February 4, 2012

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What Should I Do For My Puppy’s First Day Home?

February 2, 2012 By 1 Comment

My puppy’s first day home was definitely a whirlwind the first time.  The second puppy was no different.  The third puppy was the same…There’s so much excitement every time you bring home a new puppy that whether it’s your first, fifth, or fifteenth puppy you’re so excited you almost forget about all the little things you should be doing on your puppy’s first day home to keep him comfortable.   It’s one of the most common questions I get asked and that is “What Should I Do For My Puppy’s First Day Home?”

Golden Retriever Puppy - Apache

Golden Retriever Puppy, Apache's First Day Home

Of course you already handled all the pre-puppy stuff (hint-hint) that we talk about in our picking up your puppy video so we won’t even cover that.  Now you’re wondering what can I do to make my puppy more comfortable that first day.

As I always say every puppy is different, but here are a few pointers from the GDA manual on what we as puppy raisers are told to do on the first day(s) with your new puppy.

Up to this point your puppy has been with its mother and littermates in a comfortable setting.  Therefore, your puppy’s first week at home should be a quiet one.  The puppy should be allowed to explore and meet his new family.  You should now start teaching the puppy his name.  When you first arrive home give your puppy a chance to relieve itself in the area you have designated for that purpose.

Take your puppy out on leash (without his bib on) and repeat “Get Busy”.  (Remember, this maybe the first time your puppy has heard these words).  Allow your puppy 10-15 minutes, if he hasn’t relieved, take him inside.  Try again in 10 minutes.  If the puppy does relieve itself in the proper area, give him lots of praise.  Then let him explore the house (remember to supervise- don’t let him out of your sight).  Afterwards you may take it inside, but remember to supervise the puppy; do not let it out of your sight.  Talk to the puppy when it explores to make it feel more at home.

There’s plenty of great pointers you should take away from this excerpt that will help your new puppy better adjust to his new home environment.

  1. Your puppy’s first day/week should be a quiet one.  This is important for everyone not just puppy raisers because we are so excited to introduce them to everyone and everything, but temper your excitement for now and keep it a quiet first week.
  2. Teach Your Puppy His Name – yep, we wrote an entire article on teaching your puppy his name.  Go check it out! How to Teach Your Puppy His Name
  3. Give your puppy a chance to relieve himself when you first arrive home – It’s important to get your puppy to start relieving in his spot and not in the house.  A good start is to show him his spot when you first arrive home.
  4. Constantly supervise your puppy – make sure you don’t let him out of your sight as he could eat something he’s not supposed to or have a potty accident.
  5. Talk to your puppy to make him feel more at home – you want your puppy to get used to your voice and have it be a soothing sound to him.

There’s a lot going on that on your puppy’s first day home, but you have to remember your puppy has just been pulled away from his mother and littermates, it’s his first time on his own without any of his original family members, he’s only about 8 weeks old, and he’s in an entirely new environment.  Take it easy those first few days.  Get him used to his environment.  You have his entire life to show him off as a proud new puppy parent.  Now that the your got that first day out of the way here comes the hard part: Puppy’s First Night Home!  If you’re not sure what I’m talking about then fast forward to the 2 minute and 29 second mark of our picking up your puppy video.

What about you?  What do you like to do on your puppy’s first day home?  Let us know in the comment section below.

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Check Out These 5 Awesome Doggy Links

January 14, 2012 By 6 Comments

We’re always reading wonderful articles throughout the blogosphere and each week (at least each week we have time) we post our favorite doggy blog articles and post them here at the Puppy In Training blog.  If you have an especially awesome blog post coming up please let us know about it and we will consider it for our weekly roundup.

This weeks cute puppy picture:

Derby - Yellow Lab Taking A Nap

Derby - Yellow Lab Taking A Nap

Weekly Doggy Blog Post Roundup

Whale Poop Sniffing Dog Is Saving Killer Whales – If you know us then you’ll know over the past couple years we’ve been very interested in sniffer dog training.  In fact, our black Labrador Retriever, Stetson loves our K9 Nosework training class and has an unmatched enthusiasm for searching and finding the different odors/scents.  Obviously we have not worked on Stetson finding whale poop, but maybe it’s in his future!?  Anyhow check out how a whale poop sniffing dog helps save killer whales.

Are Too Many Vaccinations Bad For Dogs – We’ve always wondered about over vaccination and this article discusses some of the things you might want to do when it comes to vaccinating your dog.  We plan on visiting our vet and finding out his thoughts on the subject as well.  I’ve always been worried that over vaccination could be harmful to my dog and agree with the article that “less is more”.

When Dogs Dig: How To Curb The Digging Habit In Your Canine – We haven’t had a digger in a while, but our old family dog used to love digging to hide his possessions.  Anytime we gave him a treat he’d bury it in the side yard when we weren’t looking.  If we stared at him for a couple minutes instead of burying his treat he’d just eat it.  I wonder if he ever dug up those old treats when he was hungry?

GoPetFriendly.com Pet Blogger Challenge – This year we participated in the 2nd annual Pet Blogger Challenge sponsored by the GoPetFriendly Blog and the WillMyDogHateMe Blog.  Lucky for us we barely got our blog entry into the blog hop and we were the 95th blog to participate.  Here’s our Pet Blogger Challenge Entry.  The challenge asks 8 questions about your blog that was a good exercise in looking at the past and future of our blog.  If you’re a dog blogger there’s definitely some gold in these mines!

What’s the Story Behind Your Pet’s Name – I love hearing about how people name their pets…there’s always a story.  We’re constantly thinking of new names for our puppies as we always seem to either be picking up new puppies or talking to our friends about their new pups.  Here’s our page on puppy names that helps us get started when it’s time to name our next pups.

That’s it for this week.  Remember if you ever have some awesome dog or puppy articles please let us know about it through our contact form or just leave us a comment in the comment section below.

So what about you guys?  Did you come across any interesting doggy blog posts this week?

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Spotlight: Raise A Green Dog!

January 6, 2012 By 2 Comments

Welcome to the new year!  Along with the new year I decided to start a new blog series spotlighting some of my favorite dog blogs across the internet.  My goals is to analyze these great doggy blogs so you have a better idea of what they have to offer and hopefully give you another great doggy blog resource that you can subscribe to for more great information.

If you recall, last year I complied a list of the top dog blogs across the internet.   This years series will be a more in-depth analysis of some of the blogs from our top dog blog list along with perhaps some new blogs we discover throughout 2012.

So lets get started with this years first dog blog Spotlight: Raise A Green Dog!

Raise A Green Dog!

Raise A Green Dog

Raise A Green Dog Logo

The Dog Blog: Raise A Green Dog!
The Dog(s): Johann and Gracie
The Human: Leslie
About This Blog: From the RAGD about page: “Our site brings you tips, tricks, products, and other information on how you can help your dog go green.”
Why We Love This Blog: I’ve been following Leslie, Johann, and Gracie since I first started blogging back in 2007 and it’s been one of my favorite blogs since the beginning.  Actually they produce 4 blogs that I know of including Raise A Green Dog!, The Days of Johann an Agility Dog, Pawsible Marketing, and Rescue Me.  Along with these 4 blogs these guys have produced 100′s of Squidoo Lenses…AMAZING!  The first thing you got to love about the Raise A Green Dog crew is the amount of time and effort they put into these amazing blogs, but I’ve singled out Raise A Green Dog because I and my dogs are huge fans of becoming more eco-friendly.

Dog Blog Analysis

I put together this dog blog analysis not only to help you find other great content, but to also help me understand and find ways to reach new readers, entertain, and hopefully improve the Puppy In Training blog as well.

My template for the dog blog analysis came straight from one of the top professional bloggers in the industry (in fact his blog is called Problogger).  Here’s the Problogger.com article I based my analysis on: Analyze a Top Blog in Your Niche.

