How to touch: Hand targeting with your dog -- a Trick or Treat Giveaway Blog Hop

Halloween is coming up fast! Who is ready to trick or treat?

We've joined up with Kol's Notes, Beagles and Bargains and more of your favorite pet bloggers for this year's Trick or Treat Giveaway Blog Hop!

We've got a great trick to show you -- and after you see our trick, you'll have a chance to enter to win prizes -- including a $300 PetSmart gift card!

DISCLOSURE: The Trick or Treat Giveaway Hop is sponsored by CleverPet, The Honest Kitchen, Planet Dog, and Health Extension. The opinions and ideas in this post are my own and are uninfluenced by any other person or business. The individual sponsors are responsible for their giveaway prizes including shipping.

4 Halloween goodies dogs should be scared of (but aren't!)

It's Halloween, which means there will likely be copious amounts of junk food coming into your home over the next few days (because even if you don't have kids I bet at least a third of you will raid the candy aisle during the Halloween clearance sales, amirite?)

But there are some goodies out there that can be a nightmare for you and your dog if he or she breaks into them.

So lets spread the word and remind our friends and family what NOT to leave out this week -- or all year long. This is with the help of PetMD.com.

Apopka's Club Lake Plantation full of dog-friendly fall fun

Looking for some fall fun with your pet. This feature I wrote for Barkpost has some great fall/Halloween activities you can do with your dog. 25 of them, in fact.

• 25 Fantastic Fall Events Around the Country for You and Your Dog

And for us Central Floridians, this great month-long festival is going on right now!

How to make an easy skirt for your dog this Halloween

I'm not big on costumes, but there is something amusing about a dog in a puffy skirt (like a tutu).

So when I had to come up with a Tinker Bell, I knew I needed a skirt. But I couldn't find one in the stores, and I didn't want to buy one online.

Turns out making a skirt is pretty easy!

What Hurricane Irma taught me about dogs, disasters

It's 2 a.m. and 89 degrees in the house. I'm stripped down to my underwear, "The Crown" is on my tablet to try and distract me from my discomfort at the heat and humidity, the darkness and the otherwise silence of my powerless home.

What I can't distract myself from is the sound of Lulu's breathing.

It's faster than usual, and her chest is heaving up and down quickly. She's not panting, just breathing heavily.

I rub her chest and "arm pits" with a damp rag in the hope of keeping her comfortable.

Jasmine tries to stay cool. She handled the lack of AC better than Lulu.

But I'm resolved. Tomorrow, they all go to my parents' house, even if I hate to do an overnight trip and rush back to work.

Their discomfort is more upsetting to me than anything else about this situation. It's early Thursday morning, Sept. 14. I've been without power since Sunday, Sept. 10, when Hurricane Irma hit Orlando and the rest of Florida.

And I won't have power again until Sept. 19.

Lulu poolside two days after Hurricane Irma. Debris could be cleaned out, but without power I had no filter for over a week. The pool turned quite green.

I'm lucky, I really am. There are people in Florida and Texas and Louisiana and the Caribbean who have it a lot worse. One beagle breeder friend in South Florida had to leave a flooded home. Other friends waited for days before they heard from loved ones in Puerto Rico.

But I learned a lot about myself, and about dogs, in a disaster, in the days after Hurricane Irma.

DISCLOSURE: I received Fresh Wave and One Fur All products from those companies. I received no monetary compensation for this post. All opinions are my own.