Thursday, 29 November 2007

Currently buried under mountain of emails

Such a great response to my request for dog photos, Im literally buried in them. Inbox has so far peaked at 144 emails. I stayed up to 1 am doing as many as possible, adding pictures and pages as I went. This morning total starts at 137 so Ive plenty of work to be getting on with.

Whoever said "ask and you shall recieve" well it certainly worked in this instance :)

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Wednesday, 28 November 2007

You only have to ask for pictures

Wow what a response Ive had from breeders and dog owners in respnse to me asking dog for dog pictures. I've literally been sent tonnes!!! My email inbox is full, hence a short blog as I have to keep going through them.

Here's a couple pages I've put together:
Keeshouds
Rottweilers
Yorkshire Terriers

They really look great. Enjoy

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Tuesday, 27 November 2007

Long Tedious Day with Light at end of tunnel

I spent half my day contacting U.S dog rescues in the hope of building some link partnerships with some of them, so in the future I can send visitors from my site to there sites, for more info and possibly make donations.

I've had it on my mind lately how to get dog breed photos. Well, I found a site on the web where people had submitted photos of breeds and some had email addresses to contact them to ask permission for use of the photo.

So, I just bit the bullet and decided to spend the whole day (well rest of the day and OVERTIME!) , contacting each and everyone of them. Now some people would do a long winded job like this over a few days or a week or more. Not me, I want this job done and out the way.

It was a long a tedious job, especially after emailing dog rescues. However there's light at the end of the tunnel. I'm hoping Ill be sent lots of dog breed photos or at least be given the permission to use some from existing web sites.

Who knows I might strike up some much needed link partnerships.

All the emailing is certaining doing well for my goal of 100 hits a day. I've had just over 200 unique hits today and theres 3 hours of the day left.

I'll no doubt be buried in emails the next few days. Now that's certainly something I want!!!!

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Monday, 26 November 2007

Goal 1 Update

I made the decision today to try and get more link trades with Dog rescues from both the UK and the U.S

I want to put the plight of dogs that need rescuing at the forfront of the site.
Previously when I emailed dog rescues, my emails were less personal and quite long and waffly, asking for pictures, etc as well as a link.

In my quest to get 100 hits a day I thought it can't hurt to try again and contact those that previously didn't reply. This time I kept the email shorter and to the point and made it more personal. I got through all the Uk dog rescues and will do the rest tomorrow.

Later added in: I finished the day with 52 unique hits.

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Sunday, 25 November 2007

Where to find copyright free photos??

I've been looking around today and I just can't work out where to find a source of free to use photos or pictures that are copyright free that I could use for the web site. It's so frustrating as the internet is full of dog photos and I'm not sure which ones I can use. I don't want to use any without the correct permission.

I guess in time I should be able to get photos of most breeds by contacting individual dog web sites but thats going to take me weeks, if not months.

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Saturday, 24 November 2007

Beaware when setting goals

Okay its the next day after I set my target to first achieve 100 hits a day as of next week and then maintain it.

Well, I did that goal kind of on impulse, I've been busy creating content and decided it was time I get some traffic.

However, this morning, after sleeping on it, I remembered that one rule of setting goals is not to set goals that are outside of your control. Well that is exactly what I did. I have no control over whether Google or other search engines index my new pages or the timeframe they do so. Then no control over any traffic those pages may pull in, or as is very likely, may not.

I do have control over how much content I can create and how much effort I can put in to link building.

However, even though the goal does seem a little more difficult than I first thought I'm still going all out to achieve it.

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Friday, 23 November 2007

New breed pages

I uploaded approximately 60+ dog breed pages today. Most are incomplete or at least not of a standard I would show them to owners of each breed. My hope is that some of them will be picked up by the search engines and starting contributing a little to my hits target for next week and by then I'll have work through most and improved them.

I've been working all day, going through each one and spell checking, and interlinking with the rest of the website. Still got some interlinking to do.

I'm intending to go through each breed page one ata time and improve them and then see if other related sites think they are worthy of being linked to. Many of them I don't even have breed pictures for.

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Thursday, 22 November 2007

Goal - 100 hits a day from next week

I've been working alot behind the scenes of the complete dogs guide building lots of content for the web site, although most of it is spread across many part finished pages which aren't ready to be fully uploaded just yet. Most of those being dog breed pages.

I haven't done any promotion at all since trying to partner with some Dog Rescues web sites a few weeks ago.

Currently the site is getting 36 hits a day based on last weeks daily average. I just think now, coming to the end of the month it's about time the site started getting a bit more traffic and more visitors can actually start benefiting from the hard work going into the site.

My goal is to reach 700 unique daily hits next week, starting Monday, so an average of 100 a day. Importantly it must be done in a way so that the average number of daily unique visitors will remain at 100 a day (preferably more). This will be great as it immediately means I'll be set for reaching over 3000 visitors for the month of December.

My plan starts now and involves me completing and incorporating into the site as many new pages as possible so they start picking up the odd hit from the search engines, which they will do if they are deemed good quality content.

At some point I'll try and get some more links to the site., which is obviously easier the more good quality content I have!

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Wednesday, 14 November 2007

Dog on Treadmill - Important Lesson

Before you ever put your dog on a treadmill make sure that they have relieved themselves beforehand.

Do this even if you think or know your dog has emptied there bowels already that day, give them another opportunitity to do so again, using whatever command you normally use.

Do this even if its late evening and your dog always relieves itself in the morning.

Do this if your dog, never or even very rarely goes to the loo on a walk.

Its well worth taking this advice. If you don't and your dog needs to go, the result is not to dis-similar to the effects of the phrase "the s**t has hit the fan".

