Not Just Pets does National Pet Month – Three Fabulous Open Days in Bath and Frome ! Your Pets and You – a Winning Team

It came upon us so quickly and it has already gone! National Pet Month – what a great month – we had lots of fun with our Open Days and raised funds and awareness for some of our favourite animal charities. The theme was “Your Pets and You – a Winning Team” and I think we were able to demonstrate this is in so many ways, from learning to grooming to fun!

In Bath we had two open days, one at our Larkhall store and one at our bright new store in St James Parade in Bath. Our nominated charity was Bath Cats and Dogs Home and we managed to raise a grand total of £535.90 from our open days in raffle tickets and facepainting and cakes and Bath Cats and Dogs Home also took donations in their buckets on the day. We shall be handing over the cheque to them soon -watch this space for piccies.

There were lots of “winning teams” on show – from Lee and his ferrets, to all the children who talked about their pets during the handling sessions, to grooming advice, nutrition discussions, training and behaviour ideas and some simple ideas for just having fun with your pet.

Our thanks go to all who donated, worked, dressed up, supported, supplied a prize or simply came along on the day. Special thanks to Hungry Hector, Royal Canin, Amanda from ALF, Alice Ladkin (who donated a very special £75 voucher for our raffle for a pet portrait). Alice’s portraits are beautiful and the winner of that voucher is a delighted customer. Thanks too to those who dressed as Claverton, from Bath Cats and Dogs Home and for the costume – Claverton was a big hit.

In Frome we had a hugely successful day, partnered by Royal Canin and Greyhound Rescue West of England and Frome Cats Protection. Steph brought Boo, her European Eagle Owl and we had bunnies, ferrets, rats and hamsters all meeting the public on the day. The cakes were once again delicious (thank you Doreen, especially) and we had help and advice from Kathverena Groomers and Animal Healing and Donna the Dog Listener. Andrew Rowley from Woodborough Kennels brough Tia and Boston and showed us all what we can do with our doggies with a little work. We raised £133.79 for each charity and the GRWE also took £179 on the day and the Cats Protection ladies took £252 on their table. So all in all, £698.58 raised on the day (amazing work!) and two homes also found for Greyhounds. Fabulous!

We also had our colouring competition, won by 3-year old Olivia – she loved her big fluffy doggie prize – and our photo competition won by Stuart Peard and his gorgeous doggies Nanuq and Lilka.

We cannot thank our suppliers and supporters enough for the donations of prizes and for attending on the day or sending colouring sheets or baking.. We appreciate all the help we are given to make this month a successful one.

Our aim was to show how you and your pets are a winning team and to promote responsible pet ownership and raise awareness and funds for local charities. I think everyone did a pretty good job! Thankyou!

You can follow us on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/NotJustPets or on Twitter at: @NotJustPets or simply email us at bathpets@aol.com or via our website at http://www.notjustpets.co.uk

National Pet Month is here! Find out about our fabulous Open Days at all three stores!

This year’s National Pet Month theme is “Your Pets and You: A Winning Team” and we shall be holding three special Open Days at our Bath and Frome stores to celebrate with National Pet Month and help to promote responsible pet ownership too.

On Saturday April 14th, from 10 am to 4pm we have our first Open Day for National Pet Month at ourLarkhall store – and our special guest will be Howard Grove, Bath’s very own Dog Whisperer.

So – book in early to ask him some behavioural questions and bring your doggie along to meet him. On the day we shall have:

– a RAFFLE with fab prizes and proceeds going to Bath Cats an Dogs Home

– rat and ferret races from midday!

– The DOCTOR is in – in the afternoon we have Murray from Ashman Jones Veterinary Clinic joining us giving advice on all things pet

– Homemade cakes for sale!

– Face painting

– Animal handling (including Lee’s own lovely ferrets and Anny’s rats and hamsters)

– Colouring competition

– Royal Canin with expert nutrition advice, freebies and vouchers!

Come along and join in the fun!

