Pet Lovers Week on Wheel of Fortune!

Tillman skates on Wheel of Fortune

Calling all Pet Lovers! If you love pets and you love the Wheel of Fortune TV game show, this is THE week for you to watch! The venerable game show theme starting today is 'Pet Lover's Week'. I'm especially thrilled because our very own Tillman, the world famous skateboarding, snowboarding, skimboarding and surfing bulldog is being featured on the show. It was such a thrill to see Tillman do his thing yet again on national television. People always get a kick out of him.

Natural Balance Pet Foods, (for whom I work) is featured on the show this week, participating in the fun and excitement of the show. Be sure to check your local listings for when Wheel of Fortune airs in your hometown. It will be loads of fun to watch, believe me!
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A Pre-Rose Parade Celebration with the Dogs

I spent a wonderful New Year's Eve in Pasadena at my company's pre-Rose Parade party. Our co-founder Dick Van Patten was on hand to thank everyone too. He rides on our float tomorrow with his son Jimmy. The party was for 200 people, including those involved in our amazing Natural Balance Rose Parade float, and our customers too. Most of the dogs who will be on the float were at the party, including Tillman, Rose, Sully, Lyle, all of whom will skim board on the float. Several of the Dock Diving dogs were also at the party too. I brought my own two dogs along for the fun. They had a blast, particularly during the concert, which was a Michael Jackson impersonator who was actually very good.

The Michael Jackson impersonator was a lot of fun.

Sully is an amazing skim boarding Bulldog!

Tillman, Rose and Sully at the hotel before the Rose Parade

Sheldon enjoying the concert and watching people dance.

Duncan celebrating on New Year's Eve

We were all excited that the officials from Guinness World Records certified the Natural Balance Rose Parade float as setting the record for the World's Heaviest parade float in history- amazingly at over 84,300 pounds! We love breaking records and having fun! Here is the official certificate presented to us. So all in all, it was an enjoyable New Year's Eve celebration. I hope you can catch the Rose Parade on New Year's Day and see for yourself how much fun we have at Natural Balance. If you watch the parade and see our float, Tweet about it on Twitter. Just include #PETCORose in the tweet so I can follow along and see it!
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Get Ready for Another Amazing Rose Parade Float!

Most of you have no doubt heard of the Tournament of Roses Parade, more commonly known as The Rose Parade. For the past three years, my employer, Natural Balance Pet Foods has had a float in this granddaddy of American Parades. Dick Van Patten himself and his son Jimmy Van Patten, both ride on our float waving to the millions of people who watch the parade annually. Our float is known for having the amazingly talented, entertaining and world famous Tillman, the skateboarding bulldog. Along with Tillman are the other bulldogs Rose, Lyle and Sully all of whom will be skim boarding on the float. In addition, this year's float will also feature a group of Dock Diving Dogs who will be jumping into a pool while the Bulldogs do their thing on the lower level. With all the water in the float, we are seeking to break a new record for the World's Heaviest Parade Float. The officials from The Guinness Book of World Records will even be on site to inspect and certify our float!

We're now down to the last few days before this year's "Havin a Splash" parade float makes its debut to the world. Over 100 million people are expected to see the Rose Parade. The dogs have been in rehearsals for weeks and their trainers are confident, yet some level of fear is always lurking. Pictured at  left is "Porter", having fun but hard at work learning the routine. I hope you can watch the Rose Parade on January 1st and cheer on our float from home.

The Rose Parade is broadcast on nine TV stations, including, CBS, NBC, ABC, Hallmark Channel, HGTV, Tribune, Univision, RFD-TV and Sky Link TV. The parade begins at 8:00 AM Pacific time, so please tune in.

I'd really appreciate your vote for us as your favorite Rose Parade Float. You cannot vote until after the parade ends on January 1st. It's easy to vote for "Dick Van Patten's Natural Balance Pet Foods Float"  You can either text FLOAT39 to "50649" starting Jan. 1, 2011 at 8:00 a.m. PST or Vote online from the link below:
http://www.tournamentofroses.com/the-rose-parade/vote/viewers-choice-award

Oh, by the way, we have an awesome SWEEPSTAKES going on- click here to learn more.

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Watch Our TV Special This Weekend!

One of the really cool aspects of working at Natural Balance is the fun we have preparing for our awesome float in the Rose Parade. I mentioned yesterday that this year's float will set new records and be entertaining too. Our float has so much public interest, that once again a TV special was filmed and will air this weekend! "The Making of The World's Heaviest Float" shows the behind the scenes details of how we build the float, how the dogs train, and some of the drama behind it all. There are a few celebrity guests and sports legends who make appearances in the TV special. If you love dogs or sports, be sure to watch this show, or set your DVR to record it. Here are the air times on the stations I am aware of so far. If your city isn't listed below, try the WGN Superstation channel, you may be able to pick it up on their national feed, just check local listings.

