Pet Blogger Challenge 2013

I'm so glad to be participating in the Third Annual Pet Blogger Challenge! This is my first time participating in the Pet Blogger Challenge sponsored by Go Pet Friendly.  It's a wonderful way to get to know other pet bloggers and share information about improving our blogs, and inspire each other. 

With no further ado, here are my responses to the questions for first timers.

I first began my blog in November 2007.  The truth is that I began blogging because "everyone" said that if you had a business, you needed a blog.  So, I guess you could say I began blogging to check that off my business plan list!

It wasn't long before I realized that I had more to say about dogs than I did about my dog jewelry!  I found it was a good way to share events, adoptable pets, and highlight pet causes of interest to my readers (the majority of which are my customers and definitely dog lovers.)

In addition, though I do love working in my studio creating jewelry, I do not really enjoy the hours (and hours) of computer time essential to my business.  EXCEPT for blogging!  Most of the time, I wish I had more time to devote to my blog because it is just plain fun and gives me a feeling of satisfaction.

For the past three years I've blogged daily, sometimes posting twice a day.  I do have a bit of a schedule.  Every Wednesday, I do a Wordless Wednesday post of photograph(s) and now participate in BlogPaws pet blogger hop that day.  Every Saturday is Dog Song Saturday at Talking Dogs, when I feature dog music videos.  Every Sunday, I feature an adoptable dog.  If I'm reviewing a dog treat or we've tried a new dog treat recipe, I publish those posts on Tuesday in order to participate in the Tasty Tuesday blog hop.

For me, time is a four letter word.  There's never enough of it.  My dream would be to better plan and focus my blog, to clean up my blog pages and add pr/review information, and to visit other blogs more often and leave comments. These are my goals for 2013.

How much time to I spend writing my blog per week?  Too much, yet not enough.  There's never, ever enough time to visit all the other blogs I follow.  I allot two hours in the early morning to do social media:  Twitter, Facebook, Triberr, and others, plus try to visit blogs I follow in my Google reader.  More often than not, I don't have time to follow up on reader comments.

I measure my success by the traffic to my blog, the emails I receive from my readers and, yes, the phone calls.  For some reason Dog Song Saturday generates telephone calls and, in the past, posts I did on Missouri puppy mills generated quite a bit of email and telephone calls.  

If I could ask the pet blogging community for help with one issue, it would be regarding time management.  How do you do all that you do?!


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Dog Song Saturday: My Christmas Dream

This Saturday take a moment to enjoy a festive holiday dog song.  My Christmas Dream was composed for the ABC Family Channel movie The Dog Who Saved Christmas.  Lyrics come from Toni Bull Bua, music written by Gene Bua, Daniel Alexander and Brandon Jarrett.

The Dog Who Saved Christmas tells the story about Zeus, a yellow Labrador Retriever dog who's been left in an animal shelter because he's lost his bark.  In My Christmas Dream Zeus prays for a family who will love him for who he really is.  

In the interests of full disclosure, I have not seen this movie.  However, this is a great original dog song and, truth be told, I cannot resist a yellow Lab.

Grab a dog, a yellow Lab if you've got one.  (C'mere, Rudy!)  Sit.  Stay.  Relax and enjoy My Christmas Dream.

Fetch more dog song music videos at Talking Dogs to warn your heart and get your doggie groove on.  

Be sure to scroll down below today's dog song to explore some barking good dog blogs because today is the Pet Blogger Hop!

Be the Change for Animals 2012: Dog Breed Discrimination

 This is not the blog post I intended to write for Blog the Change for Animals.   I'd planned to write about Pit Bulls and breed discrimination, because I could so easily tie it in to National Pit Bull Awareness Month.  Also because I am beginning to succumb to an almost overwhelming desire to add a pittie or Pit Bull mix dog to our our family.  When I feature adoptable dogs here on the blog, 9 times of out ten it is a Pit Bull type dog that grabs my attention.  

I've now spent the past couple of days reading and researching for my intended post.  What's taken so long?  One thing leads to another and I've found myself very disturbed at what I've learned about dog breed discrimination, related legislation, and our current cultural bias of blaming the dog and/or the dog breed, rather than the dog owner. 

You say you're not worried about dog breed discrimination because you don't own a Pit Bull. 

Right. 

I don't have a Pit Bull (yet), but I'm plenty worried about breed discrimination.

Please forgive me for butchering  Martin Niemoller's quotation:

First they came for the Doberman Pinschers
and I didn't speak out because my dog was not a Doberman.

