Weekly Update Archive

[Gene]

I thought it might be good to post an archive of all the weekly updates.

It is another chance for me to thank certain members for their efforts promoting the site.

It allows new members to catch up on the growth and evolution of the site.

It allows new members to get visibility to some of the more remarkable discussions, photos, videos, etc. for the week.

[Gene]

One Week Update - Posted July 13, 2007

Greetings to my Irish Setter loving friends around the world. This is a group broadcast message to give everyone some updates on various topics. We are at 60 members representing at least 20 countries and the site is not even a week old. I think that we are off to a good start!

Performance – I have personally experienced site performance issues (slowness, unavailable). Most of the major social networking sites have a reputation for slowness. The reason is the tremendous growth they experience. To give you an idea, Ning launched in February and as of a couple weeks ago already had 75,000 social networking sites like this one. Personally, I have been very happy with the growth of this site over the first week. The first social network I looked at on Ning and later joined, called Management, had 8 members 8 days ago. It has over 900 today. Imagine this type of growth and trying to plan for a computer and networking infrastructure to support it. As a Technology person myself, I do not envy the task ahead of them. The bottom line to all this is even though Ning recently received an additional $140 million dollars in venture funding, their success will continue to result in possible performance issues.

Email Bouncebacks – I have experienced several email bouncebacks, probably 10% of the emails I send. I have simply resent the emails and every time but one they have gone through the second time. I believe this issue is tied to the infrastructure one above.

Content – When I set up the site initially, I took all restrictions off of posting content or photos or video. I think it is a great feeling to be able to write something or upload a photo and immediately see it online and share it with people you know. I didn’t want to moderate/review everything and be a bottleneck. As we grow, we are going to end up having someone join us who is a spammer or someone who is posting inappropriate content. Please contact me directly if this happens if you see this and tell me where on the site it is. I can and will quickly address the issue, whether it is a photo, a posting, or a member themselves.

Profile Page Questions – When I put the site together, I didn’t give a lot of thought to the questions on the profile pages. This is a great way to share more information or details about each other. Please feel free to send me suggestions on what other questions you think we should add. What information would you like to know about others? What information would you like to share with others?

Enhancements – We have been using the profile pages, photo/video uploading/commenting, threaded discussion forums, and blogs so far. Also, some of you have done a great job of customizing the colors and look and feel of your profile pages. I like this in that it shows your personality. I have turned on the groups and music features as well. They are adding enhancements (some not always visible or apparent). Any suggestions that you would want me to pass along?

I have created an example group for Irish Setter Rescue Dogs. It is below the discussion threads on the center of the main page. I could see groups for agility, field, showing, and maybe by country. Just some thoughts. If you have a suggestion or an idea, feel free to go ahead and create one. On the music, it is below the member listing on the left side of the main page. Oh, and I have also enabled RSS so if you have an RSS Reader, you can get the blog postings automatically downloaded to your reader.

Language Support – I had visions of doing more of this but some fields won’t allow it space-wise and if you add too much, it pushes the discussion forum so you have to scroll to see it. We have German and Dutch so far, with room to add a couple more in the Introduction area.

That is all for now.

More updates will be forthcoming periodically. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have questions, concerns, or ideas. Thanks!

Oh, and I know some of you are doing a fabulous job of doing this, but make sure and tell your Irish Setter friends about our site.

Have a great weekend.

Gene
[e-mail]

[Gene]

Week Two Update - Posted July 20, 2007

Wow! Has another week passed already? Seems like I just wrote the One Week Update.

You all continue to do a great job growing our network of Irish Setter people. We pushed over 100 members this week, with Number 100 being none other than Gina Bianchini, CEO and co-founder of Ning.com, the company that provides the infrastructure and the engine behind our site. How cool is that? If you get a chance, pop over to Gina’s page and welcome her to Exclusively Setters and tell her thanks for providing us such a great networking application on her comment wall. And thanks to those who already beat me to it! :-)

One other thought on site promotion and building our network. It seems like we have done a great job of connecting with Irish Setter breeders and rescues. I wonder if some of your customers or people who you have placed dogs with in the past would be interested in joining us? Just a thought…

Adding another 45 members is great, taking us to 106. And at least 24 countries represented. I say at least 24 because some of you are shy and won’t reveal your location. ;-) Several of you have done a great job of promoting the site. I hate to single out people for fear of missing someone, but I feel compelled to thank a couple. First, my friend Alenka Pokorn of Slovenia, for not only doing a fabulous job of inviting prospective members, but also following up and welcoming all our new members. This site would be no where near what it is without her and she is a tremendous asset to our community. She also has a great profile page with excellent blog postings on some of this year’s European shows. Also, I would like to thank Pauliina Artiola of Finland. She got us out of the block so fast in her homeland that we had more members from Finland after week one than the US. Pauliina also has a great profile page (as I mentioned before, I enjoy looking at customized profile pages because it shows a person’s personality). Finally, Mirjam of the Netherlands has been a great asset in promoting the site too. Her picture of her puppy Blossom has got to be one of the Top 10 photos on this site, and that is saying a lot considering we have a wealth of great pics amongst the over 800 uploaded the first two weeks.

Speaking of great photos, I am having big fun creating albums for different kinds of photos. I found out the hard way that there appears to be a 99 photo limit to your Favorites and I assume with albums. There is no way in the world I could select the top 99 so to get around that I created multiple albums. I have one for puppy photos (I am a sucker for these), action photos, humor photos, and all around favorites. I still have the latest 10 or so pages of photos to go through. I have links to all four albums on my profile page. And yes, I am a slacker/lazy in customizing my page. Now…if I could only add profile photos or the main page photos to albums and favorites. :-) Seriously, that would be great as many excellent photos are in the profile photos, but I can see the rationale for not allowing it.