Content

Raise A Green Dog is a great place to find some of the best tips, tricks, products, and other information on how you can help your dog go green.  One of the cool things about dog blogs is that many of the blog in our industry speak from the dog’s point of view and it’s no different at the Raise A Green Dog Blog.  Johann the dog is your host along with his human, Leslie and his sister Gracie.  Johann produces just under 1 post a week which is less than I’d like to see…of course who wouldn’t want more content from one of their favorite blogs.  Also, I give leniency because Johann, Leslie, and Gracie also contribute to 3 other blogs (that we know of) and the plethora of Squidoo Lenses they manage.  If you and your dog are interested in “going green” then the Raise A Green Dog Blog is the perfect place to start for a budding green dog.

Reader Engagement

Here are a few statistics to gage Reader Engagement on the Raise A Green Dog Blog:

Green Puppy PicRSS Subscribers: 737
Facebook Likes: 1,223
Twitter Followers: 4,692

The most popular reader engagement posts (number of comments) that I noticed after flipping through the archives were contests, dog product reviews, and eco-friendly dog tips.  I read through a number of the comments across the blog and the questions I most often came across were related to eco-friendly dog products being reviewed in posts.  Unfortunately, I read through many comments on the blog and could not find too many questions or complaints.  Most of the comments are the “at a boy” pats on the back like “Great Post…”

I feel like I receive a lot of the same (“at a boy” comments) on the Puppy In Training blog, but one thing I do notice on my own blog is that I receive a lot of questions through my contact form and not necessarily in the comment section of my posts.  A lot of times people like to keep things more personal and not expose their questions to the public.  I assume something similar probably happens at Raise A Green Dog!

Design

I’ve been following the Raise a Green Dog Blog pretty much since it’s inception and I believe the blog design has not really changed much if any at all.   I think this can be both good an bad.  First the good:

GOOD

  • Often times the most thought is put into the original design ideas.
  • Navigation – we get used to the original navigation.
  • What we think will work better in a new design may not be true.

BAD

  • Over the years your design may become stale.
  • New technologies may become popular and important (flash, javascript slide shows, video, etc.).
  • Web design norms may change.

Those are just a few things I thought of off the top of my head.  I’d love to see a new design at the Raise A Green Dog!.  However, I do know that many people become so used to a certain look and feel to a site that a drastic re-design often pisses people off.  So, I can see where Johann has elected to stick with the original design.  However, if it were up to me and I had the cash to spend I’d hire a developer and revamp the entire design with new images, headings, logos, navigation, etc and make the site look unique and standout from the crowd (I’d do the same with my site if I had the time and cash) maybe a more web 2.0 look and feel.  As far as I can tell Johann is using one of the standard Blogger templates for his website design.

Subscribing to the Raise a Green Dog Blog is easy as pie.  You can connect on Twitter or Facebook or subscribe to their feed via email or RSS.  I currently subscribe to the RSS feed, Twitter, and Facebook.  One thing that’s missing that we’re hoping we’ll see in the future is an email newsletter subscription.  As mentioned earlier we’d love to see more content from Johann and the crew.

Monetization

Without asking Johann directly we can never really know exactly what’s going on with monetization.  However, there are lots fo 125×125 banners in the sidebar which are usually standard advertising banners.  All the products and advertisers are promoting green and eco-friendly products.  I’ve also seen plenty of doggy products listed within posts with affiliate links.  After looking even deeper into the Raise A Green Dog Blog I found Johann’s disclosure page where he mentions that

“This blog accepts forms of cash advertising, sponsorship, paid insertions or other forms of compensation.  The compensation received will never influence the content, topics or posts made in the blog. All advertising is in the form of payments by companies for placements of logos and products on the website and blog side bar and are identified as partners. Any reference to these advertisers and advertisements on the blog will be identified as paid advertisements and/or blog/website partners.”

I run advertisements on the Puppy In Training blog as well and I also have our a disclosure page to let my readers know that I do receive advertisement revenue to help pay the cost of web hosting, development work, design work, and other expenses associated with my blog.  Disclosure pages are important and something all of us bloggers should consider adding to our blogs.

Traffic

It’s difficult to determine any exact traffic numbers without having direct access to someone’s analytics software.  However, as Darren mentions in his Analyze a Top Blog in Your Niche there are ways we can guesstimate.  Here’s a look at what Alexa and Compete have to say about Raise A Green Dog:

Alexa Stats
Traffic Rank: 1,280,379
US Traffic: 380,944

Green Dog Alexa Stats

Raise A Green Dog Alexa Stats


Compete Stats
Unique Visitors: 2,740
Rank: 457,232

Green Dog Compete Stats

Raise A Green Dog Compete Stats

Honestly I would not put too much stock into the stats on Compete and Alexa.  I’m not positive how they are measured, but they can be easily influenced. Some things I took away from these numbers are that it looks like according to the Compete graph that unique visitors are trending up which is definitely a good thing.  I can also see some of the top keywords in the Alexa image (raise a green dog, raise a safe dog, frosty paws…).

As far as the unique visitors and traffic rankings I can only tell you that the numbers are much different on compete compared to my own Google Analytics data and I can only assume that this is probably similar for a lot of the websites listed on Alexa and Compete.  The only way to truly know the numbers is to ask the owners of the site (maybe we should…).

SEO

Skip this section if you’re not into all of this technical mumbo jumbo and go directly to the conclusions section.

Finally, the last part of our analysis is Search Engine Optimization (SEO) or how well is this blog optimized for search engine traffic.  I entered the Google command:

  • link: www.raiseagreendog.com and received 17,000 results (links).
  • link: blog.raiseagreendog.com and received 10,300 results (links).

Those look like pretty solid numbers to me.  I’m not sure if Johann and friends work on a back linking strategy, but even if they do not organic or natural back links through great content is a perfectly valid back linking strategy,  In fact we do this quite often and just let back links come naturally to our blog posts.

I’m not much of a techy, but I did take a peek at the source code on their site just to see if Johann was doing for title tags,  h1 headings, etc.  In the blog post: Help Your Dog Be More Green And Healthy in 2012 I found:

  • Title Tag – The title tag included the blog title, Raise A Green Dog.  I used to do this at my blog, but found that this is not good for SEO.  Although it will help you rank better for your blog title it will dilute your blog post titles.  I have the SEO All In One plugin which allows me to change what falls in between my title tags on a per post basis.
  • h1 Tag – The h1 tag is very important for SEO as it identifies the main subject of the page.  There should only be one of these on a page.  I could not find any h1 tags on the page and in general my blog title is the only h1 tag I use on my page.  This is pretty much built into my blog theme.
  • h2 Tag - Another high ranking tag.  I use this tag more liberally, but it also signifies important keywords and phrases.  While I found lots of sidebar content with h2 tags (similar to our old theme) I did not notice any h2 tags in the content area of this post.
  • h3-h6 tags - I rarely use these tags (although I did use some h3 tags in this post), but again they signify importance of keywords and phrases and should be used when appropriate.  The title of the blog post is an h3 tag…I’ve normally reserved the title as our h1 tag as one of the most important elements of a post.  That was the only h3 tag we spotted.
  • blog  <b> and <strong> tags – I’ve read that for SEO purposes google treats both tags the same.  That being said you should use bold tags to highlight your keywords and phrases this shows the search engines that these words are more important.  I notice Johann uses bold tags to separate content similar to how I use the <h2> tag on my blog.  This is good because it emphasizes important words however, I did not notice that these particular bolded words were “key” to the content.
  • italics <em> and <i> tags – as far as I know search engine treat the 2 italics tags the same as well.  Again just a way to emphasize keywords.  The last paragraph in Johann’s post is italicized.  In this case it does not signify a keyword phrase, but a way to separate content.
  • Internal Links – Internal linking is important not only to let your readers know about articles in your archive, but to also send a little bit of link juice to some of your older posts.  Johann did a great job not only linking back to some of his older blog posts, but also using some great and very helpful anchor text.
  • External Links – I’ve read that external links can also help build your authority in search engines and help your SEO.  However, make sure you do not link to scraper or spam sites because this could hurt your SEO.  Not only can linking to high authority sites in your niche help your SEO effort, but you may catch the attention of the high authority blogger or website author and receive some links in return.  Who know perhaps you’ll some day build a relationship or partnership with said big time blogger!

