Last year was a busy one for us as we brought the Critter Chatter website out of hibernation, brought it up to date, and made it active again. It had been inactive for some time as we regrouped after the print version went under. We had a lot of plans for the website, and we sure didn’t get it all done, but this is a new year and changes are on the way. Watch for them in the coming weeks. If you are not already a fan of Critter Chatter on Facebook, become one now and we will keep you up to date as things happen. http://www.facebook.com/#/pages/Critter-Chatter/86405624946?ref=ts

We want to give a special thanks to the people who supported and helped us in 2009 as we got things rolling again. At the beginning of the year we didn’t have enough traffic on the website to justify asking people to advertise, but these businesses were willing to take a chance on us and help out, financially and in other ways, and ride with us as we grew.

Georgia Network of Professional Petsitters
Georgia’s largest organization of pet sitters, GNPP is made up of more than 70 pet sitting businesses in the Atlanta metro area. Their ability to spread the word about Critter Chatter, both locally and nationally through their contacts with pet sitter groups in other states, made traffic to our website increase dramatically.

Pawsitively Pets Pet Sitting
Donna McPherson was one of our first advertisers. She joined us soon after we began publishing the print version of Critter Chatter in 1996, and stayed with us until we had to stop publishing. Her husband Michael manages their website and is very knowledgeable about technical matters and online marketing. He offered a lot of information that helped us greatly over the past year.

Paws, Whiskers and Wags Pet Crematory
When Paws, Whiskers and Wags opened they began advertising in Critter Chatter, and stayed with us until the end. Owner Christine Hunsaker and her staff quickly established themselves as the people to call at this most difficult time, with the caring assistance they give to people who have suffered a loss, and with their involvement with and support of animal issues of all kinds.

One person I cannot thank enough for her help is Eindy Ramsey, owner of The Pet Shepherd Pet Sitting service in East Point and current GNPP president. In addition to spreading the word about Critter Chatter, she convinced me that social networking was not just some nonsense that kids used, and showed me how it could be useful in promoting the website. I’m still learning, but we are getting there.

We have a lot of new things coming to Critter Chatter that will hopefully make it a regular stop on a lot of people’s surfing safari. Stay tuned.