Lesson over.

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Monday, 12 November 2007

Sky is fine after eating sweets and chocolate

After lasts nights late raid on the sweets and chocolate basket Sky seems fine today. A little overactive, maybe from all the extra sugar intake, or maybe I'm just imagining it. She seems a little more hyper. Probably could do with another good walk. She certainly got some extra food to be burnt off.

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Sunday, 11 November 2007

Bad case of Separation Anxiety for Sky

Sky, my Airedale Terrier used to suffer badly from separation anxiety and we would often come home to see things destroyed, toys, cushions, anything she could reach, bags gone through and contents strewn everywhere. For quite a few months we had to resort to putting her in her dog crate / bed while we went out.

Over time and trying various methods to prevent separation anxiety she improved no end with the odd blip along the way. Well it feels like a years, since she last had a bad case of separation anxiety.

It was actually odd that she had it this evening because before we left she made sure she was calm in her bed, which didn't take more than a few seconds as she was fairly tired from her 2 good walks. She had been fed, so was full in stomach and fully exercised. Ideal for relaxing sleep.

We were out for approximately 4 hours and when we came back there were sweets and sweet wrappers everywhere. Within her reach was a basket of sweets and chocolate bars. In fact it is quite low down and has been there for a good couple of years and no problems.
She had literally picked out every sweet and tried to eat most of them, not being successful with the individually wrapped ones. Chocolate bars had gone to, fortunately there's wasn't many in the basket and they were only small mini biscuit type bars. Chocolate can be poisonous to dogs if too much is eaten.

She also looked huge I could see her stomach was bloated. We then noticed she had got in her sack of dried dog food. This is also floor level and has been so for over 4 years. Admittedly she has got in there on a couple of previous occasions in the past, so we block the entrance to the opening of the food.

Its not pleasant to come home after a good time out, tired and then being faced with the situation. It was a right mess and obviously we were concerned about her eating sweets and chocolate, especially for a dog that's on a prescription only diet.

Apart from looking fat she seems fine. I gave her plenty of water to drink.

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Friday, 9 November 2007

First Visitor From Yahoo

One month and 4 days into launching the web site and today I got my first visitor from Yahoo search engine.

By amazing coincidence the term was for the exact same search term as the very first visitor who found my website via Google over 3 weeks ago, yes the mis spelling of "Cezar Milan" (the Dog Whisperer), which should have been spelt Cesar Milan.

This time the mis-spelling was on my Dog Psychology page which Ive since corrected.

In general traffic is pretty non existent, with approximately 6 hits a day from search engines and then just a few more from links I've been given on some other dog sites, mainly dog rescues.

However, this is fully as I expected. I'm working hard on good informative pages behind the scenes which I hope to start uploading to the site starting next week or the week after. The more good content I add the more hits I'm sure to start receiving.

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Saturday, 3 November 2007

Shiba Inu Dog Breed

I completed just the second of my dog breeds pages today, that of the Shiba Inu. It's not actually a recognised as a breed by the United Kingdom Kennel Club and not I breed I have previously been familar with.

It's an ancient Japanese breed and is one of the most popular companion dogs in Japan today.

Just check out this great picture sent to me by basenjirescue.us

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Friday, 2 November 2007

Fireworks and Dogs

We went to a fireworks display tonight at the local Rugby ground. It was a great evening. There was also a number of fireworks going off as we were coming home. I was glad to be coming home to Sky with no worries, as she is perfectly fine with fireworks and they don't bother her in the slightest.

She was born in the November, and I think we got her in the February, so I can't remember for what occasion fireworks were going off, but whenever it was, it was while she was a puppy. Anyway, the fireworks started around our house, so I immediately got up, and took her outside for a game with a ball and squeaky toy. She hasn't been bothered by fireworks since. Luckily I had been informed orread to do this, and it worked a treat.

Its a stark comparison to my previous Airedale Terrier, Storm, who was terrified of them and would run upstairs and hide. If I was there I, or members of my family, we would comfort her, its not nice to see your dog, genuinely scared. It also not nice when your out and you know fireworks might be going off and your dogs terrified. Plus another time is when your walking your dog and a firework goes off and you get pulled home, or worse your dog bolts without you.

Well, let me highlight, its a mistake to comfort and give sympathy to your dog when its scared. you are rewarding that state of mind and confirming to them the sound of fireworks is something to be scared of.

Curing the problem is more difficult, but if you have a young puppy, make the sound of fireworks a fun time, with games and maybe treats if they are totally uneffected by the sound. It can make a whole lot of difference. Fireworks seem to be used on a whole lot more occassions these days.

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Thursday, 1 November 2007

Splitting The Shar Pei Breed into 2 seperate Breeds

I have just split in two the first of my dog breeds pages. I chose a very interesting breed, the Shar Pei, at the time I didn't realise just how interesting it was going to be.

I set up the basics of the page and contacted a few Shar Pei website owners, such as Shar Pei rescue centers and breeders. I got a good response from a man name Eric from Hong Kong who runs hkshar-pei.com. He pointed out to me the differences between the Western world Shar Pei and the more original Traditional Shar Pei. I was originally putting the information together on the one Shar Pei page, but then decided it would be alot better to actually split the breeds onto separate pages, as they are indeed quite different.

The Traditional Shar Pei is a much more healthy breed, a bone mouth rather than the wrinkly meat mouth Shar Pei which see in for example the UK and the U.S .A. Unfortunately the western world Shar Pi has been poorly bred and suffers from alot of heath issues, most of which are to do with giving it a the wrinkly appearance. It was also once one of the world's rarest dogs and breeders mades thousands of dollars from breeding them, hence money first, healthy secondary.

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