anzpetsit pet care news

A quick reflection on 2008

Just a quick blog, looking back over the past few months since we took over running anzpetsit.

• In terms of visitors, as we only took over the website in July, we don’t have any figures before this date, so we can’t compare how popular the website is. However, for the stats we have, from July to year end, the website was visited approx 3500 times and people viewed around 13500 pages.
• First aid course - The online pet first aid course we added to the website is proving popular with both peple in the pet care industry and members of the general public.
• We’re delighted to have welcomed aboard several new pet sitters since July, both in Australia and New Zealand
• Website promotion - We’re continuing to promote the website and hope to double the number of visitors over the next 12 months

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New pet care professional listing in Pakenham

anzpetsit would like to welcome Zootopia Pet Minding Service as our latest member. Zootopia is owned and operated by Mary Thorpe, and provide pet minding, dog walking and pet taxi services in Pakenham and the surrounding suburbs.

Mary is a qualified Animal Technician with 15 years industry experience. She has worked professionally with animals of all types both in a voluntary & paid capacity. Below is a brief outline of her experience:

• Diploma of Applied Science (Animal Technology) Box Hill TAFE 2000.
• Volunteer animal attendant for RSPCA for 6 years - dogs, cats, wildlife, farm animals, ferrets, rabbits & guinea pigs.
• Vet nurse before moving into the animal technician field after which she worked with mice for 9 years.
• Voluntary work for Pearcedale Conservation Park working with endangered species. The Victorian Frog Group Frog Survey, Sherbrooke Forest Lyrebird Survey, Little River Earth Sanctuary Animal Census. Also a member of the Gembrook Forest Friends Group assisting with field work including hair tubing & owl tracking.
• Member of the Marsupial Society of Victoria & secretary for 2 years,  also wrote articles for the societies publication.
• Animal attendant for the Australian Animal Protection Society for 2 years - during this time, started her Pet Minding business & finished working at the shelter to devote herself full-time to the business.
• Certificate IV in Small Business Management- Chisholm Institute 2006

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New pet care professional listing in New Zealand

anzpetsit would like to welcome ‘Pet Co In The Bay’ as our latest member. ‘Pet Co In The BayPal’ is owned and operated by Ainoha Mathov, and provide pet minding, dog walking, dog grooming & pet taxi services around the Bay of Plenty in New Zealand. Service areas include: Mt Maunganui, Papamoa, Tauranga & surroundings.

Ainoha is a trained veterinarian and has worked in a wide range of fields in the animal care and welfare industry, including working with horses, zoo species and also in small animal practice in Argentina and The United States.

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Website downtime

You will probably have been aware that the website was unavailable for a period of time yesterday. The details of the outage are explained below by our hosting provider.

“As you may be aware, we experienced a failure with upstream provider Optus transit connectivity yesterday afternoon. The cause was discovered as fiber cut and technicians were sent to the location to resolve the issue. upstream provider service to Optus is contracted as a protected circuit, and as such we have requested a formal review from Optus investigate the reason why this didn’t automatically activate.

Both our AAPT & Pipe IX transit remained in operation. Additionally upstream provider re-routed part of Melbourne network services via our Adelaide Transit in order to bypass the Optus network connectivity problems. During this period, some users on Telstra & Optus connections were affected, due to filters with our Adelaide upstream. Once the filters were adjusted, all services were successfully routed via Adelaide.

At 5.45pm (EST), upon advice from Optus that their service had been restored, upstream provider reverted all routing changes that had been temporarily performed to alleviate congestion and services were again routed via Optus in Melbourne.”

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Membership Certificates

Just a quick message to our members to let them know that following feedback we received after we took over the running of anzpetsit a couple of months ago, we have now created and sent out membership certicates:- they should be with you any time now. If there’s any errors, just drop us an email then we can get them corrected.

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New pet care professional listing in Melbourne

anzpetsit would like to welcome ‘Pet Pals’ as our latest member. ‘Pet Pals’ is owned and operated by Adriana Milne, and provide Dog obedience training, puppy school, dog walking, small pet boarding and pet taxi services. Service areas include: Aspendale, Aspendale Gardens, Bonbeach, Carrum, Chelsea Heights, Chelsea, Edithvale, Frankston, Keysborough, Lyndhurst, Patterson Lakes, Sandhurst, Seaford
Skye, Waterways. Puppy Schools & Dog Obedience Classes are held at 2 venues: Chelsea Heights Scout Hall & Edithvale Scout Hall.

Adriana is currently undertaking Nationally accredited Delta Society Australia Certificate IV Companion Animal Services - Behavioural Dog Training.

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Pet First Aid Course Online

We’ve just added an Online Pet First Aid Course to the website. The course costs $65 AUD / $79 NZD. If the course is paid for at the time of joining / renewing membership ($50 AUD / $65 NZD) then the combined membership+course price is $99 AUD / $125 (a saving of $16AUD / $19 NZD).

Through detailed instruction and videos, pet owners / carers, will learn how to:

1) Recognize emergencies
2) Provide emergency life support
3) Handle sudden illness
4) Care for wounds, bleeding and burns
5) Treat physical injuries
6) Handle poisoning and environmental emergencies
7) Prepare for disasters

Course participants will better understand normal pet behaviour and how to recognize behavioural changes. There are opportunities to check your understanding of the content throughout the course.

For anzpetsit members who complete the course, we will add the following logo to their listings:

  Pet First Aid course completed

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Customer Service Tips: Conveying a professional image

A couple of months ago, we read a good article in a Professional Pet Sitting Magazine about great customer service. Amongst the many tips the article covered, one was on the need to project a professional image. One of the suggestions was to get a business phone line and to have a professional sounding voicemail message - Potential customers won’t get the right impression from a muffled message or one that says “You have reached John, Jane, Susie and Jimmy smith, as well as ABC Pet Sitting Service”. Your message should be clear, well-spoken and to the point. Convey who you are, what you do, the best time to reach you, and of course, make sure you include your mission statement.

We must confess that our own voicemail message was perhaps not the best, and reading the article prompted us to get our own message recorded. Our message was recorded by a voiceover artist and only cost in the region of $35 which we believe was money well spent as we were very happy with the result. You can hear the message by clicking here

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How do I obtain a Police Record Check?

We’ve just added a new page on the website with details of how to obtain a National Criminal History Record Check. Many of the states have pdf application forms which you can now download from our website and send to the relevant authorities to obtain your record check. 

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Further checks on prospective members

In a move designed to further reassure prospective pet sitting clients that any members on the website are insured / police record checked, we have decided to request that members send (via fax or scan&email) copies of their insurance and police record check douments. Once this has been done and we have viewed/validated the documents, then this will be reflected on member listings by displaying the following:

Insurance & police documents validated by anzpetsit

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