Calm Pets Happy Pets

Last night I attended a reception to announce the “cover dogs” for the the 2009 Dogs of Wooster Square calendar. It was a lovely event, and one of my clients (a handsome dobie named Charlie) even made the cut to be Mr September! If you’re interested in picking up a calendar for yourself, here is a link to all the information. All proceeds go to the Historic Wooster Square Association: Dogs of Wooster Square.

Interested in getting a photo done of your dog? Two Smiling Dogs Bakery in Hamden is hosting a charity pet photo fundraiser on Saturday 11/1 and Sunday 11/2. Professional photographer Dave O’Hara will be taking the shots, and 15% of the proceeds go to Halfway Home Rescue. Please contact 203-248-7297 to schedule your appointment.

I’ve decided to modify the dates of my trip to Florida in December. I’ll now be away 12/4-11, to give me a full week of Disney holiday fun. This is typically a slow week, and I’d like to take as much advantage of it as I can. My other sitters will be available on a first come, first serve basis for visits, and all scheduling requests for that time must be addressed before then. Thanks!

Oooooh, pretty! I have a totally new look for my blog page, and have done some freshening up of my website. Enjoy!

Fresh from Hurricane Gustav, I thought everyone might be giving some thought to disaster preparedness. One thing you can do to help your pets is to get one of these nifty pet rescue stickers offered by the ASPCA:
http://www.aspca.org/site/PageServer?pagename=pets_rescuesticker.
They tell emergency personnel what pets to look for, and how many. Enjoy the end of summer!

As everyone knows I try to be as flexible as possible regarding scheduling. However, last minute changes affect my ability to service everyone, and so I’ve been forced to adjust my cancellation policy from 24 hours to 72 hours (3 days), effective immediately. Any visits within 72 hours from the time of cancellation will be charged, including early returns. Feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns!

I’ve booked myself to go to Florida to visit my dad 12/3-8, so I will personally be unavailable for pet sits during those dates. I won’t be a on a cruise, so my current plan is to bring my phone with me and handle calls myself. All of my sitters will be working as usual during those dates. Just an FYI for everyone!

I’m a big fan of martingale collars. For anyone who isn’t familiar with them, they are most often used on greyhounds and work sort of like a choke collar but made of material instead of metal. If your dog’s neck and head are virtually the same diameter, like a greyhound, instead of them slipping out of their collar the martingale will tighten up and keep them safely on their leash. Anyway, even if you prefer a more traditional buckle-style collar, 2 Hounds Design makes beautiful custom collars in the size, style, width and material you choose. Neat, huh? My own dog, Dottie, loves them and looks quite pretty in them. Their website is http://www.2houndsdesign.com/ if you want to take a peek - happy shopping!

By now I’m sure everyone has received the scam email saying I’m in Nigeria and need cash. Obviously it’s not true, and I’ve taken steps to avoid this happening to me again in the future. Many thanks to everyone for their support and understanding! While I’m always very careful about what I download, I was not using a variety of hard-to-guess passwords. I tended to use the same password for everything, which means that once the hackers broke into my email account, they were also able to break into my ebay and Amazon accounts. Since I don’t have anyone else’s passcodes or logins for anything, and no virus was attached to the email, this should have no effect on anyone else (assuming you did not send me money in Nigeria other than a reminder to everybody to do that long-overdue password updating. A couple of good tips for creating passwords is:
1. Use as many characters as possible (12-16)

2. Mix capitals and punctuation marks (when permitted).

3. Do not base your password on any numbers or names related to your personal information.

4. Change them every few months.

5. Make sure the firewall of your home computer is activated, and avoid accessing your secure sites with passwords at public computers.

6. Use different passwords for different things, such as one for email, and something else for banking.

I hope this is helpful to everyone, and that you’ve had a great holiday!

Have I mentioned how cool the Furminator is lately? Their brushes do an AMAZING job taking off excess fur so it doesn’t land on your couch. I know it sounds like a late night TV infomercial, but it really works: http://www.furminator.com/