End of Summer Sale

Alas, the end of summer is upon us, and the nights are already drawing in – but all is not lost. We are having a huge sale weekend on Saturday 4^th & Sunday 5^th October, with at least 10% off EVERYTHING*, and up to 50% OFF some items.

So come and grab a bargain before the winter stock takes over J

* Excludes items that have been pre-ordered, or require ordering in specially

www.barkitty.co.uk

https://www.facebook.com/BarkittyPetBoutique

Ettie

It is with huge sadness that I share a message from Ami with you... She lost her beautiful little bichon, Ettie, who has visited the shop before. Have a read of her message below, and I know she is in good company here of true dog lovers who can feel her heartbreak 

"Not sure whether your aware but we lost our little girl, Ettie the other week. She was nearly 4 years old.
She collapsed on the Sunday night and was gone by Wednesday afternoon. Unfortunately we still don't know exactly what happened.

My message to you today is to stress the importance of pet insurance. No one feels more stupid than me for not having it but it's always been on my 'list of things to do' but never got around to actually doing it. Ettie had never issues before, she was a healthy, expensive pedigree so I never realised the importance of having her insured from day one. I loved her with all my heart so why I never protected her with something I'll never know.
Ettie's treatment, care and surgery cost us £6,500 in total which we've had to empty out savings, bank accounts and credit cards. We were lucky enough we were in the situation that we could give her every opportunity to survive as we never wanted to give up on her but if we hadn't, then we would have had to give up in the first instance and never know if the treatment would have saved her". 

Please stress the importance of pet insurance to everyone you know. Since Ettie has passed I have come across several people that have also 'never got around to getting insurance' which makes me realise it's a common thing and sometimes people just need a little reminder of how important it can be and if it's Etties story that helps that then at least we would of helped from our awful experience"

Barkitty Pet Boutique Spring 2014

I thought I'd share some pictures of my beautiful shop with you ... 

Heart of the Shires Shopping Village
A5 Near Weedon, Northamptonshire, NN7 4LB
(01327) 349328
♥
www.barkitty.co.uk
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Missing

Being as engrossed as I am in the world of pets, I seem to see/hear about a different dog theft scheme every day. Fortunately, many of these turn out to be hoax stories, created by some attention seeker who wants to get the tale shared and retweeted as much as possible.

One of the schemes which does crop up quite regularly is the ‘sticker’ or paint scheme, where people in some UK counties have reported finding coloured stickers or daubs of paint on their gates, fences and/or walls. It’s reported that the stickers or paint daubs are an indicator for thieves as to how many dogs reside in that property. Many comments on these news stories claim this is a hoax story, but the police in these areas have confirmed the existence of the stickers or paint daubs.

There are so many confirmed cases of dog theft nowadays, that you MUST be vigilant as an owner. It’s a really sad world we live in when dogs have to be watched like children, but that is unfortunately the world we now live in and I’d rather be safe than sorry.

In the horrible event that you ever realise your pet is missing, you should take the following steps as soon as possible;

• If your pet is microchipped, remember to report it as soon as you possibly can on Petlog.
• If your dog is snatched try to take photographs of any vehicles used in the crime. Write down as much info as you can straight away.
• Contact the police immediately.
• Contact friends and start an immediate search of the area.
• Consider areas where you think thieves might take your pet.
• The quicker you act now the better the chance you have of getting back your pet.
• Put message out on Facebook including an image of your pet. Tell your friends to share. Tweet too.
• If you have not done already activate your pet's chip details on DogLost.co.uk and visit their site for help and information. It may also be helpful in install the doglost.co.uk android app for your phone or tablet.
• Put a poster up in your police station - maybe one of the police officers will see it and recognise your pet.
• Click here for a list of council dog wardens. It is worth calling them as hopefully thieves might dump your dog if they are worried about getting caught.
• Post details on Petlog lost and found facebook

Source: www.pettheft.co.uk 

(Twenty) thirteen... lucky for some

Happy new year to all of my loyal supporters! I hope there aren’t too many sore heads this morning!?! Thirteen is ironically my lucky number, as I am a ‘Jinks’ born on the 13^th and married on the 13^th (27 years apart of course), so I think this year will be a good one for me!

 

Barkitty HQ is buzzing with ideas today to make 2013 a bigger and better year... join the Barkitty VIP club here (for free) to be first to hear about new things ...

Plus, there are new products in development which are going to need Barkitty Club testers, so let me know your pets likes & dislikes and you might be selected!

http://www.barkitty.co.uk/barkitty_club_signup.shtml

Look out for this symbol on the website, to see which products have already been tested and approved by lovely Barkitty Club members!

