Paw Prints the Magazine

About Us

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Welcome to the lifestyle magazine dedicated to regular pet owners and the love affair we all have with our companion animals.

The idea to publish PAW PRINTS evolved out of our personal desire for just such a publication and the fact that there was nothing like it anywhere near the Kansas City metropolitan area where we live.

So, in May 2004 we decided to put our collective experience in the film and television industry, as business owners and in advertising to create Paw Prints. Since that first issue Paw Prints has seen many changes in every area from our format to our logo and even our name.

The biggest change (and challenge) happened in 2007. Dale Smith, the magazine’s publisher was diagnosed with stage IV B cancer of the head & neck. Being a true “Mom and Pop” business, Paw Prints reluctantly took an involuntary hiatus as Dale went through major surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. The only thing we could hope for was that Dale’s doctors could work magic – a diagnosis of this particular cancer at stage IV B is generally not promising.

The doctors were able to work magic leaving Dale cancer free in April of 2008 and Paw Prints went back into production the following month, May 2008.

In November 2008 two new challenges presented themselves – the American economy and our growing concern for the environment. With newspapers and magazines closing all over the country, the meteoric rise in the cost of paper and our guilty feelings about our contribution to deforestation, Paw Prints The Magazine had to take a hard look at the future of our printed product. We decided that if we were going to keep Paw Prints free to our readers, affordable for our advertisers and become good stewards of the environment we would have to make some big changes.

So, in March 2009, we made a decision to discontinue to print the magazine. We would like to go back into print but our readership and circulation far exceeded our advertising revenue. So to keep Paw Prints free and available to our readers we decided to completely overhaul and re-launch PawPrintsTheMagazine.com. Now you will no longer have to wait for new “Stuff” from Paw Prints. We will have new content available all the time in all sections of our “online magazine” as well as breaking stories that we could never have hoped to address in a monthly periodical. We hope you visit the website often and look forward to seeing your comments.

We are now a true resource for the pet owner. This information on our website will only be limited to our physical ability to get the information posted. Paw Prints will not limit the reader’s resources to just those businesses that advertise with us. We will continuously be adding more and more information in every area of the website. Our Yellow Lab section will provide listings for every pet-related category of service and care imaginable; from veterinarians to groomers to poop scoopers. In other areas you’ll find extensive, nation-wide lists of pet friendly lodging, off leash parks, and more.

September 2009 saw another major enhancement to the Paw Prints brand. We added a talk radio show. That’s right, you can now call in and speak to Paw Prints directly. Paw Prints Live airs every Monday from 3:00 to 4:00 pm CST on 1160 am KCTO in Kansas City. If you want to listen in and you are not in Kansas City, Paw Prints Live is streamed live at on our Live On the Air Page . If you missed the show, don’t worry. You can listen to the podcast on our website. Just go to the Shows You Missed page. You can listen to all of our archived broadcasts with the click of the mouse.

Paw Prints is not intended to be a platform for personal political and philosophical agendas with regard to pets, pet ownership or animal rights. We are just “regular” pet owners and are not members of, nor associated with, any animal activist organizations. Our only “agenda” is to provide helpful and informative articles and stories, entertainment and news that will hold your attention page after page as well as to give you, pet owners and animal lovers, a central place to go for news and information that you think is important, keep you informed about things to do with your pets and family, and of course to ENTERTAIN you.

DALE SMITH, Partner / Publisher

Born and raised in Kansas City, I graduated from Hickman Mills High School, trekked off to Europe after graduation and came back to attend SMSU. After college, I owned my own business, got married, had three kids (Courtney, Kyle and Luke), got divorced, sold my business, began working in the publishing and advertising industries and got married again; to Stacy. All the while I owned Arabian Horses, a pot-bellied pig and the more traditional dogs and cats. One day the company I was working for decided to eliminate its KC office, gave us a severance package and told us to hit the road. Instead of going to work for someone else – again, Stacy and I decided to take the money from the severance package and start Paw Prints. Stacy was traveling for her job when we cooked this up and I called her one night in her hotel room and told her I’d collected our first check from an advertiser and it was time for her to quit her job. We did it!

Email Dale at dale@pawprintsthemagazine.com

STACY SMITH, Partner / Editor-In-Chief

Growing up in Overland Park (I went to Shawnee Mission South, in case you were wondering) gave me two things as a kid and then a teenager preparing for adulthood: 1) a bunch of well-grounded, Mid-western values, and 2) the desire to get as far away from here as possible as soon as I could! I chose to go as far as Tucson, AZ to attend the University of Arizona and soon after graduating moved on to spend the next ten years on Los Angeles, CA working in Hollywood. Upon returning to the KC area in 1999 with my Siberian Husky, Lab mix and two cats in tow, for what was supposed to be just a few months, I decided to give the Midwest another try. The move became permanent when Dale and I got together and eventually married in December of 2002. (Oh, did I mention that I then became step-mom to three teenagers at the time?) Since then, we’ve collected several more pets and started a pet magazine – this one. I still look at him sometimes and say, “Honey! We publish a magazine! How wild is that?” He just looks at me and laughingly says, “I know, Honey. Pretty wild.”

Email Stacy at stacy@pawprintsthemagazine.com

JEFF SCHEETZ & TOWSER, Contributing Writer(s)

Jeff Scheetz has spent his whole life as a musician. Touring the U.S., Europe and parts unknown, releasing 8 CDs, various guitar instructional books, videos and DVD’s, and writing for and appearing in many guitar magazines, performing hundreds of guitar clinics and seminars for Yamaha guitars, and teaching private lessons. So you would think that would keep him busy. Then he rescued an 8 week old puppy named Towser. That was when the “busy” got started! Towser showed a particular knack for catching Frisbees early on, and in his first year of competing he has won medals in 11 of the 12 events he has competed in. In Oct of 09 he became the Missouri state champion in Toss and fetch, and recently qualified for the 2010 Skyhoundz world championship. He has traveled across the country and performed demos for the KC Royals, KC Wizards and more. He is also an up and coming agility star and continues to amaze everyone with his skills. “Towser Talk” features reviews of products and hotels, as well as articles and tips from a traveling K9 athlete.

For more about Towser, visit the Team Towser website… www.teamtowser.com

If you’re interested in Jeff’s music, visit www.jeffscheetz.com

TONY BUSH, Graphic Designer

The Cartoon Dog illustrations you see in our print magazine and our website have all been created by Tony especially for Paw Prints. If you want to see more of Tony’s work including the many different breeds he’s illustrated visit www.cartoon-dogs.com. He has some cool, free Cartoon Dog wallpaper and icons for your computer or you can buy some stuff with Cartoon Dog illustrations.