And I’m done

Since I hopped on the A to Z Challenge on day 2, please consider this my contribution to the Letter A.

A is for Alphabet.

I’m surprised how rewarding and validating I found this challenge. How much I had to say on each topic. After I wrote about Choke Collars, Corrections, Classical Conditioning, and Clickers, I brainstormed ideas for all the letters in the alphabet. Some of them came to me right away. Fortunately, many of these were early in the alphabet: Dominance, Evolution, Fleas, Growling …

I thought I’d write about Quiet for Q, but found myself uninspired. During a lunchtime walk along the river with Mia, I rattled off a bunch of Q words: Quality, Qualifications, Query, Quintessential, Quirky, Quip. Really, a lot of wonderful words start with Q. The only one that motivated me to write something was Quit.

From the beginning, I knew X would be for X-rated, and Z would be for Zoo Story, but I was stumped by Y for a while. Like Q, I had no trouble coming up with words, but none of them moved me. Who knew I’d find the muse in Yogurt?

Beyond amusing my own self by writing these posts, I’ve been thrilled by all the new blogs I’ve discovered through Twitter and the Blogging A to Z facebook page. I joined too late to get listed on the official website, but that list had more than 1,000 blogs on it. I wonder how many people used that as their blog hopping directory.

Early in the month, lots of new visitors reciprocated my comments. As the month wore on, and I had less time to blog hop, I noticed fewer comments on my own blog. Was that because I hadn’t been commenting on any of theirs… or was everyone suffering from Blog Hop Fatigue?

I made it a point to spend time in the evenings going back and looking at some of the letters I missed. I discovered new dog blogs and followed several blogs outside of the pet blogging community. Thank you to everyone who stopped by and followed Rhymes with Safari during this time. I hope to see you again.

Since my last few posts were Leo-heavy, I want to offer an epilogue about My Miscreant Mia’s Mysterious Misdemeanors. Over the weekend, one of Rob’s coworkers generously donated the dog house pictured above. I know dogs are supposed to like cozy little dens, but since Mia clearly prefers her doors open, I had my doubts that she would enjoy these cramped conditions. Again, I should always trust Rob, because you can see Mia was willing to follow a treat inside and curl up on the new plush bed.

The theory is that, sometimes, we can leave Mia outdoors, which is where she seems to want to be, and she’ll have a warm dry place to feel safe. I still feel safer with her indoors, and have no intention of leaving her out there all the time when we’re not home. But then, I’m not really that attached to our doorknobs.