I've read the different opinions about the Review from two GSD lists tonight. Everyone has and is entitled to their opinion. So here's mine for whatever that's worth. I disagree with it all and always have. I do not blame the Review for being small because of the computer, or the time of the year because it's the holidays, or the mail is slow. Its for one reason and one reason only (IMO again), and that's the untimely matter that it is published. We are making excuses for something that CAN and SHOULD be corrected. If you do a search on Yahoo for instance (which I just did before I wrote this) and put the word "German Shepherd" in, it will pull up 7,300,000 web sites. If you do a word search with "German Shepherd Dog" in, it will pull up 4,710,000 web sites. Of course, not every single one of those web sites are breeders, but many, many are. Now are you telling me that the average person (or even one who can sit at the computer for 12-15 hours a day), will have the time or the inclination to go through all those breeders web sites? And then once they pull up those web sites, do you think people want to read pages and pages of that site? Click here for "studs, click here for "bitches, click her for "puppies", and on and on. I'm not saying this is not a useful tool for advertising ones kennel (my brother just bought me my own domain for Christmas), but do you see how time consuming this is? Now on the other hand if you know a particular kennel you are looking for, then you can type in their name to view their web site. Even then, it's time consuming. Believe me, I've been on each and everyone of your sites that advertise on the GSDCA or the GSD Lists. It takes a very long time to look at it all. How about those people who are not on these lists, or those who don't use a computer? This is all excellent for the pet puppy buyer. Many of you have made excellent sales this way. However, if I'm looking to buy a show dog or breeding animal, I don't want to have to go through all of this for hours and hours. Fortunately, I know many of the kennels whose dogs I like, but their are others I do not. IMO, the Review has always been and I will hope it will continue to be a quick reference to look at someone's ad without having to click to a dozen pages to look at their whole kennel. Then if someone sees your ad and they like what they see, they can then look up your web page to look at your dogs. I want the Review to come in every month on time like it used to do also. It has been allowed to continue like this for a long time, so I do not blame Gail for the whole responsibility of this. She has her superiors that she has to answer to, and if they didn't do anything about this before, than the blame does not fall fully on her. Hopefully that's why we elected new officers to take care of problems that were let go for far too long. Popularity should have nothing to do with serviceability. Other dog magazines continue to have people advertise in their magazines throughout the holidays. These advertisers also have their own web sites. Their magazines are not losing advertisers and many of these magazines are also on the web. So the problem as I see it and said in the beginning of this e-mail, is one thing only.............the untimely manner in which the Review is sent out. Don't these other magazines use the same postal service that our magazine uses? May I add, Gail announced in the Review a couple of months ago that she is ill. God bless her and let's pray she gets well again. I have offered my help to her several times and I heard that others did also. So many people have asked me why haven't I submitted some of my writings to Gail to publish in the Review. Rest assured being a GSDCA member, this was my first choice and this is exactly what I did. I wasn't taken up on any of my offers, so I assume Gail feels she'll be able to do this on her own. I pray she can. I took my work to other publications and they thought enough of it to publish it, so as a writer, I'm happy with that. One of the reasons that I voted the way I did this year was how each of the candidates answered my questions about how they intended to fix the Review situation. Now the new officers take over next month. Let's give them time to live up to their campaign promises. I trust they will do everything in their power to bring some peace and harmony to the "restless natives"! Best wishes, Barbara Galasso ============================================================================ POST is Copyrighted 2005. All material remains the property of the original author and of GSD Communication, Inc. 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