 

www.barkitty.co.uk

www.facebook.com/barkittypetboutique

 

Pets' Christmas dinner wrapped up!

♥ Special 1st of December offer - A mini Christmas gift idea for your dog! Get a giftwrapped tin of organic Lily's Kitchen Christmas Dinner and a munchy snowflake (or similar festive biscuit) for only £3, or £5.50 including first class postage! 

♥ Or for the pretty kitty in your life... ** PURRRRFECT CAT GIFT ** A 100g pouch of Lily's Kitchen organic turkey dinner & a 'Bat it' Festive wibble toy. Just £3.00 (saving 50p from the normal selling price), gift wrapped. Buy with first class delivery to your door for just £5.50!

 

Call 01327 349328 or email hello@barkitty.co.uk to order! Get this incredible offer now while stocks last...

 

www.barkitty.co.uk

www.facebook.com/barkittypetboutique

Can you see what it is yet?

Barkitty is now representing renowned animal portrait artist Sara Abbott.  Her studio is on the South Coast and she has a pop up studio in Harrods but we are her only representative in this part of the country.

 

 

Sara works from photos to create beautiful oil on canvas portraits that not only capture an astonishing physical likeness but also get under the fur and touch the soul.
 
We have teamed up with her to offer all of our customers the opportunity to acquire a unique and personal art work that will capture your pet forever.

As a family investment, a surprise gift for a loved one or a beautiful self-indulgence let us manage things for you.  All we need is a quality j-peg, full of detail and high resolution, if in doubt send what you have and the artist will advise which are suitable, together with an idea of preferred background colour, again Sara can advise on this too.

Please call or drop us a line to make all the arrangements and do have a look at examples of her work on our website.

Prices start at £450 for a 60 x 60cm oil and acrylic canvas payable in advance and work is usually ready within eight weeks.

www.barkitty.co.uk
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Ways for a cat to train its human...

Someone bought me this great book so I thought I'd share some of the funnier bits. It's called 100 ways for a cat to train its human! I won't write all 100 but here are some of my favourites:

* To make sure your human understands that you are alpha cat, head of the family and pack leader institute a status-reduction programme immediately. Your human must learn that you have first right to all chairs, beds and doorways. You expect to be fed first and go through doors first. A happy human knows its place in the pecking order - well below that of the cat.

* Though humans cannot speak cat they vocalise repeatedly. Most of their vocalisations are meaningless and can be safely ignored.

* A few human vocalisations are worth remembering. Keep an ear open for one aversive human vocalisation - the 'vet' noise. When you hear this leave home for the whole day, or if you are kept indoors, hide.

* You may also detect a repeated sound such as 'Sam', 'Tibbles' or 'Sooty'. This sound marks a primitive human attempt at the kitten-call chirrup. Dogs come when they are called. We cats take a message and get back later - maybe.

* Obedience training - take control of your human and never let it initiate an action. If your human walks towards you, walk away. If it tries to pet you, turn your back. All petting and games should be at your timing, not its choice.

* Knead their lap with your front paws. Humans appreciate this kitten-like gesture but find it extremely painful. Have fun seeing their mix of pleasure and pain.

* Place your bottom on the newspaper your human is reading, being careful to cover the area being scanned by its eyes.

* If you have a gentle and loving human, claw its tights or nip its ankles. Do not do this with agressive humans , as it can result in the boot.

* Refuse to eat from a can of food that has been opened from a previous meal. This will train your owner into buying a new small can for each meal, and we cats know this is the most expensive and tasty sort of food.

* Letting humans sleep inside the bed with you is a good way to ensure a night-long hot-water bottle.

* Reclaim the duvet during the night. This is done by gentle but firm pressure, inching your way so that the sleeping human cannot help but move off your space. This photo was actually taken when me and husband were in the bed (trying to sleep). Could she be any more central??

* Anything soft - clean laundry, mink coats, lingerie, ball gowns - makes a cat bed, except a newly purchased cat bed.

* Do some catnip. Lie on your back and roll your eyeballs. Making your human laugh is they key to a continuous supply. A laughing human soon becomes a catnip drug dealer.

* Ways of avoiding swallowing a pill include: running up on the curtains and drapes, jumping on the top of the wardrobe, climbing up a tree, hiding on the roof, crawling up the chimney, diving out of the window, sitting very quietly indeed in a dark cupboard.

