Hi MsMini and a belated welcome to Pet Talk! Please forgive me if I missed your introductory post, I've had a tough time keeping up here for awhile! Pet Talk is very big and more people joining all the time, which I think is great, but it gets very hard to keep up!

I would think of it like this:

You walk into a very crowded gathering of people, and many are standing in various groups chatting familiarly with each other. As you walk by, they may smile and nod at you, maybe say hello if you make eye contact, but most won't do a lot more than that at first because they don't know you at all yet while the person they are having a discussion with they have come to know and have talked with for a year, perhaps 2, maybe even more, so they have a lot to say, a lot to discuss.

It's not a perfect analogy but I hope that helps a bit. Until people know more about you and your pups, until they see your name a lot and answer questions and comments you have made, they simply haven't thought of much to talk about with you. I know it may appear cliquey, and there are definite circles of friends that have formed over time, but it is simply a natural thing to gravitate in discussion to those you are more familiar with. My experience has been you just have to keep trying. The more you say and talk about yourself, the more interest and conversation you will spark. In any situation in which I have been new, whether it be a new student at school, a new employee at a job, or new to a message board, it takes time to develop rapport and friendships with people. On a board like this one with so very many members, you can spend literally hours trying to keep up with all the posts. Thus, when people have only 5 minutes to spare, they may just go specifically to posts of those people they know in order to answer them.

As Vette advised, the very best way to get people to know you is to spend time in their posts, commenting on pictures, asking questions about their pups perhaps, and even telling of experiences with your own pets. It's never easy feeling like a new person or an outsider, but everyone has to start out that way and in a community this large, it will take some time to get to be known, but once you do the reward of many wonderful friendships is well worth it! I sure hope this helps, and I do hope that you will soon feel more welcome and a part of Pet Talk