In looking at all the photos, I learned several things. If I ever come back as a dog, I would want Laura Kolbach of Hungary as my owner/Mom. Her dogs/kids have some great fun based on the number of photos in my action and humor albums! The one titled ‘good looking’ cracks me up with laughter every time I see it. Carina Eriksson of the Aland Islands (which I believe is part of Finland if my research skills are correct) and Maarit (AKA Redword) of Finland both have lucky dogs that have big fun based on their great action photos. As a bonus, both of them also have outstanding puppy photos. Anna (AKA Saturnii Cartoons) of Belgium has a great variety of photos including some of one fine looking Gordon Setter. Carmel Murphy of Ireland has some adorable puppy photos. When I look at Loma Clark from the USA and her photos, I can’t figure out what photos NOT to put in my albums. Jelena Kreitmayer of the USA has a great sense of humor and Lego is a willing side kick. Check out the Lego and her photos to see what I mean. Kasia Czapla of Poland must have used glue on the bottom of her puppies to get such an awesome puppy shot of 12! It looks like it should be on a calendar! Wendy Czarnecki of California and her surrounded photo is what I want one day, although I am just sitting at 2 now. Mary Merlo of the USA and her 5 generations photo is a must see and the string beans photo and story is great. Vera Clark of Tasmania (that’s a province of Australia if you were like me and the only thing you knew about Tasmania was the cartoon character) has a couple great photos of Conaign, including one entitled ‘seize the day’ that I really like. Vera I hope you get a new Setter real soon. I know Alissa Thomas of Save Our Setters in Tennessee has a lot of great dogs available and she is the Queen of the transport, but half way around the world would top all the prior ones!

The profile photos you all have uploaded are all excellent. I hope the shy ones amongst you will get a chance to upload some photos of you and your dogs soon!

It’s been pointed out to me by a couple people that we have amongst us some of the most highly respected Irish Setter people in Europe. And given some of the dogs I have seen on profile pages in the US and Australia, I think this could be expanded to include the world. As a regular old Irish Setter owner, I feel like I am amongst celebrities!

There are several interesting discussions brewing in our discussion forum. One started by Susan Stone of Switzerland entitled ‘Working Irish’ has a lot of good information on the challenges of working our dogs in the field in different parts of the world. I am hoping that Jack Flynn from the USA visits us soon and gives us his perspective on this topic and posts photos of his new litter of puppies. Another one I enjoy keeping up was started by Dusan Rauski of Serbia entitled ‘a topic’ which covers some of the most outstanding dogs from each country that had a great impact on the breed there. Be sure to check both of them out and let us know what you think.

I tried starting discussion threads for major dog shows but it seems the preferred way is blog postings. I am fine with that…just remember to post photos for your friends to enjoy. :-)

That’s all I can think of for now. May peace and joy be with you and your dogs till we talk again.

Gene
Exclusively Setters
http://irishsetters.ning.com
[e-mail]

[Gene]

Week 3 Update - Posted July 27, 2007

Greetings to all my Setter loving friends around the globe. We had another great week, adding 40 more members. We now have 146 members in at least 27 countries in just 3 weeks.

Thanks to the 40 members (from the beginning; it is a coincidence that this number is the same new of new members this week) who have taken the time to invite a friend to this site. I wanted to personally thank several more individuals (in addition to the ones last week) for going the extra mile in promoting this site to their friends. These include Jeanette Bostroem of Denmark, Kasia Czapla of Poland, Susan Stone of Switzerland, and Camilla Ostman of Sweden. Your efforts are much appreciated by the whole group.

On photos, I am way behind checking out all the great photos you all have uploaded. If my calculations are correct, we are now over 1,400 photos, up from around 800 last week. I have caught glimpses on the main page photo viewer throughout the week and there have been some great photos uploaded.

Related to photos, the video section is beginning to get some uploads. We have 9 videos uploaded so far. Being the sucker for puppies I am, I really enjoyed Henk ten Klooster’s of the Netherlands ‘Time Flies’ and Loma Clark’s of the US ‘puppies 6 weeks old’. Most all of the videos are short clips that don’t take a lot of time to download or view.

The blog postings have been very interesting to read. Several members and their dogs are doing great in recent shows, including Dorothee Durieux of Belgium, Alenka Pokorn of Slovenia, Laura Kolbach of Hungary, Jenny Karlsson of Sweden, Lena of Sweden, Jean en Rita Struyf-De Groof of Belgium, and Daktyle of Belgium. Congratulations to each of you for your success. Please keep those great show reports coming and please make sure and include photos if you have a chance.

The discussion groups are starting to progress. I mentioned the thread started by Dusan Rauski of Serbia entitled ‘a topic’ last week and it is a very interesting and popular thread. It is very evident in reading it that there is a wealth of knowledge amongst our members on this particular breed. There’s a new one started by Susan Stone that everyone can post to, ‘Why do you own an Irish Setter?’, although I think with most of us it should probably be SetterS…:-)

Well, that’s all for now. Alissa and I participated in the Texas-to-Tennessee Setter rescue transport today and we will try and blog about it later this weekend.

If you have any questions or suggestions, please let me know.

