Keeping you safe

We are going through some scary times and many of you are self isolating or working from home.

We would like to suggest the following, to prevent contact with your dog walker:-

We can agree a time with yourselves and let ourselves in with the key. Your dog should greet us at the door. Then we can either put our own lead on them or ask you to leave their lead by the door. If the dog does not greet us, then he/she can be shut in the hall ready for our collection at the agreed time. We will then return your dog using the key.

Your safety and our walkers safety is very important to us and we will do whatever is needed to ensure this.

Keep safe and healthy.

A personal service

A St Albans pack walker recently cancelled all her walks due to the heat. With most pack walkers, dogs can be in the vehicle for up to an hour whilst all the dogs are collected, they then have their walk and then are in the vehicle for up to another hour whilst they are all returned. So obviously cancelling the walks was the best way to avoid heat stroke. But this doesn't help much with a toilet break for them or some company to break up their day.

With Pet Relief, your pet gets a personalised service, so in this heat, we can find a shallow stream, find the nearest woods or shade, walk them slowly and if we feel that they have had too much, then take them home, get them a drink, get some water to the back of their necks and sit or play with them for the remainder of the time. If you are worried, we can send you a text or a photo on Whatsapp or Instagram.

Stolen Pets

With the recent spate of dogs being stolen from homes, and an increase in the number of cats going missing, we would just like to reassure our clients, that we DO NOT (and never have) advertised our business all over our cars. Liveried vehicles not only indicate that the owner is most probably away from home, but also advertise when your dogs are out of the house.

We believe that the security of your pets and homes is more important than our advertising.

A tip for getting urine out of the carpet

Somebody has given me this tip for getting urine out of the carpet, if your pet has a mishap.

My best tip is for pet potty spots on the carpet. I use good old white distilled vinegar and baking soda. The steps are the important part. Pour enough white distilled vinegar to soak the stain and THEN add a small amount of baking soda. If you do the reverse, you will have a noisy, bubbly mess. Do it the right way, and you can hear the recipe cackling away, telling you how it is cleaning and deodorizing without leaving any residue. You need to let the spot dry for a day or two before sweeping up and then vacuuming. We cover the spot with a bowl or plate so that we don’t have baking soda kicked from heck to breakfast. You can actually see the yellow color being absorbed up into your little mountain of baking soda. Works on old stains too! 

I haven't tried this yet so don't know if it works. If anyone tries it, let me know how successful it is.

NB: It is not supposed to change the colour of the carpet but if in doubt do a tester on a bit of carpet out of sight first.

Frosty walks

I know it's freezing, but the good thing about this frost is there are no muddy paws to wipe at the end of the walk!

Escaped dog!

Found a lovely black Labrador in Felden Lane today. Luckily he was micro chipped so will hopefully be re-united with his family by now.

Pets Stolen!!

This was posted on a FaceBook page recently from a lady who lives in Churchill Rd, St Albans. " 'Apologies for starting your New Year off on a bad note but I wanted to warn all of you.
We have had two very serious attempted robberies on our place in a week, including men hiding in our yard and also backing a 4x4 up to our front door and trying to break down our front door. The police have confirmed that the burglars are attempting to steal our family dogs. Be extra vigilant about your security and look out for your neighbours. We have been told our house is definitely under surveillance by the burglars and we are absolutely terrified. Please stay safe!!!'

There is another unconfirmed story of a woman who was walking her standard poodle in St Albans, apparently in the Fleetville area when two men approached her, she was punched in the face and the dog was stolen. She said that there are apparently two white men with Shaven heads going around St Albans in a white van on the prowl looking for dogs to steal. 

Best to perhaps walk with other people at present and keep your eyes peeled. 

Troublesome 2's!

Percy has reached 2 years old and has suddenly decided that it's ok to test me! He has started "yapping" on his walk - even if no one is around! If I tell him off, he keeps about 2 feet away from me! So drastic measures were needed and I bought a vibrating collar.

Put it on him today and I only needed to do the warning bleep and he stopped.

So I don't know whether to be pleased that it has worked so quickly without the need to punish him, or whether to be annoyed as he has obviously been understanding my commands all along and is just being bloody minded!!

Dogs in the road!

Unfortunately another rant about pack walkers:-(

On Friday, one of our walkers came across 3 dogs in the road in Marshalls Drive, St Albans near the Wick. A pack walker was loading another 3 into her Range Rover and then caught the 3 she had left to roam in the road and put them into her Range Rover. Needless to say, Karen was furious. Marshalls Drive isn\'t a busy road, but nonetheless, it is a through road and very popular with learner drivers.

If you can\'t control 6 dogs, then don\'t take 6 out!