These are some of the SEO strategies I’ve heard or learned along the way and there are many, many more important strategies when it comes to SEO (don’t forget keyword analysis).  However, these things may not all be true and Google is always changing their search engine algorithm so what’s true today may change tomorrow.

While I don’t think about these things all the time I do find that SEO is an important part of my blogging strategy and it does help bring in a tremendous amount of traffic to the Puppy In Training blog.

Conclusions For Raise A Green Dog Blog

That was a fairly long winded post and I’m sorry that it got a bit technical at the end.  Anyhow, as I’ve mentioned I love the Raise A Green Dog Blog and I think that Johann, Gracie, and Leslie do an excellent job.  What are the areas I’d like to see improvement?

  • Well I hate to be critical, but I’d like to see more content (seeing how we love their content)…perhaps a newsletter?
  • I’m indifferent on a new design as I think I might get lost after understanding and getting used to the current design over the years.  However, a fresh design may attract new readers.
  • Finally, I think an upgraded blog theme might help SEO.  I think the current theme is not making proper use of some of the important HTML tags.

So for everyone out there don’t forget to subscribe to the Raise A Green Dog Blog.  Here are all the places you can follow:

Oh and if you’re not following my blog at Puppy In Training then please subscribe, facebook, twitter, or youtube us!

What do you guys think?  Are you following the Raise A Green Dog Blog?  Tell us your thoughts in the comment section below.

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5 Dog Links You Need To Check Out…NOW!

December 19, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Sorry we’re a bit late this week with our awesome doggy links of the week…

Here we are again at the end of the week (actually it’s now the beginning of the week) with our favorite posts from the top dog blogs around the world.  We’re going to keep it short and sweet…so lets get started with our adorable puppy pic:

Dublin Puppy In Training

Dublin Puppy In Training

Now that we got the adorable puppy out of the way lets check out this weeks doggy blog articles:

  • Discouraging Your Dog’s Bad Behavior in 10 Easy Steps – A great thing about working on your dogs training is that it will strengthen the bond between you and your dog.  One of my favorite points in this article helps curb destructive chewing.  We use the same technique when training our own guide dog puppies.  Another good point this article brings up is that you can change a dogs bad behavior and that bad behavior is not permanent.  In other words you can teach an old dog new tricks.
  • Top 7 Holiday Dangers To Avoid For Your Dog – some great tips on foods your pet should avoid not just over the holidays, but always.  Some foods you may not be aware of are onions, grapes, and raisins My ex-girlfriend actually gave my dog a few grapes and I flipped out.  Lucky for us it was only about 3 which apparently was ok for a dog his size.
  • Top 10 Dog Breeds That Don’t Shed – Every day I wear black clothes by the end of the day I can see long yellow golden fur all over.  If I don’t vacuum at least once a day the little fur ball tumbleweeds start forming.  Lucky for me I don’t have allergies to dogs.  However, lucky for some others not all dogs shed like my Labrador Retriever, my Australian Shepherd mix, and my Golden Retriever.  This week we came across a list of dogs that do not shed so if you’re interested in not having to vacuum or use a lint brush on a daily basis then check out this weeks list of dog breeds that do not shed.
  • 5 Easy Ways To Raise Funds For An Animal Shelter – If you volunteer at an animal shelter/rescue then check out this list.  In fact if you volunteer for any non-profit organization (we volunteer as puppy raisers for Guide Dogs of America) you might find some helpful hints on how to raise funds for your favorite charity organization.  If you’ve been following our blog for a while then you know we raised money for Guide Dogs of America through Dublin’s Puppy In Training TV video series (let us know if you want to sponsor an episode).
  • 10 Great Holiday Gifts for Great Pet Lovers - If you haven’t already checked out our list of most popular dog toys then you might want to check it out now!  However, if you can’t find the perfect dog toy then you might want to check out this weeks list of holiday gifts for pet lovers.  It’s definitely a more high end list, but maybe you’re looking for something special this year like a pet portrait or personalized doggie jewelry…not really my cup of tea.

That’s it for this weeks Puppy In Training link roundup.  If you want to submit a link for next week then just leave us a comment in the comments section below.  Did you write a great blog article this week?  Let us know about it.

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6 Dog Blog Links You Should Not Miss

December 10, 2011 By 4 Comments

Welcome to this weeks Puppy In Training weekly roundup.  As we mentioned before we are doing our best to roundup our favorite dog blog posts from the past week across our favorite doggy blogs.  Our goal is to try and help you by sifting through the best of the best blog posts (well at least the best posts in our mind) and getting you a short, concise list of our favorite 5-10 posts for the week.

We also like to post an adorable puppy picture for the week and here’s this weeks pic:

Yellow Labrador Retriever

Dublin A Yellow Lab Puppy In Training

6 Blog Links You Should Not Miss!

  • 10 Interesting Facts About Dogs – One that I found very interesting was nose printing your dog…a dogs nose is like your fingerprints.  Another one that might be interesting to our Puppy In Training readers is that puppies have difficulty holding it during potty training until they are about 4 months old.  Check out the article for all 10 interesting facts about dogs.
  • Pet Obesity Chart – This infographic was actually brought to us by Pet 365, but I found it through my Blog Paws feed.  Since I have Labrador Retrievers I always keep an eye on their weight (Labs have a tendency to be obese due to their love of food).  Stetson was getting a bit chubby about a year ago so I cut back on his feeding and now he’s looking quite svelte.  Take a look at the chart to see a few stats on dog and cat obesity.
  • Should You Let Your Dog Sleep In Bed With You? – We let Stetson and Linus sleep in bed with us.  All of our Guide Dog Puppies In Training have to sleep in their crates.  However, are we allowing our dogs to many liberties by letting them sleep in our bed?  This article may answer that question for you.
  • Merry Christmas, Kids.  I Poisoned The Dogs – Don’t worry this one has a happy ending.  This article just goes to show you that we all make mistakes with our dogs.  In fact my guide dog puppy, Dublin got into a box of chocolate cookies last year.  We ran to the emergency vet and ended up inducing vomiting.  Lucky for us no permanent damage.  No matter how close you watch your pups you never know what may happen.
  • A Puppy For Christmas! Things To Consider – This is a must read article if your considering purchasing a puppy as a Christmas gift.  If you ask us then our answer would be “No, do not get a puppy as a Christmas Gift!”  unless you know the amount of time and responsibility a puppy requires (and the person receiving the puppy knows this too) the holidays are a difficult time to take on a new pet.  We wrote a very similar article on Christmas Puppy As A Gift a few years ago.  Go with the alternative and buy a picture of a puppy, a collar, or a leash and after everyone agrees go out and adopt a puppy at your nearby rescue or shelter.
  • 21 Things You Can’t Do With A Puppy In The House – This one is a good reminder that puppies are a large responsibility and even thought they are cute and adorable they will take up a large chunk of your day.  The one I always fear the most when getting a new puppy is #7 “Sleep More Than 3 Hours In A Row”.  I’ve been lucky my last two pups have slept most of the night, but if I have another Stetson (he only slept 2 hours in a row for the first 4 weeks) I might not make it.

