It’s been over a month in the making but it is finally here! Welcome to our “new” blog.
It’s not entirely new.
We will still be sharing our passion for hiking and our other adventure stories.
We will still be sharing products and services we like.
We will still be talking about nutrition and keeping your dog fit.
I will still write articles like these “most popular” blog posts from the first couple of years:
- How Do You Sleep with Your Dog?
- The Best Dog Jackets for Dachshunds
- The Story of Obie the Obese Dachshund That Had Plastic Surgery
- How to Calculate How Many Calories YOU Burn When Walking Your Dog
- Our BarkBox Dog Subscription Box Review
The core of who we are hasn’t changed.
Some things ARE really different though:
- We added a logo.
- The design and layout has changed.
- Our main menu is now our post categories so you can see what we are about at a glance and find the information you are looking for quickly and easily.
- We are now on a mobile responsive theme which is technical speak for what you see on your computer, you will see when you are viewing our blog on your tablet or smartphone.
- Our email subscription is now a quasi-newsletter. If you sign up by email you will still be signing up for our RSS feed to be delivered to your inbox but the package it comes in looks a little nicer. We aspire to eventually launch a full-fledged newsletter.
Our content will change a little. Although we have touched on the issue before, we plan to make obesity, and being active with your Dachshund, a larger part of our conversation.
A lot of what we write about will come through that filter.
We are excited to take our blog to the next level in almost our third year of being.
With growth comes pains though:
- Some of the links on the new blog were broken during the switch. I will have to work over the next few months to fix them.
- Some of the pages don’t quite communicate what I want to say effectively. I am going to work to improve these pages over the next few months too.
- When we switched our email subscription provider, we may have lost a few emails in the process. If you were signed up before and stop begging our blog posts emails, you will need to re-enter your email in the subscription box on our sidebar.
I guess what I am saying is that we are an improved version of ourselves but still not perfect. A wise person once told me that perfection is a moving target anyway 🙂
I like to think of this blog as constantly evolving.
We want to thank those of you that have been with us from the beginning. We thank you for growing and changing with us over the years.
We want to thank all of our more recent readers for making time for us in your busy lives.
A big thanks goes out to every one of you who has taken time to leave a comment or share our posts with your circles. We wouldn’t still be doing this three years later if it wasn’t for you.
We would love it if you would take a moment to leave a comment below telling us what you think of the changes.
Jessica Rhae says
April 25, 2013 at 4:12 AMPlease note, I have gotten a report that some people are having trouble leaving a comment. Please give it a try and let me know if you are having trouble too @YDWWYW or email me at reach_jess@yahoo.com. Thanks!
Georgia says
April 25, 2013 at 4:52 AMCongrats on the blog relaunch! I love the “new” blog! The logo is great and the background theme is very cute! Looking forward to future blog posts about helping to keep our little dogs trim! And of course as always pictures of Chester & Gretel adventuring about Seattle and the Pacific Northwest!
Sharon says
April 25, 2013 at 5:45 AMsite was well worth the effort !
Robert Pregulman says
April 25, 2013 at 5:52 AMCongrats on the new site! Love the logo. Lots of my links got messed up when I changed website formats too. You’ll find all the glitches eventually!
Global Dachshund Crossposting says
April 25, 2013 at 6:36 AMThe new site is wonderful. Much success . Woof
jsmith says
April 25, 2013 at 8:08 AMLooks great. You did a great job!
Jessica Rhae says
April 25, 2013 at 8:54 AMYOU did a great job too. Couldn’t have done it without you 🙂
jsmith says
April 25, 2013 at 10:52 AMAwe Shucks 🙂
GizmoGeodog says
April 25, 2013 at 10:34 AMHi Jess! Hope this works!
Beagles and Bargains says
April 25, 2013 at 11:00 AMAwesome new layout! We love it and we signed up for your new newsletter. Looking forward to it. Also glad you fixed the commenting issue.
Jessica Rhae says
April 25, 2013 at 11:17 AMGlad you like the new blog!
Looks like the comment thing was a Hostgator issue. It got fixed by them and I had my own person working on another fix. Caused me a lot of trouble but at least it is working for the #nipclub pawty tonight.
