Once in a (great) while we like to pat ourselves on the back. This is one of those times.

For the fifth year in a row, KG Partners walked away a big winner at the Transportation Marketing & Communications Association (TMCA) Annual Conference & Expo, held this year in La Jolla. This year we took home five TMCA Compass Awards for the work the agency produced with our client, Con-way (NYSE:CNW).

The Compass Awards recognize members of the North American transportation and logistics industry that have created innovative, results-oriented marketing and communications programs.

We must admit we’re starting to feel a bit like Roger Federer in that NetJets commercial…except for the jet part, we don’t have one of those.

Hardened criminals. Wounded soldiers. Cute puppies.

It’s one of the most incredible ideas. Ever. And a PR opportunity that you could wait an entire career for. Our client FetchDog, a fast-growing purveyor of dog products, dog advice and all-around good karma for dogs and owners, hooked up with Puppies Behind Bars (PBB), a non-profit that teaches prison inmates to train service dogs, specifically dogs that help rehabilitate returning soldiers with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), TBI (traumatic brain injury) and other injuries.

Q: What would happen if FetchDog sells a special Chewy Shoe toy … that looks like the sole of an army boot … that’s made by Vibram, the company that actually makes army boots … that’s colored red, white and blue … that raises money to train more dogs, rehabilitate more inmates and relieve the pain of more wounded soldiers?

A: Dog Tags, an almost inconceivably good program that actually makes us all feel a little better about the world we live in, and makes a number of very special citizens of our Republic feel a whole lot better, period. And not in some hard-to-imagine, theoretical way, but in a real, demonstrative and profound way. Money from every Chewy Shoe toy sold from the FetchDog catalog or on the FetchDog website goes to PBB to fund Dog Tags. If you don’t believe me, here’s a clip on Oprah.com — it’s a portion of a 20 minute segment from the show Oprah dedicated to the cause on May 15th, featuring longtime dog enthusiast and supporter Glenn Close. Watch it and the other Dog Tags clips on Oprah’s website or the PBB website, and let me know its impact on you.

KG Partners was thrilled to do this work for FetchDog and on behalf of PBB, an effort that also produced coverage on PeoplePets.com (literally the “Facebook” for dog owners), Military.com (the resource for service members, military families and veterans), and dozens of other outlets. We used a combination of traditional media relations and social media practices (here’s the SMR — social media release) to bring this story to life in a way that earned hundreds of millions of high-value impressions, started the Chewy Shoe toys flying off the shelves, and got thousands of dollars (and counting) flowing into this impressive program.

- Dave Goldberg

…but we all knew that shelling out billions to GM was a bad idea, didn’t we?. Check out my post from last November. Here’s today’s letter from Chairman Kent Kresa to shareholders. Shares are up today (as of 1:25 in the afternoon). They’re now worth $.87.