Thanks,

Gene
Exclusively Setters
http://irishsetters.ning.com
[e-mail]

[Gene]

Week 4 Update - Posted August 5, 2007

Hello to all my Irish Setter loving friends around the world. I wanted to provide another update for week 4. Our site continues to grow, adding 28 new members and pushing the total to 174 members representing at least 30 different countries. For you new members, I like to acknowledge and publicly thank members who go the extra mile to build our community by inviting new members. This week, I would like to thank Michelle Webster of Great Britain and Henk ten Klooster of the Netherlands for their efforts in promoting our site and building our community.

We added an additional 500 photos, pushing the total to over 1,900. There were also a couple of great action videos uploaded by Laura Kolbach of Hungary and Amy Noyes of the US (Laura – I know it took a while to upload, but based on the number of views so far, it was worth it! :-) ). Both of these ladies also have done a great job of customizing their personal profile pages as well. Amy also posted on the blogs with a post entitled ‘Love’ with a great picture that you need to see if you haven’t already.

Over the last couple weeks, I have had the opportunity to connect with several of you in email. A lot of you don’t give yourself enough credit on your command of the English language. Your English is very good! I hope this is not slowing you down or making you hesitate in participating in the discussions and our red-head blogosphere. Your English is much better than my Spanish, German, Dutch, or French! But none of us are as smart as an Irish Setter. Think of all the languages they understand!

The discussion forums continue to gain momentum. Jelena Kreitmayer's ‘Sleeping Habits of an Irish Setter’ is a popular one as is Henk ten Klooster’s ‘What is your favourite settersong, -book, -movie, -history, -photo and -story?’. Anne-Marie Hearn of Australia posted ‘Informed decisions’ to get discussion going on the qualities and desired experiences of judges. I posted one entitled ‘Crazy / Funny Irish Setter Stories’ that I thought everyone who has ever been around red heads could contribute to.

I found out that some Irish Setter’s are online! Barkley (Fran Griffin of the UK’s fur kid) has his own blog and Led Zepplin (AKA Zepp) joined Exclusively Setters as a member!

There were some great reports through the blog postings this week. Saturnii Cartoons (AKA Anna) of Belgium and her dogs had great showings at the Belgian Gordon Setter Club Show 2007 and the LEUVEN CAC SHOW 2007 Belgium. Susan Stone of Switzerland provided a great trip report on the 29 July Clubshow Swiss Setter & Pointer Club in Ascona. Katriina Toikka and Vilja Vehkaoja, both of Finland, posted results and a super photo from the Finnish Kennel Club show, Vantaa on 29th July. Anna and Vilja even provided links to sites with additional information and photos on these shows. Carina Eriksson of the Aland Isands posted on her family’s latest move to the countryside and how the family is adjusting to it. Alissa and I blogged about the Save Our Setters Texas-to-Tennessee Super Transport - July 28, 2007 and our efforts to transport 3 Irish and 2 Gordon Setter rescues to their forever homes.

And finally, Happy 4 month birthday to Lise-Lotte Persson of Sweden’s little Moa, a great looking dog who is growing up quick!

If you have any questions or suggestions, please let me know.

Thanks go pat your red heads on the head for me!

Gene
Exclusively Setters
http://irishsetters.ning.com
[e-mail]

[Gene]

Week 5 Update - Posted August 12, 2007

Greetings to all my fellow Irish Setter lovers. Week 5 was another good week for us, adding another 26 members, bringing our total to 200 members from 31 different countries, and adding another 350 photos, bringing our total to over 2,250! We have a good mix of new members. I have had the pleasure to connect with several and I know that they will be great assets to our community. We do have several shy ones but hopefully they will visit us soon, upload some photos, and tell us more about themselves. We also have about 12 new videos this week and you can tell by the views they are a popular feature. Mavis of Canada provided ‘Chester and Dakota’ where Chester proved to be faster than the camera ‘mom’ at times! :-) Laura Kolbach of Hungary provided us 3 new videos. I had big fun watching ‘Stop fooling around’. Steve3Dreams, who I believe is our first member from Spain, posted a similar action video of two dogs frolicking in Steve’s living room. Alenka Pokorn of Slovenia posted a couple short clips of two great looking dogs, Pika and Bubu. Maybe one day my boys will be that well-behaved! Carmel Murphy of Ireland (and Carmel – that ‘Heart to Heart’ photo was great!) and Daktyle of Belgium both posted short clips of their dogs in the ring.

The discussion forums are really heating up in more ways than one. While discussion forums are great for sharing ideas and opinions and even though we are all Irish Setters lovers, we can’t agree on everything. Please respect each others right to express their own opinion and don’t be offended if someone has an opinion that is not in alignment with yours. Remember, we are all here because of a passionate bond we have with our dogs. Speaking of passionate discussion, Piret of Estonia started World War III (just kidding) with a lively debate between the merits of English Irish Setter and American Irish Setters. As just a regular dog owner, I can’t tell the difference. I have seen many striking photos on this site from Europe and the States. And let’s not forget our members from Brazil, Canada, Japan, Russia, Mexico, and Australia who have great looking dogs. As an example, check out Anne-Marie Hearn’s photos, who is from Australia. Speaking of photos, the photo that Piret posted of a young dog sitting on her lap on page 1 of the thread is worth a trip to the site! Ursula Wilby of Sweden had a good post on the need for our community to do a better job commenting on and rating the photos. Personally, I think you could fill two decades of calendars with the photos on this site, maybe more. Londa Warren and Loma Clark of the US both posted about big events, the Irish Setter National Show in the states and the Irish Red Centennial in England.