Then they came for the Rottweilers
and I didn't speak out because my dog was not a Rottweiler.

Then they came for the Pit Bulls
and I didn't speak out because my dog wasn't a Pit Bull.

Then they came for my dogs...

Tucker:  Does this look like a dangerous, vicious dog to you?

 It's not that I didn't know about breed discrimination.  The last time we shopped homeowners insurance was shortly after Tucker passed away.  That was probably a good thing because we would have had to lie, been denied by the company we liked, or continued to shop around.

Tucker was a mutt.  There was probably some Lab in there.  However, according to our vets in both Virginia and Missouri, there was definitely some Chow.

That would have been a problem.  

In fact, all of the insurance companies we called had rules about dogs.  In fact, some weren't keen on the size of ours.
  

All of the Talking Dogs are on a list somewhere as banned or restricted.

It reminded me of years ago when I was apartment hunting for a place for me and my dog, Benji, to live in Kansas City.   I no longer remember how many landlords turned me down.  Not because I had a dog.  Benji was a mutt.  A large Doberman / German Shepherd mixed breed dog.  In those days, both of those dog breeds, along with Rottweilers, were looked upon with fear and loathing.

These days it seems Pit Bulls are the first dog breed mentioned in any discussion of "dangerous dogs" or dog breed discrimination.  However, according to Stubby Dog, many insurance companies, cities and counties also target Rottweilers, German Shepherds, Doberman Pinchers, American Bull Dogs, Bull Terriers, Mastiffs, Dalmatians, Chow Chows, mixes of those dog breeds, as well as other large breeds.

Over the years many of our dogs have been mutts that we (and our vets) have made guesses in terms of breed.  Those breeds include:  Beagle, Cocker Spaniel, Doberman Pinscher, German Shepherd, Labrador Retriever, Border Collie,  Golden Retriever and Chow.  Most were large dogs.  

 Not a one was a dangerous dog.

I've been bitten by two dogs in my life.  One was my own Beagle.  I was a kid and I did something stupid.  I deserved that bite.  I learned from from that bite.  And so did my mother.  The other bite was also when I was a child:  an aunt's rescued Cocker Spaniel who was one cranky dog and probably shouldn't have been around children.

Both times I was bitten, it was a case of a dog owner not being a responsible dog owner.  Neither dog breed appears on the lists of dog breeds frequently targeted by breed discrimination legislation. 

Micaela Myers, writing for Stubby Dog, an organization dedicated to changing public perceptions of Pit Bulls, defines BDL:

Breed-discriminatory legislation (BDL) refers to laws that target dogs based on how they look rather than their actions. Hundreds of U.S. cities have already enacted BDL, and more cities adopt it every year. Many cities and counties�plus Marine Corps and Army bases�have banned select breeds altogether. Other cities enact BDL that automatically labels dogs of certain breeds as �vicious� or �dangerous� regardless of their behavior. These laws may require owners of the targeted breeds to follow strict guidelines, such as sterilization, proof of liability insurance, housing of the dog in a cage with a roof and floor, and muzzling the dog when on a leash.

Amy Burkert of Go Pet Friendly notes that across the US, municipalities have placed bans or restrictions on more than 100 breeds of dogs.  Penalties range from fines to your dog being seized and euthanized.  In fact, Burkert began making a a list of all the affected dog breeds, but gave up when it passed 100 affected dog breeds.  She notes that some of the BDL laws have such broad language that they include dogs that look like the targeted breeds. 

Dog breed discrimination is an issue of huge importance to any and all dog owners.  Just because you don't own a dog on any of these targeted lists, doesn't mean that your favorite dog breed or mutt isn't already affected or won't be in the future.

What you can do: 

• Become aware of the laws governing your home city or county and make sure that you are in compliance.  

• When you're traveling, make sure your dogs are safe by knowing about breed restrictions where you're traveling to or through.

• Take action when breed specific legislation is proposed in your city or state.  Attend public meetings and speak out.  Write letters to your elected officials and local newspaper.

• Take every opportunity to help promote awareness of the positive attributes of your particular dog breed.

•  Make sure that you are a responsible dog owner and that your own dogs are well trained and behaved.

Be the Change for Animals (BtC4animals.com) - where everyday advocates band together to make the world a better place for animals.  The goal of BtC4Animals is to ignite and accelerate the change that we can make as individuals.  They highlight one cause per week and provide information on how readers can help.  Blog the Change takes place quarterly. 