That’s this weeks list of my favorite blog articles for the week.  I notice a Christmas theme in this past weeks readings.  I’m sure that trend will continue for the next couple weeks and perhaps a few new years articles?  Enjoy the articles and if you have an awe inspiring article you’d like me to read and possibly link back to in our roundup then leave us a comment with a link in our comment section below.

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5 Doggy Links You Should Not Miss

December 3, 2011 By 2 Comments

Welcome tor our first Puppy Training Weekly Roundup!  So what exactly is our Puppy Training Weekly Roundup?  Well it all started way back when we decided to compile a list of top dog blogs.

Step 1 my list of top dog blogs is now COMPLETE!

Step 2 is to add the top 50 dog blogs to my Google Reader account. CHECK!

Step 3 visit Google Reader every day and read my favorite blog articles.  CHECK!

Step 4 add cute puppy picture to post to try and attract more readers/subscribers. CHECK!

Yellow Labrador Retriever Pupppy

Dublin A Puppy In Training Endorses This Weeks Roundup!

Step 5 at the end of every week share my 5 favorite dog blog posts from the week…SEE BELOW!

Why am I doing this?  There’s so much information blasted out everyday I thought it would be nice to see just a short list of my favorite readings from the week.  Now you don’t have to scan through 50 blogs and hundreds of posts to find the top 5.  Of course your top 5 might be slightly different then mine in which case you’re welcome to subscribe to all the blogs on the top 50 dog blogs list.

Puppy Training Weekly Roundup 1

  • Let’s Talk: Has Your Dog Had Ill Effects from Chicken Jerky? – There was a Chicken Jerky scare back in 2007 and it’s back again here in 2011.  The FDA has advised consumers who feed their dogs chicken jerky to carefully monitor their dogs for hours after feeding the treats.  We stopped feeding the jerky tenders to our dogs after the first scare in 2007, but just to let everyone know we never had any problems with the treats and our dogs.  We figure it’s better to be safe then sorry.
  • Bed Bug Dog Inspection – We knew bed bugs were on the rise, but after checking out the statistics in this article I’m thinking about moving Stetson from K9 Nosework training to Bed Bug Sniffer Training.  Seriously, check this out:

Consider that six years ago, there were 537 bedbug complaints and 82 violations (in other words, verified infestations); last year, complaints topped out at nearly 11,000, with 4,084 violations cited (nearly double that of the previous year).

  • Super Tough Dog Toys For Super Tough Dogs – So this one isn’t really a blog post, but Johann puts together some awesome Squidoo lenses and this one on super tough toys for super tough dogs fits our Labs to a “T”.  In fact, I’m not so sure these are super tough enough for my boys.  We’ll have to do some of our own experimentation and report back our findings.  Thanks Johann, Gracie, and Nancy for putting together this awesome lens.
  •  Top 10 Dogs For The Energetically Challenged – I’m sure there are many of you out there who are just looking for a companion to relax on the couch with you and watch football all day Saturday and Sunday.  Well here’s a list of dogs for those who enjoy the couch potato.  One thing I noticed that I found a bit funny was that many of the couch potato breeds have a tendency to be obese…go figure!
  • Five Training Tips For First Time Dog Owners – It can be a bit hectic bringing home that first puppy or dog.  This is a great article giving you five wonderful tips for the first time dog owners.  We always preach tip #1 – Be Consistent.  It is so important to be consistent with your puppy’s training.  If not, they will have a very difficult time learning any command or behavior you try to teach.

That’s a wrap!  I hope you found this weeks Puppy Training Roundup useful.  I’m sure over the coming weeks we may make some changes like add more posts or have fewer posts.

Anyhow, if you’re a dog blogger and you wrote a particularly interesting post this week then please leave me a comment with a link in the comment section below and I’ll definitely check it out.  Who knows, maybe I’ll include the link in next weeks roundup…there’s a thought (thinking outloud again)…if we start getting some great links to blog articles in the comment section maybe I’ll include my favorite link from the comment section from each week in the following weeks Puppy Training Roundup.  We’ll see…maybe a good chance for you guys to get an easy link back to your amazing posts!

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San Diego Pet Expo 2011

October 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Are you a pet lover?  If so, then you might be interested in the upcoming San Diego Pet Expo, 2011 being held at the Del Mar Fairgrounds on Oct 15th and 16th.  Every year we go to our own local Pet Expo…the America’s Family Pet Expo held in Orange County, CA at the Costa Mesa Fairgrounds.  It’s one of our favorite events of the year however, we have never attended the San Diego Pet Expo and unfortunately I don’t think we will have the time to get down there this year.

San Diego Pet Expo, 2011

If the San Diego Pet Expo is anything like the OC Pet Expo then you might want to check out our Puppy In Training TV video from Dublin’s adventures at the 2011 Orange County Pet Expo.  Check it out:

Here’s the details for this year’s Pet Expo San Diego:

San Diego Pet Expo

EVENT: San Diego Pet Expo
WHEN: October 15, 16, 2011
HOURS: Saturday, 10AM – 7PM; Saturday, 10AM – 5PM
WHERE: Del Mar Fairgrounds
2260 Jimmy Durante Blvd.
Del Mar, CA 92014

DIRECTIONS:The San Diego Pet Expo is at the Del Mar Fairgrounds in Del Mar, California, 20 miles north of downtown San Diego. The Fairgrounds is just west of Interstate 5 – use the Via De La Valle exit and go west. Turn left at Jimmy Durante Blvd – public parking is available.

Show Prices:

Adults (16+) – $9
Seniors 65 & over – $7
Military – $7
Junior (0-15) – FREE – when accompanied by an adult.

What To Do At The Pet Expo San Diego?

The spotlight for this years Pet Expo at the Del Mar Fairgrounds are Victoria Stillwell from the hit Animal Planet Show “It’s Me or the Dog” (aff link) and the Sundance Dog Stunt Team.  You may remember Kyra Sundance and her Weimaraners from the book 101 Dog Tricks (aff link) or the TV Show: Showdog Mom’s and Dad’s.

Some other things you can expect to see at the Pet Expo:

  • Splash Dogs!  - one of our favorite events at the OC Pet Expo!
  • Pet Adoption – if it’s the same as the OC Pet Expo then there are plenty of opportunities to adopt a puppy or dog.  If you’re interested in getting a dog or puppy please consider dog adoption.
  • Pet Products – we also love to see the latest and greatest products for our dogs and pups!
  • Petting Zoo – the kids always love the petting zoo and not a bad place for Dublin my puppy in training to meet some different animals.
  • And Much More!

For more information check out the website.

Do you plan on attending this years San Diego Pet Expo?  Have you attended in the past?  If so, tell us about your experience at the Pet Expo, San Diego.

Filed Under: Dog Events, Dog Training Tips Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Top 50 Dog Blogs – 1-10

July 29, 2011 By 7 Comments

We made it! Time to find out which blog is the number one dog blog! That’s right today we reveal the top 10 dog blogs and in David Letterman fashion we start off with blog #10 concluding with our number 1 dog blog of the year.

We’ve been following some of our top ten dog blogs for 5 or more years and some of the others we discovered as recently as the past few months. They all have one thing in common and that is we absolutely love the content they are generating.

Just in case you haven’t seen our past top dog blog articles here’s an explanation of some of the stats we used to find our top dog blog:

Top 50 Dog Blogs – 1-10

In case you’re wondering about the weird numbers in the boxes below each blog screen shot here are some definitions:

  • Compete Unique Visitors – an estimate of how many visitors each site receives per month.
  • Alexa Rank – ranks sites by the number of visitors and pageviews they receive.
  • Google Page Rank – is largely based upon the numer and quality of backlinks to a webpage.
  • Facebook “Likes” – the number of people who “like” the blogs accompanying Facebook Fanpage.
  • Twitter Followers – the number of people following the blogs accompanying Twitter Account.
  • D.O.B. – the date or approximate date the domain name was registered.

