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You are receiving this because you subscribed to the Australian Shepherd Lovers Newsletter. This newsletter is also available online here. Australian-Shepherd-Lovers.com Newsletter #044 Hi Everyone, There's trouble in paradise! Our wonderful website and Aussie community has been dissed by Google. From time to time they change the way they decide which websites get ranked on their search results. Before this change, when you typed in "australian shepherd" in the Google search page we would show up on the 1st page of the results—where we should be! Now though, we have disappeared from the results altogether. That is really bad for all of us. It prevents people who want info about Aussies from finding us and it's no fun working on a great website that nobody will ever see! But if we work together there is something we can do that may help. It's easy to do. If you have a website where it would be appropriate please add a link to our website using the information below. Every link to us counts as a "vote" for us by Google. You can add our link to your websites, blogs, Facebook pages and in forums (were appropriate). Here's the information you can use to set up your link to us. The following will link to our home page but you can link to any of our pages instead or you can use a different description too. The "Title" text of "Australian Shepherd Lovers" is what you would make the link.
So when it is done it would look something like this:
Thank you very much in advance if you can help do this and let Google and everyone know WE LOVE THIS WEBSITE! If everyone adds 1 or 2 links (more if you can) it will really help make a difference. ~ Anton
In This Issue: - Pet Food Recall - Forum Feedback - Reader's Aussies - Photo of the Month - Should You Get Pet Insurance? - Dog Quote for Today Please feel free to forward this newsletter to anyone you feel would also benefit from this information. If someone you know has forwarded this newsletter to you, you can subscribe here to make sure you automatically receive future issues. Pet Food Recall From Diamond Pet Foods recall website — "Diamond Pet Foods has voluntarily recalled some brands of dry dog and cat food that it manufactured in its Gaston, S.C. facility between December 9, 2011 and April 7, 2012 due to potential Salmonella contamination. The brands that were recalled on May 4 have not tested positive for Salmonella. The company is recalling certain batches of these brands, however, as a precautionary measure to ensure the safety and well-being of customers and their pets. Consumers should check this website for the production codes and best-before dates on the bags of recalled food, and discontinue feeding it." Affected brands:
For more information: Diamond Pet Food Recall Information Australian Shepherd Forum Poll Results So far the response to our poll asking if anyone is interested in having a full-fledged forum on the site has been positive. So I am going to set that up down the road. Some things have come up like the Google problem mentioned above as well as a total site rebuild so I'm going to have to put that off until these fires are put out. If you haven't taken the poll I still need to hear from you about your opinion and what you would like to see in the forum. Total Website Rebuild Some of you may recall a while back when we revamped the website and changed the overall look of the website. That was a major change but it was basically just window dressing. But what has been long overdue is a major overhaul of the underlying code that creates the webpages you see. Once the changes are done it should speed the entire website up. Since I come from a design background I'm tempted to change the look a bit while I'm at it, but overall it will still continue to be the website you know and love—only better! For those of you who are interested in the more technical details, the reason for the change is that the current code is very old-school. The structure is comprised of nested tables. Tables were used by designers who wanted to control how a webpage looked but you wind up having tables inside of tables inside of more tables. This may get you the look you want but it also slows down the page load and is very cumbersome when you need to make major site changes. Since then a much better approach called Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) has been developed and no self-respecting webmasters use tables for layout anymore. I have included CSS in a limited way but only for text styles and some box styles. So it is time to go fully CSS for layout and styles and join the 21st century. Reader's Aussies The Mushroom Pate Is Missing? Photo of the Month Thanks to Todd Wynia for sending in this shot of his 9 month old Aussie, Jasper, taking a break from playing with his tennis ball. Gotta love those blue merle coats!>> Australian Shepherd Photo of the Month Should You Get Pet Insurance for Your Aussie? I remember one day my Aussie, Levi, was bounding around the back yard when he came around the corner of the house where I was and he was limping severely on his right front paw. I ran over to him and I could see a fairly thick wire like the kind on link fences was sticking all the way through one of his pads. It wasn't just stuck in, it was actually all the way through and sticking out the other side. I didn't have pet insurance and things were a bit tight money-wise at that time. So I had to call my brother-in-law to see if he could cover the vet bill until I got my paycheck the next week. That was embarrassing but I had to get Levi to the vet. Luckily the wire had gone in very fast and clean so it was a simple fix. The vet just had to pull it out and everything seemed fine without any bleeding. I could have tried to do that myself but I didn't know what would happen or how bad the bleeding would be so I wanted to be on the safe side and have the vet take care of it just in case. But because it was an emergency visit it wasn't cheap. Since I took Levi to the vet straight-away I didn't have the cash on me to cover the bill. So I told the vet I was going to go to my brother-in-law's place to pick up the money and would be right back. I started going toward the door with Levi and he stopped me and said Levi was going to have to stay there until I came back. I was pretty shocked that he was actually going to hold my dog hostage! What was he going to do if I didn't come back with the money?! Well, I got the money, got Levi ransomed out, and his wound healed nicely. It was a humiliating experience though, and what if nobody could have loaned me the money? What if the injury was much more severe and the bill wasn't in the hundreds of dollars but in the thousands—then what? You could have an emergency fund that you put something into every month, but it could take a while to build up until there's actually enough there when you need it. In the meantime you are vulnerable. And unless you're really disciplined about saving your emergency fund might just fall by the wayside. Even though you started it with good intentions it won't help if it isn't there when an injury or disease strikes. You may have considered the idea of getting pet insurance for your Aussie, but it's one of those things we don't like to think about and soon forget to do until there is a problem and we regret not having followed through. I would recommend that you at least get a quote to find out what you would be dealing with so you can see how it would fit into your budget. Pet insurance companies like Embrace provide many options that will allow you to make it as affordable as possible. For your sake and your Aussie's, take a minute to get a quote. Quotes don't obligate you, but you would at least have the information to decide if it's something you want for protection of your Aussie and peace-of-mind for you. >> Learn More About Embrace Pet Insurance << Please take a minute and get a quote!! Dog Quote for Today "If you don't own a dog, at least one, there is not necessarily anything wrong with you, but there may be something wrong with your life." ~ Roger Caras
Did You Get Your Copy of The New Ebook Yet? • Over 220 photos submitted by our Aussie Community • Tons of info on training and caring for your Aussie • Visit this link to find out more about everything that's included...
Join Us on Facebook! If you haven't joined yet I'd like to invite you to visit http://www.facebook.com/AustralianShepherdLovers. Twitter: To follow us on Twitter visit this link and click "Follow". http://twitter.com/AussieShepLover Until Next Time... Check back with us often as we are always adding more great information. Please let us know if there is something you would like to see on Australian-Shepherd-Lovers.com. We love to hear from fellow Australian Shepherd Lovers like you. Send us your ideas, your feedback and photos/stories of your Aussie so we can include them on the site. All the Best and Woof! Anton and Levi Australian-Shepherd-Lovers.com is Powered by Site Build It! DISCLOSURE: Many of the products and services we advertise and recommend in this newsletter provide us with an affiliate commission for referrals. Using our affiliate links ensures we are credited for referrals when you make a purchase. We very much appreciate your support. We take this responsibility very seriously and endeavor to only promote quality products and services from reputable merchants and providers. If you are dissatisfied (or very pleased) with the quality of the products or the service provided, please contact us and let us know about your experience. New! Leave a CommentShare your thoughts! Leave a comment in the box below. |
