Here I am, Madison, doing the Pet Blogger Challenge 2019. This is my first year doing it. My late sister Emma participated for six years from 2013 to 2018. Emma designated me to take over her blogging empire, so I am busy learning the ropes of blogging.
The Pet Blogger Challenge is hosted by Amy at Go Pet Friendly. She creates most of the questions and organizes the yearly event. The challenge is made for pet bloggers, but anyone is welcome to read the ten questions and answers, and offer advice.
Thankfully, I have my big sister Bailie to help me out when I get stuck with some of the questions. She isn’t the most helpful, but together, we will answer all ten questions.
The 10 Pet Blogger Challenge Questions:
1. For those who may be visiting your blog for the first time, how long have you been blogging and what is your main topic?
Emma published her first post on November 8, 2011. This is our eighth year of blogging, just starting our third month without Emma. We blog about our breed, the GBGV, Grand Basset Griffon Vendéen, our sports, product reviews, and a healthy dog lifestyle.
2. What was your proudest blogging moment of 2018?
I guess it would be from BlogPaws back in April when we met with the folks from Halo. They were so nice and Halo has turned out to be such an amazing company with great products. Through our meeting we’ve had several opportunities to work with the company and we are thankful for that. We have switched to their food, and are eating more healthy, and feeling good. Halo recognizes our hard work and that makes us feel good.
3. What was the biggest blogging challenge you faced in 2018, and how did/will you tackle it?
Suddenly losing Emma really threw a wrench in our lives and the blog and still does every single day. Mom had planned to one day, when she felt Emma was older, start phasing her out of the blog a bit, and let me and Bailie take over. Trying to move forward without the heart of the blog without warning has been very hard. One forgets how entangled one is in the blog and to start removing Emma from things slowly is very difficult emotionally. We are figuring out how to move forward in our own direction without changing things too much, but it is not an easy task.
4. Which of your 2018 blog posts was your favorite and why? (Please include a link.)
There was really no one post that stood out as a real showstopper in 2018. I guess the one we would choose to be our favorite would be Emma’s last kitchen post where she worked with Bully Bundles to turn a bully stick into a late summer treat. It was fun because they used her photos in their own advertising campaign. Pumpkin Spice Surprise on (Bully) Sticks
5. Which of your 2018 posts was most popular with your audience? Why do you think it does so well?
Surprisingly, the most viewed post of 2018 was Emma’s post from 2016, 5 Reasons to Give Your Dog Beef Marrow Bones. The most popular post of 2018 that was written in 2018 was Deal Of The Day On Bark The Essential Bed!, which I’m proud to say I wrote!
6. Did you implemented a new series, feature, or practice on your blog in 2018 that you’re enjoying?
We haven’t formally done anything new, but we have added a lot more posts about our dog sports. Both Bailie and I do a lot of sports and competitions, and we would like to showcase that part of the blog a bit more in our revamp project. Sports with your dog, whether you compete or do it for fun, is such a wonderful way to build a better bond with your dog. It is always so heartwarming when fans tell us they started a sport because they heard about it from us. Mom started my sisters in nose work because of another blogger, so we want to do the same for others.
7. As the social media landscape changes, how are you promoting your blog posts and connecting with new readers?
The biggest problem we have is Mom’s work. She gets so busy sometimes, we don’t have time to promote posts as much as we would like. We are in some boost groups that do seem to help. Pinterest is something we would like to do more with. We did do some work on our boards earlier last year, and we try to create more pinnable images for our posts, but it is a lot of work that we often don’t have time for. Twitter is our biggest social media account, but we don’t do a lot with it, and we love Instagram, but can’t seem to make any progress there. Facebook is a social media that makes us so mad as they are not nice, but they have been and continue to be our best source of visitors outside of search engines, so we have to keep posting there.
