For the seventh straight time, Two Salty Dogs is Downeast Dog News Best Pet Store in Maine. Store owners Don and Liana Kingsbury were pleased. They thanked a dedicated fan base.

“Out of eight years being in business, I thought that's pretty good,” Don said.

He said the store’s advertising is his brainchild and, if you read the Boothbay Register or follow the store on Facebook, you may have seen some of the over-the-top silliness that puts a Two Salty Dogs advertisement in its own category of sales brilliance.

“It's all about catching the eye. The one that was most effective for us in the Boothbay Register was the freckled kid. People laughed asking why we put that in. It’s because it draws your eye to it.”

According to Don, his best ad or post was one last year before a snowstorm. “When I knew we were going to be closed the next day, I put a picture of this clam on a rock and it said 'the clam before the storm' ...”

About a foot of snow later, Two Salty Dogs was inundated with emails from clammers angry with how Don's jest pictured the mollusk. Did he take it down? “No, I try to have fun with the advertising, give it the extra push because I think that's how we pick up a lot of the fans.”

Some ads were less popular, such as one with a spider. It garnered several emails asking him to get rid of it because it would creep them out as they scrolled down their news feed. 

Besides the fans the Facebook profile and Boothbay Register ads bring in, the products the store carries have helped earned Two Salty Dogs the best pet store title. Those include foods, treats, grooming supplies, leashes, leads and pet-safe salt for ice. And you can order a doggy birthday cake. 

Buddy, one of the three salty dogs in the Kingsbury household, will turn 14 on Early Bird Day, Nov. 23, Don said. “We give him 30 seconds to do as much damage to the cake as he can before we split it up and give it to the rest of the dogs. But this year we'll give him a full minute because he's blind and deaf and all he can really do is smell and walk. People should feel free to come in that morning and celebrate with Buddy.”