Taking the Pet Blogger Challenge!

 
This is the first year we've participated in the Pet Blogger Challenge, and we're glad to have had input from many of you over the last year and few years that we've had this blog.

Here are our answers for the 2016 Pet Blogger Challenge:

1. How long have you been blogging? And, for anyone who is visiting for the first time, please give a quick description of the subject of your blog.

 We've been blogging for about 9 years now.  We first started blogging in our diaries on Catster, then created "Furry Tails of the PDX Pride" after a few years when we realized that cat blogging was a "thing".  We blog about our daily lives around the house, which animal visitors we get in our backyard, the feral cats who come by, and Tabby's tales of being an animal-assisted therapy volunteer with Mommy at a nursing home once a month.

2. What is the one thing that you accomplished during 2015, either on your blog or because of it, that made you most proud?

 Because of Tabby's therapy cat tales series, she and Mommy were speakers for the second time at the NW Pet and Companion Fair (a pet expo).  They talked about/demonstrated how to be a therapy cat team and what training is necessary.

3. Which of your blog posts was your favorite this year and why? (Please include a link.)

We have two favorite posts:  one that shows how smart the ferals are and another that shows what Tabby does when she's out and about.  The first one, about ferals Tigress and Little Niss, shows how Tigress treats Niss as her own kitten, even though she never had kittens of her own.  The second, about Tabby, details a typical visit and reactions when she's doing her therapy cat work.

4. A common theme from last year’s challenge was that many of us wanted to increase the size of our audiences. Whether or not we intend to monetize our blogs, it seems we’d all like to reach more people. It feels good to know that we’re connecting with others, sharing a laugh or supporting a cause, and it’s motivating to see those numbers grow! What is one thing you’ve done in the past year that has brought more traffic to your blog?

We did the Blogging from A to Z Challenge for the first time this year.  It's not specific to pet blogs, so it brought a varied new audience.  We found some blogs from it that we really liked, too!  Plus, we were blogging every day, so it was a good routine.

5. Which of your blog posts got the most traffic this year? Why do you think it was so popular? (Please include a link.)

Our birthday posts when they came around were high-traffic ones, but we really don't know what made Daddy's Lawnmower Monster so irresistible!  It got 321 views!

6. What is one blog that you read religiously – other than your own – and what makes you such a devoted reader? (Please include a link.)

We love reading SparkleCat, featuring Summer and also Glogirly.  We love the photography and the stories behind the photos!

7. What resources do you rely on to enhance your technical, writing, photography, social media, or other skills that improve your blog?

Mommy uses Picasa to edit the photos she takes of us, and we use NetworkedBlogs to post directly to Mommy's Facebook page (and sometimes Tabby's) as well as let our readers know when we have new posts.

8. What is the best piece of advice you can offer other bloggers?

Write from the heart.  If you don't like what you write, redo it until you like it.  Other people's opinions don't matter as much as your own, so do what you love.

9. What is your vision for your blog in 2016? Do you have specific goals?

Our goals for our blog for 2016 are the same as the last few years':  chronicling our year in words and photos!

10. You have the attention of the pet blogging community – is there one blogging challenge you’d like help with, or one aspect of your blog that you’d like input on?

We would like to know what you like best and don't like about our blog, and what was the most surprising thing we wrote about in the last year.

Annual Purrformance Review of 2010

 Review of:  Mommy (aka our typist)

Date:  2/18/2011

Reviewed by:  the PDX pride of Rori, Freya, Heimdall, Carbon, Little Bit, Starla, and Tabby

Quantity of Output:

Mommy increased the quantity of her output this year, and detailed the most important events of our lives, including deaths and adoptions, with many pictures and video alongside the written journals.  She has also posted every one of Tabby's visit diaries from this past year, an improvement over the previous year.  She fell short of a purrfect score in this category because she didn't post every week for us, but we give her a high score anyway.

Score:  3 paws

Quality of Output:

As always, we are quite pleased with Mommy's choices of pictures, videos, and anecdotes written on our blog.  Most of us helped choose the pictures by pawing the ones we wanted when she edited them, and meowed our choices of stories we wanted written, and our meows were heard and accommodated quite nicely.