On Saturday April 21st we will be holding a similar Open Day at our Frome shop – and this time you can meet Boo, our European Eagle Owl plus lots more lovely animals to see and handle. The Cats Protection ladies will be there with their wonderful stall and we will also have doggies from Greyhound Rescue West of England with us – plus nutrition experts on hand to help with your dog and cat dietary questions. Kathverena Groomers will be doing pet claw clipping – £1 a paw and Donna the Dog Listener will be with us too! There will be DOG ICE CREAM, face painting, a raffle, competitions, cakes and all the staff will be dressed as animals. There will be offers and freebies on the day – so why not pop along and enjoy the fun?

On Saturday April 28th there will be lots of fun for all the family in our Bath store including: face painting, animal and reptile handling, a HUGE raffle in aid of Bath Cats and Dogs Home with some fabulous prizes including a £75 voucher for a pet portrait from Alice Ladkin AND Claverton the mascot dog attending, a Hungry Hector stall plus Hector himself, homemade cakes for sale, DOG ICED TREATS on offer, a special promotion on frozen dog food, nutrition experts on hand from Royal Canin, grooming offers and advice, colouring competitions, ‘guess the neons in the tank’ competition, a dog training display and more. The staff will be dressed as their favourite animals – but you don’t have to (unless you want to!) Come along, enjoy the fun, meet lots of fabulous animals and find out all you need to know to keep your pet happy and healthy so that YOU make a winning team.

If you haven’t been in already this will be a chance to pop in and see our bright new Bath store – pictured above – with new small animals, new food and accessory ranges and a lovely new reptile room.

All the details will be on the National Pet Month site at http://www.nationalpetmonth.org.uk and also on www.bestofbath.co.uk/bath and on The Breeze.com (local radio) plus we will keep you updated via our Facebook and Twitter pages – so why not follow us to find out all our latest news? We will be posting a photo competition during National Pet Month on our Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Notjustpets-Pet-Shops-in-Bath-Frome/103981576322758

or follow us on Twitter at @NotJustPets https://twitter.com/#!/NotJustPets

You can also email us at bathpets@aol.com or telephone on 01225 461461/461478

Of Moving (!) and The NotJustPets 12 Days of Christmas Silly Sale

We are finally moving our Bath pet shop premises AFTER Christmas. We shall be moving to 8-9 St James Parade, Bath, BA1 1UL. We are busy getting the shop ready so that we can move all our stock across and meanwhile, we have dressed the windows for Christmas to make them look pretty. Do pop along and take a sneak peek!

The new shop will all be on one floor and we will be adding new aquariums for our fish, new glass animal enclosures and a lovely new reptile room with some new exotics in store, including chameleon. We hope to make our store much more interactive for our customers too and will be providing regular talks and educational days for children, too.

We are bringing in lots of new, funky products but we want to look after all our existing customers so we shall still be able to get all the products we have always been able to stock. Some of the lines we will be introducing are the fabulous Collarways Lupine leads, collars and harnesses and the Tuffy and Zogoflex toy ranges – so we will have “even if chewed” guaranteed collars and really tough, interactive toys in store.

We will also have the colourful and fun Hem & Boo leads, collars, toys and more and All for Paws wonderful plush toys which will bring out the instinctive hunter in your doggie.

Although we will open just after Christmas, we haven’t got a final date yet so we will keep you posted! We will be having a BIG LAUNCH day in January, with lots of offers for our regular customers.

There are so many more new things coming for our Bath store and we will keep you up to date on our NotJustPets Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/Notjustpets-Pet-Shops-in-Bath-Frome/103981576322758 and on Twitter @NotJustPets https://twitter.com/#!/NotJustPets and of course, in store and back here on our blog. Telephone 01225 461461 or 461478 for any further information.

Meanwhile, we have decided to have a silly sale over 12 Days of Christmas at our Bath store (see our next blog). There will be something different on each day, starting from Friday 9th December – see the offers here. You can visit the store, ring on 01225 461461 or contact us via the website or email at bathpets@aol.com to reserve and pay for any of the items in the sale. 12 days of christmas sale days

..of trade shows and Hallowe’en, new ratty items and more

So this has been a busy few weeks with several trade shows and new products, staff changes, big birthdays and more.

