Happy New Year and happy year of the horse! It already seems like ages ago and January seems to fly by so fast. For many it’s been an interesting start to the year. With snow storms in the USA, high winds and rain battering most of the west coast of Europe bring destruction and floods to many households. It’s almost in a biblical sense.

Boardwalk blown away by winds

High tides destroy Praia do Guincho

The destruction we saw in Portugal was sad. The beaches torn up and we lost my favourite boardwalk to the beach from high winds, but I am fortunate that the beach is still there and I am able to run and play like any other day. My thoughts go out to those from home who are not so fortunate. My home county of Somerset has been hit so badly by the storms almost all of the levels are submerged in water. Mummy recalls times as a child when the river near her home would burst its banks and the field below her childhood home would fill up with water, but never in her days has she seen such massive floods and so much devastation. She remembers that after the floods came the freeze and the field below her home would freeze over and all the children from the neighbourhood would come to ice skate. The floods brought fun and fond childhood memories not destruction of homes and loss of business to the farmers.

Burrow Bridge Mount in the Floods

Somerset Levels overcome with floods

I was told by a family member that the local council stopped the dredging of the rivers in Somerset many years ago due to cutback by the government. With global warming and the extra rain that has been falling the rivers have not been able to cope, bursting their banks and causing these floods. I’m sure there is more to it than that, but surely the cost of this devastation out ways the cost of keeping the rivers clean? Here Mummy has found and interesting video which touches on the real cause of the problem.

It’s so sad to see my home where I grew up covered with water and seeing very little help coming. It’s been almost two months since the start of the floods in Somerset and will anything be done to compensate these people? A message to the UK government: Remember, Charity begins at home!

 

Much love

 

Zuma XX

Competition time!

With Halloween over for another year we take a quick breather as we move into the next set of end of year celebrations. Guy Falks night in the UK this week, Thanksgiving at the end of the month in the USA and the grand finale that everyone looks forward to. YAY!!!!!! Christmas is coming!!!!!!!

We are starting to see sales increase as people start to shop early and buy Christmas gifts for loved ones. We also like to help out in other ways and team up with our online partners where we can. Zuma the Dog is available to buy on many websites, which include. www.loubilou.com www.zulily.com www.zulily.com.uk www.casabu.com www.amazon.co.uk www.amazon.com as well as our own website www.zumathedog.com. This month it was time to team up with Casabu and we got involved with their "Baby Raffle Extravaganza". For just £2 per ticket you could be the luck winner of £2000 worth of nursery and baby items.

Win the Casabu Raffle of the year!

 

The Casabu team has pulled together a fantastic raffle with one lucky winner set to receive an unbelievable prize bundle of over 50 items of essential nursery, baby items and toys.....one ticket gets you entry to the raffle of the year!

 

Prize draw will take place on November 5th

 

Click here for further information

 

 

Fingers, or paws crossed for you all and good luck.

 

Much Love

 

Zuma xx

 

 

 

http://9nl.eu/CasabuRaffle

Colour Me Better

Great news, Daddy Zuma is back on his feet and able to play again, well, almost. I think it will still be some time before he's able to take part in the kind of play I enjoy. While he was getting better from his accident he worked on some of the new print and colour pictures of me which are on my website. I'd rather run around the garden or a beach all day, but when we're stuck inside I like to see pretty pictures of me which other people have done. Mummy has put eight different drawings of me on the website, including three which are specially done for Halloween. Now that Halloween is nearly here the weather is drawing in and there is less time for outside play, why don't you get creative? Colour in one of my pictures and then tweet them to me. There's Franken Zuma, Jacko Zuma and Zuma Potter to choose from.

 

 

 

You can find my twitter account, and so many other things about me on the website. Every picture I get I'll share with all my other friends so they can see how well you've done.

I look forward to see what you all come up with and show the world how talented you all are.


Much Love



Zuma XX

The Ending Summer

The summer is starting to come to an end and for many of us it feels like it just got started. I’ve had a great time off, a wonderful doggy holiday, but now we are getting back into the full swing of it. The kids will soon be back at school and it’s only a matter of week before we start to celebrate Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas! Can you believe that?



Samples heading out to new distributors

Zuma the Dog head office was at a standstill for a while, due to Daddy Zuma having a serious accident, an eight week hospital stay and weeks of hospital treatment and physiotherapy. Now we have slipped into a nice little routine which includes the hospital visits, HQ is moving forward again. We’ve been busy catching up and Mummy Zuma has been hard at it again securing new distributors, covering the USA, Russia and Ukraine. Along with the licensing deals signed at the beginning of the summer Zuma the Dog is set for large growth in business over the next year. Summer 2014 order are being taken, winter 2014 range is designed and research for summer 2015 is under way. So much going on that we really now need to stay ahead.



Samples heading out all over the world

On top of all this great news we are also being featured in two great magazines over the next two months. Firstly is with Beebo magazine, the Southwest’s must have family magazine. Here we get to tell you all about our brand for those who are not familiar with us and with a cute colouring competition we get to give away one of our hoodies with various other surprises.

In October we are honoured to be featured in CWB magazine, which will expose our brand to all of the Children’s wear stores and boutiques throughout the UK.

For our tiny little family run brand all about me (the family pet) we really are making waves in the big wide world and with all my recent trauma issues almost solved. Life is becoming most pleasurable for Zuma the Dog.



Can I get a high five?

 

Much love

 

Zuma XX



Summer Holidays

 

Zuma is off having a wonderful time running around the Quinta of his trainer Altino with his other dog buddies and enjoying his summer vacation, so while he is having so much fun. I am left to fill in his work obligation which means writing his blog for this edition.

