Morning all – dry and bright this morning – hope it stays that way as the gardener is due this afternoon!
Neighbours rang yesterday afternoon – they had made too much coffee and needed help finishing it off!! Of course I was only too happy to help out
They did have an ulterior motive – they want to go away on New Year’s Eve for 18 days – because I have not been that well they wanted to check with me that I would be OK to take care of the cat. Told them I would be happy to do so (no way would I let them put her in a cattery!) – I love that little beast to bits, even though she shows nothing but contempt for me!
While I was there I asked for some advice for what I think is a damp patch in my porch – neighbour said he will come in sometime this week to have a look and sort it for me
Having owned a boarding kennels and cattery for around 25 years I can understand peoples reluctance to using either.There are good ones and bad ones like anything else
our cattery with security cameras and alarms
each with a heated bed and blanket
What most forget is the amount of time and money it takes to build up a good reputation. Also having someone site all the time there is an animal boarded. How many people who look after other people cats take out a pet insurance first??? have you? when we had ours every animal was insured that the boarded and we were licenced for 116 dogs and 42 cats.
are people who look after a neighbours cat inspected to make sure the accommodation is suitable??? are you? we had an annual inspection to get our licence
That is the difference people don’t realise and too quick to knock professional boading establishments
It was nothing like this when we bought the place, this end had a brick open garage with a home made cattery attached. Outside broken concrete I removed and turfed over. had the old building taken down and this end new to match the other end. As for the kennels I had really extensive work to do to get the half decent.
Oh by the way in all those years we only had two complaints lodged with the inspector
One was the cat was 18 years old first time boarding and would not be able to climb the ramp, so we refused. The second was the cat wasn’t vaccinated, part of the boarding conditions the owner was given when booked.
Took over the place with 350 clients on the books and in a terrible state of repair, sold with around 4000 clients on the books
Why would I need pet insurance? My neighbours have pet insurance. The cat remains in her home, I go in a few times a day to feed her and let her in and out. If she does become ill I have contact numbers for them and for their family members. I am not critical of catteries but as the saying goes, dogs get attached to people, cats get attached to places, so she is happier to be at home
Sheila you go into the neighbours house and when cat is let out (your words) and gets run over. The neighbours sue you for neglect or for vet bills. No insurance to cover the cost??? the neighbour insurance would not cover you unless specified in the policy which I doubt
Remember this was my job for 25 years and fully aware of any pitfalls with
home animal care
Cat goes out into an enclosed garden - no chance of her being run over. The last time she was put in a cattery she hated it. I am sorry if you took my light hearted comment personally, I can assure you I meant no disrespect to the many good cattery owners
I’m sorry but I must agree with Sheila realspeed.
My neighbour would look after Maddie the cat when we were away. Cats hate leaving their territory. However, my daughter had a housecat that never left the house, her every need was catered for, but when she holidayed away for a couple of weeks the cat was placed in a local cattery (I went to school with bloke who owned the cattery) and it was an excellent place with all the mod cons, it cost her an arm and a leg, but my daughters cat didn’t have it’s garden to patrol and the roads were very busy indeed.
I think different circumstances require different solutions, and until you know the facts it’s hard to make assumptions. Maddie cat lived in a very quiet Cul-de-Sac and as a female she never wandered that far from home. A bit like Mrs Fox…
Thanks OGF - as I said I certainly didn’t mean any disrespect to the many good cattery owners out there but realspeed seems to have taken my lighthearted comment seriously! Also my neighbours certainly wouldn’t sue me if anything happened to the beast!
And so Monday comes around again…
Just think, less than three weeks time and the nights start to get lighter again…Not that we will notice it until the end of January…It’s all in the mind though…
8 degrees C when I left the house this morning and the sun hadn’t made it up over the horizon. It came up behind some distant trees during my walk down the canal towpath…
Behind me is the derelict site of one of the largest coal fired power stations in Europe when it was built, and all the power transmission lines from the national grid still congregate and radiate out from the site. There have been quite a few proposals of what to do with the abandoned site, it seems another power station (Gas Turbine) or battery storage facility will be the preferred choice due to the network of pylons that still occupy the land.
Before the cooling towers were demolished in 2006…
Because it has forecast rain for this afternoon, so the rest of the Christmas lights will have to wait, and it’s just taken me 30 mins to trawl through my collection of photographs to find these shots (I knew they were there somewhere ) It’s time to knock up some kind of index… I couldn’t spell ‘catalogue’…
My sister had a cat but then she moved overseas so it was left to us. At that point we had no kids, just the cat. Well. we were planning to make a trip up to Scotland to see parents - over 400 miles - but what about this cat? We took him in the car and he was quite happy with that. We let him out a few times for the bathroom and then he popped back into the car.
Good Monday morning from Florida…but what happened to Sunday?
It is such a pleasure to see all the videos and photos from yesterday. All of a sudden, I have an itch to put the dogs in their favorite lodgings and wander off somewhere!
Alas, I am housebound this morning working in earnest on a painting that I started yesterday and helping my daughter study for finals.
There are couple of reasons why the cat hated it. The owners never inspected catteries before putting their cat into one or even asked the right questons. Second is the cats age, it is totally wrong to put a cat or any pet into a boarding establishment half way through its life span.
Do it right as we did and we even boarded the local vets dogs the local police own pet animal , most of Walsall football team pets not to mention the Mayor of Walsall boarding their pet with us.
7 years to get established in our own name and most of that time it was touch and go if we could make it a success
.
the grooming parlour
when we took over this had 4ft of hay on rough concrete floor and bare brick walls. Everything you see in that photo , the tiled walls and floor- the walk in shower unit at the back the ceiling all electrics I did myself so that when a dog went home it was clean. we used expensive trigene and odourgene throughout so nowhere smelt and stop any possible infection.
Even did the same with the isolation kennels if needed
we wanted pet staying with us to have the best posible and cost us thousands of £s to upgrade everything
one does all this yet people prefer to home board with the risks involved
one of the kennel blocks with new mesh fronts not rusty bars that were there. now with tiled floors not rough concrete
Good afternoon all!
I’m afraid I’m not very well versed in the the ways of cats but I do know something about pubs !
I had a quick meeting in town this afternoon and arranged to meet up with Chilli junior for a spot of shopping and a beverage.
I would never have thought of using a washing machine for grooming a cat do they work for dogs too? I have a top loader I wonder if you can get the animal in those safely. Did you wash several cats at a time?
I did say quote" the walk in shower unit at the back" unquote. You must have been at that kangaroo juice again. Bruce best lay off it as it is affecting your vision
That looks like a great pub Chilli, that stout would knock my socks orf…
If I lived nearer to you at the time, I would have left my cat in your establishment realspeed…It looks superb…
Would you have room for Mrs Fox too? She would love the walk in shower…
Of course I was only too happy to help out
Told them I would be happy to do so (no way would I let them put her in a cattery!) – I love that little beast to bits, even though she shows nothing but contempt for me!
) It’s time to knock up some kind of index… I couldn’t spell ‘catalogue’…
