Yelp. Help?

I am not a big fan of Yelp. Why? Well, a few months ago I finally went on yelp to claim my business. I had a new review:

First I had no clue who this individual was. Slowly but surely I put the pieces together. She is a friend of a competitor of mine. She left this review on my business site although she never used my services. I tried to make sense of what she was trying to say but the wording is confusing. What I do know is that she hiked with my competitor the day she wrote the review. I wish I could have listened in on that conversation!!!!!

Unfortunately it is part of owning a business. There are not many professionals in the pet care sector. The review is a sad reflection of it.

Oops - Susan who?

Oops!

I never knew who "A Dog Lover" was that placed a review on Yahoo! Local. A Dog Lover became Susan. I never had a Susan as a client. Susan switched to another business with two dogs?

Falsifying reviews is unprofessional and totally unnecessary. I'm happy that review is off my site.
I'm glad I found out the truth. 

Common toxic plants

Dogs and cats alike love to chew on grass and plants. While some plants cause no harm, others may. The ASPCA has set up a list of all toxic plants to dogs, cats and horses. Not sure, check out the list or download the application to your phone.

Toxic List of Plants

Purrfect Dog Parks

I have yet to find the purrfect dog park in the South Bay. My first visit to one ended up with a hurt knee when an out of control pit bull simply ran into me. Before I could gather what had happened the owner had taken the dog and left. He never apologized. This dog owner is responsible for any damage the dog causes even if inside a dog park area. The same laws apply, the only exempt is that the dogs are allowed off leash within the city limits.

I have attached ann interesting article about the

Perfect Dog Park

Competitor watching you?

I have a few new fanpages on Facebook. One of them being Bay Area Green Pets. This morning I wanted to post something new only to see the picture of a new fan on the left hand side whose name I recognized.

I clicked on the picture and I was brought to the person's profile.

What I saw there made me laugh so hard my stomach hurt. One of my competitors apparently had gone to my profile and added my fanpages. My Facebook page is private for a reason. I only add friends and people I know. This is what she saw when she went onto my profile. What she was hoping to find I don't know:

 I can guarantee you AJ does not know the Monster Minders, See Spot Run or Doggieville. All these are listed as my fanpages attached to my profile and most of the fanpages are mine! If not my fanpage the businesses are either personal friends and/or business relations. I know she doesn't know any of them.
Gave me goosebumps for a few minutes! S.T.A.L.K.I.N.G. comes to mind. Why would she try to go on my closed profile? What is she trying to find? The secret to my success? Sorry, you cannot find that on the internet. No matter how hard you look you won't find it!

It did give me a good laugh in the end. I made a picture just to make sure I don't forget this moment of recognition from one of my competitors. Thanks AJ! Oh, and dear friends and business colleagues. Is your business on the list too. You may thank me for your new fan. ;-)

Flower Power

Blooming fruit trees!

Blooming brushes!

Blooming flowers!

Spring is coming!

A tribute to Cody: a Golden Boy

Last night Cody peacefully passed away after a two week struggle with cancer. He still hiked with us about two weeks ago and suddenly he got very ill. Cody spend weeks with us when his daddy was away on business and he and his brother had become part of our family.

Cody will be terribly missed. He was one of those dogs that came in and stole our hearts in a beat. Cody will always be remembered.

http://www.beyondcompanions.com/Cody

We will always remember our pets and those of our clients:

http://www.beyondcompanions.com/memoriam

Sweet dreams Cody!

Another faire and dog haning out of car

Yesterday I didn't even turn on my laptop. I got up at 6 am and sat down for the first time at 9 pm. I was invited to Miasole, a growing solar company, based in Santa Clara: http://www.miasole.com/. I met a lot of other businesses and it was great to be part of this faire. Most businesses do these faires once or twice a week. I started to love my job even more! I was sitting there and realized that these people get paid to be at faires like these on a weekly basis. I get paid to hike and spoil pets.

