Vavoom!

Bathing your VKC Dog

Friday, July 30th, 2010 | Readers' Dogs, VKC News | No Comments

If you haven’t seen seen or tried this yet, then it’s high time that you did! It’s not a Vavoom! product, this is the amazing LogSpark Dog Bath for VKC Dogs made by Blu,  Sandry and Solcar, my old friends from Turing Isle. The bath has separate bathing animations for each of the dog breeds and scripted “themes” so that you can change the look of it with the touch of a button. The sponge produces bubbles as you bathe the dogs and there is an amazing control that allows you to move your avatar around to get the best position to suit your size and shape. There is nothing that could even be described as similar to this product.  How many VKC trainers can you spot in this video?

For the best quality, click on the video and watch it on the youtube web site in HD.

Vavoom! News July 2010

Friday, July 2nd, 2010 | Vavoom! News | No Comments

Dear Everyone,

It’s all about houses and beds this month!

1. Magic Mushroom Dog House

Here’s something a little different to my usual style. The Vavoom! Magic Mushroom dog house is built with a mixture of sculpted and regular prims and features hand-painted textures exclusively made for this house. It’s shown with a small breed in the photo, but it will extend right up to Hyena and Irish Wolfhound size if you’d like it to.

Copy/Mod. No Transfer. 10 Prims.

If you wish to purchase one of these for someone else, there are Gift Vendors at all my stores.

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2. Round Wicker Multi-Dog Beds

Designed to accommodate several dogs at once, the Round Wicker Multi-Dog Beds come in a choice of dark or light wicker baskets have a scripted controller that allows you to select one of 9 different quilt colours to fit in with your décor.

These beds include all the usual Vavoom! Dog Bed features: when dogs go to sleep in the bed, they are set to passive so they stay there. When you use the Wake Up feature to get them up again, they are set back to active. Don’t forget, if you have a number of dogs that regularly share the bed, there is a feature to save the positions where they sleep so that you can send them all to bed at once.

The colour menu is accessed by touching the bed and choosing Options from the Menu and then Colours.

Copy/Mod. No Transfer. 1 Prim.

If you wish to purchase one of these for someone else, there are Gift Vendors at all my stores.

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3. Red Roofed Doghouse

Using the techniques developed for last month’s Log Cabin Doghouse release, this is another build with custom made sculpted prims, baked textures and three built in themes:

1. Dark Wood
2. Medium Wood
3. Light Wood

You can access the themes by touching the quilt and choosing Options from the Menu and then Colours.

The Red Roofed Doghouses are designed to be shared by a number of dogs. You click on the point on the quilt where you want the dog to lie down. When dogs go to sleep in the house, they are set to passive so they stay there. When you use the Wake Up feature to get them up again, they are set back to active. Don’t forget, if you have a number of dogs that regularly share the house, there is a feature to save the positions where they sleep so that you can send them all to the house at once.

Copy/Mod. No Transfer. 8 Prims.

If you wish to purchase one of these for someone else, there are Gift Vendors at all my stores.

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Lost Products

Don’t forget that anything you buy at the Vavoom! Store can be reclaimed for free if you lose it. If you need to reclaim something, you do it at the Update Stations:

SLURL: Vavoom! Update Stations

Did I say that it’s free?

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Want to Unsubscribe from the news service?

If you no longer want to receive these notices, please send me a Notecard with your name and the word unsubscribe. (You can just put this as the name of the Notecard, if you like. No Need to write anything inside.)

If you request to unsubscribe from this service, please be SURE that this is what you want to do. It means that you will not hear when there are updates to the Vavoom! Accessories even if those updates are vital when the dogs are changed such that the accessories MUST be changed to continue to work with the dogs. (This is of course a rare occurrence, but it is not entirely unheard of.)

Thanks as always for shopping at Vavoom!

Chiva

Vavoom! News June 2010

Sunday, June 13th, 2010 | Vavoom! News | No Comments

Dear Everyone,

I’ve only actually got two things to show you this month, but I think you’ll agree that they’re rather special.

1. Log Cabin Dog Houses

Making a log cabin dog house had been on my to-do list for ages. I finally got around to it earlier this week. I started off with a low prim house and found some log textures, but it just didn’t look right. So I decided to build it myself from scratch. The sculpted prims were made by me and the textures were baked for those prims. So what you see here is all exclusively by Vavoom!

