Captain had a great time playing with Trax, Keoni, Ziggy, and the rest of the SOMA Dogs. He also met a few new Vizsla friends. After all the fun it was time for a bath at Point Isabel's Mudpuppy's Tub & Scrub. We love the fact that this dog park has its own cafe, dog store, and dog wash.

Check out some of the photos from Point Isabel below or our full set of photos on Flickr.

After our park time and shopping we headed to Stray Bar for the party to celebrate the Beast of the Bay awards.  The party featured live music and an raffle to support the Hearing Dog Program.  Some of the raffle prizes included a stay at The Inn at Schoolhouse Creek, Hearst Ranch Dog Food, and toys from Pet Food Express.

Be sure to check out the March issue of Bay Woof for the most dog friendly Bay Area businesses and locations.  If you want an excuse to visit Stray Bar there is another dog friendly event on Feb 12 from 4-8 PM to benefit the Hearing Dog Program.  For more great photos from the event check out our Flickr set.

We also met lots of great dogs including Bear, Bond, and Maverick, the number one Duck Toller.  Check out some of the photos below or view the full dog show album on Flickr.

Amy Dog & Christmas Present

Thanks to everyone who entered our December contest for a two night stay at any one of the 40 dog friendly Shilo Inns.  Our contest winner was Chris from NYC.  Chris added some great reviews, like this one for Animal Kind Vet Hospital and this one for Park Slope Dog Run.

Our contest runner up was Joshua's Mom in Portland, OR.  She added some thoughtful dog friendly reviews for places like Washington Park and Charlton Kennels.  Joshua's Mom will be getting one of our new Fido Factor T-shirts.

Finally, we want to thank Shilo Inns for sponsoring the contest.  Shilo Inns has consistently been honored as one of Oregon's top priviate companies.  They are passionate supporters of America's Veterans as well as our four legged friends.  Please check out on of their 40 dog friendly properties on your travels around the Western United States.

Contest Details:
To enter, simply click here. The contest will run from Nov. 26th - Dec. 30^th, with the winner announced the first week of Jan. Users generate entries by adding dog friendly reviews to existing Fido Factor listings or by adding new dog friendly listings to Fido Factor. Each dog friendly review or new listing counts as an entry. The user with the greatest number of entries will win the Shilo Inns package.

As usual any reviews or locations added in our home city of San Francisco will generate a donation that Fido Factor will pay in your name to support local homeless animals. Reviews that are incomplete or inappropriate, as well as locations that are not dog friendly will be excluded.  Fido Factor employees and their family members are not eligible to enter.

Dogs love shopping too!

The Thanksgiving holiday is just a few procrastination filled work days away, time to start dreaming of yummy Turkey, buttery stuffing, and if you’re like 63% of Americans, candied yams. Oh the dinner, the family drama, and the dog begging for table scraps… precious holiday memories. Not to worry though, soon your mind will turn from second helping remorse to savings, savings, savings! That's right, Black Friday is back. The day we excuse ourselves from civility in pursuit of the bargain.

But what about the dog? Consumer Reports says the average consumer will spend 13 hours holiday shopping this year. Long hours perusing the best deals means time away from the home and time away from the dog. Sad. What if there was a way to spend as much time as you wanted shopping, without having to worry about your dog being home alone, tied up outside the store, or racking up an expensive doggie daycare tab??? 1,000 points if you guessed the solution was Fido Factor. That's right, Fido Factor has made dog friendly shopping easy. Browse our 330 dog friendly retailers on our website or on the go with our free iPhone app and shop the day away with your best friend. Fido Factor details each stores' leash policy, permitted dog sizes, breakables, if other dogs will be there, treats, water bowls, and more. You will also want to be sure your dog is comfortable around large crowds. If Fido is skittish in groups, this Friday might not be the best day for a first jaunt around the city. Even if your dog is a crowd veteran we encourage all owners to review the following safety tips before venturing out with the dog - City Dog Basics

If all this info wasn't enough, take a look below at some of our favorite dog friendly stores offering special bargains this Friday. We've highlighted the dog policies for each and the Black Friday hours and sales, the only thing you need to worry about it is shaking off the Thanksgiving food comma. So grab the dog and spend some money, apparently we're in some sort of recession.