On my home I met this dog owner, whose dog was litteraly "hanging" out of the window. I took the picture with my phone, therefore the quality is not that great. I'm not sure the dog thought it was that great after they hit 40 miles an hour. I will not share my comment but believe me ... my mouth stood wide open for a long time!

Sunnyvale Pet Parade and Faire

Happy Pet Parade and Faire!
Our booth was popular especially due to our foster puppies!

Sunnyvale Pet Parade and Faire was a great success. We had fun. I want to thank all my "competitors": Auntie M Pet Care, K9 Bed and Bones, Sit 'n' Stay, Merry Puppins, P.E.T.S. and last, but not least!, Pet Star Services! It is fantastic to have such a great group of people working together and on top of that having so much fun.

Pawsitively Purrfect!

Belle and Koda

Belle is back and we are also fostering one of her deaf sons: Koda. Koda is a cute lil' guy. You cannot even notice he doesn't hear a thing. Adventurous, happy lil' fella. He sleeps in a crate in our bedroom. He came in very sick. Throwing up and diarrhea. Not good!

After two days he started feeling much better. That is when we realized that Koda needed a bit more work. The beginning of separation anxiety. He couldn't be alone one second. Communicating with a dog that hears nothing wasn't much of a challenge. Dogs read body language! Most of the times they miss our vocal instruction but they follow our gestures better. Craig Norman, Animal Behaviorist at the San Jose Animal Shelter, once said to me: the dogs have figured you out before you even enter their kennel. That sentence turned out so true. We have yet to figure them out but they have figured us out. How? Body language.

I have a cute picture of Koda. The kids renamed him from GrayJoy to Koda. A deaf Catahoula Leopard Dog. I simply love this breed. Smart, intelligent and quick learners. Did I tell you that one of Jeff's colleagues has 11 of these wonderful dogs ....

Preparing for the big storm

The Storm is coming!

The National Weather Service send me an overview of the weather to be expected the next few days. It didn't really sound too great. What do you think? ... heavy rain and potentially high winds expected to acoompany significant storm to hit late Monday into early Wednesday ... the origins of this storm are from a western pacific typhoon called melor that hit Japan a few days ago ....

Well, I could go on for a bit more but I am actually looking forward to this weather. It will be a bit more work to clean up the dogs after the hike but can you imagine just us being out there with the dogs. I'm just done cleaning up outside. Everything is taken down (canopes, umbrellas, etc. and tarp covering what may need some extra protection. I have 6 maybe 7 dogs tomorrow alone so that will be two hikes in the rain and mud. The dogs love this weather too and the warm bath and heated dog area in our house are always welcomed after a hike in the rain.

Well, if I find the time to write more I will. I'm getting my raingear out for tomorrow. Shoes - check, pants - check, jacket - check. Okay. Ready to go!!!

Busy, Busy, Busy

I'd love to blog more but time is not on my side. Can the day just have 48 instead of 24 hours? Please?! The K9 Club took off. It is incredible how fast we grew. I did not expect that. I had hoped to have at least 30 members by December and now we have 51 active hiking members, 4 who are members but still need to sign up with Meetup.com. 45% of the 51 are families. Our word of mouth is going fast and it is great how enthousiastic our members are. New hiking trails are being explored or shared.

In the meantime The Dog Hikers hasn't slowed down either. Most of our clients have booked more hikes in between and therefore I have been cautious advertising more. We are slowly hitting the limit of the amount of hikes we can do.

I have a great team of hikers and a great team of pet sitters that provide for the services I cannot provide for. Last but not least my fantastic clients.

Our motto:

"A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by giving us an opportunity to do so." - Mahatma Gandhi

has truly worked for us.

Bark in the Park

Bark in the Park

was an incredible success! We had fun! Our booth was continuously filled with people and we went through our fliers (+/- 300) very fast. I have to do a count but I think 750 business cards went out as well. Incredible!!!! We got our first real break around 4 pm. Not bad!