On the blog postings, I like what some of you are doing in promoting your web site updates or even your business. Anna & Saturnii Cartoons Setters of Belgium announced an update to their web site (www.saturnii.eu). Agnieszka (Aga) Dufrat of Poland offered up her web site development services. She even posted some of the sites she has developed. If you are interested please contact Aga through our site or email her directly at [e-mail]. These are both great uses for the blogs. There were some informative blog postings this week. On the show scene, Daktyle of Belgium posted on the National Gundog Association Champ.Show UK August 4, Sari of Finland posted on the Helsinki All breed puppy show August 5, Carmel Murphy posted on Darby’s great showing at a puppy show, Laura Kolbach posted on the National Show in Szekszárd, Hungary, Anna & Saturnii Cartoons posted on the CAC/CACIB Berghrm Dog Show (NL), and Carina Eriksson of the Aland Islands posted about a ‘come as you are’ show (no cuts or baths required). Yvonne from the Netherlands got a good hip score back on Kimmo. Mavis blogged on dog walking and got several responses. Barb Janicek (AKA watergirl0153226) from the US provided a blog posting about the Irish Setter Club of Milwaukee’s 4th Annual Fun Day. Sounds like good fun was had by all and they raised money for a great cause. Ginger Kenney reported in on the great weather in the northwest part of the US, making a lot of us is the southern US wish we lived up near Ginger! Sanna Kopola of Finland and Steve3Dreams of Spain posted new member blogs. I can tell we are lucky that both have decided to join us. Ursula Wilby also shared the story about a Spanish milkman and his dog’s effect on Wendover Kennels.

One area of the site that I think is underutilized are the Groups. While I don’t want to break our community up into factions, I can think of a lot of possible ideas. Andreea Ciuca had a great idea when she created a group for Setters in Romania. We just need to get some more members from Romania! Finland and Sweden are both very well represented with over 15 members each. I think creating country groups with maybe the country’s flag uploaded as the profile photo could be a lot of fun. It would definitely give the sites main page an international flavor. Plus, the comment wall could be strictly in that country’s native language(s) and maybe give some people who are not as comfortable with English a chance to participate. Other ideas for groups include one for Gordon Setters, English Setters, Red & White Setters, Show Dogs, Champions, Agility Dogs, Field Dogs, (I already started the one for rescue dogs) heck with the photos I have seen, even cats! I say we start getting creative here.

I wanted to address some feedback I have received from 2 members on their experience with the site. Our site is built using the latest generation of Internet or web technologies, also known as a Web 2.0 application. For those of you who have been on the Internet for a while, remember how most sites make you wait for a response from the site *every* time you click on a link? That is what is considered a Web 1.0 site. If you notice on our site, a lot of times you can click and get an immediate response. In other words, you don’t necessarily have to wait for the site to send you more information to give you what you requested when you clicked on the link. This is a much better experience and gives the web page the feel of an application that is running directly on your computer, similar to using a desktop application like Word or Excel. To provide you this great functionality, there are extra computer resources required in the background. If you do a lot of things on your computer like me and have 20 browser sessions open at a time or you don’t restart your computer very often, you may at times experience a slower response when clicking on some of the links. The fastest way to address this is to restart your computer so that the computer’s resources can reset themselves and get a fresh start. Once you do that, your experience should be better.

For those of you who haven’t had a chance to visit the site in a while, you might want to check in and see who you may know and connect with them. One of the many amazing things about this site is how people all over the world already know each other in some capacity.

If you have any questions or suggestions, please let me know. And if you have any friends that may be interested in joining us, please don’t hesitate to invite them.

Thanks and go rub your red heads ears for me!

Gene
Exclusively Setters
http://irishsetters.ning.com
[e-mail]

[Gene]

Week 6 Update - Posted August 19, 2007

Hi Everyone – Hope that you all had a great week. I wanted to provide a Week 6 update.

First if you have sent me an email between August 11 and August 17, you might not have gotten a response from me. The reason is that I didn’t receive it. I am having issues receiving email notifications and emails through the web site. I opened up 3 different trouble tickets and have yet to get a response, but it seems like it may be resolved now. Anyway, if you sent me an email during this time and didn’t get a response, please resend it directly to [e-mail].

Our Setter community continues to grow our ranks, adding another 29 members bringing our totals to 229 members from at least 32 different countries. Many of you have done a great job inviting your friends to become members of Exclusively Setters. For you new members, if you can think of anyone, please make sure and send them an invite. One thing I have noticed is that some of our shy members have come around and uploaded at least a profile photo…and several of them are outstanding pics!

We also added another 300 photos, bringing our total to over 2,550! I am even farther behind going through all of the photos since I picked up more work this week, but I still have visions of getting through them. And there have been some GREAT ones uploaded this week.

Our video count is up to 26. Ana Gaspar Markovic of Croatia posted a clip of poor little Pika learning the hard way about gravity. Ana has a great looking profile page and has a photo in her Exclusively Setters box that’s worth the trip to her page. Nadine Bonjean, who I believe is from France based on her friends and the French on her comment wall, and Loma Clark of the US both posted clips of their dogs in the ring.

