Richie McPaw and Breaker Bay

Hey! My favourite thing about running DaisyPets is meeting a lot of wonderful animal lovers. I am so blessed to be able to say that I have met some amazing people, and their dogs, through the blog and dog events that are run around my city. We met Richie McPaw, and his wonderful owner Melissa at one of the Paws in the Park events, and since then have been on a couple of dog walks together. Diego and Richie love each other, and get on so well that it makes walking a blast. I thought that today I will show you some shots of our adventure around Breaker Bay, and of the two dogs playing.

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Tough Dog Toy Hunt: Planet Dog Diamond Plate Ball

I am back with another post in our series of Tough Dog Toys. This is a series where I review products that are on the market as durable dog toys, and put them to the test with Diego. Diego is by no means a Pit Bull, but he does love the challenge of destroying toys so if he can beat it, it's not up to standard.

I originally got the Planet Dog Diamond Plate Ball back in April of 2015, from Amazon when I grabbed a bunch of toys that would hopefully stand up against Diego. Diego immediately was infatuated with this ball, and would not let it leave his sights, ever. I was continuously going under the bed to grab it for him when it happened to roll under there. Somehow we ended up losing that ball, and it was a sad day for all. Fate would have it though, that we stumbled upon another at a local market where someone else had purchased the ball online but it was too big for her dogs. The ball was back in action, and Diego was still as infatuated as the first day he got it.

This ball is strong, it is bouncy and it smells of mint, what more could you want? This ball is rated by Planet Dog as a five out of five for their scale of durability, and is made from their special Orbee-Tuff technology. This also makes the ball super bouncy, by far the bounciest of all our balls at the moment. The other great thing in the design of this certain ball is that it has a hole right through the ball, meaning that when a dog chomps on it it will not deflate or puncture. It is similar in size to a generic tennis ball, meaning it is a perfect size for a wide variety of dogs.

When I say it is Diego's favourite ball, I mean it. He has played with it daily since we got the replacement ball, so that is roughly about four to five months. He wakes up in the morning and scouts it out, and will know its exact location all day until the end of the day when he brings it to bed with him. If he finds that it is out of his reach, he will cry at the spot for hours on end until someone finally gives it back to him. I once left it in my car and multiple times a day he would go to the car and cry outside of it. I didn't realise why he was doing that until the next day when we got into the car and he immediately had it in his mouth.
No other toy has held Diego's love for this long, or with this much excitement. 

Now, even though Diego plays with this ball at every available opportunity, there is minimal signs of damage to the ball. There is a few slight cracks in the silver coating when you press the ball, but this is merely cosmetic and doesn't effect the ball at all. Diego can destroy a tennis ball within one game of fetch, so it is a huge accomplishment that he can play fetch multiple times a day and not have any sign of damage with the Diamond Plate Ball. As you can see from the photo, when the ball is squeezed hard, there is minor scratches and tears around the hole, however these have been there for multiple months now and haven't been further torn. I believe that this is due to Diego pressing the ball, not from him tearing at it.

Bad points about this ball.... the major one is that it gets slobbery, fast! Within a couple of rounds of fetch the ball will have a film of saliva all over it. Diego is not an excessive slobbery dog, and I have found that this happens when any dog plays with the ball. It isn't enough to put me off buying the ball again, just something to be aware of if you are wearing clothes that you want to remain nice. Other than that I cannot think of any other bad points about this ball.

I rate this ball highly. If you have a chewer, or an obsessive ball dog, I would recommend this toy over any other toy we have tried thus far. It is safe to say, that I will be purchasing more of these, and they will be a constant in Diego's life. I would also like to mention, that nine times out of ten, if I have a photo of Diego looking excited at the camera, it's because I am holding this ball beside the lense. The Diamond Plate Ball is also quite inexpensive, when you compare its longevity to how many replacement balls you would have to be buying with a different ball type. Planet Dog has also just come to New Zealand, meaning it is super easy to get your hands on one of these amazing balls at www.planetdog.co.nz.

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Kaibosh: Zero Food Poverty, Zero Food Waste

Today I have decided to write about something a little bit different, but something that is close to my heart and many other people out there. I also believe, that in a slight way, it connects back to animals and the planet and that's what Daisy Pets is all about. This last Sunday, I was at the Newtown Festival and came across a banana suited woman who introduced me to Kaibosh.

Kaibosh is a charity that goes to local businesses (Cafes, supermarkets and the like) and takes their unwanted food, sorts through it and then donates it to local homeless shelters. What this means is not only are we getting rid of loads of unnecessary waste by throwing out perfectly good food, we are also feeding and helping the more unfortunate people in our community.

Kaibosh was founded in 2008, and started with a couple collecting food from Wishbone, storing it in their fridge overnight before donating it the next day to the local womans refuge. Now it has grown to having over 100 volunteers, who deliver 10,000kgs of quality, unwanted food each month to local community groups that support those people that are in need. This is the equivalent to 28,500 meals and a reduction in carbon emissions of 7,785kg.

With Kaibosh, there is a number of ways to help out their mission. The first is to actually volunteer your time, go out with them to collect the food, and help out at either of their branches, Wellington or Lower Hutt. The next, which I have done, is to donate money. You can do as little or as much as you would like, on a basis that suits you. If you donate at least $15 a month you become part of the Food Rescue Hero club which I will explain more about further down. The last way to help out is to donate food if you are a local business owner.