8. Looking forward to 2019, if you accomplish only one thing through your blog, what do you hope it is?
We want to get a new theme to update the look of the site, and change it just a little bit to fit me and Bailie better. With the change of CBO (Chief Blogging Officer), it is the right time to make some changes to the look of things. We are working on finding someone to help us with the project because we can’t do it ourselves and the person who helped Emma last time is no longer doing websites. Choosing a new theme is not easy.
9. What steps are you planning to take to ensure you reach your goal?
We’ve been busy thinking of what we want in a new theme, and what changes we would like to make to the look of our blog. The logo and branding will always be the same. Emma planned it so even if she was no longer here, it would work for any GBGV who would take over the blog. We are glad she had the presence of mind to think about that when she started. Actually, Gramma put that bug in Emma’s long ears and she took the advice.
10. Now it’s your turn! How can we help? Is there an area where you could use some advice, or an aspect of your blog that you’d like input on? Share it here, and we’ll answer you in comments!
We would love to know what you want us to blog about more. Are there things you don’t like that we blog about. Should Bailie and I try to learn to cook and bake? How can we increase our readership? Our blog is never going to be a money making venture the way it looks, but we still want to reach more people to share our tips on lifestyle and health. We blog because we enjoy it, and that is our top priority.
Thank you for reading, and thank you in advance for any comments or suggestions you might have for us.
Emma picked the right person/ dog to take over. You will be a star.
She knew I had some of her Debucher genes, and I have a good work ethic.
Bravo, Bravo for all that you did in 2018. I bet loosing Emma was a big blogging challenge and she is always by your side. I often wonder how you pull off so many posts with work, your are doing a great job at it and you always have such wonderful pictures to go along with your stories. Here’s to a new year!
It is a lot of hard work, but we all love the blog almost as much as Emma did. It is our creative outlet and it helps us relax when life gets super busy.
I always love when you write about your sports–especially your budding agility career since we both started trialing around the same time! Anytime I know you’re in a trial, I’m on the edge of my seat waiting to see how you did–it’s so fun to hear about your experiences. We know how much work it is to try to do work work, sports work, and blog work–and I’m always impressed with how well you all handle that!
It is tiring at times, but we love our sports and the blog, so Mom says she refuses to cut back on either of those things, and we need that job thing for the green papers so we can do the other stuff. I’m doing fantastic in agility at class, but at trials I’m a failure right now. I am so excited about all the people, I stay on course, but keep stopping to see who all is there. Hopefully we will work through this soon. I’m starting class at another school, maybe that will help out too.
Excellent round up for your year. You guys are always so professional, in all your posts, and the cute photos are the very best.
Thank you. I’ve really taken to doing modeling which makes Mom happy.
love the pink glasses on Bailie and the matching pink bow in your hair. both of you girls are doing a fantastic job, Emma would be so very proud of you.
She would probably be frustrated we are not doing more, but she was a real perfectionist. We do our best, and it is a big task.
We love reading about your sports! And your funny adventures. That’s what grabbed mom as a reader originally — Emma’s funny ways and stories made her laugh. You are doing a great job “finding your voice” Madison. It’s been a tough year, hasn’t it? Not fair and not the way we planned it. We’ve followed up on so many of your recommendations that reading your blog is mandatory reading in our house! And with the puppies coming (shhh — did you read that right? puppies, you did! Mom is crazy!! more on that another time) we will need lots of advice. Mom also has taken up running! Great post Madison We look forward to another great year of blog posts! your friend Lilly
OMD! Puppies! Wow, this sounds quite interesting! Hopefully Bailie and I will keep the laughter going, I think we will. Mom says we are silly all the time. It makes us feel good to know people read out blog and do learn about things they can do or use in their own life with their dog. Hopefully your Mom has Icebugs running shoes if she is out in the winter. We are excited to hear all about your upcoming changes! Thanks for being great friends.
You sure did have a sad and challenging year in 2018 but y’all have stepped up to keep everything going wonderfully. We do love reading your sporting posts too, y’all are impressive!
My mom calls me her ace sometimes because I am pretty good at the things I do. The Emma challenge is the hardest one we have ever faced, but we have to go on, so we do.
