Welcome to the Dogpatch! I'm glad you found your way here and hope you enjoy your visit. The Dogpatch is basically a personal site that ran amok and was founded by Mary Jo Sminkey. It is now one of the largest canine sites on the web and has also transferred hands to a new owner, Gordon Thomas, of www.onboardsigns.com. Please note most of the site is still written as though Mary Jo is running it but please remember it has changed ownership.

The vast majority of the site is designed and maintained by me, and is truly a labor of love. It generates just enough income to pay for the cost of running it, and little more. It is just here for you to enjoy and benefit from.

Unfortunately, this has not come without a price. Most sites of this size have a entire staff to do the work of maintainence and improvement. My time available to work on it is very limited, due to working full time, showing and training my dogs, developing and selling my e-commerce software, etc. I work all day on a computer, and do freelance work as well, not to mention all the dog showing, so my free time is limited. In recent years, I have routinely thought about closing it down, but everytime I mention it, get so many emails asking me to keep it up, that I try my best to keep it going however I can. All I ask it that you, the user, help make it easier on me. Please don't take anything in here personally, but understand that it comes from years of frustration of trying to deal with a small number of visitors to the site.

First, I ask that you respect my rights as the author of this site. That simply means that the material on this site is NOT yours to take and reuse on your own website, unless I VERY specifically state on the page that you many do so. And when I do say you can use it, *please* give me the credit that I ask for. Copyright law does protect web pages just as they would protect a book someone has written. Would you take a page from someone else's book and use it in your own book? Of course not, that's plagarism. The same exact thing applies to websites (and graphics, and photos and anything else that someone creates). The fact that browsers make it so easy to save files off a webpage does NOT make it right to do.

If you have seen a site using material from the Dogpatch that you think might be using it without permission, please let me know. And if there is material here that you would like to print out to give to a friend, or a class, or use in some way, just email me and ask for permission to use it. Invariably, I will give it to you, as long as you ask first, and are not making money from it.

The second thing I ask is that you not email me with questions that there are other ways to get answered. An author who writes a book does not generally put their address and/or phone number in there for the world to see, but a webmaster is generally expected to post an email address for users to send comments and suggestions. Yet, not all of us have the desire or the time to handle the amount of mail that results.

I wish I could spend my entire day helping you with your dog-training problems, finding you a breeder, a trainer, or answering any one of the other numerous things that people will email me about. But I quite simply do not have the time, and in many cases, the experience to answer these questions. The fact that I run a website on dog training does not mean I am a canine behavior expert, or know every breeder and trainer in the country! Emails asking me questions other than ones related to the running of this website will go unanswered. I'm not trying to be rude, I just don't have time to answer them anymore.

There are many ways to find information on the Dogpatch without emailing me. Learn to use the Forums. You will find many other dog lovers on there who love to answer questions. I answer ones that I can, but do not have to feel guilty when someone has a question I don't know or have time to reply to. There is also a search engine on this site so you can quickly find stuff and the Free for All page which has hundreds of links and is also searchable. Don't assume I don't have information on something until you search for it! Finally, use the links to other sites that are all over the place to find pages on more specific areas. For instance, if you are looking for breeders of a certain type of dog, don't ask me, use my links pages to find a page on that breed, and go there!

Also, please think twice before sending me URLs to look at. The vast majority of sites people send me are not ones I will list. Keep in mind that I am only one person, and I already maintain a site with thousands of links. Links that are constantly changing and require me to keep track of them. Every link I add is another that I will have to check routinely, and I don't believe in putting up links if I can't keep them up-to-date. A page with a large number of broken links is not the type of quality page I try to maintain.

So, while I'm sure you are very proud of your personal site, or whatever cool dog site you've found, please refrain from asking me to review it, unless it truly is exceptional, above and beyond most of what is out there...or is one of those pages that I cover exhaustively...that is, sheltie, agility, obedience, herding or frisbee pages (for any of these, please send me the link!) I've provided a page where anyone can list their canine site without having to go through me, and I check the pages added there periodically for good ones that I'd like to add on the main Links page.

Having gotten all that off my shoulders, I'd like to welcome you once again to the Dogpatch! There are times when I feel like throwing in the towel and getting my free time back, but the encouragement and enthusiasm of my visitors helps me keep it going! Let's hope it will always be so!!

As always, this letter is Copyright © 1999-2006 by Mary Jo Sminkey