Blog Paws 2017

Cat listens to BlogPaws presentation

A Melanie’s Mondays post

I guess it’s time to mention that the blog is now going to have a Melanie’s Mondays post every week, more or less. This is a new blog feature. I’m hoping that once per week Mudskipper will make a blog post and once per week I can put up a blog post. As it turns out, capybaras are not all that interested in the world around them, or even in their human families. I an going to address that view in these new posts. Please leave a comment letting me know how you feel about this feature. Do you love it? Do you hate it?

Today’s Melanie’s Monday post is about the BlogPaws conference that I just attended. BlogPaws in an organization for people who blog about their pets. I’ve been going for quite a few years, although in the years since I lost my vision, I haven’t come back from the conference with any new motivation. This year changed that. It think it’s an indication that I am coming to terms with my new life.

On to the BlogPaws conference.

I went with Stacy Winnick of Pet Capybara and Daily Drama fame. She lives with the famous Dobby Winnick (aka Iker P. Ibarra on Facebook). This year, as usual, we were the only people with blogs about capybaras at the conference. To be honest, there have never been any capybara bloggers besides us at any of the yearly conferences although, Georgianna Davisson of Tuscon Petting Zoo came to the conference in Las Vegas in  2014, She brought one of her capybaras, Mia, with her. It was a special pleasure to meet Mia because she is the daughter of Wesley and Fiona whom I used to visit and blog about every week. (I just saw Wesley and Fiona yesterday and they are doing fine. I’ll blog about them next week.)

Stacy and I have met some fun people through BlogPaws and it’s great to see them again.

Three of my favorite people

This is Stacy, Becky Wilson, Angela DiMiglio Mitchell, and me taking a selfie in the hallway of the conference hotel. Becky runs the Metopolitan Guinea Pig Rescue in the D.C. area. More on Angela in a moment.

Me and Angela

Becky and Angela shared an adjoining room with me and Stacy. It was like a pajama party every night.

Andela is sometimes a mermaid

That’s Becky and Stacy sitting in the background. I don’t know who the dog is.

Angela is dressed in her skimpy Chesapeake Mermaid costume. As a mermaid she promotes conservation of the Chesapeake Bay. Her costume is a pretty serious rendition of a mermaid tail. Although it might look crazy, no one is no more serious about conserving the ecology of the Chesapeake Bay than Angela is.

I learned a lot about effective blogging at the conference. I came away feeling pretty guilty about my recent negligence in promoting capybara awareness. But aside from that, they had a lot of interesting swag and sponsor information. I came away with some interesting items that I’m going to cover here. I will probably write about more of this stuff in a later blog post but I can only do so much today.

A box of cake mix for dogs from Puppy Cake

Most of the things I found of interest were actually for dogs. Here is a carob cake mix from Puppy Cake. I didn’t know they made such a thing. It is a vegetarian cake so I am planning on trying it on Mudskipper. She’s got a sweet tooth so maybe she’ll like it.

Who knew?

This is an interesting item. Ice cream for dogs! I am going to try this out on Mudskipper for her Caplin Day popsicle. This is also made by Puppy Cakes. They only wanted to give me one sample, either the cake mix or the ice cream mix to I had to come back the next day to get the cake mix.

The cats love this

This Zanies cat toy has been a big hit for both Driftwood and Mamba. It goes a long way on the tile when the cats give it a push so they chase after it. Also it is a rattle, which they seem to like.

Sorry that all of photos are so bad. I used my phone’s camera and I think I had it on some weird setting.

I may, or may not, post more on BlogPaws in the future. Hope you enjoyed this post. Let me know what you think of some of these toys or of the Chesapeake mermaid. Would you like to see more Melanie’s Mondays posts? Put your thoughts in a comment!