Category: BlogPaws

One of the best things about blogging is finding and building communities. When I first started blogging, I used to make it a point not to talk about my cats too much, but I've since overcome my crazy cat lady shame. It's a good thing, too, because it turns out that the BlogPaws community suits me very well, despite the fact that I still blog about plenty of other stuff besides my pets.

Communities are about friends and finding new blogs to read, yes, but they're also about learning. BlogPaws does an excellent job in that regard. Their annual conference features top social media professionals teaching the ins and outs of multiple social outlets and mediums. There are beginner, intermediate and pro tracks for any blogger, as well as some specialty tracks aimed at the pet health and welfare professions.

The speakers are top-notch. Last year Laurie Ruettimann spoke on monetizing your blog. This year Susan Getgood is presenting on monetization and Toby Bloomberg is speaking about Twitter for business. Triberr founder Dino Dogan will be presenting again this year on the future of blogging.

That's just the tip of the iceberg, but I think it's a great representation of how seriously BlogPaws handles core social media topics. There might be eight dogs, a cat and a ferret in the room during any given session, but all of the humans are learning useful information to advance their blogging goals.

Now you may be asking, "But is it fun?" Yes, it's fun! There are social activities built into every mealtime, receptions each night, a red carpet walk the last evening leading to a blog awards ceremony, and lots more. That doesn't count the expo hall, Catification Lounge, dog parks, craft projects and other BlogPaws-specific activities. There will even be BlogPaws Karaoke this year. I don't know exactly what that will entail, but it sounds intriguing.

Want to know more and see some photos? Check out my recaps from 2011 and 2012. 

The 2013 conference starts a week from tomorrow in Tyson's Corner, Virginia. It's not too late to register! Use my discount code BlogPaws2013-POPS-Lindell-20 and you'll get 20% off. Hope to see you there!

Disclosure: My opinions are my own. As a member of the BlogPaws Paws on Patrol team, I attend the conference at no charge and am compensated for helping to promote it.

I had such a good time in Salt Lake City at BlogPaws. I loved seeing old friends and making new ones and it was even more fun with my good friend Spyder as a roommate. Here are some of the photos I took, in no particular order.

Here is BZTAT, Jenifer Whiston and Spyder, all doing what social media people do at dinner! We met up for local microbrews and dinner the night before the conference.

This is my new dog nephew, Duff, and his mom Katharine McMahon of Kat & Dogs. I fell in love with his brother, Lucky, at last year's BlogPaws, which led directly to my adopting Toby. (Note: If you put Toby next to Lucky or Duff, it would be the perfect illustration of the difference between "pet quality" and "show quality" in a particular breed.)

Just like last year, there were lots of dogs in attendance. This is Tillman, spokesdog for Natural Balance. As you can see, he's a monster skateboarder. He and his dog buddies and handlers travel around in a huge bus and do various amazing dog tricks.

This is Preston. He can ride a scooter or a bike. Unfortunately, his bike didn't make it to the conference thanks to an airline snafu, but he did a great job on the scooter.

I loved this little guy's studded "wristbands."

There were also cats, like this lovely gal in her fetching pink wig.

I spent a little time with Bret Michaels, who was debuting his new line of pet accessories at PetSmart. He didn't have a lot to say, but he didn't object to my bringing home a cool studded jacket and leash for Toby.

Here's Laurie Ruettimann with a flat capybara because, why not? It was wonderful to get to hang out with Laurie one evening and see her session on monetizing your blog. It was definitely one of the most dynamic sessions I attended.

Speaking of capybaras, I was happy to reconnect with Melanie Typaldos and Stacy Winnick. They're determined that next year's BlogPaws will feature many more small animals such as rabbits and rodents. 

On the first day of the conference, I skipped one of the session blocks and instead made an Honor Flag for the cats from my past. They strung them all into two long banners and hung them on the stage at the closing event.

The important thing to know about BlogPaws is that it's truly a social media conference. There are sessions about blogging, SEO, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, podcasting, video and just about anything else you can think of that would be useful to someone in the social media space. There's nothing about it that's restricted to pet bloggers, it's just that pet owners love to hang out with each other and it provides a great backdrop for a lot of knowledge.

The sponsors were incredible. This is all the stuff I brought back, which I divided between my cats, my dog, my sister's dogs and a local rescue group. I'll be writing some product reviews in the next few weeks because there were some outstanding new products in there that are well worth sharing.

Next year's conference is back in the Washington, DC area and I've already purchased my conference pass. Can't wait to see everyone in 2013!

Now that I'm back and I've had the chance to decompress a bit from my delayed travel, it's time for me to recap the wonderful time I had at the BlogPaws conference.

I think it's safe to say that it was everything you would expect from a conference aimed at pet bloggers. The sessions were all very informative with lots of practical takeaways, and most of them would apply to any type of blogger. I took lots of notes and I intend to refer back to all of them in the coming weeks and months.