I want to thank Jeff, Djuka, Marion, Sue and Margot for being at the booth and promoting the club. I also want to thank Jason of Shammiesworld.com for being there! Another big THANK YOU! to John for all the pictures he took. He was the Bark in the Park official photographer!

It was a fun but very tiring day and it was great to meet so many other pet professionals again! We had our Los Gatos Spa neighbors again and last but not least Carla from Earthbath!

Thanks for all the goodies you gave us Carla!!! We love the new shampoo! Not only the dogs love it! Thanks for giving us all those samples! You and Earthbath rock!

I hope to get back to blogging soon. I've been so busy!!! So much to do ... so little time.

My dog aggressive? No, he just wants to play!

Today we had one of those days on the trail thatmakes me realize how many people have absolutely no clue of what their dog is communicating or how they should behave around other dogs. Jeff and I were hiking 5 dogs today. One of the dogs is dog reactive. We met a woman and a man with three little dogs on the trail. The moment the little dogs approach us they are already growling. We stop and make our pack go into a sit and look at us, while we are waiting for the two and their three dogs to pass us. The man picks up one of the dogs and the woman walks directly towards us. At the end of her leashes two terriers that show no sign of peaceful intentions towards our pack of five.

One of our dogs gets out of a sit. Her hackles are up and she clearly responds to the aggressive intentions of the other two little dogs. The woman still makes no intention to move over and pass us at a distance. Her dogs start growling more, their bodies are stiff, the dogs are walking on their toes, their ears are pointed forward and their little tails are straight up in the air. She starts laughing as she approaches and I’m clearly working with Lola, trying to calm her down and get her back into a sit. Still totally oblivious of what she was causing she is about 4 yards away from me when she says: “Yeah, they sometimes act this way.” And exactly at that moment I turn and face her. I asked her friendly: Please just pass us and keep control of your dogs. Totally shocked by my request she barely manages to pass us. “they are not aggressive”. And the only thing that came out of my mouth was: “that is not what they were communicating to the other dogs.”

We walked on. The woman on the trail today had no clue what was going on. Even worse, she was showing bad dog ownership. We clearly made our dogs sit off the side of the trail. We clearly showed no intention to have to dogs interact. Her dogs showed no peaceful intention and while 4 of the 5 dogs patiently looked at us and waited for a command, one of our dogs clearly wanted to react to the situation.

Know your dog’s language. Learn it. It is not that hard. I will focus on basic dog body language on our K9Consultant site. I just have to finish the drawings to make it clearer but once I have that done I’ll post it. Just need more hours during the day. As always!

Life is good!

Doggie Pool Party

The best thing is a doggie pool party!

6 dogs and 5 happy humans!

Bear learned to jump into the water, Ani got along with everyone and even started to engage in a "I'll take your toy away with Lola". Bear loved his new blue ball, Chewie went diving, Lola and Bear constantly hung out together and Buster went into the pool as well. Buster will be getting his own pool soon. Maybe we'll have another pool party soon!

The Heat is On

One of our biggest challenges is hiking in the heat. Dogs just don't do well when the heat is on! Although dogs have sweat glands like humans, they do not use them to cool their bodies off. Dogs cool their body off by panting.





Dogs do not do well in the heat! I cannot say it often enough. During the summer we like to get our hikes in before 11 am and we don't hike when the temperature exceeds 90 degrees. Being a Trail Patrol Volunteer for the Open Space District I have encountered numerous dogs with symptoms of heat stroke on the trails. When talking to the owners most never go hiking and often decide to take their 10 year old dog on a hot day for a little stroll. Believe me, I have seen and heard it all.





What happens with your dog when he is having a heat stroke?


When heat gain exceeds the body's ability to break down the heat. The high temperatures cause chemical reactions in the dog's body that break down body cells which eventually lead to dehydration and blood thickening. The strain on your dog's heart is extreme and it causes blood clotting that may result in death.