Best Buy Dog Policy: http://www.fidofactor.com/location/14843/best-buy

Special Hours: Doors open at 5am, tickets handed out as early at 3am – WOW.

Sales: Too many to list, check the link http://www.bestbuy.com/doorbusters2009

Nordstrom Dog Policy: http://www.fidofactor.com/location/2883/nordstrom

Special Hours: Doors open from 8am-9pm.

Sales: All clothing 33% off, Ladies shoes and boots 33% off

Pottery Barn Dog Policy: http://www.fidofactor.com/location/224/pottery-barn

Special Hours: 10am-9pm

Sales: Pottery Barn is keeping quiet about particulars, all sales announced Friday morning.

DSW Shoes Warehouse Dog Policy: http://www.fidofactor.com/location/562/dsw-shoe-warehouse

Special Hours: 8:30am-9pm

Sales: All Gucci products on sale

*All dog related information based on locations listed and subject to change. Please verify individual property policies before visiting.

Now that we've buttered you up we want to share how you can personally keep the momentum going by helping us to a third win. To participate all you need to do is follow this link to submit Fido Factor as the best "bootstrapped" or privately financed Startup Company for the TechCrunch awards - "The Crunchies". No need to download, research, or write anything, just click "nominate" and you're done. Entries can be cast daily through 12/6/09 so vote early and vote often.

And lastly because we never get tired of talking about ourselves, we'll leave you with a brief update of some recent and upcoming Fido Factor media coverage. Due in a large part to your early adoption and interaction with the site, Fido Factor was recently covered in social media outlet Mashable and Fido Factor CEO Justin O'Neill was featured in two video interviews, one on bnetTV.com and one on Nerdstalker.com. Additional upcoming coverage includes a feature story on ABC Bay Area at 6 PM PT the day after Thanksgiving on Friday, November 27, and a San Francisco Chronicle Article scheduled to run during the first week of December. Keep an eye out and give yourself a pat on the back helping us achieve this success.

According to the 2009/2010 APPA survey:

62% of US households own a pet; 39% own a dog

Total Pet Industry Market Size

2009 - $45.4B
2008 - $43.2B
2007 - $41.2B

Annual Dog Ownership Costs

$453 - Surgical Vet Visits
$217 - Food
$225 - Kennel Boarding
$219 - Routine Vet
$127 - Groomer/Grooming Aids
$77 - Vitamins
$66 - Treats
$41 - Toys

As urban dog owners these numbers are not even close to what it costs to care for our citified Vizsla.  For example, in San Francisco doggie daycare costs about $500 per month.  Our "routine" vet care seems to be about $100 per visit and when our puppy came down with kennel cough and pneumonia the vet bill was $1500.  If you think that sounds expense, the NY Times recently reported that some French Bulldog (Frenchie) owners spend up to $40k over their dog's lifetime.  Needless to say owning a dog can be expensive but it is worth every penny!

We recently launched the second version of our dog friendly iPhone app and thought it was about time to go over all the reasons you should download it.  The first version of our app focused on a few key categories in San Francisco.  With version two of our app we are officially supporting national coverage.  Our plan is to focus on providing great coverage one city at a time while supporting any place we have passionate users.  So if you're not in one of our current cities just add a few locations and we'll jump in to help you out.

This new version also makes it easier to add information.  In addition to being able to add reviews from the phone you can also add photos and new locations.  So if you're out and about and you find a new dog friendly place please take a minute to add it or update the listing with a photo.  Our goal is to have photos of all the key dog friendly attributes like outside tables, dog park features, or hotel amenities.

Version two of the application also includes a number of other improvements such as Facebook Connect integration, improvements to the Pooch Pics, and all of our new categories (dog friendly hotels, campgrounds, services, pet stores, vets, etc).

In addition to building out our geographic coverage, we're already planning v3 of the iPhone app.  There a couple minor bugs that need fixing and while we're at it we might as well add some new features.  Look out for the new version in a couple of months and in the meantime please keep adding all your dog friendly locations and reviews.

You can check out this YouTube video of the app, some screen shots, or just go right to iTunes to download it.