Speaking of taking notes, I should tell you about the gift my husband gave me right before I left for the airport. The night before, I'd been talking about how much I wanted an iPad and he offered to edit his current Craigslist ads for drums and other music gear to say that he'd be willing to trade for an iPad.

Well damned if he didn't find someone to take him up on it. He traded…something (he won't say what, so I suspect it was something valuable that he would otherwise have kept) plus some cash, and managed to get me a first generation iPad. Which was everything I hoped it would be, by the way. I spent all weekend downloading apps that people recommended.

So back to the conference. The attendees were welcome to bring their pets and many people took advantage of that opportunity. Predictably, were lots of dogs:

This is Lucky the Italian greyhound. More about him later.

There were also cats:

And ferrets:

And guinea pigs:

Papua Piig and his owner Angela Mitchell.

Two rescue guinea pigs. The one on the left was very pregnant. Aren't their little faces adorable?

Some people brought Flat Pets to represent their actual pets:

Other people brought stuffed animals, like capycopy here:

I was very excited to meet my fellow Paws on the Ground bloggers, Katharine McMahon of Kat and Dogs, Lisa Taron of Pet Book Lady, Caren Gittelman of Cat Chat with Cody & Caren and Dakota's Den, my awesome roommate Karen Nichols of Mousebreath, Doreen Disbro of Doggies and Stuff, Robbi Hess of Henrietta: The Dish, and Maggie Marton of Oh My Dog!. We all pitched in on Thursday to help sort and cut a massive pile of feedback forms for the sessions that the printer had failed to collate. I would have been more than willing to help out more at the conference, but it was a well-oiled machine.

Because I only blog about my pets part of the time, I wasn't quite sure where I fit in with the crowd, but everyone was so friendly and nice that it was never a concern the whole time I was there.

I was pleased to meet BZTAT, who is a talented artist, a dedicated animal rescuer, and owner of five cats. She and I were united in our disappointment that Laurie Ruettimann (a.k.a. Scrubby's mom) could not attend due to the weather. We paid tribute to her by making a version of Laurie's famous swag videos. Ours was a little long.

One of my favorite BZTAT paintings.

For me, one of the big blogger celebrities of the conference was Melanie Typaldos of Giant Hamster. She has a capybara named Garibaldi ROUS and I've been reading his blog for quite some time. Melanie wasn't the only capybara owner at the conference. Stacy Winnick of Dobby's Day was there as well. On two separate occasions, I hung out with the "capybara bloggers" and helped put together capybara puzzles. It was a lot of fun, especially when you factor in the wine.

Melanie, Stacy and the easy puzzle from the first evening.

On Saturday night we did a much harder puzzle. I kept at it until after 1:00 a.m. and finally gave up before we had all the fur on the haunch completed.

I met lots and lots of people and I know I'm leaving many of them out. I'll make a point of linking to everyone in a later post.

One thing that was notable about the attendees is that nearly everyone I spoke to volunteers for at least one animal rescue group. Thus, the opening keynote by two of the founders of Rescue Ink definitely resonated with everyone. I was impressed by their no-nonsense approach to saving animals and educating the public by whatever means necessary.

Obviously the weather was a big factor as Hurricane Irene and later Tropical Storm Irene headed up the coast. A lot of the attendees and vendors ended up leaving early, but the remaining group made the best of it.

On Saturday evening we were treated to a sneak preview of the kids' movie Spooky Buddies, which comes out on DVD just in time for Halloween. One of the highlights of the showing was the occasional barks by audience members' dogs.

Remember when I said I'd get back to Lucky? Well, here he is with his owner, Katharine. I am forever indebted to her for not only taking me on two Starbucks runs that allowed me to get the breakfast shakes that sustain me, but also for introducing me to her adorable dog.

Despite my solid cat lady status, I've been thinking a lot lately about getting a dog. However, I didn't know what kind of dog I wanted until I met Lucky.

While I was waiting to travel back home after the conference, I found myself idly looking on Petfinder to see if any of the rescues near me had an Italian greyhound up for adoption. The first one on the page was Toby, offered for adoption by the very rescue group for which I volunteer.

I emailed to ask why someone would give up an eight-year-old dog and learned that his people are divorcing. One more email and I had an appointment to go meet him tomorrow and an invitation to foster him for a while to see if he fits into our household before I make any further decisions.

With my husband fully on board, I'm looking forward to meeting Toby after work tomorrow and discovering whether he's the dog for us. I've been researching the breed and the more I read, the more suitable they sound for our lifestyle.

In closing, I was so very impressed with the conference—and not just because it may have expanded my pet universe. I'm already planning on going to BlogPaws 2012 in Salt Lake City. What do you think? Interested in coming with me?