Semester reflection

At the beginning of this semester, I was a little worried about this class. I was coming into this class not knowing very much about social media other than the few personal pages I had. I was a little nervous that everyone else was going to be much more experienced in this subject matter that I was, it was nice to know that we were all about on the same level once the class got going.


Coming into this class I was expecting to learn about how to make a social media campaign for a business. I was under the impression that we would just learn about all the different social media platforms that were out there. I was a pleasantly surprised when we were actually given a fake business to represent and how fully hands on this class was.


I learned so much in this class, lot more than I thought  I was going to. I actually understand Twitter now! With having to start a social media campaign for my fake business, I learned which platforms can work for different subjects and which ones cant. I also really liked finding out how you can go into all your social media accounts and see if your ideas and posts are actually working and bringing in the target market that you are aiming for.


My favorite experience by far, is that I learned how much I enjoy blogging! Having to write a post each week, seemed like a treat, and not by any means stressful or demanding. I am currently tossing around ideas for what type of blog I can start now. As the semester comes to an end, I am going to miss my little Kitty Kat Animal Sanctuary.

Cat Beards Galore

I would like to start out today's blog by telling everyone about this awesome website I have found. It is called Yapstar and it is basically a social media site for pet parents. You make a profile page for your pet and then there is all this wonderful information at you fingertips. On this website you can find reviews for products and all different types of pet services available in your area. I am actually so excited about this that I went onto Jing and made this video for you all to watch. This way you can actually see how easy this website is, here is the link to follow to watch the video. Oh, and I was recording this video at home, so please ignore the hound dog sounds in the background he was really excited to be helping his mommy.

I have another subject I would like to talk to you about today, and it is summed up in two words...CAT BEARDS! If you don't know what this amazing internet trend is, you are truly missing out. We have decided here at the Kitty Kat that because we are in the middle of No Shave November, we need to have a contest for all of our customers on who can get a picture of the best cat beard. In case you don't know what I am talking about, or you need some inspiration I have posted a few pictures for you.

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I told you, these are amazing! I tried to add my own but Romeo was being a little sassy this morning and did not want this picture taken, I will try again and put in up at the Kitty Kat. The cat beard contest will be starting today, Friday, November 18, 2016 and going until the end of the month. To enter is super easy, just take the best cat beard picture you can, email it to us here at the Kitty Kat and cross your fingers. At the end of the month we will choose the best one and the winner will receive a $100 gift card to the Kitty Kat! We are doing this contest this month to bring awareness to men's health issues such as prostate and testicular cancer, and also mental health and suicide awareness. The Movember Foundation is a wonderful charity organization that helps to get all this awareness out. The goal of the Movember Foundation is to "change the face of men's heath"  Their website is beautiful and has a ton of information. Here is the link to the page.

Have fun taking cat beard pictures and remember to share them on your own personal social media accounts, just please take a minute to explain the reasoning behind No Shave November and help spread the word of how important men's health awareness is.  Have a wonderful week and kitty kisses for everyone!

Kitties on the Sliver Screen 

Winter is just around the corner, and you all know what that means...time to curl up inside and wait for it to pass! I thought I would do you all a little favor and make a list of the top 10 best kitties on screen. These are my favorites, please feel free to comment on the bottom of the page with your favorites, I would love to hear them. Before I start the list, we have a new and amazing Kitty Kat Animal Sanctuary commercial to show you all. We have been working hard on it, and we hope you all enjoy it! Click HERE to view it.
Okay, now on to the list.



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10. Scat Cat: The tough but velvet voiced  Scat Cat, voiced by Scat-man Crothers ( who is super cool and kind of terrifying, all at the same time) is the leader of the gang of musical alley cats in the amazing jazz filled 1970's  musical The Ariscocats by Disney. A must see for all children.







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9. Cat: The orange kitty that doesn't have a name, steals the screen from Audrey Hepburn in the 1961 Truman Capote story, Breakfast at Tiffany's. From laying in bed with Holly Golightly, to sitting in the alley in the rain, this kitty knows how to steal some serious screen time.

      8.Oliver: The handsome orange kitty is just looking for a family of his own in Disney's 1988 Oliver & Company. Adapted from Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist,

 this little kitty stole everyone's heart right away

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7. Mr.Bigglesworth: The sidekick of Dr. Evil in the 1997 movie Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. Mr. Bigglesworth will always be remember as the cute white kitty that lost all of his fur in cryogenic freezing accident.

6. The Cowardly Lion:  He was only looking for courage,

 In this 1939 movie by MGM. The Wizard of Oz,

 proudly cemented that in fact the lion was the king of the

 forest and if you ever need courage, just look inside.

