People who have been reading my blog for a while know that I am a big proponent of helping animals in whatever way you can. It's easy to be intimidated by big productions and think, "There's no way I'm going to organize a $200,000 fundraiser. All I have is $5/an old towel/5 minutes to spare." This spring, I was fortunate enough to meet some amazing people at BlogPaws- people who felt, as I did, that there is no bottom or top limit on what determines importance. Anything, and everything, ... Read more »
Be The Change
Book Review and Giveaway: Scent of the Missing
If you've been a regular reader of the blog, you know I'm a big fan of the dog memoir. Part treacle, part drama, part romance, the format is always the same, ending of course with the tearful goodbye to a faithful pup. Susannah Charleson's new book Scent of the Missing breaks that mold in all the right ways. Of course, the requisite components are there: an adorable dog, the initial bumps in the road adjusting to a new puppy, and the gradual coming together of owner and pet. Here's the ... Read more »
Another company steps up: how i Love Dogs is the change
As part of today's Be the Change festivities, i Love Dogs and pawcurious decided to do a blog post exchange. While you read about this fabulous group's many activities in support of the community, keep in mind they are also making a generous $250 contribution to Pets Without Parents in celebration of today! A big thank you to my very first Official Charity Sponsor! by Linda Chavez, i Love Dogs, Inc. On this special day, in honor of Being the Change, www.iLoveDogs.com and www.Pawcurious.com ... Read more »
Be The Change Extravaganza Starts NOW!
Thank you all for everything. I got a call at 4 in the morning that my grandmother died in the early hours, peacefully and pain free. I know she is somewhere good and she would rather me be out doing something good than sitting in a corner crying. I know this because she told me that herself in no uncertain terms. This one's for you, gram, even if you are a cat person. There is one and only one real message I want everyone to understand from today: You matter in this world. You have a ... Read more »
Be the Change: Spotlight on K9Cuisine
When I first hatched the idea of the Blogathon back in November, a new commenter I had just gotten to know a little bit sent me a note saying, "Hey, I got plenty of dog food. If you want to eat some for your blog let me know." I told him to send me his most bland vegetarian dog food. A couple of days later, a can of Evanger's arrived, along with what he later confirmed to be the most disgusting flavor he could dig up from his warehouse: unagi and seaweed. "Feel free to try this one instead," ... Read more »
Eyeing you all suspiciously
When I was speaking at BlogPaws I looked out into the group and saw some people looking back, others taking notes, and a third group tapping away at keyboards. In the olden days (you must read this in a geezer voice) that would be a major insult, but I assumed after watching people all morning that the typists were giving real-time updates on Twitter which is actually highly complimentary. Of course, you never know if they are speaking well or poorly of you until you get a chance to check ... Read more »
Be The Change: How to Participate
I know some of the details of what we are trying to accomplish here may be a little bit vague, and that is mostly because the details are kind of working themselves out as we go along. At the end of the day, by participating in a good cause- be it by writing, donating, or promoting, you ARE the change. Every piece is important. We selected Pets Without Parents at random during the session as the beneficiary of this particular effort, but to me the act of coming together and making those ... Read more »
Be The Change Challenge
A few months ago, Caroline (aka Romeo the Cat's staff, aka co-founder of BlogPaws) asked me if I would consider being a speaker at BlogPaws on the "Be The Change You Want to See" panel. I immediately said, "Heck yes!" followed up with, "But, uh, why? I'm not entirely sure I qualify." Caroline assured me that yes, they did want me to be a part of the talk specifically because I had zero experience and no clue what I was doing when I started out with the blogathon and Hounds for Haiti. Of ... Read more »
BlogPaws- if you missed it, I’m sorry because it was totally awesome.
