diff --git a/.travis.yml b/.travis.yml
index a133059..c4c9639 100644
--- a/.travis.yml
+++ b/.travis.yml
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 language: go
 go:
-- 1.5.3
+- 1.7.4
 addons:
   apt:
     packages:
diff --git a/args.go b/args.go
index 3f91192..a3daa8c 100644
--- a/args.go
+++ b/args.go
@@ -21,6 +21,7 @@ type binArgs struct {
 	CmdArgs     []string // this is not a command line flag, also parsed results
 	LockDir     string   `short:"d" long:"lock-dir" default:"/var/lock" description:"the directory where lock files will be placed"`
 	AllEvents   bool     `short:"e" long:"event" description:"emit a start and end datadog event"`
+	StatsdHost  string   `short:"H" long:"statsd-host" value-name:"<host>" description:"destination host to send datadog metrics"`
 	FailEvent   bool     `short:"E" long:"event-fail" description:"only emit an event on failure"`
 	LogFail     bool     `short:"F" long:"log-fail" description:"when a command fails, log its full output (stdout/stderr) to the log directory using the UUID as the filename"`
 	EventGroup  string   `short:"G" long:"event-group" value-name:"<group>" description:"emit a cronner_group:<group> tag with Datadog events, does not get sent with statsd metrics"`
@@ -70,7 +71,7 @@ func (a *binArgs) parse(args []string) (string, error) {
 	}
 
 	if a.Version {
-		out := fmt.Sprintf("cronner v%s built with %s\nCopyright 2015 PagerDuty, Inc.; released under the BSD 3-Clause License\n", Version, runtime.Version())
+		out := fmt.Sprintf("cronner v%s built with %s\nCopyright 2017 PagerDuty, Inc.; released under the BSD 3-Clause License\n", Version, runtime.Version())
 		return out, nil
 	}
 
diff --git a/args_test.go b/args_test.go
index 156eb8f..73483c0 100644
--- a/args_test.go
+++ b/args_test.go
@@ -64,7 +64,7 @@ func (t *TestSuite) Test_binArgs_parse(c *C) {
 		"-V",
 	}
 
-	verOut := fmt.Sprintf("cronner v%s built with %s\nCopyright 2015 PagerDuty, Inc.; released under the BSD 3-Clause License\n", Version, runtime.Version())
+	verOut := fmt.Sprintf("cronner v%s built with %s\nCopyright 2017 PagerDuty, Inc.; released under the BSD 3-Clause License\n", Version, runtime.Version())
 
 	output, err = args.parse(cli)
 	c.Assert(err, IsNil)
@@ -122,6 +122,7 @@ func (t *TestSuite) Test_binArgs_parse(c *C) {
 		"-F",
 		"-G", "test_group",
 		"-g", "metric_group",
+		"-H", "test_host",
 		"-k",
 		"-l", "test",
 		"-L", "info",
@@ -146,6 +147,7 @@ func (t *TestSuite) Test_binArgs_parse(c *C) {
 	c.Check(args.LogFail, Equals, true)
 	c.Check(args.EventGroup, Equals, "test_group")
 	c.Check(args.Group, Equals, "metric_group")
+	c.Check(args.StatsdHost, Equals, "test_host")
 	c.Check(args.Lock, Equals, true)
 	c.Check(args.Label, Equals, "test")
 	c.Check(args.LogLevel, Equals, "info")
@@ -169,6 +171,7 @@ func (t *TestSuite) Test_binArgs_parse(c *C) {
 		"--log-fail",
 		"--event-group", "test_group",
 		"--group", "metric_group",
+		"--statsd-host", "test_host",
 		"--lock",
 		"--label", "test",
 		"--log-path", "/var/log/testcronner",
@@ -191,6 +194,7 @@ func (t *TestSuite) Test_binArgs_parse(c *C) {
 	c.Check(args.LogFail, Equals, true)
 	c.Check(args.EventGroup, Equals, "test_group")
 	c.Check(args.Group, Equals, "metric_group")
+	c.Check(args.StatsdHost, Equals, "test_host")
 	c.Check(args.Lock, Equals, true)
 	c.Check(args.Label, Equals, "test")
 	c.Check(args.LogPath, Equals, "/var/log/testcronner")
@@ -214,6 +218,7 @@ func (t *TestSuite) Test_binArgs_parse(c *C) {
 		"--group=metric_group",
 		"--label=test",
 		"--log-path=/var/log/testcronner",
+		"--statsd-host=test_host",
 		"--log-level=info",
 		"--namespace=testcronner",
 		"--warn-after=42",
@@ -231,6 +236,7 @@ func (t *TestSuite) Test_binArgs_parse(c *C) {
 	c.Check(args.Group, Equals, "metric_group")
 	c.Check(args.Label, Equals, "test")
 	c.Check(args.LogPath, Equals, "/var/log/testcronner")
+	c.Check(args.StatsdHost, Equals, "test_host")
 	c.Check(args.LogLevel, Equals, "info")
 	c.Check(args.Namespace, Equals, "testcronner")
 	c.Check(args.WarnAfter, Equals, uint64(42))
diff --git a/cronner.go b/cronner.go
index 82c8c48..c61984d 100644
--- a/cronner.go
+++ b/cronner.go
@@ -16,7 +16,7 @@ import (
 )
 
 // Version is the program's version string
-const Version = "0.2.5"
+const Version = "0.2.6"
 
 type cmdHandler struct {
 	gs       *godspeed.Godspeed
@@ -46,7 +46,12 @@ func main() {
 	}
 
 	// build a Godspeed client
-	gs, err := godspeed.NewDefault()
+	var gs *godspeed.Godspeed
+	if opts.StatsdHost == "" {
+		gs, err = godspeed.NewDefault()
+	} else {
+		gs, err = godspeed.New(opts.StatsdHost, godspeed.DefaultPort, false)
+	}
 
 	// make sure nothing went wrong with Godspeed
 	if err != nil {