A Pet Sitters Blog

Saying Goodbye To Old Friends

This year has seen the loss of many old friends, including Mr Speckles, a beautiful lop eared rabbit, Muffy, a 17 years old cat from Berkhamsted, Charley a newly adopted cat who was already 15 years old and Tigger, who was the eldest cat on our books at 21 years of age.

It is always a very sad occasion for us and our pet sitters, since attachments are formed in the first few days, and some are frequent sits when their families have property overseas, or indeed, if they are frequent flyers and require a pet sitting service throughout the year.

We have also bid a fond farewell to Janet and Ray Marshall, who have been with our company for the last five years. Sadly their last assignment will be in January next year, since they now have family commitments and will not have the availability to continue. They will both be sadly missed by both us, our other sitters and of course their regular clients. The door however, has been left open for their return, if circumstances change in the future.

Christmas is almost upon us and we have no further availability for our live in service until January 10, but we do still have spaces for our visiting pet sitter, pet sitting service in the following areas – Hemel Hempstead, Berkhamsted, Bovingdon, Leighton Buzzard, Dunstable, Northall, and Redbourn. I would strongly advise however, that you contact us at your earliest convenience should you require a visiting service for your cats or caged animals, since there are only so many hours in a day and we do endeavour to finish by 4 p.m. on Xmas Eve, Xmas Day and Boxing Day. There is also a preliminary visit required and since we only have the weekend in order to see new clients you will appreciate how little time there is left.

At Nina’s Nannies for Pets, we have had a wonderful year and seen expansion throughout the South and South East on the Country. We are now able to offer our pet sitting and pet sitter service in the whole of the London area and have added Norfolk to our port folio. We are still recruiting in these areas however, so anyone interested in becoming a live in pet sitter should visit

www.ninasnanniesforpets.co.uk/recruitment.html for further information. 

Autumn

I cannot believe just how the time flies and how I have neglected my blog of  late!

Harriet (our little kitten from Cats Protection), is growing into a  beautiful cat and was nutered last week.  Always a worrying time, but she has recovered well and thankfully won’t be adding further strain to rescue centres, by producing her own kittens.

We have continued to expand our pet sitting service and despite the recession have had our busiest year yet.  In fact we are still recruiting for live in pet sitters/couples in the London, Wiltshire and Devon areas, so if you are interested,  please do get in touch.

We have been extremely active on Twitter and you can follow us here or join our new Facebook page,  where you can join in some extremely interesting debates and meet like minded people.

New members to our pet sitting team are Adrienne Hasler from Woodford Green in Essex.  I hope that Adrienne will very much enjoy her time with us and is due to start in the New Year.

Just a quickie!

Here in the office we often receive the odd strange request, some of which are not to be taken seriously!  However, the most recent (a couple of hours ago), really took the biscuit.

A gentleman calling himself Mr Shere Khan, asked if we could care for a one eyed, incontinent anaconda during June – PLEASE.  I rather think that my reply stole his thunder when I explained that our current insurance would not cover this type of pet!  Needless to say the conversation was hastily terminated!!!

Did I ever tell you that a pet sitters life is never dull!

Press release

2009 Professional Pet Sitters Week- News Release

NEWS RELEASE
26 February 2009

Nina & Douglas Cole – Managing Directors of Nina’s Nannies for Pets

Telephone: 08450 53 11 52

E-mail: info@ninasnanniesforpets.co.uk

Web site: www.ninasnanniesforpets.co.uk

Sit. Stay. And Thank Your Pet Sitter!

Professional Pet Sitters Week Celebrated March 1-7, 2009
Nina’s Nannies for Pets encourages pet owners and pet lovers alike to celebrate Professional Pet Sitters Week, March 1-7, 2009.  This international campaign seeks to educate pet owners about the advantages of in-home pet care, as well as to encourage the public to explore professional pet sitting as a viable and rewarding career opportunity.

Professional Pet Sitters Week was introduced by Pet Sitters International (PSI) in 1995. PSI is the world’s largest educational association for professional pet sitters.

Despite a slowing economy, demand for professional pet-care services remains high. Since 1994 PSI’s membership has grown to more than 8,000 independent professional pet-sitting businesses with an average of 191 clients each. These sitters service more than 1.5 million clients and deliver more than 17.4 million pet-sitting engagements per year.

For pet owners, at-home pet sitting provides a unique alternative to boarding facilities or having to rely on family and neighbours to check in on their pets. Pet sitting goes beyond simply feeding and caring for pets.  Professional pet-sitting services often offer dog walking, care of special needs pets, pet transportation services and pooper-scooper services, in addition to basic pet care.

“Professional pet sitting has become an important service industry in the past 15 years.  Many professional pet sitters put in long hours, seven days a week, 365 days a year, so they can provide personal in-home care for pets of all kinds,” says Patti Moran, president of PSI.  “The tireless efforts of these small business owners and their staffs to provide optimal care to pets and their owners truly deserve recognition.”

Nina & Douglas Coleare the owners of Nina‘s Nannies for Pets, one of PSI’s 8,000 members.

This year, Nina’s Nannies for Pets plans on making the most of PPSW by highlighting the plight of unwanted animals that are languishing in rescue centres all over the country as a result of the recession. Owners are now finding that they just cannot afford that extra mouth to feed and the RSPCA are being inundated with requests to re-home animals as the recession starts to hit all aspects of society.

Vets are also feeling the credit crunch as owners are leaving it to the last minute to get treatment for their animals and so skimp on routine treatments such as annual injections.

Nina said that she has heard of people asking for their pets to be put to sleep rather than keep them.

Nina’s Nannies for Pets continually strive to provide the best quality service to our pet-owning clients. It’s important to see the industry owe love recognised on a global scale,” Nina .  She also invites anyone interested in learning more about the advantages of hiring a professional pet sitter to visit their web site, www.ninasnanniesforpets.co.uk to learn more about PPSW and how you can participate, visit the PSI Web site, adds

www.petsit.com(Note to Editors: For more information on Nina’s Nannies for Pets please visit www.ninasnanniesforpets.co.uk or call 08450 53 11 52. All media requests should be directed to Nina Cole. For further information concerning the professional pet-sitting industry, please visit Pet Sitters International at

www.petsit.com or contact Beth Stultz, at beth@petsit.com

A Blooming Good New Year!

Wow, what a great start to the New Year!

Our phone has continued to ring off the hook and bookings for this year have been flooding in.  It seems that even during a recession, people are keen to continue with good quality care for their pets and continued home security during their holidays.

Our Dorset, Lincolnshire, Somerset,  London, and West Sussex branch have been particularly busy and we are heartened to see other areas of the country doing equally as well.  Details of our new pet sitters will follow shortly.

Heavy snow fall was particularly unwelcome recently and some of our sitters struggled to reach their destinations.  However, a pet sitters life is never dull and it took determination and dedication to battle through.  I am hoping that we have now seen the last of adverse weather conditions and we are all looking forward to Springs arrival and the promise of some much needed sunshine.