I love when your pictures pop up in my facebook – so cute. I like reading about your sports. I have a couple friends that do dog sports. I have a cat so sports aren’t really a thing (there’s agility – but my travel cat’s a Persian – not exactly a top agility candidate lol.) We love competing in show though. Have a great year, looking forward to reading along.
My mom used to show her kitty when she was a little girl. I get kitties would do better at agility if we dogs were chasing them? Nothing harmful, just to get them running. Cats are so agile. My kitties always run here at home if we try to chase them. We will keep popping up on Facebook for you as always!
With all you girls and your Mom have going on, I – like everyone else apparently – think you’re doing a great job keeping up the blog. You always have great photos to help tell your stories, and your own sweet personalities come out in the telling as well. Emma will always be with you in your hearts and minds, but she knew what she was doing when she appointed you as CBO.
I don’t have any advice for you with respect to your blog changes other than to follow your heart. If you want to do some cooking/baking, by all means do so; if not, then don’t. I’ve thought of doing some things with our blog, but don’t have the resources so not focusing on it for now.
We are kind of addicted to our blog after doing it for so long, and for Bailie and I, we both grew up only knowing life as blogging dogs. Mom loves the creative outlet for her photos and stories, so we keep going because it is fun for us all.
I am sure this was a sad blog to wright. Your sports are fantastic. I hope you can learn to cook…somehow I don’t think the wild child would not have the patience to cook and she might eat too much of the food! Your Grammie is a smart lady! XOXO, Sparkle
Bailie in the kitchen might be tough because she loves anything she can possibly eat. I might try to get into making some simple things down the road for starters. Right now it is still to hard to even think about wearing Emma’s aprons. She has such a collection, though, it is sad to not eventually use them to honor her.
I have always enjoyed your blog both your amazing photographs and your writing. I enjoy the sport and training posts because they are new to us (Ruby is not much into sports. LOL) so I always learn something new. Of course, I love your cooking posts with Emma and if you are comfortable continuing them without her, I would love to see them.
I so feel for you as I know how painful it is to lose your heart dog so suddenly. I also know it is difficult when the central dog on your blog passes away. I started my blog with my Yorkie Pip and just wasn’t sure how to continue to blog without him. It took me a long time and I took several years off.
I never did much with Pinterest until the last few months. It’s a lot of work initially, but Tailwind makes it really easy to schedule posts and has options so that it pretty much runs itself. I started focusing on Pinterest in November and have definitely had a bump in traffic.
I think we have to look into Tailwind. With the little effort we have done on Pinterest it has shown results. Mom always thought if any of us passed away, she would take a break from the blog and social media. We tried, but after just a couple days we missed it so much, we had to get back to it. Emma loved all the modeling and having people recognize her when she was out places, so for us keeping it going is partially for her, but we all love it too. You did a great job of rebranding your blog, and although Ruby is there, she isn’t the main focus which is what we are going to try to do with us and the blog going forward.
Emma was very wise choosing you to take over. You did an outstanding job.
Have a woof woof day. My best to your peeps. ♥
Emma was a real smart girl.
I can’t imagine how hard it has been to keep going without Emma. My hat is off to the whole family.
When I started Something Wagging, I was still grieving the loss of my dog Shadow and featured her on the header of the blog. Years later when I put Honey on the header, I cried at the thought of not seeing Shadow every time I opened the blog.
I think your blog is a natural for Pinterest. You share so much useful and interesting content. But I understand the time issue.
I use Tailwind to schedule pins for two blogs I work for. It’s not cheap. But it makes it really easy to schedule things way in advance. And it would be great for scheduling old posts. You can also use it to schedule in advance for the holidays or other special events.
If you think it’s something you’d like to know more about, feel free to reach out to me. I could probably share a small discount coupon from one of my bosses’ accounts. No, I don’t get paid by Tailwind. But I’ve been really impressed by it in the 2 years I’ve used it.
