Popular

I have never been "popular." In highschool I was a nerd with few (very few) friends. As an adult I have quite a few dog friends. But in blogger world I am down right popular!

My first blog post was May 20, 2005. When I first started my blog I started it with the intention of using it to keep track of my training. My first blog post was nothing special. Just a short note about what the dogs were doing. I started out slow, and then even slower, and then in the last year have become a blogger addict. As of yesterday I had published 588 blog posts.

My blog is my outlet- and has helped me through lots of stuff- I recently went through and read almost all of it. And yes, it took me a long time! I found posts that I had forgotten about, and it was so cool to be able to see the changes in myself, my dogs, and my training. I thought it would be neat to read about my life- and it was; Almost losing Wicca to Parvo, Wicca's First trial, the passing of my old dog Tina, Sam's first AAC trial- resulting in a Title, a new dog- Vito, the first Terry Simons seminar, and frustration of Sam's injury- all in one post!!, another new dog- Boone, our first Nationals Event, the devastating loss of Sam (I cried when I read his post), and more recently the happiness and excitement of baby Pixel....

I write about whatever I want- my dogs, my life, my job, and my interests(which are usually dog related!) My main reason for the blog is still training. I am not an organised person by nature and the blog has helped me with that. Saying that, I have always loved to write, and consider myself funny. I am sarcastic, bossy, and opinionated. Which usually makes for interesting reading! You keep coming back don't you??? It can't be just for the cute dog photos...can it?

I have no idea how many total visitors I've had to the blog- I wish that I would have installed a counter when I first published the blog. It would be interesting to know. I do know that I have a lot of readers. To be honest- some days it creeps me out. And other days I think it's cool. Mostly though, I don't really think about it.

Anyway, I reinstalled something called Google Analytics just a few weeks ago. It tracks all sorts of things- total visitors, how often visitors return, if they were referred from another site, etc. etc. (Again, kind of creepy if you think about it...)

From April 16 until May 2 I have had 2,089 visits to the blog. Pretty astounding. Now, not all of those are new people- lots of them are "frequent readers" so to speak. But still. I feel popular.

It makes you wonder how people find you. I mean, I have my blog address in my email signature- so essentially everyone I email could check it out. Lots of people are referred from a different site- reading other peoples blog-rolls have certainly increased the ones I read regularly! I remember when I first started blogging I could only find two or three cardigan blogs- Now there are a ton! And then other people google me. Cool. And creepy all at the same time.

Even people that I know, but aren't really "friends" with, read the blog. People at trials come up to me and tell me how entertaining I am. Customers at work tell me how cute my dogs are. I am usually too flabbergasted to say much except "Thank You."

So Thanks to all my readers. For being a part of something that started out so small, and has since become a great outlet for me. Blogging has made the world so small, and I feel that I know so many more people. Oh, and I won't lie and say that it doesn't feel good to be "popular" - because it totally does! :o) So thanks again! You guys rock!