The Groups section is getting better. Vera Clark of Tasmania created Downunder Setter Lovers to cover the southern hemisphere. I thought this was thoughtful of her to not just create one for Australia. Instead, she took care of half of the globe! So you people in Australia, New Zealand, and Brazil, there’s a group for you to join! I created Lone Star Setters so all you Texans, come on down! Sanna Kopola of Finland created the Chic Choix Team group. Like Ana, Sanna also has a fabulous Setter pic in her Exclusively Setters box. Loma Clark created America’s Proud Setters complete with the American flag in the profile photo. I am ready to see some flags of other countries on there as well. Europe – I am calling you out! :-)

The discussion forums build more and more momentum each week. One of the neat things about this site is learning about all the people in other countries that have a similar passion for red heads. The popular threads I mentioned in prior weekly updates from Dusan, Piret, and Henk are still getting comments. There are also several new ones that are obviously popular based on the number of replies. Ursula Wilby of Sweden came up with a several super topics, ‘what irritates you about your Irish Setter?’ (Can you guess what seems to be the most popular answer?) and American questions about debarking, castration, and declawing. She also has another thread looking for an honest person who does shows strictly for fun and is not just in to win as well as one on Litter size and dogs people would own if not Irish Setters. All great topics Ursula, please keep these type of topics coming. Loma Clark and Ginger Kenney, both of the US, posted on Owner Handler vs. Professional Handler and what are your Irish Setter health concerns, respectively. All of these topics have proved popular by the number of replies to each. Pia Vilppula of Finland posted a link to her dog Tabasco’s web site as well as some great high-resolution photos. Harriet of the Netherlands informed us she is a very proud grand mother. Her grandson’s name is Quinn.

The blog section is turning out to be a very popular area of our site. It’s proving to be a great way to provide updates on shows, travels, funny stories, vacations, you name it. And a lot of people enhance their posts with photos that are fun to look at. Congrats are in order to:
- Lena of Sweden announced a new litter of 6!
- Dorothee Durieux of Belgium announced that Teddy passed his social behavior certificate
test with flying colors!

There were a lot of reports from the show scene:
- Harriet of the Netherlands let us know that her little boy Elliot won best puppy at a show
in Vilt Netherlands.
- Alenka Pokorn of Slovenia provided results for the Spitzingsee Shows, Germany on
August 4-5. We all look forward to Alenka’s photos early this week. Alenka also gave
a trip report for a show in Monte Negro, complete with some super photos. I am like
Susan though in that I was curious about the rocks. So curious I went to Google images.
- Kasia Czapla of Poland gave reports on a couple shows. CACIB Sopot on August 11
proved to be a great show for both Setter Toffee and her dachshund Pusia! Kasia also
reported on another show she attended PALANGOS VASARA 2007 - CACIB Show
Palanga on August 3. Although she didn’t show her Setters, she took many photos
of all the fantastic dogs in attendance.
- Pauliina Artiola of Finland provided a trip report for Joensuu CAC / Joensuu CACIB.
- Sari of Finland gave an update on the HELSINKI Puppyshow on August 12.

Several members reported on happenings in their life:
- New member Monica, her husband, and two girl Setters are heading off for a 3 week
vacation to British Columbia. Monica has a remarkable agility photo on her profile photo
that you must see.
- New member Peggy Tucker posted on a new member announcement. We can all look
look forward to her photos from the upcoming US national hunt test and walking field trial
in October.
- Laura Kolbach of Hungary caught a photo of a Setter on Yahoo.com associated with an
article on dogs sniffing out cancer. I am glad she posted a screen shot since I went looking
for the photo and didn’t find it.
- Londa Warren of the US provided a trip report after attending the Chris Cox Horse Training
Seminar in Ardmore, OK on Aug 11 & 12. She even posted a horse photo for us.
- Susan Stone of Switzerland told the story of a house guest that raised quite a stir with her
cat and dogs….check out her blog post to find out more.
- Ginger Kenney of the US gave us a weekend update with her son. Sounds like their great
weather is holding up for them.
- Vera Clark of Australia blogged about ‘The life and times of Conaign’, which I hope is the
first of several posts on Conaign.

Another thing I wanted to address. The week before last we lost two of our members. While I can’t tell anyone how they should react or feel, I really don’t understand why on either. The first one was bothered by the Google ads. If you limited your web surfing to sites that weren’t trying to sell you something directly or indirectly, your web sites available to surf would be very limited. This is how Ning provides us this great site and all its great capabilities for free. The other one didn’t like a couple of the people who joined. Again, I didn’t understand this either. As more people join us, it increases the probability that someone will join that you are not best friends with. I would assume that if someone joined your church, started working where you work, moved into your community that you didn’t like, you wouldn’t leave your church, work, or town. Seems to me like you wouldn’t leave an online community you liked either. The way I figure it, if these people are really as bad as purported to be, I will get enough feedback from the members and we’ll take care of them. And if they are not, you may realize they aren’t such bad people after all.

Thanks and go scratch your dogs belly for me!

Gene
Exclusively Setters
http://irishsetters.ning.com
[e-mail]

[ursula wilby]

Hello there Gene...I am not so certain that this site can stand so many more of my discussions....I have got plenty up my sleve, but did promise in one thread that I would try to keep a lower profile!
:-)
(Please note smiley!!!!!!!)

[Laura Kolbach]

this is strange. if there are people on this site a person does not like, it is just not to contact them and concentrate on those that the person likes... or just enjoy the discussions, watch the photos. i enjoy this site a lot, this was truly missed by the whole irish setter community IMHO. i even neglect my work, i really have to learn not to concentrate on the site so much, or limit it to the evenings, weekends only...