* If human mating activities interfere with your sleep, take a firm line. Put an end to those interruptions by sleeping between the human pair. If necessary, rehome one of the humans.

www.barkitty.co.uk

Does your dog or cat see ghosts?

On my regular evening browsing I came across the article below. I have often wondered what my cat can see/hear when she looks into thin air as if she's watching someone or something. Has anyone had similar experiences with their own pets?

EVEN PEOPLE WHO believe in an afterlife and the possibility of ghosts are often skeptical when it comes to the idea of spirit animals. They don't have souls or spirits, goes the argument, and therefore cannot have a life in the next world. But cats, dogs, birds and other animals are made up of the same energy that humans are, and it may be as possible that this energy can survive death, just as it can for people. Anyone who is close to their pets will testify to the psychic connection they share. Psychic energy and spiritual energy may all be a part of the same phenomenon, and so animals might have as much of a connection to the unseen world as we do.

Maybe more. Animals not only may appear as ghostly forms, they may also be more sensitive to the proximity of spirits. Barbara S. tells of a stray black-and-white cat that her family adopted in the Queens section of New York City. They lived in an old attached house that had no history of strange activity, as far as they knew, but this high-strung kitten seemed to be able to see things Barbara's family could not:

•She would look at the stairs, her gaze slowly moving from the bottom to the top, as if she was observing someone walking up the steps. At other times, her green eyes would be transfixed upon a certain spot on the ceiling above me. While I couldn't see anything, the cat was definitely watching something. After my son went away to college, I decided to put the house up for sale. One evening, shortly after the real estate agent that I contacted had looked at the house, I sat in my favorite chairwith my little cat nearby excitedly looking at the ceiling above me. I heard people run down the stairs in the house next door. Maybe the noise triggered what happened next, which was truly horrible. What I heard sounded like the heavy, thumping steps of a big man with real heavy boots walking on my living room ceiling upside down. The cat was absolutely frantic. She looked at the ceiling, hissing and spitting. After about ten seconds of deafening noise, there was silence. The cat stopped looking at the ceiling. I checked the upstairs rooms, but, of course, there was no one [else] in the house.

Dogs can be just as sensitive as cats when it comes to sensing the unseen. Elven M. tells of ghostly figures in her home that made their presence known so often that her family actually named one of them: Bill; the other was the ghost of a little girl. Elven believes that her dogs -- a seeing-eye trained German Shepherd, Haywood, and a blue healer, Tuscon -- were the first to notice them. Elven was on the phone one day...
•Haywood was lying at my feet and began to growl. Tuscon went and hid behind the stereo in the corner. As Haywood stood up, I felt a gust of cold air brush past me, and he continued to growl. He moved to the top of the stairs that led into the family room, and the hair on the back of his neck stood up as he growled and snarled into the dark basement. I feared that someone had broken into the house. I turned on the downstairs light as I stood directly behind Haywood, ready to let him run and attack whoever it was in the basement. I saw nothing, yet he continued to growl. I stayed on the phone and went across the room and pulled into the corner, scared to death. My boyfriend at the time was consoling me, telling me there was nothing there. At that moment, a little girl's voice came from the vent in the floor next to me. Haywood came and sat beside me as though he was protecting me, growling across the room the whole time. By the time my parents returned home, I was very upset and very scared as the voice continued.
"There is an obscure superstition that goes something like this: Knowing that animals can see ghosts, when an animal sees a ghost one can, from behind the animal, look between their ears toward where the animal is looking and see the ghost that they see," says Scott P. Yet he tried this very thing and discovered that the superstition is not true. He had the opportunity to test it as a young boy on a winter's day in his family's 100-year-old home,which had previously been a funeral home:
•I, with my cat and dog curled up for warmth, sat on a heater vent wrapped in a blanket. I was in the living room with a perfect view of the entryway. From here I heard some footsteps upstairs. The cat's and dog's ears both perked up at the sound of the footsteps as they seemed to go down the hall toward the top of the spiraling staircase in the entryway. Both animals watched some invisible presence slowly walk down the stairs and through the living room then into the dining room. I, quite apprehensively, looked between both my cat's and my dog's ears as their heads and eyes seemed to follow someone walking though my house. Both animals' heads moved in tandem and the acted very much aware of the presence. Yet I could sense nothing aside from the sound of steps and the reaction of the animals. I was somewhat disappointed.

Kitty Keepy Uppy

I posted a game to play with your dog earlier, so have found one suitable for your cat... might give this a try myself...