• KSWB/San Diego Sat 12/18 @ 430pm
• KTLA/Los Angeles Sun 12/19 @ 5pm  & Sun 12/26 @ 4 pm
• WPIX/New York Sat 12/18 @ 6:30pm    
• WGN/Chicago Sat 12/18 @ 5pm  
• WSFL-TV/Miami Sat 12/18 @ 6:30pm
• WDCW/Washington, DC Sun 12/19 @ 5pm  
• KZJO/Seattle Sun 12/19 @ 5pm  
• KRCW/Portland Sat 12/18 @ 5pm  
• WPHL-TV/Philadelphia   Sat 12/18 @ 5pm  

Tillman practices his skim boarding skills!

I wouldn't steer you wrong, this special is a lot of fun to watch, and its only a half hour so you can probably catch it before or after dinner. Wait til you see Tillman, Rose, Lyle, Sully and their Dock Diving Dog friends train, its a real treat. Hope you have a GREAT weekend! I'll be watching it with Sheldon and Duncan.



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Enter Weekly Sweepstakes & Feed Shelter Pets Too!

Regular readers of this blog know that I work for Dick Van Patten's Natural Balance Pet Foods. In addition to our expertise in pet nutrition, we also know how to have fun! For the past few years, we have had a float in the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, California on New Year's Day. Our float has been one of the most popular floats during the parade, thanks largely to Tillman and Rose, the world-famous skateboarding bulldogs (here is Rose above).

At last year's parade, the Guiness Book of World Records certified us as having the World's Longest Parade Float. This year, we have built what will be the World's Heaviest Parade Float, featuring Tillman, Rose and their other bulldog friends all skim boarding! They will also be joined by Dock Diving Dogs who will be jumping and swimming on the float at the same time.

  In early November we had an open casting call to find some of the best dock diving and skim boarding dogs in America to join us on the float. This photo at left shows all the dogs who made it, plus Tillman, Rose, Lyle and Sully who were on the float last year.

click banner above to enter the sweepstakes and learn more

  As part of all this fun, we partnered with PETCO on a special Sweepstakes to win really awesome prizes for the next few weeks. People can enter the sweepstakes online each week from PETCO.COM. The best part is with each entry per week, Natural Balance will donate a meal for a dog or cat to an animal shelter. In addition to this, if you are on Facebook, go to the PETCO page and the Dick Van Patten's Natural Balance fan page and click "Like" for each page. With every new "Like" those pages receive between now and January 1st, Natural Balance will also donate a meal for a dog or cat to a shelter! It's quick and easy to enter. All I ask is that you share this with your friends on facebook or Twitter. Let them know they can enter the sweepstakes, and help a shelter pet too. And mark your calendar to watch the Rose Parade on January 1st. Our float is going to be amazing and FUN!

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Petco's Natural Neighborhood Festival

Saturday I went to Petco's Natural Neighborhood Festival at the beach in Santa Monica, California. I brought Sheldon and Duncan along to see what it was all about and have a day out together. I was impressed by the set up- a huge patch of real grass, tents and lots of activities too. When we walked in I was greeted by an enthusiastic Petco associate who took our photo and gave me a nifty re-usable bag. The festival had several natural pet food vendors with tents, each giving out free samples and coupons for food and treats. All the brands they had were high quality natural foods, no junky grocery store brands or foods filled with cheap fillers. This was to educate people about why better food will help provide a healthier lifestyle. Being by the Santa Monica beach was a perfect setting. People were jogging, riding their bikes and walking their dogs. As they passed by their curiosity drew them into the festival to check it out. When I arrived, ABC TV was there filming, and also the folks from Greenwala.com were interviewing all sorts of people asking about how they are going more green with their pets. I took a bunch of photos, click on them to biggify for easier viewing:

above: DOG YOGA. Yes, you read that correctly. People doing yoga with their dogs. After all, this is Southern California, and you know how we all are here.

above: the Dog Yoga instructor was really good and kept the group in shape.

above: Natural Balance had Tillman's tour bus on site. Look closely, you can see the youngest bulldog, Sully in the car window waiting for Tillman to get ready to skateboard.

above: Tillman in the far distance, riding his skateboard along the beach walk. You can't see it, but on the right side was a huge crowd of people watching him go...