 (Plus I love then they put that red bow on him...) 

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5. Baby: This oldie but goodie this is one of my favorites ever! This 1938 movie from RKO Films, Bringing up Baby, stars Cary Grant (swoon..) and Katherine Hepburn. With missing dinosaur bones and a pet leopard, this is classic Hollywood at its best!

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4. The Cheshire Cat: One of the best parts of Disney's Alice in Wonderland, is the psychedelic purple striped Cheshire Cat. With some of the best quotes in the movie, including " I'm not crazy, my reality is just different than yours" I honestly cannot tell you how many times I asked my mom for a pink and purple stripped cat when I was little!

 

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3. Crookshanks: Hermione Granger's ginger half cat / half  kreazle from the Harry Potter series is such a great pet. With his problem solving techniques and the ability to recognize untrustworthy people, he is definitely a girls best friend!

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2. Mr. Jinx: Jinxy Cat, Jinxy Cat I love you.  This adorable ragdoll cat of the 2000 movie Meet the Parents, was an instant star! From the talent of going potty in the toilet to making Ben Stiller look like a complete schmuck, he is by far one of the best movie kitties ever!

     

 1. Simba: From the awe inspiring 1994 Disney movie, The Lion King, Simba is easily the winner! This movie had everything you could ever want, from beautiful colors and graphics to amazing music and a heartfelt story line, Disney brought us to Africa to meet a little lion cub, which everyone fell in love with. 

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There you go, all my favorites. Now, go grab some popcorn and dig in. Have a wonderful weekend and kitty kisses for everyone! 

Celebrating Fall the Most Puurrfect Way

I took a few days off this week, just a couple to relax and find my center after the super successful Kittes for a Cause event we threw last Saturday. I ate soooo many tacos! Once again, thank you to everyone that stop out and help with our fundraiser. As you may know, I am not one for staying still or relaxing,so therapeutic shopping was just the answer for me. We stopped into this amazing antique store in Stillwater, Minnesota and look at this poster I found for the Kitty Kat! I can't wait to hang it up!

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I love it so much, and the beautiful colors have inspired me! This week we will be having a fall harvest sale. Starting on Sunday, November, 6 2016 till Saturday, November, 12 2016 stop by the Kitty Kat to get amazing deals on all of our favorite products. We are big fans of Solid Gold cat food, and we are lucky enough to have two new flavors to add to our selection. The first one is called Winged Tiger, it has super lean quail as its main protein and fiber rich pumpkin, it is also grain and gluten free, which is awesome! The second one is called Furrever young and has turkey, brown rice and over 20 powerful super foods that will help all mature kitties! During the harvest sale both foods will be at a special sale price.

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All week during our sale we will be handing out packets of Weruva Pumpkin Patch Up with all purchases, this soft supplement is wonderful for kitties and is an easy addition to their normal food. Pumpkin is a super food that helps with all digestion, and can calm down any upset tummy. Here at the Kitty Kat we like to warm it up a little and serve it on a spoon, the kitties love it. Click here to follow the link to Weruva so you can read up all how wonderful this product is.

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To make this sale even better we are also offering 10-15% off all cat food and an additional 5% off all Kitty Kat Sanctuary clothing and merchandise, including tee-shits, tanks, scarfs, pillows, and anything else we can think of. You know you need more kitty shirts! On a quick serious note, I don't know if you all know that the month of November is adopt a senior pet month, and here at the Kitty Kat we have a few oldies but goodies that would love to find their furrever home. We are pleased to be able to offer half of the adoption fees for any kitty over the age of 6 years. I found this great article on why you should think about adopting an older kitty, please take a minute to read it, and hopefully this is right up your alley, plus with any senior kitty adoption this month we will give you a free bag of Solid Gold Furrever Young!  I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, and remember to stop by the Kitty Kat this week to score some great deals. I leave you with a picture of Marlon Brando, one of our senior kitties that would love to make you an offer that you can't refuse!

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Kitty Kisses for everyone!

Attack of the Kitty K-9s

Halloween will be here soon and that means lots of candy, which always makes me think of my grandma and how she always told me that if I eat to much candy my teeth will rot and fall out. That's a nice imagine isn't it?  But in all honestly I think those words stuck with me because now I am really into my dental health, thanks grandma! Luckily for my little fuzzy friends at home and at the sanctuary their mommy is into their dental health too, and kitties really do need all the help they can get when it comes to keeping the gums and teeth healthy.

