Heart Like a Dog

The Good, the Bad, and the Oh My God of living with dogs!

Coffee and Donuts with Peggy Frezon

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We are super excited to be participating in the “Fun & Furry, Fit & Healthy” Blog Tour featuring Ms. Peggy Frezon and her dog Kelly!

Last week over coffee and donuts I sat down to interview Peggy.

Peg & Kelly - Close Up 3 x 2

Full disclosure here.  We didn’t ACTUALLY sit down together, I sent her a list of questions and she answered them.

Come to think of it WE didn’t really have coffee and donuts, that was just me stuffing my face while I read her responses.

But semantics aside, Heart Like a Dog is happy to be the next stop on this fabulous tour!!  So without further ado, here we go.

Congratulations on having your third book published!!  What prompted you to write the follow-up to Dieting with my Dog?

Thank you Jodi! Dieting with my Dog is my personal success story about helping my dog Kelly lose weight, and how Kelly motivated me to get fit along the way! Many people who read it asked me if I could share more tips about losing weight and getting fit with our dogs, so that they could do it too. I think The Dieting with my Dog Guide to Weight Loss and Maintenance contains everything you need to know to help start you and your dog off in the right direction, for you and keep you going strong.

What kind of tips can we find in the book? Tips for losing weight?  Exercising?

How to calculate what you should weigh, how to tell if your dog is overweight, healthy eating habits for both of you, healthy snacks for people and dogs, how much exercise does your dog need, running, hiking, climbing stairs, biking, snowshoeing with your dog and more, how to tell if your dog is fit, tips for maintaining weight loss, and more!

Obviously you and Kelly have had success at losing and keeping your weight off.   What made you decide to undertake this journey together and have you found Kelly’s inclusion to be more motivating than if you’d undertaken this alone?

Initially, I started helping Kelly lose weight for health reasons. Her vet said that she was headed for some serious health issues if she didn’t slim down. Then, along the way, Kelly motivated me to lose weight and get fit. I had the same health risks! We really couldn’t have done it without each other.

I don’t know about you, but one of my biggest weaknesses is snacks.  Will there be any ideas for snacks or meals in this book?  Perhaps a couple of low fat/low cal recipes?

The book includes a list of healthy snack ideas for you, and a list for your dog. Before I started dieting with my dog, I never thought to give Kelly fruits and vegetables. The book tells you which ones are safe for dogs to eat. For people, you probably know it’s healthier to eat a strawberry than a cookie. But if you really want a cookie, it’s all about portion control and just do it once in awhile as a treat. (I have a bit of trouble with that concept!)

Maintaining weight loss is a life time commitment and a lifestyle change, what are your tips for resisting temptation and sticking with the plan?

Keep it interesting.  Surround yourself with supportive people.  Work on eliminating (or at least reducing) stress.

Right now we’re participating in a virtual tour, do you have any plans for a physical book tour?

Not a tour, so much as taking advantage of joining in at great dog-related events as they come up!

Is there anything else you’d like to share?

Be sure to check out the Woof Workouts from K9 Fit Club (a great gym where you get to work out along with your dog!) The book contains step by step instructions with photos from a K9 Fit Club fitness trainer and her dogs!

The Dieting with my Dog Guide to Weight Loss and Maintenance is available on Amazon, where you can also purchase Peggy’s other books, “Dieting with my Dog” and “Heart to Heart, Hand in Paw.”

Peggy Frezon is a freelance writer who specializes in pets.  She is a regular contributor to Guideposts Magazine and Angels on Earth.   She has also contributed many stories to the Chicken Soup for the Soul books as well as numerous magazines.

Peggy lives in New York with her husband, her spaniel-dachshund mix Kelly and newly adopted golden retriever Ike.

You can connect with Peggy on her blog, “Peggy’s Pet Place” where you will find all of her social media links.

I’d like to thank Peggy for including us in her virtual tour and wish her great success with her book!

spaniel-dachshund mix Kelly
spaniel-dachshund mix Kelly

Here They Are

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I want to thank you all, for your hard work at promoting the calendar contest.  All told we had 3,202 voters!  That to me is totally amazing.

