Don’t forget its the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch, this weekend.
Just spend one hour between Friday 28th January and Sunday 30th January counting birds, and help monitor how birds are faring. Its free, fun and a great way to keep an eye on your local wildlife.
Then simply go on line and tell the RSPB what you saw!
These two, were trying to disguise themselves as birds – trying a sneaky nibble of the suet, before they were sent back inside!
#happydays #overtherainbowbridge
I can’t believe it’s August already. Where does the time go?
We’ve been enjoying a lovely summer so far. The weather has been kind to us, and we’ve had lots of lovely people and their 4 legged friends popping into the shop.
We respect everyones wishes with regard to wearing or not wearing a mask while they are shopping, but have decided to continue wearing them ourselves. We will also leave the perspex screen up for the time being. We would like all our customers to feel safe while in the shop and would like to protect ourselves as much as possible too.
After speaking to the local vets, we’ve been told there are a number of cases of kennel cough in our area at the moment. With this in mind, we have removed the doggy water bowl from outside the shop for the time being. Water however, is ALWAYS available – so please just ask. We can bring you out fresh water for your dog, or refill your water bottle as required. Hopefully this will only be a temporary situation.
We thank everyone for their continued support – we really appreciate it. Continue to stay safe and enjoy the summer.
We are trialling reopening on a Sunday, with effect from Sunday 6th June. Our opening hours will be 11am-3pm.
Please do support your local independent Pet Shop, we can only do Sunday hours if we have your support!
We look forward to seeing you soon.
We had a great time at DogZone yesterday. What a fabulous place this is. A giant playground for dogs, which you can hire for your exclusive use. We take Archie and Sparrow regularly and they clearly love it. Archie (who is 11) morphs into a puppy again and simply loves to run around trying out all the different activities. His favourite is the sandpit! For us, having this amazing facility is ideal for Archie to have a good play and perfect for Sparrow, who is a very fearful and reactive girl. Sadly she can’t cope with meeting other dogs on walks, so DogZone is ideal. We can let her off lead, knowing she’s not going to encounter anything which causes her to become worried. She loves it! After running around the circuit of the three fields, Sparrow then enjoys using all the equipment.
DogZone is split into 3 separate fields/areas which you can gate off if needed. Two have various climbing and agility resources and the third field is grass – ideal for playing ball and doing a bit of training (if you can drag your dogs away from the play things).
The owners have made even more investments to DogZone recently, with new wooden structures, a straw pool, tunnels, hills, agility equipment, logs and tyres as well as plenty of toys. There is so much to do!
There is a lovely shelter for the bad weather, although we’ve never needed to use this – we are far too busy with the dogs! Situated a couple of miles out of Ripon, it has a designated car park, a double entry safety gate and is Covid secure with hand sanitiser available. There is even a toilet.
I highly recommend this place for a visit, especially once you are able to travel!
We would like to wish everyone a safe and healthy New Year.
It has started off as a challenging one for us, with reduced footfall in town due to lockdown restrictions and thick snow! But we hope as the year progresses, things will improve for us and for all our local business.
We continue to offer free delivery to all HG4 areas, prioritising the elderly and vulnerable customers, who are unable to reach us, and hope to have our online shop up and running in the next couple of months. We did trial this before Christmas (unofficially) and it appeared to work well, but I was worried about postal delays and decided to postpone launching it properly until Spring this year. Watch this space!
Thank you for shopping local.
Last Sunday, we made a long trip to Wales to have a meet and greet with a little rescue Spaniel called Sparrow.
We’ve thought long and hard about taking on a rescue, as we still miss Dexter so much, but as soon as we saw this little girls face on the rescues website, we knew she was the one.
Taking on a rescue dog is never going to be plain sailing, as they will have their own baggage to deal with. However, we felt we could offer this girl a loving forever home, and we would deal with whatever issues we needed to, along the way.
Archie joined us on our journey to Wales and was introduced to Sparrow in a safe enclosed area at the rescue. Sparrow was more interested in the humans present and Archie was more interested in the treats being offered, than they were of each other, but they did have a little sniff, before ignoring each other again! However, there were no cross words and everything went very smoothly for their first ever meet.
As the meet and greet had been successful, we were officially allowed to adopt Sparrow and take her home. (Homechecks had already been completed at this stage).
The journey home was long and tiring, and Sparrow spent most of it either standing up in her crate, or digging up her vet bed. She didn’t cry or bark, just stood looking so sad and confused. We all felt drained by the time we got home.
We lifted her crate into the garden, and carefully opened the doors, so she could come out in her own time. Bless her, she was very brave, ran straight out and spent a good half an hour simply sniffing round the garden and the house.
We offered her water and food, which she simply devoured in seconds, before moving on to Archie’s bowl. Note to self, find the slow feeder!
It’s obvious that Sparrow loves people. She wanted to sit at our feet the whole evening, and enjoyed a gentle pat. She wasn’t terribly interested in Archie, but was happy to be in his company and vice versa.
It was a good start.
Keep following our journey. I’ll give regular honest updates about life with a rescue.
RAFFLE!!
We have a raffle running at the moment, with some really lovely prizes. These have kindly been donated by some of our fabulous suppliers.
Tickets are £1 each and all proceeds will be split between 2 local charities.
SYD – Saving Yorkshire’s Dogs
and HAPPY – Hedgehog Appreciation Prickly Pals Yorkshire.
The raffle will be drawn on Sunday 13th May at Bedale Dogfest organised by SYD.
Prizes will need to be collected from either Bedale Dogfest, or from
The Pet Shop, 13 Old Market Place, Ripon HG4 1EQ
Many thanks to the following suppliers who have kindly donated products for our raffle.
FrontlineUK, BurnsPetNutrition, Hills, Forthglade, PlaqueOff
All our beautiful baby guinea pigs have gone to their new homes.
We may have some more babies arriving early November – if you are interested, please let us know!