We love your blog and we especially love all of the links that you post to keep us up to date on the great stuffs that’s out there!
Thank you. We try our best to be helpful.
Y’all know that we love you and your blog. Emma would be proud of how you have taken the leash and are creating excellent posts just like she did. We would love for y’all to practice cooking. I’m sure Emma left a bunch of recipes for you to try!
Thanks you guys. Once we have the courage to use her apron collection, we might dip our paws into cooking.
We know how tough it was for you to lose Emma, and then have to figure out where to go from there. You have done quite well – as Melissa said, Emma would definitely be proud of you, Madison.
We’ve always loved the different variety of things you write about including your sports, and we always enjoyed Emma’s recipes too. If you feel good about taking that over, we would love to see it.
Also, though we know your cats aren’t your focus, we do like seeing them sometimes. That Bert is a hoot! 🙂
The felines are lots of trouble around here, but they do get their chance on the blog now and then, and that will remain so. The whole Emma thing is still so hard for our Mom. Hopefully down the road I’ll be able to try out some of Emma’s apron collection and dabble my paws in some cooking. Thank you for being a friend.
What a rough year 2018 was for you all! We think you, Madison, have done a wonderful job with the legacy Emma left you. We enjoy reading your agility posts and your reviews have always been an inspiration to us. Seeing you and/or Bailie in the kitchen would be great, we were big fans of Emma’s recipes!
Mama has always been in awe of your Mama’s ability to blog full time, work and get you and Bailie to your training and competitions.
We are looking forward to another fun year following your adventures!
xoxo,
Rosy, Jakey & Arty
Sometimes life is exhausting for Mom, but she refuses to give up what she loves because of her work, and she needs to work so we can do what we love. Most of the time it is not all that difficult, just in the busy months. We hope to keep things running smoothly and maybe make it to the kitchen at some point this year.
You already look like a seasoned canine blogger!
Purrs & Head Bonks,
Alberto
Well, I’ve been a part of it since the day I turned nine weeks old, but I wasn’t planning on running it two years later. We love it, and it seems to be going alright.
It sounds like you are well on your way to meeting your blogging goals, and you have done a fabulous job picking up the pieces after your loss.
Mom is glad she has me and Bailie because she couldn’t do it all without our help.
I think about you guys a lot and know that you miss Emma very much. It must be so hard. I do think you’ve done a great job continuing the blog, Madison. Emma would be very proud!
My favorite posts of yours are always your running posts or your posts about walking/exercise routines. Haha. I’ve told you before my favorite post of yours was the one where you wrote about getting different walks and runs in first thing in the morning with 3 dogs of different ages (Katie, Emma and Bailie at the time). I go back and read that post at least once a year.
That is one of the few things that have been positive about losing Emma is we have more time in the morning. Now Mom only has to walk us together in the morning, and now with winter, she runs by herself because she is so afraid of ice. We hope to post more on walking dogs because it is important to us. It is the first time in like nine years there hasn’t been a senior dog in the house, sad, but a whole different set of possibilities too.
Yes, I hear ya. I very much miss having Ace around obviously but at the same time it’s much easier now that I only have the one young dog to take care of and exercise.
I also love your winter /cold weather posts because they are unique. For example, the Facebook video you posted recently about the girls playing in below zero weather! Haha. Being from Minnesota, I appreciate your winter posts! I also believe in walking the dogs in almost all weather.
So many people fear the cold, or dread it. The news media is so over the top with scare tactics as well. Like you, I know how winter is, and I know dogs can go out in the winter and have a blast. Some breeds are not made for it, but the majority of dogs really enjoy winter. Ace was an awesome dog, and I’m sure you miss him a lot too. It is easier not having to do things twice with age differences, but I’d do it again in a heartbeat to have Emma back. The suddenness of it all really makes it so much harder.
The news media is ridiculous. Nice weather doesn’t make them money.
I like your posts about sports – da mommas are considering getting me and Brinley involved in some too!
You guys should try some sports. The mental aspects alone would keep you guys happy even when you can’t be out walking or going for bike rides.