above: Tillman loves being on his skateboard, he is smiling here.

above: Ron Davis, Tillman's dad is interviewed by the lovely Ms Apple Levy from Greenwala.com

above: My Sheldon gets a mini-groom touch up by the beach. He stood on the table as Wendy clipped, brushed and fluffed him up!

above: click on the photo above left. The grassy area is so inviting, don't you think?

above: Me with Tracie Hotchner, author of the Dog Bible and Cat Bible. She is also a radio host on Sirius XM radio's Martha Stewart Living Radio. Above right is Dr Marty Becker, a well known vet who really knows his stuff. He spoke about the merits of natural pet foods and natural health care.

above: Sheldon checks out the Natural Balance booth and sniffs all the treats.

above: I love the dog in the photo above right- he is waiting while his mom gets some free samples and coupons from Lori at Natural Balance.

above: the dog agility area was a lot of fun to watch. Dogs just love this kind of stuff. I was really impressed by the entire natural festival. It reinforced to me that there are lots of pet parents who live healthy lifestyles who want the same for their pet. It's great that Petco hosted this event, it reinforced why Petco is where the pets go...for natural food especially!
-Rick Rockhill

Snowboarding Bulldogs Train for the Olympics

You're seen them here before, demonstrating their amazing abilities on skateboards and snowboarding on the world's longest parade float at the Rose Parade. Now Tillman, Rose, Lyle and Sully are training for a special competition at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver. Sponsored by Dick Van Patten's Natural Balance Pet Foods (my employer) they are training at the Mountain High slopes in Wrightwood, California. Tillman and Rose continue to attract a great deal of media attention. This week, the video of their training was featured in the UK. Soon they are headed north to Vancouver to join the Olympics festivities, which should be fun. Check out this FUN video of them all training and having a blast. Enjoy~

When Dogs Snowboard from Mountain High Resort on Vimeo.

My Photos from the Rose Parade

Whew, the past few days were filled with activity. I had a lot of fun attending the Rose Parade. It was a a little bit for fun and a little bit for work, which is why I was busy blogging and tweeting live from the parade. But in the end, I had a great time and it was well worth going. If you ever have the opportunity to plan a visit to the Rose Parade, do it at least once. It is a fun experience. We got to the parade route around 6:00 AM so we could get to our seats. Some people had started camping out as early as noon the prior day to secure a prime space on the sidewalk along the parade route. As I was attending for my company I was fortunate to have tickets to the viewing stands, so I as long as I arrived before they close off streets, I didn't have to get there much earlier. I wore layers of clothes to keep warm- it was only in the mid-forties at that pre-dawn hour. If you ever go, be sure to eat before you head over, and bring a thermos of hot cawfee or a bottle of water. Its virtually impossible to find anything once you are on the parade route. Once the parade began it was magic! There was excitement in the crowd, estimated at a million plus people along the entire route.

above: Watching dawn break at the parade route in Pasadena

above: The Natural Balance Pet Food float- certified by the Guinness Book of World Records as the World's Biggest Parade Float in history! It was massive,

above: the Natural Balance float approaches, in the front are Dick Van Patten and his son Jimmy Van Patten.

above: a close up of the Van Patten's. Jimmy is holding the new bulldog puppy, named "Sully" in honor of Captain Chesley Sullenberger who landed that airplane in the Hudson River last year and saved all those peoples lives.

above: Tillman prepares to go down the slope on his snowboard. The top of the ski slope was 16' high.

above: Tillman in action, snowboarding down on the float!

above: Another great shot of Tillman in action as the crowd cheered on. Snowboarding bulldogs were the hit of the parade! In fact there has been so much interest, Natural Balance actually now has Tillman Dog treats, and a plush dog toy of both Tillman and Rose (see below):

above: I bought the toys for my nieces who loved playing with them! Tillman even has a Fan Shop on my company's website. (sorry for sounding commercial there)
Here are the rest of my parade photos. Click on them to BIGGIFY for easier viewing

above: All American Cowgirl Chicks

above: City of Burbank float

above: Cal Poli University float

above: City of Cerritos float










above: I don't know how he did it, but this guy "lassoed" his rope around his horse the entire time.

above: the Kaiser Permanente float had lots of over-sized fruits and veggies

above: this Scissor Wizard float featured an origami dragon

Marching Bands Galore:



above: our Mighty Marines Marching band


above: the Mexico float




above: Rain Bird float featured Jack Hanna

above: the Rose Bowl (football) float

above: the Shanghai China float featured Jackie Chan

I hope you enjoyed my photos. Happy New Year to you. -Rick Rockhill