Unfortunately, I don’t have super awesome programming skills so these numbers are just a snapshot at the time I put together this post, but it should give you a good approximation of the current numbers. We start off with our #10 dog blog and we look no further than one of our favorite celebrity dog trainers, Victoria Stillwell.

TOP DOG BLOG #10 – Victoria Stillwell’s Blog

Victoria Stillwell's Blog

4/10

 

What they have to say:“She is best known for her role as the star of Animal Planet’s hit TV series It’s Me or the Dog, through which she is able to share her insight and passion for positive reinforcement dog training by taming some of the world’s most unruly pets as she counsels families on their pet problems. She also served as a judge on CBS’s Greatest American Dog.”

What we have to say: If you asked a dog lover to name two famous dog trainers the first would probably be Cesar Millan and the second just might Victoria Stillwell from the hit tv show “It’s Me or the Dog.” We had to include at least one if not both of these two famous dog trainers on our top dog blog list, but unfortunately we couldn’t find a Cesar blog. However, Victoria had a wonderful blog that includes not only her own musings, but articles from other expert trainers as well.

TOP DOG BLOG #9 – Pawluxury

Pawluxury

293

4/10

489

 

What they have to say: “eco-living for the everyday dog – We offer eco-friendly, organic, natural dog products made in the USA.”

What we have to say: The Pawluxury blog is one of those blogs that I used to come to and read almost religiously. It’s actually a companion blog to their ecommerce site where they offer luxury, high-quality, durable, holistic and earth-friendly products for the everyday dog and their owners. I just wish they would get back to updating the blog. We highly recommend you sift throught some of their blog articles. However, you will not see them on this list again next year if we don’t start seeing some new blog posts soon. We are big fans of the environmentally friendly dog blogger and that is one of our favorite parts about pawluxury as well as another one of our favorites blog #30 Raise A Green Dog!

TOP DOG BLOG #8 – The Three Dog Blog

The Three Dog Blog

3/10

790

 

What they have to say: “This site is all about our lives with the dogs. It will be a realistic insight into the ups and downs of dog ownership and the joys and sorrows that go with it. Sometimes challenging, sometimes thought provoking but hopefully most often fun.”

What we have to say: Another one of our all time favorite blogs that has slowed quite a bit recently. Again we’d like to see more articles or the Three Dog Blog may also be in danger of falling off our top dog blog list. However, there many great articles if you sift through the content or you might just try searching their content by using the search box in the upper right corner. We have seen some recent changes to the blog design so perhaps we will see a flood of new content soon. We’re keeping our fingers crossed. One thing we really like…we finally caught up to the three dog blog with Stetson, Linus, and Dublin we are now also three dog bloggers!

TOP DOG BLOG #7 – Ask Spike Online

Ask Spike Online

2/10

17

 

What they have to say: “Hello! I am Spike, and I write Ask Spike Online. I want to help families understand their pet’s behavior, the psychology behind it, and what they can do to correct unacceptable behavior. This site is driven by your questionsand situations. I started writing in 2008, but I have been a dog my whole life, helping my mom communicate to other humans what dogs are thinking, both in-person and online. I base my suggestions on the knowledge I have attained through my experience and the experiences of others in my pack and how it relates to canine psychology.”

What we have to say: Another dog blog that’s been in my feed reader from what seems like the very beginning of time…well maybe since late 2008. A blog from the dogs point of view Spike helps us to better understand why dogs do what. I’m sure we can all use a little help with that. What’s our favorite part of the site? Puppies of course. Spike has a section in his navigation bar dedicated to puppies and if you are a winnie the pooh fan then clicking on the PUPPIES link in the navbar is a must!

TOP DOG BLOG #6 – Pet Connection Blog

Pet Connection

5/10

 

What they have to say: “The Pet Connection (follow us on Twitter at PetConnection) began as a pet-care column in The Sacramento Bee, starting in 1984 and written by Gina Spadafori. Her column later became syndicated, first through McClatchy, which joined with Scripps-Howard and then became McClatchy-Tribune. The Pet Connection had already left, as Spadafori signed with the world’s largest provider of syndicated content, Universal Press (now Universal Uclick), in 1995. Dr. Marty Becker became her business and writing parter in 2007. She launched this site as the PetConnection home in 2006.”

What we have to say: As you can see Pet Connection was around long before the blog. The Pet Connection blog is one of our favorites with several writers who are experts in their fields. One of our favorite parts about the Pet Connection Blog was their Dog Cars section (DogCars.com). This niche section later merged with the main Pet Connection blog. We still look back at the archives and wish that Pet Connection authors would revive this section of the blog. I guess with the slowing economy people are less likely to buy cars with dogs as one of their main considerations as seen by the demise of one of dogcars.com favorite dogcars the Honda Element. If you’re looking for the Dog Cars section go to the blog, check the sidebar, and find the dogcars.com category.

TOP DOG BLOG #5 – Daily Kibble

Daily Kibble

3/10

 

What they have to say: “We are a daily e-mail newsletter featuring the hottest, coolest, latest, and greatest everything for pets: things to do, things to buy, and services for our furry four-legged best friends. We only go where we are invited (i.e., opt-in subscriptions), but once welcomed in, we show up daily Monday through Friday (that’s once a week in dog years). Being purely editorial, we only feature stuff we love, hoping to bring you the best of the best, so you can be the first to know. As pet owners, we know that we are responsible for every bit of happiness our pets will ever experience in their lifetimes. That’s why we bring you Daily Kibble: not just to provide information, but also to enhance your enjoyment of, and connection to, your pet.”

What we have to say: These guys are a little different…the focus is on the daily newsletter rather than the blog. You can still look into the archives, but you need to subscribe to the email newsletter to get your updates (I couldn’t find an RSS feed). While this is a bit odd, we do enjoy receiving the short and sweet daily newsletter. It actually reminds me a little bit of my daily groupon email…simple, quick, and easy content to consume!

TOP DOG BLOG #4 – ThatMutt.com: A Dog Blog

That Mutt

4/10

752

 

What they have to say: “Ace is a 5-year-old black lab mix. Ace has a lot of talents like drinking an entire toilet bowl of water. He can also fling his drool six feet high onto our walls. He enjoys retrieving any object, ripping apart boxes, attacking the hose and beating me in dog-paddle races.”

What we have to say: Dog Runner, Pet Sitter, Dog Blogger…we’re getting close to the top and ThatMutt.com is #4! Many of Lindsay’s articles really hit home with me and my dogs. Her recent articles on separation anxiety have helped me with Linus and we love reading her and Ace’s unbiased doggy product reviews. The web design has recently changed and perhaps in a transitional stage as it’s very plain, but still easy to find the content. We can’t wait to read more and can see ThatMutt.com challenging for number 1 next year if Lindsay and Ace have the time to push their blog to the top!

TOP DOG BLOG #3 – The Labrador Brats Dog Blog

Lab Brats

3/10

489

858

 

What they have to say: “Dakota & Cheyenne are purebred Chocolate Labrador Retrievers and the inspiration behind 8 Paws Up Labrador Retriever Info & Gifts and DogWire Dog Gifts. They are full blood sisters, 9 months apart in age, and are being trained as Therapy Dogs to visit children in local hospitals.”

What we have to say: We love Labrador Retrievers! Stetson is a Black Lab…Dublin is a Yellow Lab…Derby was a Yellow Lab, and Linus is…maybe some Lab!? Anyhow we may be a little biased towards Labs, but that doesn’t change the fact that The Labrador Brats Dog Blog puts out great content. We’d like to see more frequent dog posts, but we love reading about Dakota and Cheyenne. The main site is a Labrador Lovers shop so if you love your Lab this is definitely the site to visit!