Remember Shirley who managed our Bath store for the past 6 years? She moved back to her homeland in Scotland in July but we decided to join her for her 50th Birthday celebrations and Pearl Wedding anniversary. She had no idea we were coming, so it was a complete surprise. The party was a Shania Twain tribute party, yee-haw! and it was much fun too. Here are some pics:

Before that we had the Hagen show, the Happy Pet Show, PetIndex and Aqua 2011 – exhausting stuff but we have seen lots of new products which we are putting in store now. So, what do you like from below? Let us know..

So, who likes fancy rats? Guinea pigs? Wabbits? We have lots of lovely ratty customers and one very special chap has made us some wonderful igloos, hammocks and octopuses for our store. We have some very special designs in for Hallowe’en too – and we can have David make us bespoke items for our customers – so you could order an individual item just for your precious pets. They are very reasonably priced and great fun. Take a look below and see what you think. We would love your feedback.

And finally to Hallowe’en! We are putting up our display tomorrow and we had a few requests for doggie Hallowe’en coats and rat treats etc so why not pop in and see what you can find in our display? We will have pumpkin treats, devil dog coats, skull ornaments and more!

Follow us on Twitter @NotJustPets, on our NotJustPets Facebook page here http://www.facebook.com/pages/Notjustpets-Pet-Shops-in-Bath-Frome/103981576322758 or take a look at our website at www.notjustpets.co.uk – or pop i and see us in Larkhall, Bath or Frome. Tel: 01225 461478

.. of Frome Cheese Show!

Wow! What a busy day we had at the Frome Cheese Show on Saturday. Our tent was busy all day – and especially so when the rains came down. All of our animals and exotics were a hit with the visitors – and so many people were fascinated with our snake skins and spider sheds.

A lovely young lady called Rebecca who was completely arachnophobic managed to hold a large tarantula skin – well done, Rebecca!

Did you know that a tarantula sheds its exoskeleton (shell) – and even leaves the fangs behind? Have you seen the eye caps on a snake skin that has been shed? All amazing stuff!

There was lots of handling of rats and hamsters and of course our lovely bunnies and guinea pigs. We also sold lots of dog toys and treats on the day to happy dog and cat customers and gave away plenty of freebies.

Tigger bounced in for a visit and lots of visitors were captivated by our supersoft mini-lop bunnies or had a cuddle with Harley, our Harleqin Bunny – who nearly found himself a new home on the day!

Thanks to all who visited the tent on the day and all our lovely staff who helped prepare for the day and especially to Anny and Beccy who worked really hard – and left the day with very little voice left!

More pictures of the Cheese Show on FromePeople

Follow us on Twitter @NotJustPets or on Facebook – “NotJustPets”

.. of Summer School at Keble College in fair Oxford

Summer School? I hear you ask. Yes! I was delighted to win a scholarship from bira to the Oxford Summer School which is one of the ‘jewels in the crown’ of UK retailing – run for the trade, by the trade. The school was established in 1923 and apart from the War years has been running ever since. What an experience! We formed the 82nd Oxford Summer School and I was honoured to be part of Team 1 – otherwise known as “Número Uno” as a tribute to Lucas Ricoy, a member of our team who was from Barcelona. This was an intensive week of work, work, work and more work and then some serious play too! We certainly lived up to our name in the Karaoke competition – we came first with our “Chippendales does It’s Raining Men” wearing bin liners, foil and tissue paper along with charity dresses for our larger “women singers” and wigs I happened to pack (just in case!) against 24 other, very worthy teams. I am proud to say I was in charge of that task, but what a team! All leading lights and very talented folk from Ralph Lauren, Debenhams, Nike, Marks & Spencer, Matalan, Fenwicks, Signet and Masseys. Pictures? I hear you cry. Oh, ok, then..