One Lovely Blog Award: Big Smiley Face Here

Thank you to Heart Like a Dog

Now that Jodi has given up on me ever doing anything about this....  sorry, Jodi...  I really am thrilled to announce that she bestowed on me the One Lovely Blog Award!

Then she went on to say some very (VERY) nice things about my dog lover jewelry and this blog.  Jeffie and Rudy can verify my blush.   

You can read about it at her Heart Like a Dog blog here.  You'll notice that Jodi was awarded more than one award.  Definitely deserved.  I know that I always enjoy her posts, especially her rants on WTF/WooHoo Wednesdays.


The rules for this award are:

• Thank the blogger bestowing the award and proide a link back to their blog.  
• Share seven things about yourself.
• Share the award with seven other bloggers.

So, here goes.

First, a formal, official thank you to Heart Like a Dog blog!  Fetch it now and enjoy Jodi's story of her life with Labrador Retreivers Samson and Delilah. 

Seven things about me:

•  Never been to a dog park.  I live in a very rural, boondocks, sort of area.  The closest dog park is over three hours away.  Sigh... I think Rudy would love it.  Jeffie would be terrified. 

•  I don't like watching any movies with dogs in them.  My husband makes fun of me because I love disaster movies.  Kill a bunch of people (in a movie) and I'm okay with it.  Just throw a nasty glance toward a dog and I'm all through with that movie.  Actually, this is true of horses, too.  Cats? Nothing seems to ever happen to cats in movies.  Hmmm...

•  I'm beginning to avoid news stories about dogs.  Is it just me or is there much more violence towards animals?  Is it that more is reported now than in the past?  Or is it that there's actually more happening?  I'm afraid its the later.

•  I think I could be a hoarder.  One of my favorite quotations is by John Steinbeck:  I dreamed of dogs last night.  They sat in a circle and looked at me and I wanted all of them.  Me, too.  Except it wasn't a dream.  They weren't in a circle.  They were on Petfinder, Facebook, Twitter, and blog posts.  And I wanted all of them.  My husband doesn't let me go anywhere near an animal shelter without him.

•  I love bovine.  I raised my cattle herd from day old bottle calves.  Being among bovine gives me a sense of serenity I've found nowhere else.

•  I've been blessed with not only a heart dog, but a heart horse.  Some day I'll tell you about my beloved Fox Trotter, Lady, as well as farming with our draft horses and mules.  I promise.

• I am a hermit.  I sincerely prefer to be at home with my animals, rather than out anywhere with people.

Now you know more than you ever wanted to know about Sue at Talking Dogs!

 

Now comes the really tricky part.  Frankly, I don't have time to count the number of blogs I follow in my Google reader.  There are A LOT.  And here's the thing... they're all good.  Really good.  Picking only seven feels... pretty crazy.  However, here are seven, in no particular order, that I cannot live without.  To them I bestow the One Lovely Blog Award!

Basset Momma  -  I am smitten with Janet's dog, Freddie.  No matter how busy I am, each week I make sure to visit this blog so that I can catch up on Freddie and Gloria's hijinks, and get my Basset Hound fix. These days Janet is dealing with the heartbreak of Freddie's hip dysplasia. They can use some support. 

No Dog About It  - this is a new-to-me blog that gives me very pretty pictures of dogs (especially Daisy, the yellow Lab) to enjoy, as well as a lot to mull over and think about.  One of Mel's posts about abuse towards dairy cows has stuck in my mind.  Eventually it will spur me to write about my feelings about factory farming.

Chronicles of Cardigan - Not only does Elizabeth entertain me with her wit and cheeky photos, she was a rock when I lost my heart dog, Lucy.  I not only love her blog, I love her.    And I have to admit it:  I am in love with Jon Farleigh.  Especially his butt.

Brown Dog CBR -  I've followed this one for a long time.  The posts are always interesting, but it is the photography that is SPECTACULAR.  Sigh... gorgeous fauna and flora, including brown dog Hawk.

 

The Elka Almanac - I've always loved Dobermans and Elka is a beauty!  I also love Jen's posts about animal welfare.  Too bad she can't hear me cheering while I read those.  And I want to adopt every homeless Dobie she features.

Saved by Dogs - A newish blog that always tells me something I don't know.  Lovely personal story posts that make me smile or bring a tear to my eye as I recognize a like soul, coupled with dog breed information and photos that are fabulous.

I Still Want More Puppies - I wish I had just half the punny wit as this woman.  I advise you to not miss her Friday posts.  Plus, her monthly round ups are not only entertaining, I've discovered some incredible bloggers and stories.  And, let's face it, who can resist that blog name?!