Beagles and Bargains says
April 25, 2013 at 11:19 AMThat is lame. Did they have any kind of notification on their website/login page? I know when FatCow has had issues with WP before they posted messages on the login page.
Jessica Rhae says
April 25, 2013 at 11:29 AMNot when my website gal contacted them. They had to clue about it. If you check out their support Twitter feed they got a lot of tweets about it later. Looks like we were one of the first to notice the problem so ho help from them. I guess that is what you get for being first 🙂
SUGAR: Golden Woofs says
April 25, 2013 at 11:58 AMWoof! Woof! GREAT Theme. LOVE the new logo too. Lots of Golden Woofs, Sugar
Jessica Rhae says
April 25, 2013 at 8:05 PMThanks Sugar. I was just admiring your design this morning. I know it’s not but I have a new appreciation of what goes into a good design 🙂
Flea says
April 25, 2013 at 12:22 PMNice new look! Congrats!
Jessica Rhae says
April 25, 2013 at 8:04 PMThanks for coming by to see it 🙂
Life In The Dog Lane says
April 25, 2013 at 12:37 PMThe site looks great Jessica! I know you were having trouble today, so I’m glad everything got ironed out in the end. Looking forward to checking out all the new features! I resubscribed so I don’t miss anything 🙂 Again, congrats!
Jessica Rhae says
April 25, 2013 at 8:03 PMThanks. This morning was so frustrating. My gut was telling me it had to be a bug in the back end somewhere because it happened overnight with nothing changed. I couldn’t wait though because I had to try and get the commenting worked out in time for our blog party earlier this evening. Turns out though that my web helper and Hostgator made changes about the same time so no telling what finally fixed it. Fixed is all that matters though 🙂
Dolly the Doxie says
April 25, 2013 at 2:17 PMLove your new look and logo! Love Dolly
Jessica Rhae says
April 25, 2013 at 8:00 PMThanks Dolly. I am still waiting to see the changes on your blog 🙂
Shayna says
April 25, 2013 at 2:22 PMHi, Jessica – was already a fan of your blog, and think the changes have made it even better! It always has good information, well-presented, and I love the new logo.
A good blog is always a work-in-progress, and it’s great to see this one evolving. Wishing you all the success that it deserves 🙂
Jessica Rhae says
April 25, 2013 at 8:00 PMThanks so much for your kind words. Yes, a work in progress. We had been growing for a while but our design was not getting with the times. The new wrapping fits us much better and will allow us to continue to evolve.
Colby says
April 25, 2013 at 4:53 PMThe new blog looks great and I love your new logo. I’ve been thinking about a design change on my blog for months, but I haven’t gotten much done besides looking at different themes I might try to customize.
Great job on getting things done! Hopefully I can do the same in the coming months.
Jessica Rhae says
April 25, 2013 at 7:58 PMI had been “thinking” about the design change for a long time too….as in the thought was somewhere back in the recesses of my mind. I didn’t plot it in detail before hand. One day it just became “the time” and I jumped on it. Once I started the process it was very exciting…and a bit frustrating at times.
Elizabeth K says
April 25, 2013 at 5:15 PMNice! Love the logo (and I just noticed the human shoe tracks among the paw prints – so clever). You are quite industrious. All the best with your re-launch!
Jessica Rhae says
April 25, 2013 at 7:56 PMSubtle right? 🙂 Once I landed on the idea I couldn’t get it out of mind because it goes with the logo so nicely.
Beth says
April 25, 2013 at 7:34 PMLooks wonderful! We are looking forward to reading about more adventures and good health!
Jessica Rhae says
April 25, 2013 at 7:54 PMThanks for stopping by to check out the new design
Elizabeth says
April 25, 2013 at 9:22 PMVery cool! I was just going to send you an email asking when the new site was up and ta-da… here it is. Looks fantastic! 🙂
Jessica Rhae says
April 25, 2013 at 9:43 PMThanks. It means a lot that you think so since you have such a good eye for design 🙂
Skippy says
April 26, 2013 at 4:04 AMIt looks great! Happy to see you were able to get the launch-day kinks sorted out. Love the logo and – as always – the content!
