What I'm proposing:
A notification system for automated messages, separate from private messages, all organised within a notification centre area.

I don't know how intricate the coding required would be, but it would definitely be a little project in itself to get something like this implemented.

That said, it would be a pretty awesome thing to have on Alacrity, and I think it would benefit everyone -- whether it's someone who primarily trials, trains, breeds, or sells, or anywhere in between.

What it would look like:
Somewhere that is easy to access (perhaps one of the side-bars, or its own link in the header tools) there would be a link to your Notification Centre.
The centre would be divided into three sections, which would each have their own subheadings:

SOCIAL
• Wishlist items received
- item name, user received from [linking], date & time
• Items/dogs given
- lists item name, how many, [linking] user received from, date & time
- items that match in all sections would be listed in the same row, hence the how many column
• Scribbles
- user received from [linking], date & time
- perhaps a copy of the scribble? But that may get messy

HEALTH
• Pregnant dogs
- dog name [linking], when she was bred, stud's name [linking], who the pups are going to/who paid for the bitch's breeding [linking if not you], current age, age at which the pups are due
• Sick/Injured dogs (untreated)
- dog name [linking], malady, date & time occurred, how much the vet fee will be
- perhaps an option to treat?
• Dogs in recovery
- dog name [linking], malady, date treated, fee paid, recovery date
• Low health dogs
- dog name [linking], health score, time when dogs health dropped to critical levels/its current health score
- possibly non-critical dogs with a health score below a certain number, so people can keep an eye on dogs going towards the danger zone?

BUSINESS
• Shop sales & your item auctions
- sales: item name, date & time of sale, user who purchased when applicable [linking], how much it sold for
- auctions ended without sale: item name, date & time it went up for auction, date & time auction ended, starting price, bid increments & auto buy price
• Dog sales & your dog auctions
- dog name [linking], date & time of sale, user who purchased, how much is sold for
- auctions ended without sale: dog name [linking], date & time it went up for auction, date & time auction ended, starting price, bid increments & auto buy price
• Auctions you're participating in
- organised by auction ID/each auction you're participating in would have its own little subsection of notifications under the auction subheading
- what's being auctioned [link if dog], auctioneer [linking], current highest bid, auction ending, auto buy price
- your bid records: date & time of bid, your bid, price you outbid
- outbid records: date & time of bid, the higher bid, your previous bid
- possibly option to enter a new bid when you've been outbid?
- possibly option to opt for the auto buy on the auction?

Different notifications could also be colour-coded to make it easier to spot things, much like our kennels get colour coded with different issues.
For the Health section, injured dogs (and non-critical low health dogs if they were there) could be highlighted yellow, critical health dogs in red; for the business section, the auction listings could be green if you've won them or have the highest bid, red if they've ended and you didn't win them, yellow if they're still going but you've been outbid.
Or something along those lines, anyway.

Notifications would also be manually removable. A little [x] beside each one would whisk them away for ever. Certain things -- ended or won auctions, dogs which have recovered from an injury or are no longer in critical health -- could change in their highlight colour (perhaps some other edit in the notification for some things?) to let you know that they're no longer an issue/that the event has ended.

And how would we know about the notifications?
In the same way that we know there's a new news post, or that we have new messages -- there would be a little green box letting us know that we have new notifications in our Notification Centre.
Alternatively, if the link to the centre is visible somewhere on a sidebar or the header bar, it could change colour to highlight if there are new notifications.