Note: This is a long post! But make sure you at least read the very end!
When my human came back from her trip to Columbus, normally I would have been mad at her. But this time I wasn’t because she was at the BlogPaws conference, which meant she was bringing a bunch of goodies home with her. I couldn’t wait to get my paws into the bag.
Binga didn’t wait — she was grabbing at toys before my human could even dig them out.
But my human finally showed us all the cool stuff we got! Cat treats and toys, plus coupons and gift cards for my human to use to buy even more things for us. Even the dog got some treats. What an awesome spread!
Unfortunately, Binga thought all of this belonged to her! And you know how she feels about sharing (it’s not in her vocabulary).
So we had a small debate about that.
My favorite toy came from Your Daily Cute. My human insisted that it was a pen, not a toy. I think she was trying to steal it for herself. She’s almost as bad as Binga.
But she had enough of her own stuff. For speaking on the “Book Publishing in a Digital World” panel, she got a cool goodie bag containing a new Furminator, BlogPaws-stamped M&Ms and a silver charm.
I got my own bag too! Teri, a nice lady who blogs with her Cornish Rex and Sphynx cats felt bad for me because my human gave away sparkle balls to BlogPaws attendees and didn’t let me keep one. So she gave my human a little gift bag especially for me.
Look what was in it!
I confess: I did look in the bag to see if there was anything else. My human thought I was a little greedy.
But best of all, I found something buried deep inside the BlogPaws bag: my human brought back one of the sparkle ball cards!
Okay, I fibbed a little about that being the best thing. Because as you know, even if we got a bunch of cool things from BlogPaws, that’s not really the point. The really great thing about BlogPaws, and what made it such a special conference, is the giving part. Many of the humans involved in or attending BlogPaws have made a big difference in the lives of homeless pets and pets in need. With the help of their cats and dogs, such as Romeo and Frugal Dougal, they have been able to donate many thousands of dollars to animal causes. The conference itself raised $2800 for each of three animal organizations. To see the true spirit of BlogPaws, check out this video made by Frugal Dougal’s human (many of you have seen this already, and if you have, you’ll probably want to see it again):
And this is only the beginning. To kick things off, Dr. V of Pawcurious has laid down a “Be the Change” challenge for those of us who blog and tweet. There will be a Twitter PawPawty on April 21 and 22 from 7pm to 1am ET to benefit Pets Without Parents in Columbus, OH. Participating bloggers will have donation widgets on our sites, and we will be blogging about how we and our readers can help homeless pets in our own small way (because all those small efforts add up!). If you don’t blog or tweet, I hope you support those that do with their efforts to make a difference!
See all of Summer’s merch at her Designercat Shop, available on Zazzle.
Wabby the Queen of the DiVita household here – my Mom gave me some of those nice treats too. And some big ball that makes a lot of animal noises. I was not impressed! She can give that to the dog! I’m just glad she and Tom are home. They keep talking about BlogPaws and if they do that again – that BlogPaws thingee – I think I should get to go, too. It’s no fun waiting at home.
BAG! I LOVE convention bags! Um, sparkle balls, too. And treats. But I specially LOVE convention bags. Purrs!
MeWow! We lurve the photos of Sparkle digging into the mini-swag bag we sent home with her mewmie! And if truth be told, we ALL look in our gift bags hoping for more, don’t we??
BlogPaws was absolutely amazing, in every way! And we apurrciate you “name dropping” us Furrydance cats!
What an awesome video! Helping other furries is what it is all about.
ps: it was so nice of Teri to make that special bag just for you. She is nice!
Wow! That’s a lot of cool stuff your human brought you. We ‘specially like what you got from Your Daily Cute! Ernie thinks those are the best toys!
That was some fantastic swag and I love the video!
We it looks y’all made out like bandits! Good of you to try and help other kitties and woofies who aren’t so fortunate – yet.
Nice haul! And your very own gift bag – SWEET!!!!
The four cats of the DogTipper household quickly discovered Sparkle’s ball card in our bag as soon as we got home from BlogPaws and say thank you, Sparkle!
How very nice of Teri! That picture of you bopping Binga made me laff!
Foster Haddie LOVES the Sparkle pom pom you (or your human) gave her – I will have to post a picture of her carrying it in her mouth on your FB page.
Nice post Sparkle’s mommy! Very thorough and fun and informative!
T
Great post. Look at all that great loot you got. It looks like everyone had a great time there. Sorry we missed it. Glad you got your sparkle ball. Thanks for sharing your experience.
Great post! My mom hopes to go to Blogpaws in the future.
Aw, I’m glad my pen was your favorite toy! I had a feeling the humans might think it was for them, but I knew you cats would know the truth. 🙂
Had a great time meeting your mom! Next time, we’ll hit the hotel gym together!
Toys are my favorite thing. Cats know how to play with toys better than most other animals. I had a dog once that was afraid of toys, especially if they squeaked.
We are in AWE of all the amazing work that the peeps at Blogpaws have been doing.
Wow, you got an awful lot of swag! What great bunch of bloggers you are for doing so much good for the animals.
Hey Sparkle…our mom has not even shared yet? Did they only give goodie bags to cat bloggers? I think I need to do some sniffing around.
@Betsy All the attendees should have gotten bags – I think your human is holding out!
Would your mewmie purrmit us to use the photo of you digging into the mini mini mini swag bag we gave you, to put on our bloggie? That’d be kewl!
Almost like Christmas! I was lucky enough to meet your mom at Blogpaws – we shared a ride from the airport to the hotel. Be sure to tell her I say hello!
@Teri – of course your human can use my photo! 🙂
@Ellen – my human says hi back, and it was nice to meet you! She is actually a big fan of your company!
Wow, look at all that loot! What fun it must have been for your human.
That was very nice of Teri to bring a present just for you! You and Binga got lots of pawesome stuff from BlogPaws! Our mommy wishes she could have attended but maybe someday she can.
Pawsome! We luvs our blogpaws bag too and momma gaves your sparkle ball to plays wif. Dem YourDailyCute pens are da bestest, momma insists dey is for hoomans but dat just isn’t so huh MOL
Purrrrrrrrrrrrrs
That one little sparkle ball from my BlogPaw goodie bag is all over my house…little pieces here, little pieces there – yet it’s still in one piece and looks pretty good. How do they do that?! Why even the little puppy got ahold of it and threw up a few little sparklies later. It made the vomit quite festive-looking. Cheers!
Wow! What a great haul!
Maked what Daddy brought home from the local Pet Expo pale in comparison!
Which isn’t hard to do when no one at the Expo gives out free toys, and treats, hee, hee! ;-D
Daddy wishes he’d been able to attend BlogPaws because he knows he would have learned so much to help us as we try to grow my blog.
Maybe next time.
By the way, I am very interested in your Cat Book, and plan to get Daddy to get me a copy!