The Log Cabin Dog House has three built in themes:

1. Dark wood
2. Medium wood
3. Light wood

You can access the themes by touching the quilt and choosing Options from the Menu and then Colours.

The Log Cabin houses are designed to be shared by a number of dogs. You click on the point on the quilt where you want the dog to lie down. When dogs go to sleep in the house, they are set to passive so they stay there. When you use the Wake Up feature to get them up again, they are set back to active. Don’t forget, if you have a number of dogs that regularly share the house, there is a feature to save the positions where they sleep so that you can send them all to bed at once.

Each house is made from eight Prims and is Copy and Mod. (No Transfer)

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2. Grad Cap Magic Toy

You can wear this AND your dog can play with it. If you wear it, it attaches to your chin. If you then right click and drop it (or just rez it from your inv), you can touch it and have the dog fetch it for you. But, if your hair gets all sticky because the dog had your hat in his mouth, then it’s nothing to do with me. As with the new houses, the sculpties and textures are exclusively Vavoom!

The Grad caps are made from two prims and are Copy and Mod. (No Transfer)

BTW, congratulations to Roe!

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Lost Products

Don’t forget that anything you buy at the Vavoom! Store can be reclaimed for free if you lose it. If you need to reclaim something, you do it at the Update Stations:

SLURL: Vavoom! Update Stations

Did I say that it’s free?

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Want to Unsubscribe from the news service?

I am planning to introduce a system that will allow you to unsubscribe from the notices yourself, but it is going to be a while before it is ready. In the meantime, if you no longer want to receive these notices, please send me a Notecard with your name and the word unsubscribe. (You can just put this as the name of the Notecard, if you like. No Need to write anything inside.)

If you request to unsubscribe from this service, please be SURE that this is what you want to do. It means that you will not hear when there are updates to the Vavoom! Accessories even if those updates are vital when the dogs are changed such that the accessories MUST be changed to continue to work with the dogs. (This is of course a rare occurrence, but it is not entirely unheard of.)

Thanks as always for shopping at Vavoom!

Chiva

Vavoom! News May 2010

Saturday, May 8th, 2010 | Vavoom! News | No Comments

Dear Everyone,

What’s new for May 2010? Oooooh where should I start…

1. A new *Magic* Bed
2. A new Active Toy
3. Two new *Magic* Toys
4. Half Price Product-Retirement Sale
5. Updates to Beds and Dog Houses

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1. The new dog bed is “Jack’s Bed”.

Designed with the Jack Russell Terrier in mind, Jack’s Bed is a wicker basket with a comfy pillow inside. It’s all done with one sculpted prim and it has a choice of six baked textures all controlled from the Colours section of the *Magic Bed* script.

Although I designed it whilst thinking about the new Jack Russell Terrier, it will work with any of the dogs. You can shrink it down for your Chihuahua or stretch it out for your Irish Wolfhound.

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2. The new *Active* Toy is called CoCo’s Cupcake.

A few weeks ago a good friend of both Vavoom! and the Virtual Kennel Club, Roe Woodford, was celebrating the birthday of her dog Coco. Roe called Sandry Logan looking for a cake for Coco. Sandry called me and here’s the result! The pack contains both Pink and Blue Cupcakes.

Happy Birthday Coco!

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3. New *Magic* Toys

Buddy Toy – Single prim. Baked texture. Choice of two colours.

USB Drive – A geeky dog toy. Or a toy for geeky dogs?

One prim. Baked Texture. Choiced of three colours: Red, Blue, Pink

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4. Product Retirement Sale.

I’m going to retire some of the older Vavoom! products/colour options to make room for new things. I’ve put everything that is being dicontinued in a skybox over my Main Store and set it to half the regular price. It will be there until the next edition of the Vavoom! News Letter comes out. After that, it’ll be gone.

SLURL : Vavoom! Product Retirement Sale

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5. Updates to beds and houses.