You ever come back from a whirlwind event and just kind of sit there slack-jawed, thinking to yourself, "Wow, I can't believe I just got to be a part of that"? That was BlogPaws. I've sat in many conferences in my days, listening to various keynote speaker types tell their story, and every single one of them has some singular path-altering event where the skies parted, the sun shone down, and they knew that their life was about to get really interesting. I know, in that ineffable way one ... Read more »
2010 Brody Awards Ceremony
It's going to be low-key. I'm sure you all are hung over from your Super Bowl celebrating or whatnot anyway, so no gowns necessary. I tried to get Fergie to perform, but all I could get on this short notice was Pauly Shore so I figured we could do without the celebrities. ;) Thank you SO much to everyone who voted! Despite the many people who voted, some of the winners were only TWO votes ahead of the second place blog out of over 100 votes. Take that as a measure of the quality of all the ... Read more »
2010 Brodies Finalists are announced!
And it was NOT easy. I was hoping that in each category half of the blogs would be amazing and half would be meh, leaving a neat delineation for the separation of the finalists. That was not the case. Originally there were four judges, but even that wasn't enough and I needed to recruit an additional three judges at the last minute to help me figure it out. I hate judging. What was I thinking? You're all aces in my book. Speaking of books, Kathie Meier has donated 2 signed copies of Dr. ... Read more »
Auction summary
One of my relatives was looking at me in befuddlement this week as I sat at the computer at 1 in the morning, tap-tap-tapping away at the keyboard. "Why are you doing this?" he asked, looking over my shoulder at the pictures I was uploading for one of the auctions. "It seems like a ton of work." I nodded magnanimously. Truth is, I was sharing the guest bedroom with my mother and she was snoring so I would have been up anyway- so it was either raising funds for the Red Cross or playing Peggle. ... Read more »
Let’s Work Together
One of the best parts about reading a blog is finding other blogs. Looking at the blogroll of a site you enjoy visiting often leads you to corners of the internet you would never have found otherwise. Soon you start commenting, then you're going back and forth on Twitter, and before you know it it's 11 at night and the dog's still waiting to be fed. Not that I know from personal experience or anything. Point is, it's a community. Certain specialized blog niches- parenting bloggers, for ... Read more »
Brief Brodies Update
I closed nominations, and I'm working on getting everything categorized now. When I'm done, I'm going to assemble a top-notch panel of experts (read: suckers willing to volunteer) to help me narrow the nominees down to finalists in each category. Then once I figure out the appropriate Wordpress plugin everyone gets to vote. I have no prizes other than bragging rights, but I will say you guys nominated some fantastic blogs I've never seen before, which is reward enough for me. :) ... Read more »
Nominations are OPEN!
Since the Weblog Awards went kaplooey for the year, I decided to make up my own awards specific for that underrepresented segment of the blogging world, the pet lovers. So far I have, like, 5 participants so hopefully I can drum up enough nominees to actually make something fun here and spread the word about some of the fantastic pet blogs out there on the net! These are the categories I have so far: 1. Best Dog Blog -For best blog about our canine pals. 2. Best Cat Blog -For best ... Read more »
May your days be merry and bright…
The parvo puppy is still hanging in. Every day he survives is a victory, and I'm allowing myself to feel optimistic for the first time since he was admitted. On the second day he was hospitalized, he was struggling. The plasma transfusion we performed had been minimally helpful. So once again, I pulled a Hail Mary and called in the quarterback. He's so big now, and the wee pup so small, I barely needed anything to get enough for a blood transfusion. Fresh whole blood has some majorly nice ... Read more »
Hour 24: SuperBrode is my hero
We are all inspired by our pets- to be kind, to give a little more than we take, to play hard and snuggle a ton and enjoy every little moment in life. They encourage us to connect with one another. And they push us to do a little more. Last week, an hour before closing, a family came in with a 4 pound, 10 week old poodle puppy. She was vomiting, had diarrhea, and no history of vaccinations. They had just enough money to confirm the diagnosis of parvo. Her white blood cell count was 1, meaning ... Read more »
Hour 23: Limping towards the finish line.
The Grand Prize will be announced at 5pm PST- in one hour. The tally is at $2080, but you've got one more hour to mess it up for whoever's about to win the $100 GC. 5 cans of soda: $5 Small Brody accident because I was being horrible and didn't let him out in time: 5 minutes of cleaning and one $20 pillow. Cheese for the dog food: $0.05 Raising two thousand dollars for shelter pets when I was expecting to raise two hundred and seeing the best people in the world come out to support? ... Read more »