Doggone It!

Today was the last dog show for us. What with the initial investment costs, i.e. business license, insurance premium, vendor fees, signage, and product materials, over the last 3 months I think we may have spent the same amount of money that we made. Let's call it a wash. If it hadn't been for Nancy's generosity via the loan of her booth setup and supplies, our expenses would have far exceeded our net profit. (Thank you to Nancy for giving us a chance to experiment.)

I learned a few things.
The world of dog agility consists of obstacle courses, and hundreds of hours of training, and is peopled with dogs and trainers of every age and stage: Big, small, tall, thin, old, young, male and female, serious and not-so serious. It may well be an addiction.

We met many lovely people with from 1 dog to as many as 9 dogs.

And the dogs--well they run the gamut from designer dog breeds, to mixes, to pound puppies. Beautiful animals--we have the photos to prove it

Editing and prep time for photos may take as little as 1-2 minutes per photo...however, multiplied by 350 images...at the very least it still adds up to 10+ hours.

I learned that if you are processing photos late into the night it is best to wear headphones and listen to Pandora, or you may be editing unawarely..and find you are 20+ photos in, due to the fact that your index finger is pressing the return button while your eyes are resting.

I also discovered that if I can get past 10 p.m. I can edit until approximately 2 a.m. before this happens.

Setting your alarm for 2 hours of sleep is preferable to going without sleep altogether, but not by much.

Although the state of the economy is a clear factor in total sales, our best customers were the ones with the biggest hearts.


If I were to price our photos the way that CVS does there would be a public outcry.
(Processing the 4x6 prints costs 19 cents per print. The processing cost for 8x10s is 20 times that-- at $3.99.) We sell our 4x6 prints for $5.00. If we followed suit and sold the 8x10s for 20 times that they would go for $100.00 apiece!

There are still a few people out there with control issues. Unfortunately, they are usually the ones in charge.

We've suddenly got a free weekend coming up. I guess it's time to hit the beach!