I really like the American Veterinarian Dental College website, I truly believe that it has an answer for any question I have ever had about my kitty's dental health. Click here to go to their website and enjoy going down the rabbit hole of animal dental health, it can be fascinating. I am not going to get into the depths of periodontal disease today, but I would like to tell you about a few easy products you can use at home to keep your kitty's teeth and gums shinny and pretty.

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Here at the Kitty Kat we have many different products for dental health, the fan favorite is the Feline Greenies. They come in many different flavors such as catnip, chicken and tuna. The shape and crunchy texture helps clean your cat's teeth by wiping away tartar buildup.They are made with a natural formula of vitamins, minerals, taurine and chlorophyll which makes these treats super healthy for your kitty. This week all Feline Greenies are 15% off at the Kitty Kat.

There is one more dental health product I would like to tell you guys about today, and that is the amazing dental wipes from Earthbath. These wipes are great for older cats and little kittens that might have trouble chewing on hard treats.These wipes clean the mouth and helps to remove tartar and plaque build up.They are made from all natural ingredients, including peppermint oil, which helps to keep your kitty's breath nice and fresh! We love Earthbath wipes so much here at the Kitty Kat that we have free samples for everyone! Stop by this week and let us know you read our blog, and we will hook you up with a few! 

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We wish you a very happy Halloween weekend, be safe, have fun, and remember...don't eat all that candy or your teeth will rot and fall out! 

Kitties for a Cause

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October is breast cancer awareness month, and here at Kitty Kat that holds a special place in our hearts. We have all been affected by breast cancer some how in our lives, and we need to be there to support each other and our loved ones as we  battle through this terrible disease and strive forward towards finding a cure. 1 in 8 women will develop invasive breast cancer over the course of her lifetime and early detection can help save your life. Click here to go to the National Breast Cancer Foundation Inc. where you can find out more about early warning signs and how to do your monthly self-exam.

On Saturday, October 29, 2016 we will be hosting a fundraiser to support The National Breast Cancer Foundation Inc. The event will be from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. in the parking lot of the Kitty Kat. Local food trucks include: The Munchie Machine, Juana Burrito, Jack's Fork in the Road and Burger She Wrote. Our favorite band Kitty-A-Go-Go will also be here, helping us to raise some funds. There will also be a great silent auction set up with prizes big and small to win. The Kitty Ranch will be open to shop for all your kitty needs and of course the ranch will be open to meet all our lovely kitties. The day of the fundraiser 25% of  food truck sales, Kitty Kat sales, and all  the money from the silent action, will go to The National Breast Cancer Foundation Inc. 

On a personal note, I understand how hard it is to watch a loved one battle this horrible disease. There is nothing worse than that feeling of uselessness you get when there isn't anyway to help. On Saturday we will be setting up a strength wall, I didn't want it to be a memorial or remembrance wall, because we need to be celebrating our loved ones that took on this battle, win or lose. Please feel free to bring pictures, mementos, cards or anything else, to show the strength of your loved one. I hope to see everyone next Saturday, now, go do your monthly self-exam!

Grandma Marcy
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Me and Grandma Eileen
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Kitties in Space

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Starting a new company is so much fun, and exciting, and fulfilling, and scary, and nerve wreaking, and so overwhelming, and great, I said great right?? When I decided to finally make the jump and open The Kitty Kat Animal Sanctuary, it was truly the best decision I had ever made (Second, just in case the hubby reads this.) but, I knew I needed more than fun music, great supplies and a love for animals to make The Kitty Kat a success. That is when I started to do tons of research on how to run a business. After numerous classes,webinars, lectures, mentors, tons of reading and a few quick prayers, I opened The Kitty Kat and not to toot my own horn, but so far so good! 

I would like to tell you guys about an amazing women I met on my journey to open The Kitty Kat. Her name is Laurie Boettcher and she is a social media guru, I believe her official title is social media educator and professional speaker, but I like guru. Laurie was speaking at a workshop for small business owners that I was lucky enough to snag a ticket to, I had so many questions that she generously spent her lunch time with me, so she could answer every single one I had. She has been my social media mentor from that day forward. Thanks to Laurie, the kitties and I are now on every media outlet possible and have been able to meet people and business, which would have never been possible before if we would have just been a small brick and mortar rescue. 

I check Laurie's blog weekly, it has the best new information on how to navigate through the internet and all social media outlets, and what you can do to make your business's social media presence the best it can be. This is the link to Laurie's blog.  http://laurieboettcher.blogspot.com/  If you are wondering how to take your business to the next level, sit down and read her blog post, it will change everything, I promise.