I was recently posed a challenge by my friend Vera Marie Badertscher of A Travelers Library that’s been making its way around the interwebs: Pick out your best posts in seven different categories and then pass the challenge along to five more bloggers. Called — very aptly — My 7 Links, it was started by Tripbase Blog.
Like Trip Base and A Travelers Library, most of the blogs involved in the challenge are travel blogs, though they’re not required to be. Will My Dog Hate Me is too eclectic to fit into that category but Vera knows me from back when I was primarily a travel writer and knows that I am working on a pet travel book. Sort of. She is, in addition to being an excellent writer, a very nice person.
Among the instructions were something like “don’t overthink this.”
Yeah, right.
1. My Most Beautiful Post
Get out your hankies. This is my response to a reader who wrote me about her very difficult decision to put her dog down: Your Dog Won’t Hate You. This I Know.
2. My Most Popular Post
Sadly — because of the subject matter, not because of the writing or the excellent information– it is Canine Cognitive Dysfunction: A Vet Explains, a guest post by Dr. Janet Tobiassen Crosby. With improvements in veterinary medicine, our dogs are living longer, so it’s no surprise that more and more of them are experiencing the same types of old age symptoms that geriatric humans are subject to.
3. My Most Controversial Post
Some of my Cesar Milan posts got more nasty comments, but I don’t really want to go there again because I think the discussions they spurred involved people getting more and more entrenched in their positions without any meaningful dialogue. And, looking back, my tone was kind of snarky. In contrast, my heartfelt Open Letter to Nathan Winograd started a discussion about No-Kill shelters that had some substance to it.
4. My Most Helpful Post
I like to think that many of my posts are helpful — some more subtly than others — but 9 Things That Make a Hotel Genuinely Pet Friendly got people to recognize that they can — and should — expect more than tolerance from the self-dubbed hospitality industry.
5. A Post Whose Success Surprised Me
This is not so much a post as a picture, the one marked “Old Friends” to the left. Talk about serendipity. I’d been blogging about pit bulls a lot — another controversial topic — but at the same time ran a contest for gourmet dog treats. The winner of that contest sent me the image of her 90-year-old mother with the dog who would be enjoying the treats, which I posted and titled Another Very, Very Scary Pit Bull
Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that so many people responded to it. It still makes me tear up every time I see it.
6. A Post I Don’t Feel Got the Attention It Deserved
I got very little attention for most of my posts the first year that I started blogging, so I’m just going to pick one I like a lot from that period. Great Expectations: A Tale of Two Dogs is about both human and canine relationships. Set aside a little time: It’s longer than most posts and you have to read all the way to the end to get the point. A hankie might be called for here too.
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Now to pass the baton… I chose four travel blogs I love, in the spirit of the thread and to remind myself I should be writing my pet travel book so I can feel comfortable in their ranks. The fifth is pure pet blog, because travel bloggers should know what terrific pet blogging is (though the blog has a wee travel component too):
Laura Paquet’s Facing the Street
Ellen Perlman’s Boldly Go Solo
Jackie Dishner’s Bike with Jackie
Rod & Amy Burkert’s Take Paws (Go Pet Friendly’s Blog)
Dr. V’s Pawcurious
Awww, what nice things to say about me (even if your comment form won’t let me write my whole name). Anyhow, so glad you shared your 7 links, because I had somehow missed that adorable video. I can imagine it was challenging. But most beautiful was not Frankie in costume??
Is my comment form the only one rude enough to cut you off? It apologizes.
Pretty Boy Frankie, who retired from the ring, was the ref.
A picture may be worth a thousand words, but the picture of Frankie in his beach outfit should be worth a thousand dollars. He is so cute!
I agree — know any takers? 😉 Thank you !
Edie – I loved your choices and completely agree with all of them. The only one I hadn’t read was the one that got the least amount of attention – Go figure!
It was great to see which ones you picked. I can’t wait to see what Dr V and Rod and Amy pick!
A lovely idea to do this.
Thanks, Mel — much appreciated.
As predicted, the post about Sheba and the post about Ozzy and his 90-year-old friend both made my eyes well up. Lovely writing, Edie! And great picks for your 7.
Thanks again for the shoutout! Will have my list up next week.
Thank you, Laura. I hope the Great Yorkie Bark-Off cheered you up after the other two posts choked you up.
You’re very welcome for the shoutout! I’ll look forward to reading your picks whenever you post them.
Those are both difficult topics. But great posts!
Thanks, Peggy. And thanks for coming by.
I haven’t read a good pet travel book lately but I can sure use one because I always prefer to travel with my 2 Shih Tzu boys.
The details which would be most important for people like me would be: suggested places to stay with pets, things to do when traveling with pets, public transportation that allow pets, local veterinary clinics and pet emergency hospitals, as well as helpful tips and valuable resources.
If the pet travel book you are working on is not just “sort of” but a feasible reality and if it will include that which I’ve mentioned above, than I will be your biggest fan.
Hanna, my pet travel book is real, it’s just been on hold because I’ve been crazy busy earning a living. I will definitely list hotel chains that are pet friendly and I promise to provide valuable resources. I won’t be able to list every local pet clinic and emergency hospital but that’s what the valuable resources are about: Telling you where to look to get the information you need. I hope that will still make you my biggest fan!
Fantastic job – I love the links you chose. Thank you so much for nominating our blog. I’m truly honored, and am looking forward to doing my 7 Links!
Thanks, Amy. I’m looking forward to seeing your picks; you have a lot of great ones in all those categories.
Woof! Woof! Enjoyed reading your Great Expectation post. Will definitely check out the other travel blogs. Happy BLOG HOP Weekend. Lots of Golden Woofs, Sugar
Thanks for coming by, Sugar. Glad you like the Great Expectations post. And happy blog hop weekend to you, too.
I’ll just bet that Frankie LOVED wearing that outfit for you! What a cutie. Still voting daily for you.
I’m not sure about love, but he definitely tolerated it with grace. Thanks so much for your votes!
That “very scary pit bull” is… I hope when I’m old and lonely and warehoused in a nursing home and my kids have forgotten me, a loving dog comes to visit me.
Oh Edie…. I should tell you that mom died back in January and Ozzy was diagnosed with spinal degenerative myelopathy and is probably not long for the world himself. My sad times are leavened knowing how much the photo of them touches people.
Emily, I’m so sorry for your loss — and for what you must be going through now with Ozzy. I’m glad you could find some comfort in knowing how much that picture moved a great number of people. My thoughts are with you in this very difficult year.