You make me smile (or laugh), the funny, sweet, loving things my dogs do that brings a smile to face or a laugh to my lips.
Sampson and Delilah, the way you trudge on during your walk, despite the fact you are covered in snow…
You make me smile.
Your turn, does your dog shake off the snow, or are they like mine and just trudge on?
Welcome to this week’s edition of Follow-Up Friday, the post where I highlight reader’s comments, answer questions and generally just wrap up my week.
When I open my eyes that camera will be gone. Please let it be so.
Genvieve said, “Oh please. Cupcake poses like a Kardashian when she sees the camera. Mood shot? Candid? Action shot? Eye on the camera? Over the shoulder? She’s all in. Diva.”
Ha ha ha, I suspected it was like that. She’s a very cute Diva too. 🙂
Sue said, “I used to think my dogs were Amish. You know, no face photo shots. I finally realized they are in a witness protection program. (Preferably no photos.)
I love this comment, you really made me smile.
Monika said, “Sam tends to look away from cameras in a clever sort of way, but we all know he’s far from clever.”
BWA HA HA, poor Sam. I bet he’s a lot smarter than you think. 😉
Cupcake said, “Even with all that happens, doggie things like walks and destuffing remain constant. It’s kind of our job..”
For Sampson destuffing is like therapy. A lot of times he destuffs after we’ve had a houseful of people. The noise and busyness of it all tends to get to him after a while. Then of course there are just times when he feels like destuffing.
But yes, the doggie things are important and I think especially during stressful times, it gives us a sense of normalcy.
Emma said, “My gramma was taken to the hospital on the 19th for heart issues and stayed 3 days, then we spent all last week at her house helping her out and finally got all caught up this weekend…oh yeah, Christmas was there too in the middle of it all.”
I’m sorry to hear that Emma, I do hope your Gramma recovered well. I’m sure you being there was a tremendous help to her. Oh and Mom. I bet Mom was a great help too. 😉
Jan K said, “Well, if you are going to be speaking at BlogPaws then I definitely have to go now!”
I sure hope you do!!
Pamela said, “I’m hoping that by hanging out with Kim a little bit of her amazingness will rub off on me.”
Well I for one think you are pretty damn awesome Pamela!! I’m hoping you and Kim rub off on me. 🙂
2 Brown Dawgs said, “I am really surprised I made any top commenter lists. There were times when I was so very far behind. This Fall kicked my butt. 
”
I’m not surprised that you were a top commenter, but I have to agree with you, Fall kicked my butt too! I don’t think I’ve signed into my reader in a month. I’m actually dreading it. I may have to clear all and start fresh. 🙂
Rama’s Mama said, “I agree, put that bitch to BED! ”
I’m assuming you have had a crappy year too. I’m hoping this year is kinder to you.
I’m also hoping we all have better years than 2014. If you had a good year, then I’m hoping 2015 is even better. Onward an upward my friends.
It’s 2015, bring it on!
I can’t believe it’s 2015 already!! Where did 2014 go? Truthfully, I don’t care, I don’t know about you, but I’m glad to put that bitch of a year to bed.
I started last New Year’s Day out with a goal to be grateful for something in my life every day, no matter how small. I did too. But there were days I really struggled with it.
We had our fair share of illness, injury and misfortune.
January started with Sampson’s misdiagnosis of Degenerative Myleopathy, two burst pipes and a Diverticulitis attack. The year was off and running and it never looked back. It ended with Delilah’s elevated liver level mystery, a car driving into our rental house after an ice storm and my mom in rehab after she took a bad fall.
Good bye 2014, I hope there’s a special place in hell for bad years like you.
Now, don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t ALL bad, there were some good things too! Mostly you my dear readers! Through all the turmoil you stuck with me. Hanging on to my hand when I couldn’t hang on any longer. Picking me up and pushing me along, encouraging me to not lose hope. Don’t lose hope! Whatever you do, don’t lose hope.
You made the idea of Caring for Critters a reality, and for that I will always be grateful. As much as I hate when someone needs to research an illness or injury, it makes me so proud of this community when someone tells me they found that page to be a great resource.
Sampson did recover from his ACL surgery, what helped him over the hump is an awesome supplement I’ve been using that I will be reviewing on Monday along with an incredible giveaway for you!
We co-hosted the #Advent4Dogs Calendar as well as the Dumb Ass Dog Owners blog hop.
I’m sure there’s more, but right now my brain is fried.
And while we’re calling 2014 a wrap, WordPress sent me notice that their little monkeys have been hard at work. If you know me (which you should because I usually just throw it all out there) you know I don’t look much at the stats on this blog. That’s mostly because I don’t attract a lot of sponsors nor am I making any money from the blog, so really, what’s the point? But it was very sweet of those little monkeys to let me know I had enough views to have sold out the Sydney Opera house 17 times! That’s so cool and I don’t even have the E-Street band behind me!
My longest streak of daily posting came as no surprise, as it was the #Advent4Dogs promotions and of course the day I posted the most (52 times) was Thursday for the Barks and Bytes hop.
Most of my traffic came from Twitter, Facebook or Triberr, but there were two blogs that stood out, they are The Daily Dog Blog and Kol’s Notes. Thank you to all who shared and promoted!
My readers came from 119 different countries! Most of them were in the US and Canada, but they came from so many countries, so many!
Oddly enough the most viewed post in 2014 was a post from 2012 “Happy Birthday My Love“ (at least that’s what those monkeys say. They also say, “Some of your most popular posts were written before 2014. You writing has staying power!” I don’t know about that monkeys, maybe you better go eat some more bananas.)
Of course we can’t forget the commenters. The day with the most comments was “It’s Only My Opinion” with 40 comments. Coincidentally that post was the Pet Blogger challenge and it’s coming up again!! You can get all the questions at Go Pet Friendly. Will you be participating? I sure will.
I’d like to thank all of you for commenting and participating, but a special thanks to my top five commenters.
Linda from 2 Brown Dawgs
JoAnn from Sand Spring Chesapeakes
Emma from My GBGV Life
Callie, Shadow and Ducky’s Mom from The Golden Life
Lauranne from 25 Castles on 25 Clouds
I thank you all for hanging in there with me. For your kindness and friendship and I look forward to 2015 with the hope you instilled in me. I leave you with some of my favorite photos from this past year.
Happy New Year!!
Welcome to Thursday’s Barks and Bytes hosted by 2 Brown Dawgs 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 Linda and I ask you to please use the linky list. If your blog does not support a linky list, please link back to either Linda or I.
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