I just had to add a few more thoughts. I think Parnone's and Kari's (Finn's mom) responses were really well stated too. When I am sitting and debating whether or not to post a set of pictures, I usually finally end up saying to myself "Why not? I really want to and if not many respond then that's ok, but at least I enjoyed sharing them!" When I was newer here I pretty much couldn't control my exuberance about finding a place to share my pets . I plastered pictures and stories about them all over the place. I posted pictures of bath day, play time, outdoors time, sleepy time, and anything and everything under the sun, because I was just so caught up in the excitement of finally being able to share the lights of my life with people who felt the same as I do. I think that, without specific intentions to, I made sure that everyone at the time knew who I was and who my dogs were, and they saw and heard about us quite regularly!

Of course it still took time before I really felt a part of the community, and to this day there are still people whom I respond to who rarely, if ever, respond to me. While sometimes I dwell on that here and there, I try to always keep two key things in mind: One, my posts to them are not with the condition that they respond to me, they are to express my genuine enjoyment of their pictures or advice or thoughts about their problem/question, and two, if I go through life focusing on what I don't have, I will never truly appreciate what I DO have. That goes for the responses that I get rather than the ones that I don't. I treasure every one of them and hold them close to my heart, and that is where I keep my focus.