A dog's body temperature is usually between 101 - 102 F. If your dog receives a body temperature higher than that the risk of heat stroke is ineviditable. Some dogs recover from heat stroke but may have permanent damage of vital body organs.





What are the symptoms of heat stroke?


Rapid and frantic panting, wide eyes, thick saliva, bright red tongue, vomiting, staggering and diarrhea. I've seen some dogs shake from the heat!





What do you need to do when your dog is suffering from a heat stroke?


Cool your dog off! Rinse your dog off with cool (not cold!) water to gradually reduce the heat in the body. If you have airco close by put your dog in the cool area! Place wet towels on the following areas: head, neck, belly and between the dog's legs. These are the most effective areas to help cool down a dog. Cooling to fast and/or too much can cause more problems.



Dog breeds with shorter snouts like boxers due much worse in the heat. I have noticed that these breeds have a much harder time cooling their bodies off.



What to do with your dog on a hot day?
Doggie pool! Dogs love to play with water. I attached a picture of Lola and Barley playing in the pool. Due to the dirt the water turned muddy and the dogs rolled in the mud after that. They had a blast and I ended up bathing them before they went home!!!

Secret of my success

Another part of my success is helping others. I’ve helped numerous other pet care businesses to deal with marketing, pr and everything else that comes with running your own business. All pet care providers love animals. It does always cracks me up when I see an advertisement: “we love dogs and cats”. Yeah, why would you otherwise be in the business? But pure for the love of dogs and cats … it will not help you run a successful business. Absolutely not.

Working in the pet care industry is a very tough job. I currently work 12 hour days and physically it is starting to be a challenge. I’m in good shape but I can feel it. I’m not 20 years old anymore! A lot of people get into thinking it will be easy money. Believe me it is not. $25 for a 30 minute visit? Have you ever had a plumber come by your house? The pet care sector is definitely still underpaid and we are working hard to show what sets us apart from those that charge $10 an hour. Quality and knowledge.

Marketing your business is another important aspect of running your own business. Find the niche and bring the word out. I don’t spend a penny on advertisement. All word of mouth or my website. That is it. During the recession my business grew like crazy. I lost a few clients due to the economy. When the owners lost their jobs and/or moved away. That is always a very sad part for us. Loosing a client dog is like loosing one of our own. Luckily the joy of a new dog into our hiking pack helps us bear the pain of loss. Two weeks ago we had the funniest week. We signed up 3 new Aussie client dogs in one week! It was fun!

Nevertheless, I'm not giving up more secrets of how I manage my own business. I love what I do and I do what I love. I get paid to take care of people's dogs and cats and I get paid to hike. What more can I ask for????

The Secret of my Success

When I started out my dog hiking business in 2007 I wanted to do find an occupation that could keep me busy in the mornings and ensure that I could pick up my kids from school and spend the afternoon helping with homework and bringing them to their after school programs like soccer, rock climbing and gymnastics.

The idea of starting a dog hiking business I owe to one of my best friends. She told me: turn your hobby into a business. I did and I will always be grateful for her great advise!

Once I launched my business I met the harsh reality of this diverse and yet odd business sector. The level of professionalism is extremely diverse. You will meet all kind of professional and unprofessional businesses.

The unprofessional businesses have definitely help build my business. They kept me focused in every possible way. Believe me, I had days I laughed when I encountered their attempts to destroy me. They spent their energy in trying to get rid of their competitor instead of building their own business. I focused and I kept my act together and it paid off! Last year I hired 3 people simply because I was full and now I am yet again confronted with the question: expand or build up a waiting list? I’m not sure yet. I’m happy where I am at. My days are filled with work and my family. There is not a moment I have free. During my Target runs I buy the movies I missed at the theatre and now they lay unopened in our living room. I simply do not have the time to watch them.