Jessica Rhae says
April 26, 2013 at 7:27 AMThanks so much for the support!
Jen says
April 26, 2013 at 4:22 AMIt looks awesome! Nice clean design, easy to read and navigate! Congratulations!!
The logo is perfect too and I really like the colors!
You’ll have to let me know how it was to switch frameworks and how you like Genesis!
I was having issues with comments to yesterday. Figured out it was the Jetpack plugin, maybe that is what happened here too??
Jessica Rhae says
April 26, 2013 at 7:29 AMIt was actually a Hostgator. I think not everyone having issues was on Hostgator though. My web support created a fix but it basically coincided with the Hostgator fix so it was hard to tell which finally did it. I am glad everyone is back to normal though. We live for comments! 🙂
Jen says
April 26, 2013 at 7:12 PMReally! That’s interesting because I read on WP it was a Jetpack thing, but they also said it was for WP.org and not WP.com. I’m on Hostgator-so that would make sense too!
Has you comment section stayed the same since the debacle? Mine is different now and I’ve found that a lot of comments are going into spam now.
Jessica Rhae says
April 26, 2013 at 7:32 PMYeah. Go check out the Hostgator support twitter feed (@HGSupport I think) and you will see a lot of conversation about it. I heard some people are still having trouble. Someone did tell me they did something with Jetpack comments and the fix seemed to work. My comment section seems to have stayed the same but I use the CommentLuv premium plugin and not the Jetpack comments.
Jodi says
April 26, 2013 at 5:01 AMOMG I LOVE THIS new site! It’s beautiful. Love the design, background (I was trying to achieve the human/dog foot prints when I was making my FUF badge, but couldn’t find the graphic) the entire design. You’ve done a beautiful job.
Congratulations!
Jessica Rhae says
April 26, 2013 at 7:30 AMThanks so much Jodi! I had the beginning of a graphic and had a web designer turn it into what you see.
I forget…will I be seeing you at BlogPaws?
Jodi says
April 26, 2013 at 7:32 AMYou certainly will. I’m looking forward to it!
Amy @ Life with Doxies says
April 26, 2013 at 8:26 AMWhen I clicked on your obesity blog post this morning, I was super excited to see the new design! I love it so much!! I love how the background has shoe prints and paw prints to match your logo colors!! Very exciting! 🙂 (And I love the new Adventureweiner logo too!)
Jessica Rhae says
April 26, 2013 at 7:01 PMThanks Amy!
Jules says
April 26, 2013 at 9:21 AMCongrats!! Love the blog’s background. The footprints are an adorable touch. 🙂
xoxo,
Jules of Canines & Couture
http://www.caninesandcouture.com
Jessica Rhae says
May 2, 2013 at 1:43 PMHi Jules. I just found your comment in my Spam box but you are saved now 🙂 Glad you like the website.
Pamela | Something Wagging This Way Comes says
April 26, 2013 at 2:28 PMThe site looks fabulous! Congratulations!
I have been wanting to redesign Something Wagging for years. But after redesigning Hands on Home Buyer, the method I used to work on the redesign before launching stole all my traffic. I’m starting again from zero.
I’d love to know how you managed your redesign if you have any secrets.
As for the broken links, there’s a plugin called Velvet Blues that might work for you. I used it when I switched from WordPress.com to self hosted.
Oh, and two thumbs up for the logo. Mike and I both love it!
snoopy@snoopysdogblog says
April 26, 2013 at 6:38 PMYay! Congrats on the new site design!! I really like it, especially that I find it easier to see your recent posts on this design – great job guys!
I hope you’re having a fun day,
Your pal Snoopy 🙂
Jessica Rhae says
April 26, 2013 at 7:35 PMThanks Snoopy. I appreciate you stopping by and am glad that you like it. My hope is that it is more dynamic and easier to navigate.
Kimberly, The Fur Mom says
April 27, 2013 at 8:42 AMCongratulations on the relaunch! Looking good! Found a video that made me think of you and shared it over on Facebook for you to check out 🙂
Jessica Rhae says
April 27, 2013 at 10:29 PMThanks for stopping by Kimberly and thanks for sharing the video. I am curious about Rodrigo biting you so I am heading over to your blog right now.