12 Years Today!

Ollie here. As the youngest member of the Poupounette Gang, #1 thought it would be good for me to learn the history of our blog. Twelve years ago today, on June 29th, 2008, Sen-Chan and Tommy published our first ever blog post! What we did not realise at the time was that we hit the start of what was to become the golden age of pet blogging. Our first commenters included Dragonheart and Merlin, Hannah and Lucy, Kaze, Latte and Chase, Daisy, Goldie, Shade and Banshee, Isis and Ramses, and Petey. Most of these blogs are gone now, and quite a few of their authors have gone to the Bridge. Some have moved on to Facebook and we enjoy continuing to follow their adventures. For example, Daisy, who was one of the most popular bloggers, has gone to the Bridge, but her successor, Gibson, is just as adorable and on Facebook.

Over the years, we have seen so many changes here. We started out with two, Sen-Chan and Tommy. At one point, there were seven of us, including super-sized Vidock and Violette. There have been so many happy hellos and sad goodbyes. All told, we have welcomed eleven "Gang" members since we started, and had to say goodbye to six. Initially, there was one cat and one dog. At one point, we had four cats (five, counting Trav), one dog and two horses. And now we have two cats, one dog and four horses.

Over the years, we have published 4,180 blog posts, and have had over 920,000 page views!  We can't find a statistic for the number of comments we have had (anyone knows where to find it?) We have never changed the basic look of the blog, and just change the header occasionally, In fact, we need to change the header now to show our new horsy members.

More than anything, we have made so many friends all over the world, and some we have even managed to meet in the flesh! These include Claire of The Swiss Cats, Jackie and Ivor of Eric and Flynn, Nancy of Mickey's Musings, and Phyll of Khyra's Korner. We have shared in smiles and tears, arrivals and goodbyes, and every experience has filled our hearts. We are a little sad that blogging seems to have declined considerably, as Facebook just doesn't have the same kind of immediacy. But we are stil making new friends and expanding our horizons.

I, Ollie, will be 20 months old tomorrow, and I hope to be blogging for many years to come. I want to thank you all for being our friends and sticking with us, and invite you to continue joining us on our journey and sharing yours with us. I also want to share my respect and admiration for our Queen Tama who, like #1, has known all the ones who have gone before. She is our treasure, which is what her name means! In the meantime, here are portraits of all of the Poupounette Gang members to date, in order of appearance:

(RIP) Sen-Chan, aka "Poupounet" (2007-2009) FOUNDER

(RIP) Tommy (2007-2019) FOUNDER

Tama-Chan (2008 —) A birthday coming up in August!

(RIP) Sei-Chan (2009-2018)

(RIP) Yuu-Chan (2009-2010)

(RIP) The Traveller, aka "Trav" (2007? - 2018)

(RIP) Bibi-Chan, aka "Da Beebs" (2009 - 2019)

Vidock (2009 —)

Violette (2009 —)

Genji (2011 —)

Oliver, aka Ollie (2018 —)

Hotesse (1995 —)

Heloise (2017 —)

This is one of our favourite photos, showing (front to back) Yuu-Chan, Sei-Chan and Da Beebs, who are all now reunited at The Bridge:

In addition, there was Ikkyu (1992-2007), #1's first cat and first Aby, who went to the Bridge before the blog but is featured in our Souvenir Saturday posts.

Thank you again to all of you for sharing our lives these past twelve years!