One advice I can give to building up a successful business is to stay a professional at all times. It will pay off in the end. You simply look stupid doing stupid things. Harassing and trying to defame another business will hurt you in the end. If you claim you have issues with 6 other businesses it may not be the other businesses but possibly you that has the issues. Always post facts and not assumptions! You may be surprised that what you assumed may not be true in the end. Life is short and if you don’t make it out there take it with pride and don’t blame the other one for your mistakes. My rules in life:

3 R’s: Respect for self, Respect for others and Responsibility for your actions.

Life is good!!!!!!

Hiking Green and launching our new website

A few months ago my daughter started redesigning her PurrfectKiddies website. It was time to redo our website as well. I loved the other website we had for The Dog Hikers but it was outdated and simply done. I had it designed about two years ago and although the design was almost what I had wanted it never gave me the feeling it was good enough for The Dog Hikers. I knew we could do better and we did.

I had learned to make a website overnight and it really wasn’t that hard. My then 9 year old daughter showed me how to do it. She is such a sweetheart! Before I knew it I was asked to design the Santa Clara County Website: SouthCountyPets.com and the K9OAC website: K9OAC.com For the past few months I have been working on my Dog Hikers Website and I love the outcome!

The website totally reflects what I am and who I am. I just love it!!!! It took me a few months until I found the right design but after that everything went smoothly. I am content like a dog after a hike. JAPPY!

Going green, well, we were green to start with. We recycle about 95% of our garbage. We have one garbage bag a week with 4 people, 2 dogs and 5 cats. The rest of our bags are filled with plastic, paper and glass. It is really easy to set it up: go to Ikea and get some stackable plastic containers, mark them and start recycling. The marking is for the kids … they will still by accident put it in the wrong bin ;-).

For our hikes we use reusable water bottles that eventually can be recycled. Normal bottles cannot be recycled and stay forever in the landfill. I was also one of the first people in Saratoga that came in with reusable grocery bags. How weird they looked at me bringing my own bags. People in Saratoga I guess don’t do that. Now more and more stores are promoting the reusable bags and I’m very happy with that.

We are fixing up our house and everything we use is either recycled or eco-friendly. Recycled glass counter top, bamboo flooring, eco-friendly paint, the possibilities are numerous out there. To bring more awareness out there we decided to officially go green. I just bought a Yaris. That car is just allergic to gas stations. 1 on 36 and sometimes even better. A Prius was not an option for me. I love the environmental part until the battery! That is where it ends for me.

The Dog Hikers is hiking green. We are setting the trend! If a small business like ours can do it why not everyone else. Help us reduce your dog’s carbon paw print. It does not cost you more to go green. You just have to change your habit a bit. That is all!

Check out our new website: http://www.BeyondCompanions.com

Camping in Bear Country

This summer we camped in Lake Tahoe. Every night we had a Black Bear strolling through our camp. Every night the Bear got lucky when the oblivious new arrivals left their food out past dark. A sudden “Bear, Bear …” and he was at it again. A 2 year old male juvenile simply happy to fetch a pack with someone’s not eaten sandwich or a bag of chips. One night a group of pretty drunk kids chased the Bear into a tree right off our campsite. The Bear was sitting about 12 feet up in the tree looking down at these young kids. Taking pictures, throwing rocks and screaming “bad bear, bad bear.” Luckily our camp host lived right next to us and she dashed out to send everyone back home. The bear stayed in the tree for another few hours at least. I could see the reflection from his eyes as I checked on his whereabouts every 30 minutes or so. He was scared and you would think he had learned. Nope … the next day he was back on the hunt!

Here is a great link on what to do when you are in Bear Country. Brown bears (aka Grizzlies) have a different behavior than Black Bears. To me Black Bears are large raccoons. Opportunity hunters who have no clue how strong they actually are and that they would have no problem killing a human. Instead they have shown respect and keep their distance unless provoked. They just want your food and if you have no choice just give it to them. Don’t fight for your pack! It is not worth it!

http://www.examiner.com/x-18708-Phoenix-Camping-Examiner~y2009m8d13-Camp-safely-in-bear-country