TOP DOG BLOG #2 – Dogasaur

Dogasaur

3/10

 

What they have to say: “Our aim is to help the dog owner attain the highest quality of life for their dog. We strive to connect dog experts with dog lovers. And every message is founded on our collective responsibility to support organizations and charities dedicated to helping dogs who cannot fend for themselves. Dogasaur wants our readers to become involved, and come back often enough to become part of the family.”

What we have to say: What feels different abotu this site and why is it #2 on our list? First of all we love the web design, second the community aspect really makes you feel they are embracing the social web 2.0 aspect of the internet, and finally their sheer number of Facebook fans really jumps out at your. Great articles on the blog and one thing I really love…The “Featured Adopt Me Dog” scattered throughout the blog archives…cool, cool, cool!!!

TOP DOG BLOG #1 – The Dog Files

The Dog Files

5/10

 

What they have to say: “After adopting an American Foxhound/Pointer mix named Max from a local shelter, Kenn Bell decided to combine his skills as a filmmaker with his immense love of all things canine to create the very best Dog Video Series and Website on the web. After christening it, Dog Files, and making Max the mascot (that’s him in the logo), he began to travel around the country documenting how involved dogs are in all our lives. From ice cream socials to rescue groups to military working dogs, Kenn’s hope with the Dog Files is to let the world know that dog’s deserve our love, care and respect.”

What we have to say: And our number 1 Dog Blog is…The Dog Files!!! It was a long and difficult road, but we after much debate between myself, Stetson, Linus, and Dublin we decided that The Dog Files deserved to be our number one blog. What do we love most about The Dog Files? The incredible dog videos! Althought we’d love to see some dog training videos what we’ve seen is pretty awesome and we know how difficult it can be to put together some simple videos as we’ve tried to do with our Puppy In Training TV series.. If that’s not enough the dog files website design is very nice and easy to navigate. Finally, they’ve definitely immersed themselves in social media with a huge following on both Facebook and Twitter. Congratulations and great job to The Dog Files!

Final Thoughts for Top Dog Blogs 1-10

It was very difficult to come up with this list as pretty much all the dog blogs listed from 1-50 deserved to be number 1 for one reason or another. We did our best to narrow our list by using the numbers, but in the end much of this list is subjective and follows my own likes and dislikes.

After re-reading my top 10 dog blog list one thing I noticed is my loyalty to the “small” dog blog even though some of these “small” blogs have stopped producing content on a regular basis I still included them in my top 10 list. I guess loyalty to some of my favorite dog blogs is one of my faults, but as a one man blogger myself I understand that it can be difficult to pump out daily content (sometimes it’s even difficult to stay on a weekly or monthly schedule). However, I’m hoping some of these blogs make a come back and start blogging on a regular basis again…maybe this series of top dog blogs will be a wake up call and inspire some of our favorites like the Three Dog Blog and Pawluxury to start posting more content in the future.

Congratulations once again to The Dog Files! We haven’t been following them as long as some of the others, but we love their great articles and videos, wonderful web design, and how they’ve really embraced social media.

If you have a dog blog or if you have put together your own top dog blog list please let us know about it in the comments section below.

Don’t forget to subscribe to one of our channels so you don’t miss any of our awesome upcoming content. I hope you enjoyed this series of articles and we’ll speak soon! Facebook, Twitter, RSS.

Filed Under: Dog Training Tips Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Top 50 Dog Blogs – 11-20

July 22, 2011 By 2 Comments

We’re in the home stretch for the count down to the number one dog blog on the internet. Today we feature top dog blogs number 11-20 with a nice grouping of both small, medium, and large dog blogs. We love some of the web designs in today’s blogs and we assume that some of these doggy blogs are very well funded with their very own custom design (and perhaps a team of people who work on their website) rather than the free or low cost templates many of us little guys use with our dog blogs. Anyhow, we like a nice web design, but we love great content and that’s how some of the smaller blogs rise to the top.

Top 50 Dog Blogs – 11-20

In case you’re wondering about the weird numbers in the boxes below each blog screen shot here are some definitions:

  • Compete Unique Visitors – an estimate of how many visitors each site receives per month.
  • Alexa Rank – ranks sites by the number of visitors and pageviews they receive.
  • Google Page Rank – is largely based upon the numer and quality of backlinks to a webpage.
  • Facebook “Likes” – the number of people who “like” the blogs accompanying Facebook Fanpage.
  • Twitter Followers – the number of people following the blogs accompanying Twitter Account.
  • D.O.B. – the date or approximate date the domain name was registered.

Unfortunately, I don’t have super awesome programming skills so these numbers are just a snapshot at the time I put together this post, but it should give you a good approximation of the current numbers.  Lets get started with one of the bigger blogs to make the list at #20 with the Petside Blog!

TOP DOG BLOG #20 – Petside Blog

Petside Blog

6/10

 

What they have to say:“What is Petside? An easy-to-use, reliable resource for pet parents on health, behavior, lifestyle and trends. We highlight the joys and challenges of having pets by serving up current, topical content from around the pet care world. At its core, Petside is a cuddly place, run by fellow pet lovers, where you can learn how to best care for your best friend.”

What we have to say: Petside.com hasn’t been around for too long, but boy has it grown. I actually remember seeing the blog in it’s early stages and even in the beginning they had a cool design and content. A new feature we recently noticed on the Petside website is the four image’s front in center on the home page. It’s actually a cool little tool that allows you to search for breeds, check symptoms if your pet is sick, find pet friendly places to visit,and a place to add your puppy or kitten to their development timeline…very cool!

TOP DOG BLOG #19 – Blog Paws

Pet Health Care Gazette

4/10

 

What they have to say: “BlogPaws is an online community site for pet bloggers and brands. We are the go-to resource for bloggers and brands to partner on projects and campaigns, to be educated on social media, and to arrange face-to-face meetings.”

What we have to say: The BlogPaws.com blog is much different then most of the other blogs in our top dog blog series. It targets pet bloggers and brands and many of the articles throughout the blog are full of advice on how to increase your readership and marketing your blog versus information on your pet. However, it’s not only about internet marketing for pet bloggers there’s also information and pictures about dogs and pets. What did we like the most here? Well since we are pet bloggers we do like the idea of getting more readers. The one big thing we like here is the annual BlogPaws Conference where pet bloggers, pet enthusiasts, shelters, rescues and brands together for education, networking and creating worldwide change for pets in need. Pretty darn cool!

TOP DOG BLOG #18 – Pet Food Direct

Pet Food Direct

4/10

790

 

What they have to say: “Since our beginning in 1997, we have been a company dedicated to providing pet parents & owners convenient online access to the widest variety of pet supplies possible delivered conveniently to your door. We are a group of pet loving individuals that simply enjoy making our customers and thus their pets happy. Hopefully our ecommerce website helps you find what you need quickly and efficiently and thus you can spend more time with your beloved pets.”

What we have to say: So it’s a company that you can order pet supplies from on the web and they deliver to your doorstep…revolutionary back when they started in 1997, but evolutionary today. What’s the big deal? Well not only do they offer a cool store front, but the blog has tons of great information. We love the helpful tips and hints they have for dogs, cats, and other pets. One thing we like (and learned) from PetFoodDirect.com is the way they successfully integrate helpful links back to products that would be useful throughout their articles. Another thing we liked that we don’t see enough throughout the blogs we reviewed are dog training videos and any other kind of online video to enhance blog posts. We’re doing our best to utilize online video with our Puppy In Training TV and Dog Toys and Products reviews.

TOP DOG BLOG #17 – Whole Dog Journal

The Wholde Dog Journal

5/10

 

What they have to say: “The Whole Dog Journal is a monthly guide providing dog owners with well researched, in-depth articles about all aspects of dog care and training. Features unbiased test reports of dog food, treats, toys, and training ads.”

