Primed for the New Year

2013 is not a prime number, but 13 is. And my age this year is a prime number, so, we’re going with a prime number of goals specific to Life by Pets (or blogging) for the New Year.

1) Participate in Something Wagging’s Train Your Dog Challenge– I want to try and teach Howie “sit” and “down” using hand signals, since he’s mostly deaf. We haven’t focused a lot on this sort of thing in the last year because he’s pretty well behaved, but I still think this would be a good thing.

Howie will definitely think it’s a good thing because it will require the two of us to have some 1:1 time without the other two dogs.

2) Write Guest Posts – I want to write one guest post per month, either on a pet blog or personal finance blog. Back in December 2011, I had a post on Puppies as Christmas Presents for That Mutt, and just last week, my post What Can the Game “Dominion” Teach You About Money appeared on Average Joe’s Money Blog. But I want to do this more than once per year. So if you’d like a guest post for your blog- let me know.  (MC- I finally rewatched Cowboys & Aliens, so expect something in your inbox soon…)

3) Post More Guest Posts – Not only would I like to have guest posts on other sites, I’d love to have some of my favorite bloggers write posts for Life by Pets and Dog Ate My Wallet. I don’t care if you’re normally a pet blogger, if you want to write a post that’s about personal finance let me know. Same goes for you personal finance bloggers with pets.

4) Comment More – I read a lot of blogs, but I often don’t comment, or don’t comment in a meaningful way. I need to change that.

5) Be More Present in the Pet Blogging Community – in addition to participating in the Train Your Dog Challenge, I intend to participate in the Pet Blogger Challenge and want to Blog the Change for Animals all four times this year. I won’t be able to go to Blog Paws, but I can put more effort into being part of the online community.

6) Do 4 Giveaways – One per quarter. I don’t know exactly what I’ll give away, but I’ll figure that out. Also, I realized I never announced the winner of my first give away- it was MC of The House of Two Bows.

7) Attend at least one Old Dog Haven event – We’ve had Howie for a year, and other than the woman who transported him to our house, have met no one from the rescue.