Logical Expressions Blog

Happy Saint Patty's day everyone. It's been a great day here! On a personal note, I'm adopting a fluffy white dog from a rescue group, so I'll be driving out to pick her up. (Road trip!) We are SO excited. And the as-yet-to-be named dog is SO cute! James and I are also fired up about a writing retreat for book authors that we've decided to do this fall. I wrote up some initial information on the event that we've dubbed the Cabin in the Woods Writing Retreat. Check it out here: Cabin in the Woods Writing...

Happy Holidays and Best Wishes for a Great 2010 from All of Us Here at Logical Expressions, Inc. Thank you for reading our Publishize newsletter and this blog. Our regular article-filled newsletters will return the week of January 4th. In the meantime, if you get tired of eating and watching televised sports over the next few weeks, here are a couple of goofy videos for your amusement. "Cami Card Outtakes" - from our many holiday card photo sessions (like the one above): http://leiurl.com/?HCyt ...

I'm back from my journey to Washington, D.C. Along with going to the beach, exhibiting at the Taking Action for Animals conference, and seeing my family, I got to endure the reality of air travel. Here are a few photo highlights from my trip: My sister and I walked from Fenwick Island to Bethany Beach, Delaware (and back), which according to MapQuest is 12.44 miles. These are beach umbrellas at the Sea Colony. We were able to get off the beach via the Colony, but the snotty old bat at the kiosk wouldn't let us back...

I just found out that my new radio show Take Me Home is featured this week on iTunes. The show is all about pet adoption and pet rescue. Every week on "Take Me Home," I talk to guests from animal shelters and rescue groups about pets that may have been overlooked for one reason or another, but still need a loving "forever home." Here's the link on the Pet Life Radio site: Take Me Home Radio Show If you go to the podcast section, in iTunes, you'll see the Take Me Home is featured this week!...

I found out that Connie Weiss at the My Pet Street blog wrote a review of Happy Hound. Here's a snippet: "There are lots of behavior and training books available, and most every one I've read leave me feeling totally incompetent as a pet owner. As much as I follow the prescriptive advice, problems still persist: barking, marking, and terrorizing the cats, to name just a few issues. Susan's clean writing style and total honesty about the ups and downs of finding the right balance in living with a pet conveys the feeling that you're sitting at...

This week, it became apparent that I could no longer wait until the weather "gets better" to wash the dogs. The weather stinks and so did the dogs. So Saturday, I had to embark on Doggie Maintenance Day. With four dogs, maintenance takes a while. I brushed them, clipped their toenails, and washed them. As you can see, post-bath, they all look a little miffed: Leia doing her imitation of a wet rodent: Tika keeping an eye out for more cleaning activity: Cami (the Happy Hound cover dog) looking somewhat...

Those of you who read my newsletters know that I've been working hard on the member benefits and private member area of the National Association of Pet Rescue Professionals web site. I'm proud to report that I actually met my self-imposed deadline and it all went live on March 20. (The first day of spring!) Today I did a press release about it: New Pet Rescue Association Offers More than 160 Customizable Forms, Pet Care Articles, and Information to Help Humane Professionals Save More Lives If you're involved in rescue work, you probably can imagine how...

Since we have been working hard on new private membership area of the NAPRP site, I am just now posting links to the great folks who agreed to run my "guest posting" about the importance of spaying and neutering pets, which we did the week of Spay Day (February 26). Check them out ;-) For the Love of Animals - http://4theloveofanimals.com/blog/2008/03/03/spay-day-guest-post/ The Blog Pound - http://www.theblogpound.com/index.php/weblog/permalink/guest_post/ Easy Vegan - http://www.easyvegan.info/2008/02/26/spay-day-usa/ Thank you for helping me spread the word!   Technorati Tags: naprp,daffron,dogs,cats,spay,neuter,humane,logical expressions,adopted pets,animal shelter,dog rescue

I did an interview on why people should consider adopting cats from animal shelters and humane societies. In the interview I talk about concerns people may have, adopting kittens versus adult cats, tips for good adoptions, and selecting a shelter. Of course, I also mention Happy Tabby and the National Association of Pet Rescue Professionals too ;-) Plus, I explain how I got involved with all this critter stuff and share a dopey story about me, my cat Troi (the cover model for Happy Tabby), and a very intrepid local rodent. Check it out at the...

It's been a long cold winter and our cats have developed a serious attachment to our Quadrafire pellet stove. For those who don't know, a pellet stove burns small wood pellets that are made out of sawdust. Unlike a traditional wood stove, the metal body of a pellet stove doesn't get really hot. It does get warm however, which is why it is a cat magnet: This is Troi, the cover model for our book Happy Tabby doing her imitation of a meatloaf atop the stove. Our other cat Alia likes to stare into the glass...

Today we went to take our dogs out for their daily constitutional and discovered that the snow finally came off our woodshed. It hasn't shed all winter and we were a little worried, particularly since over the last few days, there has been a really long snow curl hanging off the back that refused to break off. Imagine our surprise to discover that all the snow fell off at once in a giant chunk. We were so shocked we just kind of stood there for a minute staring at it. (The dogs started barking , since the giant snow wall...

In honor of Freelance Writers week (which is this week), we are running our first writing contest! If you love dogs and love to write, this is your chance to tell us your best dog story. I know I love writing about my dogs, so I figure other people have great stories to tell too ;-) There is no entry fee; the only stipulation is that you have to use IdeaWeaver for your entry. Because the IdeaWeaver site has a free 30-day trial copy available, the cost to enter the contest is exactly $0. The winning essays will...