This is a bug fix release, but it applies to only a tiny fraction of owners. The bug only occurs if you have a dog named Red or Blue (or one of the other colour names that I used In the Wicker Beds series). It is present in most beds and houses that were sold or updated since March 2010, but it is not present in the new Sam’s Dog House that came out in March. I think this only affects a tiny minority of dog owners because there are only a few of you with dogs that are named after colours. If you *are* affected, please come and collect an update from the Update Stations.

SLURL: Vavoom! Update Stations

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Lost Products

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Don’t forget that anything you buy at the Vavoom! Store can be reclaimed for free if you lose it. If you need to reclaim something, you do it at the Update Stations:

SLURL: Vavoom! Update Stations

Did I say that it’s free?

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Want to Unsubscribe from the news service?

I am planning to introduce a system that will allow you to unsubscribe from the notices yourself, but it is going to be a while before it is ready. In the meantime, if you no longer want to receive these notices, please send me a Notecard with your name and the word unsubscribe. (You can just put this as the name of the Notecard, if you like. No Need to write anything inside.)

If you request to unsubscribe from this service, please be SURE that this is what you want to do. It means that you will not hear when there are updates to the Vavoom! Accessories even if those updates are vital when the dogs are changed such that the accessories MUST be changed to continue to work with the dogs. (This is of course a rare occurrence, but it is not entirely unheard of.)

Thanks as always for shopping at Vavoom!

Chiva

Jack Russell Terriers

Saturday, April 24th, 2010 | VKC News | No Comments

Rico released the long awaited VKC™ Jack Russell Terriers today, aren’t they gorgeous?

They has a second bellyup pose, bellyup2 so you can teach an itch or scratch trick and he also has down2 and lick1 and lick2 poses that you can build into your tricks.  You can access the new poses with the pose command, for example:

jack pose down2

This the first dog that Enrico has brought us as the result of a VKC™ Favorite Breed Poll and voting in the poll has its rewards, two dozen voters received their Jack Russells for free. So make sure you vote next time. It doesn’t matter whether or not you vote for the winner, just vote!

Come and see them today at your favourite VKC™ Dog Park. Watch the Vavoom! News for new accessories next week.

Vavoom! News April 2010

Sunday, April 4th, 2010 | Uncategorized | No Comments

Dear Everyone,

The April 2010 Vavoom! Newsletter brings you:

1. New Raised Food and Water Bowls

2. A new *Magic* Toy

3. An Update for Sam’s Dog House

4. Updates to all Vavoom! *Magic* Bowls

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1. The New Raised Food and Water Bowls are only One Prim and have individually Baked Textures. There are four designs with a food bowl and a water bowl for each design.

• Carved Wood

• Pebbles

• Rose Tile

• Tiled

As you would expect, the bowls are copy and modify so that you can resize them to suit your dogs and you get a standard size and a small size with each purchase.

They’re available individually or in twin packs . There is a discount for the twin packs.

You can view them and try them out at my Main Store.

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2. The New *Magic* Toy this month is a Traffic Cone.

I was reminded recently of a story about a German Shepherd Dog called Chloe who thought that traffic cones were the best toy ever. She’d take her cone into the garden and drag it around shaking and chewing it until it was reduced to small pieces of plastic. The trouble was she’d see one in the street and want to do the same thing to that too. This is my tribute to Chloe.

There are two types in the pack, one with a square base and one with a round base.

By the way, it was my turn to provide an item for the Grid-wide Hunt that Turing Isle is taking part in this month. I put the Traffic Cone in, so if you hunt around a bit, you can get it for free.

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3. The Update for Sam’s Dog House is a small bug fix. If you bought one of these cute colour changing houses last month, you may have noticed that it failed to return from the Colours Menu to the Main Menu when the button was clicked. This update fixes that bug.

This applies to Sam’s Dog House if you purchased it before 2 Aprl 2010. The other dog houses are not affected.

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4. The updates to the Food and Drinking Bowls add a couple of new features and also include some general tidying up of the code to make it more efficient.

• You can now set the range within which the bowl will call the dogs.

• If you click on the bowl and there are a lot of dogs in the vicinity (more than 12), the bowl will automatically generate a Menu with buttons for “More” (and “Back”) so that you can browse all the dogs that are nearby. (This works up to a maximum of 16 dogs, because 16 is maximum number that can be found by an LSL Sensor.)