Bathtub Scurry

Put a ping pong ball in a clean, dry bathtub. Remove the bottles of shampoo and bars of soap, and plug the drain so the ping pong ball doesn't get lodged in there. Put your cat in the bathtub, show him the ping pong ball, and bounce the ball off the side of the bathtub to get it moving. As the ball bounces around, your cat will chase after it. If the ball starts to slow down, give it a good roll off the side to get it moving again and to keep your cat's interest.

If anyone gives this a go I'd love to know how you get on :)

This is my cat, Jasmine :)

www.barkitty.co.uk

The Lap of Luxury for your Pet

How clever is your dog?

The wonderful Planet Dog have just released a new toy which claims to be a brain teaser and boredom buster for dogs... what do you think??

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Jl_YliKCKU

www.barkitty.co.uk xxx

Little bundle of fun

Hi there,

I have just launched this new product idea; 'New Puppy' Luxury Start-Up Set... I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts...

www.barkitty.co.uk

Harness Fitting

Written May 9th 2012

 I am often asked for dog advice from customers, so I though I’d share some information about something I do have a bit of knowledge about – harnesses. I always recommend getting your dog a harness, but more importantly, a harness that fits well! An ill-fitting harness will do more damage to the dog than good!

 Harnesses eleviate back and neck pains for dogs, especially those that “pull” on the lead, as the pressure is more evenly distributed across strong parts of their bodies. They can improve behaviour as the owner has much more control over the dog. In a recent study of 400 dogs conducted in Sweden by Behaviorist, Anders Hallgren, his students and several Chiropractors found that; 63% of the dogs examined had neck and spinal injuries and 78% of the dogs with aggression or over activity problems had neck and spinal injuries.

And, of the dogs with neck injuries, 91% experienced hard jerks on a collar and leash and/or strained against their leashes.

At Barkitty we have a range of harnesses beginning at just £10.00 for a nylon printed version; Puppia soft harnesses which are best selling items, recommended by vets worldwide starting at £16.00; up to Mutts & Hounds handmade linen harnesses from £28.00. You will soon be able to buy these items online, however if you’re nearby feel free to bring your dog instore to try some on and most importantly get fitted correctly.

We can ensure your dog is wearing a perfect fit in a style to suit them and a price to suit you! All fitting is completely free with no pressure to buy – we just care about dogs and want them to be comfortable!

Little Jake was fitted in a polka dot harness and matching lead (£23 for complete set) and left a happy and comfortable little boy!

So come in any time, 7 days a week with your dog for a complete harness fitting service. If you are unsure if we can cater for your dog or have any other questions feel free to call beforehand on 01327 349328.

Lisa x

Bobby Sitting

Well what a busy weekend it has been! A road trip yesterday to Ikea to collect some bits and pieces for the shop; then dog sitting for my sister’s gorgeous Jack Russell puppy, Bobby last night!

We watched ‘The New Adventures of Tin Tin’ last night which we thoroughly enjoyed. The animation is outstanding. We had to pacify Bobby with a beefy bone to stop him barking every time Snowy barked in the movie. My husband has been trying to train the little terror, and patiently telling him to ‘sit’ and ‘stay’ repeatedly. We have decided that once he masters the basic commands we’ll teach him to solve mysteries, wash cars, and make 2 cups of tea in the mornings.

We love having Bobby here; it’s so much fun to have a puppy in the house. Unfortunately Jasmine the cat does not feel the same. They keep a very safe distance from each other at all times! He had his ‘bitches love me’ t-shirt on – and I could almost hear Jasmine thinking “not this bitch”!

A walk to Abington Park with Bobby this morning was lovely. The park was so sunny and quiet which is unusual. The mismatched collar and lead my sister, Carla, had him wearing did not really fit with my boutique image! Carla quipped that she doesn’t know where to buy a new one, and she is waiting to see my stock (and the discount I will give her)! Cheeky monkey. My mind is one million miles an hour at the moment with the opening date getting closer every minute so it was nice to take some time-out to relax!

Today I have been focusing on advertising and promotions and thinking about ways to get the shop noticed by as many people as possible. I have been offering to feature in magazines myself to show how friendly the vibe will be, which then brings on mild panic about hair, make-up, nails and diets etc!

I’ve had such a fantastic response on Facebook this week and have even tentatively opened a LinkedIn profile, although I’m not sure how to use it yet!

It’s an exciting week ahead with meetings to discuss the shop fitting, the website launching and a holiday to Chicago with my family for Easter!

So, thank you for taking the time to read this and have a great bank holiday weekend everyone.

Lisa x