By Guest Blogger, Donna DeClemente, Donna's Promo Talk

I recently attended the 2013 BlogPaws Conference which was held back in Tyson Corners, VA, May 16 – 18. This was my fifth BlogPaws Conference and I am proud to say that I have made it to them all. BlogPaws 2013 is a Pet Social Media Conference made up of attendees who are pet bloggers, pet brands, pet educators, pet rescue organizations, social media professionals and of course, PETS.

I have two dogs, Shadow, a Golden Retriever, and Izzie, a cross between a King Charles and a Cocker Spaniel, along with two cats, Jack and Rose. I have not brought any of them to any of the conferences mostly because they do not like to travel. They are all more then happy to hold down the fort and keep each other company when we travel. I did however bring my daughter, Alex, with me this year, who just was accepted to Ross University's School of Veterinary Medicine and will be attending this fall semester. Alex also has a pet, Echo, a beautiful black cat. As a typical college student, she was thrilled to get lots of free samples for Echo as well as her friend's new puppy.

It was great to reunite with some old friends and see other attendees who, like me, have been there since the start. BlogPaws was co-founded back in 2010 by Yvonne DiVita and her partner, Tom Collins, both good friends of mine and who helped me launch this blog. So I have been helping them with some of the marketing for BlogPaws and have run a promotion for them each year to help create awareness of the conference. This year the 2013 BlogPaws or Bust promotion was a photo caption contest that I wrote about previously here on this blog. Vicki Boatright, artist/owner of BZTAT Studios, was the grand prize winner who got an all expense trip to attend this year's conference.

The sessions and speakers were all great. This year the conference actually sold out! There was a total of 540 people there along with over 90 pets, mostly dogs, in attendance as well. So I tried to photograph as many of them as I could. Here are some of my photos that I'd like to share with you. Enjoy! Hope to see some of you next May in Lake Las Vegas!