Don’t forget that if you purchased your bowls in my “Mega-Pack”, you need to use the Mega-Pack Updater instead of the bowls one when you come to collect.

This applies to all Vavoom! Bowls purchased before 2 April 2010.

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Lost Products

Don’t forget that anything you buy at the Vavoom! Store can be reclaimed for free if you lose it. If you need to reclaim something, you do it at the Update Stations:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Turing%20Isle/122/5/26

Did I say that it’s free?

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Want to Unsubscribe from the news service?

I have a longer term plan to introduce a system that will allow you to unsubscribe from the notices yourself, but I’m still a long way from having time to work on it. So in the meantime, if you no longer want to receive these notices, please send me a Notecard with your name and the word unsubscribe. (You can just put this as the name of the Notecard, if you like. No Need to write anything inside.)

If you request to unsubscribe from this service, please be SURE that this is what you want to do. It means that you will not hear when there are updates to the Vavoom! Accessories even if those updates are vital when the dogs are changed such that the accessories MUST be changed to continue to work with the dogs. (This is of course a rare occurrence, but it is not entirely unheard of.)

.

Thanks as always for shopping at Vavoom!

Chiva

Vavoom! News March 2010

Saturday, March 6th, 2010 | Uncategorized | No Comments

Vavoom! News March 2010

Dear Everyone,

.The big news this month is:         You CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER!

We have five new fast-food toys (Fat Pack Available), a new dog house and an update to the Vavoom! Lost Toy Remover.

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1. Sam’s Dog House

This has the the regular features that you’d expect from a Vavoom! Dog House:
* Menu controls for choosing a dog
* Menu controls for choosing a pose
* The dog becomes passive when he goes to sleep in the house
* The dog becomes active again when you wake him up from the house

This dog house also has a colour changing feature. If you click on the house and choose the Options button, you can then choose the colours menu and choose a colour for the outside of the dog house and the bed inside the house also changes texture to match.

Why is it called Sam’s Dog House? When I was building it and testing it my dog Sam was “helping” me. To be more precise he was running all over Turing Isle having a really good time, wagging his tail and rolling around on his back for everyone and everything that he saw. I was struggling to think of a name for the dog house at the time and Sam was making me laugh, so I named it after him.

Of course, even though it was designed with the aid of my Newfoundland, it doesn’t have to be a house for a big black dog. You can scale it down (or up) and use it with any of your VKC dogs. I thought it looked so cute in the tiny size that I put a small version in the box ready to go. Here’s a photo of Sam’s Dog House in miniature for little Emily.

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2. Five Brand New Fast Food Toys

Two *Magic* Toys.
Two *Active* Toys.
One *Squeaky* Toy.

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The Pretzel and the Polish Sausage are Magic Toys.

Rez them and drag (or just touch them). When the menu drops down, choose a dog and he will fetch it.  If you just want your dog to carry the toy around with him, tell him to take the toy.

For example:

joey take pretzel
or
joey take polish

Rez them and drag (or just touch them). When the menu drops down, choose a dog and he will fetch it.  If you just want your dog to carry the toy around with him, tell him to take the toy.

For example:

joey take pretzel
or
joey take polish

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The Strawberry Shake is a Squeaky Toy.

Rez it and drag (or just touch it). When the menu drops down, choose a dog and he will fetch it.  When the dog is carrying the toy he squeaks it at random intervals and he squeaks it again just before he drops it.  If you just want your dog to carry the toy around with him, tell him to take the toy.

For example:

joey take strawberry

When you’ve had enough of the squeaking, you can tell him to drop the toy.

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The Linked Sausages and the Cheeseburger are Active Toys.

Active toys mean that your dog(s) will play with the toy pretty much continually. Just rez it and watch the fun. Your dog will carry the toy, groan, growl, pant, roll around, all the sorts of things you’d expect a dog to do with his favourite toy. If you have more than one dog, they’ll take turns in playing with it.

If it all gets too much, or if it is distracting when you are trying to get the dog to do something else, just take the toy away or turn it off.

