A Year of Blogging in Review and WIN Swag and a Donation
The one year mark for A Dog Walks into a Bar snuck by me with little fanfare. I knew it was on the horizon since we received renewal reminders from our site host but it happened to coincide with Thanksgiving, and I let the day slip by without formally acknowledging its arrival.
One full year of curating a website may not seem like much to some, but it is an accomplishment that I am incredibly proud of. I have zero technical skill, but somehow managed to make something that looks pretty darn good which I attribute to sheer stubbornness.
The past year has been full of some pretty amazing experiences. Join me as I explore the year on this slightly belated blogiversary. I would also like to share some of the tidbits I’ve learned along the way and things I wish I had known.
If you stick around to the end of my post, you can enter to win a A Dog Walks into a Bar shirt of your own to rock around town and a $50 donation to a shelter or animal rescue group of your choice.
It all began when…
This whole crazy adventure began while we were standing in line at our favorite brewery in Connecticut called Beer’d Brewing . They are dog friendly, so we had Yoda in tow, to help bide the time while we waited to have growlers filled. There was a sizable line, which I never really mind, since that means the brewery is successful. While we waited, we were literally flocked by other brewery patrons. “Hey, can I say hi to your dog?” “I have a dog named x, here, let me show you 800,000 photos!”
BAM! That’s when I connected that people are as passionate about their pups as they were about their beer. That’s where A Dog Walks Into a Bar was born.
I floundered, you might too.
Just because you come up with an idea, doesn’t mean you also immediately know what that means, what the plan is, and how to get there. Technically the blog started just over a year ago, in that I purchased a domain and created the skeleton of the site. I didn’t actually find a voice until, probably close to three months after that point. I wrote a single post introducing “my readers” (also known as, my mom and some friends), to Bean and Yoda and then the site festered for awhile. I was serving as my own worst enemy by telling myself “no one will want to read what you say, so why bother?”
At some point, and I don’t know what the trigger was, I came to the realization “no one will read what I have to say, if I don’t actually write something!” So I started to write, and it helped to flex a muscle that had been dormant for a very long time.
We’ve seen and done some amazing things!
Since the writing began to occur with regularity, I started to develop relationships with breweries and dog brands. My photos were getting noticed on Instagram, and I think we helped to make folks smile! Doors began to open for us.
We have had the opportunity to visit an incredible series of dog friendly breweries in the past year. Some of those events have been written about in prior posts that you might like to check out. For example, we helped to raise funds for our local animal shelter at an event called Barks & Brews at Fort Hill Brewery. We also visited and wrote about a series of dog friendly breweries in Tampa, Florida (we were lucky enough to have a personalized tour of Cigar City Brewing and interviewed their resident dog “Egg.”).
Along the way, we’ve been able to receive a variety of pet products from incredibly generous brands that have helped to introduce us to items we likely wouldn’t know about otherwise. Those same generous brands have helped us to be able to donate a variety of products, supplies, food, treats to our local shelter, Being able to give to animals (and their humans) in need has always been a focus, so I’m happy we’ve had the chance to give as much as we have. Bean is shown below surrounded by toys that were donated to Dakin Humane Society.
They like us, they really like us!