Creating a blog is fine. But take a look at the other blogs in your niche, to see how much effort they put into their site. Don't just build according to what you think will work. Usually it doesn't! lol The best breakthroughs come with a mix of preparation and unexpectedness.
You should prepare your blog to be a good destination of content for those that want to learn about pets. Also take a look at bad blogs, where people are lazy, and not doing much to their site. They are useful too.
Next steps for you I would take to build your blog.
- Research till your 100% motivated you can kick ass against the competition. (look for all their weak spots and strength aspects)
- Pick your domain and blog, and buy a good popularly updated customizable theme for it.
- Build the site to a level that you can say it is finished. This is the stage you need to get to, before you add your first article.
- Start adding as much good quality content as possible.
- Look for ways to promote your site, (understand the difference between white and blackhat in what your doing - This can be the difference in a good site, and one that tanks)
- Keep adding content, and looking for new marketing opportunities.
One such opportunity might be long-term for you to create explainer slideshow videos about the pets and then embed them from youtube on your site, so you can potentially monitise and make use of the traffic from youtube.
Don't worry about if people are reading blogs. People still read paperbacks & newspapers/magazines! lol