Not surprising to any of you who voted, the top spot was quite a competition.  Right from the start Ryder came out hard and fast, but Teach quickly caught up.  Unfortunately there can only be one cover spot and that spot belongs to Ryder from All Things Collie.

The rules this year stated the dog with the most votes could choose which month they’d like to be featured in, and Ryder has chosen the month of July.  Which means the calendar will shake out like this:

 

There you have it, the twelve dogs who will be featured in the 2014 Dogs of Blogville Calendar.  The good news is that while these twelve dogs are being featured, all of the dogs will be included in the calendar!

I know you’re all dying to know the details of ordering, but I haven’t quite gotten that figured out yet.   Last year it was a combination of paypal and e-mail and required me keeping a spreadsheet and matching e-mails to paypal to spreadsheet, well you get the point.  I’m currently looking for a plug in that will allow me to gather all the information right here on the blog to make it a tad bit easier.

Last year the calendars sold for $20 with just about $10 of it going to our blog friends at Champion of My Heart.  I anticipate the price will be the same as last year but was hoping I could get folks to help out by consolidating orders.

Example, you have five co-workers who want calendars.  You collect their money and place one order for six calendars. I send you six calendars which saves about $25 in shipping, which in turn will go into our fund for our friend Benny.  Then you in turn distribute the calendars to your co-workers.  It will also help me in my record keeping.

What you can do now is start asking around to all your friends who voted and ask them if they will be ordering calendars.  Get a good idea of many people want them.

In the meantime, I will work on a system for ordering and Julie will start working on the calendar.  By this time next week I hope to have everything in place so we can start taking orders.

Again thank you all for the hard work you did in promoting your blog and pictures, let’s make this next phase of our fundraiser just as successful!

How Do You Define Your Brand?

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Today we’re joining our friends at 2 Brown Dawgs blog for This ‘N That Thursday.  You know some days you have a little of this, or a little of that?  Anything goes!  Many thanks to our friends at 2  Brown Dawgs Blog for this awesome blog hop.

Courtesy of 2 Brown Dawgs Blog

Courtesy of 2 Brown Dawgs Blog

 

Back to our old stomping grounds:

Tuesday Sampson had an appointment at the vet’s for one of his cold laser treatments.  Since it was a six o’clock appointment I asked Hubby to walk Delilah and after the appointment Sampson and I ventured over to our old stomping grounds at the local community college.

The college has a really lovely biking/walking path, in fact before we moved to our current house, Sampson and I used to walk there just about every day.

 

WALK

Most of the pictures turned out blurry because let’s face it; it’s damn hard to take a picture when you’re being tugged down a path by an 87 pound dog.

HOT

I should have thought to bring some water because poor Butter was hot.  Don’t worry, I blasted the air once we got in the car.

I love walking with both my dogs, but it was nice to have just some Sampson and me time in a place that has some wonderful memories.

Branding:

Do you know what your brand is?  I sure the hell don’t.

Julie explains it like this, “Branding is the story, image and personality of your blog, your blog’s soul. It’s what people think about when your blog comes to mind.”

Try as I might I can’t figure out just what this blog does consistently.  When I think what I want this blog to represent I want it to be a place people come to for support, comfort, humor, encouragement. How do you ‘brand’ that?

It’s left me pretty down in the dumps trying to figure this out.  I mean, I can look at someone else’s blog and make suggestions to them, I just can’t do it with my own.   I thought maybe you could help me.

So tell me my friends.  What do you think about when you hear “Heart Like a Dog?”  Do you have any insights for me?

Follow-Up Friday

I woke up at about 4 this morning and realized with a start, that I had no one scheduled to co-host with me this week.  Thankfully, I’m blessed to count some incredible bloggers as my friends and I’m super pleased to let you know that once again the Amazing Flea will be co-hosting Follow-Up Friday tomorrow.

Tune in folks, same bat time, same bat channel.

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