[Gene]

Week 7 Update - Posted August 26, 2007

Hello to the friends of the Irish Setter across the globe. Here’s your Week 7 update.

We added another 14 members this week, bringing our total to 243 members in at least 32 countries. We also added another 300 photos, bringing our total to over 2,850!

The groups section is taking off a bit. Loma Clark created ‘America’s Proud Setters’ while Syreeta Caron showed a great sense of humor creating ‘Canadian eh?’ which brought back memories of a group of Canadians from BC and Alberta that I went to under grad school with who didn’t use periods to end sentences…they used “eh”. Alenka Pokorn of Slovenia created ‘Ex Yu Members’ which is similar to Vera Clark’s ‘Down Under Setters’ in that both are thoughtful in trying to cover more than their native countries. So if you are from Croatia, Serbia, or Slovenia, please join ‘Ex Yu Members’. If you are from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, or Montenegro, please join Ex Yu and contact me, since I don’t know of any members from these countries. Ariadna Budeci of Romania created ‘Garden Stars’ for members who have an association or affinity for this great kennel. Finally, Paul-Leo Paquin of the US created a group on ‘Setter Behavior’ which I think most all of us can relate to. I look forward to the related discussions on this group as well as our discussion forum.

Speaking of discussion forums, these continue to generate a lot of activity. There are some really interesting posts this week:

- Ursula Wilby of Sweden started a discussion on ‘Training methods’. I am sure that this one
will take off so be sure to join in now while it is still early in the discussion. She also started
topics to generate thoughts on how litters are named and why people own dogs.
- Henk ten Klooster of the Netherlands started a couple very popular discussion topics, ‘Is the
Irish setter a ruined breed?’ and people’s opinions on white on a red setter.
- Several interesting discussions started related to health. Ursula started one on ‘Tick-borne
illnesses. Ginger Kenney of the USA started one that I bet most everyone has an opinion
on, ‘What Health Issues Do You Think Are of Most Concern?’. Ginger also started one on
Health Tests & Registrations for each Country.
- Syreeta Caron of Canada created a great discussion on ‘Who's getting ready to go hunting with
your dog(s)?’ I enjoyed reading along like Ginger and Jelena. My dogs sound like Lego. They
go hunting daily for rabbits, squirrels, ducks, and turtles although it makes it tougher to catch
them on a leash and these animals are smart enough not to frequent the local dog park.
- Susan Stone of Switzerland started an interesting topic on who are the ‘Important people in the
breed’. I am following this one just to get educated.
- Loma Clark of the USA started a couple topics, one on tail lengths and dog bites, as in teeth
formation.
- Susan (Finding Beau) of Australia posted on the heart wrenching story of her quest to find
Beau, her beautiful English Setter who was stolen. Susan, you have the thoughts and
prayers of our entire community on this. Susan also blogged about a ‘Have you seen Beau?’
poster at the Royal National Dog Show in Queensland.

I realized that missed commenting on one of my favorite threads this week. The way the threads bounce around based on latest post date, it is sometimes tough for me to remember how far back to look. Wendy Czarnecki of the USA posted ‘Just a dog’ with some text that every dog lover would appreciate. It is something that I bet all of us could relate to.

To read and join in these discussions, go to: http://irishsetters.ning.com/forum

There was a lot of activity in our red head blogosphere this week.

- Congrats go out to several members and their dogs on new litters. Piret of Etonia, Christiane
Lohmann of Denmark (who also had some great photos on her blog), Lise-Lotte Persson of
Sweden, Kasia Czapla of Poland, and Annette Mesicek of the Netherlands all announced
litters. Congratulations to these proud members and their dogs! Also, Angie MacDonald
of Canada is getting a new red & white Setter puppy this weekend. She has a cute photo
posted on her profile page and we look forward to seeing more.
- There were several great reports from shows. Alenka came back and posted photos from the
Spitzingsee Shows in Germany August 4-5. Laura Kolbach of Hungary also shared photos
from this show. The landscape around the show was breath taking…beautiful country side.
Sari of Finland posted some great show results from two shows, August 18 and 19. Susan
Stone of Swizterland posted about a show that she judged in Köln - Königsforst, Germany.
Sanna Kopola of Finland posted on a show in Kouvola on August 18. Yvonne from the
Netherlands provided results from ‘CAC show Ludersburg Germany Landesgruppe Nord.
Pia Vilppula of Finland posted show results and included some great photos.
- Dorothee Durieux and Frances McKimm, both of Belgium, posted on an August 19 field
trial.
- Carmel Murphy of Ireland sent out a Happy 3rd Birthday to Rua's '04 babies!!!!!
- Vera Clark of Australia posted the second installment about ‘The life and times of Conaign’,
entitled ‘Coming Home’. Sounds like after the scary plane ride, Conaign acclimated quickly to
his new home.
- Ginger Kenney of the USA announced the upcoming Irish Setter Club of Seattle specialty
shows and a sad post about 5 Irish Setters who have popped up in her area and needing
homes.
- Katariina Roiha of Finland blogged about the first training session in preparation for hunting
season.

To read more on the blogs, go to: http://irishsetters.ning.com/profiles/blog/list

One thing I am learning in interacting with some of our members is our site is not as easy to use as I thought. For example, I have uploaded photos for several members. I you are experiencing problems uploading photos and would like some assistance, please contact me directly. Others have not been sure where to access their email through the site, where to accept Friends requests, and where to find the discussion forums. I created a discussion thread several weeks ago entitled ‘New Site Enhancements / Features / Functionality / Upgrades’ that I hoped to update with things like these. Maybe we can all chip in here and build out a site tutorial.