How do you turn it off?
Tell the dog to drop the toy. Click on the toy and hold your mouse down. After a few seconds a menu will drop down, where you can turn the toy off so that the dogs won’t keep on playing with it. You can read the full details of the menu options on my web site:

http://www.chivavavoom.com/?page_id=172

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Fast Food Fatpack
You can buy all five Vavoom! Fast Food Toys in a Fat-Pack if you prefer and save 30%.

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3. Updated Vavoom! Lost Toy Remover.

As I’m sure you remember, the  Vavoom! Lost Toy Remover is designed to remove all of your Vavoom! Dog toys in a sim (provided of course that they’re recent, compatible editions and in a parcel where your scripts can run). This update adds a little extra that makes it work up to 100 metres into the neighbouring regions. Thanks to Peg and Qwerty for helping with this idea!

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Lost Products

Don’t forget that anything you buy at the Vavoom! Store can be reclaimed for free if you lose it. If you need to reclaim something, you do it at the Update Stations:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Turing%20Isle/122/5/26

Did I say that it’s free?

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Want to Unsubscribe from the news service?

I have a longer term plan to introduce a system that will allow you to unsubscribe from the notices yourself, but I’m still a long way from having time to work on it. So in the meantime, if you no longer want to receive these notices, please send me a Notecard with your name and the word unsubscribe. (You can just put this as the name of the Notecard, if you like. No Need to write anything inside.)

If you request to unsubscribe from this service, please be SURE that this is what you want to do. It means that you will not hear when there are updates to the Vavoom! Accessories even if those updates are vital when the dogs are changed such that the accessories MUST be changed to continue to work with the dogs. (This is of course a rare occurrence, but it is not entirely unheard of.)

.

Thanks as always for shopping at Vavoom!

Chiva

Vavoom! News February 2010

Friday, February 5th, 2010 | Vavoom! News | No Comments

Vavoom! News February 2010

Dear Everyone,

February’s Vavoom! News brings you some fabulous new Multi-Dog *Magic Beds*, a Limited Edition Valentine Bear, a new “Loyalty Vendor” Freebie plus updates to the Magic Beds, Chaises, Cuddle your Dog Rugs, Magic Dog Houses and the Poser for Dogs!

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1. The New Magic Beds offer a major improvement in looks over the previous versions.
I’ve been learning some news skills and have employed them to make single prim sculpty beds with baked textures to give the most realistic look that I’ve achieved yet. There are three different styles:

• Low Wicker Bed
• Raised Wicker Bed
• Heart-Shaped Wicker Bed

The Heart-Shaped version has three different colour choices for the pillow inside the bed: Red, Blue and Pink.

The other two versions have six colours: Red, Blue, Green, Orange, Purple, and Pink.

All three versions have all the latest Multi-Dog Magic Bed scripts with saved sleeping positions and commands to send all the dogs to bed together or wake them all up at once.

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2. The Valentine Bear went on display on the 1^st February. He works just like the other bears, you carry him in the crook of your right arm (with an animation by Solcar Amat) and you touch him to rez a Vavoom! Dog Toy. The Valentine Bear’s Toy is a Red Heart.

The Valentine Bear will be in the stores until 1^st March.

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3. As I am sure you will recall, the Vavoom! “Loyalty Vendor” gives you its contents Free when you touch it, if you are an existing Vavoom! Customer. If you’re not already a customer then you can pay the vendor its regular price or you could purchase something else and then go back to get the Loyalty Vendor’s item for free.

This month’s item is a Hot Pink Heart Shaped Toy. Instead of being a puffy-heart style like the Valentine Bear’s toy, this one is a made from a tube, so there’s a hole through the middle like a ring.

It will be in the Loyalty Vendor until the end of February.

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4. Updates to Magic Beds, Chaises, Cuddle your Dog Rugs, Magic Dog Houses and the Poser for Dogs

Aas I’m sure you know, Enrico released the White German Shepherd Dog just a couple of days ago. If you have one of these dogs, these updates will make sure that your White GSD is positioned beautifully on his bed, chaise, rug, house or poser.

These updates apply to all Vavoom Beds, Dog Houses, Chaises, Rugs and the Poser that were sold before 5 February 2010.

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Lost Products

Don’t forget that anything you buy at the Vavoom! Store can be reclaimed for free if you lose it. If you need to reclaim something, you do it at the Update Stations:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Turing%20Isle/122/5/26

Did I say that it’s free?