We were urged to “seize the challenge” and the school promised to “deliver an inspirational experience that challenges and develops retail managers, helping to give them the confidence and motivation to realise their potential”. It certainly lived up to this promise – in spades! In return we were asked to show “commitment, respect and integrity” – how could we not?

The speakers for the week were so inspiring – from Marco Capello (chairman of Liberty and ex MD of Merrill Lynch) to David Meckin, amazing finance guru and author of “Naked Finance” (thank you for signing a copy, David). We also met Beverley Aspinall, MD of the newly refurbished Fortnum & Mason (and yes, she was totally in charge of the refurbishment project, which is an awe-inspiring achievement). Other speakers included Tony Wheeler, the MD of Peter Jones, Steve Connell, MD of Inspire and Chris Walton, a fabulous and inspirational Performance Psychologist. We had merchandising experts, marketing experts, finance experts, IT experts and retailing experts extraordinaire! The tasks followed the themes of these speakers – a merchandising day, a finance day (I’ve never seen so many calculators in one place), a marketing day and a ‘business exercise’ day (where we had the simple task of setting up a department store from scratch in eight hours!)

The organisation was seamless – 225 delegates, 25 group directors plus speakers and guests and numerous tasks every day. Jeannie and the Team in the admin office certainly had their work cut out and the preparation in the previous year must have been enormous from all involved. The timetables worked to precision – I think even our sleep was timetabled! The paperwork was all ready in time for us every day, the group directors were fabulous in their support and guidance and the organisers bubbled over with enthusiasm all week. On the social side, the week began with a warm registration welcome and lovely champagne reception; the Sunday offered up a beautiful Chapel service in this architecturally stunning building, replete with the Blessing being sung to us a capella by the 5Ways Barbershop Harmony group – this brought a tear to my eye (and to the eye of our rugby-playing group director!) Our meals were delicious and were served in the wonderful “Hogwarts” dining hall of Keble College by wonderful waiting staff, the karaoke was immense fun and the Thursday evening was a delight from start to finish with a superb dinner where we were serenaded by the 5Ways Barbershop Harmony group once again from the balcony, to the Champagne welcome and the fabulous disco in the marquee (and boy did we strut our stuff) .. all the way on to bacon butties and coffee at 1.30 am!

The daily work tasks were not easy but we learned much – from eachother, from the group directors, speakers, from the organisers and from the comprehensive content of the course. We kept learning logs to record our key learning points and to provide an action plan for the future in our work, our businesses and our personal lives.

May I express a huge thank you to Alan Hawkins and all at bira for this wonderful opportunity and I would also like to record a special thank you to our Group Director, Steven Bradley for his wonderful support, enthusiasm and guidance throughout the week and who, along with the fabulous Dominic Prendergast (he knew all the words and moves to all the karaoke songs), Cheryl Owen and Ryan Cooper (and the other 8 members of our Número Uno team) made this a week I will never forget.

Summer of the Cat Event – Saturday 20th August at Bath Pet Centre!

Summer of the Cat Event

Nutritional experts, cat food offers & freebies and cat rescue fundraising

Bath Pet Centre

7 Lower Borough Walls, Bath, BA1 1QR. Tel 01225 461461

Email: bathpets@aol.com Web: www.notjustpets.co.uk

Saturday 20 August!

Special Offers from:

Royal Canin

Meowing Heads

As well as freebies from Lily’s Kitchen

And..

Bristol and Wales Cat Rescue

will be here fundraising –

and they will be bringing rescue kittens for you to see

http://www.bristolandwalescatrescue.com/

This week’s Not Just Pets Blog! Of broken ankles and bearded dragons..

So – I decided to ask the staff for topics to blog about this week, including any ‘funny stories’ etc – and in chorus they said “Have you heard the one about the boss who fell off the step..” So, yes, that was me – whilst rearranging the upstairs shop floor in our Bath store I inexplicably fell, in what seemed like slow motion, from the bottom step of a very small flight of only four stairs! Result? An enormous ankle, torn ligaments, possible fractured bone..although the bonus was I did fall into a small pile of dog beds, so a slightly softer landing! I do have pictures, but you don’t want to see them, right? So, plans for this week a little scuppered.