Thanks so much for joining the Challenge, Madison and Bailie! You girls are doing a great job with the blog – Emma would be proud.
Your posts would be great on Pinterest. Pamela’s advice on getting Tailwind is great, and I’ll add that setting up a template in your favorite photo editing software so that you can drop in a photo, change the title, and export it quickly really helps keep the time needed to create Pinterest images to a minimum. Also, your photos are so great I imagine you do really well in Instagram. Check out linktr.ee, which allows you to provide multiple links from your Instagram profile – and it’s free!
Thanks again, and all the best to you in 2019!
I think we will work harder on Pinterest. For some reason Instagram is tough to gain traction for us. We will check out that tool to add links to our profile. Thank you again for hosting this every year.
I love your posts about dog sports!!! Great answers to the questions!
Thank you. Those will continue. We are very into exercise, sports, physical and mental challenges. It is so important for dogs and you don’t need to compete, just doing sports even for fun only is so good for bonding as well.
I’m sorry about Emma. We lost our Linus in May last year and it was devastating for us. Something interesting that I’m not sure I told you. We named our first daughter Emma (almost 2) and our second daughter Madison (5 months). I actually had Bailey on my list for our third daughter, but we elected to go with Kayla (5 months). I kind of wonder if the names were influenced by your blog. By far our two biggest traffic sources are #1 Search Engines and a distant second, Pinterest. Those are the two areas we will focus on to increase our readership.
That is so funny with the names. We do think name ideas come from something our brains have good memories of. SEO is hard, but search engines do send us traffic. For some reason, year after year, Facebook is number one for social media, but we are hoping to find new fans through increasing our Pinterest presence. Hugs to your girls!
Wooftastic work Ballie & Madison!
Emma would be wagnificently proud of you both?
?nose nudges?
Thank you. Wish she could come back and tell us that in the furs.
Finding the time to do it all is the hardest challenge. So sorry you lost your Emma.
Pinterest has been a game changer for me. Here’s to a great 2019 and it was a pleasure to visit your site through the challenge.
Time is a terrible thing. When you are young, you have too much, then when you really need it, you don’t have enough. We are going to work on Pinterest.
I have no advice, because as you know, I can barely keep my blog afloat at the moment. But I will say, I’m impressed by the way you have carried on after losing Emma so suddenly. You are doing a fine job living up to her legacy.
We tried to take a break, but it only made us all feel worse, so on we go 🙂
I am not a dog person but I was struck by the loss of Emma, she was such a strong presence online and her loss must have hit you terribly hard. You are wonderful to have such a fine successor (although they have big paw steps to fill).
I wish to every success for 2019, I know it will be a wonderful year for you.
Thank you. Losing someone like Emma has been so difficult. We are finding our own way to carry on her work. We hope you get our comments on your blog when we visit. We hit enter and never see them appear, nor do we see a held for moderation message, so we don’t know why that is. It doesn’t happen on any other blogs.
I’m so sorry about Emma. I can’t imagine how hard that must have been (and probably still is). I’ve wondered before what the fate of my blog will be if/when I loose my oldest dog, Kitsune. He was the original inspiration behind my blog and I do think writing on without him will be hard. I can so relate to how hard it can be to keep up with blogging when you have a busy life/job too. It looks like you’ve been doing an amazing job, despite the hurdles thrown your way. Best wishes for a successful, happy 2019!
http://www.pawprintpetblog.com
Thank you. We always planned to keep the blog going, but losing Emma so suddenly was not on the charts and that made it hard. Believe it or not, not writing was harder than continuing on. Hopefully your Kitsune will live on for a long time.
You did good Madison. This is a fun blog. I am also thinking of getting a new theme and changing things up but in our case, I have to see if TW is gonna continue with the blog. Here’s to much success changing themes and in 2019.
Good luck on your change. I hope the kitty wants to continue, but cats can be rather tough about the whole work thing 😉 I know, because I live with two felines you know.