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Want to Unsubscribe from the news service?

I have a longer term plan to introduce a system that will allow you to unsubscribe from the notices yourself, but I’m still a long way from having time to work on it. So in the meantime, if you no longer want to receive these notices, please send me a Notecard with your name and the word unsubscribe. (You can just put this as the name of the Notecard, if you like. No Need to write anything inside.)

If you request to unsubscribe from this service, please be SURE that this is what you want to do. It means that you will not hear when there are updates to the Vavoom! Accessories even if those updates are vital when the dogs are changed such that the accessories MUST be changed to continue to work with the dogs. (This is of course a rare occurrence, but it is not entirely unheard of.)

.

Thanks as always for shopping at Vavoom!

Chiva

Douglas Wants To Play!

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010 | Readers' Dogs | No Comments

These two photos were sent to me by Qwerty Qork who is partnered with my old friend Peg Nightfire.  Qwerty said:

“Peg and I both use your toys for the dogs. it keeps them happy and active, this pic is Douglas as I was TRYING to rest.“

She went on to tell me that she has a Rottie in RL too and he plays happily with a 13″ car tyre! Hence the enlarged Vavoom! toy you can see him offering to Qwerty in the photo.

In the second photo Qwerty and Peg’s Rottweilers assume their guard positions using the Vavoom Poser for Dogs.

Vavoom! News January 2010

Saturday, January 9th, 2010 | Vavoom! News | No Comments

Vavoom! News January 2010

Dear Everyone,

What’s in the Vavoom! News this month? Well…. there are a couple of product updates, two new Weathervanes and New Toys!

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1. Updates are available for the Cuddle Rugs and for the HUD:

• Rugs are updated to position Widget (The VKC Mutt) and the Polar Bears accurately. Yes, that’s right, the cuddle rugs work with the Polar Bear too.
  (You’ll find that the Beds and Houses work too, the reason that I’m making a mention of the Rugs is because I specifically modified them to work with the bears.)

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• The HUD also gets an update this time out. It’s nothing major and you don’t *need* to rush off to get this one. The update is internal and means that it will no longer matter if you have empty lines in the dog_names Notecard. (It prevents the “No Dogs” error that occurs if you have extra white space in the Notecard.)

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2. New Toys:

• Widget Beer – this is a toy that I make for each breed. When your dog fetches this toy for you, he throws it to you, you catch it and drink it! If you haven’t seen this before, it’s a lot of fun.
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• Portie Beer – the observant among you will have noticed that I never made a beer can toy for the Portuguese Water Dog back when the breed was released. So this one fills the gap in the range.
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3. Weathervanes:

• Weatherwanes are available for both Widget and the Polar Bear. If you have not seen these before, they’re in a holo-vendor on the deck at my Main Store.here is a Weathervane for each VKC breed and as you might expect change direction as the SL wind changes.

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4. The Winter Bear goes on sale today for a very limited period:

• As I explained in a previous Newsletter, he was my item in the Snowflake Hunt and we were requested to make our hunt items exclusive to the hunt until it finished. Well, the hunt finishes today, I’ll put him on sale for the next four weeks in case anyone still wants one. After that I’ll retire him completely because it has always been my intention for the bears series to be Limited Editions.

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Lost Products

Don’t forget that anything you buy at the Vavoom! Store can be reclaimed for free if you lose it. If you need to reclaim something, you do it at the Update Stations:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Turing%20Isle/122/5/26

Did I say that it’s free?

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Want to Unsubscribe from the news service?

I am planning to introduce a system that will allow you to unsubscribe from the notices yourself, but it is going to be a while before it is ready. In the meantime, if you no longer want to receive these notices, please send me a Notecard with your name and the word unsubscribe. (You can just put this as the name of the Notecard, if you like. No Need to write anything inside.)

If you request to unsubscribe from this service, please be SURE that this is what you want to do. It means that you will not hear when there are updates to the Vavoom! Accessories even if those updates are vital when the dogs are changed such that the accessories MUST be changed to continue to work with the dogs. (This is of course a rare occurrence, but it is not entirely unheard of.)

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Thanks as always for shopping at Vavoom!

Chiva