The last couple of weeks have been busy and very varied – from dressing up for National Independents’ Day on 4th July to broken ankles,

to sending Hot Pink Dog Lips to California for a choosy doggie!

As noted in our Store News last week, we are delighted to win the National Pet Month award for the best retailer event – in recognition of the three open days we held during that month. Well done to all the staff and huge thanks to all our customers for supporting these fabulous days.

Lee is settling in at Larkhall now that Shirley has moved on – she sent us this lovely pic of her not working but sunbathing at her new home in Scotland. We wish her all the very best and miss her already. Lee is doing a grand job trying to fill her boots and is getting to know everyone at Larkhall. He has his very own tag engraving machine so he can engrave tags on site for only £3.99! (Lee with two of his lovely ferrets)

Last week at Bath we had some beautiful Belgian Hares come into the shop – and as quickly as they came in, they went out – and you can see why. How beautiful are these

bunnies? We are hoping to get some more – and will be putting up an info page on our site soon. Meanwhile we have some beautiful harlequin bunnies among others in the Bath store and we are still trying to find a home for Cinnamon and Nutmeg, a gorgeous pair of bunnies in Frome seen here sharing breakfast with the guineapigs.

So, who saw the article about Lily’s Kitchen in the Daily Mail? You may have missed it with all the News of the World shenanigans.. here’s a link – http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2013274/Is-dogs-dinner-making-ill-Its-just-humans-eat-salt-fat-sugar.html

– and we are proud to say we stock Lily’s Kitchen and it is a really popular product in our Bath shop. Why not give it a try?

At our Frome shop we have some beautiful bearded dragons in store and some blizzard morph geckos. Care sheets will be available on our site for these and are in store too.

Beardies Blizzard Morph Geckos

There are lots of offers still in all stores – 15% off all vivarium set-ups and aquariums – 1.5kg James Wellbeloved still on special price at £5.99 (stickered bags) – OVO Hamster housing all at special prices, including Lofts at £34.99 and many more! OOH and we have just had a new delivery of Beco Bowls, Cat Litter Trays and Scoops in – come and get yours before they’re gone!

Please ask any questions below, add any comments and pop over to Facebook to “like” us on our NotJustPets page http://www.facebook.com/pages/Notjustpets-Pet-Shops-in-Bath-Frome/103981576322758 or follow us on Twitter at @NotJustPets. We’d love to hear from you! 🙂

Yay! We have just won the Pet Shop Retailer Event award for National Pet Month! Well done everyone!

Well done to all our staff for winning the Retailer Event Award for National Pet Month!

The theme this year was “Happiness is time spent with your pet” and we had three fabulous Open Days to celebrate at Frome and Bath.

Frome Pet & Aquatics Open Day had a fabulous Open Day on 2nd April – the theme was “Happiness is.. time with your pet” and everyone was certainly happy on Saturday – customers, staff and charities alike.
There was so much to see and do on the day and we certainly achieved our aim of promoting responsible pet ownership with lots of animal handling and good advice being given and in raising a wonderful total of £528.42 for the Cats Protection and GWRE (Greyhound Rescue) charities.

The Dog Portraits were also a huge success and we are looking forward to seeing the doggie photographs.
We would like to give huge thanks to everyone who came down, supported, worked, had their dogs photographed, bought raffle tickets, sold raffle tickets, dressed up, painted faces or had their faces painted, danced, gave expert advice and goodies, brought dogs and other animals, made cakes, bought cakes and so much more!

On Saturday 9th April – we had Open Day at Bath Pet Centre

Sadly DARIUS, the WORLD’S BIGGEST BUNNY was unable to come to our Open Day due to sad circumstances with his owners, but he is hoping to come to us in the near future.