Speaking of helping people out, would it help to post direct links to blogs and discussions in this update?

Thanks and go scratch your dogs belly for me!

Gene
Exclusively Setters
http://irishsetters.ning.com
[e-mail]

[Gene]

Week Update 8 - Posted September 2, 2007

Hi Everyone – Here is your Week 8 update. These may be a bit shorter the next couple months since I will be working a lot more hours through the end of November

Our membership topped 250 members this week, adding 13 new members and going to 256. We also topped 3,000 photos this week. Wow! I am getting farther behind going through them. No new videos, though. Maybe someone will take their video camera to the next show they go to! ;-)

Monique Viry of France created a new group called ‘Frenchy’ and I know of at least 5 members who are qualified to join her. Given some of our new members with great looking Gordon Setters (and existing, like Anna), I could see groups for Gordon Setters, English Setters, and Red & White Setters.

The discussion forums continue to be active. Many of the existing forum posts are still generating a lot of discussion. Henk ten Klooster of the Netherlands (who has to be one of the most knowledgeable people in the world on the Irish Setter – always a joy reading your posts, Henk) prior posts on white of a red Setter, is the Irish Setter a ruined breed, and ‘What is your favourite settersong, -book, -movie, -history, -photo and -story?’ continued to generate a lot of opinions. Ursula Wilby of Sweden has a couple posts that still are popular – ‘Training Methods’ and ‘American Questions’. Susan Stone of Switzerland’s ‘most important people in the breed’ is an interesting one to read.

Here are the new discussion topics generating discussion:
- Ursula Wilby and Susan Stone asked complimentary questions, how do breeders and rescue
organizations choose buyers for their puppies and how do buyers choose breeders for their
puppies?
- Kate Reshetnikov asked the question, ‘Best time to spay?’

Join in the discussion by going to: http://irishsetters.ning.com/forum

There were some very fun blog postings this week.
- New member Gerda Valentin of Austria blogged about having 4 puppies for sale. Check out
her web site for more details.
- Mirjam of the Netherlands posted on two topics. One was that Jolly is going to be an aunt!
Her sister is expecting puppies. She also posted that Blossom had her first birthday! Mirjam
even uploaded a great looking photo from Blossom’s birthday party.
- Susan Stone of Switzerland blogged about a field trial with her dog Glen with ‘Field Trial SCAV
25.08.07 Corcelles/CH’.
- Alenka Pokorn of Slovenia posted show results from the Innsbruck International, Austria
on August 25-26 and ‘Grosuplje National, Slovenia 26.8.2007’. The latter blog post featured
some fabulous photos from the show.
- Laura Kolbach of Hungary blogged on a show in Eastern Hungary, ‘Debrecen double CACIB
25-26 August (Hungary)’. She included a great photo of Danka and her.
- There were other postings from shows. Camilla Ostman of Sweden (who has done a very good
job on her profile page and has some great pictures) posted on ‘ISF BREED SHOW 24 /25th of
August Herrfallet Sweden’. McBirdy J N DUHANT KETELAERS of Belgium (who also has
a nicely designed profile page with a stunning photo at the top) posted on Fletcher’s big
weekend and shared some great photos. Loma Clark of the USA posted on Mi Novia’s recent
show successes, including a very nice picture. Anna Wymyslowska of Poland blogged about
‘2*CACIB Bratislava 2007- Faza became Slovak Champion :)’ and included a great picture.
- Ginger Kenney of the US posted on a cute rescue girl that she is fostering, and included a
pic of the cute little girl
- W A Lauwers 'Daktyle' of Belgium shared an outstanding photo of his handsome young boy.
- Ruth Findlay of Scotland and Susan Stone of Switzerland both posted on ‘smiling Setters.
- Kristina Brannlund Westin of Sweden blogged about showing her 10 year old boy at a show
in Herrfallet. I think that Viktor looks fantastic for a 10 year old.
- Yvonne of the Netherlands posted on ‘Pelle’s fear of gun shot’.

To see all of this week’s blog postings, go to http://irishsetters.ning.com/profiles/blog/list

Thanks and go hug your dogs for me!

Gene
Exclusively Setters
http://irishsetters.ning.com
[e-mail]

[Gene]

Week 9 Update - Posted September 9,2007

Hi Everyone – Here’s your week 9 update. We added 9 new members this week, pushing our count to 265, and we uploaded almost 200 more photos, taking us to over 3,250. Joan Clancy in the USA uploaded a video of a hungry but well behaved dog.

On the groups, props (thanks) to all my friends in France who heard the call in last week’s update and joined Monique Viry's Frenchy group. Also, Yvonne ran with my suggestion and started a group for Gordon Setters. I am hoping that other countries start groups and other Setter groups (English, Red & White) get started AND I hope that Ning adds more functionality/capability to this area. I think it would allow more people to participate on the site, especially those that don’t give their English writing skills enough credit.

Speaking of new functionality, it looks like Ning added a LATEST ACTIVITY section. While this is nice, my first impression is that it seems to slow the site down. Hopefully this is a temporary thing. I still may move it to the bottom of the page and I believe I can remove this if we want. If you are noticing a considerable slow down this week, please let me know.