We visited Zuma yesterday to see how he was getting on and it turns out he’s loving every moment and Altino tells us he is the best behaved dog there. I find that hard to believe, but we are happy that he is calm and relaxed and having a nice time.

Zuma with his Trainer Altino. Loving his holiday time

We are now moving into summer holiday time and we all start to think about what we are going to do with our little ones to keep them occupied during these 6 weeks. For many you will be going on vacation to a sunny resort with family, maybe summer camp is calling, but for most the summer holidays are a time where we can spend time with our kids, choose fun activity and play outside (weather permitting).

We at Zuma the Dog HQ are working away creating new product ideas and designing new ranges to keep you all up with the latest styles and kids trends, but while all this is going on we have also found some time to search for and recommend some activities you can do if the weather changes and need something to do indoors.

We have listed five of our favourites.

1.       Colouring-in crazy? Visit www.zumathedog.com and click on “print & colour” to download free our simple Zuma the dog characters

2.       For creative indoor fun you can download for free our Zuma the dog pop-ette with pals. Go to www.zumathedog.com and click on “print & colour” to see our Popagami Zuma the Dog to colour in and make.

3.       Love Popagami? We recommend you go to www.popagami.com  where you can download full colour versions of Zuma the Dog and other characters to make and create plays and stories with.

4.       We love Tilly and Tam. Doggy friends of Zuma with new stories every week and games to play check out www.tillyandtam.com/playtime/

5.        Lots of free download able craft fun here at http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/crafts

We certainly know that Zuma is playing outside and has gathered together a football team with his other dog buddies. As he is having such a wonderful time I am wondering whether he will want to come home.

Enjoy your summer holidays and play safe whatever you do.

Much Love

Sam (Zuma’s Mummy)

XX

Press Release

Mummy has been busy again and look what she has been up to..............

Press Release

Glastonbury based business owner, Mum-entrepreneur and owner of the kids lifestyle brand Zuma the Dog, Samantha Morgan announced this week that a license agreement has been made between Zuma the Dog and the Dragon’s Den contestant Brain Craik author and creator of Popagami(R).



Free download now available on
www.zumathedog.com

The origami lover wowed the dragons last October with his new take on paper folding and has since approached Samantha to develop his lovable pets into a dog styled for Zuma the Dog. It will be accompanied by a book to help children develop their language skills. “With the world becoming such a smaller place the emphasis is on language and giving children the opportunity to learn more than one language early in life is becoming more prevalent,” Said Samantha “and partnering up with Brian and his Pop-ettes gives us the opportunity to take my Zuma the Dog brand into new categories, creating more brand awareness whilst developing a product that is indicative to our brand philosophy.”



Samantha pictured with the first pop-ette
prototype and the cheeky inspiration, Zuma

“Zuma the Dog fans everywhere should expect great things from the fusion of Popagami puppets,” said Philip “Working with Samantha the author of the Zuma the Dog books, a new “cutting-edge” dimension can be added!” 



 

 

 

Samantha’s original story books “The Adventures of Zuma the Dog” have already been translated into bilingual stories for children growing up in multinational families. Based on personal experience, Samantha believes in getting children to interact and playing games with such activities like Popagami gives a child confidence and promotes good self esteem, while helping with their language development.

To kick off the partnership four free downloads have been made available on the brands website www.zumathedog.com Click on “Print and Colour” and you can download, colour and create. The books will be available to buy through any good retailer and online in time for Christmas and makes a wonderful accompaniment to the clothing line which already exists. 

Yes yes and yes I’m sure you can tell by Mummy’s recent Facebook posts that I’ve recovered from my little leg injury and back to my old tricks, like a mini whirl wind I’ve been undoing all the work Mummy has been putting into the garden and to get back at her for her recent humiliation of name calling and dug up her newly planted lavender from the borders and pooped on them Ha Ha Ha. Now my pseudo name has gone from Cone Head the Barbarian to The Great Shatsby and wonders what other names my very humorous Mummy can come up with next for me. Master C and Daddy were calling Limp Biscuit at one point last week. No wonder I have issues!

Product in store at Kids & Design

I can’t really complain we all have a lot of fun and do so many things and without our family fun and banter my Zuma the Dog range wouldn’t be as creative and colourful as it is. I’m sure. We are so very nearly close to the middle point of 2013 and can’t believe how fast time is moving and looking back we have had some successes as our little brand grows. This month we started to supply a new boutique store in Cascais, Portugal called Kids & Design. Right in the centre of town and stocking other brands, all with a bright colourful, fun concept. It’s so good to be situated in such a great spot and sure Zuma the Dog will do very well in such a prominent position



Store front window display



Yellow shirt in store window

"How much is that puppy in the window?"

 












This month also brought us our new sales agent from Dallas, USA. A long time coming and very excited that we finally have representation covering eight of the southern states of the USA. We know we have a strong demand in the USA and so happy that we can finally supply that demand and make more happy customers. Boutiques and stores all over the USA will have our brand and we will do our very best to inform you where they are as soon as stock is delivered. If you are a boutique owner and wish to get in touch with our agent then please email me here zuma@zumathedog.com and Mummy will be happy to forward details on to you.

                                                        

New samples winging their way to our agent in Dallas

Now I’m back to full health I’m looking forward to heading back out for more paddle boarding lessons. Mummy had a new rash vest made for me and I want to wear it out so everyone can see how cool I am. I wonder what humiliating new name I’ll get next week.

 

Much Love

 

Zuma XX