Contest winners announced!

Good afternoon humans! It's pretty quiet in the lobby right now and I can't see any muffins within sight so I thought I would take a minute to let you all know that the winners of my fabulous photo contest have been announced. We decided to send the judging duties to the professionals at BK Photography since I wouldn't know a film roll from a pixel, and besides, if it were up to me I would have given every single photo entry a prize. So here they are:

In first place we have the beautiful "Bella at the Spa", who wins a free night's stay in the hotel for herself and her lucky guardian. She also wins a doggie photo session at BK Photography, the confirmed dog-lovers with cameras!

In second place is the sunny picture of the adorable Ruby in "Now that's a cup of coffee" who wins a $100 gift certificate to buy lots and lots of coffee with.

In third place is "Rocco" who proved that he can stand up to any whale's tail and wins a $50 gift certificate for his efforts.

Congratulations to all the winners and thanks to everyone who entered the contest! Now if you'll excuse me, I think I smell some freshly baked muffins that greatly need my attention.....

Last chance to enter the photo contest!

Hey there humans, this is your warning that there is only another day or so to get your pictures of your pooches in to christine.ball@sidneypier.com to enter the fun and fabulous photo contest and win fantastic prizes! Here are some of the pictures that have come my way so far, featuring the likes of Bella at the Spa, me with Jessica, Ruffles on the sofa (hey, how come I'm not allowed on the sofa????), and others. As luck would have it, the promised picture of Star came in the form of an old-fashioned paper photo instead of email, so I am keeping that one close by my bedside for now.... I just knew Star was a girl with old-fashioned, respectable values! I hope to see a lot of you faithful readers out with your canines and your cameras at the hotel tomorrow - and good luck to everyone who entered!

What's so great about a poodle in Beijing, anyways?

I just love being the resident dog at the Sidney Pier Hotel & Spa. I look forward to the regulars coming in every morning for their coffee and muffins (and hopefully not noticing when I steal said muffins!) and I like checking out the new people visiting from all over the world. When my fellow canine friends visit me it really makes my day. Sounds like I have a great life, right?

Well, something has gotten my goat. Since I’ve become all blog-savvy and had a chance to explore this internet thingy a bit more, I came across an article in the latest issue of Traveler magazine the other day. It was about pet-friendly hotels around North America that also have resident canines on staff. Naturally, I expected to see my picture in the article. I figured that enough people take my picture in a given week that one of them must have been from the magazine, and that maybe everyone was just keeping things quiet and not telling me about my sudden leap of fame. I don’t know why, maybe to keep me so humble?

I clicked through the ten or so photos, getting more excited with each one as I anticipated seeing my own gorgeous face on the next page. Hollywood, New York, Atlanta and Boston all went by, each featuring an animal that worked at the hotel.

But where was I? Not in this article! Who are these people from Traveler magazine? Have they never been to this awesome hotel? Have they never even heard of beautiful little Sidney-by-the-Sea? Probably not. So I guess I can’t blame them for not putting me in their silly ol’ magazine after all. We all know that Sidney is a special secret spot that only the really smart people know about, right? And besides, if the rest of the world found out about Sidney, the town might do something drastic like start charging for street parking, which I know would drive my guardian absolutely bananas. So I guess I’ll leave it alone. Here’s the link to the article if you want to check it out and send me your thoughts in the comments below:

http://www.concierge.com/ideas/hotels/tours/501883

Don’t forget that the great photo contest ends in two weeks! I just heard that the Star I wrote about a few weeks ago is submitting a photo, so I’m going to put some of the contest pictures up next week. Make sure you check back then. Oh... is that an unattended muffin I see over there?