The Food Rescue Hero club is a way to give back to the amazing people that donate to Kaibosh. They have teamed up with a bunch of local charities to offer discounts and deals to their club members. Also, when you first sign up to start donating you get a welcome pack which includes an Ideal Cup, a bag of Peoples Coffee and some chocolate from Wellington Chocolate Factory. To find out more, go to www.kaibosh.org.nz/food-rescue-heroes.

I think this is an amazing program, and one that I really want to get behind and support. I have just started donating on a monthly basis as at this stage I am unable to dedicate time to volunteering. I recently took a trip to Wellington Dump and was disgusted by the amount of rubbish floating around the hills. It really opened my eyes to the amount of waste that I am producing, and now I want to focus on being more enviormently friendly, in not only my choice of products, but by my choice of packaging as well. Kaibosh really tee's up with my new goals as they are aiming for a 'Zero Food Poverty, Zero Food Waste' in Wellington. I think this is a programme that will only grow from strength to strength, and we will be hearing a lot more about it in the future. I am excited to be a part of this great new project.

If you want any more information visit www.kaibosh.org.nz

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Interview with Hattie & Friends

Hello! One of my big 'New Years Resolutions' was to conduct some more interviews and start it as a monthly series on the blog. This all started last August when I posted an Interview with Bow Wow Boutique. This post had such amazing feedback, and I loved getting to know more about Alex and why she started a small pet business. Today I bring you the first of our 2016 interviews and this is with Alethea from Hattie & Friends.

Hattie & Friends is a small Wellington business in which you can get amazing handmade, boutique dog beds, as well as leads and bandanas. We originally found out about Hattie & Friends when they were looking for dogs to model some of their products to feature on the website that they were launching. Diego and I raced to be a part of this event and so therefore you will now be able to find some pictures of Diego on www.hattieandfriends.co.nz. For being part of the photoshoot, Alethea put together an amazing package for us, which included a framed photo and CD of the photos from the event as well as special lead that only the models have. We have been using the lead every day recently and absolutely love the feel of it.



1. Do you currently own any pets, or have any plans to own any in the near future? 
I have one dog currently, an almost 2 year old Maltese x Bichon Frise called Hattie.

2. What made you decide to start your own business? How did you form the idea and how did you get it off the ground?
The idea initially began when I made a dog bed for my co-worker and good friend, Christine as a 'thank you' for letting me bring Hattie into work.  I had a lot of people comment on it, asking where I bought it from and when I told them I had made it they suggested I sell them.  I made a few and put them into a doggy day care in Wellington and began looking into getting a website built.  I found a fantastic graphic designer (Tim from The Underduck Graphic Design) who came up with the logo and all of our branding. I also had an amazing web developer (Andy at Cloud Edge) who worked with me to get our store up and running.  As well as endless IT support Andy and his wife Cassie have always been on hand to offer me advice and their thoughts on designs, ideas and new products.

(A special thanks to Minnie and Mila their Dachshunds who graciously volunteered their time and services to be models, testers and tasters on numerous occasions – here’s to you ladies!)

Puppy Hattie

4. What has been the hardest part of starting a pet business?
The hardest part of starting a pet business is definitely getting traffic to the website and generating new sales.  People love the product and they love their pets but on the internet there are a thousand large scale pet supply stores which we are in competition with (for traffic and sales) every day.
Another difficult part is getting supplies.  I am determined not to compromise on the quality of our products so that means things can be hard to source, very expensive or both.  I currently bring in all my collar buckles and tri-glides from the USA but because of shipping and customs charges I am only able to do a few orders at a time.  I would love to be able to source these in New Zealand but, despite looking for the past 6 months, I’m yet to find a supplier.

5. What has been your biggest accomplishment since starting?
My biggest accomplishment would have to be launching the website.  It was months of hard work and seeing it in the flesh was the most rewarding experience.  I think I checked it every other hour the first three days it was up – I couldn’t believe it was finally live!

6. What has been your biggest regret since starting?
My biggest regret would have to be the fact that I am limited in the time I give to Hattie & Friends.  I’m employed full time so I’m only able to work on it nights and weekends.  I hope to be able to go full time with Hattie & Friends in the future though.

7. Where do you see Hattie & Friends in the next five to ten years?
In the next 5 – 10 years I would like Hattie & Friends to have expanded enough to have a physical shop and employ 3-5 staff members.  I know that one day it will be a reality but as the saying goes, Rome wasn’t built in a day.

8. Advice to anyone wanting to start up a small business
Here is my advice to anyone wanting to start up a small business:

• Have a vision, and believe that you can achieve it.
• Having confidence in yourself and your product/idea is one of the most important things you can do.
• Don’t be afraid to ask for or accept help – your speciality won’t necessarily be someone else’s and vice versa.
• Make sure to put together a really strong support team.  To begin with this may be family and friends, it might be professionals or it might be a mix of both.
• Sometimes you will need professional help – an investment in the short term can save you a thousand times over later on.
• Remember that good things take time, that you might fall a hundred times before you succeed and that a dream is where it all begins.

I want to thank Alethea for her time in answering my questions, as I know she has a super busy schedule. Make sure you check out all of Hattie & Friends' products and social medias which I have linked below. I hope you enjoyed this interview and if you have any other small pet businesses that you would like me to interview, suggest them down below. 

Website: www.hattieandfriends.co.nz

Facebook: www.facebook.com/hattieandfriends

Instagram: www.instagram.com/hattieandfriends

Thanks for reading :)

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