What we have to say: It’s kind of funny how I have similar topic blogs bunched together in this case we have dog blogs that are dog food related here at #17, #18, and #21. I was a little bit bummed out that I had to pay to access certain sections of the site the good news is the blog articles I was reading and found useful were free. I just wish they had a higher posting frequency because the articles are great reads. What initially stood out for me were the section headers and of course the section on Puppy Training and Nutrition which was of high interest to me…major points for a section specifically for that subject. However, much to my chagrin some articles are “subscriber only”…boooo.  Although we do see a place for paid content and may someday subscribe to the exclusive membership section. Overall we did enjoy all the free information and recommend you take a look too.

TOP DOG BLOG #16 – Petlvr Blog

PetLvr Blog

3/10

236

 

What they have to say: “PetLvr Community is just a place where Pet Lovers can come together and mingle .. what they do while they are here is up to them!”

What we have to say: What do we like about the PetLvr Community? Well it’s the first blog we’ve come across that is not just one blog, but a community of blogs. As far as we can tell they are using buddypress to allow anyone and everyone manage their own pet blogs giving a wide range of thoughts and opinions.

TOP DOG BLOG #15 – Dog Milk

Dog Milk

4/10

 

What they have to say: “Dog Milk is a website dedicated to modern dog design, inspired by Jaime Derringer’s love for her two modern pets, Lulu and Beans (right). She felt that there needed to be a place where modern dog lovers can discover new products and sniff out what’s beyond the chain pet stores. Whether an innovative pet feeder, cool dog tee, or modern dog bed, Dog Milk strives to bring you the most cutting edge and modern design for your very best friend.”

What we have to say: This is a place to see some cool new doggy products not just the run of the mill stuff you find at PetSmart.com. We love subscribing to the RSS feed to see what interesting new item will show up next. If you’re looking for something different for your dog then check out Dog Milk.

TOP DOG BLOG #14 – Fido Friendly

Fido Friendly

5/10

 

What they have to say: “We are a bi-monthly magazine dedicated to the travel and lifestyle of our canine best friends. This blog is an extension of who we are in print—lovers of all things dog and the roads they travel. Walk, ride, drive, fly, pedal, paddle, or use whatever mode of transportation suits your Fido-friendly fancy, but by all means stay tuned and Leave No Dog Behind.”

What we have to say: Another montsrous magazine blog. We love the design! However, it’s not just another pretty face as there is substance to that style. We thought the travel destinations section of the blog was pretty cool…Looking for a place to go with your furry friend then look no further then some of the travel reviews on Fido Friendly (btw, they also include some excellent pictures of these dog friendly destinations)!

TOP DOG BLOG #13 – Bloggy Doggies

240

2/10

n/a

n/a

 

What they have to say: “We are 4 dogs and our mom who loves us. We dogs decided mom needed our help in writing a blog about dogs. Who better than to help her than us! After all we are the authorities on all things doggie!”

What we have to say: We just noticed that the Bloggy Doggies site is in transition. However, don’t let the current plain design fool you there’s great content underneath the covers. We know the content is great when you keep coming back to the site and even though Bloggy Doggies is one of the smaller blogs on our list it gets some of the highest marks for content. Kudos to the gang for putting together some of our favorite blog articles!

TOP DOG BLOG #12 – Dogs Fun Time Guide

Dogs Fun Time Guide

4/10

 

What they have to say: “A fun Dog Blog filled with good news and fun stuff about puppies and big dogs. The information found here is provided by long-time dog owners who have a ton of experience raising dogs from puppyhood through the senior dog years.”

What we have to say: Another group contribution blog, but this one is not separated into different blogs like the PetLvr Community. We’ve been following for a long time and have found many useful dog an puppy training articles. What stands out here at Dog Times blog is the awesome content. Just like Doggy Bloggies we find ourselves back on the Dog Times blog to leave comments and enjoy their articles.

TOP DOG BLOG #11 – The Daily Puppy

The Daily Puppy

6/10

 

What they have to say: “Welcome to The Daily Puppy; your source for cute puppy pictures, videos, articles and supplies. Browse pictures of the puppy of the day, create a profile for you and your puppy and connect with other puppy parents”

What we have to say: I’ve been following the Daily Puppy for years and initially I was not going to include it on the top dog blog list because I thought it was only about the pictures. I was totally wrong! There are tons of cool things on The Daily Puppy website including great puppy training information in their blog archives. There were a couple things we thought were uber cool including the little calendar widget int the sidebar that had a small thumbnail of each pup of the day. The second thing that really stood out to us (besides the adorable pup pics) was the Puppy Showdown where it’s up to you to vote for the cutest puppy in a head to head battle

Final Thoughts for Top Dog Blogs 11-20

It’s been very difficult narrowing our list down to come up with the number 1 dog blog and this article shows some of our very favorite dog blogs that we’ve been reading for the past 5+ years. Of course as usual you can see that we have quite a variety from the cutest of puppy pictures to one man (or dog) blogs to the super mega humongous audienced blogs that even have printed magazines.

I hope you’re enjoying this series of top dog blogs. COMING SOON!!! The number 1 Dog Blog!!! Our next article will be TOP DOG BLOGS #1-10. Don’t forget to subscribe to one of our channels so you don’t miss the Number 1 Dog Blog. Facebook, Twitter, RSS.

Filed Under: Dog Training Tips Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Top 50 Dog Blogs – 21-30

July 17, 2011 By 4 Comments

In this post we pass the mid point of the top 50 dog blogs. That’s right! We’ll be featuring top dog blogs 21-30 today and just like the past twenty featured dog blogs it’s a mixture of ginormous multi-author blogs mixed in with some of our favorite smaller one doggie blogs. Don’t forget, if you didn’t see your name on our initial giant list of dog blogs then please feel free to send us a message with your dog blog information and we’ll make sure to include you in next years top dog blog list.

I’m not really sure how this happened, but as you continue through this list you’ll notice that there’s a wide variety of specialized blogs in top dog blogs 21-30.  Here’s a little preview before you scroll down:

  • Green Dog – Keep your dog environmentally friendly.
  • Pet Adoption – Adopt A Puppy.
  • Petworking – A Pet Networking blog.
  • Bully Sticks – Self Explanatory.
  • Carolina Mountain Dog – About what else a Carolina mountain dog.
  • Animal Shelter Tips – love some of these tips.
  • Dog Food Reviews – Looking to change dog foods…look no further.
  • Others…

Top 50 Dog Blogs – 21-30

In case you’re wondering about the weird numbers in the boxes below each blog screen shot here are some definitions:

  • Compete Unique Visitors – an estimate of how many visitors each site receives per month.
  • Alexa Rank – ranks sites by the number of visitors and pageviews they receive.
  • Google Page Rank – is largely based upon the numer and quality of backlinks to a webpage.
  • Facebook “Likes” – the number of people who “like” the blogs accompanying Facebook Fanpage.
  • Twitter Followers – the number of people following the blogs accompanying Twitter Account.
  • D.O.B. – the date or approximate date the domain name was registered.

Unfortunately, I don’t have super awesome programming skills so these numbers are just a snapshot at the time I put together this post, but it should give you a good approximation of the current numbers.

Lets get started with blog number 30…a blog that we’ve been following since it’s inception…

TOP DOG BLOG #30 – Raise A Green Dog

Raise A Green Dog

5/10

980

 

What they have to say: “Our site brings you tips, tricks, products, and other information on how you can help your dog go green. We’re just starting so keep on watch, there’s lots more to come!”

What we have to say: As we previously mentioned we’ve been subscribing to the Raise A Green Dog Blog since day 1. We here at PuppyInTraining.com try our best to be green dogs and puppies as well and the Raise A Green Dog Blog is one of the best resources for keeping you up to date on the latest and greatest information on keeping you and your pup environmentally friendly. One of our favorite parts of the blog are all the Squidoo Lens. By the way, in case you were wondering the Raise A Green Dog Blog actually started as a Squidoo Lens way back in September of 2007 and just in case you didn’t know a Squidoo Lens is a place where you can publish web pages about your favorite things.

