Welcome to everything else. This is section has everything in it that doesn't quite fit in with the rest of the site.

In 1996 - 3 years after I graduated high school - I was going to school at George Mason University (in Virginia) and was dating a guy who had a web site. As soon as I saw it, I wanted to learn how to create one myself. I bought a book - HTML for Dummies, did some surfing of sites that were already out there and built myself my very first web site. I wanted to call the site Dog House but that URL doghouse.com was already taken. So for no other reason then just a whim, I registered Dog Hause (doghause.com). In hind site I probably could have gotten thedoghouse.com or puppydog.com or dogs.com or a million other options that made more sense in the long run. But since I was creating a personal site with no purpose other then a space to learn html on, I didn't think it mattered.

With my domain name registered and few days practice, my black text justified left on a white page grew into the first incarnation of the Dog Hause. I started collecting (okay it was stealing - I'll be honest, I didn't know better) animal graphics off of "free graphics" web sites. So many in fact that I had more then I needed for my site (as decorative elements) so I began offering them on my very own Free Animal Graphics web site.

In addition to graphics, I added animal quotes that I liked. Then I added animal ASCII art. There was a ton of it out there. And then fonts - Always have loved fonts. Sounds - Another favorite of mine. Proverbs - Like quotes but better. Humor, Idioms, Superstitions, etc. And the list goes on. Whenever I thought about something else that was animal related, I added it. My animals collections of graphics and others grew very quickly and soon people from all over the world were coming to my site. I received so many wonderful emails from fans and "Awards" from other animal sites. The Dog Hause took off like no one could have ever predicted.

Then a very interesting thing happened. The popularity of the site almost toppled it over because once the site became so popular, the people that truly owned the animal graphics that I was giving away started coming to my site and asking me to remove (or credit them for) their graphics. Seeing as I didn't really want to have people mad at me for showing their graphics without credit or showing their graphics at all, I followed all requests regarding the graphics. Unfortunately though so many requests started piling in, that I didn't have the time any more to do them. Every night I was fussing with something. Sometimes up to 5 things a night. The Dog Hause wasn't fun anymore. It became work. And so with a heavy heart I removed the Free Graphics section one day. I don't remember when that was (1998 maybe?) but I remember it being a very hard thing to do. Animal graphics had been the main thing that made site so popular.

It was about the same time that I removed the graphics, that I added a section on the importance of spay or neutering your pet. I had been volunteering at a local animal shelter when I could then and every day I saw perfectly lovable sweet dogs and cat puts to death because there weren't any homes for them. It was horrible. The staff at the shelter were great and good at hiding as much of that process as possible from us volunteers but it was still known and just horrible to think about. I feel blessed that after I added the spay and neuter section, then that section started doing very well and people were coming to the site just for that. The traffic to the Dog Hause did not diminish. It only grew. It survived the free graphics being removed and it was fun again.

After twelve years (wow that is a long time!), the Dog Hause is still going strong. When I can I add more content and more sections - much of it coming from visitors to the site. In 2001 I added one of my favorite sections to the Dog Hause, the Pet Lovers Store. There I sell tee shirts, sweatshirts, magnets, buttons, clocks, pillows, mugs, bumper stickers, baseball jerseys, hats, bags and all sorts of merchandise that has animal designs that I created.

For non-animal related cool things come look at my Words Page.

That's about all. Take care. :)