Sharing the Blog

Every once in a while someone asks me if it’s OK to share one of my posts or videos, or perhaps link to them from their webpage. How polite of them to ask!
And, um, the answer is YES! If you want to, please link. If you are moved to, please share.
I decided to write this invitation since I deliberately do not plead with people to share my stuff, to sign up to follow the blog, or to Like my FaceBook page. Those options are there for those who want them, but I promote them almost not at all.
It occurred to me, since people ask, that people may not really know that I would love my stuff to be shared around. So here is an invitation.
Pressure Tactics
I write a lot about negative reinforcement. One of the reasons, I admit, is that I personally hate pressure, nagging, and attempts to influence my behavior, especially by self-interested people. A good friend says of me, “You’ll get along just fine with Eileen as long as you don’t try to get her to do something she doesn’t want to do.” I have a huge opposition reflex.
Applying pressure on the web is easy. You know those pop up windows that either prompt or actually require you to put in your email address before you can see some content? That, my friends, is classic negative reinforcement. Even without the annoying window, it can be R-, if the reader feels pressure to sign up for something or share personal information or take any particular action in order to get to something that interests them.
Here’s one that popped up while I was reading the first few paragraphs of an article. I decided it wasn’t worth it. Even though they gave an option to bypass the window, I decided I didn’t like them anymore.

Here’s one that appeared after I scanned an SEO company and decided I wasn’t interested and was heading for the button to close the window.

After that I really wasn’t interested!
You won’t see popups on my blog or FaceBook page, as long as I am in control. (I can’t imagine a situation where I would lose that control, but I tend to avoid absolute statements. Especially regarding FaceBook!) And as long as I have the means, and the online providers don’t change the rules, you won’t see ads or anything else you have to click away on my blog or YouTube channel.
I do have empathy and respect for people who earn their living, or part of it, through providing online products and resources. I understand that the basic marketing principle is to provide some information for free, develop an email list, and use it to sell the product. Lots of folks are very generous with their information, and it’s fair to promote their goods or services that have a price tag as well. But just FYI, you marketers out there, I personally don’t respond well to:
- Popups that appear before I can see anything at all on the website;
- Popups that appear when I’ve spent 30 seconds on a website just trying to get the sense of it;
- Popups that appear repeatedly after I close them;
- And popups that appear when I try to leave.
It’s so ham-handed. I can make my own decisions, thank-you-very-much. Buh-bye.
I will certainly sign up for someone’s email list on occasion if they take a low pressure approach and put a signup box on the page somewhere, or if a popup comes up after I click to say I’m interested. And I have been known to pay for an ebook or other resource from someone after I sign up for their email distribution list. I’m not looking for a free lunch. I just want to make decisions on the merits that I perceive, not because someone got pushy.
There’s a difference between making it easy to buy something and hard not to.
My, this turned into a little bit of a rant, didn’t it?
Spreading the Word
So given all that, I’m an unlikely candidate for a proselyte, but that just goes to show you never know where life will take you.
One of my big motivations for writing is to share the message about training as free from force, pain, and pressure as we possibly can. Sure, I have an ego. I’m a writer. I want to be read. But I have an additional motivation. I want to share good training practices with the people who are teetering on the edge of what methods to use and are tired of battling with their dogs. I also want to reach those who always knew that was the way they wanted to go and support them. Anyone who wants to listen. I get huge positive reinforcement when people respond to my posts, riff off them, and spread them around.
So, I’m saying to you: if you think my stuff is helpful, I would LOVE it if you share it.
One of the main ways that a website, including a blog, gets ranked highly on Google is if other sites link to it. And sites that rank highly on Google get on the first page of results. For instance, wouldn’t you love it if this site came up high in the results if someone is searching on terms related to shock collars? I would.
What to Share
Share whatever you like the most, feel the best about, and whatever you think will help spread the word about training without pressure and pain.
In the menu at the top of the blog, there are four menu items that lead to topical pages, but I will link them here as well:
- Video Examples for Teachers;
- Dog Body Language;
- Information about Shock; and
- Common Misconceptions (the talking points posts).
But there are lots of posts that don’t fit into those categories. Along the sidebar there is a search box where you can look up an old favorite; a list of the currently most popular posts; and an archive where you can view older posts by date.
How to Share It
At the bottom of each post and page is a panel that says “Share this:” with lots of sharing options. Feel free to pick one and click it! And if you have your own website or blog, feel free to link to any posts here that you like. You can highlight the URL at the top of your browser, copy it, and paste it to share.
How to Follow the Blog
In case you didn’t know of these options:
- If you want WordPress to send you an email every time I publish a post, click “Follow Blog via Email” in the sidebar at the left.
- If you want to follow me on Twitter, click here, then click Follow. I am not very active there, but I do tweet every new post and the occasional post from someone else.
- If you want to get an announcement of each post on FaceBook, you can Like my FaceBook page.
- If you want to follow via RSS, click on the RSS link in the sidebar.
Other Favorites
Just to share the love a little, here are my current top four favorite posts from other folks. Feel free to share them, too! (Note that I am breaking a cardinal rule here, and may be shooting myself in the foot by sending you off somewhere else right at this crucial moment. But hey, these are GREAT posts.)
- There’s Always a Reason–Sonya Bevan, Dog Charming
- The End for Shock Collars?–Companion Animal Psychology
- Finding the Right Dog Trainer: Harder than You Think!–Anne Springer, Pawsforpraise
- What If?–Lori Nanan, Your Pit Bull and You
Thank you, most of all, for reading!
And for sharing if you choose to.
Coming up:
- Threshold: It May Not Be What You Think
- How Skilled are You at Ignoring? (Extinction Part 2)
- OMG Could She Really be Talking about the Continuum AGAIN?