Photo by Theresa Thompson

Well, to be honest, it was yesterday (April 11), which makes today the infinitely more poetic “year-and-a-day” anniversary of my blog. It started as a place to collect a lot of information I’d gathered in the course of taking several trips with our brand-new puppy. I was an English major, so my first impulse is always to buy a Moleskine notebook and write stuff down — but my husband is a software guy, and he said “blog.” So I went forth and blogged, and in no time at all, writing blog posts was occupying nearly every waking moment.

There’s a lot to this blogging business, and I’m only just learning how much there is to learn. I’ve had excellent help (thanks, Walter!) and excellent advice (thanks, Delicious Baby!) — and excellent readers and blogging friends (thanks, dear ones!). I’m looking forward to Year 2.

Here are the top five Dog Jaunt posts from Year 1:

1. Airplane carriers for in-cabin pet travel — This was such a hit that I started a second blog, called Pet Carrier Reviews, and started posting lots more reviews there.

2. Airport pet relief areas — Pictures and reviews of the pet relief areas we’ve been to. Some are good (San Diego), some are great (JFK T5), some are desperately bad (Seattle, Las Vegas, Denver…).

3. and 4. Traveling by car with a small dog: Ready, set… and Traveling by car with a small dog: How it works — A darned useful pair of posts, if I say so myself.

5. Taking a small dog on a plane: How it works — The post that began it all. The very first thing I had to do with young Chloe was fly her from her breeder in San Diego to her new home in Seattle, and the Internet had nothing to tell me about the actual, moment-to-moment how-tos of flying on a plane with an in-cabin dog — so I blundered through on my own a few times, and wrote this post.