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.