The Neighborhood Poop Patrol:
Our neighbor next door has a dog, Gunner. Gunner is a black akita mix and probably about 11 years old now. Our neighbor’s yard is not fenced, so when Gunner is outside he is on a chain. I want to be clear, Gunner is not a ‘chained dog’ as he does not live his life on a chain, in fact he is part of the family and gets along very well with the two little boys who live with him. When they are outside playing whether it be in the front or back yards, Gunner is with them.
The dogs and I have run into our neighbor with the children and Gunner in our park. Gunner is usually off-leash there. He’s an aloof sort of dog, greeting my dogs and then going about his business. I figure he thinks I’m off leash, I want to make the most of it.
Sometimes, I’m not sure how, but sometimes he roams the neighborhood. When this happens I say, “Hey Gunner” and he looks at me and keeps going about his business.
One day as Delilah and I were coming home from our walk, we passed the neighbor’s house where the children were outside playing. For some reason known only to his 6-year old mind, the neighbor child felt compelled to stop me and let me know that they had found dog poop in their yard and it wasn’t from their dog. I stood there in the hot sun with a stinking bag of shit hanging from my hand and debated whether I should mention that many people in the neighborhood probably had the same problem from his dog.
In the end I said something along the lines of, “Gee that’s not cool,” and continued on our way.
Then two days ago the kids stopped me to ask why I was walking my dog on a leash…
Um…because there are leash laws in this town, they are supposed to be on leash.
“But not back there,” he said pointing to my yard.
“No, not back there. Back there they can run without a leash.”
“But I saw you walking him on a leash out there yesterday, why were you doing that?”
Ah…yes, try explaining an ACL injury and surgery to a four and six year old.
Bath Zoomies
Guess who I caught doing zoomies after his bath?
Zoomies are the best part of a bath Mama.
What time do you post your blog?
Ever since I participated in the Advent Calendar for Dog Lovers promotion over at Kol’s Notes, I’ve been scheduling my blog to publish 1 minute past midnight, EST. I belong to a pet blogger support group on Facebook and this question came up about what time people post. Someone mentioned they like their posts to go up around 6:05 am because they get better traffic then. So yesterday I scheduled my post for 6:01 am, but I’m not sure I like doing it that way. What do you think? what time do you schedule your posts for?
For those of you who do reviews
There was a great article last week on AKA Design + Life about earned media. (Pssst, earned media is the link) 😉 I’m not going to share too much here, but she articulated my thoughts on this topic so well, I thought I’d share it with you. If you read it, please let me know what you think about it.
Welcome to Thursday’s Barks and Bytes Blog hop hosted by 2 Brown Dogs and Heart Like a Dog.
The Barks and Bytes hop is for anything at all and all bloggers are welcome. You don’t have to be a dog blog to join.
For new blog hoppers, a blog hop is list of links that is shared on multiple blogs. In order to be fair to all participants we ask you to please use the linky list. If your blog does not support a linky list, please link back to your hosts.
That article’s a little confusing. If a brand pays a blogger to write about something. That becomes paid media.
If a blogger writes something she is truly passionate about on her own, without being paid or requested to write it, that is earned media.
Unless a media company is really desperate, they really would expect to be paid for product placement. And if they are that poor and have no budget, than it becomes a sort of barter arrangement, the media company gets something out of it. I have never heard of that defined as earned media before to be honest.
At least that is how I understand it. 🙂 Maybe it’s different US from Singapore.
He did zoomies – bless his little heart!!
I don’t think about things enough to schedule posts and usually finish writing and hit publish. Although I am a little organised this week and I have already scheduled today and tomorrows post (look at me go!) and I have picked random times for them so……
I am on a totally random schedule of reading blogs, and that translates to a totally random schedule of posting times.
Hi Y’all!
Zoomies are a necessary part of the bath…like driving your car after going through the car wash…BOL!!!
My Human schedules my posts for 12:01 am EDT or EST depending on season. Don’t see it making any difference. If you have International readers, and I’m sure y’all do, it will show up at their local time. So, in my simple mind it doesn’t matter when you post as long as it is consistent and followers know when they can find your newest post.
Y’all come by now,
Hawk aka BrownDog
I found that article a little confusing too. If that blogger wants to be paid for posts, they should just say rather than beat around the bush. My philosophy is that I review products that I would like to try myself. For myself, I generally hate reading sponsored posts on a pet blog unless it is a review. Most reviews that I read are entertaining and more personal. Not so with sponsored posts. I generally find sponsored posts to be ads with a lot of words. (There are some bloggers who are very skilled at writing sponsored posts and those are fun, but mostly they are pretty dreary.)
You schedule posts? I usually do not have my posts written (except for my Thursday post) until the morning that I post. I do find better traffic posting in the morning as opposed to afternoon or night.
Hooray for zoomies!