Score:  4 paws

Client Pawticipation:

Mommy has increased our readership in two ways this past year:  Networked Blogs and Tabby's Facebook page.  Both links are on our sidebar, for those on Facebook.  Networked Blogs posts our blog as an item in our followers' news feeds on Facebook, so they can easily find our newest posts and click through to read them.  Tabby's Facebook page has copies of each of her visit diaries, plus pictures and discussion topics.  Our Networked Blog fans are mostly members of the Cat Blogosphere, and we're very glad to have this additional way to connect to our readership.  We have also gotten more comments on our blog through this method of publicity than we did the previous year.

Tabby's Facebook page really took off this year, by leaps and pounces.  She is very happy that more people are aware of and asking questions about her therapy cat work.  Because of this added publicity, she was featured on Marg's Animals' blog and interviewed on the Canidae company blog, as well as offered a sponsorship from Canidae/Felidae (which she has accepted and will be sending in the paperwork shortly).  Most of her Facebook fans are not members of the Cat Blogosphere, although some are.  As of this date, she has 660 fans subscribed to her twice-monthly visiting diaries and other posts.

Score:  4 paws

Pawticipation (Part II):

We have not been to many of the Cat Blogosphere special events, due to the changes in our household that occurred throughout this past year.  We regret that, but it is not Mommy's fault.  None of us felt like pawticipating much.  However, we wish to thank each and every one of you for your support of all of us throughout our grief and the comments and purrrrayers.  We also wish to thank you for your constant support and encouragement of our adoption of the kittens, who have brought us much joy in the midst of our sadness and continue to be a light in our lives.

Score:  3 paws

Client Satisfaction:

We have recieved so many pawsitive comments and feedback on our blog posts; thank you all very much for all of it.  We love reading what you have to say, and are purry glad that we purrvide interesting blogs for you.

Score:  4 paws

Overall Rating, Comments, Suggestions:

Mommy's overall score is very high this year.  She was attentive to our needs, in speech, photos, and video, and also in silence when we needed to take time away from typing to curl up and purr.  This coming year, we hope to score higher in the area of group pawticipation, but we are quite pleased overall and will continue to guide Mommy so that she purrvides more excellent posts and journals for everyone to read.

Final Purrformance Review Score:  3.6 paws out of 4.  Very good, Mommy!

Love,

the PDX pride.

Mommy's Annual Purrrrrrformance Review!

The PDX pride writes:

First of all, thank you to Zoolatry for sending out the purrformance review form. Now, on to the good stuff!

Review of Mommy, also known as Karen Thompson.
Date: 11/08/2009
Reviewed by: Rori, Skylar, Carbon, Tabby, Starla, and the Trailer Kitties.

1. Quantity of Output
The quantity of output varies from day to day. She could do better, as most weeks we only get two or three posts. We'll give her two paws on this one.

2. Quality of Output
We're very happy with the quality of our blog! It tells the story of most of the happenings around here, including each of us inside kitties, the outside kitties (Trailer Kitties), and our fosters (now former fosters). Each of us gets a chance to meow about what's important in our lives. We'll give her four paws on this one.

3. Client Pawticipation
We get some comments on our blog, which is really good. We love reading the comments! She also just put up a Facebook page for Tabby that will chronicle just her modeling and therapy cat work. You can see that here. However, we don't get that much time to visit our friends in the Cat Blogosphere. In fact, we haven't been to see our other cat friends' blogs for over two months now! So she's been very lax on that! We'll give her two swats on this one.

4. Pawticipation (Part II)
We have been able to pawticipate in most of the Cat Blogosphere special events since we joined, and so we're very happy about that! We'll give her four paws on this one.

5. Client Satisfaction
Everyone who comments seems to like our blog. We sometimes get differing opinions, but that's part of the fun of a blog! We love to discuss things! We'll give her four paws on this one.

6. Overall Rating & Suggestions for Improvement
Mommy's overall rating is 2.8 paws. She could improve a lot by just letting us visit our friends' bloggies! We also need to post every day or almost every day.

We love you anyway, Mommy!

-- Rori, Skylar, Carbon, Tabby, Starla, Shadow, Grey Kitty, and all the rest of the PDX pride.

Mommy started a new bloggie

Mommy started a new bloggie called the Frugal Feline. It's about saving money on cat essentials and finding good deals on new, interesting, chic, and cool products for cats and their people. If this sounds like something you want to read about, you can click here.

Updated Catster diaries

Rori had her post-spay vet visit, and Tabby joined her for moral support. You can read about it in Rori's and Tabby's diaries.

Foster kitten Smokey also wrote in her diary about adjusting (or not) to inside life.