There are all sorts of communities that have formed on the Web for people who are enthusiastic about dogs.  Some of these communities are based on real communities that have a Web presence, but most activities occur in real time and space.  Others are completely virtual in character -- they are links of people who like dogs generally, like particular breeds of dogs, or share an interest in similar activities.

           But are strictly virtual communities real.  Some anthropologists and other social scientists might still argue that such virtual-only communities aren't real, because communities have to have a personal, face-to-face quality to be true communities.  One example of this approach is John F. Freie decries, who claims these are “counterfeit communities,” and he decries their emergence, because as he puts it:

A community is an interlocking pattern of…human relationships in which people have at least a minimal sense of consensus within a definable territory.  People within a community actively participate and cooperate with others to create their own self-worth, a sense of caring about others, and a feeling for the spirit of connectedness.  (Freie, John F. Counterfeit Community: The Exploitation of Our Longings for Connectedness. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 1998: 23).

           However, while that sense of bounded community may have made sense in a pre-Internet age, today, people have a sense of being part of a global community, and people can create links to others to form virtual subcultures.  In fact, some people can become so linked to others in cyberspace, such as through chat rooms, forums, and role play games, that this may become an even realer, more important community to them than the day-to-day world.   Extreme perhaps, and perhaps the sign of problems with personal and social relationships, making becoming whatever role one wants to adopt for oneself online especially compelling.   But more generally, people blend the two, so at times they may become part of an exclusively online-community, though a personal meeting between some members of the community is possible. 

           Likewise, many online communities combine elements of virtual communication with possibilities for real-time social interaction, such as through events organized by members of the online community or by the Web site owner.  There are many possibilities creating a continuum between the real space-time community that has a virtual presence to the exclusively or almost exclusively online communal world, where few people contact each other outside of this virtual space, although this is possible.

        And so it is with dog owners.   Some participate in mostly real-world communities and use the Web primarily for information about what members are doing and obtain schedules about upcoming activities; others create, participate in, or simply lurk and observe in online communities; and still others do some of both to a greater or lesser degree.  

        Following are some examples of these two different types of communities of dog owners:

              - Real-world communities, with a virtual online presence.

              - Virtual communities, based exclusively or almost exclusively on online connections.

A growing world of people who
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