From One Imperfect Dog Owner To Another

It’s been 4 years since I stepped away from my beloved blog, Love, Laugh, Woof. I never planned for my hiatus to be quite this long or to take so long to launch Dog Obsessed World, but here we are 4 years later. 

My plan was to relaunch right away under my new name, Dog Obsessed World. But like I mentioned, here we are, 4 years later.

I’ve tried to figure out why I stepped away from something that I had once been so full of passion about creating. Essentially, Love, Laugh, Woof just did not feel fun anymore, and when your dream is to help dogs by writing useful information for their humans, if it’s not fun, something is not right. 

Secondly, I was tired of the name, and my branding. I am entirely self-taught in all areas of blogging, and so my site and my brand were starting to feel very pieced together and in need of a huge overhaul. It seemed like the perfect chance to just start over with a new website and a new blog name. 

A lot has happened in 4 years.

When I first took my break from my blog, I started watching a yellow Labrador puppy named Chewie, and began substitute teaching at our local high school. They were great side-gigs to get me through my blogging hiatus, and I learned so much from both experiences. When Covid shut down the world in March 2020, Chewie’s humans began working from home, and school shut down for an entire year, and I found myself without any work.  

Fortunately, around the same time the pandemic began, I “accidentally” started a very busy freelance writing business writing and doing social media marketing for several clients. I was lucky to have so many clients I could barely keep up, but after a year or two, I started to realize that I was really missing my blog and the pet industry. 

As I was starting to plan out this new blog and website, though, I took my beloved Jackson into the vet for an ear hematoma in August 2021. While in the waiting room, I noticed that his toenail was sort of “yucky” and infected. Little did I know that within a week we would be facing a diagnosis of canine Melanoma from that toe. After almost a year battling his cancer, we lost him in July 2022. 

While Jax was sick, and after he passed, I knew I would return to my blog, and my mission. Unfortunately, everything I wrote made it clear that I was still deep in mourning and not ready to share our experience with the world. And so, here we are 4 years later, and 1 year after his passing.

What to Expect from Dog Obsessed World 

Since 2019, I have learned a ton of new dog related information, changed my mind about some things relating to dogs, and strengthened my convictions about others. I am excited to share all of this knowledge through this blog site to help you care for your dogs, and entertain you with stories of life with dogs. 

Some lessons that I learned were things I did not want to experience first-hand, like learning about canine melanoma with Jackson, or liver problems in dogs, like we are going through with our 10-year old Labrador Tinkerbell. Other lessons have come from joyful moments like raising our Labrador puppy Quill, who joined our family in December 2022. 

But what hasn’t changed is this: I still really fucking love dogs. 

And I still have a passion for sharing my experiences, my observations, and my research on dog-related topics to help other humans who share their lives with dogs. 

For so long, I have tried sitting down to write the first new blog for this site, and kept getting stuck with my obsession launching with the perfect post, the perfect content for this re-entry into the world of being a dog blogger. But, I may have mentioned, here we are 4 years later.

The thing about putting yourself out there as a blogger and an influencer is that in some niches, people want perfection. They want the perfect smokey eye, the perfect cupcakes, the perfectly staged house, or the perfect shoes to go with the perfect outfit. And for too long I subscribed to that belief as a dog expert. I felt like I I needed to share the perfectly edited photos, and perfectly drafted blog posts. However, I recently had a huge ah-ha moment…and by recent, I mean literally this morning! 

Our lives with dogs are perfect because dogs don’t care that we are imperfect.

I may have to write that again, maybe more for my own self. 

Our lives with dogs are perfect because dogs don’t care that we are imperfect. 

The more I think about this, the more it is so obviously true. 

If I tried to tell you that life with my middle-aged dogs was perfect, I’d be doing middle aged dogs everywhere a disservice. 

If I tried to tell you that life with my puppies has been perfect, I’d be doing puppies everywhere a disservice. 

If I tried to tell you that I am the perfect dog owner with perfect dogs, you’d never come back to read another thing that I wrote. 

So here’s the honest truth: I’m not a perfect trainer, and I don’t know every single thing about holistic supplements or pet food. I’m still figuring out the perfect diet for Tink’s allergies, yeast issues, and liver issues. Sometimes Tink ignores my recall and I have to bribe her to come in with a treat. 

Quill is coming along beautifully, has great manners and loves to learn, but he’s also more than a little obsessed with pulling the lattice off our deck, piece by piece, and seems to have no recollection of the “leave it” cue that I know he knows.

But the reason I know I can help dogs and their humans is because I am always learning, and always working to make my dogs’ lives better. And so my mission remains the same: combining my 47-ish years of living with dogs, my passion for learning about all things dog related, and my experience researching, interviewing, and writing to help you create a happy, healthy life with your own dogs. 

Join My Pack & Keep in Touch

If you are reading this because you were a fan of Love, Laugh, Woof, thank you for coming back after these 4 years. And if you are new to Dog Obsessed World, welcome! I will be sharing stories, dog care tips and best practices, products that I think you will love, and more. I am also working on moving a lot of the posts from the old site to this new one. 

I’d love for you to sign up for my email list, and connect via social media, so that I can hear your stories of life as a dog obsessed human and share the latest happenings here at Dog Obsessed World.