So, there you have my seven blogs.  Enjoy!

Wordless Wednesday: Patience is a Virtue

Jeffie patiently awaits his turn to try Evanger's Organic Chicken with Fruits & Vegetables jerky treats.   

Our review of all the goodies Evanger's sent to Jeffie and Rudy for taste testing is coming soon. 

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Dog Song Saturday: Singing Golden Retrievers

Kick off your holiday weekend with Dog Song Saturday at Talking Dogs!  Love a Golden Retriever?  Love puppies?   You're in for a treat!  Today's dog song video is Henley and Bobby, singing Golden Retriever dogs.  This original song and video by Phil Corso features adorable puppy antics and even though the song in in German, you'll catch on.

Grab a dog.  Sit.  Stay.  Tap your toe and enjoy Henley and Bobby singing from Germany.  Fetch more dog song videos at Talking Dogs and be sure to scroll down below the video offering to explore some barking good blogs in today's Pet Blogger Hop.

The German Shepherd Song: Dog Song Saturday

It's Saturday!  Time to kick off the weekend with a dog song at Talking Dogs!  Today we present The German Shepherd Song featuring absolutely wonderful photos of these beautiful dogs. This dog song music video was put together by the My Dog Club facebook page folks. Listen the the lyrics of this rhythmic rap song and even if you don't usually like rap, you'll like this song.

Rudy and Jeffie are grooving... he's loyal... he's spoiled... Just don't tell them that they're not German Shepherd Dogs.

You know the drill.  Sit.  Stay.  Relax and enjoy The German Shepherd Song.  Fetch more dog song videos at Talking Dogs and be sure to scroll down below today's dog song video to explore some barking good dog blogs in today's Pet Blogger Hop!  And just a little shameless self promotion - fetch our hand crafted German Shepherd dog jewelry at For Love of a Dog!

Sunshine Monday!

We're thrilled to share this news:  Dogs N Pawz has generously passed the Sunshine Award on to Talking Dogs blog.  We certainly appreciate this award!

Here are the rules:

• Answer the questions that come with it
• Pass it along to 10 people and let them know they have received it

Here are the questions and our answers:

Favorite number:  7

Favorite Non-alcoholic drink:  water

Facebook or Twitter:  Not keen on either one, but I do both.

My Passion:  dogs, especially mutts and rescue dogs

Favorite Pattern:  Karma

Favorite Day of the Week:  every day/ any day

Favorite Flower:  daylily 

It is so hard to pick just 10 from the many fantastic blogs I follow!  However, I'm sharing the Sunshine Award to the following bloggers who never fail to bring sunshine to me: 

Basset Momma

Daley's Dog Years

I Still Want More Puppies

Kobi Pup

Nanny McFur

Oh, Corbin

One Pibble's Wish

Rumpy Dog

Saved by Dogs

The Elka Almanac

 Again, thanks so much to Dogs N Pawz!

Dog Song Saturday: Where's Your Mom

It's Dog Song Saturday at Talking Dogs and today we're thinking about dog moms since tomorrow is Mother's Day.  What happens at your house with the dog mama is out of the house?  Here at the For Love of a Dog farm, when I'm gone, Jeffie stations himself at the front door to intently watch for my return.  Rudy?  Rudy is either having adventures with the dog daddy or napping in our bed.

However, at Libby's house, the fellows get together with ukuleles and sing!  Libby, Where's Your Mom is dedicated to Libby the dog, who sings the chorus!  Jeffie and Rudy love the chorus!

You know the drill:  grab a dog!  Sit. Stay.  Relax and enjoy Libby, Where's Your Mom.  Fetch more dog song videos at Talking Dogs for your listening pleasure.  And be sure to scroll down below today's dog video to explore some barking good dog blogs, because today is a Pet Bloggers Hop.

Dog Song Saturday: Old Blue by The Byrds

Take a moment to enjoy a song about dogs because it's Dog Song Saturday at Talking Dogs.  Time to relax, unwind, and spend some quality time with your dog(s).  Kick off your weekend with Old Blue performed by the Byrds in 1969.  Old Blue is accompanied by a beautiful music video slide show of dog photographs and art that any dog lover is sure to enjoy.  If you want to sing along, the lyrics are right there, too.

So, grab a dog.  Sit.  Stay.  Relax and enjoy today's dog song, Old Blue. Then be sure to scroll down below the dog music video to explore some barking good dog and cat blogs because today is a Pet Blogger Hop.