I just found out I was quoted as a dog expert on MSN's Dog Central site: Dogs Do the Darnedest Things: Here are some explanations why My dog Tika approves of my answer on digging; she LOVES to dig. With all the snow we have now, it's just a canine digging party  ;-)

After a whole lot of planning and work, on February 1, we launched a brand new association called the National Association of Pet Rescue Professionals. We just finished the Web site, and you can find it here: http://www.naprp.com Basically, we are setting ourselves up as a resource for rescue groups with lots of information, tips, tools, and documents they can use to help save more critters. The member part of the site with all the documents, forms, templates, forum, and other goodies will be available on March 20. (But...

This winter we have received more than 14 feet of snow. Clearly winter is here. And so is the winter issue of Computor Companion magazine. This issue features these articles: Customize Word 2007 Document Themes Lay Out Your Book in Microsoft Word Create a Photo Calendar in Publisher Banish Bullets from a PowerPoint Presentation Understanding Disk Partitioning Which Blogging Tool Should I Choose and more... We've also decided to open up advertising to outside advertisers. This press release describes it... Award-Winning Content Web Sites Now Accepting Outside Advertising ...but basically,...

We had our first mini pet blog tour last week. I was featured as a "guest" poster on three cool pet blogs and talked about how our books Happy Hound and Happy Tabby can be used as fundraising and educational tools by animal shelters and other humane and rescue groups. You can see Happy Hound and Happy Tabby on tour at: For the Love of Animals Blog Paw Path Litter Mat Cool Dog Hall of Fame A big thank you to those who participated and for your commitment to helping animals!

Today we packed up all the Logical Tips books that people bought during our pre-order sale and took them off to the post office. (In fact, the response was sort of overwhelming; we actually almost sold out of all the books we ordered!) Anyway, the packing and shipping process was the source of great excitement among the canine team. Our golden retriever Tika thinks these books should go in a flat-rate box. These books seem to pass the sniff test. All that packing is hard work! ...

As some people know, I have a "hoop house" for my garden. It's the only way I can grow tomatoes with our short growing season. You can see a bit of my garden in the "Vegans Go Hunting" video on the Vegan Success site (or on You Tube). Anyway, I'm not particularly tall, but I can stand in my hoop house in the summer. The hoop is on the left in this summertime picture. I can easily walk inside, since the top bar is about 6 feet high. Here's what it looks like today...

I had the opportunity to be a "guinea pig" for a new program Marcia Yudkin is running. She has revamped her Marketing for More site and now is offering members the opportunity for marketing help via "Feedback Feasts." I was the "feastee" for the first call. The topic was how to position our book Happy Hound, without using typical copywriting "scare tactics" to encourage people to buy it. Since my goal with the book is to promote adopting pets from animal shelters, the last thing I wanted to do was write a bunch of negative copy that...

With the release of our new Logical Tips books, we have now published eight book ourselves (the four Logical Tips books, Happy Hound, Happy Tabby, Web Business Success, and Vegan Success.) This week's article in the Publishize newsletter offers a few reasons why we have opted to take the self-publishing route, after going about it the "traditional" way: A Few Good Reasons to Self Publish Your Book Enjoy!   Technorati Tags: web business,web business success,vegan success,vegan,pets,happy hound,happy tabby,publishize,logical tips,daffron,writing,dogs,cats,cookbook

The thrills of pet ownership are ongoing. Troi, the cat on the cover of our Happy Tabby book, has been digestively challenged lately. We took her and our other cat Alia to the vet for a checkup. (If you're going to listen to one cat yowl all the way into town, you may as well listen to two.) Alia got a clean bill of health, which is impressive, since she's almost 15 now. Little Troi doesn't seem to have anything obvious wrong, but is now on a lovely concoction of liquid antibiotics. Getting the pink goo into the unwilling...

This week, we got our first snow, and the canines are totally and completely thrilled. Watching them bound joyfully through the snow is good for the soul. Another thing that makes you feel good is donating old clothes to charity. This week in the Publishize newsletter and podcast, I ponder cleaning, evaluating, and recycling and how it all relates to marketing. If you'd like to read the article online, please use this link: http://newsletter.logicalexpressions.com/LPMArticle.asp?ID=144 Enjoy!Technorati tags: publishize, dogs, daffron

...and we've got the press release to prove it! New Book Shares Tips for Raising a Happy and Healthy Shelter-Adopted Cat or Kitten We have books here and the web site is done too. As I noted before, the book is also available on Amazon.com. If you are a pet journalist or cat lover and would like a copy of the book for review, please contact us. As a pet-adoption advocate, I'm also available for interviews about humane education or pet care. As with Happy Hound, we also are offering this book at a substantial discount to shelters and rescue groups who would like...

As the author of two books on rescued pets (Happy Hound and Happy Tabby) and a person who spent years volunteering at animal shelters, I think the whole Ellen DeGeneres "poochgate" fiasco is depressing. Her weepy actions on TV may have set back the efforts of other rescuers around the country by portraying them in a bad light. Rescuers are not the "bad guys" here and the fact that the rescue group is getting death threats is sickening. I can see why the Mutts and Moms rescue group have the contract they do. Ellen DeGeneres admitted that she didn't even READ...