Getting Kinda Crowded In Here -- The Semi-'Return' of New York Dog

Well, nobody said publishing was easy. A stalwart rag-tag band of friends and family members have kept New York Tails going for seven years now (trust me--we all kept our day jobs.) We love this city and believe in what we do, and have a base of some hard-core fans. That's pretty much what keeps us going.

But I must say, it's getting pretty crowded here. My sources tell me a certain unnamed publisher of a group of magazines that started out in the mid-west has been making regular pilgrimages to our fair city, burning lots of shoe leather and wearing down a lot of heels trying to make inroads with key members of the pet community here. Gotta give them credit for trying even though they didn't have the cash to publish two issues this summer (by their own admission, so I'm not saying anything that's not already out there.) We're involved in an ongoing legal situation with this group, so I can't really say much more than that. At least that's what my lawyer advises me.

Then, I went to make some deliveries at one of our local spots and what to my wondering eyes does appear, but a "New York City" edition of The Pet Gazette, a black-and-white publication that has met with pretty good success in Westchester and some parts of Long Island, and I think Connecticut.

Finally, I wake up today and get a head's up that New York Dog, the uber-glossy and glamorous magazine whose debut was met with much fanfare (and then abruptly folded about two years later because, in one of the magazine founders (John Ryan) own words, "advertisers weren't paying") is semi-resurrected in a new publication called The Blue Book, which is supposed to debut (where else?) among the many 'bluebloods' at the Westminster Kennel Club show this year. Some people I (personally) like very much will be involved with it. There are others -- not so much, and I'm sure the feeling is mutual.

While at New York Dog there was apparently some nasty parting of the ways between John Ryan and Gregg Oehler -- Gregg being considered the 'top dog', at least initially, of New York Dog.

I tried to find the original article where the publisher of New York Dog retold the whole sad 'tail' of New York Dog's demise (in fairness he moved over to PetStyle pretty quickly. Here it is, although it doesn't mention Oehler's involvement in the one-time media darling that was New York Dog.

http://www.itchmo.com/new-york-dog-magazine-stops-printing-2207

Anyway, we at New York Tails are still wagging, for now, and will try to do so in spite of the economy tanking and things getting a little crowded around here. There's something to be said about sheer stubbornness. That said, nothing in life is guaranteed, and no publication (especially in this economy) can say they're going to last forever.

But the plucky little volunteer crew here at New York Tails will try.