstroke, dehydration, and similar health concerns. With bottled-water sales continually on the rise among humans, it should come as no surprise that dog beverage products are steadily emerging in the pet-retail marketplace.
From vitamin-filled bottles to dissolvable water supplements to dog beers, liquid concoctions for canines come in a number of guises, yet they all share the same purpose: quickly and easily delivering nutrients in pure and filtered water to dogs.
Water Supplements
Concentrates, tablets, and other supplements owners can mix and dissolve in a dog’s water bowl are alternatives to prepackaged liquids. They offer dog owners a way to improve their dogs’ existing water source, whether at home or in a different environment.
Matt Israel, co-founder of Las Vegas-based DOG-WA, a manufacturer of a liquid concentrate for dogs, says plant-based nutrients are appealing to consumers who seek a new and natural way to boost their dogs’ health.
“There’s a growing recognition that liquids have superior absorption,” he says. “Good things in liquids are something that can be assimilated rapidly and completely.”
At The Big Bad Woof in Washington, DC, store owner Julie Paez reports that water supplements, such as Dog-Wa, are easy ways to get holistic nutrients into a dog’s system. She says she stocks it for customers who want to naturally settle a dog’s stomach, instead of their dogs eating grass for leafy nutrition.
“We have it here for people who might be wondering why their dogs are eating a lot of grass,” she explains.
The convenience of adding a boost to a dog’s normal water is a bonus for customers who won’t splurge on specialty dog beverages.
The excerpts above were written by Angela Pham and are copyright Pet Product News. The article appears in the April 2009. Thanks to Pet Product News for selecting Dog-Wa for the story!
Add comment April 24, 2009
Twitter may be short, trivial bursts of information, but that’s NOT what birds do
Seems like everyone’s all aflutter about Twitter this week. Between Ashton Kutcher’s challenge to CNN, Oprah’s gaffe on her first tweet (she greeted “Twitters,” not “Twitterers”), and nearly every celebrity and sub-celebrity talking it up, the hills are alive with the sounds of Twitter.
We have been a bit remiss, or shall we say, “late to the game” ourselves. But that doesn’t stop us from adding our opinion to the mix.
So we were bemused this morning to read Maureen Dowd’s opinion column in the New York Times, “To Tweet or Not To Tweet.” Rather than conduct a Twinterview (or Twitterview, I think the authorities are still in disarray as to the nomenclature), Maureen conducted an old-school in-person interview with the creators of Twitter at their San Francisco headquarters. Her mission, in her own words, was to find out whether the inventors of Twitter were as annoying as their invention.
Maureen asked why they called the company Twitter. Fair enough.
Biz Stone, co-founder with Evan Williams, replied as follows:
We had a lot of words like “Jitter” and things that reflected a hyper-nervousness. Somebody threw “Twitter” in the hat. I thought “Oh, that’s the short trivial bursts of information that birds do.”
We happen to really like the name Twitter for this product. And Lord knows, we don’t hold ourselves out as branding geniuses. We’ve had a heckuva time convincing people that Dog-Wa isn’t water for dogs. We know that branding is harder than it looks.
Where we do take exception is the uncorrected slur on birds.
Surely the techno-geeks who founded Twitter should be aware of the story that’s been all over the blogosphere about Willie, the Quaker parrot, who was awarded his local Red Cross chapter’s Animal Lifesaver Award for saving the life of a child with his real-life twittering.
Willie’s owner, Megan Howard, was baby-sitting for a toddler. She left the room and the little girl, Hannah, started to choke on her breakfast.
Willie the parrot repeatedly yelled “Mama, baby” and flapped his wings, and Howard returned in time to find the girl already turning blue. Howard applied the Heimlich maneuver and saved Hannah’s life. But she, and her local Red Cross, were very clear that Willie was the real hero.
Now don’t misunderstand us. We’re sure that at some point, a tweet will save a life (if that hasn’t already happened). And when it does, Twitter will once and for all put to bed the idea that it’s a venue for high-school girls just waiting to be monetized by unscrupulous marketers like us, trying to get shots out for our product (Buy Dog-Wa Now!).
But when that day comes, there will still be one huge question: did they do it in 10 characters or less? Because that’s what Willie did.
Oh, and would you like to follow us on Twitter? If you follow, we’ll tweet. http://twitter.com/DOGWA
Update of May 1, 2009: And if you haven’t seen Snowball the cockatoo busting his moves to the Backstreet Boys, you must. Evidently he’s been instrumental in proving that humans aren’t the only animals that dance…
Update of May 7, 2009: We can’t resist adding items showing how brilliant birds are…
1 comment April 22, 2009
