Volunteer Pam Bollinger has supplied us with simple instructions: Once you are on her website (Oprah.com), there is a drop-down box in the upper left corner "Inside Oprah.com". This will allow you to e-mail Oprah, make suggestions for a show, e-mail the producers, etc. Click on the "Email Us" link, and go through all of Oprah's 'requirements' for suggesting a show idea.

GOOD INSTRUCTIONS, PAM!

A few tips [from Volunteer Cher Imrie] for e-mailing Oprah: Everyone e-mail Oprah on the same day.  (How about Friday Feb. 17th and again Fri. Feb 24th?) [Bill adds: "Let's just keep emailing her again and again and again!] Flooding Oprah's e-mail with the same messages many times over could attract more attention. Also, quoting statistics from the recent info on the Straydog Update is good! The numbers are overwhelming, particularly to people who haven't had an opportunity to understand this problem.

GOOD IDEAS, CHER! Here are the stats Cher is referring to to be included in the emails to Oprah:

Did you know that?:
* 3-4 million cats and dogs are euthanized each year.
* In 7 years one female cat and her young can produce 420,000 cats.
* In 6 years one female dog and her young can produce 67,000 dogs.
* It costs US taxpayers an estimated $2 billion each year to round up, house, kill, and dispose of homeless animals.

Please do a show on the urgency of getting everyone to spay and neuter their pets, and have people from no-kill shelters (like Straydog Inc. at www.straydog.org) on the show to talk about the horrendous overpopulation problem, which could be solved if we could get everyone on board the spay/neuter campaign.

Here are some statistics:

Did you know that?:
* 3-4 million cats and dogs are euthanized each year in the U.S.
* In 7 years one female cat and her young can produce 420,000 cats.
* In 6 years one female dog and her young can produce 67,000 dogs.
* It costs US taxpayers an estimated $2 billion each year to round up, house, kill, and dispose of homeless animals.

Please feel free to copy and paste my email and send it to Oprah via Pam's instructions above!

Thanks, Bill

HERE'S THE AUTOMATIC RESPONSE FROM OPRAH (which I received five minutes after sending my email):

Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2006 07:46 (CST)

From: "Oprah.com" <Oprah.com@oprah.com>

To: BillArnold147@Yahoo.com

Subject: Oprah.com has received your e-mail

Dear Bill,

Thank you for your e-mail! Your message is important to us. Unfortunately, due to the volume of e-mail messages we receive every day, we cannot guarantee that you'll receive a personal response. Feel free to check out our Frequently Asked Questions for additional help: http://www.oprah.com/tows/program/tows_prog_main.jhtml

Thanks again for writing to us!

Sincerely,
The Oprah.com Staff
www.oprah.com