The year comes to a close…we’re preparing to go out this afternoon and pre-hike a wooded trail where we are leading a “First Day” hike tomorrow, for the Vermont State Parks. Yes, we will be snowshoeing! A late season mini-storm brought us 6-8 inches of snow, and we are taking full advantage. It is our final outdoor activity of 2015, so we look back at what has happened in the previous 365 days.

I am definitely not a “statistics” person…numbers, mathematics, and calculations have never been my forte. I am happy to leave the practice of those skills to my spouse and children.

However, recently wordpress and facebook provided me with statistical information about how our pages and blogs are “performing”. I do not participate in social media or outdoor activity in order to “bag stats”, but it is interesting to take note of some of the information. So here is a compilation, by the numbers, of our year 2015….each numerical entry reflects our love for the outdoors, and for participating in safe, fun, and responsible dog adventures!

Days paddling with the dogs: 28 tandem canoe, 60 in solo canoe boat, and 24 in kayak.

Bodies of water we paddled: 19 different ponds, lakes, and rivers

Number of boats in our fleet: we now have 4 boats!

Nights camping: 14 (remember, we had to cancel 2 weeks of canoe camping, or our number would be higher)

Days hiking with the dogs: 201 (including snowshoeing) Days hiking without dogs: 1

Days bikejor,skijor,kicksled : 26

Days bicycling ( road and mountain): 162 Yes, I do have recreational interests that do not involve dogs!

Trailspace.com: Increased status to a top 10 reviewer, and was selected as reviewer of the month!

Tubbs Snowshoes : Selected as Ambassador, so now we have SEVEN pairs ofTubbs snowshoes, and had 3 blog posts published

Backcountryk9.com : Brand Ambassador, Published 6 reviews, and received a lot of great gear!

Number of new facebook pages we manage: One– Snowshoeing with your Dog!

Instagram: A brand new endeavor for us….we have 15 postings, an increasing number of followers, and we will be more productive in 2016! ( find us at dogsaboard)

Vermont Paddle Pups Blog: 27% increase in views; visitors from 43 different countries; 21 blog posts  and we now have a domain vermontpaddlepups.com!

@VTPaddlePups on twitter : we have nearly doubled our followers! We participate in 4-5 different twitter chats, targeting at least 2 per week.

Vimeo: In 2015, we posted 8 video compilations on vimeo.

And it continues to be great fun! We love sharing with our friends and family….We hope you enjoy our tales of our adventures, our misadventures, and the amazing ability of our dogs to keep us entertained in the outdoors. Here’s a toast, to 2016…a year of health, happiness, and great outdoor accomplishments!