?? I think of it as a private e-mail system inside Pet Talk. (No, I'm not high tech & probably everyone here who is will cringe at my description of Private Messages.)

When a member first logs into Pet Talk, it tells you if you have a private message: you can either open it then, or later scroll to the bottom of the Pet Talk main page. The bottom-most left-hand link is called "Private Messages". You can click on that and it will open a separate message area. Your newest in-coming messages will be on top. Click each message to open it and read it. Answering is essentially like adding a post to a thread in the main Pet Talk area.

(Uh, did this make any sense? I tend to lose people in too many details. Feel free to ask if you still have questions.)