Mashable, the social networking blog described Dogster as ‘the first site you think of when people say “niche network”‘. We’re honored.

Of course we’re hopeful that Catster is the second site everyone thinks of.

Mashable has launched a first-ever Social Network awards competition and I would like to formally nominate both Dogster and Catster for consideration in the Niche Networks category.

For any judges reviewing what we’ve done, I’d like to point out the we have custom-built our video, forums, groups, events, diaries, classifieds, private messaging so they could reflect our members passion most completely.

For the holidays alone we added three virtual gifts (, , ) and our Dogster Holiday Photos Stroll and Catster Holiday Photo Stroll full of member-submitted holiday themed photos has been more popular than our homepage this month!

Win, lose or paw, I’d just like to saw that none of this could have ever happened without our wonderful members whose joy and sincerity motivate us every day to make wonderful things for them. Three cheers for social petworking!