We always publish our posts when we get up just because it is an easy routine and we have had an incident or two with auto publish not working. I don’t have a clue what the best time to publish is, we just do it when it works for us. The article on paid media is interesting. We have started changing what we do and what we expect in return. We have raised the bar in most cases. Sometimes we do reviews because it is a fun company and we just enjoy it, but these days, if it is not a paid review, the product has to be worth it to us in most cases.
I have a couple of blogs, so when I do prepost, I usually schedule them to post between midnight and 1 because if they all post at the same time it some times makes Blogger have issues. When I get up I check and make sure they did post because I’ve had an occasional issue where preposting didn’t work. I often find comments waiting to be moderated when I wake up, so it is working for me.
I’ll check out the article. Sounds like it might be interesting.
As for kids, I find they tend to echo what they hear. They often lack the filters we hope adults learn. If the parents are complaining about poop being dropped, then the kids might be playing detective and trying to figure out where it is coming from to show off to the parents. The fact you are carrying a poop bag may not mean anything if they don’t walk their dogs and merely pick up after them in their own yard.
I schedule my posts for 3 am MST. I will write more than one post some days, so scheduling works best for me.
That must have been interesting trying to explain to the child about Sampson! haha!
I clicked over and read about the product reviews etc . . .
Since I am fairly new-ish at blogging, I have done several product reviews in exchange for the product. I honestly don’t mind doing that. Firstly I probably don’t have the numbers to back a well paid sponsored post as of yet, secondly, I love getting these free products!!!! haha! I can use them and even sometimes need them anyways, and plus, if I was to make money, I would just buy things that I am reviewing anyways, so really, it works for me. I think it is your own personal choice. I would love to make money blogging of course, and I actually just got my very first sponsored post through blog paws. So that could be a step in the right direction when I talk to companies. I will have already done one sponsored post, and that will look good on the media kit!
ღ husky hugz ღ frum our pack at Love is being owned by a husky!
Oh Sampson, don’t you know you’re in a no zoomies zone for now? 🙂
I set up a custom google analytics report to see what days and times my posts get the most attention. http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/custom-google-analytics-for-blog-ht
I find the morning ritual satisfying so I don’t worry about the time too much. But I’ve learned that if I want something to be seen, I should publish it on Thursday which is usually my most popular day.
There’s nothing you can’t figure out about your blog if you’re willing to spend some time learning GA. But then where would be find time to spend with our dogs? 🙂
Ha, I wish I was organized enough to schedule all of my posts. Usually I just write it when I can and post it then, unless it’s for a certain hop on a certain day. If I do schedule them, it’s either for right after midnite or around 6 or 7 am. I haven’t really figured out what is best.
That article is very interesting, though I haven’t really figured out what the best answer is to that. I feel like a free product is a type of compensation, but I won’t review a product I’m not really interested in.
There’s a blogging support group on Facebook? Can anyone join the group?
So glad Sampson wanted to do zoomies after his bath, and that photo is adorable!
The “strange” poop in their yard was probably from one of the other dogs in the ‘hood. I have found that most dogs who are allowed to roam will not poop in their own yards if they can avoid it. I would have loved to hear your explanation of ACL surgery!
I understand why you had to clarify about Gunner being on a chain. People hear about dogs being on a a chain and freak out, so I now feel the need to justify my own actions. I’ve recently moved and our new-to-us house does not have a fenced yard. So when Maya and Pierson are outside, they are also on a chain. They are not out long, though. Just long enough to do their business.
I like how the neighbor kids asked you questions. I agree it wasn’t your place to educate them on what their parents should or should not do. But at least they are seeing that some people do things differently and you are giving them something to think about. Perhaps they can’t understand an ACL injury just yet, but they sound like smart kids.
Kids are so funny. Especially when it comes to dogs. Though, most are too scared to approach us. Though, the family watching Moses while we were away were out walking him and came across two little girls:
Girl 1: “woah, that’s a big dog”
Girl 2: “I’m not sure that IS a dog…”
lol
As for post-publishing, if it’s part of a blog hop (and I’ve pre-written it), I schedule it for 6:00 am (MT – my time zone) so I can add my link before I head out the door for work. If it’s not for anything in particular, it will either be 6:00 am out of habit or 12:01 am. Or I’ll just hit publish when I’m done writing it. I’m only strategic about blog hop articles (and making sure I don’t have 2 posted on the same day… HA! Like that would ever happen…).
Scheduled posts at regular times? oh, geez, another reason to feel like a disorganized schlump. People are all on different time zones so I just post when it is ready and that is my story and i’m sticking to it. I have noticed that dogs running loose will never poop in their own yards. It seems to be an extension of their homes.
Leave it to kids. Lol I publish my blog from 6-7 usually I have to wait til then to get a linky code from someone.
I seldom do the delayed publish thing – but when I do, I usually use the 12am time slot.
As for that kid, I would have probably felt flustered and embarrassed enough to turn it back on him and would have said, “Hey, what’s the big idea of keeping tabs on what I do in my back yard, huh? What are ya, a peepin Tom?”. Oh yeah, I’m GREAT with kids. 😉