The existing forum posts continue to be popular. Henk ten Klooster of the Netherlands prior posts on white of a red Setter, is the Irish Setter a ruined breed, and ‘What is your favourite setter song, book, movie, history, photo and story?’ continued to generate numerous thoughts. Ursula Wilby of Sweden previous posts are still getting traffic – ‘Training Methods’ and ‘American Questions’. Susan Stone of Switzerland’s ‘most important people in the breed’ is still popular. Gina Hayes of the USA asked about an extremely interesting topic – ‘Therapy Dog and Freestyle Work’. We all look forward to her sharing a video on this. Ann Millington of the UK started a discussion about Popular Sire Syndrome’.

Join in the discussion by going to: http://irishsetters.ning.com/forum

The blog postings continue to be a popular way to share information on the happenings in each other’s Setter world.

- Several members posted show updates. Charlotte Godart and McBirdy J N DUHANT
KETELAERS, both of Belgium blogged about the 75e International dog show
Luxembourg. Frances McKimm, also of Belgium, reported on her daughter and her trip to a
Championship show in England. Laura Kobach of Hungary had a hectic weekend complete
with travel detours. Read about it in ‘Dracula Dog Show - 3 shows, 1 weekend. Tirgu Mures,
Romania’ and check out all the photos she shared. Victoria of Australia shared her proud
day when her two Irish Setters BOTH gained their titles on the same day. Sari of Finland
reported on the ‘Vantaa 2.9.2007 All breed show.’ Harriet of the Netherlands blogged on the
‘young dog day Belgium Irish setterclub 9 sept.’ Ursula Wilby of Sweden blogged on her
french bulldog Bäring Nords Grid (Ines) getting her first CC! Laura Kolbach also blogged
on the ‘08.09.2007 Kecskemét International’. Carmel Murphy of Ireland posted on the Irish
Breeds Championships Show in Dublin.
- McBirdy J N DUHANT KETELAERS also posted some great photos of his 10 newest additions.
Tommy Eisgard of Sweden also reported having a new litter.
- Vera Clay of Australia shared another installment in The Life and Times of Conaign, where
he got to go experience a dog beach. I have heard of a dog park, but dog beach? Those pups
are spoiled in Tasmania.
- Frances McKimm of Belgium blogged about a new site for English Setters. Check it out at
http://www.setter.be
- Katariina Roiha of Finland posted on the upcoming hunting season. I am sure that am not the
only one looking forward to some great hunting photos this fall.

To see all of this week’s blog postings, go to http://irishsetters.ning.com/profiles/blog/list

On these updates, I can see the traffic increase after they are sent out. It seems to keep members up to speed on what is happening with the site. I certainly don’t want to monopolize the conversation here and I am sure that a lot of you are much better writers than me. If anyone would be interested in writing some of these and giving people a fresh perspective, that would be great. Just let me know.

Thanks and go give your dogs a treat for me.

Gene
Exclusively Setters
[e-mail]

[Gene]

Week 10 Update - Posted September 16, 2007

Hi Everyone – Here’s your week 10 update. These updates will be shorter for the next couple weeks. I worked over 70 hours last week and will be really busy at work through November. I also have company coming in this weekend.

We added 10 new members this week, pushing our total to 275, and we uploaded 200 more photos, taking us to over 3,450.

To see and greet our new members, go to http://irishsetters.ning.com/profiles/friend/list

To see and comment on all of the great photos, go to http://irishsetters.ning.com/photo

The discussion forums continue to generate activity. Henk ten Klooster of the Netherlands has a couple threads that have good momentum – ‘favorite Setter song, story, movie, etc.’ and is ‘Is the Irish Setter a ruined breed?’. Ann Millington of the UK has a post that is still active as well, ‘Popular Sire Syndrome’. There are also some new ones. Yvonne, who also is from the Netherlands, started an interesting discussion on ‘Hip Scores’. Susan Russell-Matsumoto of Canada started one on ‘Starting/Testing New Pups’. Ginger Kinney of the USA started one entitled ‘Hayward Vaccine Study-U.S.’ covering people’s thoughts on vaccines. Loma Clark also of the US started one on ‘Correcting a fault’ in a breeding program. Laura Kolbach of Hungary started one on ‘What is your particular "Pet-hate" when it comes to faults?” which I bet most everyone has an opinion on. I started one on ‘Celebrity Setter Owners’.

Join in the discussion by going to: http://irishsetters.ning.com/forum

The blogs are still one of my favorite parts of the site. It is interesting to read about the successes of many of our members and their dogs in shows and other events in everyone’s lives. And the pictures that you all upload are incredible! Susan Stone of Switzerland reported on a web site with some fascinating photos of different color patterns on Gordon Setters. Dorothee Durieux of Belgium blogged about Junior day 2007 at the Belgian Irish Setter Club. Susan Russell-Matsumoto caught us up on what has been happening in her life. Jelena Kreitmayer of the USA posted a photo of an Irish Setter on this month’s AKC Gazette magazine cover. Saturnii Cartoons (Anna) of Belgium let us know her web site has been updated and she also provided a fantastic photo of her new Gordon Setter puppy. Mavis of Canada blogged in Chester and getting burrs in his coat while Laura Kolbach posted some related photos. Boy, I don’t envy mom having to get those out! Mirjam of the Netherlands reported in on the success that Blossom had in her first show. Congrats to Blossom and Mirjam! Jeanette Bostroem of Denmark reported in on the ‘Copenhagen Winner show 2007’, providing some great photos as well.

To see all of this week’s blog postings, go to http://irishsetters.ning.com/profiles/blog/list

Thanks and go give your dogs a hug for me.

Gene
Exclusively Setters
[e-mail]