Nevertheless we had a fabulous day! We had painting, a fabulous PRIZE DRAW, “hands-on” sessions with the animals, a reptile talk, the Hedgehog Society, Bat Rescue, pet nutrition experts with samples and freebies, Howard Grove, Bath’s very own Dog Whisperer came down to talk to customers and give advice about the behaviour of their doggies, a colouring competition, cakes, Ashman Jones, the local vet on hand to give advice – and Starbucks provided us all with free coffee!

We even had the Purple Cat come in for a visit and Danger Mouse – and they had fun out in the streets selling the lovely cakes.

We hope we showed all our customers lots of ways to spend happy times with their pet – and we raised over £150 for Canine Partners and Oldies Club who were also with us on the day!

We had another fabulous day on Saturday 30th April for our Open Day for National Pet Month 🙂

We had some lovely visitors and doggies supporting us on the day including Tag, Sid, Trixie and Lucy from @OldiesClub (http://www.oldies.org.uk) the senior dog rescue and rehoming organisation and beautiful greyhounds and lurchers from Greyhound & Lurcher Welfare & Rescue (http://www.glwr.org.uk) We also had fabulous support from Royal Canin (thank you Jasmine) and James Wellbeloved (thank you Sam) who gave out advice and samples to our customers on pet nutrition.

Lee (our new Larkhall manager) brought his lovely ferrets Lily and Daisy and talked to lots of people about ferret handling and care, we had Fred & Barney guineapigs and Anny brought Cedric and Lilli her friendly rats and Deagol, the cutest, smoothest hamster ever!

Mrs Gale made some fabulous cupcakes and all the staff baked cakes and biscuits to sell on the day.

Pippa from Ashman Jones Veterinary Surgery came down to chat to our customers and give advice and Taiga our young German Shepherd customer won first prize in the raffle – £75 to spend on nommy treats and goodies!

The staff all dressed up on the day and the raffle, facepainting and cakes all raised funds for Oldies Club and the Larkhall Festival charity (amounts to be published later). Greyhound & Lurcher Welfare & Rescue also raised money on the day selling their lovely cards and collars and from donations from customers and Cats Protection Bath also joined us for the day.

Janine showed lots of customers our spider skins and snake sheds and the youngsters were particularly fascinated to learn how so many creatures shed their skin.

Huge thanks to everyone who helped make the day such a success, to the staff for working so hard and the charities and suppliers for supporting us on the day and most of all, our lovely customers! National Pet Month… Done and Won!

Photos are here:

and on our Facebook page here

Posted by Notjustpets, Pet Shops in Bath & Frome on Monday, 11 April 2011

and you can follow us on Twitter @NotJustPets

Monday 4th July – Independents’ Day for Retail – PLUS 10% OFF for all our customers

On Monday 4th July this year we will be celebrating Independents’ Day for Retail outlets all over the UK. Help us to celebrate this special day. We are offering 10% off to all our customers on all purchases on Monday 4th July on everything except livestock. Our staff are dressing up in fancy dress too! So – come on down and support your local independent retailer on Monday!

So, what is Independents’ day?

Skillsmart Retail and the National Skills Academy for Retail are teaming up with local retailers across the country on 4th July to celebrate Independents’ Day.

Everyone is encouraged to buy at least one item from a local independent retailer and celebrate diversity on the high street. We’ve teamed up with Mary Portas the Queen of Shops herself, trade associations such as the NFRN and Association of Town Centre Managers, along with national, local and trade press to make sure the campaign is a success.

Supporting independent retailers

Skillsmart will also champion the skills great independent retailers have and show the public that their local shopkeeper is not only a vital service, but someone who wears many hats; they are the accountant, sales assistant, buyer and often everything in-between.

How can you get involved?

Shop local and tell us what is your favourite shop in your local high street – and if you like our pet stores, don’t forget to come in and support us – and tell all your friends! You can “like” us on Facebook too – http://www.facebook.com/pages/Notjustpets-Pet-Shops-in-Bath-Frome/103981576322758 or follow us on Twitter – “@NotJustPets”.

For more information about the campaign, contact gillian.cowan@skillsmartretail.com.