Dogster Community Manager Lori Malm and I got to go to BlogPaws in Vienna, Virginia (just outside D.C.), a few weeks back. For those who are unfamiliar, it’s a social … erm … “petworking” conference where bloggers, publishers, and other pet-related industry folks converge for a few days of seminars and fun.

We were able to match faces to names we’d only seen in our e-mail inboxes, hang out with bloggers we already know and love, and see a little bit of Virginia and D.C. in between. Below are a few photos from our little adventure. The last photo shows us dressed for Hurricane Irene, which came down hard just as we were visiting the Smithsonian:

The folks from Petco had invited us to a private Blogpaws “pawty” at a hotel suite on the second day of the conference, but had to cancel last-minute when it became evident that the hurricane wasn’t going to deviate from its path. But they were cool enough to mail us a box full of swag featuring their upcoming holiday toys and outfits for pets. There was SO much of it that we want to give some of you guys a chance to take home some of the holiday outfits:

Tell us in the comments which outfit your pup would like — the first two can fit small to medium dogs, while the third item is for a larger pup. We’ll pick the answers we like best on Monday, Sept. 26, and ship them out pronto. Yay, freebies!