TOP DOG BLOG #29 – PetFinder.com Blog

Petfinder

8/10

 

What they have to say: “Petfinder is an online, searchable database of animals who need homes. It is also a directory of more than 13,000 animal shelters and adoption organizations across the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Organizations maintain their own home pages and available-pet databases.”

What we have to say: We couldn’t find a “about” page strictly for the petfinder blog, but we can attest that there’s plenty of great information pumping out of their awesome blog. If you’ve been following us for a while then you know we found Linus, our Aussie Shepherd mix through the petfinder database and since then we’ve been going back to the site to not only look at adoptable pets, but to read the tips provided by the blog. Definitely our number one feature we love about PetFinder.com is the humongous searchable database and what they do for homeless dogs, cats, and other pets. Keep up the good work guys with your wonderful website and blog!

TOP DOG BLOG #28 – Dogster Blog

Dogster

5/10

 

What they have to say: “Our flagship sites, Dogster and Catster, are the most helpful online sources for all things dog and cat related because we offer knowledgeable and trustworthy expert points-of-view as well as a vast wealth of opinions, advice and wisdom from our large community dog and cat owners. .”

What we have to say: It was kind of interesting reading through the dogster about us page as it mentions them more as a media conglomerate and seems less personal. Anyhow, we love dogster and our dogs are all members. In fact we new about dogster well before we discovered the dogster blog as our pups were signed on to the social networking site. However, we’ve been following the blog for the last few years and have found valuable information in their articles. The one thing that makes them stand out is definitely the social networking portion of the site. During the height of Friendster, Dogster took advantage and now is host to millions of dog and puppy profiles.

TOP DOG BLOG #27 – Best Bully Sticks

Best Bully Sticks

4/10

 

What they have to say: “Mom and I have been sharing with pets and humans like you very valuable information on pet nutrition and natural holistic alternatives to conventional pet care for several years now.”

What we have to say: We’ve been following Shadrach and the Bark-N-Blog for many years now and enjoy reading about natural holistic alternatives. We do not always follow the same lifestyle, but we always want to hear about alternatives to normal commercial products. I was very sorry to hear that Shadrach had recently passed back in April. Rest In Peace Shadrach.

TOP DOG BLOG #26 – Way Cool Dogs

Way Cool Dogs

3/10

25

723

 

What they have to say: “Way Cool Dogs was originally started by myself, a great-grandmother in south-central Nebraska, telling of our experiences about taking care of dogs. Over time, we began to see issues that were important to dog lovers that needed more attention. Over the years, things that are common everyday practice to is were things we did not know earlier in our own lives. This is what we choose to write about.”

What we have to say: We definitely like what they have to say over at WayCoolDogs…”The majority of the dogs who have been turned out or into shelters are due to training issues, which is the owner’s fault — not of the dog.” Great point! Once again another great person doing great work to support homeless dogs. Tons of great content here including product reviews (something we always love to see) featured front and center. Although it actually takes two clicks to get to the reviews.

TOP DOG BLOG #25 – Doggies.com

Doggies.com

3/10

19

 

What they have to say: “Our Doggies Dog Blog is your online destination for everything dog and for dog lovers.”

What we have to say: Doggies.com is another one of those humongous websites with tons of information. The blog portion is handled by Beth and it each article I saw on the site also included a pretty great image (the written content was also very nice).. A big part of the doggies.com website and one thing we liked in particular is their section on dog breeds. There is a ton of information on an assortment of dog breeds and makes for a great resource if you’re trying to find the right dog for your lifestyle.

TOP DOG BLOG #24 – K9 Chronicles

k9 Chronicles

3/10

 

What they have to say: “We have a passion for dogs, and we want to share our knowledge. We fully explain each product and provide a complete list of all ingredients so you know exactly what you’re getting.”

What we have to say: The K9 Chronicles is a companion blog to the K9 Cuisine website which offers the highest quality dog supplies. So what about the blog? We like how their are six main sections: Rescue Me, Dog Food Dish, Vet Med, Pet Tips, Well Behaved Dog, Pet Travel, K9 Cuisine Blog, and CEO Blog. This sectioning off with most recent articles listed makes it easy to navigate and find information. We think that blogging in addition to your regular ecommerce site is a great way to drive traffic and K9 Chronicles does just that by creating great content!

TOP DOG BLOG #23 – Carolina Mountain Dog

Caroline Mountain Dog

374

2/10

1

 

What they have to say: “It celebrates the unique relationship of dogs and the mountains, offering news of interest and valuable information about what to do and where to go with dogs in Western North Carolina and the South Carolina Upstate. Carolina Mountain Dog strongly advocates for humane treatment of animals, animal rights, spay/neuter, and adoption of shelter animals.”

What we have to say: The Carolina Mountain Dog may perhaps be the smallest blog to make the top 50 list. However, it’s one of those sites that we always seem to be reading when we open our RSS reader. The blog design is a little bit dated and we wouldn’t mind seeing an new design. However, we love the simplicity of the blog and of course the great content and we don’t even live in or near the Carolina mountains!

TOP DOG BLOG #22 – Animal Shelter Tips Blog

Animal Shelter Tips

3/10

n/a

 

What they have to say: “Our human mom worked in marketing “in another life” as she describes it. She adores animals, so she did help a little, too. She told us she wants to help people help animals by using her past work experience to put together ideas on fundraising, finding grants, and more. ”

What we have to say: My mom (the cat lady)will like this one…it’s Animal Shelter Tips Blog run by the cats. I know what you’re thinking: “Isn’t this the top dog blogs?” Yes, but Animal Shelters, Rescues, dog adoption, and how to adopt a puppy are all near and dear to our heart. We support rescue and found some of the information here on Animal Shelter Tips Blog invaluable and something a little bit different that we can share with our readers. What do we like best about this blog? It’s focus on Animal Shelter Tips is a narrow niche, but we’re glad that the Foxy and Sam are putting in the effort.

TOP DOG BLOG #21 – Dog Food Advisor

Dog Food Advisor

4/10

233

 

What they have to say:“Maybe it’s just me, but with all the information out there about dog food, why is it so darned hard to figure out which one to buy? Shouldn’t choosing dog food be a whole lot easier? Confused About Choosing Dog Food I think so. That’s why I created the Dog Food Advisor… so you can get unbiased help in choosing good dog food.”

What we have to say: We found this site recently through our friends on Facebook. Like the name says there is tons of dog food advice. This is more of a resource then a blog I plan on visiting on a daily basis. However, it is good to see the ratings and reviews of just about every dog food brand out there. One of my favorite parts of this blog is something that is a part of every blog and that’s commenting. You don’t just get the authors opinion, but you also get the opinion of hundreds of other people who feed their dogs the dog food under review.

Final Thoughts for Top Dog Blogs 21-30

Our top dog blogs number 21 to 30 had a wide range of different blogs. I’m not too sure why it ended up this way, but it seems that numbers 21-30 were dog blogs with specializations. Whether your looking for green dog advice or information about your next brand of dog food top dog blogs number 21-30 for whatever reason is a great resource for the specialized doggy information. Anyhow, I hope you enjoyed this portion of the top dog blog series. There’s lots of great information here and as you can see I made it easy for you to find each blogs Facebook, Twitter, and website with a click of the button. We’re hading into the final stretch now so make sure you visit us again soon so you can see who’s #1. Tommorrow we will have top dog blogs 11-20 so don’t forget to connect with us through Twitter, Facebook, or our RSS Feed (all options are in the upper right hand corner of this blog!

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